by Alex Rosa
He thinks this was a mistake.
Another visible gulp as his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.
I can’t stop my frantic heart, and I’ve lost my ability to speak. I’ve lost the ability to process anything.
He turns slowly to me, running an apologetic hand through his hair.
“I’m so sorry, Hailey. I have to go to work.”
What?
He leaves without another word or an apologetic smile, just a look of fear. And what’s worse is, I understand that fear. I understand it way too well.
He runs down the hallway, grabbing his jacket and gear hanging on the wall before disappearing in the garage where the truck is. I guess duty calls when you’re the only emergency response team in a small town, but still.
I touch my swollen lips as if to prove to myself that I didn’t make up what just happened. The tears that he had previously stopped are now back in full force as silent streams fall down my cheeks.
His look said it all. It was wrong, no matter how right it might have felt.
He has a girlfriend, and let’s be honest, I’m so emotionally unavailable, it’s ridiculous.
I can’t imagine this has anything to do with him doing the right thing.
Chapter Twelve
It’s been four days.
Four days since Caiden kissed me, and four days since I’ve committed myself to being a recluse.
I’ve turned to my literary heroes on this one, and they all seem to approve.
At first, this seemed like a great idea. However, I can’t say it’s done anything for my writing, which is one of the most annoying parts of this situation.
Oh, and the fact that Caiden kissed me. That’s pretty infuriating.
I banished CeeCee from bothering me in my writing cave, and I almost miss her misplaced optimism. She wanted answers as to why I didn’t want her around, and I was too terrified to open my mouth because I know the truth wants to seep out.
I pace my porch, walking circles around my house, trying to find a purpose. My eyes continuously peek up toward the road whenever I hear a car.
I may have forbidden CeeCee from entering, but I’ve not had any contact with Caiden to tell him to leave me alone, not that I would.
I thought maybe he’d show up to explain himself, but he hasn’t. We’ve always been two people fighting for the last word. This silence is awkward. He must know that there’s no use in explaining, I guess. What could he say? What would I want him to say?
This is just one of the many plot twists in my life.
The sizzle he left on my lips still burns so much that I can’t seem to focus.
Damn him. Damn this town. Damn everything.
Meow.
Not now, Soot.
I stop at the front of the house, looking out onto the road, hoping for a sign, but my ringing cell phone distracts me.
I walk back into the living room, grabbing for it, and see CeeCee’s name flashing on the screen. It was only a matter of time until she couldn’t hold herself back.
I grit my teeth when my phone buzzes in my hands right after it finishes ringing. CeeCee isn’t known to back down or be ignored. Hell, she can barely follow directions. I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up on my doorstep already.
The text message she sent after the call vibrates again.
I groan, tossing my phone against the couch so I can rub my temples. I don’t want to go, but I know I can’t skip it. That’ll only cause more questions. I don’t need a Brandon interrogation along with a CeeCee one. Good God, what if they decide to question me together? No, thanks.
I decide not to text CeeCee back. Maybe it’s rude, but I’m not in the mood for nice, either. Not today.
Regardless, I spend the afternoon trying to choose something to wear, because I’m going to this party whether I like it or not.
In PineCrest, it’s just bad manners to not show up to a bonfire party.
Damn this town… for the umpteenth time.
I roll my eyes.
Meow.
“Soot, would you stop!”
My feet crunch on the dry leaves and pine needles when I exit my car and wander toward the glow of the bonfire, pulling in that deep, necessary gust of oxygen. I don’t really know what I’m walking into, but I at least know I could use a friendly face. I’m not sure the recluse life suits me.
I smooth my hands over my summer dress, the floral pattern feeling appropriate for the evening as I enter the crowd, avoiding stares while trying to seek out my friends.
I try to bask in the party buzz, and there’s a sense of home and nostalgia that lies here.
This is when I see CeeCee standing, surprisingly, by herself near the fire. Though she’s staring absentmindedly into the flames, she senses me coming before I can announce myself, turning toward me. I approach her with an apologetic grimace. I deserve her returning glare.
“So,” she hums disapprovingly. “I’m glad to see you decided to join us tonight. Ya know, you’re almost as bad as Caiden.”
I’m thankful for the darkness, because my face gets hotter by the second, and I’d like to put the blame on the giant bonfire, but I know that isn’t the case.
I may deserve the sass, but Caiden is the last person I want to be compared to right now.
“Am I?” I sigh.
Her eyes dart to the right, glancing across the party, and Brandon is there, standing with Caiden. It throws me off balance, but I catch myself a second later as I shuffle up to stand up straight next to CeeCee, my mouth going dry.
After thinking I’d see Caiden in the days that passed since he kissed me, I’m stunned to have his eyes pinned on me so heavily from a distance.
I tear my stare away, annoyed. He’s not allowed to give me that puppy dog look. No way.
Though, I do take note that Brandon is pretty much as far away from CeeCee as possible while still managing to be within the boundaries of the party. His own carefully crafted grimace says a lot, and the fact that he’s refusing to look our way.
When CeeCee turns back to me, her glare has shifted into a frown. I may have my own shit going on, but I’m sure she does, too.
“You okay, Cee?”
“Me and Brandon broke up.”
I raise an inquisitive brow. “I thought you said you two weren’t together?”
She snorts.
Convinced by the sad creases around her mouth, and the entirely unfair, glowing, cat-like stare on me from across the party, I’m compelled to confess my secret, if she’ll confess hers.
“Hey?” I reach out to touch her arm. She lifts her chin slowly to meet my eyes, and she looks as lost as I feel. I shouldn’t find comfort in it, but I do.
“I think it’s about time we have girl talk. Like, real girl talk.”
“Are you going to tell me why you’ve been ignoring me?”
“Are you going to tell me how you really feel about Brandon?” I shoot back.
She nods.
“Then yes, but booze first.”
She smiles as we link arms to find a bottle before we reveal our secrets, just like old times.
That’s when I realize she’s been hiding an empty bottle of beer as she says, “I’ve got a head start. You better catch up.”
“On it.”
Unfortunately, this journey requires us to get dangerously close to Caiden and Brandon. It’s an entirely awkward experience when you overhear one of the guys punch the other as he says, “Dude, stop staring. You’re supposed to have my back tonight. What the hell is going on with you?” and you know the person he’s talking to is Caiden.
I don’t hear a response, but only because I’m too terrified to hear one. In a haphazard attempt at being efficient, I just grab for the entire bottle of whiskey and make a run for it. I know John, the host of this party, would be annoyed, but I think at this point I have a damn good reason to take it. I still try to hide it as we scurry away, me with the bottle and CeeCee with red solo cups.
“I can’
t believe you just took the whole bottle.” CeeCee giggles.
I shrug. “It’s because Caiden won’t stop staring, and I was scared he was going to open his mouth or something.”
She waits until we get to the opposite end of the party, turning our backs on the crowd so we feel at least a little secluded. “Something must have happened between you two. You don’t normally ignore my calls or texts.”
I unscrew the bottle and take a swig from it. I enjoy the burn so much that I take another one right after.
This only ignites more of CeeCee’s laughter, surely at my expense. “That bad, huh?” she asks.
I wipe the corner of my mouth with my arm. “You first. I need a moment before talking about it.”
She nods, pulling the bottle from my hand, and pours some into her cup. “See, I’m a lady.”
“Uh huh,” I laugh as I shift gears, lifting my cup so she can pour some into mine. “I didn’t think about getting a mixer for our drinks.”
“We’ll be just fine.”
I wait for her to take her first gulp, and she cringes, letting out a quiet gag before shaking it off. “Yowzers. Okay, I’m good…”
“So, you and Brandon aren’t together?”
She hums. “You were right before. We weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend, I guess, but it was starting to feel that way. It’s not what I want.”
She takes another large gulp, and I do the same.
“Are you sure it’s not what you want?”
She sighs. “No.”
I don’t have a response for that even if I do think she’s full of it. Who am I to give advice when I can’t figure out what I want?
“He really hurt me, Hailey. He hurt me over and over after that, too, even if I have no right to be mad, and even though he’s gotten better. Much better, really, but I can’t seem to forget him cheating. He dated after that, too, once we were officially done. He tried not to flaunt it, but it’s near impossible for Brandon not to be a smug bastard. That’s until he realized how much I was hurting. Caiden did do some good, even though he pushed Brandon to fuck around in the first place. Caiden told him how much seeing him with other girls was killing me. Unfortunately, that made him realize I was still in love with him.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? Or at least it could be?”
She shakes her head. “It should be, but it isn’t. It took us a long time to be able to be in the same room with one another, but once we could, it helped the friendship dynamics. Our group was finally able to pull back together. It took almost a year, but ya know, it was too easy for us to get comfortable, me and Brandon, that is. We’d fool around, I’d regret it, or he would, but I was the one who could never commit.”
“Did he want you to commit?”
“At first he did, but then he’d take anything he could get and stopped asking about getting back together. I liked it that way. I was too scared to make us official, because if I did, it would give him the power to break me.” She releases a sad sigh. “What am I saying? I’m still like that, Hails. He scares the shit out of me. You’ve seen how he is. He could cheat on me again. I don’t trust him. I’m scared.”
“Cee, you can’t think like that. Trust me when I say I understand this fear, but any idiot can see that Brandon wants to do right by you.”
She grunts, gurgling through another large sip. “I know. He’s really good at that part. He confronted me yesterday about what we were doing. I admitted we were getting too comfortable this round. I was staying over too much, he was texting me in the mornings and at night, and it was like we were teens all over again. He started making assumptions and expected me to do things with him. That’s when he asked what we were doing.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked him what he wanted.”
“And?”
She shrugs. “He told me he wanted to make us official, that he wanted to take us to the next level. He was ready to bring us back to where we once were.”
When a sad laugh escapes her before she goes on, I already know what’s coming. “Poor guy.” She sniffs. “I told him it was over. We can’t do it anymore. That whatever he thinks we have, we don’t. It hurt so much to lie.”
My chest deflates. Her words remind me of when I told Caiden to let me go, but at least my words were warranted.
“Cee, you’re miserable over it, aren’t you?” She nods. “Then why not give it the chance that it deserves even though I know you’re scared? You’re upset now anyway. At least if you give it a try, you’ll be happy. Brandon is an idiot, but he’s not one to make the same mistake twice. Love is a risk. You just gotta take the leap.”
She smiles, and I really adore the dopey edges to it as she turns to me. “He’s so mad at me right now.”
“I’d probably be mad at you, too.”
She laughs. “Yeah, me too-too.”
I laugh, taking a larger gulp, wanting to catch up with her drunken state as soon as possible. I can’t tell whether it will help me feel less, or whether it’ll amplify everything squirming through my very existence.
“I think you need to give Brandon a chance.”
“I’m not ready, but I don’t want to lose him, either.”
“Maybe that’s what you need to tell him. That you want to be able to give you two a chance, but you have to take it at a snail’s pace. He’d at least prefer to hear that rather than a lie, like you don’t want him. C’mon Cee, you’re smarter than that.”
“Huh, well, maybe… it’s up for debate. What if I don’t even want to try?”
I shrug. “Then you need to move on.”
Her shoulders slump, but she nods her head as if she understands. I finish off what’s left in my cup, grabbing for the bottle from her hands.
As I pour a fresh cup, I feel a fuzzy buzz travel to my fingertips, and I’m hopeful for a numbing remedy. That is, until CeeCee speaks. “What about you, Hails? You ever move on?”
My shrug is a reflex. “I tried. I’m trying… uh, I am.”
Her giggle turns into a snort as she says, “Riiiight. That was convincing.”
I turn around to glance at the party. The hum is at a welcomingly loud level, everyone seems preoccupied, and Brandon and Caiden are nowhere in sight. This is a comforting fact.
I need to say it. The truth is eating me alive.
“He kissed me, CeeCee. He’s ruined everything.”
She chokes on her current sip. “He did what?”
My brows pull together as I process what I’ve said. “But I think it was an accident.”
“Wait. What-the-fuck. Hold the phone. He did what?”
“I will not repeat it, because if I do I might cry, or throw up, and you really don’t want either.”
“That boy. He needs to get his shit together.”
