If You Wanted Honesty (Kellic)

Chapter 14

Chapter 14 - Vic - Tally It Up, Settle The Score

I manage to compose myself into a calm mask by the time I pass the living room.

Mom glances up. “Where are you going?”

"Out," I say, grabbing the car keys off of the counter. "I’ll be back. I just…need to get some air. It’s been a long day. And it’s not even over yet." I don’t wait for a reply. I have to get out of here. I can’t keep this façade up for much longer.

I step outside and hurry into the car. Once I’m sure that no one’s watching me, I rest my head on the steering wheel and squeeze my eyes shut. Kellin knows. He has to know, or at least have his suspicions, unless it’s some freaky coincidence. And he’s not even fighting it. He’s just accepting what he thinks is true: that he’s not good enough for me. That’s bullshit.

And isn’t that sort of what Ian did, too? Kellin may or may not have more evidence than Ian did, but he’s not even confronting me about it. He has to know how much I care about him—I practically spelled it out—but just like Ian, he’s choosing to ignore it. He might as well be falling, about to die, and refusing to take my hand when he knows very well that he could reach it.

As I sit up and start the car, I think, I have to go back. I have to fix this. But my hands are shaking, and I know that if I go back, if I even think about him, I’ll lose the very small amount of calmness or control that I still have over myself. As I back out onto the road, the phrase I’ve been using way too often enters my thought process again: I need a distraction.

I know it’s wrong. Every part of me knows it’s wrong, and with each second that I use to drive farther away, I’m internally screaming at myself to go back. I know I’ll regret it, and I know I need to stop distracting myself, but right now it seems I just don’t care.

So when I park the car in Jaime’s driveway, I sit there for ten minutes still arguing with myself.

My phone rings, and without checking to see who it is, I answer it. “Hello?”

"I can see you parked in my driveway," Jaime says. "You gonna come in or what?"

"Uh." I bite my lip. I should go back.

"Is something happening?"

"Uh…yeah. That’s kind of why I’m here."

"So…are you coming in, or going back to…well, wherever you came from?"

"Um…can I come in?" I turn the car off and get out.

"Yeah, sure." He hangs up, and as I walk to the front door, I see him stick his head out his bedroom window on the second story. "Come hither, Victor!"

I laugh, before remembering that only Kellin calls me Victor. It hurts to feel like I’m replacing him—which is probably exactly what he thinks I’m doing.

The door is unlocked, and Jaime meets me at the bottom of the staircase, locking the door behind me. “That probably should’ve been locked the whole time. My parents are both downstairs. The basement’s almost done. Finally.” (Jaime’s basement is in the process of being remodeled, and his parents decided to do it themselves. It’s actually been coming along quite nicely.)

"So," Jaime says as he leads me upstairs, "what is it this time? Boyfriend problems again?"

"Maybe." I sit down on his bed, unwilling to think too much about it.

"And let me guess…you want to forget about the problem by doing things you’ll probably regret?"

I don’t respond. He’s spot-on, and it makes me realize something: I’m using him. He doesn’t care—in fact, sometimes he even asks for it—but I’m using him either way.