When I opened my eyes, it was because of a number of things. In my half-asleep state of mind only two seemed to register, though. One of them was vivid; a blinding brightness glaring in my face that could only have been sunlight. But the other was vague; something seemed to be tightening around my waist, drawing me closer to something else.
In a blurred glance around me, nothing seemed to hold any significance. Not the peach cushions of the couch I was lying on. Not the Red Bull cans knocked over on the coffee table a foot away. Not the shards of porcelain scattered like puzzle pieces on the floor. Not even the staircase, looming over the room like a shadow.
I wanted to keep my eyes open—to give myself enough time to process why I was lying on a peach colored couch instead of my velvet bed sheets, or why there were empty Red Bull cans when I much rather preferred Monster Energy, or why there was glass on the floor, or why I was comfortably lying in a room with that awful staircase nearby.
But I was tired. I didn't feel up to thinking about it or anything else. All I really wanted to do was close my eyes and give into the heavy stupor weighing me down. So that's exactly what I did. I let it overtake me. I closed my eyes and relaxed back against whatever it was I was cuddling with.
Seven seconds.
I believe that was how long it took for the realization to hit me.
My pillow is breathing.
My eyes snapped back open, whatever speck of sleepiness I felt wearing off like a bad drug. When the haze cleared and my vision shifted into focus, my eyes were drawn to the black material I was resting on. Only after shifting back did I realize it was a shirt. And when I lifted my gaze, I drew in a startled breath when I discovered that the owner of it was Jesse.
And he was sleeping.
The waves of panic crashing down on me slowed to a halt when I studied his face—because all those months that I'd known Jesse never could have prepared me for the sight of him sleeping.
It was often said people looked younger in sleep, and I discovered now more than ever that it was the truth. For probably the first time in Jesse's life, he looked...cute. His face was a tranquil mask; his lips were parted slightly, his head slightly downturned as if he had been resting it above mine before I'd moved. And his hair—dark strands lay tousled over his eyes and splayed out across the pillow he was resting on.
It felt like a mission in and of itself just to force myself to look away.
Taking in the scene from my vantage point, I appeared to be curled up on his side with one of my hands resting on his chest and one of my legs thrown over his. I also appeared to be encircled in his arms.
And boy was I wrapped up in them.
One was crossed underneath me in a way that allowed Jesse to place his hand on the small of my back. His fingers were touching my skin there, just below the hem of my shirt. And his other hand, with another spasm of realization, was raised to his chest, grasping my own with such gentleness that I hadn't even felt it until I saw it.
I didn't know what part of me it was that wanted to relax back against him and I couldn't really find it in me now to reprimand myself for it. There was a blanket—albeit kicked aside so that it only covered us from the hips down—but I don't think I could have gotten any warmer even if it wasn't there.
It seemed to surprise me how much I wanted to lower my head back down to Jesse's chest and fall back asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.
But then my eyes wandered to the sunlight filtering in through the windows and to the staircase, and no matter how hard I fought it down, my state of panic made a second appearance, and before I knew it, I was already moving to disentangle myself from Jesse to get up.
Holding my breath, I gingerly slipped my hand out from under Jesse's grasp, and then in even more cautious movements, I shifted upward and moved my leg away from him. I used the back end of the couch as leverage, and then began to move away.
I was about halfway across the couch deliberating whether I should launch myself over Jesse's body in a suicide dive or hurtle myself over the back of the couch (not even considering in my sleep-deprived state of mind that I could just climb over the arm and avoid falling altogether) when I heard a rustle and the distorted sound of a groan. Stilling, I looked over to find Jesse coming to, his blue eyes squinted and directed to me.
I didn't know what the proper procedure was when caught trying to sneak away so I just sat there—one hand on the back of the couch to keep me balanced and a look of suspicion on my face as I stared at the boy I woke up next to.
"Are you okay?" Jesse asked. I nearly melted. Was it actually possible to sound like that after hours of sleep?
I realized how I was reacting to just the sound of his voice and wanted to slap myself. Instead of saying anything, I nodded mutely.
Jesse nodded too—as if reassured—and then pushed himself up to sit against the arm of the couch opposite from where I was. His hair fell onto his face, but he was too preoccupied waking himself up to push the strands away.
"Did..." I started, but then cleared my throat. "What did we...?"
"We must have fallen asleep"—Jesse suddenly lifted a hand to his mouth as he yawned—"while we were watching Netflix, or something."
"Netflix?" I echoed.
"Yeah. Terminator, I think." I'd shifted my gaze away to glance around the room again, but when I heard him move I looked back to him only to find him stretching. I dropped my head when I saw that the movement was riding his shirt up. "But...before that, we were..."
