I had never been a morning person, and that morning was no different. But the surface underneath me felt different, and waking up utterly confused wasn't the best thing for me.
I sure was surprised when I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling to my bedroom. I hadn’t woken up in that room in what felt like forever, so what was I doing in there now?
I turned to my left to see Eli sleeping next to me, and I almost jumped off the bed in complete and utter shock. What the hell was I doing in bed with him?
This sure woke me up...
I then remembered what had happened the night before, which made me sigh a huge sigh of relief. We hadn’t had sex; we had only made out before falling asleep next to each other in my bed.
I couldn’t help but just stare at him as he continued to breathe calmly beside me. I remembered how angry and menacing he had looked when I had first met him, and I never thought that I’d ever fall in love with someone like him. I thought that I’d love Jack forever, but I guessed that I was wrong.
“Are you going to just keep staring at me or are you going to kiss me?” Eli suddenly asked, and this time I almost let out a shout of surprise. I jumped back, but he wrapped his arm around my waist and quickly pulling me toward him before I could fall off the bed.
“I’m… I’m going to kiss you,” I gulped, obviously not very sure of myself.
Eli smirked. “Are you, now?”
I actually didn’t know. I felt so insecure at that moment that I thought it would be way too embarrassing for me to kiss him while we were both lying in bed, his arms wrapped around me tightly.
When I didn’t lean forward to kiss him, Eli’s smirk only grew like it always did. I gulped again, not knowing why I was suddenly so embarrassed. This wasn’t like me. I knew that, and Eli knew that too. I couldn’t even remember if I had ever acted this way in front of Jack before.
He leaned forward now, only pecking my lips for a few seconds, which wasn’t nearly enough for me. When he pulled away and saw the pouting look on my face, he let out a laugh, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I wanted more than just a stupid peck.
So I leaned forward, placing my lips on his like a real kiss should have been. He reacted immediately, rolling us over so I was now on top of him and he was under me, our tongues fighting for dominance just like they had the night before.
When the door opened, Eli and I immediately pulled away from each other, but it was too late. Whoever was at the door had already seen us.
Simon stared at us, his eyes wide as he looked from Eli to me. All I did was sit there, having absolutely no idea what I was supposed to say to him.
“Uh,” Simon started, and I was really hoping that he would just turn around and walk right out of the room. “Sorry if I, uh, interrupted something…”
“No, no! You didn’t interrupt anything!” I pretty much lied, because I was sure I’d be making out with Eli if he wasn’t standing there at that moment.
Simon didn’t look like he believed me. “So why are you two in the same bed then?”
“No, Simon, we didn’t do anything!” I nearly shouted, even though that was kind of a lie. “Okay, we just didn’t have sex!”
Simon looked annoyed and jealous, but I was expecting as much from a guy who was supposedly in love with me. What I found even more surprising was why he was even in my room at that moment, even if we had made up and became friends again.
“We should get ready for school now,” I gulped, scooting away from Eli and off the bed. “My clothes are downstairs, so I’ll just go down there…”
“I’m not going to school today,” Eli informed me once I was almost out the door.
My eyebrows furrowed at him. “Why?”
He merely shrugged. “I just don’t feel like it.”
Something wasn’t right with him, and it bothered me a little. But he was a Lost Boy, which meant he could get away with skipping school as if it was no big deal at all. No one would even question his absence, probably...
So I asked no questions as Simon and I left the room so I could hurriedly change and go to school. Looking at the clock, I knew that there was no way we were going to be able to get to school in time, so there was no point in going as fast as possible.
But still, we pretty much burst in through the front doors of the school, only to see an empty hallway since everyone else was in class. Neither Simon nor I were a Lost Boy, so I didn’t know if we were going to be able to pull of being late or not. Everyone did know that I was close to the Lost Boys though, so that might give me a pass…
“I still can’t believe you hooked up with Eli,” Simon said as we walked into the empty halls. "I always thought you hated that guy. I remember you telling me that you couldn't stand him."
“We didn’t hook up,” I snapped, even though I wasn’t so sure if I was telling the truth. “We just made out, Simon. That’s all. And I used to not be able to stand him, but he's changed. People can change.”
“So, are you guys a couple now or something?” he asked, and I still couldn’t help but notice that he was totally jealous. It sure was going to take a while until things finally went back to normal to normal between Simon and me.
All I could do was blink at first, because I honestly didn’t even know the answer to that. Were Eli and I a couple after what we had done the night before? All we had done was make out, and it wasn’t like either of us had told the other that we loved, or even liked, them. It wasn’t like it had been with Jack, where we had both told each other we loved one another before we ever did anything big.
