First of all, he should have known I hated flowers, because I had used those exact words to him numerous times while we were friends and throughout this relationship thing we had going on.
Me: I hate flowers.
Bren: No woman hates flowers.
Me: Except for me. I. Hate. Flowers.
Bren: Bah, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Me: Yes I do. Flowers! I hate them.
Bren: (Shrugging and smirking) Smell them, you’ll love them.
Me: Odio las flores!
Bren: Excuse me?
Me: (Shrugging and smirking) Well, you’re not listening to anything I say in plain English.
Bren: Stop being a bitch.
Me: (Seriously looking around the room for something to throw) Bren, trust me, you haven’t met the bitch side of me yet, and I seriously hate flowers. 1.) They die overnight. 2.) They smell like funeral homes. 3.) They make me sneeze, make my eyes watery and itchy, and make my throat tickle and swell.
Bren: You’re adorable, but all women love to get flowers. Just enjoy them.
If that crap wasn’t bad enough, the afternoons were worse. Deliveries of more chocolate-covered guilty gifts inundated my shop. They were delivered directly to the shop, so I just shared them with the other girls and our clients. I didn’t want to touch any of it, and Bren knew this about me. He knew I had a vice for sweets. I didn’t understand what he was trying to do. I dunno, drive me insane with sneezing or maybe kill me sweetly?
However, with all that said, Bren was on his best behavior. He became attentive, loving, and here’s the important part: sober.
We’re talking about weeks here, too. Although, we didn’t spend too much time together, every time I saw him he was sober, dressed to the nines, and perfect.
And, while all the girls in the shop fawned over his gifts to me and swooned over his visits, I knew bullshit when I saw it. I guess I’d been jaded by a lot in my life, but I knew this honeymooning Bren persona was just a fleeting phase. It wouldn’t be long until I’d find him drunk in the back of a club somewhere getting a lap dance from some high profile celebrity.
I was impressed he kept it up well into autumn, and he showed no signs of stopping. He pleaded with me to hang out with him more. He had a few new guys he wanted to show me off to. Bren even begged me to move in with him and give up my little apartment, but something felt off. Really off. Maybe I was just too fed up with the way things had been. Maybe I was wasting too much of my hopes on imaginary characters and fictional plots, but I just felt like there had to be more. So much more. Was the grass greener someplace else, or was it fertilized with loads of bullshit like it was on my side?
I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was being indecisive and annoying myself to all Hell. Did I even love Bren at all? I didn't think so. I knew very well what real love felt like, and this wasn't it. Not even close.
Time by myself was the best thing I could think of—time away from Bren and his stupid, stinky flowers.
I needed to clear my head.
I needed to stop stalling and being wishy-washy.
I needed my best friend.
Throwing myself in my Wrangler, I started the engine, filled the small cab with my special playlist, and pulled into the New York City traffic, making my way uptown to the Queens Midtown Tunnel and through the East River into Queens.
For the next seventy-five miles I screamed and sang and danced in my seat all along the Long Island Expressway toward Riverhead to Calverton. Songs we sung together filled me with nostalgia. Visions of us sharing my old Walkman, one ear bud for him and one ear bud for me, holding on to each other’s pinkies, warmed my heart and watered my eyes.
One hour and thirty-three minutes later, I drove through a stone entrance, pulled over, and parked amongst the other cars that aligned the drive. Stepping out, I took a deep breath and tilted my head to gaze at the sky. The colorful autumn trees that reached far above my head were boasting their brilliant, fiery colors. Impressions of red, orange, and yellow flames licked the bright blue sky and feebly shook in the brisk, autumn winds. A few of the brightest ones twisted and tumbled, scattering onto the ground, leaving the trees bare, just to be trampled over or swept aside. The deep moaning of the branches overhead echoed the ache in my heart. The sadness of it all left me feeling a little broken inside.
Okay, maybe a lot more than a little.
With a heavy heart, I walked over the freshly mowed grass to find my oldest and dearest friend.
