Riley Green
I'd walked off the dance floor leaving Ian behind, hopefully in a state of shock and utter confusion. What he couldn't see was the way I looked after leaving him, after he'd kissed me. I was a mess, a complete mess. Boys don't just kiss me softly and sweetly like Ian did, he treated me like I was anyone but Riley Green. I had paced back and forth outside, practically hyperventilating from lack of air, probably because he took all of it away when he'd kissed me.
I'd done everything that week to get him out of my head, everything I could to focus on anything but kissing Ian. All I could do was think about his lips and his tall frame and how this boy was tearing me apart when I was supposed to destroy him. His mind should have been fully occupied by the thought of me but it seemed to be the other way around.
I simply couldn't ignore the way Ian had made me feel.
So I had to think, how could I fix this? How could I turn the tables so that I was on top again? I don't think he even knew what he'd done to me, he had no idea what I was feeling because of him. I had no romantic interest in him, I didn't like him, he had just left me utterly confused. There had to be something to throw him overboard and keep me in control.
I had to do something.
I've known Ian Walker for three weeks, and he was making me go mad. I haven't talked to him since I walked away at the club, and today I would face him. Fingers crossed that I could pull myself together.
I bit down on my lip as I walked into the recreation room. Ian was already sitting down amongst the group and Kathy had just begun to talk.
"Oh! Riley, please take a seat we've just begun. You did miss the quote though, the consequences of coming late." I rolled my eyes and took a seat between two people whose names I hadn't bothered to learn.
We marked progress and I was able to add a tally mark this week, Ian took one off. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. When Kathy started into the lesson, I couldn't even try and pretend I was paying attention, because I wasn't. I had a target and he was sitting across from me with arms behind his head like he couldn't care any less about me.
Even though he tried to hide it, I caught him glancing at me occasionally. Each time he would lick his lips and run his fingers through his hair. His lips, they were so perfect. Even if I didn't like him I couldn't just ignore the fact that he had the most amazing lips I'd ever seen on a person, that was something worth acknowledging.
The session was dragged out, I couldn't focus on a single thing. Nothing but Ian. At the very end, as I had suspected since Kathy had been giving me dirty looks for not paying attention, I was called on.
"Alright, I want someone to share an experience that was supposedly bad, but in the end it made you a better person." No one raised their hand and Kathy searched the room for someone to call on. She made eye contact with me and I knew I was screwed.
Shit.
"Riley!" I rolled my eyes, making sure she could see, and crossed my arms over my chest to think.
An experience that was bad, but in the end it made me a good person...
That's the issue, I thought, I'm not a good person.
"I don't know.." I mumbled and trailed off. Kathy continued to stare at me, along with the rest of the group. It was clear that I was going to have to answer.
"Fine," I sighed, "When I was like, 15 I was dating this guy, I thought I was totally in love with him, and then I found out he was cheating on me. So of course I was devastated and wrecked, I mean like I just cried for days and thought it was the end of my world completely, nothing could've been worse. But then I was talking to this girl from my class and it turns out that he'd had this reputation for hitting girls, like abusively. So I was kind of glad he cheated on me and we broke up because, I don't know, it made me think like, the universe was trying to tell me something. And I just was thinking how the universe is unpredictable and it was odd how it had helped me out because I'm such an awful person. I'm the kind of person who would've deserved a boyfriend like that, we deserved each other because we were both miserable low-lives. Just goes to show that good things can happen to bad people. So I guess that made me feel a lot better whenever everything was going to shit."
I looked at Kathy, who looked as confused and shocked as everyone else in the room. I sighed and realized I was going to have to explain further.
"So, it didn't exactly make me a better person, but I don't think it really matters in the end who was perceived as better than someone else. I think that it was just chance that something good happened to me because I was a bad person, and that's what's important, getting the best you can out of life despite your purity, innocence, or lack of."
Everyone stared back at me with the same blank expression. I sunk in my chair as Kathy moved on from the topic and closed the session.
When we left I walked out to the curb like I had every past Saturday for the last four weeks and met Ian. He handed me a cigarette and sat, I followed his action and sat down next to him, making sure our knees were touching. I wasn't thinking about the kiss anymore, I was only thinking about what was happening right now.
"Ian what are you doing tonight?" His face seemed to pale at the familiar question that reminded us both of what had happened the last time.
"Nothing, why?" His voice was now dry, and he sounded nervous. Perfect.
"Come over to my place, at 8, and wear something warm, alright? I'll text you the address." I didn't give him a moment to answer before Natalie pulled up and I got into the passenger seat.
When Ian arrived I would be lying if I said I didn't think about kissing him again thanks to how he looked. His hair was sitting messily atop his head and he was wearing darks jeans and a gray pullover sweatshirt. He had on a pair of thick glasses that I'd never seen him wear before, but I recognized them from his senior yearbook picture. They fit his face perfectly, and I caught myself letting my eyes linger on them for a bit too long.
"Hey." He greeted me awkwardly, scratching the back of his head and smiling down at me, the height difference was significantly noticeable when we stood close enough.
"Hi." I smiled back genuinely, and led him inside my apartment. "Let me just grab the wine and we'll go." He looked at me puzzled.
"Wine? What for? Where are we going? I mean, normally I wouldn't question wine, but.." I laughed and bent down to get the bottle of red wine out of my cabinet.
"Just trust me Ian." He shrugged and followed me out the door. I led us to the stairs of the building and looked around to make sure no one was watching because I'd gotten in trouble for this before. I pushed the door open and locked it behind us, to make sure no one could follow us. Ian trailed behind me up the several flights of stairs, all the while asking me questions about where we were going and whether or not we were allowed to be doing this. I reassured him and dragged him up the last few steps before reaching the door to the roof.
