20.
At a quarter to midnight, I should not have been standing in front of the Collier's front door spamming their doorbell like a madwoman. It was late. I was likely going to wake up the whole household, but at that moment, I didn't care. I was an emotional wreck and I needed to talk to my best friend.
A long couple of minutes passed before I finally heard someone fiddling with the lock on the other side of the door. I dropped my hand down to my side. I hoped and prayed that it would be Lucy who opened the door.
"Zoe?" A weary looking Lucy asked. She rubbed her eyes, blinked several times as if she thought she may have been hallucinating.
"I know it's late, but I need to talk." I didn't wait for her to invite me inside. I walked past her into the entryway of the house.
Lucy shut the door behind me before she turned to look at me. Her lips had fallen into the shape of an 'o'. "What's going on?" She asked, as a mix of concern and confusion filled her features. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
I sucked both my top and bottom lip into my mouth, holding onto a breath of air. This wasn't the place to talk, we needed to be in the privacy of her bedroom in case I'd awoken her parents. I elected to ignore Lucy's question, quickly booking it up the stairs to her bedroom.
"What on earth is going on?" Lucy asked again as she followed me into her bedroom, shut the door behind her. "You haven't been drinking again, have you?" By now Lucy was fully awake and her eyes were wide as she took in my appearance. "Did you fall?"
My gaze dropped to where her eyes were eying the dirt that clung to my left hip all the way down my butt and upper thigh. A result of where I had, quite literally, fallen out of Aiden's arms.
I swallowed a lump that had been in my throat since I first got in my car twenty minutes prior. My hand raked through my messy hair. Maybe I was just being mellow dramatic, but there didn't seem to be an easy way to tell my best friend that I just made out with my arch nemesis who also happened to be the guy that she had a crush on.
"Zoe," She pressed when I had still failed to answer her. She raised her eyebrows, impatiently waiting for me to explain myself.
I sucked in a large breath of air; my eyes dropped to the ground. "I kissed Aiden," I mumbled.
There it was out in the open. Aiden and I kissed. I couldn't tell you if it was good or bad. My mind practically shut off and was no longer functioning properly. I didn't know what to feel or how to respond. The kiss hadn't made me feel all giddy inside, but I sure as hell wasn't repulsed either. And that scared me the most.
I hated Aiden. I should have felt disgusted, repulsed, completely and totally nauseated.
Suddenly feeling insecure at my confession, I lifted my head to look at Lucy as my cheeks burned with the most intense heat I had ever felt. I began to ramble at a million miles a minute, feeling the need to explain myself.
"It was a stupid dare. I was at a bonfire with Riley and the guys. The kiss didn't mean anything. I was forced to play the game and Brendon dared me to kiss Aiden. I didn't want to have to shave my head, so I kissed him. I didn't want to kiss him. I hate the guy, but they had clippers and everything. I couldn't lose my hair. I need my hair. And-"
Lucy burst into a fit of laughter, stunning me into a silence. My best friend was finding amusement from the most embarrassing moment of my life. Full on belly laughing at my misfortune.
"This isn't funny!" I cried. Pure horror filled my face. Nothing about this situation was funny and yet, there was my best friend standing with her hands on her stomach, head thrown back in hysterical laughter.
I forced a loud cough, breaking her fit.
"I'm sorry, Zo," she giggled, straightening herself out. She tried to force a straight face, but there was no hiding her amusement. "It's just that you are rambling on like you did something wrong."
My lips pulled into a frown. "I did."
Lucy's eyebrows jumped upwards; her hands gestured in a small circle for me to explain.
"I kissed Aiden."
The words left a bitter taste in my mouth. The more I repeated them, the more I felt like I had just vomited. I hated everything about those three little words. I hated myself for kissing him.
"So? I don't get what the big deal is."
I blinked slowly. How could she not understand how bad of a situation this was?
Lucy shook her head; a wide grin fell over her lips as she walked over to me. She placed both of her hands on my shoulders, looked me square in the eyes. "I know you say you hate the guy, but so what that you two kissed?"
"I kissed him." At this point, I was practically a broken record.
I breathed, pressing my eyes tightly shut. I was ashamed. Wiggling from Lucy's grip on my shoulders, I turned to her bed and let myself fall onto it. The memory foam engulfed me as I pulled one of her pillows over my head.
Lucy sighed, and I could hear her walk over next to the bed. A second later she ripped the pillow from my head, forcing me to look up at her. Her eyes narrowed. "You're being a child."
I frowned. Gee, thanks Luce.
Her eyes softened and she let out another sigh before taking a seat on the bed. "At least tell me this, did you enjoy it?"
I sat up in an instant but remained silent. It was a weighted question. Every ounce of my being wanted to laugh in her face for suggesting, even for a second, that I would have ever been able to enjoy kissing Aiden. It felt so wrong to think that either one of us could have enjoyed that kiss.
"Tell me the truth."
Honestly, I wasn't willing to let myself think about how I really felt. It was easier to just shut down. I knew how I felt. If I had been revolted by the kiss, it would have been easy. I wouldn't have freaked out and bolted from the bonfire.
If I hated the kiss, I would have felt nauseated or repulsed. I would have pulled myself away from the kiss long before I jumped willingly into his arms. The logical side of my brain wanted me to hate how his body felt pressed against mine; how wrong the touch of his lips felt. And yet, I felt the exact opposite.
