Beneath the Sharps & Flats

♫Chapter 30- Knowing the Truth♫

                  

Chapter Thirty

Jace's mouth continues to move slowly on my own, the gentle brush of our lips sending waves of shock throughout me.

            The first time I've ever pushed Jace away when he was kissing me is now. Right in this moment that all of our friends are gaping at us. Jace seems startled as our lips disconnect and appears to be slightly hurt, but I can't dwell on this now. I can't dwell on his hurt when I have to explain everything to our friends.

            Still feeling slightly dazed from the torturous way that Jace's mouth manipulated mine, I turn my head to nervously meet all of the gazes of our friends. Sure enough, all of them still seem to be outwardly surprised and extremely confused about why Jace and I suddenly don't hate each other. Or why Jace and I just snapped from the physical and emotional separation.

            "What the hell was that?" Wes is the first to pipe up after a long moment of Jace and I looking at them guilty and them boring their eyes into us with their jaws on the floor.

            I glance at Jace for the first time since we kissed and he's looking at me with the same expression: how do we explain this?

            I turn to face Wes again and sigh, squeezing my eyes closed in a grimace, "Jace and I haven't really hated each other this whole time," I confess.

            "We've been faking it," Jace admits as well.

            This is followed by another moment of awkward silence before Gen timidly speaks, asking the question that's most likely circling around every ones' brains, "Why have you guys been faking it this whole time if you really have loved each other?"

            Colton appears to be panicked, "Gen, I don't know if they've ... you know ... confessed their love for each other yet."

            Gen's eyes widen a fraction, "Oh, I'm sorry!"

            I just smile reassuringly at her, thinking that if I tell our friends that we've, in fact, confessed our love for each other too, they wouldn't be able to handle it. Jace just ignores her and proceeds to answer her original question.

            "We have a lot of good reasons, but you should probably sit down first because it's going to take a while to get through them all."

            "This is a fantastic way to start out the New Year," Wes grumbles, "with a lie."

            I bite my lip and a pang of guilt enters my chest. I'm sure Wes figured that she would be the person that I would go to if I had a huge secret, not Jace. Come to think of it, it used to be that way with Taylor and Wes; they were the only two people I confided all of my secrets in and trusted wholly. Now, Jace has filled the spot of both of them. Guaranteed, I never intended for my boyfriend to take the spot of my best friends, but I guess the exchange was made right before my eyes while they were closed.

            All of them move to take a seat on the couch and in the process, I lock eyes with Taylor to find that all of the emotions he's feeling are swimming in them: disbelief, hurt, betrayal, and anger. What really urges me to feel even worse about what I've done is the betrayal. Part of me grows angry because he has no right to feel betrayed. Earlier this year—I mean later last year, he betrayed me by ditching me and hanging with Jessica for a good month. Now he's feeling all of the emotions I felt during that time except he hasn't even listened to my explanation yet! He hasn't even heard me out and he just automatically assumes. It's always been one of his weaknesses: automatically assuming before figuring out what actually happened.