“What’s it to you? … I was out. Busy.” He shrugs, leaning back on the rail behind him casually, and sits a little, looking exactly like Dane of the last ten years. His ‘I do not care persona’ is back intact. The air thickens around us with tension, and it only further dents my courage.“Where did you go? Tyler said you left an hour ago?” I stammer it out, hating myself for mentioning it because I don’t think I genuinely want an answer to that.“Where do you think I was?” He sneers, pushing me away, freezing me out like so many times before, and I lose all bravado completely. I tell myself to turn around and walk away, but my feet are glued to the spot, and I can’t tear myself away. I can sense that staying here will be awful, that he’s in a fighting frame of mind.“I don’t know if you don’t tell me.” My voice gets quieter with every word, and my legs tremble because my sixth sense tells me he aims to hurt me. I can feel it in him. Reverting to the Dane who uses my emotions against me
He’s hit me with this so unexpectedly that I cannot get my body to react in any way. I don’t know if it’s the shock or the residual bruising from him wounding me, but I am like a statue. The intimacy of having his face pressed to mine, his eyes closed. The taste of his mouth and the heady smell of his natural scent and aftershave, as enjoyable as they are, don’t motivate me to move an inch. Before tonight I would have given anything for him to kiss me, but I can’t.Dane pulls back after a moment, aware I don’t respond, and it’s written all over his face for the first time. Dropping his hand to hang by his side, we stand a foot apart without contact. A real show of his inner feelings that he normally shields so well. A hint of fear that we’re truly not okay anymore. He doesn’t understand my lack of returning his affection. Given I am the one who kept pushing for it. Whatever his plan was about pushing me away, it seems to have evaporated completely.“Why did you do that?” My voice croa
“KAYLA…WHERE ARE YOU?” My mom’s raised voice snaps me out of euphoria, and Dane and I jump apart. Ending the kiss abruptly and turning to look at his closed bedroom door beside us. Bodies are tingling and now creating distance as though we had been sparked by something to separate us. Dane mouths a cuss word under his breath.We can hear my mom padding down the hall and a door creak as she checks out the guest room, calling my name again. She must have been in mine to say goodnight and realized I wasn't there. If she catches us here like this, she will go crazy. I don’t know how to explain why I was in his bedroom in the dark with him after I said I was going to bed. She will immediately know by looking at me that we are doing something we shouldn’t be doing.My guilt and panic start ripping through me at a hundred miles an hour, and I lose my problem-solving ability.“What do we do?” I whisper to Dane, fear gripping me and my body icing up. Dane frowns, takes a heavy breath, then rea
“Earth to Kayla!” Elisa taps me on the temple with her pen and makes me jump out of my daydream with a start.“What?” I was miles away, lost in brain fog and a million stupid thoughts about last night.“You were so close to drooling with a wide mouth and vacant expression that it was frightening. I thought the body snatchers had gotten you.” Elisa smiles, jesting, and turns back to face forward, pulling her notebook closer and carrying on. Her red hair sweeping down to half conceal her face again, and I often wonder how that does not annoy her. Writing through her hair on her splayed notebook. “We’re copying from the projector, by the way… in case you have no idea what we are doing!” She points out, raising her pen to gesture in front of us, and I blink ahead, seeing an entirely new slide of notes our lab tech has put up for us. We’re in Biology, normally one of my favorite classes, and I have spent most of it zoned out. If I am being honest, this is how my entire day has gone, and th
“I wish I didn’t.” I drop back to my arms propped on the desk, resting my chin in my palms, and watch her scribble notes. No will to do it myself. She is as diligent as always. She has them word for word, highlighted, and added notations. She has been keeping up with the slide changes while I have been pondering everything wrong with my day. “Life would be so much simpler if I still hated him.”“You never hated him,” Elisa replies far too quickly and seems annoyingly know it all. She didn’t even have the grace to lift her face from taking notes to say it.“I did so.” I point out in slight irritation.“Nope… never. You got annoyed by him, angry at him, even upset, but I don’t think you have ever actually hated him. You would cave fast the second you thought anything bad was happening with him…. Dane has always been your Achilles heel.”I open my mouth to deny it and then don’t. I stop and ponder this for a long moment and find no argument in her statement.It makes me feel all the more
My head scrambles into sense faster than when he did this to me last night, and even though Dane kissing me is quickly becoming a weakness, my sense of indignation intervenes and push him away. Not quite ready to jump into smooching without him having said very much at all. It’s so sudden, and too much is going on in my head after being avoided all day to be satisfied with a kiss.“You can’t just make a statement like that and then kiss me…. This isn’t us talking about it. This is you just informing me of your intention and then acting on it. If that’s even what this is…. I’m not a mind reader, Dane. I need actual words!” I don’t even know why I have an issue with this. He’s doing what my heart has wanted for a long while. He wouldn’t kiss me like this if he didn’t intend something to happen with us, so I don’t know where the doubt stemmed from. He’s pushed me away enough times to prove it.“I figured actions speak louder than words. A kiss is pretty self-explanatory.” Dane brushes cl