"Ian close your eyes." I bit my lip and placed my hand on the handle of the door.
"Okay Riley Green, I'm trusting you." He sighed and placed his hand over his eyes. I opened the door and led him outside, to the edge of the roof overlooking the town. It wasn't a big city view, but it was nice, and you could see the stars.
"Okay open!" He took his hand down and I waited for him to speak.
"Wow..." He breathed.
"S'nice huh?" He nodded and walked around, checking everything out. "I come up here a lot, especially to get drunk." I held the wine bottle up and mockingly shook it.
I took a seat by the edge and Ian took a seat next to me. Time to get this going. I laid my head down on Ian's lap, and opened the wine bottle. I held it up to him, "You want to do the honors?"
"Don't mind if I do." He answered, taking the bottle from me and taking a swig of the warm red wine. Then he passed it back to me and I did the same. I trailed my hands along his thigh and looked up at him wide-eyed.
"I didn't know you wore glasses?" He shrugged and tapped the frame of his spectacles,
"I don't wear them often." I nodded in understanding and stared up at the sky. The stars were shining brightly, brighter than normal at least. I always thought stars were so perfect because they just looked so lovely scattered across the sky like that. "Beautiful.." Ian breathed.
"Isn't it?" I replied, assuming he was seeing the same thing I was.
"I'm not talking about the sky."
I then realized that Ian had been staring down at me, studying my face, and I became self-conscious. Rather than comment on it, I moved on from the topic.
"Ian, tell me about why you think sex is love?" He chuckled, and I could feel the vibrations where I was laying my head. He took another sip of the wine, he was drinking an awful lot, I observed.
"Riley, before you ask me a question, I'm going to ask you one." He passed me the wine and I took a swig, feeling much lighter and looser than before. "What you said today, about you and that guy deserving each other. You're wrong, you don't deserve him." Ian's words caught me off guard, even in my half-drunken state. "You deserve a lot better Riley, like a hell of a lot better. I mean seriously, it wasn't by some chance that the universe broke you two up, it was because you weren't meant to be with him. The universe wasn't just giving you a lucky break, it's not as unpredictable as you think."
If me and Ian were going to talk like this I was going to need some more wine to force the words out. I took another gulp before replying.
"See, that's where you're wrong. The universe is unpredictable, that's what makes it fun. See," I propped myself up on my elbows and looked him in the eyes, "It was unlikely that you and I meet exactly 21 days ago, but we did, and it's been fun. That was the universe Ian, it's all a game of chance." I laid back down on his lap and he picked up my hair and begun to twirl it around his finger as we passed the wine bottle back and forth. "And that wasn't a question."
There was a long comfortable silence before Ian spoke,
"I suppose you've got a point."
It wasn't so cold up on the roof since it was the middle of July, so we sat comfortably for nine o'clock at night, looking at the stars and sharing our childhood memories. I had become much more vulnerable and open than I'd hoped, but unfortunately the wine wasn't helping. Eventually we'd gotten into just asking each other questions that had been on our mind in hopes of the other answering them, and I could feel myself sobering up.
"Ian, why do you think sex is love?" I asked him again, since he never answered me the first time. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he had frowned.
"Well, someone must love you if they're having sex with you right?" My heart broke at his words, he couldn't possibly be that naive. I'd had sex with plenty of people I didn't love and who didn't love me. "And besides, I don't think sex is love, I just have this illusion," he waved his hand in front of his face as if depicting an illusion, "I just feel loved whenever I have sex with someone. Sometimes it's so overbearing I think it's a disease."
I turned my head to better see his facial expression. It was blank. He was staring out into the sky, as if there were an illusion there right now.
"Ian, I think that you should listen to the universe. Surely after whoever you've slept with is gone, you feel lonely again, that's the universe trying to tell you that it did nothing for you, you're still empty even after the sex." He nodded his head in somewhat agreement but I wasn't sure he was listening. Suddenly he spoke up,
"Favorite quote?"
I thought about it for a minute before answering him.
"'I crave a love so deep the ocean would be jealous.' Don't know who said it. I think it's pretty though, kind of hopeful. Doesn't apply to me though, I don't crave love, just sex." I paused before chuckling at myself. Just sex, I thought, yeah, just sex.
He frowned before adjusting himself so he was propped up on his elbows.
"You know, I don't think that's true about you." he started, choosing his words carefully. "I think you pretend to be complicated and lustful but really, I think you do want someone to love. I think you want someone to fall in love with you."
I couldn't help but scoff at his words. Love? No. I didn't want love, I didn't want anything that would require me being emotionally invested in someone, or for someone to fall in love with me. The feelings wouldn't be mutual and I would only break their heart.
"You don't know me, you don't know anything about what I want." It came out of my mouth in a harsher tone than I had intended. He laid back down and stared up at the sky.
We sat in the uncomfortable silence for a while before he spoke up, stumbling on his words.
"You know," he swallowed, "I would love you if you wanted me to. If you ever needed it."
Poor Ian, poor naive Ian. He had no idea how much I would hurt him.
I sighed and sat up from laying on his stomach.
"Ian, I think that's enough emotional crap for tonight. You should go home, it's late."
Ian would never understand because he's too emotional, he wants something I don't. He wants love, I want sex and nothing more, nothing deeper.
-
wowee dang this chapter feels really emotional.
No seriously tho like I feel like it's really deep...sorry?
Also I think it's my longest chapter so far, almost 2,700 words, but I'm SURE there will be even longer ones in the furture :)))))
Anyways I hope you liked it and if you did PLEASE vote/comment and share this story with your friends because all the cool kids read this story am I right ladies
Lemme know what you think of everything so far and if you have any ideas/suggestions because I LOVE THEM
Okay that's all BYE!
-S ♡