This Is Going To Get Awk—mmmphf!
CHAPTER 21
Kayla
I dashed home, tripped over the doormat again, went straight up to my room, changed into my PJs, grabbed a pillow, got a bucket of chocolate chip ice cream and settled on the porch swing.
I liked to be miserable in luxury.
And that was how my mother found me, hugging a pillow and a bucket of ice cream.
“Well, what have I stumbled on here? The little princess and her pillow fort guarding a tub of ice cream?”
I snorted.
“More like ice cream guarding the princess.” I think we both knew that it was soothing the princess’s heart.
Mom sat down beside me on the swing, and rocked it gently. “It’ll be all right, you know.”
“You don’t even know what this is about.” I pointed out.
“I may be ignorant. But I’m not blind.” She smiled. “I can see that you’re unhappy. And I think the person responsible is the same one who made you so happy the other day when you went out to the pier.”
Oh, she wanted to talk, did she? Fine. I was going to completely unload on her.
“I try to be strong, you know, I really do. But somehow I end up feeling sorry for myself every single time. I don’t know how he does it. Surely I'm not supposed to feel this insecure.”
I looked at her, expecting some sort of panic at the thought that her daughter has a love life to be upset about. But she just had a curious half-smile on her face. And I realised then, that I could tell her anything, and she’d understand.
And I smiled too.
Then she spoke. “You are, you know. Strong, that is. In fact, you were the only one who was strong when your father passed away. I wasn’t a very good mother, and Kim and Jamie were certainly not good siblings, especially with the whole drug mess, but you pulled through. Next time you feel insecure, think about your dysfunctional family, and remember that you are strong.”
She gave me a sweet quirky smile and added, “And now is the time when the wise mother goes off to bed.”
I frowned, puzzled. I thought we were having a moment here. Then I heard shuffling from the side.
As my mother’s footsteps faded away, I could feel my heartbeat get louder, and I looked towards the bushes. I wouldn’t admit till my last dying breath that I was hoping it was Jake. But even I wasn’t so blinded by my feelings as to believe that that little shadow in the woods could possibly be him.
I sighed.
“Hi, Martha.”
“He left.” She sobbed.
“What?”
“Matt left.”
“What do you mean he left? Where’d he go?”
“I d-don’t know. Fed me some cr-crap about him not being able to stand his d-dad. And you kn-know the worst part? I underst-stand. I fucking understand.”
Damn, she dropped the f-bomb. Martha never dropped the f-bomb.
“Ice-cream for two?” I said weakly, sounding as miserable as she did.
She sniffled and scrambled over to the porch swing. I moved over, and offered her half of the big fluffy pillow, handing her the spoon. We sat eating ice-cream turn by turn and sighing occasionally.
“Guys suck.” Martha said.
“Let’s go to the mall.” I said.
“Mall’s closed.” She said.
“Not now, stupid. Tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Yeah, that was a bad idea.
The faded blue jeans in the display reminded Martha of Matt. The dark leather jacket made my mind wander to Jake. When Martha tried on dresses, she thought of how Matt would’ve said something inappropriate. When we ate ice-cream I thought of how I’d talked about my boobs in front of Jake.
When Martha saw a telephone, she thought about a telephone booth which led to the thoughts of the kissing booth where she’d first hugged Matt. I told her that that was when Matt had fallen for her.
Apparently that was the most insensitive thing to say at the moment. Martha then pushed home her point by questioning how I would feel if she told me that Jake had fallen for me when I had fallen on the dance floor.
That pretty much closed up all possible avenues of conversation. We eventually ended up not buying anything and driving home in strained silence. I filled up the quiet in my head by thinking about how nice it was to have my mother allow me to drive when I was heartbroken as opposed to when I was mentally fit.
Not that I ever was mentally fit, not if I fell for Jake.
Shit, I fell for Jake.
As I pulled into Mr. Matthews’ driveway, Martha sighed.
“Sorry for being a bitch. Just, you know, PMS multiplied a thousand times over.”
I smiled. “Yeah. I was a bitch too, sorry. Guess it was far too early for retail therapy.”
“You think? Now, excuse me while I curl up in bed and cry. See you later.”
“Bye.”
I pulled out of the driveway, and thought about Matt, feeling a completely rational and deserved amount of anger towards him for just abandoning us like that. I slowed down a bit, aware that frustration was not a good mood to be driving in. I knew it was none of my business if he couldn’t bear to live in the same town as his father. Desbrooke was a pretty small town, after all. But it didn’t help calm me down. And feeling angry and frustrated inevitably led to thoughts of Jake, and how I felt like causing him actual physical pain.
And then, as if magically conjured by my thoughts, he appeared. Right in the middle of the road. Just waiting to be run over. For a moment I thought that he was a figment of my imagination and that he would vanish into thin air if I drove into him. But then I wondered, why would he be splattered in mud in my imagination? It was then that I realised that we were near the marsh, and that he’d probably been rolling around in the mud, heaven knows why.
Thankfully, I was able to stop the car before it hit him since I was driving at a slower than average speed. I looked at him just standing there being all handsome even in the damned mud-splattered clothes, and I felt another wave of rage take over.
I stepped out of the car, slammed the door, and walked up to him.
“What?” I snapped.
“I thought you weren’t going to stop.” He said.
“Oh, believe me, I was tempted.”
He got a panicky look in his eyes and I wondered if he seriously thought I was going to run him over.