I cannot calm the internal flutterings and speedy heart rate while I wait for Dane to appear. Pacing around the kitchen like some demented freak because we agreed to change clothes and come in here as soon as Monique leaves to run errands. No one else is home, and we’ll be alone for at least an hour before my mom returns. I cannot focus on anything, and my appetite evades me, so making a snack is pointless. It’s been a whole thirty minutes since we got back, but as Monique is vacuuming the hall, I know Dane is probably taking his time to change and come down. It made more sense than going to one of our rooms and being unable to explain that if we got caught together, seeing as we have not been friends while living here.Not that it should matter, as we’re allowed to be in the same room at the same time without it being weird, but I guess we both needed some space once we got here. I know I did.I’m a frazzled mess of nerves.“Hey, sexy.” Dane swaggers in, seemingly not in the same st
“Stop making me feel like there’s something wrong with me for it. I’m not cool with that. I hate when you say it.” I point out, breaking my mild temper and sighing, that this topic brought a real issue I had not even considered to my doorstep.Sex.My heart sinks now that it’s glaringly obvious and in my face and a hurdle we have to cross.Dane is used to it, seems to have it frequently and I am so not even close to being someone ready to take that step. I haven't even thought about it and what having a boyfriend changes, given I don’t want to go there yet. That’s a whole other thing I never considered in what we were starting. I don’t even know when he expects it.Is it weird to want him, want to date him, but not want to have sex with him? The mere thought of sex gives me sweats and has my heart palpitating in cold-blooded fear.“There’s nothing wrong with it….I’m sorry…. I’ll stop. It’s a non-issue.” Dane slides closer to me, lifting his hand to trace a thumb across my cheek before
“We can go to my study…Dane, just Kayla.” She adds as though he will follow and he probably was going to, but she’s right. Something started between her and I and should be resolved that way. Dane has been shielding me too much lately because of my inability to face more drama. I need to put my big girl panties back on. Her and Dane have nothing to say to one another anyway, and he will only put her on the defensive, which I want to avoid.“I’ll be close by….just yell if you need me…… Very close by.” Dane doesn’t lower his voice; instead gets louder with his warning tone, making it obvious to my mom that he doesn’t trust her, and I pat his arm to get him to release me.I slide out of his arms and follow my mom out of the kitchen, across the hall, and into the study without looking back, even though I can feel all their eyes follow me out. Already, my insides are like a washing machine because I do not know what exactly she intends to say to me.My mom is being weirdly quiet, too, and
“You four are making me feel chronically single.” Hannah huffs, pushing the cans of soda across the breakfast bar towards Elisa as Tyler opens up some bags of chips for us to share. We have a stack of pizza boxes waiting to dive into and a plan to darken the nook to spend the day eating junk and watching movies. Dane and I are too tired for anything else and feel like we are on some emotional comedown after a month of hell.“What happened to your Korean boyfriend? That distance could not separate you from?” Dane chimes in with obvious sarcasm oozing, while leaning into me from behind to deposit the dip we made. It’s clear to me that teasing Hannah is a full-time occupation when they are in the same room. She really is like his annoying younger sister, even if she is our age.“I am devoted to Min Yoongi, but I would like to experience a present boyfriend. Someone I can touch and laugh with.” Hannah sulks slightly, clearly regretting her life choices.“I can’t imagine anyone would want
My Dad never calls me, rarely picks mine up, and never texts either. So, seeing it now, flashing so invasively on my phone is enough to make my heart thud through my chest painfully.“Do you want me to give you space to take it?” Dane interrupts my obvious inability to move, breaking the spell it’s cast over me.“No…stay!” A sense of panic grips my stomach and throat, and the sudden cold wash of nerves sobers my good mood. Instantly afraid of what he is calling me for even though, logically, I know.My mom must have called him, or Bryan, at least.Maybe he wants to clarify…I don’t even know.“Are you going to answer it or keep staring at it?” Dane interrupts the deer in the headlight motion of me holding it at half arm’s length, and I blink at it, then him, and shake my head.“Do you need me to do it?”“I don’t know.” I sound terrified. I don’t think I have it in me to answer the call. There is so much grey area when it comes to my dad. So many times I have been hurt by him that faci
