"Jo," Somebody sings in my ear. "Wake up, Jo."
"No." I mumble stubbornly to Jasper, who is the culprit waking me up on a Saturday morning. Not only is it a weekend but I'm also very grumpy because of my argument with Scott last night. I basically just don't want to get up at all today.
"Scott's here," He says, sitting down on the edge of my bed. "And he's up to something. Did something happen last night?"
"He thinks that I'm a slut," I tell Jasper with my face still in my pillows. "Tell him to go away."
"Yeah, I don't think that he's going to go away. And I highly doubt that he thinks that you're a slut."
"He does," I assure him, rolling over to face Jasper but I still don't sit up. "He thinks that I'm going to sleep with Noah or something. How ridiculous is that? I mean, yeah, I slept with him but that was forever ago and I wasn't in a relationship. But now, I have Scott but he thinks that I'd do that to him. Like, he really thinks that I'm such a horrible person that I'd sleep with Noah while dating him. I love him. Like, I can hear Shakespeare sonnets running in my head whenever I see him, it's that bad. I'd never do anything like that."
"You love him?" Jasper repeats. "Have you told me that before?"
"No," I sigh, now sitting up because I obviously don't have the option to go back to sleep. Especially if I'm going to have to deal with Scott. I hope that he's in a better mood this morning than he was last night. "But I've decided that I do. Just in time for him to change his mind about me, I guess."
"I didn't change my mind about you," I hear Scott call from the first floor and I turn to look at Jasper.
"Right, well like I said, he's downstairs. I'm going to go get food with Conner and give you guys some privacy. You'll figure it out, I'm sure," Jasper says, kissing my temple before he disappears from my room and then a few moments later, I hear the front door open and then close. Without saying anything to Scott, I don't even get dressed before I go downstairs, I stay in my red plaid boxer shorts and cropped Nike t-shirt but I do run a brush through my hair and then hurry down the stairs where Scott is sitting on the couch.
"Good morning," I say slowly, trying to gauge how this morning is going to go- either good or very bad. I'm praying that it's the former.
"Hey," He sighs, standing up from the couch to greet me. He opens his arms to hug me but I fold my arms against my chest and he steps back, taking the hint that I'm cautious about him right now. "Look, I'm so sorry about yesterday. I was being a total jerk."
"I remember," I nod.
"Well, before I got here, I was going to stop by the store to get flowers but then I wasn't sure if you'd want flowers or chocolate or peanut butter or what, so I got you flowers," He tells me, pulling out a bouquet of lilies from a box to his left. "And also chocolates," He adds, handing me a box of Godiva chocolate.
"Thanks," I say, appreciating the beauty of the flowers.
"Oh, I'm not done," He pipes, continuing to pull things out of the box. "I also got you a stuffed puppy with very apologetic eyes, and this bracelet, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of Nutella because I couldn't remember which one was your favorite so I got both, and this mix tape."
When he holds the CD out in front of me to take, I can't hold back a small giggle at how adorable this is, how he bought all of this stuff in a panic of not knowing what I'd prefer. I take the CD and look at the back where it lists all of the songs on the playlist.
1. I'm Sorry – Brenda Lee
2. Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word – Elton John
3. Feeling Sorry – Paramore
4. Apologize – One Republic
5. Sorry – Naya Rivera
6. I'm So Sorry – Imagine Dragons
7. Sorry, Blame It On Me – Akon
8. The Apology Song – The Decemberists
9. Hard to Say I'm Sorry – Chicago
"I... I didn't mean to hurt you yesterday. Or to make you think that I've changed my mind about you. Or to make you cry," Scott continues to explain. "And you were right, I wasn't myself. But I still shouldn't have taken it out on you and I'm so sorry. Have I said that yet? Because I am. I'm so incredibly sorry."
"You know that like, half of these songs aren't actually about apologizing, right?" I wonder, feeling tears starting to bubble in my eyes. "Number four is saying that it's too late to apologize and number five is about not being sorry. Number eight is about a bike."
"I'm trying to make a statement," He defends. "And for the record, I know that you'd never do anything with Noah. I know that you're not that kind of girl. And I'm sorry for making you think that."
"I'm going to get water for the flowers," I say to him before turning around and walking into the kitchen. We don't have any vases so I grab an empty rum bottle from the counter (Jasper likes to recycle them) and fill it a little bit with water and then put the lilies in the bottle before sitting it on the counter.
"Well, anyway, I understand if you're still mad at me," Scott continues, following me into the kitchen. "Just let me know how I can convince you to forgive me."
