I don’t sleep at all that night, of course, the prospect of actually forming a completely physical relationship with Jesse running rampant through my mind. At some points during the night I found it nearly impossible not to run down to his room and make him go as far with me as I can, and at other points I was thanking God it was the middle of the night and I had every excuse in the book to stay huddled in bed. I thought about how good it feels to have him near me, on me, and how the exact same things feel absolutely terrifying.
By the time the sun starts rising and the light through our window increases, I feel groggy and exhausted and like getting out of bed will kill me. But then Carly’s alarm begins to blare and she’s up and moving around the room, getting ready for some family brunch she told me about a few days ago.
She leaves just a few minutes after she wakes up and I cuddle deeper into my bed, wishing that I could be one of those people able to go back to sleep after having been woken up. But as thirty minutes pass in complete consciousness, I once again realize that I haven’t been blessed with that gene.
So I reluctantly pull myself out of bed and decide to get ready for the day, not really knowing what I’m going to do since the boutique is closed on Sundays and I don’t have class. I don’t have much homework due this upcoming week, and while I could spend the day studying for an oral Spanish test quickly approaching, I’m too torn up about my conversation with Jesse last night to concentrate on much else.
I dress in simple denim capris and V-neck, but I spend more time on my makeup than normal purely because I have the time to. I straighten my blonde hair instead of putting it in loose waves like normal, and by the time I’m satisfied with my appearance it’s almost time for lunch.
I spend the majority of the afternoon walking around the mall, mainly window shopping and getting only things I figure I can’t live without. Even though I went to the mall just two days ago, there’s a total difference between going by myself and going with the just-a-bit-too-vibrant Jon. It’s relaxing, to the say the least, and by the time I’m walking back to the dorms later that evening, I’m feeling much better than I did when I woke up this morning.
Carly is in the middle of the hallway as soon as I walk in, looking like she’s just gotten back from her parents, so I immediately call out to her. “Carls!”
She turns around and, upon seeing me, smiles and says, “Fancy meeting you here.”
I roll my eyes at her and half-run to her position a few yards ahead of me, asking her, “You’re just getting back? Kind of a long brunch.”
“Tell me about it,” she says dryly, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. “I ended up getting roped into babysitting my baby cousin because all the older people wanted to go shopping at that new antique place without me.”
“Sucks for you,” I answer. We both take the final few steps to our suite door and then hightail it into our room, me shutting the door behind us. “Other than that, how was it? Was your grandma awful to you again?”
“Surprisingly no,” she answers, placing her purse onto her dresser and then quickly checking her appearance in her mirror. Her phone then beeps from inside of her pocket, and as she pulls it out and checks whatever just signaled the beep, I start pulling my cute new booties off of my feet.
A few seconds later she says, “She did make a few choice comments about how low-cut my shirt was, though.”
I look away from where I’d been picking at my chipped toe nail polish and curiously look at her shirt, becoming pretty confused when I see no distinct cleavage line or anything. Laughing, I ask, “Seriously?”
“Yep,” she answers grudgingly, “I swear to God the woman acts like I’m the spawn of Satan or something just because I don’t wear turtlenecks and shit.”
I chuckle at her dramatic words, knowing better than to think she’s over exaggerating. I’ve met her grandma before, and she practically glared at me the entire time I was there because I was wearing a tank top. The fact that it was mid-July did nothing to help sway her opinion of me towards the better.
But her talking about her family makes me remember the phone call from my mom yesterday morning. “Oh! Speaking of which, I…”
She randomly cuts me off, “Did you eat dinner?”
I hitch an eyebrow at her, feeling a bit miffed that she interrupted me just to talk about food. “Um…no?” I answer her, the hollowness in my stomach feeling just a bit more prominent at her reminder.
She grins, “You want to go get Whataburger or something?”
“Sure, I guess…” I answer, thinking she must be on her period or something to be willing to eat fast food other than Taco Bell. She’s more of a health nut than I am, but when she told me that it was because diabetes was very popular in her family, it kind of explained itself.
