French Kissed

by Chanel Cleeton

  “Is he the reason you overdosed?” I asked, hating myself for the question, sick over what her answer would be. We’d danced around all of this, but we hadn’t really talked about it. In the beginning I’d gone along with the idea to take things slowly, agreed that we could get to know each other with time. But I loved her, and if this was going to be something, then I needed to know where it was headed.

  As much as I loved her personality, the passion that made her at times dramatic and unpredictable, it also scared me. She danced so close to the edge, and I worried she would fall.

  I was so far out of my comfort zone. My past was boring. She was a walking soap opera. I didn’t know how to live in her world, how to play her game. I wanted to learn, but we spoke a different language, and just when I’d thought I understood, I realized how little I knew after all.

  She shook her head. “This isn’t about Costa. It’s complicated.”

  Frustration bubbled to the surface like a geyser on the brink of explosion.

  “You keep saying that, but what does it mean? How is it complicated? Do you still have feelings for him?” It hurt to speak. “Are you still in love with him?”

  She pulled back, shock filling her eyes. “No! How can you ask me that? I love you.”

  “Then why won’t you talk to me? Why don’t you trust me? What was Natasha talking about when she said you had secrets? What else aren’t you telling me? I listened when you said you didn’t want to talk about your past, but Fleur, it feels like this isn’t just in the past. It’s here between us, and it’s still hurting you.”

  “I don’t want it to affect us,” she whispered.

  “It already is affecting us,” I answered, suddenly exhausted. It wasn’t even ten a.m. and I already felt like I’d packed a lifetime of drama into a few short hours.

  “We’re amazing together, and I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, but I can’t have a relationship with someone who doesn’t trust me. I don’t want to feel like I’m desperate for you to let me inside.”

  She froze.

  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  She was silent for an eternity. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Then talk to me, Fleur.”

  She leaned forward, her head in her hands.

  “I can’t. Just give me a little more time. I promise. Let’s talk tonight after your interview. I never wanted any of this to happen today. The last thing you need is to be distracted. I promise you, everything will be okay. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I wanted to be patient for her, wanted to give her space and time. But she was the most stubborn person I’d ever met, and if we didn’t bring it up now, would we just dance around it forever?

  I got up from the bed, that same restless feeling coursing through my body. This was the absolute fucking worst time for this. My mind was everywhere but where it should be. And time was running out.

  “I have to go. I have to leave for my interview or I’m going to be late.”

  She nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

  I met her gaze, my voice strained. “We need to talk later.”

  “I know,” she answered, getting up from the bed and standing in front of me. “We will. Good luck with the interview.”

  I left her in my dorm room as I struggled to clear my head, and my heart, and prepare for the biggest day of my life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Fleur

  I headed back to my room on shaky legs, a stabbing pain in my chest.

  Was this it? Had I just fucked everything up with Max?

  Maybe I should have just told him. I’d thought about it when I’d seen how upset he was, but today was too important for him to be caught up in my bullshit. I didn’t want to drag him down with my drama and bad decisions.

  But what if I already had?

  I needed to do something, needed to change the way I was handling everything. Clearly avoidance wasn’t working. It hadn’t worked when I’d used alcohol or drugs, when I’d dated George in a lame attempt to get my mind off Costa and everything else. I wanted to say that falling in love with Max had been enough to save me, to erase the pain of everything I’d been through, but it hadn’t.

  I was beginning to realize that no one could take that pain away from me. And maybe that was the point. I would never be the girl I’d been before. Would never go back to a life where my biggest worries were what outfit I’d wear or how I’d do my hair. I carried the loss of my baby around with me always.

  I’d been running for so long. Now it was time to face it.

  I pulled out my phone, staring at the number, wishing I didn’t have it. I wanted to delete it, wanted to pretend he’d never existed. But more than that, more than anything, I wanted to let go. The old me would have gotten drunk or gone shopping. I would have taken the easy way out, rather than face my problems.

  It was time to grow up.

  I sat in bed, curling my legs against my chest, staring at his name in my phone. We hadn’t spoken in over a year. I pressed “Call,” my heart pounding in my chest.

  He’d graduated from a different university last year and he was back in Milan now, probably working for his family’s company.

  He answered on the third ring.

  “Fleur?”

  It was the strangest thing to hear my name on Costa’s lips. On one hand, it was so familiar. Like we’d traveled back in time and I was at school in Switzerland calling my boyfriend, the one all the girls were jealous of. And yet, it felt like a stranger said my name now. Maybe it was that I’d moved on or maybe it was the realization that despite everything I’d thought I knew about him, I hadn’t really known him at all.

  “Are you okay?”

  It would have been easier if I hadn’t heard the concern in his voice. It would have been easier to hate him, to not allow even a flicker of the happy memories spill inside, if I could just convince myself that he was truly evil.