"I'm not mad at you," I say, turning to face him and I'm suddenly aware that I haven't brushed my teeth yet. "It just kills me that you think that I'd do that to you, that I'm that kind of person. And I guess that you have grounds to think that I'm like that with how readily I got into bed with Noah."
He opens his mouth to speak but I keep going.
"But I don't do that all of the time, the one night stand thing, and I'm a good girlfriend," I tell him, feeling my voice tremble a little bit. "And I'd never do anything to hurt you."
"I know," Scott says. "I know that you're an amazing girlfriend. You're the best girlfriend on the planet."
"Drastic," I mumble, but I'm smiling.
"True," He grins at me and then steps forward, wrapping me in a hug. "I really am sorry for making you doubt that."
I lean away from him just far enough so that I can look into his eyes and I move one of my arms to cup his jaw in my palm. "What was going on yesterday?"
"It's nothing that you should worry about," Scott assures me, placing his hand over mine and squeezing it gently.
"I want to worry about it," I tell him, my voice soft and quiet.
He sighs and we're so close that I can feel his breath fan across my chin. "I went home after class yesterday to get some stuff from the house and my parents were there, fighting, which they never do. My mom thought that my dad was cheating on her and I think that she still does."
"No way," I say in total shock because Terrance is such an awesome man, I can't imagine him doing something so awful to their family, especially to his wife, who is equally as awesome.
"Yeah. I don't buy it though, it was just rough, seeing them get into it like that," He shrugs. "And I brought that frustration with me here and with cheating on my mind, I saw you with Noah and... you know. I'm sorry."
"Me too," I whisper, brushing my lips against his before backing away from him as I motion toward the peanut butter and the Nutella sitting on the coffee table along with the stuffed animal puppy and a black box that I assume holds the bracelet that he mentioned earlier. "And by the way, I prefer peanut butter. Nutella is your favorite."
"I couldn't remember," He defends sheepishly. "Where are you going?"
"I have to brush my teeth," I inform him before disappearing into the bathroom and then I come back out five minutes later with minty breath and tamer hair. "Can I see that bracelet?"
"Sure, of course," Scott nods and then picks up the box from the coffee table and then walks over to me before snapping it open. "It's not real gold or diamond or anything, it was just a cheap-ish thing I found at the store while getting you everything else and I thought that you'd like it."
Looking into the box, I see that it's a silver bangle that doesn't completely close. On one end, there's a diamond star and then beside it, on the other end of the gap, there's a diamond moon. "It's adorable."
"Although I know how much you hate to clash your gold and silver," Scott adds as I slip the bangle onto my wrist. "I thought you might appreciate it."
"You really went overboard with this apology thing," I mumble with a small giggle as I softly kiss his lips before I turn around and go to the kitchen to pull out the bag of celery that's in the fridge before I return to Scott in the living room.
"I didn't want to leave it to chance," Scott shrugs, helping me carry the plethora of apology gifts up the narrow stairs and into my room. "I was absolutely miserable knowing that you were mad at me."
Sitting all of the new gifts on my dresser along with the celery, I turn to my adorable boyfriend and wrap my arms around his shoulders. "Well, you are officially forgiven," I mumble before pressing my lips to his.
"I haven't even gotten to my finale yet though," He tells me, his voice dark and his eyes fluttering as a mischievous smirk dances on his pale pink lips and I know that he's up to no good. It makes my heart stop beating.
"It gets better than the guilty puppy?" I breathe, trying to maintain any form of sanity although that's hard when Scott is looking at me like that, like he wants to devour me.
He grins at me and then steps forward to the bed, effectively knocking us both over so that he's laying over top of me and then he's kissing my neck before he kisses my lips again and says, "You'll see," And I giggle again and he starts to kiss my neck again and gently tugging on the waistband of my shorts. I'm still only wearing my pajamas from the night before and I know it's not the sexiest outfit ever but that doesn't seem to slow Scott down in the least bit and in just a few moments of making out, he's already got me gasping in a Scott-induced haze.
Half an hour later, we're still in my room but I've lost my shorts and replaced my shirt with Scott's, leaving me in just his shirt that is too big for me and my panties. Which means that Scott is now fabulously shirtless as we're cuddling together and watching Netflix on my laptop while I eat celery and peanut butter and Scott is just eating his Nutella right out of the jar without anything to eat it with. I don't question him though, although it does seem kind of weird.
We're in the middle of an episode of Criminal Minds but I'm kind of half-asleep considering this morning, I was woken up way before my planned awakening time. Barely awake anymore, I look up at Scott and kiss his cheek.
"I don't want to ever fight with you," I mutter softly.
