Stubborn Love

by Natalie Ward

  “Not if you’re planning on staying in here, I don’t,” I whisper, holding my breath and forgetting all about the fact that she snuck out and left me last night, as I wait for her response.

  Smiling, Mia leans in, her lips just a breath away from mine as she whispers, “I just wondered if maybe you might be interested in another challenge?”

  I groan loudly before I slide my hands around her and pull her t-shirt off, kissing her hard on the mouth and proving that yes, when it came to her, I was always up for the challenge.

  Six hours and many more condoms later, we are still lying in my bed and this time Mia had been here when I woke up ten minutes ago. As she lies in my arms, my fingers drifting lightly over her warm skin, I can’t help but wonder what is going on here. Are we just fooling around or does this really mean something more to her? Just as I’m about to find out, Mia speaks, answering the question I’m a little scared to ask.

  “We should probably get up before Luke comes home,” she says, lifting her head from my shoulder.

  As I push the hair back from my face I can’t stop myself from asking it anyway. “We’re not telling him about this, are we? It’s why you snuck out last night, so he wouldn’t find out?”

  I watch as her eyes look away from me, as she moves and presses her lips to my chest, avoiding me. Mia takes a deep breath before finally answering, “That’s what I was thinking, yeah.”

  It hits me in the gut, what she’s saying, but at the same time I sort of get it. I’m not too wild about telling him either, not too sure how he’d react to the fact that I’ve slept with his baby sister, many times. That I’ve done incredibly hot and amazing things to her body, just like she’s done to mine. It’s actually kind of laughable considering what I’d told Ben about Mia being a no-go area. Look at the two of us now for fuck’s sake. But all that aside, I don’t want this to just be a one-time thing. I don’t want her to think we finally got whatever it was between us, out of our system, and that’s it, we’re done. Because I’m a long way from being done, a very long way.

  “So was this just a one time only thing then?” I ask, trying not to sound too hopeful or desperate.

  “Well technically it was a lot more than once, Jared,” Mia says, her lips still resting against my skin.

  I smile at her, as all eight times now flash through my brain in very vivid detail. “Yeah, but is it a never to be repeated kinda thing then,” I ask, my hand running down her back. “I mean, is it possible it could happen again?”

  Did it mean anything to you?

  I feel her warm breath as she exhales against me and I watch her, wanting to see her reaction when she gives me her answer. We stare at each for what feels like ages.

  “I’d never say never,” she finally answers.

  “So that’s a yes… it could?” I ask, my eyes fixed on her face so I don’t miss it.

  Mia doesn’t say anything for a long time and with every second that passes, I’m becoming more and more convinced she’s going to say no. Finally she slides herself up my body, so her face is above mine. Looking right into my eyes, I see her smile, before she leans in to kiss me. My hand is sliding into her hair, ready to pull her closer, but just before her lips touch mine, I hear her answer.

  “That’s a fuck yes, Jared.”

  And I can’t help but laugh before I close that gap and kiss her, hard, sneaking in a quick number nine before we are forced to get up and act like none of this ever happened.

  Today, 2:07am – Mia

  “I guess this whole Brian thing explains why you snuck out the next morning then…” Jared says, his eyes still closed. “Why you wanted to hide us from Luke so much?”

  I don’t say anything; just watch him as he sits there. His face is blank but I can tell he is thinking about everything I’ve just told him, I know him well enough to see this. And of course, he’s no doubt comparing himself to that dickhead Brian. I really want, no need, him to understand that it was nothing to do with Brian and everything to do with me. That I didn’t want to ruin anything and I especially didn’t want to ruin the friendship he shared with Luke.

  Eventually Jared opens his eyes and looks right at me, his eyes unreadable. I wait for him to talk, for him to finish whatever he wants to say. Maybe he doesn’t have anything else to say. I don’t even know what to say next. I want to keep talking, but I don’t know what to say now.

