“It was exactly like that. I gave almost everything to you, and in the end, you dumped me. I’m just like the rest of them. You discarded me as if I was trash and never really talked to me again. Not even for our project.” The tears start back up. “Who does that? What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you care about anyone?”
“No!” The word explodes out of my mouth and I pull away from her, run my hands through my hair in frustration. “I don’t. I care about no one. Not my parents, not my so-called friends, not anyone. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
She stares at me like I’m some sort of freak. Unshed tears fill her eyes and I want to go to her, catch the tears with my thumb, kiss her pain away.
But I can’t. I’m the one who caused her so much pain. I have to leave her alone.
“Why are you like this?” Her voice is a harsh whisper. “Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I can blame my mom and dad. They’re fucked up, Amanda. More fucked up than I am.”
She grabs my hand and laces her fingers with mine, and that is my undoing. That I can be so awful to her and she still cares, she still wants to help me…
I can’t resist her. Instead, I pull her into my arms.
Having her like this, holding her like this, relaxes me. It’s been too long. The past few weeks have felt like years. My entire body sways toward her, like it’s desperate to get close and I have no control.
Amanda curls her hand around my nape, her fingers tightening into my skin. When she angles her head slightly to the right…
We’re kissing. Our mouths drawn to each other like we can’t fight it, fight this, whatever we have brewing between us. The kiss turns hot and deep in an instant and I pull her in close, whirl her around so she’s the one pressed against the wall as I continue to devour her sweet mouth. She grabs hold of me, a whimper sounding low in her throat, and I slip my hands around her, under her, gripping her ass and hauling her up so her legs go around my hips.
I pin her against the wall with just my body and unleash my everything on her. We kiss like we never plan on coming up for air, and my hands wander. Search and explore. Reacquainting myself with her body. This body that feels like it belongs to me.
Only one word pounds through my head, throbs with my heart.
Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
She’s mine.
And I’m never going to let her forget it.
It’s both a relief and pure torture, being in Jordan’s arms again. My back is against the door, his hard body pressed to mine, my legs wound around his hips. We kiss and kiss, and sometimes it feels like a battle. Like he’s trying to conquer me. But then the kiss softens, his lips lingering on mine, his tongue doing an achingly slow sweep...
I don’t ever want this to stop. But it has to. And when it stops, the pain will come again.
Just like before.
I break away from his lips first and he tries to kiss me again, but I turn my head away. “We can’t keep doing this.”
He touches my cheek, forces me to look at him once more. “Yeah, we can.”
His mouth settles on mine gently. Slowly he works his magic, his lips and tongue persuasive, until I’m a moaning, writhing mass of hormones. He rocks against me and I can feel him, hard and long and rubbing me in just the right spot. Our bodies fit perfectly; our mouths fit perfectly too. But we aren’t perfect. We are far from it.
How could something that feels this good end up hurting us so bad?
“Jordan.” I whisper his name against his lips, but he ignores me. I say it again, shoving at his shoulders, and finally he withdraws, his expression wondrous, a little dazed.
“What?”
“Put me down.” My voice is firm. My emotions are everywhere, but I need to keep it together. Remain strong. Remain in control.
He does as I ask, setting me on my feet, and I stare at his chest, see the tear stains soaked through his T-shirt. I release a shuddery breath and lift my gaze to his.
“We can’t keep doing this,” I repeat.
Jordan frowns. “Doing what?”
“Kissing each other. Ignoring each other. Arguing with each other. You can’t have it both ways, Jordan.”
His frown deepens, but he remains quiet.
“I need to know.” I take a deep breath and exhale loudly, trying to calm my tumultuous emotions, but it’s impossible. “How you feel. If you’re serious about this—about us. About me.”
His silence feels like an answer, and I tilt my head to the side, so very weary of the constant game playing. “Just let me out of here. Please.”
“I want to be,” he whispers, and I step back, confused.
“You want to be what?”
“Serious. About this. About us. About you.” He hesitates. “But I don’t know how.”
