THE SPAWNS
They Hurt You, Those Eatons
Chapter XX—Cole
© DarknessAndLight
For one of the few times in our lifelong friendship, I wasn’t the first one to fall asleep during a sleepover—Jayden was. Maika, him and I were all lying on the double bed on the second floor, Jayden being the meat in this lovely sandwich—his words, not mine. He kept repeating it over and over again as we got settled into the bed.
This felt weird somehow, because normally Lilibeth should have been here. And whatever had happened between us, part of me felt bad for not inviting Beth and keeping her out of the loop. Another part of me told me she’d look for it.
I loved the girl but if she was going to be a selfish bitter little girl, I was going to be a selfish bitter little boy.
“I think we should relish in this precious moment and start drawing inappropriate things on Jay-Jay-Poo’s face.” Maika whispered from the other side of Jay.
I laughed. “Of course, because we vandalize huge billboards with works of art, but we’re not above drawing dicks on our friends face.”
I didn’t need to see Mai’s face to know she was grinning. “We could cover his face with dicks.”
“We could, but we’re lazy and this bed is comfy” I stated.
“True that,” Maika answered, and then lifted her upper body to look at me over Jay’s chest, with a mischievous grin spread on her lips.
“Oh, oh. I know that look.”
“Do you think he’s wake up if I started licking his face?” she whispered too enthusiastically.
“He’s a light sleeper.” I reminded her. The boy barely ever slept and when he did he was always a light sound away from waking up.
“I’m an expert licker.” She replied quickly, unwavering.
I sighed, discouraged. Where we seriously arguing about this? “This is Jayden I-Never-Sleep Eaton, you know.”
“But he’s passed out drunk and,” she lifted his hand, “he’s still holding on to Hardy.”
I chuckled soundlessly at that. My bestfriends were such weirdos. “I think we three should stop seeing each other. We’re rubbing off on each other in the wrong way,” I joked.
“Please, there’s only a right way to rub off someone.” And after saying that, she crawled on top of him. “Oh Jaydeeeen, yeeeeees.” She drawled in a slightly raspy voice, getting comfortable on Jay’s lap, rolling her hips.
I hid my face under my hands. “Please don’t do creepy stuff like that beside me!” I squealed but not too loud, I didn’t want Jay to wake up to this.
“It’s every woman’s dream to have a threesome with you two,” Maika informed me before licking the tip of Jay’s nose. Luckily, Jay really was passed out drunk, so he wasn’t waking up.
“My threesome’s dreams don’t involve Jayden,” I groaned.
“Only Beth and your cat,” she said with a smirk and then brushed her lips around his jaw and down his throat. This time Jayden let out a loud breath.
“Deranged double jointed Asian,” I slapped Mai’s arm to get her to stop.
“Prude American,” she chuckled and properly lay on Jayden, resting her head under his chin. The weird thing was that after she did that, Jay made a weird sound in the back of his throat and wrapped his arms around her—still holding onto Hardy—and pressed his cheek against the top of her head.
Maika smirked at me in a “I know what I’m doing” kind of way. “So? Want to tell me what happened?” Maika asked.
I leaned my head back against my pillow, staring at the ceiling. “I hope you never have to go through being rejected by a Eaton, it’s unbearable.”
“What?” Mai frowned, the thumb of her left hand drawing circles on Jay’s chest.
“Getting your heart broken by a Eaton—I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” I closed my eyes and rested my own hand on my chest, like the pressure could erase the hallow pain buried deep in there—it didn’t help. “I can sympathize with that poor schmuck that tormented Beth all year long. This is awful.
“Tell me what happened exactly.”
“You know,” I took a deep breath, “I always promised myself that I’d let Beth make the first move before I told her about my feelings. I never assumed that after she would make the first move, she’d still be as clueless and confused as before.
Maika looked at me giving me a “just spill it already you dimwitted ass.”
“Beth kissed me.” The pain in my chest grew at the admittance, knowing what was coming next. “And then shut the door on my face. And kissed me again. And when I tried to have her talk about it, she told me that she had never loved me and that what I was feeling was pathetic—I mean, I did ask her to tell it to me, if it was what she was feeling, but I never expected for her to actually say it.”
Maika slipped her hand under Jay’s arm, and grabbed my own hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.
“Oh those Eatons. What a stubborn bunch.”
I sighed in defeat. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I always figured that after our first kiss everything would just… work out. I didn’t think I’d… well that I’d get dumped without even dating her.”
“Poor boy.” Maika gave me one of those sad little half smiles and squeezed my hand again.
Why were we even talking about this? I should just forget about all of it. I told Beth I loved her and she pushed me away. That was that.