  Jared hasn’t said anything for the last five minutes. His eyes are open and they’re watching me, but he hasn’t spoken a word. And I’m getting impatient.

  “Say something,” I whisper.

  I watch as he swallows first, almost as though he’s trying to compose himself. His fingers are lying loose on his stomach and I want so badly to thread mine through them, rest them there with his. But I can’t, we are sitting too far apart, I couldn’t reach his hands if I tried. It’s almost symbolic, if you were into looking for that kind of stuff.

  “So,” he finally says, his voice hollow. “You were scared of coming between mine and Luke’s friendship, is that what you’re saying?”

  “You helped him Jared,” I say, staring at his hands. “You helped him more than you’ll ever realise.”

  “I didn’t do anything Mia, nothing that any friend wouldn’t do.”

  I look up at him now. “Yeah, you did. You were a friend to him when he didn’t have anyone, a good friend, an amazing one actually. And you did more for him than I ever could.”

  Jared sits up now and I watch as his hand slides over the duvet and gently takes hold of one of mine. Our fingers thread together, just like they used to, just like I was imagining and it makes my chest ache with loneliness. “That’s not true, Mia,” he whispers.

  “Yes, it is,” I whisper back, keeping my eyes on his as I take a deep breath and say my next words. “And then when I met you, everything changed for me too. Changed in ways I never even thought possible, in ways I never expected.”

  “How?” he asks, his voice catching a little.

  I tighten my fingers around his, the ache in my chest spreading throughout my whole body. “I fell in love with you,” I say quietly, holding his stare and refusing to look away now.

  Neither of us says anything. We both sit here, with our fingers entwined and our eyes locked on each other’s. I’m too afraid to say anything else at the moment, so I say nothing, waiting, hoping Jared will.

  Eventually he shuffles closer and lifts our joined hands, wiping away a tear on my cheek that I didn’t even realise was falling, with the back of his fingers. My eyes close at his touch, at the fact he didn’t let go of my hand to do it.

  “I did too,” he finally says, so softly, I almost miss it.

  We sit in silence, just staring at each other, trapped in a moment that feels as though it could be never ending. I’m not sure I could move away now anyway, even if I wanted to, because there is nowhere else I’d rather be, than right here with him.

  Jared finally looks away, but doesn’t let go of my hand. “You are an amazing sister to him, Mia, you do know that right?”

  I flinch at his words, shocked because it’s the last thing I expected him to say. I open my mouth to speak, but he continues before I have a chance to.

  “You really are, and I get what you’re saying, I do, especially after what happened in the past with Brian. I get why you’d be scared, but I just don’t think us being together was ever going to ruin that, ruin anything.”

  “No?” I ask, wanting to know why, desperate to know why he thinks this.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because you being that amazing sister to him is just one of the reasons I fell in love with you in the first place, Mia,” he finally says. “One of many. And I never would’ve tried to change that. Never would have wanted to come between the two of you, knowing everything…” Jared’s voice trails off now.

  My heart thuds in my chest, a single hard beat that almost causes me to lose my breath. “But it
would have,” I finally whisper, my voice choking on a sob. “Eventually it would have, no matter how hard we tried to stop it.”

  Jared is shaking his head at me. “No Mia, it wouldn’t. I never would have let it, you know.”

  My head falls as I wonder how he could have ever stopped it from happening. I know it would have eventually, and in the end it was one of the things that made me do what I did. I look back up at him as I whisper, “How?”

  He smiles at me, but it’s not a happy smile, more of a resigned one. His eyes are serious right now, more serious than I have ever seen them. “How?” he asks and I nod.

  Jared closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I never would have let it get to that point Mia, I never would have let it break us up or fuck up anything that was happening between us, between you and Luke, or even me and Luke. Never,” he says, his voice earnest as though he truly believes what he’s saying to me.

  “Why…how Jared?” I ask, pleading with him.

  I watch as he takes a deep breath, as his eyes soften. I feel his fingers tighten around mine. “Because you were the best thing that had ever happened to me, Mia.”