I shake my head. “That sounds like such a bullshit answer—”
He cuts me off. “It’s not. I don’t know how to be real with you. I don’t know how to be real with anyone. How to share myself with someone, how to show someone I—I care. I just can’t do it.”
His words make me hurt for him, but this isn’t my fault. I refuse to feel guilty for his past, for his lack of emotion. “I can’t be with someone who won’t tell me how he feels,” I whisper.
Again, his answer is silence.
He’s killing me.
“If you don’t know how to share yourself with me, then I don’t think this is ever going to work. I need you to trust me, Jordan,” I say quietly, speaking to my feet. I don’t want to look at him anymore.
I can’t.
“I don’t know how.” His words sound like an excuse.
And I’m done with excuses.
He shifts away from the door and opens it, silent permission for me to leave. So I take it, bolting out of that bathroom so fast, I practically trip over my own feet. I stagger down the short hall, end up in the kitchen, which is crawling with all sorts of people. I see Ryan sitting on a chair in the breakfast nook and Livvy is perched on his lap. They look cozy, like a real couple, and I’m taken over by a sudden wave of envy.
I wish I was sitting on Jordan’s lap, talking and flirting and letting everyone in the whole damn school know that we’re together.
But it will never be that easy with him. And while I’m all for fighting for love and that kind of stuff, it’s hard when the one that I want doesn’t seem to know what he wants.
It feels like I’m fighting a losing battle.
“Amanda! Come here!” Livvy waves me over, and I go to her and Ryan. “Eli is telling everyone you kissed him,” she says when I reach them.
Oh, God. I completely forgot what we did—or more like what we didn’t do. What does that say about me? I go from almost kissing one boy to actually kissing another in a matter of minutes. But that last boy, I care about. A lot. “Um, well. We didn’t.”
“So he’s lying,” Livvy says, sounding pissed.
“No, not exactly. We—sort of kissed.” That’s a nice way to put it, though why I’m trying to make it seem like more, I don’t know.
Livvy’s jaw drops open. And so does Ryan’s. “Seriously?” she squeaks.
“So he didn’t lie,” Ryan mutters, looking shocked.
“He kissed me on the cheek. It wasn’t a big deal.” Pretty underwhelming actually, not that I’d ever say that out loud.
“Well, it was a big deal to him,” Liv says, worry filling her eyes. “He’s telling everyone he made out with Tuttle’s ex in Tuttle’s bathroom.”
“Crap.” I rub my forehead and glance around the kitchen. They’re all watching me, looking away quickly when I catch them staring. They’re probably all talking about me too.
This is…not good.
“I can kick his ass for you if you want me to,” Ryan volunteers. “I’ll gladly do it.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” I say sarcastically, then reconsider. “For now.”
This makes Ryan laugh, and Livvy too.
“There she is. Where’
d you go, babe?” Eli is beside me, slipping his arm around my waist, like we’re a couple. “I missed you.”
“Cut the shit Eli,” I tell him, making him immediately drop his arm. “This is not a thing.”
“But the kiss…”
“It was nice.” I spare his feelings and reputation by not bringing up that the kiss was on the cheek. I’m setting myself up for countless rumors, but I don’t care. I’m over all of this. “You know it would never work out between us,” I tell him softly. “We’re too different.”
“So you’re breaking up with me?” He’s shouting. I guess he wants everyone to hear our conversation?
“I’m afraid so,” I tell him.
The entire kitchen has gone quiet. As in, they’re all listening. This is nuts. And by the wild look in his eyes, Eli is loving every minute of it.
“Well, that fucking sucks, Amanda. I thought we had something real between us, but I guess not.” He grabs hold of me one last time and presses his mouth to mine in a fierce, quick kiss. “See ya,” he murmurs with a smirk and a wink.
Yes. He just kissed me. And winked at me.
Eli saunters out of the kitchen and I swear, ten girls follow after him, every one of them calling his name.