“I don’t know,” I answered simply now with a shrug. “We better get to class, Simon. We’re already as late as it is.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“You didn’t have to come pick me up, you know.”
Simon clutched onto my arm before I could walk too far away. “So… what about Jack?”
He just had to bring everything up, didn’t he? I honestly didn’t even want to think about Jack right then, because I didn’t know if we were friends or not. He said that he still loved me, but he wasn’t exactly the most believable person to me right then. So I didn’t know exactly how I felt about Jack right then.
"No way. You couldn't..." Simon’s eyes widened when I didn’t answer him right away. “Do you still love Jack after everything he did to you?”
“No!” I shouted, not wanting anyone to think that I was in love with Jack anymore. Sure, I loved him still, but just not like that… “I love Eli!”
I clamped my mouth shut at this, not even meaning to say it. I looked around quickly, hoping that no one was somehow around to hear us, and luckily the halls appeared empty. So I was safe for the moment.
“You… love Eli?” Simon asked, and he looked more shocked than jealous.
“I love him,” I admitted now, feeling weird about saying it out loud. “I really do. I didn’t think I would ever be able to fall in love with someone again after Jack, but I was wrong. Eli makes me feel really happy, Simon. He didn’t at first, but he changed. I think he might really like me back.”
He shrugged, obviously not wanting to admit that I could be right. “Maybe.”
I made a face at him. “I know you’re jealous and all, but can you at least try to act happy for me? I already told you that I was sorry that I don’t love you back! You know, there are plenty of girls out there that could love you even more than I ever could!”
“It’s not that,” he shook his head, and I gave him a look that told him I didn’t believe him. “Okay, it’s kind of that, but not entirely. I’m just worried that you’re going to get hurt again, Ivy. I’m really worried that he’s not going to be able to make you happy. That's what I was worried about with Jack, and look where that ended up. I’ve already accepted the fact that you don’t love me back, so I'm going to have to just suck it up and move on.”
I realized then that Simon was just being what he always had been: a great best friend that I wouldn’t have been able to live without. I was so lucky to have him by my side, even when he had feelings for me I didn’t reciprocate.
“You know who you should go out with, Simon?” I asked now, trying to get the subject off me as I tried to play matchmaker. “You should date May.”
“May?” he asked me, his eyes going wide with shock. “May Ricketts? The May Ricketts? Jack’s sister? The one that directed the play?”
I laughed at his reaction. “Yeah, her.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, sure. If I don’t have a chance with you, there’s no way in hell I have a chance with one of the most famous young actresses of right now.”
“Hey,” I frowned, even though I didn’t know if what he had said was an insult to me or not.
“You know what I mean, Ivy.”
“Well, she actually likes you!” I announced, not knowing if May would be okay with me telling him this, but I wasn’t really thinking of that at that moment. “She told me so when they casted the play. So she’s liked you for a while, Simon.”
He didn’t look like he believed me, but I didn’t really blame him. May Ricketts was one of the most famous actresses in the world right then, and I was sure a lot of guys would love to be with her. And yet, she liked Simon. Not that he was unattractive or anything… but still.
“We’re talking about you loving Eli here, not about me or May,” he muttered now, and I didn’t know if he had just ignored what I had said or if he was going to think about it. “Can we just go to class now? Obviously both of us don’t want to have this conversation anyway.”
I nodded in agreement, and we both hurried to our class so we wouldn’t be even later than we already were. But little did we know that a very angry and jealous Courtney McGuire was watching and listening in to everything that we had to say. And she was not about to let me get away with stealing her guy.
After school was over with, I hurried to gather my things from my locker so I could get home as quickly as possible. I wanted to talk to Eli about why he hadn’t come to school, because no one would answer me when I asked them if they knew anything. So I knew that something was up, and it was definitely something important.
“Hey,” a voice said from behind me as I shut my locker, and it turned to see Tyler grinning at me.
“Hey!” I greeted back, happy to see him. “How are things with you and Henry?”
“Things are good,” he nodded, and we headed down the hall toward the exit together. “But Jack and Chris told me that you’ve been bugging them all day about why Eli isn’t here. I guess you’re pretty confused, huh?”
I made a face at him. “Yeah, I am. Can you tell me why he’s not here?”
Tyler shook his head. “I think Eli should be the one to tell you that.”
And that was what everyone had pretty much been saying to me all day. No one would tell me why Eli wasn’t at school, and it was really starting to bug me.
“Come on, Chloe!” I suddenly heard, and I looked over in the direction of Chris’s locker to see that Chloe was standing there in front of him. “Just one little kiss and I’ll give you your earphones back!”