But then he said, “Shit, I’m not ready for this.”
“Ready for what?” I asked, and hated myself for doing so.
“To face you.”
“Excuse me? I didn’t ask you to stand in the middle of the fucking road!”
Jeez, what an asshole. I was just about to turn around and drive away when he spoke.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, I wanted to be prepared before seeing you. But then I saw your car, and it was like a punch to the gut, and I just had to talk to you, and so I ran out here like a madman.”
I could feel his stare on me till I finally looked up into his eyes. They were like warm chocolate. Warm, sleep deprived, slightly panicked, chocolate.
“I’m here now. So let’s talk about whatever it is you—”
“I love you.” He blurted. Then, “Damn it.”
Where did that come from? I was speechless. I think I just stood there with my jaw on the ground for a whole minute, figuring out whether to be elated or insulted. I tried to ignore the little bubbles of happiness erupting inside of me, making me feel like I wanted to burp. I focused on what I was supposed to do now. Was I supposed to forgive him because he said he loved me? Should I say thank you? But even as I thought it, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him in that way. Especially since ‘thank you’ was the furthest thing from my mind then. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and kiss him. I wanted to hit him.
He must have seen the indecision on my face because he took my hands in his, effectively halting my thought process, and said,
“It’s okay if you don’t love me. I wasn’t expecting it, anyway. I just had to tell you that I did. I do. I'm sorry for taking so freaking long to stop running and realise it and I'm sorry for ruining what we had. Again. I care what you think. I want to know everything about you and I want you to know everything about me. I love it when you were old tattered hats and manage to look adorable in them. I love the way you try to boss me around. I love that we both love chocolate chip ice-cream. I blame Brody for my parents’ deaths because he was on the run from drug lords and shit and got them to help protect him and they got gunned down. I hate that I wasn’t strong enough to turn him in. And I hate how I thought Evan was my saviour until you told me the truth about him. You need to know that. I’m scared to death of losing you. I felt like the luckiest guy on earth when we kissed, and I’m jealous of how friendly you are with other guys when all we seem to do is fight. I have trust issues, and they’re not going to just vanish. But I swear I’ll try if you’ll just give me a chance.”
He dropped my hands, and that’s when I realised they were shaking. And filled with mud. Why was he giving me mud? I honestly didn’t give a rat’s ass; I was too busy trying not to cry at the moment.
“So, I guess I’ll go then.” He said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. He turned around and began to walk.
Why the hell was he going? I absentmindedly ran my fingers along the object in my hand and that’s when I noticed said object in my hand. I looked down, straight into the muddy glass of my father’s watch. The one that had been thrown into the marsh when Jake and I’d been yelling at each other. That was before we were tentative friends. And he’d remembered. The guy had probably spent all night searching for it in the damned marsh.
I was jolted out of my shell-shocked stage and almost running towards him by the time the enormity of what he’d said struck me.
He loved me.
I ran right in front of him and put my hands on his forearms.
“I love you too. You have to believe me. And it’s not because of the watch or you being nice and everything. I can’t help it. I don’t care if you have trust issues, we’ll make it work. It’s not like I’m a wizard at relationships myself. You don’t ever need to be jealous. I love you. It doesn’t stop if I try to fight it, and I never thought I’d fall in love at seventeen, and I try reasoning with it and avoiding it altogether, but I just can’t help it. And please tell me you meant what you said earlier because this is going to get awk—mmmphf!”
His mouth was on mine and his hands were on my back, pressing me to him. I threw my arms around his neck and slipped my tongue into his mouth. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was hard, rough, and raw, and my lips would probably be chapped later, but it was so worth it. He slanted his mouth over mine over and over again until I felt like I was melting into him, pressed to him from lip to toe.
One hand slipped lower to my waist and the other gently caressed my cheek as the kiss turned slow and languid, like we had all the time in the world. Which, I suppose, we did. I felt something wet on my cheek.
I looked up into his eyes. “You’re crying.” I stated.
He grunted. “Freaking mud in my eye.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “C’mon let’s go.”
“Ahhh, I’ll need a minute.” He said.
I frowned, puzzled. “What? Why do you—” then I happened to look down between us—“Oh.”
I could feel a furious blush work its way up my neck as I tried to look anywhere but there.
“Sweetheart, I’m going to need more than a minute to calm down if you keep blushing like that.” He smirked.
Which just made me blush harder. He outright laughed then, the idiot.
“I’m getting mud on your clothes.” He muttered.
“It’s fine. They are getting-over-hot-guy clothes, so they’re basically old rags.”
“You have getting-over-hot-guys clothes? Just exactly how many guys have you dated?”
“Quite a few.” I said, grinning.
“Well, you’re just going to have to throw them away now. You won’t be needing them.” He announced, looking mighty pleased with himself.
And damn my traitorous heart, I was tearing up again. I was never letting go of this amazing guy who was absolutely perfect for me.
“Hey, you’re crying.” He said, concerned.
“Freaking mud in my eye.”
-mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsapoiuytrewq-
So, this is it. It took me a while to write this one, but I can never ever be completely satisfied with an ending so i've finally stopped editing and i'm now posting this.
Comment and let me know what you think :) All questions, opinions, and follows are much appreciated. Vote if you enjoyed it xD
RandomFactAboutMe #21: I am overly emotional at the moment. *sniff* Freaking mud in my eye.