∞
By the end of May in my junior year of high school, I’d kissed a lot of frogs, hoping they’d magically turn into my prince charming. No such luck; they stayed as nasty, pimply, green frogs with major hand problems.
But I had bigger problems to worry about my sixteenth year of life. Stupidly, somehow, sometime along the way, I fell in love with one of my best friends. I had always known that I felt differently about Jase Delaney than any other boy. He was the first boy I ever kissed. He was the first boy I ever caught staring at me. He was the first boy I ever gave my heart to. As a matter of fact, that little thief stole it and never gave it back. Ever.
So I spent my sixteenth year of life secretly in love with a boy who wanted nothing to do with me—other than be his buddy, or as he so eloquently put it—his sister. I realized it the minute I went to that stupid spring fling dance with that jerk Mason La Douche as I was getting into his car. Before I got in, I chanced a small peek at Jase’s house, just wishing he would run out and tell me that he’d take me to the dance, or fight for me, or I don’t know, something. But all I saw was Jase kissing Rachel Jenson up against the side of his house. I knew without a doubt how trapped my heart was in his hands, the minute his lips left hers to call out, “Have fun Charlotte Stone! And, hey! Mason, make sure you kiss her real good, I double dog dare you!”
Because in that instant, that very second, which I can pinpoint with such clarity that it terrified me, I realized that I had fallen in love with Jase a long time before that. Whether you believe I fell fast and hard, or you think it was a slow build up over years, it doesn’t matter. All that mattered was that I did, and now he was kissing someone else. Someone else.
That year, I watched Jase kiss a lot of frogs too (his frogs were always dressed like skanks), and every time, I died a bit inside when he did. But, I could never get enough courage to tell him how much I hated it. The only good part was that he never kept a girl around for very long. His average “relationship” was about a week, and then he’d be sucking face with some other girl and pawing at her boobs over her shirt.
So our relationship/friendship was strained and hard that year. Jase found himself a job at a local gas station, pumping gas and helping fix cars in their back garage. Joey and I barely ever saw him. He rarely crawled into my tree house at night—only once in a while when the fights with his father got too out of control. And even though I would cringe, hearing his father yell and scream or worse, I cherished those nights when I’d hear the loud thump of his sneakers as he landed on the wooden floorboards of the tree house. He’d just saunter in like he belonged there, take his sleeping bag off the shelf, and lie down next to me, talking and laughing with me until the sun came up.
In the beginning of spring that year, I found a frog that I didn’t mind kissing too much. His name was Anthony Charles, and yes, Jase teased me mercilessly about me ‘one day foolishly marrying him and becoming Mrs. Charlie Charles.’ Then, the teasing turned mean and hurtful. By Jase’s seventeenth birthday that May, everyone was invited to the weeds for a bonfire to celebrate. He invited everyone—everyone except me.
Joey told Anthony and me to come to the party anyway.
So that night, holding hands, Anthony and I pushed through the crowds of drunken teens, trying to find Joey, or Jase, to wish him a “Happy Birthday.”
“Hey, you made it,” Joey said, grabbing me from behind and pecking a kiss on my temple. Holding me at arm’s-length, he shook his head and eyed me from head to toe. “Damn. What
the hell are you wearing?”
Anthony slid his hands around my waist and backed me up from Joey, “Pop your eyes back in your head, Graley. It’s just a pair of shorts and a tank top. And keep your hands off my girl,” Anthony joked.
But Joey kept his eyes on me, and his lips tightened into a straight, harsh line.
I was fully aware of how short my shorts were and how tight my shirt was. The thing was, I was dressed like every other girl at that party, and I was sick of being treated like Joey and Jase’s little sister. “Where’s Jase anyway? I haven’t seen him yet.”
Joey’s eyes got real busy looking at something on the ground, and his hand was rubbing the back of his neck. “He went off somewhere with Kylie Simpson. Don’t go looking for him, okay, Charlie? You won’t like what you see…and he’s definitely going to have something to say about your outfit.”
My stomach dropped and my mouth became so dry it hurt when I swallowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
Joey darted a quick glance at Anthony and shook his head. “Just leave him alone, Charlie, okay?”