So yesterday it had been her backpack, and now it was her earphones. That boy sure wouldn’t quit…
“Damn it, Chris! Just leave me alone!” Chloe shouted, looking like she was about to wring his neck, and I didn’t blame her. I really did feel bad that she liked a guy that was such a jerk to her. “I’m tired of you making fun of me all the time!”
“I’ll leave you alone if you give me a kiss,” Chris grinned, and I almost rolled my eyes at him. Was he seriously still trying to get a kiss out of her? I didn’t know if he actually really liked her or just really liked annoying her about how she had a crush on him…
“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not going to kiss you?” Chloe snapped, her eyes narrowing at the brunette boy that stood before her. “So just leave me alone and go away! I’m so sick of you teasing me for liking you a year ago! I know you’ve never liked me back, so just shut up about it!”
“Whoever said I didn’t like you back?”
My jaw dropped, which caused Tyler to reach over and close it for me. But he looked surprised as well, since Chris had never done anything to hint that he had a crush on Chloe, besides the fact that he would tease her whenever he possibly could.
“What?” Chloe blinked, having absolutely no comeback for this.
Chris rolled his eyes at her. “I’m saying that I like you back, dummy.”
Chloe looked like she had no idea what to do, but I definitely didn’t blame her. Tyler and I said absolutely nothing at all, because I was sure this conversation would have gotten a lot more awkward if either Tyler or I spoke.
“But… if you liked me back, why didn’t you tell me when Jack told you I liked you?” she asked, swallowing after she noticed how scratchy her voice sounded.
Chris shrugged. “I didn’t like you at first, but after a while I started to really like you. But I thought that you were over me, so all I did was make fun of you to get your attention again.”
“You idiot,” Chloe sniffed, and I actually thought she was going to start crying. “Don’t you know that guys who act like complete bastards to the girl never get her in the end?”
“That’s not true,” Chris grinned, but I didn’t really know if I agreed with him or Chloe, after everything that was happening with Eli… “I read a story once where a guy was a total dick to this girl for nearly four years even though he was really in love with her. They ended up together even though they went through a lot of other crap, too. I think it was a true story. I think I heard it on the news.”
“Oh, shut up,” Chloe cried, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him towards her lips now.
Tyler and I just stood there in shock with our jaws dropped as we watched them continue lock lips. Well, this was definitely not something we were expecting.
Tyler and I glanced at each other, neither of us knowing what to do or say. Considering the fact that we thought they were going to kill each other, having them make out in front of us was definitely something that we didn’t know how to react to.
“Weren’t you two about to kill each other yesterday over a backpack?” I nearly shouted, causing the two of them to pull away from each other immediately. “Now you guys are trying to swallow each other’s faces!”
“Just go home and make out with Eli, another guy who was a jackass to the girl he really likes,” Chloe stuck out her tongue at me before turning back to Chris. My cheeks were red, but all I did was turn toward the exit of the school and quickly make my escape, barely even saying goodbye to Tyler as I did so.
“It took you long enough,” Cassidy growled once I finally got into the car. “Seriously! I thought you were never going to come out!”
I shrugged, yet said nothing to her because I wasn’t in the mood. Honestly, I wasn’t ever in the mod to deal with her.
“It seems you made Eli sick,” she started when I didn’t reply to her, and this caused me to finally turned toward her in complete confusion. She rolled her eyes when she saw that I didn’t know what she was talking about, as if I was the dumb one out of the two of us. “You and Eli did who knows what last night and now he’s home sick.”
“How… how do you know about Eli and me?” I nearly shrieked, upset because now Claudia knew, which meant my dad was going to know soon. They didn’t have a problem with me dating Jack, but Jack didn’t live in the same house as me…
“When I didn’t see you asleep on the couch this morning, I checked your room,” Cassidy shrugged, as if it was no big deal that she had spied on us. “I saw the both of you sleeping in the bed. Courtney was definitely not happy when I told her.”
“Well, we didn’t do anything,” I excused, even though I knew she wasn’t going to believe me.
I heard Claudia snort from the front seat. “Yeah, sure.”
Well, I should have been expecting a very stern lecture from my father soon. I was definitely looking forward to that…
It was silent for the rest of the drive, which I was perfectly fine with. They dropped me off in the driveway at home before leaving to go shopping, like they almost always did. This only made me realize that I was going to have to be all alone with Eli, since my dad was at work.
Much to my surprise, he was on the couch instead of in my room. He didn’t look sick at all, so I knew that that wasn’t the reason he had skipped school. So that meant that there was a reason that he didn’t go…
“Hey,” he greeted when he saw me, a kind of smile that I hadn’t ever seen before on his face.