And then, as if like a blanket settling over us, the events of the day before fell upon us in unison. The fact that I'd gotten a love confession out of the boy I'd made out and fallen asleep with made my cheeks flush so hard and so suddenly that I felt like I was being attacked by my own body. I raised my hands and hid my blushing by making it look as though I was rubbing at my face, but then saw out of the corner of my eye that it didn't even matter because Jesse was looking down at the floor.
Smiling.
I wanted to hurt him, because I knew he was remembering every single thing with enough detail to invoke such a smile and I couldn't do anything but watch him and feel the tingles along my face and my body where I'd felt his hands—
Without any preamble, Jesse's eyes shifted to me and I nearly flipped off the couch in surprise.
I immediately snapped my gaze elsewhere, at first aiming to just hide my reddened cheeks from him, but when my eyes settled on the silver device lying on the table, my face drained of color. "What time is it?" I asked in an incoherent mumble, reaching over and plucking my phone up.
When Jesse and I had been—well, preoccupied, my dad had been trying to reach me. And I remembered afterwards, when we'd lied down on the couch and watched movies throughout the day and into the night, that I'd sent him a vague message about how I'd left the house to stay at a friend's house.
But powering up the phone now, I heavily frowned when I saw my message hadn't been answered with a response. Not even another phone call.
"He didn't message back?" Jesse asked, pushing up from his position to crawl beside me.
I had a feeling I should have felt self conscious with him so close, but I was too worried about my parents to give a damn. "No," I said. And I was scared to wonder why.
The digital clock on the corner of the screen read it was eight in the morning. Jesse had whisked me away from my house at about noon the day before, which meant I'd been gone for a little less than a day. And knowing my father and my mother like the back of my hand, I would have expected them to send me an angry message or two. Their radio silence was making me anxious.
"Do you want me to drop you off?"
I tore my eyes away from my phone to Jesse. He was close enough that I could see the remains of our sleep-in on his face. And again like before, I was reminded of how surreal it was to see him in this kind of environment. That was why I couldn't help but hesitate before answering him. "No." I lowered my phone and set it back down on the table. "Not yet, at least."
Jesse stared at me, and it was one of those stares that almost triggered the color in my face again. It wasn't a prying look, or even an analyzing one, but a fond one—he didn't take his eyes off of mine until after a few seconds, and even then his gaze didn't leave my face. They remained on what seemed to be my mouth before he lowered his head and rubbed at his face again.
I bit my lip. My eyes had been focused on the hair falling in his face, but when I'd finally mustered the nerve to reach out and push them out of the way, a sudden shrill rang through the air. Both Jesse and I jumped.
At first I thought it was my phone—my parents—but when the screen remained dark, I looked over to Jesse to find him shifting around. The noise amplified when he brought the source of it out, and after a moment I discovered it to be his phone. "Oh," he mumbled, shutting it off.
"What is it?" I asked.
"School alarm."
That stopped me short. It didn't seem to dawn on me until he said those words that there was a world outside of the house I was sitting in. It also occurred to me that I was still suspended from the academic world—as well as the fact that Jesse wasn't.
"Oh," I managed, pushing up from the couch. "Then maybe you should drop me off, then. So you can head to school—"
I was getting up as I spoke, but my words and my movements were cut off when I felt a warm hand grasp my wrist.
Turning around from where I stood, Jesse was sitting before me. "Don't," he said, his blue eyes pleading. "Stay with me."
"But school—"
"Fuck school."
The finality in Jesse's voice as well as the seriousness in his expression struck something within me, and I couldn't help but let out a laugh.
"I'm serious," Jesse argued, smiling despite his tone. "There's nowhere else I want to be more than here. Stay with me. Please."
My face relaxed. His grip on me was firm, but I felt his thumb rubbing against the inner skin of my wrist in my small circles.
I met his eyes when I spoke. "What would we do here anyway?"
"What we did yesterday."
"Which part?" I asked.
"All of it."
* * *
A door was in front of us. I felt his hands run up from my elbows to the tops of my arms, his thumbs teasing the skin underneath the short sleeves of my shirt. From behind me, he reached over, wrapped a hand around the doorknob, and then pushed it open with his fingers.
A bedroom was on the other side. It held a large bed donned in dark sheets, red walls, and light wooden floors. There was a black throw rug, a small shelf filled with clutter to my left, and an ornate dresser against the far wall. Three windows shrouded in thick gray curtains were inset in the walls.