“Awesome!” she says excitedly, turning to look in her mirror and then wiping away some probably nonexistent flaw.
Figuring that my early guess of her being on her period was true, I just decide to go with it and hop off of my bed, and afterward slipping the shoes I just took off back on.
We’re out of the door literally a minute later, and as we’re walking down the hallway she turns and asks, “So what were you going to say earlier? Sorry I cut you off. I just got really excited about food.”
I give her yet another strange look, and answer, “My mom called me yesterday morning.”
She gives me a half-guilty, half-sympathetic look. “Oh no. What’d she want?”
Happy that she seems to be back to normal, I tell her, “Apparently I’m being forced to go home for Thanksgiving. She says that me not showing up for the past two years makes the media think my dad’s a bad dad. Or something like that.”
“The media?” she asks, wrinkling her nose in confusion. “I thought your dad was a judge?”
“He is,” I tell her, “But it’s a small town and since it’s only him and one other guy, everyone seems to think they’re town leaders or something. He’s on the news all of the time.”
“Wow,” she says disbelievingly, “So you’re like…famous, then?”
“Back home,” I answer deprecatingly, “In more ways than one.”
Quickly catching on to what I mean, she bites down on her lip and says, “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No I know!” I swiftly respond, not wanting her to feel bad. “But yeah, my dad being so ‘important’ and whatnot definitely didn’t help keep what had happened under wraps.”
“Well,” she says perkily, threading her arm through mine, “Just focus on school and stuff right now. Thanksgiving’s not for another two months or so; you have plenty of time to dread going.”
“You’re right,” I say as I push open the door leading to the parking lot. She’s always right. While I may want to stew on how angry I am with my mom for even making me go back there in the first place, all it’s going to do is make me even more miserable. I might as well try and make my misery fit into the smallest timespan imaginable.
Deciding to switch topics from such a depressing one, I look over at her and ask, “And hey, you’re driving, right? You know…since you’re the one so excited about…”
I’m once again cut off, but this time it isn’t by my best friend. Instead it’s by Fred, who’s just a little further down the parking lot. I let out a barely audible groan at the sight of him, especially when I see his brooding and gorgeous friend standing next to him.
The two of them walk over to us, and the whole time they do I’m focusing intently on not staring at Jesse, who looks hotter than normal with his dark hair poking out the bottom of a grey beanie. I haven’t talked to him since last night when he said he’d be willing to fuck me better, and I still feel just as undecided about it as I did when I gave him my vague answer.
Feeling extremely awkward, I decide to keep my mouth shut when they tell us hey, instead just giving them a small smile. Luckily Carly talks for me, as she asks them, “What are y’all up to?”
Fred says perkily, “Just about to go get some food. You guys?”
And suddenly it all makes sense.
The text Carly got just two minutes before insisting we go get food, her rushing us out of the dorms and not giving me anytime to fix my makeup, and the stupid smile on Fred’s face. This little meeting is definitely not be coincidence, and if I know Carly, then running into them in the parking lot isn’t the only thing that’s going to happen.
Swallowing back words of fury, I pry my arm away from Carly and instead cross them over my chest. Did she not get the hint yesterday when I yelled at her and told her not to interfere?
I watch in expected silence as Carly answers and says, “Well we’re about to go to Whataburger. Y’all want to come?”
Knowing what his answer’s going to be, I look down at the ground and concentrate on not looking as mad as I am. Even though Jesse probably had something to do with this and that’s extremely annoying, I still am not sure on if I want to say yes to his proposal or not. If he sees that I’m so easily irritated, he may want to withdraw.
“Sure! Who’s driving?”
Carly’s quick to offer up her car, which of course results in Fred staking his claim on shotgun. Not being able to help myself, I roll my eyes at this whole thing, and then trail behind them silently as we finish the trek to Carly’s black SUV.