  But I couldn’t. He was an asshole. He was a cheater and a player. He’d treated me like shit for a lot of our relationship, and stupidly, I’d let him. But the universal thread among good liars was that there was always a thread of truth. And for all of his flaws, there was a part of Costa that had loved me in his own way. It hadn’t really been love, it had been his version of love, and now I knew it hadn’t been nearly enough, but hearing his voice still made everything worse.

  I wasn’t sure how two people could screw everything up as much as we had, how something could have started in kisses and affection, and ended up as this ugly, mangled mess.

  But it had.

  I took a deep breath and spoke my first words to him in over a year. “Natasha just put a naked picture of us up all over the school.”

  Costa cursed in Italian, and whatever doubt had existed, trickled away. Despite his many flaws, he hadn’t done that. Some part of me felt a thread of relief to know that in spite of my stupid choices, at least I hadn’t dated a complete and total monster.

  Just someone who had never really deserved me.

  “She did it last year, too.”

  He cursed again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to talk to you then.”

  He didn’t speak for a beat. “And now you want to talk to me?”

  “If I had my way, I’d never talk to you again,” I answered honestly. “But I need to know something because things are getting ugly here. Did you tell her about the miscarriage?”

  “Fuck. No. She knows I got someone pregnant and that she lost the baby. She doesn’t know it was you.”

  My chest tightened. “Do you really think it would be that hard for her to figure out? The rumor has already been quietly circulating the International School. At least now I know where it came from.”

  “Fleur—”

  “No. It’s my turn to talk. I was a good girlfriend to you. I wasn’t always perfect, but I cared about you, thought I loved you at the time. I never cheated on you, only ever tried to make you happy. If you ever
cared about me, if you have any shred of decency in you, then you will lock this down. You know what losing the baby was like for me.” I had to push through the lump in my throat. “You know what I’ve been through and have done to myself. You need to handle your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”

  Well, that explained why she didn’t care how messy this was getting . . . She had nothing to lose. I was the one with everything hanging in the balance.

  “I miss you, Fleur,” Costa continued, as if the last two years and everything in between hadn’t happened. “I was thinking maybe I could come to London and see you. Or maybe you could come here. We need to talk about this, deal with it together.”

  He had to be fucking kidding me. Of all the things for him to bring up now, after everything we’d been through, the fact that he wouldn’t just let this die made me the angriest. Any hope of dignity was gone. We’d both obliterated it.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “We were good together.”

  The saddest part was that I’d believed that once. And I finally understood who Costa was. He was rich, gorgeous, and used to having everything he could ever want. But he only wanted things when they were just out of his reach. Once he got them, they lost all their value. He was like a spoiled boy who only wanted to play with a toy if someone else had it.

  It had never been about me; it was always about the chase.

  “We weren’t good together. We were young, and we didn’t know any better.”

  I hadn’t known any better.

  “I still love you.”

  I closed my eyes, wondering why this hurt so much. I didn’t love him. I didn’t even like him. But there was too much history there for me to ignore the feeling completely. Maybe I regretted the time wasted, the tears shed. The fact that I’d been so fucking stupid to nearly kill myself by taking drugs to numb the pain. I hated that he’d almost destroyed me when he wasn’t worth anything.

  I thought the anger and regret would consume me. I could feel the darkness closing in, the desire to do something stupid, to release all of these feelings building inside me.

  I fought for control, tried to channel a sense of calm. I wanted more. I wanted to be happy. I wanted a chance at a better life, and I wouldn’t get it unless I took it.

  I needed to let go.

  “I’ve moved on. I’ve met someone else. I’m happy. It’s over.”

  “Do you really think that? After everything we’ve been through? How can you turn your back on the years we’ve spent together? I love you, Fleur.”

  I cut the last cord that had bound me to him—the sadness, the pain—I let them float away until there was nothing in their place but my present and my future.

  “Good-bye, Costa.”

  I hung up the phone and closed the door on my past.

  ###

  I sat in my room, trying to figure out what I was going to say to Max when someone pounded on the door.

  Maggie and Mya were both in class, although they’d sent me frantic texts telling me they were willing to skip. I’d promised them that I was okay and it wasn’t necessary. We had finals coming up in a few days, and the last thing I needed was for this to be another “drop everything, Fleur’s having a crisis,” semester for them.

  I padded over to the door, opening it, and saw Samir standing in the hall.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked as he walked over the threshold and closed the door behind him.

  His voice was tight, his accent heavier than normal. “No. Everything is not okay. I’m going to fucking kill Costa.”

  I groaned. “I’m guessing Maggie told you about the picture.” I sank down onto my bed, exhausted from all the drama this morning. My body was drained, and all I wanted to do was take a freaking nap. “I’m okay. I’m handling it.”