"My room," he said into my ear in a playful tone. A part of me wanted to keep up the joking demeanor, but at the sight before me, my throat suddenly locked up and my shoulders tensed under his touch.
I was worried he felt it.
I moved away from him, venturing into the bedroom, drinking everything in. I wanted to take in his strewn clothes thrown over the doors of his dresser, the small amount of books lying at the foot of his bed, and what exactly the framed pictures on the walls were of. But then flashes of that party reared its head, and I started to wonder if Farrah had led Jesse back in here when I'd left with Kale.
"Carson."
I half-turned, looking at Jesse. He seemed to be trying to read my face, trying to figure out what I didn't want to tell him the day before. He was gaining some kind of information, but it vanished the moment I let out a laugh. "Not going to lie," I said, turning my gaze back to the walls and up to the ceiling fan twirling above me. "This is kind of weird."
Jesse crossed his arms, looking awfully warm in the long sleeved sweater he was sporting. "It does feel weird."
I glanced at him.
He was already staring at me. "A right kind of weird."
My face softened.
Jesse moved closer to me, trailing a finger along my waist as he went to stand on the other side of me. He eyed the television set across the bed. "Probably should have camped here."
I eyed the bed. The sheets looked soft and inviting, but the more I stared at them, the more I started to imagine Farrah—as well as other girls—and my heart stuttered in response to the images my mind kept showing my heart.
"It doesn't really matter to me though," Jesse went on. He hooked a finger around one of the belt loops of my jeans. I felt him slightly tugging me closer to him. "I'd sleep on the floor with you if it came to that."
It might have been my nerves, but I laughed at that. Not in any sarcastic way I did before, but in a warm kind of way. My eyes squinted tight as I chuckled. I'd been about to raise a hand to cover my mouth before something else did it for me.
The kiss had been quick, over before it really began. Jesse leaned back, looking confused with himself. "Sorry," he mumbled.
I laughed again, much more quietly. "After yesterday, you really have it in you to be modest?"
He met my eyes.
"It's so unlike you," I teased, moving backward. Jesse's hand was still on me, so I only ended up making him shuffle forward.
I saw the challenge in his eyes. He moved close, closing the distance between us even though I was still trying to move away from him. "Are you saying there's no reason to act so reserved? I was trying to be civil, but if you're offering..."
His hand left my jeans, coming to settle on my waist.
The back of my knee hit the bed, and I didn't move away when Jesse pressed himself close. I felt his breath tickle along the side of my face until he lowered his head to kiss me again.
But at that moment, my phone began ringing, loudly in my pocket. For what it was worth, Jesse and I didn't even flinch—too caught up in the moment to be distracted.
It did, however, make us pull away from each other.
"Your parents?" he asked as I pulled out my phone.
My heart stopped.
I'd held the phone between us, actually believing that the caller had been one of my parents, but when I saw Kale's name on the screen instead, I was instantly overcome with the urge to fling the thing through the window in panic.
I opted to play it cool, even though when Jesse's eyes lifted up to meet mine, I felt like throwing myself out the window instead.
"Kale?" he asked.
I moved away. "Yeah—it's nobody important."
His blue eyes were skirting along the floor. Trying desperately to pin a face to the name. "Where have I heard that name before?"
As I glanced down at the phone in my hands, I couldn't help but worry that he'd remember.
A minute passed before I heard Jesse's quiet voice. "Are you friends with him?"
I slightly shook my head. "No...not really. No."
"Then...?" He trailed off, eying the phone.
"I don't know." How did he get my number? The last time I checked, I hadn't given him mine when he'd passed along his. Who could he have asked for it from?
I was beginning to wonder about Katrina when I heard Jesse scoff. I looked up, seeing him with his arms crossed and his narrowed eyes pointed toward a specific spot on his bookcase.
I tilted my head. Despite the state of distress slowly settling within my bones, I still managed to produce an amused smile. "Are you jealous?"
"What?" Jesse asked a little too loudly.
"You're jealous."
A moment passed.
And then he exploded, tossing his hands up. "Of course I'm jealous! Who is he? Why is he calling you? What does he want?" He huffed loudly and fell back onto his bed, one arm thrown over his face. "Why am I acting like this?"
I looked back down to my phone, my heart finally resuming its normal pace when the screen died.
"Can I ask you something?"
I set the phone on the dresser beside me and looked to Jesse to see him watching me. "What?"
He waited a long while, sitting up slowly. "What did you guys do? When you left...with him."
My mind blanked.
He thought Dalton was Kale.
My mouth parted as I tried to consider what that meant. "Um..."
Jesse's face shifted. "Tell me, Carson."