My body went rigid. “To Hell with this crap!” I snapped and turned to leave, storming past the drunken idiots and the roaring bonfire, and headed straight for the weeds.
“No, Charlie. Don’t…” I heard Joey’s voice as he caught up to me and swung his arms around my waist, pulling me back. His face was in my hair, his breath fanning across my ear. “He’s really drunk, and he’s with another girl. He heard some stuff in the locker room today and flipped out. And, Charlie, I don’t want you to get hurt when you see him.”
I stopped fighting and turned to look up into his eyes, “What stuff? Why would I care if he’s with another girl, anyway?” I whispered.
His brows lifted, and his words drifted softly, in low whispers to my ear. “Because I know that you’re in love with him.”
I shoved his arms off me. “You’re wrong. And besides, I have a boyfriend. I don’t care what Jase does,” I hissed back. I kept stepping back until I was a good five feet away from him.
Anthony’s arms slid around my shoulders as soon as I backed away from Joey. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Perfect,” I lied.
“What the hell are they doing here?” Jase’s voice growled from behind us.
Snapping my head in his direction, I found Jase stumbling out of the tall weeds, holding hands with a giggling, dark-haired girl. His shirt was off and his pants were unbuttoned; seeing him like that made my heart ache in ways that I never felt before.
Hot tears blurred my vision as I watched the giggling girl wrap her arms around his waist. He lifted his hand and took a huge swig out of a half-empty bottle of what looked like whiskey.
I held my chin up to him. “I just came to say ‘Happy Birthday’ to my best friend,” I said.
Dropping his hands off the giggling girl, he swayed toward me and laughed in my face. “Really, Charlie? I just got me a nice little birthday blowjob from Kylie over here. You up for giving me a better one? You know, since I’ve heard you’re so freaking good at it,” he leveled a challenging stare on Anthony.
“You better keep your mouth shut, Delaney!” Anthony lunged at Jase before I could stop it, but even drunk, Jase side stepped out of the way and laughed louder.
“How good of a fuck is she, Anthony? Huh? You told all the guys in the locker room at the gym how hard she sucks you off and how wide she spreads her legs for you” Jase gritted, his eyes narrowing. “That would be a great birthday present for me. Tell me how great fucking Charlie really is!” he screamed at Anthony, but as he said those disgusting words, his cold, blue glare was on me.
I backed away from him on shaky legs as my blood raced through my veins, pulsating in humiliation and anger. Why would he say that? WHY would my BEST FRIEND SAY THAT? Why would he scream that in front of everyone? I didn’t even care what Anthony said about me to his friends. All I cared about was the crap that was falling from the lips of the boy I loved.
As calmly as I possibly could, I walked right up to Jase, looked up through my teary eyes, and whispered for only him to hear. “I hate you, Jase Delaney.”
Turning around to lock eyes with Anthony, I asked, “Did you tell everybody that?”
The pure look of guilt on his face was answer enough, and I stormed off down the beach, screaming for everybody to stay away from me. I walked along the lapping waters and listened for the sounds of the party dying down the further away I walked. In the distance, I eyed the small, abandoned row boat we used to play in as kids and figured I would just calm myself down in there until I figured out what to do.
Just as I reached the boat, strong arms were wrapping around my shoulders and yanking me back, and Jase’s cold, hard voice was in my ear. “Charlie, enough. Fuck! Charlie…shit...Charlie, I’m sorry!”
Turning around, I shoved him hard against the chest. “Don’t you touch me! Don’t you ever touch me again!”
Before I knew it, he grabbed me around my waist and slammed my ass down hard against the edge of the boat and positioned his body between my legs. I quickly leaned back to get away from him, and with the momentum of my movements, we both fell into the boat, his body crashing on top of mine.
“Get off of me!” I screamed, throwing out my arms, trying to find purchase.
Slowly, he leaned up on both his arms, his chest rising and falling fast as he hovered over me. I was trapped between both his arms and weighed down by the heaviness of his body that had fallen perfectly between my thighs. I tried to wrench my body and twist my way free, wiggling between the hard length of him and the wooden boat floor.