I slide into the backseat once we’re there, ignoring how welcoming Jesse looks seated on the opposite side. He’s avoiding looking at me just as much as I am him, which, honestly, doesn’t ease my discomfort one little bit. Wanting tonight to end as quickly as possible, I shut the door beside me and then buckle in, not saying one word the entire time.
Carly brings the car to a roar and quickly switches on her favorite Top 40 station, gushing “I love this song!” when Miley Cyrus’ new hit comes on. I sigh, not at all happy with my best friend at the moment, and lean my head on the headrest behind me.
Her and Fred start singing along, the two of them happy as can be after their plan succeeded, while Jesse and I sit next to each other in complete and utter silence. It’s extremely uncomfortable, and I’m almost angry that he’s not making an attempt to talk to me. It’s not like he didn’t know about this little setup.
Whataburger is a good ten minutes away from campus, and the drive there literally feels like it lasts a lifetime. By the time we pull into the parking lot I’m aching to get inside and away from the tense backseat. Carly cuts the car’s engine and I quickly hop out, going ahead and walking into the building without caring that I’m leaving them behind me and being extremely rude.
There’s a good amount of people already standing in line, so I go and stand behind them, ignoring when I hear the rest of the people I came with coming inside. I can practically feel when Jesse’s the one to come and stand behind me, his presence lighting that almost familiar sensation in the bottom of my stomach. Once again I ignore it, faking concentration on the menu hung up on the wall.
I’m reading the list of drinks for the fifth time when I sense Jesse step in closer to me. My skin tingles as he leans in and says quietly, “I didn’t know about this either.”
I don’t look over my shoulder at him, knowing that either Carly or Fred will say something to me sooner or later about how differently I look at him than anyone else. And, well, because looking at him always makes the burning in my stomach even stronger.
So I say, “I find that hard to believe.”
“Really? Do I seem like the kind of guy to go along with setups this stupid?”
I can’t help but chuckle, thinking that he seems to be the guy to do a lot of things, but definitely not something as middle school as this. Feeling just a bit better knowing that this setup wasn’t three against one, I risk a look at him and feel my heartbeat pick up in my chest when our eyes make contact. I say, “Not really, no.”
He gives me a small smile, and then says, “So be mad at them all you want, but don’t be mad at me.”
A stupid grin stretches my lips, and out of the corner of my eye I see Carly wink at me. Still angry with her for putting me through this, and now for eavesdropping on her conversation, I ignore her attempts at playfulness and ask Jesse, “You think they’re going to try and do something like this again?”
“Honestly?” he asks, hitching an eyebrow.
I try not to think about how attractive he looks when he does this, and nod at him, not trusting myself to say anything. He answers, “Once a week maybe, probably more.”
I groan, knowing that he’s most likely right. While I’ll probably be able to keep Carly from initiating anything like this, I know how she gets when her mind is set on something. And for some reason, right now her mind is completely set on getting Jesse and I together.
It’s then my turn to order, and I take a step up, quickly rattling off the things I want and then fishing my wallet out of my purse. But before I can get it out, Jesse’s taken a step beside me and placed a twenty on the counter, telling the cashier what he wants.
Looking over at him in awe, I try to decide on if I’m angry that he’s taken it upon himself to pay for my food like this is some kind of date. But the smile he flashes at me as the cashier fends for his change pretty much makes being mad at him impossible.
Jesse grabs our number and cups when the cashier hands them over, and then the two of us make our way over to the drink machine. Jesse’s fingers lightly brush over mine as he hands me my empty cup, and once again I find myself having to push down the rising feelings of attraction for the guy.
After I fill my cup up with water, I head over and find a table for the four of us, plopping down onto one side of the booth and praying the Jesse will sit across from me and not beside me. He, of course, doesn’t, instead sliding in right next to me and leaving little space between us.
The kid really isn’t making this easy for me.
The four of us talk about school for pretty much the entirety of the time we’re there, Carly and Fred pretty much dominating the conversation. I’m still a bit too angry about the fact that I’ve been forced to come here to talk to the two of them, and I’m starting to get the feeling that Jesse isn’t the biggest talker in the world.