I snorted looking at the snoring boy between us. “What do you think Jay would say if he heard this?”
“Honestly, I think he already knows,” Maika admitted.
I trusted Mai completely, so I knew she wasn’t saying she had told him. “Unobservant Jayden?”
“Give him some credit,” she said and kissed his chin, “it’s his best friend and his sister we’re talking about here.”
“But the way he talks, he doesn’t seem to know it.”
“Maybe that’s just because he knows you two will sabotage it before it even becomes a thing.” Even if it was true, it hurt to be reminded.
“Beth did that. I was ready to work everything out”
“She’s still so young, Cole. She’s still got some growing up to do. Give her time Cole.”
I didn’t feel like giving her time though. I felt like shaking sense into her actually. “Give her time… like you’re giving Jayden time?”
“We’re not talking about me.” When she said that I can see it—the hurt she was feeling over the boy she was lying on top of. Why were we even doing this to ourselves?
“You know what? You and I should just dump those two blinds and get together.”
Maika smiled. “And make them jealous and force them to come to terms with their feelings?”
I nodded. “Exactly”
For a second I actually thought about it, thought about making Lilibeth jealous to make her admit what her true feelings were. Not even by dating Maika. Just by moving on. All my life I had this certainty that Lilibeth Eaton was the love of my life and that I would marry her someday, but maybe I had been wrong all those years. Maybe I did love Lilibeth but she was just the first love and not the love of my life. Maybe this was like Romeo and Juliet and I was Romeo and Lilibeth was Rosaline, and I had yet to find my Juliet—dramatic ending aside.
Maybe what I needed was to just let go and move on.
I didn’t have to do what Beth had asked me to—to basically sleep around. Maybe I could just for once in my life allow myself to be available to the female gender and not shut out. Maybe I should say yes to drinks after class. Maybe I should keep the phone numbers instead of throwing them out.
Maybe I should move on from Lilibeth if she wasn’t going to ever admit her feelings. Maybe I should stop making myself miserable over someone that didn’t want me.
Mai’s voice brought me back to reality. “You forget they’re Eatons—they don’t do well with jealousy. They do stupid stuff when they’re jealous. You remember when you picked me instead of him to go to this school activity because you said he had to clean his fishtank before you took him out anywhere. He killed his goldfish. For a while my father kept saying that this was the first sign of a psychopath and that Jayden should seek psychological help right away.”
“But your dad also thought you were dying the first time you got your period.” I pointed out.
Maika groaned. “Thanks for the lovely reminder.”
“You’re welcome… Anyway, what about you? When are you going to tell the schmuck that you’re in love with him?” I poked Jay’s arm in emphasis. He only seemed to hold her tighter.
“I’m not in love with him.” I looked at her, giving her a “yeah, suuure” look. “No, I’m serious, I’m not in love with the idiot. He’s an unobservant self deprecating, prick and he’s obsessed with a god damn red head, by the way, please get rid of your cousin ASAP. I don’t care how, give her crabs or a lobotomy, seriously, I don’t care just get rid of her. Anyway, back to the immature tool. He’s completely oblivious to his surroundings, he’s got the attention span of a rock, he’s insecure and he’s driven by his hormones.
“Exactly. So, when are you going to tell him you love him?”
She sighed and tried to lift herself to escape from from Jay’s grasp but he wasn’t letting her go, and just held on to her tighter, this time pressing his lips to her hair. How ironic was it that he was doing this sleeping when Maika probably wanted him to be doing this awake. She rolled her eyes at me. I could almost hear her say “get a look at that moron.” Poor girl. Finally, she answered. “Never.”
“Jayden’s not Beth you know. Even if he didn’t like you, he’d probably go out with you not to make you sad.”
“That’s exactly why I’m never going to tell him I’m in love with him. I don’t want a pity boyfriend as much as I don’t want a pity fuck. I want him to want me so much he can’t even sleep at night. I want him to want me so much that he can’t even look me in the eyes anymore.
“You’re crazy.”
“Crazy but patient. It’ll happen someday. Okay, someday might be in like forty years after his second bad divorce, but I don’t care. I’ll wait for him as long as it takes.”
I looked at the finality in her eyes and I saw myself in them the me from twenty-four hours ago, if Beth hadn’t rejected me. I’d probably be serving her the same speech. We were in the same boat me and her. How stupid was it to fall in love with a Eaton, because as amazing as they were, they were useless when it came to romantic feelings.
They hurt you, those Eatons…
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And here it is, chapter 20! And you waited less than the last time! ;P
This chapter is dedicated to figureofwords because she's one of the winners of my "Write Your Ending" contest with her story Never Boy. Be sure to go check her out after this! :D
Thanks for being awesome fans, as always!