“Well, this is depressing.” Dane wheels his case into his old barren bedroom, gazing around at the emptiness even though all his furniture is still there. “It feels like someone else's room.”All the personality is gone without his things in here, and it smells like a fresh, floral hotel, thanks to Monique. His art, posters, pictures, trinkets and books are all gone, leaving empty walls, shelves, and surfaces where he used to have such an array of masculine things, more so after he moved in here permanently and brought it all from his mom’s house.“Imagine how it made me feel watching it get this way….you’re an ass.” I throw him a mock glare and get a kiss blown back at me.“I wanted you to miss me.” He winks and goes back to his case. In a happy mood ever since we started packing to come here.I gaze around, infected by his happiness, and yet sigh at the memories of being in here without him.Even the lack of his laundry tossed on the floor somehow makes this place impersonal. The be
“There’s a lot that this test result will change….I know now is probably not the best time to talk about where we go from here. You probably need to process it the same way we did, but I want you to know….I'm not going back to the UK. I’ll sort it out myself. Enroll back in school, find somewhere to stay, maybe with Tyler….” Dane sounds so far removed from the immature rebel of months ago who was forever making my life hell and living stupidly. He sounds like this experience has aged him so much.He has a sensible head on, his eyes set on the future and he’s not reacting one ounce to my mom. It’s like she no longer has any affect on him.“You’ll move back home, there is no argument in that. I’ll call the school and arrange for you to go in and re-enroll. I’ll call your mom and explain things. Don’t worry about anything. I told you, didn’t I… always your home and whenever you wanted to come back.”For being the fragile one here, Bryan seems to be the one most resigned and okay with thi
“Wait.” I tug Dane back by the hand he’s interlaced in mine, so he stops abruptly near Bryan’s room door, and I pull him to turn to me. Panick is overtaking my soul now we’re close to actually doing this. Walking in here it’s been growing inside of me like a building storm.All my bravado and anger have dissipated because I am so over trauma and tears in my life that I want to avoid any more conflict and run to hide instead. I think I have reached a point of fragility that my emotions don’t want to take anymore.My nerves are bubbling over, my heart is racing, and I'm swinging between cold and hot sweats that have my entire body flushed and trembling. I’m genuinely scared even though my mom is the one who should be.There is no more fight left in me. Not when the possibility of Dane being ripped away from me a second time is all too real, and that thought terrifies me more now I have lived it once. I can’t do that again. I won’t survive.“It’s going to be okay, I promise. We do this a
“Like what?” Hannah squeaks in outrage, crossing her arms on the table to lean in and peer at him, that he might be dissing the man of her dreams or her favorite band. Finding insult in that but nothing else he had said before this.“Your face,” Dane snaps back at her before flicking her in the forehead and pushing her back again.“Ughh.. See… Why is he like this? Is this what you put up with? How can you date him when he’s so awful?” Hannah throws her hands up in frustration, and yet all of this only makes me relax about what kind of relationship they had. If Elisa wasn't so feeble and gentle, I know this is how they would act together. At times, there are glimpses of it, but Elisa is too good-natured and cannot sass. There’s nothing in it.I can see the dynamic slowly opening up between them. She’s like an unwanted younger sibling he both doesn’t like but also does but is forced to take out with him. Annoyed by her presence, but I can tell they also have a sense of relaxed and comf
“You look nervous. Relax….What are you scared of?” Dane brushes my hair from my face for the third time, running a finger down my cheek before leaning in and pecking me lightly on the lips. Igniting the same burst of internal flutters, he always gives me, and a layer of warmth. Suddenly, in my world, everything feels right again, just having him by my side, but I still cannot escape this constant gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach.“Every time I have seen this girl, I was a bitch to her….I’m still not ok with the fact you spent the last month with her while ignoring me.” Try as hard as I might, I cannot quench the sense of nausea and dread while sitting here waiting for her to show up. “I feel weird meeting her this way and under these circumstances.”I should never have agreed to this.It’s a clean, bright diner near the hotel they are staying at and the hospital, so we intend to stay here until we’re ready to face our parents and work out a game plan. Hannah is a formality I
“Deal…. I want my boyfriend back how he was. I don’t want to remember any of this shitty separation. Can we get back together?” I ask stupidly even though it’s obvious we are already making up. I just need him to say the words to help with the insecurity I am feleing after how cold he was. “I want my boyfriend back.”“Technically, babycakes, we never broke up. Neither of us said the words so we don’t need to get back together. He shrugs like this is the most logical thing ever, and I lean back to scowl at him.He does not get out of his asshole past four weeks that easily. The boy really is trying to pull a fast one.“Really?” I ask in obvious, oozing sarcasm. “Because I remember clearly a certain boy telling me he was going no contact and not coming back from the UK before he blocked me on absolutely everything….that was a very final break up even if you never said ‘the words.’ You can’t be in a relationship with someone who moved abroad and refuses to communicate with you.” I point