“Stop. Stop…just stop fucking wiggling like that under me, Charlie,” he whispered as his eyes locked on to mine. A strange burn spread across my chest and heated my cheeks as our eyes, less than an inch away from each other, stared into one another’s. Both of our bodies turned stiff and rigid.
“Charlie,” he whispered my name. The way it fell from his lips sounded like a prayer, or a wish. My head spun and my heart fluttered with the ache of pressure that was building against his body between my legs.
His eyes searched my face, my eyes, my lips, my cheeks; like he was looking for me, but couldn’t quite find me. “You don’t hate me.”
“Yes. I. Do.” I insisted.
His body slid slightly against mine and I tried not to move, but the feel of him made my body throb and tingle everywhere I had skin—which was of course all over my body. My heartbeat started pounding in my ears, and the warm heat from his mouth as it landed against my skin made me want to move my body along his.
“Jase…”
Fight for me. Want me.
His lips collided against mine, devouring me, hard and strong. His tongue plunged past my lips and I took him in, kissing him back with everything I had. His body sank against mine, melting into me. Dropping to one elbow, he twisted his fingers roughly through the strands of my hair and his other hand, oh God, his other hand slid up the bare skin of my leg and gripped my ass through my shorts, pulling me harder against him. The pressure between my thighs tightened, and I could feel the hardness of him perfectly aligned with me–just his old, faded blue jeans and the thin material of my shorts keeping us apart.
What the Hell were we doing?
I didn’t want to stop him.
I wanted him, my God, I wanted that boy more than anything in the world.
But Jase was drunk, wasn’t he? I had a boyfriend, and he had Kylie. I knew all of this, and I didn’t care. His hands and lips felt so good.
But truthfully, I did care. I didn’t want him to kiss me because he was drunk. I cared so much that the tears started streaming down my face, mixing with our kisses.
“Jase,” I gasped out. “Stop, this isn’t right. You’re…you’re drunk. And you’re going to be so pissed off at yourself when you remember this tomorrow.”
I could barely catch my breath when he stumbled and twisted away from me as if I’d hit him. Backing him
self against the other side of the boat, he froze, breathing hard and heavy, eyeing me like he’d never seen me before.
Sitting up on my knees, my head was spinning from the lack of his touch.
“I would never be pissed at myself for kissing you,” he bit out.
“You’re with Kylie, and I have a boyfriend,” I whispered.
“Damn it, Charlie. You ever kiss that little turd like you just kissed me? Because I never kissed another girl the way I kiss you.”
The snap of branches and sounds of footsteps silenced our conversation, but our eyes were still fixed together. I wanted to tell him the truth. That I’d never kissed anyone like I kissed him, that I never had that spill of warmth between my legs from anybody else but him. But I was so scared he’d laugh at me when he sobered up and then I’d lose my best friend forever.
“Hey, are you guys in the boat?” Joey’s voice called out.
Jase’s head thudded against the wood. “We will finish this conversation one day,” he whispered.
“Fine. Just as long as you’re not drunk when we do it!” I snapped back at him.
Joey’s head peeked in over the side of the boat. Then Anthony’s head followed. Then, a whole bunch of other heads popped in.
Anthony reached out his hand to me to offer me help. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll help you out of there.”
My eyes shot to Jase. He had turned his face against the side of the boat, leaning his forehead against it. His arms were wrapped around his stomach, and he was breathing hard like he was in pain.
I ignored Anthony’s hand. “Jase?”
He faced me again, and in the dim light I could see the shine of tears in his eyes. “Just fucking go. Your boyfriend is waiting.”
There was an audience of people surrounding the stupid boat now, waiting to see what I’d do.
I snapped my head toward Anthony, who was still holding his hand out to me. I realized I didn’t want it, because Jase was right. I never kissed Anthony like that. “I’m going to ask this again. Did you tell a locker room full of guys that I had sex with you, Anthony?”