He pulls me tighter to his side. "Well, I don't ever want to fight with you either. It's no fun. Although you're very hard to fight with considering that you're so incredibly understanding. But you also don't take any shit, and that's amazing."
"I just care too much about you to fight about stupid things," I shrug and then let out a soft yawn.
"That reminds me," Scott says with a grin and I feel a little bit more awake than I did a moment ago. "I didn't know that you were into Shakespeare."
I remember what I said to Jasper earlier that night, forgetting that Scott was downstairs, and I blush a little bit. "I am. 'Doubt that the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move his aides, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love,' That's not from a sonnet but it's still beautiful and relevant."
"It is beautiful."
"Shut up," I mumble.
"I'm serious," He says but he's laughing and I wonder why he likes to tease me so much.
"I'm going to sleep now," I say to him before I close my eyes and he doesn't object to that or say anything else, he just kisses my forehead and Criminal Minds is playing in the background as I try to get myself to go to sleep.
But as I'm almost asleep, three quarters of the way there, I start thinking about my mother. About Jasper's parents who are still married but tend to fight a lot. And all of those couples in the world who didn't make it to their happy ever after. My mother, before she met my dad, fell in love with a boy when she was a teenager but he'd died in a car accident and it crushed her into somebody unrecognizable. I think part of that is because of all of the things that were left unsaid between them. What she was always too afraid to tell him before he'd died. That terrifies me.
And how much simpler would Jasper's parents' marriage be if they weren't afraid to speak their minds? If they weren't so worried about embarrassing themselves, they wouldn't forget how much they mean to each other.
I'm just starting to drift off when I realize that I don't want that to be me. I don't want to regret keeping my mouth shut. I don't want a chapter in my book of Regrets to be Things Left Unsaid. I don't want Scott to disappear from me or to grow away from me just because I'd been too embarrassed to say 'I love you' in all of the right ways.
My eyes snap open and I look up at Scott and when he notices that I'm awake, he looks down to me with a curious look. "Not tired anymore?" He wonders curiously.
"I just thought of something," I say abruptly, sitting up so that I'm eye-level with him instead of resting my head on his chest.
"Do elaborate," He says with a lopsided grin.
"You know what, it's stupid. Being embarrassed about what I think about you, it's ridiculous. Because one day, the cupcake phase is going to end and then maybe you won't think that I like you anymore because I was too embarrassed to say what I really felt."
"The cupcake phase?"
"The first part of the relationship where it's all happy-go-lucky. Anyway, I don't want you to ever forget that I love you. And yes, I do think that your eyes are so amazingly bright that they could light up the entire eastern seaboard of America. And romantic Shakespeare quotes play in my head when I'm with you because you're so beautiful and romantic and magical. And I think that you're so beautiful that the moon and the stars look down to earth and they admire your beauty. And when I look at you, I see the sun. And when I touch you, I feel flames. And when I'm with you, I can hardly stop from smiling because it feels like my heart is beating ten times faster than it should be. And also I let you call me Joey because it feels familiar and safe, like a childhood safety blanket. It all scares the hell out of me. And that's what I tell my sister when I talk about you. And I love you. And I don't ever want you to forget that."
He looks at me. That's it, he just looks at me for a really long time but I'm not sure what he's going to say. I'm actually not sure if he's going to say anything at all. But then a smile starts to play on his lips before he finally says, "I love you too, Joey."
"I love you," I say again, kissing his lips. "Please don't ever let that go."
Scott runs his fingers over my shoulder and then to my neck until his hand is curling around my upper neck, right below my ear, so that his thumb is methodically rubbing against my cheek bone. "I promise that I'll never forget that you love me. I hope that you'll return the favor."
"I won't ever be able to forget that you just said those three words. It'd be impossible to even try," I mutter to him in all honesty but it then occurs to me how incredibly cheesy we both sound right now and I let out a small laugh before Scott catches my lips in his once again but the heavy kiss is interrupted prematurely when I yawn, still very tired.
"Sleep," Scott suggests. "We'll go to dinner when you wake up."
I'm too tired to deny his offer although I want to. I want to stay up with him, to celebrate that we'd gone from a fight—not really a fight, a debacle really—to saying 'I love you' to each other in just twelve hours. I scoot down until my head is resting on his naked chest again and I give his tattoo a small kiss, which is basically a habit now whenever he doesn't have a shirt on (which isn't enough, in my opinion).
With Netflix playing in the background and my heart threatening to beat right out of my chest and Scott slowly running his fingers through my hair, I fall asleep. For real this time.