“You just gave him tremendous street cred,” Ryan says, shaking his head. “Now all the girls will want him.”
“I don’t get boys. At all.” This I tell Livvy, who’s totally laughing at the spectacle Eli just made.
“Join the club,” she says, offering her hand up for a high five. I give her a weak one, but this time, I can’t muster up the energy to laugh with her.
It’s either I laugh or burst into tears though. And I definitely don’t want to cry. Then everyone will think Eli was the one who made me cry, when he had nothing to do with it.
It was all Jordan. Jordan and his bossy demands, not letting me leave the bathroom, acting like such a complete jerk I started hitting him and telling him I hate him.
I don’t hate him.
God, I think I’m in love with him.
Yes. That’s my problem. I’m in love with Jordan Tuttle. I’m madly in love with him, and he doesn’t love me back.
“What’s wrong?” I jerk my head up to find Livvy climbing off of Ryan’s lap and coming over to grab hold of my arm. She’s frowning, her eyes full of concern. “You all right?”
“Why do you ask?” My voice is shaky and my knees are wobbly. I need to sit down.
“You look like you just saw a ghost. Or got sucker punched.”
“The last one. Definitely,” I mumble, feeling faint. “I think I need to sit.”
She leads me over to a chair and I fall into it, leaning my head back so I can close my eyes. I cover my face with my hands and sit like that for a while, running over everything that just happened in my head.
“You look traumatized over the entire Eli scene,” Livvy says. “I hope you know you’re just making him look that much more desirable.”
I lift my head and start laughing. I can’t help it. “This night is surreal.”
Liv grabs a chair and sits in front of me. “Tell me what happened.”
So I do. I tell her about Eli dragging me to the bathroom. How we really didn’t kiss, it was just on the cheek—and then how Tuttle interrupted us.
“And he thought you were kissing Eli, right?” Liv’s eyebrows practically shoot up into her hairline.
I nod. “He was so pissed.”
“I’m sure,” she murmurs, her gaze growing distant. “Not like he has any room to feel anything, considering how he’s been ignoring you.”
That exact thought ran through my head again and again. It still does. Worse, I feel guilty for what happened between Eli and me—and nothing happened. I didn’t do a thing, yet it feels like I somehow cheated on Tuttle.
I absolutely, one hundred percent didn’t. He rejected me. He kicked me to the side like I meant nothing to him and he forgot all about me. No explanation, no nothing. Just…one night he’s got me naked in his bed and a few days later, we’re acting like strangers.
His rejection still hurts. It hurts so much.
“What happened after that?”
“He kicked Eli out, and then we—got into a fight.”
“Oh my God, Amanda! He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No! He would never do that. It was a stupid argument. I totally overreacted.” I shake my head. “And then after I overreacted and cried all over his shirt, he—he kissed me.”
“Oh. Wow.” Livvy leans back in her chair, staring at me. “He kissed you?”
I nod, the tears threatening to spill again. I press my lips together, desperate to keep it together. “And then I told him we had to stop.”
“You made him stop.”
“I had to. He won’t commit to me, Liv. I can’t be with someone who runs so hot and cold. He doesn’t trust me, and that means I can’t trust him either.” I don’t tell her everything Jordan said to me. That’s private.
“You’re never going to get over him if you two keep doing this. Trust me, I should know.” Yeah, she should, what with her Ryan and Dustin love triangle. “Once Dustin and I stopped doing whatever it was we were doing, I was able to focus on Ryan. And that’s exactly what I needed.”
“You’re not telling me to forget about Tuttle so I can focus on Eli, are you?” I am horrified at the thought.
“No.” Livvy shakes her head, laughing a little. “Absolutely not. He’s not the right distraction for you. But you do need to move on from Tuttle. He’s only hurting you, Amanda. I hate to see you in pain. As hard as that is to hear, you’re never going to get over him if you don’t eventually meet someone else.”
“I don’t want to be with someone else.” I want to be with Jordan.
