My eyes were still bulging out of my skull when Zack asked for the second time why I had this look across my face. I couldn’t believe it yet alone let the five letter word escape my lips. I was still undecided if I was okay with someone seeing me naked.
But I wasn’t about to give up over my insecurities.
“It will be fun. Come on,” I told Zack grabbing his hand and tugging him along. My palm was slipping due to the sweat that was building.
I forced Zack to follow me until we were clear from the clutter. Once we hit the main entrance the number of people had dissipated. The majority of students were raving together dangerously close to the pool. Once in the hallways students were scarce and that is exactly what I needed. If I was going to do this it had to be somewhere where no one would ever see or know.
“Eden, where are we going?” Zack asked breaking free from my hold.
He stopped, protesting to go any further without an explanation. This wasn’t something I was going to be able to say out loud. Both my hands clutched onto the old camera. I peeled off the sticky note crumpling it in my hand before shoving it into my back pocket. I smiled at Zack although he gave me a typical stubborn look. Holding up the camera I snapped a photo before waiting for it to spit out the image.
He raised an eyebrow giving me another disapproving look.
“If you don’t keep following me you’ll never find out,” I sounded overly flirty while I walked through the hallways searching for an open door.
Finally there was the biology lab which had its door wide open. Poking my head in I could see that no one else was here. There were only desks and shelves but no one that would be able to witness this. Zack shadowed me but he had suspicions. Luckily for me there were no windows so all I needed was to lock the door.
“This cat and mouse thing is getting slightly irritating,” he leaned against the teacher’s desk after I had locked the door.
“I recall saying something very similar before you told me to shove it so listen closely,” I took a step closing the gap—“Shove it.” I said it slowly and pronouncing every syllable.
I liked when the tabled turned.
Walking over to the table I pulled out the picture that I took of Zack. It took a while for the full picture to appear but I admired it for a couple seconds before I set it down the camera—“Looking good,” I snickered refusing to show him the picture I took.
“Okay so all I have to do it take a picture of you?” he questioned turning around and picking up the camera.
“Just stay turned around for a second,” I told him hoping that he would listen. I felt like it would be easier to do this without him staring at me and watching every piece of clothing fall to the floor.
“Why?” he asked about to peer over his shoulder.
“I just need to fix myself,” I told him quickly and he seemed to comply.
I let out a long sigh. My hands were shaky while they undid the zipper to my shorts, shaking them off while I kicked off my socks and shoes. I pulled Zack’s torn T-shirt over my head while he taking about how outdated this camera were and that he was unsure of how to use it. The bathing suit I had on underneath was strapless so all it took was a quick snap of the fingers to undue it. The bottoms came off just as easily. The cool breeze of being naked forced goose bumps up and down my arms, legs and everywhere else.
Never have I been so exposed to someone I barely knew.
“Ready for your picture or do you need to do your hair?” Zack snickered.
“Ready,” my voice was shaky and uneven.
Zack turned around his eyes widening while instantly his trigger finger snapped the photo not realizing what he was going to be seeing.
“Oh my God,” he murmured his eye still starring.
“W-w-what?” he stuttered—“Are you doing?” he chocked.
“Did the picture turn out?” I asked crouching down and gathering my clothes off the floor.
“Um,” he stammered unsure of how to react to this; his eyes still staring up and down.
He turned around hunching over the teacher’s desk while I slowly but surely held his shirt across my chest covering the important bits. My whole face was flush and it even extended to my chest. Everything was warm with emotion but shivering with the chill.
“This was the whole plan wasn’t it,” he spoke still turned around.
“Yes,” I began to tell him—“I figured if you knew what you were in for you’d run the other direction. Now tell me. Did the picture turn out?” I asked him a second time prepared to put all my clothes back on.
“Eden,” he sighed.
“If I was ever going to get the chance to see you naked I didn’t want it to be like that,” for some reason his words seemed honest. I remembered what his sister Margret had told me that he was the typical boy with a hard shell but a sensitive inside.
There was a part of me that liked Zack’s reaction. He had told me that things were too complicated but I wasn’t accepting that has an answer anymore. If you could toy around with me and expect not to hurt my feelings than I would do the same thing. I knew he had feelings for me but why he wouldn’t accept that was beyond me.
“Well I guess that’s a good enough reason,” I commented.
“Are you dressed yet?” he asked while I stood behind him fully dressed.
“Mostly,” I laughed at his shyness although most of mine had vanished into thin air—“For someone who wanted to be in my change room and kept kissing me at the bar I didn’t think seeing me naked would be a big deal. Especially for someone that’s life is too complicated to like someone right now,” I spoke while I put on the rest of my clothes.
Zack was still hunched over the desk staring down at the dark wood. I felt bad but I had worked my way from mouse to cat very quickly. Waltzing over I hopped onto the desk in front of him.
“Doesn’t feel good being the mouse does it? It sucks when people toy with your feelings doesn’t it?” he didn’t move from his position. Both his hands were on either side of me pressed firmly against the desk.
“You’re kidding right? I’ve been the only one playing with feelings?” he snorted—“You’ve flirted with every guy that has been in arm’s length of you since we’ve met. You flirted and kissed Adam right in front of me and then I watched you sit on the lap of every guy at the bar to win this stupid game.” his voice was loud and in my face, his hot breath making my eyes tear up.
“You’ve been pulling my chain just as much as I have yours and why it’s complicated isn’t because of my soon to be step witch or even the scholarship because I don’t give a shit about any of that.” Zack took a step back obviously frustrated.
“The problem I have with you right now is you’re not the girl I met Friday night. The girl I met didn’t care about these challenges and yeah I see her sometimes and I fall for you all over again but then I see you and Adam or you and that blonde cowgirl and you’re just like them.” he spat and I looked shocked.
I had never considered it from his point of view before. For the first time I was realizing something.
I was becoming them.
“Zack,” my voice was small but he wasn’t paying much attention to me. He was fuming. Eventually he calmed himself enough to step closer to me.
“I’m sorry,” I told him—“You’ve got to understand that Stella had been pushing all of us around for years and if I do this it will put her in her place.” my words didn’t seem like they were enough.
“Okay than I will make you a deal.” He was finally able to look up and see me without such an unhappy look on his face—“If you’re still the you I like by the end of all this I’ll stop playing around. Promise,” his hand touched my check cupping it in his hand.
“I could really like this girl. The one who teases me, the one who yells at me when I step out of line and the one who is smart and witty and beautiful.” this was the emotional side of Zack that I was only seeing partial frames of.
“I like that girl too,” the corner of my mouth turned up—“And she likes you too,” I smiled with every part of myself--"But," I started remembering Adam but Zack had cut off my sentence.
“By the end of the weekend I need you to pick,” he said sliding the photo off the desk and putting it in my hands.
Without saying another word Zack left leaving me standing here, my clothes in a-ray and my feelings hurt. This time it wasn’t Zack who hurt my feelings it was the fact that I had been so blind to how I was acting.
I was not them, but I was going to win and why would I win? Because I’m the Virgin, bitches.