I watched Jesse, somehow reveling in all of the emotions passing over his face. I couldn't help but smile. "You know, I don't think I will."
Jesse blinked. "Huh?"
"I like seeing you this way," I said.
"You just love to torture me, don't you?" He said it jokingly, but I could see in his face that he wanted answers to his questions. "Oh, well—of course you do. I know this. I'm not surprised."
I moved toward him, standing in front of him while he held one of his knuckles in his hands. I reached a hand out, running a finger along a piece of stray black hair. He felt my touch—felt how close I was—and looked up at me. I was suddenly reminded of the day before, and I had to fight hard to keep the blush from spreading across my face.
His eyes were pleading when I said, "He's a friend—a friend of a friend, actually. Nothing happened and nothing ever will."
"Really?"
I swallowed. "Really."
Jesse let out a sigh, disguising it poorly as a laugh.
"Well that settles it, doesn't it?" And before I could comprehend what was happening, he shifted forward, wrapped an arm around my waist, and yanked me onto the bed. I let out a shriek of surprise as the world twirled, and when it settled down, Jesse was leaning over me, both arms caging me in on my sides.
I propped myself up on my elbows, trying to shift back on the bed, but Jesse only followed my movements. We did this until I felt the pillows beneath my head, and I had nowhere else to go when Jesse lowered himself onto me until there wasn't any more space between us.
* * *
"Talk to me, kid."
I sat facing my dad in the kitchen, wringing my hands together. "Uh..."
"From the beginning."
"I don't where that is, exactly."
"Let me put it this way: if you don't tell me, then you're going to have to tell your mother. And trust me when I say she won't be as sympathetic."
I swallowed hard.
"I'm not the bad guy here, Carson." My dad leaned against the counter across from me. "I'm worried about you."
My eyes dropped to the ground. "I don't mean to keep letting you and mom down."
"I know that. But here we are, anyway."
A long moment went by in silence. I fidgeted with my hands, my eyes skirting along the floor as I tried to find a story within my own story that would make a bit more sense to explain. And then I wanted to pinch myself for it. How many stories was I going to tell? How many omissions and lies were going to be woven into the one I was about say this time?
"It all started with Jesse," I finally said.
My dad nodded, eyebrows raised.
I sighed. "I'm tangled up in some feud between him and someone else. Sometimes I don't know who I can trust. But..." I paused. My eyes rose. "Dad, I think I like him."
If it was possible, my dad's eyebrows rose even more. He had a fresh coffee in front of him, and with that same expression he took a long drink.
"And he likes me, too. But...we're lying to each other."
My dad was nodding. He cleared his throat, mumbling under his breath, "Maybe your mom was the better choice."
"You wanted to know," I said.
"I did." He set his coffee down. "And I'm happy you're telling me. Really."
"I just don't know what to do."
He breathed out. "What about your friend? Has that Katrina girl been helping you get through any of this?"
A pang of sadness hit me. "We aren't talking anymore."
"You mentioned that a while ago...why not?"
"Jesse."
"So your mom was right? Does she like him too?"
"No! God, no." I sank back in my seat. "I'm not really sure how to say it."
My father waited.
"She didn't want to be friends with someone going down the same path that I'm on."
"The hell does that mean?"
I shrugged.
My dad sighed again, looking a bit frustrated. "Well, it's not up to her how you choose to path your life, kid. She's supposed to be your B-F-F—"
"Oh, my God."
"What?"
"B-F-F," I whispered, cringing.
"Anyway. You two are supposed to be friends. She doesn't dictate who you spend your time with. You're supposed to be there for each other, not tear each other down. You're growing still, experiencing new things and learning from new mistakes. It's up to you, not her, to learn from what those mistakes end up teaching you," he said. He takes another drink of his coffee, turning to glance out the open window over the sink. He waited a moment and then looked back at me. "As for everything else..." He met my eyes. "If you and this boy really do like each other, you have to solve whatever it is that's holding you back. It's not fair to him and it's not fair to you to start something with so many lies."
"I know," I mumbled.
"Get to the bottom of it."
I waited, taking a deep breath before finally saying, "I will, dad."
"Good." He nodded, raising the mug to drink the rest of his coffee and then went to the sink to wash it. Afterward, he left me alone in the kitchen, but not before saying, "I'll hold you to it."
I remained there, breathing in and looking out the window. Dark clouds lingered over the sky. It smelled like rain.
My confidence had just begun to wane at the sight of such depressing weather when my dad peeked back in.
"By the way, your brother is coming home at the end of the month."
I groaned loudly.