  And right then, my heart doesn’t thud, it actually completely stops. Right inside my chest, it just stops beating. It’s almost like it’s stopped because I’m stopping time, hanging on to this one thing and not wanting to let it go. I want to stay right here in this single moment, where Jared can say words like this to me again after all of the awful shit I’ve done to him. But then my brain registers the exact words he said to me.

  “Were?” I ask, scared.

  Jared’s still looking at me, his beautiful blue eyes holding me in their gaze. His hand is still in mine, our fingers threaded together, locked in place. I can’t help but think that this whole situation couldn’t get more fucked up if it tried. How is it that I find myself in bed with my former boyfriend, my brother’s best friend, the absolute love of my life, and we are sitting here like this? There is only a foot between us, but right now, it feels like we are miles apart. And I have no idea how to close that gap. No idea at all.

  “You are,” Jared finally breathes out, kick starting my heart again.

  Tears start to well up in my eyes and I don’t even bother trying to hide or stop them. I can feel them running down my cheeks, but I don’t look away. Jared is still staring at me and more than anything, anything else in the world, I want this gap between us to close.

  I just want to fix this, fix us.

  I just want him.

  Three and a half years ago – Jared

  “So I need to come and sort some stuff out for school, was wondering if maybe you wanted to meet me in Providence, hang out while I’m there?” Mia’s voice says through the phone.

  I’m lying in bed, still awake even though it’s two in the morning. I don’t really know why she’s calling me so late. She’d texted earlier to say she would and I’ve been waiting for her call ever since. Mia told me about two weeks ago that her transfer to RISD was accepted. To say I was happy would be the understatement of the century. Fucking ecstatic, over the moon, never been happier in all of my life, any of those cheesy analogies would do. They all describe how I’d felt when she told me.

  “Of course I will, when are you thinking of coming over?” I ask, sliding further under the covers as I look up at our stars. We’ve spoken every night since Mia went back to LA, every night since the night that changed everything. We haven’t really established what’s going on between us, but we do talk about it now. We talk about what happened six months ago; we talk about wanting to do it again. We have phone sex to ease the frustrations of not being able to. It’s hot and I love it, but it’s not a normal relationship. I don’t even know if it’s a relationship at all. All I know is that in my mind, I am completely gone. I want no one else but Mia.

  “Well,” she says tentatively. “I fly out in the morning.”

  “What?” I practically yell, sitting upright now.

  “I land just after lunch and I was going to train it straight to Providence. Wondered if maybe you wanted to come with me?”

  “Mia shit, why the fuck didn’t you tell me earlier?” I say, lowering my voice so Luke doesn’t hear me.

  I hear her exhale through the line.

  “Mia?” I ask again, my voice quieter now.

  “I don’t know Jared,” she says. “I wasn’t sure?” It’s said as a question one which she sounds like she hopes I have the answer for.

  It’s my turn to exhale now, relaxing my hand, which is gripping the phone as I try to ignore the feeling that’s growing in the pit of my stomach. “Baby,” I say quietly. “Of course I’ll come with you, you know I’m dying to see you again, well, a lot more than just see you. Why would you think otherwise?”

  “I don’t know,” Mia says quietly down the phone, the faintest trace of resignation in her voice.

  I sigh. “Mia, you do understand how I feel about you, don’t you?”

  It’s time to be blunt, even though I didn’t actually plan on it coming out this way. But I need her to know how I do feel and deep down, I want to find out how she feels about me. I want to find out what the hell we are doing here. Find out exactly what’s going on between us and where it’s all going, especially now that she’s moving here.

  “No,” she says quietly.

  I take a deep breath, ready to throw myself off the deep end now, where I could crash and burn if what I feel isn’t even in the same ballpark as what Mia feels.

  “I’m not seeing anyone else you know,” I tell her. “And I don’t want to be seeing anyone else. I only want to be with you, Mia. Just you.”