The next time that I wake up, Jasper is back and he's brought friends. Conner, Noah, and two guys that I don't know are downstairs and I only know this because I can hear their voices and they don't sound familiar.
Scott is sitting beside me now, texting somebody on his phone with the Netflix still playing Criminal Minds in front of him. He doesn't notice that I'm awake yet, so I say, "It's the sister," referring to the episode currently playing on my laptop.
He glances over at me and grins when he sees that I'm awake and then leans over and kisses my cheek. I'm thankful that he doesn't go for my lips because I need to brush my teeth again. "Good morning."
"Morning," I giggle. "What time is it?"
"Four," Scott suggests. "Jasper brought pizza home if you want some? Or we can still go out to dinner if you want."
"Let's go out," I decide. "We could use it."
"Alright. Do you want to go now?"
"Are you hungry?" I ask him, sitting up in the bed and running my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look a little bit presentable.
He only shrugs, stubbornly leaving the decision up to me.
I teasingly glare at him and then say, "Okay, fine. We can go now. Just let me shower first."
"Sure," Scott agrees. "Oh, and Jasper brought back some of Conner's friends. I haven't met them before."
"I don't recognize their voices," I say to him with a shake of my head as I climb out of bed and grab some towels for my shower. "And I haven't met any of Conner's friends."
"They're nice," He tells me as I grab a clean outfit to change into once I'm out of the shower.
I notice Scott glance down at my exposed legs as I'm starting to head toward the stairs and I give him a mischievous smirk. "Would you like to join me?"
"We can hear you down here," Jasper announces before Scott can respond. I always forget that people can hear me down on the first floor if I'm close to the stairs.
"Feeling left out, Jas?" I wonder jokingly back to the first floor.
"Repulsed, actually," He fires back teasingly. "I do have people over though," He reminds me and I start to blush, realizing that they just heard me invite Scott into the shower with me.
With as much pride as I can muster, I start walking down the stairs. "I'm sure they're nice people, but they're not invited," I say, not even looking into the living room before disappearing into the bathroom for my shower. I'm still not wearing pants so right now isn't the best time to meet new people but the stairs are right beside the bathroom so they only see me for a split second before I'm hidden again.
While taking my shower, I can hear chatter in the living room of Jasper and his friends so when I start drying off, I don't just wrap a towel around myself and go upstairs to get dressed, which is what I usually do. Luckily, I'd brought my outfit into the bathroom with me so I'll have to get dressed down here.
I'm now wearing a pair of boyfriend jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt advertising some art gallery back in LA. It's warm today so I won't wear a jacket, but I'll have to wear this long sleeved shirt so that I stay warm in the mild chilliness. I hang up my wet towels and make sure the bathroom floor is dry before I blow dry my hair and then exit the small room.
"Hi there," I greet the two strangers in my living room with Jasper, Conner, and Noah. "I'm Jo."
"This is Jacob and Aaron," Jasper tells me, pointing to the tall acne ridden blonde boy with curly hair and a friendly smile and then beside him is a red headed chubby guy, a little shorter than his friend but looking equally as friendly. "Conner's friends. Are you going out?"
"Yeah, out to dinner," I supply.
"But we have pizza."
"Just put it in the fridge, you can eat it tonight," I tell him, starting to go up the stairs. "Or I'll eat it later or something."
"Well, where are you going?" Jasper calls up to me as I get up to my room. Scott is still sitting on the bed and when he hears me come up, he looks up at me and smiles.
"Don't know. Nothing fancy or anything," I say back, tossing Scott's shirt at his face so that he can put it on and we can go eat because I'm kind of starving. "I want a hamburger."
"We can get hamburgers," Scott nods, pulling his shirt over his head and then slipping his shoes onto his feet as I do the same, wearing my white lace sneakers.
"Bring me back a hamburger," Jasper says as I grab my bag and then follow Scott down the stairs.
"You have pizza," I remind him, laughing a little bit. "But fine. I'll get you a hamburger. I'll see you later."
"Have fun," Jasper says just as we're leaving out the front door to go down to Scott's car. With my hand in Scott's, we walk to the car and get in as Scott starts the car but before he puts it in drive, I reach over and squeeze his jean clad knee in my hand.
"Hey," I say softly. "I know that I was really tired earlier, but I meant what I said."
"I know," He nods. "So did I."
I smile and he leans over, pressing his lips to mine.
"I love you," He tells me, grinning against my lips.
I grin into him too and say it back, knowing how painfully true it is that I love Scott.
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Song: Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You cover by Ke$ha
Picture: Fan cover by _ccaittlin