  Samir shook his head. “No. This isn’t fucking okay anymore. This is the second time someone has pulled this. What the hell is going on? If that asshole thinks he’s going to get away with spreading pictures of you around the school—”

  “It wasn’t Costa.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean it wasn’t Costa?”

  I shook my head. “I called him.”

  “You what?”

  “I called him. I needed to confront this. Needed to talk to him. He was as shocked as you are, albeit not as angry.”

  “Then who put those pictures up?” His gaze darkened as he realized the answer to his own question.

  “We had an incident in the cafeteria. It was definitely Natasha.”

  He sat down next to me, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. “What are you going to do, Fleur? You can’t live like this. This is insane.”

  “I know.”

  “Why aren’t you doing something about this? Fuck. Go to the administration. Fight back. Something. You can’t let her get away with this. If you want, I’ll go talk to the administration with you. Or I’ll handle her.”

  Tears rose up in my eyes. I loved him so much. He was always there for me, always ready to do battle to protect the people he loved. I loved him, and he worried about me, and finally I did what I should have done a long time ago.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  Samir looked up, his eyes clouded with worry. “What?”

  “Last year I started receiving threatening e-mails.”

  “Threatening how?”

  I could feel the anger coming off his body.

  “E-mails threatening to expose some of my secrets if I didn’t pay them money.”

  “Blackmail,” Samir uttered in disbelief.

  I nodded.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Why am I just now hearing about this? Why didn’t you tell me last year?” His voice rose until he was nearly at a shout.

  I winced. “I know you’re pissed, and I know you’re scared for me, but you have to calm down if you want me to tell you the rest.”

  “There’s more?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t pay, but after today, I now know it was Natasha. She was behind the photos, all of it.”

  “Did you get e-mails like that this year, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Samir stood up, pacing the room, Arabic flying out of his mouth. He’d taught me enough that I recognized the angry curse words. I waited while he got his temper under control.

  He came back and sat again, the pain on his face breaking my heart. I stared down at the floor in front of me, unable to look at him as I told him the rest of it.

  “I was pregnant at the end of freshman year. I had a miscarriage.”

  Shock flashed across his face.

  I couldn’t look at him while I told him everything. At one point he put his arm around me, and we sat there as I cried and spoke of the baby I’d loved and lost.

  I realized then that each time I spoke of my loss, it became a little easier. It was still so hard, but there was a strange comfort in being able to share this part of myself with Samir. When I’d finished, his face was pale, his eyes pained.

  “I’m so sorry, Fleur. So sorry you had to deal with that.” His voice cracked. “I hate that I wasn’t there for you. I hate that you were alone.”

  I hesitated. “I wasn’t always alone. Don’t be angry. I swore her to secrecy—”

  His eyes narrowed. “Maggie knows.”

  I nodded. “I told her when I was in the hospital after my overdose. She was so upset when she found me in our room. So scared. We told Mya last year when the picture came out.”

  “I’m glad you guys had each other. I just wish I could have been there for you too.” Emotion filled his voice, and I almost wondered if he was going to cry. “I love you, Fleur. You’ve always been more like a sister than a cousin, and you don’t know what it’s been like seeing you in pain for so long. I would have given anything to make it better for you.”

  I hugged him. “I know. I just didn’t know what to say. I knew how you felt about Costa, and you
were right. I just wish I’d learned my lesson earlier.”

  He sighed. “How are you now?”

  “It’s hard to explain. It’s like everything fits into these little boxes. I love my friends, and I love Max, and I’m finally starting to think I might get a job after graduation. Hell, I’m starting to think I’ll actually graduate. But the other boxes?” I tried to think of the best way to describe it. “The baby box is like this dark place I try not to go. Whenever I think of it, I just feel this emptiness inside and nothing seems to fill it.”

  “Have you tried talking to someone?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you gone to therapy?”

  “My parents sent me to that spa after sophomore year to ‘fix me.’ It was basically holding hands and talking about our feelings. I hated it.”

  “Maybe you just didn’t find the right person to talk to.”

  “Do you think I can’t handle this without professional help?”

  Samir leaned forward, pressing a kiss on my forehead. “No. But I think everyone has things in their life that they need to sort out, and there’s no shame in it. You don’t always have to be invincible. It doesn’t make you weak just because you show someone your softer side. If anything, putting yourself out there is the scariest fucking thing in the world, but it only makes you strong.”

  He smiled softly at me, all the love between us shining through. “A very smart girl told me that one day when she flew to Saint-Tropez and told me to get my head out of my ass before I let the best thing in my life go.

  “You’re the toughest person I know. You’ve been through hell, and you’re still standing. Take the time you need to fix what you need to fix, because you’ll never find peace if you don’t figure out a way to keep this from dragging you down. It’s okay to be sad, okay to mourn. But you have to find a way to be able to move forward. You need peace.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “And Fleur? I’m here for you. Always. No matter what. Nothing could change that.”