“Hey,” I greeted back, since I had nothing else I could have said to him.
“Was school okay?” he asked as I dropped my backpack onto the floor. “I didn’t miss anything too big, did I?”
“No,” I answered with a shake of my head.
Eli nodded, flipping to another channel. “That’s good.”
Something was really off about him, and I just didn’t know what. He hadn’t ever acted like this before, and it made me wonder if he was now trying to avoid me after what he had done. Was he trying to teach me a lesson for avoiding him or was it because of something else?
“So, are you going to tell me why you didn’t go to school today?” I asked, sitting down on the couch beside him now. “I could tell that there’s a reason, and it’s not because you’re sick. Everyone would avoid the answer when I asked them, too. Are you avoiding me?”
Eli turned away from the TV and toward me quickly. “No, I’m not avoiding you!”
“Then why didn’t you come to school?” I demanded, my eyebrows furrowing at him now.
He looked away from me, as if he didn’t want to say. But I didn’t back down, and I was already expecting the worst. I was ready for him to say that he really didn’t like me at all and he was only made out with me because he could. I was expecting him to break my heart just like Jack did, and I didn’t know what I’d do after that.
“… Amelia died today a year ago.”
“Eli,” I gasped, not believing that I had been so rude about something like this. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”
“I know, but still… I feel horrible,” I swallowed, not believing I had acted so selfishly when it came to something like this.
“It didn’t really help that yesterday was our birthday either.”
“Your birthday was yesterday?” I gasped, not believing what I had just heard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were too busy avoiding me,” he shrugged, and I knew he was trying not to make me feel bad, but it was definitely not working. “And then making out with me after that.”
I still couldn’t help but feel guilty. If I had known that it had been his birthday the day before, I never would have avoided him, even if I didn’t know how I felt about him. And it had to have been horrible to have his twin sister die the day after their birthday…
“No one even told me that it was your birthday,” I told him now, a little ticked off at Jack and Chloe for not telling me something this important. “Birthdays are a big deal, Eli! You were born yesterday sixteen years ago!”
He shrugged, but I was expecting as much. “It’s not that big of a deal to me, especially after what happened last year.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, not knowing if there was really anything else I could say to him. “You must feel awful right now. I wish there was something that I could do to make you feel better.”
There was a sparkle in his eye as he said, “I think there is something you could do.”
He clutched onto my wrist, pulling me forward so I was now straddling his waist. We just stared at each other for a few moments, neither of us doing or saying anything, and yet I got a feeling that I hadn’t ever gotten with Jack before. I didn’t know what it was, but it made me want to get even closer to Eli.
He leaned forward, only pressing his lips to mine for a few seconds. After that, he pulled away from me and we just stared at each other again. But after this, he shifted me over so I was now sitting on the couch again, and he pressed his face into my neck as he tightened his arms around my waist.
“There’s one thing that’s good about this whole thing,” he murmured into my neck now, and the vibrations from his voice made it tickle.
“And what is that?” I whispered, stroking his hair as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Before Amelia died, our parents were going to take us out of Neverland because they thought the tuition was too much money for the both of us and they were donating too much money,” he started, and I stayed silent as I waited for him to continue. “Even though we have all the money in the world, they thought that they were paying too much. So after our freshman year, they were going to take us out and put us in some other cheaper private school.”
I bit the inside of my lip, stopping myself from saying that I was glad that he hadn’t left. I didn’t know if he wanted me to say anything or not, so I was just going to be safe and say nothing for the time being.
“But then Amelia died, and my parents saw that the only thing that was keeping me going were my friends. So they let me stay at Neverland, since it was cheaper now that there was only one kid for them to pay for. And I’m glad that they let me stay at Neverland Academy, because if they hadn’t…” Eli removed his face from my neck now, looking up at me with deep eyes. “If they hadn’t let me stay, I never would have met you.”
“Eli…”
“Shh,” he shushed, leaning in and pressing his lips to mine for only a few moments. “Just hold me. Please.”
And I did as he asked, letting him press his face into my neck again as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. I held him tightly, just as tight as he held me, and I never wanted to let go of him. I had never seen a vulnerable side of Eli Hunter before right then, and it made me wonder if this was how he was feeling on the inside.
Maybe he wasn’t such a big, bad wolf after all.
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Whose team were you on originally, and whose team are you on now? And it could be any of the boys, not just Jack and Eli. xD
I'm on Team Jack, even though I shouldn't be. I think it's just because I love villains way too much... (Thich would explain why I was originally on Team Eli... >.>)
This story only has seven chapters left! And it's nearly been a year. O_O Holy crap.
Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :D