Bad Boy Next Door: A Small Town College Bad Boy Romance
Page 12
Finally, he walks reluctantly into the house and comes up to me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I came to talk to you,” he says.
“You hate parties. Remember, you don’t think you should be around people like this,” I snip, reminding him of the cruel things he said in that hallway.
“I know. But I need to talk to you. You haven’t returned any of my phone calls or texts. I came by your house, but your mother said you wouldn’t come down and talk to me. You wouldn’t even sit with me at church.”
“I don’t need to sit with you anymore. We’re not together, Isaiah. That’s part of our past now,” I tell him.
He shakes his head and comes another step toward me. His eyes well with tears.
“You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that. Wren, this is us. You and me. Just like it’s always been. We had a fight, but that doesn’t mean we have to throw away our entire lives,” he implores.
“It’s not just like it’s always been, Isaiah. It hasn’t been for a long time. Can’t you see that? This isn’t something we can just pretend doesn’t exist. I know we’ve been together a long time, and we always planned on a future together, but we’re different people now than we were. We were thirteen! We haven’t wanted to admit it to ourselves, but we’re changing. Both of us. We’re discovering things about ourselves and each other, and that’s okay. That’s what you’re supposed to do. But what’s not okay is the way you’ve been reacting to me through all this. I know you don’t completely understand, but that doesn’t give you an excuse for the way you talked to me. It doesn’t make it okay that you are trying to change everything and pressure me into living your life rather than my own.”
“I just want us to be together, Wren. I don’t understand what’s so wrong about that. If it’s this hard for us now, imagine what it would be like being together for four years, but we live in different states. I don’t want that. I want to be with you like we’ve always planned. And it seems like you’re focused on things way in the future. But we can get to that now. We don’t have to wait. We can get married and start our lives.”
“You mean, and start your life,” I clarify. “I don’t want to go to Boston. I want to go to my own school and study what interests me. I want to find myself and know what life is supposed to hold.” I look down for a few seconds before I look back up at him. “It isn’t just that, Isaiah. I don’t like that you think you can control my life…”
“I’m not trying to control your life. I’m just trying to do what’s best for you. I’m trying to protect you,” he insists.
“That’s just the thing. I don’t need you to protect me. I know what’s best for myself and don’t need you to determine it for me. You wouldn’t even let me finish what I had to say!” I round on him.
He takes another step toward me, reaching out his hands slightly as if he can already tell I’m slipping away from him. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“I don’t want you to decide my future for me. I don’t want you making decisions and plans, thinking you’re the one who knows best and that I just need to go along for the ride. But the thing is, if I felt differently about you, maybe I would.”
He looks stung. “What do you mean if you felt differently about me?”
“I came to your house that night because I needed to find out how I really feel. You are so important to me, Isaiah, but… don’t you feel like something’s missing?”
“What would be missing? I love you.”
“But do you get butterflies in your stomach when you see me? Does your heart race and your breath get faster? Do you feel a little bit dizzy, like everything else in the world falls away, and all you want to think about is me? Have you ever looked at me and just needed to touch me, needed to put your hands on me, and kiss me until neither one of us could breathe?”
His face turns red, and he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “Wren, you shouldn’t be saying things like that. We’re in public.”
“And if we weren’t?” I ask.
“Just because we decided not to have a physical relationship right now doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us, or we shouldn’t be together,” he says, lowering his voice to try to keep his words from as many of the people around us as possible.
“No, it doesn’t,” I say. “But if you’ve never even thought about me that way if I don’t consume you at least sometimes, and you don’t do the same for me, I just don’t know if we really have everything that we think we do. This isn’t about what we do or don’t do. It’s about being honest with ourselves and deciding if we really do have everything that we think we have, or if we’re just staying together because it’s safe.”
“You never had these problems before, Wren. Everything was fine. You know what we had was special. What we have. I might not be a thrill to you in that way but think for a second about what’s making you question it. How is Samantha feeling right about now? Lisabeth? And how many others do you think experienced that feeling and got tossed aside like they were nothing?”
“That’s not what we’re talking about right now,” I say.
His eyes lift to look over me and then lower to mine again. “Yes it is. What makes you think you would be any different?”
He walks away, and I turn around to see Talon lounging on a chair a few feet away, a smirk on his face as he watches Isaiah leave. I shake my head and stalk through the room and out onto the back patio. There are few people scattered around out here, but at least there’s more space, more air than there is inside. I walk over to a bench several yards away from anyone else and drop down onto it. A few seconds later, Talon swaggers up to me.
“Too bad Isaiah didn’t want to stay. I thought maybe he finally pulled his head out of his ass and was going to be a real person for a change,” he says.
I stand up sharply and take a step toward him, so we’re only inches apart, my jaw twitching with anger.
“What’s it like to only live for yourself and not care about anyone else? What’s it like to go through life not caring about how you affect anyone? It must be really nice to be such an arrogant, self-serving prick.”
Talon’s eyes narrow. He looks like he’s about to bite off a response, but a tear slips down my cheek, and his expression softens. He takes me by my hand and starts across the yard. I resist, and he turns back to me.
“Come on,” he says. “I promise I won’t bite.”
We walk across the open grass and into deeper shadows. After a few yards, we end up in a small gazebo tucked into the back corner of the yard. He sits down, but I can’t. There’s too much nervous energy coursing through me, and I pace back and forth across the small space.
“I wish I could get out of here,” I mutter.
“Out of the party?” he asks.
“No. Out of this town. I hate that people only see me as this perfect, sweet girl. That’s all I am to them. The good girl who goes to church and volunteers and gets good grades. The responsible one with a sparkling future completely stretched out in front of her. No one understands me. I feel like they don’t even see me.”
I press my hands to the edge of the gazebo and lean on it, my head hanging down as I draw in deep breaths to try to control myself. Suddenly, I feel Talon behind me. His body brushes against mine, and his hands reach around to touch my wrists. His fingertips trace up my arms until they get to my shoulders, and he turns me around to face him. My breath catches in my throat as he steps forward, closing all the space between us.
“I see you,” he murmurs. “I understand you. I always have.”
We stare into each other’s eyes, the longing and ache for one another tangible in the electrified air around us. Gradually, he leans forward, dipping his head, so his lips brush against mine. I tilt my mouth toward him, and he captures it. The kiss is deep and immediate, seeking, and fulfilling. His hands touch my hips and hold me closer against him. My lips part just slightly, and he draws my lower lip into his mouth. Nudging my
lips with his tongue, he intensifies the kiss until I feel dizzy and overwhelmed. I pull away from him.
“I can’t,” I say.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I just can’t do this. I have to go home.”
I maneuver myself away from him and run back to my car. I manage to get behind the wheel, and the door closed behind me before the tears start flowing down my cheeks. I hate feeling like I have no control. I hate that he has control over my emotions and my feelings, my every thought. It’s too much.
23
Talon
I don’t see Wren at all the day after the party, and she won’t answer my calls or texts. On Monday, I stand by my motorcycle in the morning, wasting as much time as I can to wait for her. I’ve been out here since the sun hadn’t started to come up yet, wanting to catch her before she went to school. At the same time, I don’t know what to say to her. Our interaction at the party was so intense, so heated, but it ended so abruptly it threw me completely off balance. I wasn’t expecting her sudden turnaround. But I also wasn’t expecting the intensity of that kiss.
She finally comes out of the house and glances my way. If she can sense I’m standing here, or if she was looking for me, I don’t know. She hesitates on the front porch, and I see her shoulders drop as if she let out a long sigh. She starts toward me, and I walk around the motorcycle to meet her. She stops a few feet from me, and we stare at each other. The feeling is different now. It’s not like when everything in me was reaching out to her, finding the same longing coming back to me. Now it’s awkward and unfinished, but neither of us know where to go.
“I’m sorry for what happened the other night,” she says.
I shake my head, narrowing my eyes at her questioningly.
“You have no reason to be sorry.”
“Yes, I do,” she insists. “I’ve been so wrapped up and confused and don’t know which way my brain is going. They’re too many thoughts happening, and I have no idea what to do with them. I shouldn’t have yelled at you the way that I did or said those things. And I shouldn’t have unloaded on you.”
“You didn’t unload on me,” I insist. “I understand what you’re feeling.”
“No, I don’t think you do, Talon. I don’t even really understand what I’m feeling.”
“You think there’s something more in the world than you’ve already experienced,” I tell her. “You feel like everyone around you is always trying to tell you what’s good for you and what you need to be doing with your life rather than just letting you live it. You know you live in a bubble. Hell, your life is so perfect on the outside; it’s like you live in a snow globe. Everything looks exactly the way it’s supposed to, but it’s not real. It’s not you. That’s not who you actually are, and you’re just starting to figure that out. You are kind and sweet and generous and smart and all those things people think about you. But you’re not perfect. You’re never going to be perfect, and that’s what makes you so amazing. You want to break free of the box people put you in so you can find out who you really are meant to be. So you can follow that path to where it brings you. I know what that feels like. I understand. Everybody around here thinks they know me, and I’ve only been here for a couple of months. And in a couple of more months, I’ll be gone. They won’t see me again, but they’ll remember me and think they know exactly who I am.”
Wren nods.
“You’re right,” she says. “You will be gone in just a few months. You will be able to put all of this behind you and never have to think about it again. But I won’t be. I can leave for college. I can do anything I want. But I’ll always be here. I’ll never be able to put this behind me because it’s part of me. You have your aunt, but even you admit that’s all the attachment you have to here. You don’t date. You don’t make commitments or connections. You live your life for you, and it’s perfect for you. But that’s not how it works for me. I might want to get out of here and not have them think of me that way anymore, but I don’t know if that’s possible. Not like it is for you. You’ll be gone. I’ll be here.”