By the time we’re all done eating I’ve loosened up a little bit, enough to not keep myself frozen as far from Jesse as possible, but not enough to not want to go back to the dorms. Fred offers the idea of going to do something after this, but I quickly say that I have too much homework due tomorrow to even think about staying out late. This is a complete lie, of course, but no one needs to know that.
On the drive back Fred asks me, “Have you started studying for the Spanish test next week?”
Knowing that he’s talking about the oral test I’ve been dreading ever since it was announced, I say, “Not even a little bit. You?”
“You’re funny,” he answers just as dryly, “But…you do know it’s a partner exam, right?”
“Yeah,” I respond, knowing where he’s about to go with this. “Why? Do you want to be partners?”
“Since you brought it up,” he says, looking over the back of his seat at me and grinning, “Sure!”
Rolling my eyes at him, I say, “You’re mental.”
“No shit,” Jesse says sarcastically beside me, and I turn to the side to look at him and grin.
He smiles right on back at me, one corner of his mouth going ever-so-slightly higher than the other, and once again I’m struck at how damn good-looking he is. And how nice, and how funny, and how seems to have no issues with talking to me even though he seems to be extremely quiet around other people.
It scares the ever-loving shit out of me.
Quickly turning away from him so I don’t do something stupid, I let out a heady breath and lean against the back of my seat. I wish I didn’t have to make this so complicated, and that I could do the normal thing and act on intimate feelings. But I’m me, and I can’t.
And that freaking sucks.
----
“Hello?” I ask dumbly, trying my hardest to blink away the sleep in my eye. I don’t exactly know what time it is, but judging by the muted sunlight filtering into our room, it’s sometime in the late afternoon.
I’d been up so late last night, tossing and turning about my whole Jesse dilemma, and by the time I’d had to wake up early for Spanish class, I’d gotten maybe an entire hour of solid shuteye. So I did something I’ve never done before, and called into work sick. I didn’t even feel the least bit guilty about it, and had promptly curled into my covers and conked out.
And this phone call is the first human interaction I’ve had since before eight thirty this morning.
“Mackie, hey! It’s Fred. Carls gave me your number, I hope that’s cool.” He calls her Carls now?
“Oh um, hey…what’s up?” I swear to all that is holy that if this is about hooking me up with Jesse again, I’m going to kill him. I could still be sleeping right now, instead of listening to his obnoxiously energetic voice in my ear.
“Do you want to study for Spanish tonight? I know you work, and I know I work, and I know how hard it’ll be for us to have mutual time off. But right now we do, so we might as well make the most of it, right?”
I silently groan. Studying for Spanish is one of the last things I want to do right now, especially with the guy who is half responsible for my sleep-deprivation last night. But I know it’s the smart thing to do, especially because I don’t want to fail this semester. And I have wasted the entire day in bed, so I might as well do something productive. Right?
“Fine,” I answer unhappily, “When and where?”
“My apartment okay? I’d say your room, but the RA kind of hates me ‘cause I wake her up a lot. And because I fucked her and never called her.”
I roll my eyes, not at all wanting to know the gory details of his love life. “Fred, I really didn’t need to know that.”
He laughs, “Come on! I can get snacks and everything. It’ll be like a little party.”
“Except for the fact that we’re studying the most heinous language in the history of languages.”
“Don’t be such a downer,” he scolds, “If I can find a way to be happy about this, then so can you.”
I shake my head to myself, wondering how on earth someone can be so energetic all of the time. Sure I can be pretty peppy myself, but never this bad. I hope not, at least. “Whatever you say, Fred. What time?”
“An hour okay? I’m leaving work soon, and I should definitely be home by then.”
“Okay,” I respond, thinking that gives me a good amount of time to fix myself up. “And where’s your apartment again? I don’t really remember.”
“Jesse was that good, eh?”
“Don’t even!” I reprimand angrily, not at all pleased that we couldn’t go through one conversation without him bringing his best friend up. “I’m serious. And not tonight, either.”