Okay, that thought makes the tears flow. I wipe at my cheeks, frustrated at my lack of control, and when I glance up, I catch sight of Tuttle standing near the refrigerator, frozen in place as he watches me.
I stare back, letting him see me in all of my pitiful glory. Maybe he’ll come running over to me. He’ll pull me into his arms and tell me it’ll be okay and then we’ll be back to normal. He’ll say he trusts me and I’ll trust him, and then eventually I’ll admit I love him, and he’ll repeat the same words to me. He can be my first, and we’ll be the perfect high school couple.
But none of that happens. I’m living in a complete fantasy world. Tuttle turns away and exits the kitchen, his retreating back reminding me that I’m a fool.
A total fool.
I spent the night at Liv’s Friday and while we groaned and bitched at getting up so early this morning, we did make it to the caf by nine. Both of us are clutching venti PSLs in one hand and a warmed croissant in the other, surveying the mess that is the cafeteria.
“We are total clichés living the high school dream,” Liv mutters just before she takes a big chug of her coffee. “Who the hell is in charge of this nightmare anyway?”
That would be yearbook editor Elaine Kingston. She’s barely five feet tall, but she is a powerhouse of organizational skills and a take-no-bullshit attitude.
And she is nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t tell me we’re going to have to take over this project.” I’m still half-asleep, and it feels like no amount of Starbucks coffee is going to get me going. I didn’t sleep that great. Kept having weird nightmares with Tuttle in the starring role. The last one was the worst. Would you like to hear about it? I know people telling you their dreams can be kind of boring, but this is a good one.
I promise.
I’m at the Halloween carnival, and I’m wandering lost among the rows of games and food booths. There are all of these familiar faces, but not one of them is a real friend. I finally spot Tuttle, and when I run up to him, he grabs hold of me and kisses me. Right in front of everyone, and they all start cheering.
But when I pull away, it’s not Jordan holding me any longer—it’s Eli. He has this evil grin on his face and then he starts laughing a
t me. They all start laughing. It’s all I can hear, the echo of their laughter as I try to struggle out of Eli’s arms. He’s holding on too tight, though, and I can’t get away. No matter how hard I struggle, I can’t get away…
And then I woke up, a sweaty, trembling mess. I glanced at the clock, saw that it was five a.m.—we stumbled into bed around one—and I couldn’t go back to sleep.
Yeah. That nightmare is still clinging to me.
“Hey girls!” Elaine’s perky voice breaks through my thoughts and I’m so relieved she’s here, I almost hug her.
“You’re late, Elaine. Sure you’re feeling okay?” Liv teases.
“I’ve been here since eight,” Elaine says with a scowl. She’s holding a clipboard and there’s a pen stuck behind her right ear. She’s wearing a black T-shirt with a witch on a broom on the front and it says, Yes, I can drive a stick.
“Nice shirt,” I tell her.
The scowl disappears and she smiles. “Thanks, Amanda. How long are you girls staying today?”
“I’m here as long as you need me, though I have to drive Amanda to work,” Livvy answers.
“I have to leave around 10:45,” I tell Elaine.
“Less than two hours for you, then. Hmm.” She grabs the pen and taps it against her lips. It’s black with tiny orange pumpkins scattered all over it. Girl has some serious Halloween spirit going on. “I’m going to have the boys start hanging the black tarps right away. Help direct them and then come see me when you’re done.”
She bustles off to go boss someone else around.
“Let’s go, soldier.” Liv snaps her fingers, and we’re off.
Surprisingly, the haunted house is really coming together by the time Livvy and I leave so she can drive me to work. The yearbook staff is huge and almost everyone is there to help out. Under the efficient command of our leader, we are seriously getting stuff done.
It’s the perfect distraction I need, after what happened last night with Eli and Tuttle. I’m kept busy at the cafeteria, and by the time Livvy’s dropping me off at the shopping center, I feel pretty good. When I walk into Yo Town, I’m happy to see it’s busy there, too. Sonja is in the back working at her computer, and she calls me into her office when she sees me pass by.