  I can hear rustling as though Mia’s shifting around, maybe getting comfortable in bed. “Really?” she eventually asks, her voice barely audible.

  “That’s why you’re calling me so late, isn’t it?” I ask her now. “Cause you didn’t know where we stood?”

  “Maybe,” she whispers.

  “Baby,” I breathe out.

  Neither of us says anything for a minute or two. It’s not an uncomfortable silence, just a silence. I’m looking at the stars on my ceiling, wishing Mia was lying here next to me and trying to ignore that little seed of dread that’s lying in wait in my stomach. Given half a chance I know it could turn into something more.

  I hear her exhale. “I’m not seeing anyone else either,” she eventually says.

  I smile now. “Well then, I guess that means we’re only seeing each other, doesn’t it,” I say, hoping she understands exactly what I’m trying to tell her.

  “Yeah,” she says and I can hear the faintest trace of a smile in her voice.

  “And you know what else that means?” I ask, figuring I may as well just go all out and say it now.

  “No.”

  I feel my stomach clench as I ready myself to say the words I’ve been holding back for so long. I have no fucking clue what’s really going on between Mia and me. All I know is that I want her, really want her. And I want her as in long-term, might be falling crazy in love with her, want her. I think she feels the same way, well, I really fucking hope she does.

  The problem is, this thing we’ve got going on right now, is just that, a thing. It’s undefinable because although nobody else knows about us, we don’t really know what’s going on either. Neither of us knows where we stand with each other. We don’t even live in the same city, we hardly ever get to see each other and it’s only now, months later, that we’re finally working out that neither of us is seeing anyone else. None of this seems normal. None of this is normal.

  “What it means Mia,” I finally get out. “Is that I’m really fucking crazy about you. I’m crazy about you and I don’t want you to be seeing anyone else. I don’t even want you to be thinking about seeing anyone else. I only want you to be seeing me, being with me.” I exhale loudly down the phone as I finally get the words I’ve been wanting to say for ages, out.

  Mia says nothing for what feels like forever.

&n
bsp; “Mia?” I ask, wondering if she’s even still there.

  I hear her soft breathing down the line.

  “Say something baby,” I beg, a slow fear starting to work its way through me.

  Finally she speaks, her voice stronger as she says, “I feel exactly the same way Jared.”

  And all at once, relief surges through me. I actually laugh out loud as I realise, for the first time since we started this, I’m finally sure about where we both stand. I’ve never had any doubts about my own feelings, none at all. But there has always been so much more going on around us, and it has made it hard to read Mia’s feelings. The secrecy of keeping whatever this thing is between us, away from everybody else. The bullshit that brought us together in the first place, with Mia’s dad, what happened with Luke, and all the shit she still refuses to talk about now. And of course, there is the physical distance between us, and never knowing when we’ll get to see each other next. But all of that stuff, all of it, now slowly starts to fade into the background as we finally acknowledge that what’s going on between us is real. That we, are actually real.

  “Then neither of us has anything to worry about, do we?” I say, my voice more relaxed now.

  She laughs and that seed of dread starts to disappear. “So you wanna meet me at Mass Ave station and we’ll go down together?” she asks.

  “Baby, fuck that, I’m meeting you at the airport, give me your flight details.”

  Mia laughs harder as she says, “Okay, you got a pen?”

  I smile as I reach over, grab one from beside my bed and scrawl down her flight details on the back of an envelope.

  And although I know all the things surrounding us are far from resolved, I feel a lot better about it all. For the first time, I truly believe and feel as though Mia is what I have always wanted her to be, mine.

  Mia and I are tucked in together on the Amtrak to Providence. We could’ve got the commuter, but I wanted it to be the best for her, nicer. She’s folded into me, my arm resting across her shoulders and it suddenly hits me that I’m going to get to do this so much more now that she’s really moving here. Just the thought has me grinning like a fucking idiot.