“Fine,” he sighs heavily, as if he’s not at all happy with the idea. “But it’s literally across the street from the main entrance sign. You know those apartments, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m the one directly in the middle, apartment 5C. The door’s unlocked.”
“Okay,” I tell him, thinking that sounds easy enough. “I’ll see you in an hour then.”
It takes me a while after we hang up to actually crawl out of bed, but I eventually make myself just because I don’t want to be seen walking around campus with no makeup on. Due to the fact that my roommate sometimes likes to bring our friends over with no warning, I washed my face before my nap, just because I knew that my eyes had a tendency to leak when I was overly tired. And a nude face is better than one streaked with black.
So I decide to blare some of my favorite going out music to wake myself up, and then take a good thirty minutes making myself look presentable. I run a curling iron through my hair to put in some pretty disheveled waves, and pair it with a casual smoky eye and some clear lip balm that makes my lips shine. Once I’m done I then quickly apply some Victoria’s Secret perfume to the inside of my wrists.
I then grab all of my things for Spanish, making sure to include my MacBook so that we can use Google Translate, and then head out. As I’m heading out of my bedroom a group of guys are emerging from the suite across the hall, and I see one of the taller guys lay eyes on me, his eyes slowly perusing my body while the corner of his mouth turns upward.
It’s absolutely disgusting, and it puts a nervous energy in my gut, so I quickly look away and then hurry down the remainder of the hall. I hear the group of guys chuckling to themselves, probably something about me, which makes me walk even faster. “Fucking pervs,” I curse once I’m in my car, my previous good mood about looking cute completely vanishing.
It only takes me about five minutes or so to pull into the parking lot across the street from the ancient-looking apartment complex. The minute I see it, memories of over two weeks ago start to churn through my mind, and I realize with a jolt that this is where it all happened. This is where I slept with Jesse.
“Shit,” I groan, yanking my things out of the car and then slinging it over my shoulder. This is going to be awful.
I walk up the crumbling stone walkway to the front door, and I see the flaking gold plate labeling the middle door as 5C. Knowing I’m in the right place I push the door in, and then, seeing that the bottom floor only has a dark hallway leading to what appears to be a garage door, I immediately head up the narrow stairs.
And once I’m up, I sincerely wish I hadn’t.
Jesse’s sprawled out on the couch just feet away from the landing flipping through the pages of a textbook. His eyes immediately find mine and then widen, my mouth dropping open and then quickly snapping shut.
Dammit Fred.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him, my voice touched with frustration. So not only am I trapped in the apartment where he and I had sex, but now he’s here as well. This is going to be even more miserable than I imagined.
Looking pretty confused himself, he says, “I come here all the time to study. Baseball player roommate, remember?”
“Fred didn’t tell me you’d be here,” I point out, but even I already know why he did. He wanted to set us up once again, but this time it’s so different than last time. This time it’s practically cruel.
His eyes flash dark, and when he says, “I can leave if you want,” I realize how rude I’m being to him. Obviously he was as in the dark about this as I was, and I’m taking it out on him.
I see him start to sit up on the sofa so I quickly shake my head and say, “No! No, it’s fine. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude, I just…”
Already halfway sitting up, he pushes himself the rest of the way and then leans his back against the tattered fabric of the black futon. It looks surprisingly comfortable, and before I can second-guess myself, I move from my awkward position standing at the landing of the stares and go to sit next to him.
Jesse asks me quietly, “Why are you here?”
Thankful that he found words before I did, I tell him, “Spanish project. The one he asked about last night.”
We’re both silent for a moment, and as neither of us talk I let my eyes drift over the rest of the apartment. It looks familiar, but the fuzzy kind of familiar. I try not to focus too hard on remembering things from that night, but even though I try as hard as I can, blurry pictures still manage to creep into my mind.