She turns and walks away, and I realize like a punch in the center of my chest what she said. I start to go back to her, but my steps stop before I’m even out of my yard. I can’t help but wonder if every word she said is right.
The days drag on. Gradually they turn into weeks and melt into each other as the school year draws to a close. All signs of winter are completely gone. There’s no longer a nip in the air at any time. Even in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, and I stand by the window, looking out, the air outside feels thick.
I’ve stopped going to trigonometry class. There’s no real point in me attending the lectures. Mr. Whittaker is all about advance notice and a thorough calendar, which means there’s no such thing as a quiz or test coming as a surprise. I show up in time to take the evaluation, finish it in moments, and walk away. He doesn’t say anything. He has no reason to. He knows it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.
Bree replaced the curtains in my bedroom, taking down the lace and putting up blackout panels instead. She thinks it’ll help me sleep. It does, but not because of the light the panels blackout. Instead, it helps me to ignore the window beyond the curtains. It helps me not want to stand there and wait for her.
Finally, there are only a few weeks left in the school year. Graduation is in less than a month, and there’s just one last piece of high school left. It explodes through the school like Aunt Bree’s craft store took over. At every turn, there’s a sign advertising the upcoming prom. Everyone’s buzzing with excitement to the point I feel trapped in a terrible eighties’ teen movie. It seems like a bad joke, especially the morning the nominations for king and queen are announced. I’m standing in the front hallway of the school, sipping down an illicit soda, forbidden in the halls since the public education health craze scrubbed clean vending machines. I barely taste it. The pictures in front of me have deadened my senses.
“I guess they got back together just in time, didn’t they?” a voice asks from beside me.
I glance in its direction and see Samantha. She smiles, and I nod.
“Seems like it. I mean, it was pretty inevitable, wasn’t it? Don’t they have the reputation of being the golden couple?”
“Something like that. I have to admit, though, it seemed a little touch and go there for a few weeks. I thought we were looking at the possibility of them not reconciling before prom. How devastating that would have been for the yearbook committee,” she says.
I laugh. Another sip of soda burns its way down my throat. It will keep down what I’m actually feeling.
“How did they end up back together, anyway?” I ask, hoping it sounds casual and dismissive.
Samantha shrugs. “I’m not really sure. All I know is it took some time apart, and Isaiah came to her to apologize again. Now, honestly, I’m not sure what he was apologizing for. He was always so good to her. She broke his heart. But he went and apologized anyway and reminded her how they planned on going to their prom together since they were kids. His mother even has a picture of them from one Halloween and where they went as the prom king and queen. Can you believe that? Apparently, it was enough to get her over whatever of her own shit she was dealing with, and she took him back.”
“Why do you say she broke his heart?” I ask. “Just because she had doubts about them?”
“Is that really all it was?” she asks.
“As far as I know,” I shrug.
She looks me up and down, licking her lips, then tilts her head at me. “I’m sorry for how things went down between us. That was incredibly ridiculous of me, and I’m beyond embarrassed about it. Fortunately, I will get to relive my humiliation and grow from it since it’s now a viral video.”
I laugh. “Yeah, it’s amazing how fast people can whip out a cell phone camera. You don’t even think people notice what’s going on, and they already have it on video. Likely with captions. Maybe some extra animation.”
The smile that curves up her lips is devilish. I glance back at the pictures of Wren and Isaiah on the nomination poster. Samantha is still looking at me with expectation when my eyes turn back to her.
“You know what? You’re on.”
24
Wren
My mother snaps pictures of me like she harbors an inner dream of being part of the paparazzi. She’s been doing it all day. Every time I point it out to her or let her know she could probably come down a bit with the shutterbug tendencies, she just smiles that mother smile and says one day all these pictures will matter to me. When I grow up, I’m going to want to look back and remember everything about today.
I can’t imagine there’s any point down the line of my life when I’m going to sincerely care enough about what I looked like while getting my hair done before prom. The same goes for the awkward moment when I was in my bathrobe with my hair up in curlers and hadn’t finished my makeup or painting my toenails with one hand and eating a powdered donut with the other. It’s entirely possible it’s her goal to capture every single second, so one day, she can use the progression as a form of maternal blackmail. I’ve seen the horrendous scrapbooks and slideshows that happen at important life moments like graduations and going away parties. I am under absolutely no delusion that my mother is above whipping one of those out.
If she ever does, I know the pictures she’s taking today will end up laid out right alongside the Halloween picture from when I was much younger. Standing alongside a chubby-cheeked Isaiah, I shamelessly wore costume jewelry and enough tulle and gold chintz to put vintage Madonna to shame. The caption scribbled across the back in pencil says we decided to go as a prom couple. I don’t remember the specifics of that Halloween season, but I have no clear memories of the two of us coming to that conclusion. It’s entirely possible that we did, but I think it’s much more likely our parents sprung the idea on us. Even then, we would not argue. It’s what I wanted, so that’s what we did.