My Lovely Jerk {Completed}

Chapter - 20

The car started to speed up down the road and I found myself staring aimless out the passenger window.

“We can’t kiss again, Elle. It is not right,” he spoke up a minute or so after my tirade.

Turning my head, I looked at him. “What is so wrong about kissing Bryson? Any couple does it? ... What are you saying? Are we not a couple?”

Clearing his throat, Bryson started to look intently at the road before him. “I never said that, Elle. It is just that ... you don’t have your memory. In your mind you are thirteen and for all I know the thirteen Elle could have never been kissed before and-”

“That is not true,” I interrupted. “Last year ... well, six years ago to you ... I kissed Ben Wilder at Ashley’s twelfth birthday party.” My statement was ended by me lifting my head up high in pride. I was not a prude like he so thought I was.

Bryson gave a deep chuckle, “your first kiss was with Wimpy Ben?”

Glaring over at Bryson I crossed my arms over my chest. “There is no winning with you!” I pouted with a huff.

“I didn't know this was a game,” he fired back with humor seeping in his voice and a smile stretched out on his face. It was evident that Bryson now was trying to turn this situation into humor in order to just ‘shrug-it-off’ for lack of a better phrase.

However, I wasn’t going to feed into his attempt to let go of what happened at the house. “Bryson, you are changing the subject. Stop being a chicken and man up-”

“Stop being a chicken? Elle, I am not afraid of talking to you about what happened. We kissed ... well, actually, you kissed me. Yet, all that aside it happened and will not, under any circumstances, happen again.”

Dropping my arms from my chest, I sighed. “Unless I get my memory back. Right?”

An unexpected sound -- a laugh -- escaped Bryson’s lips.

“What is so funny?” I inquired with an arched eyebrow.

Sobering up from his laughter, Bryson shook his head but remained focused on the road ahead. With the corners of his mouth twitching, once more, into a smile, he spoke up. “Nothing.” His reply was simple, but expected.

“Nothing doesn’t make you ...” I began to say, yet my sentence lingered unfinished.

Fear washed over me and my body sat rigid in the black leather seats of his car. My eyes were wide as I stared through the front window of the car. The one place I wished to never see again was becoming closer and closer as Bryson drove in the drive towards the “hospital. What -- what are we doing here? I-I-”

“Calm down, Elle,” Bryson spoke as he turned out of the drive that led to the front doors of the hospital. He eased his car into the parking lot and looked around for a place to park.

“Why-Why are we here?” I questioned with the horrid feeling that he was turning me back over to my doctors and forcing me to go back in the small room that I spent what felt like eternity in. I could see it now, the nurses dragging me in my room, muttering about tests they have to run. Dr. Rose telling me over and over that I will get my memories that everything over time will work itself out... “Bryson, please, don’t do this! I promise to be good! I will do anything! Just please, please don’t turn me back over to them!” I begged with every ounce of my being.

Bryson release a single chuckle as he pulled the car into, what seemed like, the only available parking spot. “Elle, calm down. I’m not ‘turning you back over to them’ as you so put it. I lied to you in the bathroom when I said you had two hours to get ready. The truth is the funeral doesn’t start for another three hours ... and see the thing is, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that if I’d told you we were going to the hospital, to see if you have any fingers broken or any other injuries from the other night, you wouldn’t come. Honestly, I wasn’t in the mood to drag you out of the house, which no doubt I would have to do if I had been honest with you from the beginning.” Turning off the car, Bryson unbuckled and unlocked the car doors. He reached out and touched the door handle but didn’t open his door. Turning his neck in my direction, Bryson looked at me. “Are you getting out or are we just gonna sit here all day?”