Him pushing me against the wall just feet from where we’re sitting, me tossing his shirt on the TV, and the door leading to the room where the deed was done. It leaves a weird and unsettling feeling in my stomach, one that has me somewhat wishing I could go back to that night. Now that I’m here, in this cliché and cluttered student apartment, I vaguely remember the feeling of normalness I’d had that night. I’d felt so content with myself because I’d finally done something that could be categorized as a normal college experience.
It’d been fun, I remember, remembering our giggles and hushed whispers to each other as we’d stumbled around the apartment, pinning each other against every surface imaginable. I’d felt like someone so much happier than myself, and as much as I don’t want to admit, I’d do anything to be that girl again.
Breaking the silence, I feel Jesse’s eyes turn to me as he says, “Look, if this is too awkward for you, then…”
“No,” I say before I can even stop myself, turning to look at him and feeling my breath stop in my throat when I see how close he is to me. I don’t know why I tell him that, why I tell it in the way I do, all breathy and needy and completely unlike me, but I can tell by the way his pupils dilate that our proximity and my words have the same effect on him as they do me. “No…it’s okay.”
This is practically impossible, having to sit here with him right next to me; his hair messy and curly and soft looking, and his dark eyes shining. How is a girl just supposed to sit here and be unaffected by him? Even I, the most hormone-desensitized girl there is, am feeling jittery and warm.
He breaks the heated silence, his piercing gaze unwavering, and says simply, “You never answered me.”
I automatically know what he’s talking about, that he wants my answer to his “I’m game if you are” comment, and right here, right now, I want nothing more than to say “hell yes”. Instead, I say, “I still don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.” He says it like it’d be so easy for me to agree this, when easy doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’d be putting myself in such a vulnerable state and I don’t know if I can do that, not with him.
“I don’t…” humiliatingly enough, I feel tears start to burn at the back of my throat. I want so much to just be normal and to say yes and to kiss him like I know he wants me to, but there’s something in my head that is so powerful and so scared that is keeping me from doing so. “I don’t know if I can, Jesse.”
His eyes flash with something before his hand moves to my waist, his fingertips lightly grabbing at the bottom hem of my shirt. I feel his fingers play with the material as he says, “If you’re worried about…about this being nothing to me, you’re wrong. I actually like you Mack, and I’m willing to…”
A ghost of a smile appears on my lips as I cut him off, “You’ve never said my name before. Not that I remember, at least.”
A wicked grin touches his lips as he says, “I said it a lot of times right here in this apartment. Yelled it sometimes too. On this couch.”
I giggle, playfully reaching up and swatting him across his shoulder. Sometimes I forget that this beautiful guy is a real person with real emotions and traits, not that here solely to torment me with what I can never be. “Shut up,” I scold him, loving how bright and crooked his smile is.
His grin stretches further before I feel his fingers lightly skirt up the bottom of my shirt, running over the bare skin of my waist. My giggles immediately cease, and for a second I can’t tell if I’m terrified or if I’m excited. I don’t have much time to think on it, though, because he says, “But I’m serious here, okay? Let’s just try it out.”
“Jesse, I…I don’t know…” I say, feeling almost ridiculous for being so pathetic about all of this, but before I can say anything to him, we both hear the door downstairs open. Jesse moves away from me, giving me a slight smile before leaning back against the futon, and then I hear Fred come in behind me.
“What’s up peoples?” he asks energetically, and when I don’t have the urge to roll my eyes, I realize that I’m no longer mad at him. While I should be mad, because this whole thing could have just caused even more awkwardness between Jesse and I, I’m not. I just can’t bring myself to be.
“Hey Fred,” I greet somewhat amicably, turning away from Jesse and leaning against the futon as well. “You’re late.”
He looks quickly between Jesse and I, and even though he looks a bit disappointed that we don’t look like we’ve been making out, he still looks extremely pleased with himself. A silly grin sweeps his lips before he says, “And you don’t seem to care.”
Jesse says, “Do something like this again, dude, and your ass is grass."
“Whatever,” the strawberry-blonde says happily, before holding up the plastic bags I hadn’t even realized were in his hands. He then says, “I got snacks!”