All I could think about was the faint taste of beer on his lips. Their soft touch and how easily they seemed to move together with mine so effortlessly. The kiss had done a serious number to my mental state.
I threw myself backward into her bed once again. This time, an obnoxious, frustrated groan escaped from my lips.
Lucy didn't hesitate to react. In a split second she had propped herself up over me, her lips curled into a devious smirk. "You totally loved every second of it."
I narrowed my eyes, but knew better than to deny her accusation. It wasn't exactly hard to read my body language at the moment.
She shook her head causing her long hair to fall into my face. "You know that there is no shame that you two kissed, right? Dare or not." All the teasing was gone from her tone.
My eyes remained narrowed, but I once again was unable to deny her.
"It's not the kiss that has me so freaked out."
Lucy raised an eyebrow. "It's not?"
I clamped my eyes shut, feeling my fingernails curled against the palm of my hands to resist the urge I felt to run them over my lips.
"I hate him." My fist squeezed tighter. "I am supposed to hate him. He's supposed to hate me."
Lucy rolled off me, and I opened my eyes. "I don't get it."
I bit my tongue.
"He kissed me back, Lucy."
For a long moment she stayed silent, likely trying to figure out what the big deal was. Finally, she let a sly smirk pull the corner of her left lip upward. "Was he a bad kisser?"
Definitely not.
I felt an insane amount of heat flood my face causing Lucy to grin widely. She had her answer. Before she had the chance to comment on my embarrassment, I added, "it was my dare. He didn't have to kiss me back."
Her grin didn't falter. "Would have been kind of awkward for you if he hadn't."
I ignored her teasing. "You don't understand. I didn't just give him a short and simple kiss on the lips."
Lucy raised her eyebrows, head cocked to the side. "No?"
My face scrunched as I said the next few words, "We full on made out."
"Was there tongue?" She asked giddily. I sat up in one quick motion, bit down on my lower lip as I met her excited grin.
After a second, I released my lip and sighed. "I don't know what came over me. It was like I was possessed."
"Besides him kissing you back, which quite frankly is much better than the alternative of you kissing him with no reaction, what is it that has you so worked up?"
The whole kiss was something to be worked up over. I wasn't in love with Aiden, hell I didn't even have a crush on him. I was supposed to despise him. I should never have let myself kiss him let alone full on make out with him.
"I don't know what took over me. It was like I was some other person when we were kissing. Lucy," I hesitated, my eyes darted around the room refusing to make eye contact. Defeated, I sighed and looked back to her. "I jumped into his arms. My tongue was in his mouth. That's not something you do with a guy you hate."
For the first time in our conversation, Lucy scrunched her face as if it had finally dawned on her what happened. "How long was the kiss?"
I frowned, confused by the question. "Uhm."
"Thirty seconds? Two minutes? Five?" She paused; her eyebrows raised judgingly when I still hadn't given her an answer. "Surely it wasn't more than ten. If it was, you two might as well have just gotten a room."
It couldn't have been that long. A minute or two tops...I think.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Time kind of seemed to blur."
"Was it like you two were the only two people in the world?" She exclaimed; her excitement was back in full force. "Because if it was, you know what that means."
My eyes were quick to fall into a cold glare in her direction. I picked up one of her pillows and chucked it at her. "I seriously hate you."
Lucy's features briefly softened as she picked up the pillow, I'd thrown at her. Turning to me she offered a sigh. "Sorry." As I opened my mouth to respond, she lifted the pillow and smacked me hard on the shoulder. "Stop being such a ninny!"
"Hey!" I whined; my right hand flew to my shoulder. I frowned. "I am not being a ninny."
She snorted. "Yeah, you are. Who gives a crap that you enjoyed kissing an attractive guy? There is nothing wrong with that. You haven't kissed anyone in a while, and let's be real here, you are a teenager with hormones. Whether you admit or not, Aiden is extremely attractive and so are you. I'm not the least bit confused as to why he would kiss you back."
I opened my mouth, ready to defend my case when she raised her hand. She was not done scolding me.
"Aiden is a guy," she continued. "He could want you dead and he would still have kissed you back. Because like I said, hormones. Neither one of you stopped the kiss right away probably because you were both caught up in the moment and were just enjoying yourselves. There's nothing wrong that fulfilling that desire."
Hormones or not, that was not why I had enjoyed the kiss. That excuse wasn't going to fix the internal conflict I was feeling about enjoying the kiss and hating the guy.
"You need to stop over analyzing it," Lucy said as she wrapped an arm around my shoulder to pull me into her side. "Maybe a good night's sleep will help you feel better about it."
I sighed, surrendering to the idea that she may be right. There was nothing I could do about it tonight, so I might as well get a good night's sleep. "Do you mind if I sleep over?"
She shook her head and pulled me into a full hug. "Of course I don't mind. You know that I love you." I couldn't see her face, but I could tell that she was grinning. "I'm with you till the end of the line."
"Have I ever told you that you are the best?"
She chuckled, "Not recently, but it is overdue."
I pulled away from the hug and shot her a goofy grin. "Yeah? Well you really are the best. I don't think anyone else would have been able to talk me down."
That was true. Lucy was a life saver tonight. Not only had she talked me down, but she was giving me a place to stay that was not home. I didn't want anyone to go to my house to find anyone had come looking for me. I don't think I would have been able to handle that. One kiss and tell story was enough for one night.