“Oh, and what did I get wrong?” he asked arrogantly. “Are you not a cheerleader? You’re really on the dance team?”
I narrowed my eyes at his smugness. “No, I’m not cheerleader,” I finally said. “I used to be, but then I graduated high school – three years ago.”
I let my statement hang out there as Zack looked at me quizzically, and I could tell he was trying to decipher if I was telling him the truth. I spoke up again before he could say anything else.
“Yes, I am well-aware of the fact that I look like I’m twelve. For the record, I’ll be twenty-two in September.”
“I actually was going to go with eighteen, not twelve,” Zack said, matching my confidence.
“Common mistake,” I said, waving my hand at him.
“So are you really in love with your boyfriend?” Zack asked, changing gears and giving me a skeptical look. “Did I get that wrong too?”
“Yes, you did, and yes, I’m in love with him,” I said definitively, but the words didn’t sound as confident when I heard them spoken out loud. I was also well-aware that each second with Zack seemed to push Ben further from my mind.
Zack leaned even closer to me, scooting down to the landing, so we were just inches apart. “Then why did you tell me I had kissable lips? If you love your boyfriend so much, why were you thinking about kissing another guy?”
“I–,” I started to say but couldn’t get the words out. He was making me completely tongue-tied.
“Do you know what I think?”
I shook my head.
“I think you need to stop trying so hard,” he said, pulling away from me and resting his elbows on the step behind him.
I gave him an incredulous look. “Excuse me?”
“Do you like who you are, Emily? Do you like your life?”
Seriously! How was he doing that?
I sighed loudly, letting out a long, slow breath of air. “Like I said, my life is predictable. I’ve worked so hard for what I have, but now that I have it, it’s not really all that great. I keep thinking there should be something more, you know?”
“Then stop trying so hard to be the person you think you should be and just be yourself,” Zack said, as if it were that simple.
“Don’t you think if I knew who I was supposed to be, I’d be that person?” I snapped.
He shook his head. “You’re not getting it. Don’t think. Don’t try. Just go with your gut.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“What would you do right now, if there were no consequences?” he asked, appraising me but not judging. I could tell he was honestly asking.
“There are always consequences,” I said, shaking my head at his notion.
He leaned forward again. “Pretend there aren’t. What’s one thing you would do tonight if you knew you wouldn’t get caught and no one would find out?”
Now I’m sure he expected me to say something profound or mention a daring act that scared me, but it was hard to focus on anything but his lips, so close to mine, and before I knew what was happening, I was leaning forward and closing the space between us.
In the heat of the moment, I let myself not think about what I was doing and what it would mean. I did exactly what he said as I went with my gut, did the one thing I wanted to do more than anything in that moment and kissed him, hard, right on the lips as electricity shot through my body with our connection.
Only when we pulled apart did I realize that I’d just cheated on Ben, but some part of me justified it. I’d enjoyed kissing Zack more than I’d ever admit, and I’d be lying if I said he didn’t look like he felt the same way.
“Okay, that was so not what I expected,” he said, gazing at me with a dazed look on his face. I was suddenly self-conscious that he didn’t enjoy the kiss.
“I’m sorry,” I said, almost instantaneously. It was a gut reaction since I really wasn’t sorry at all that I’d done it, but it felt like the right thing to say.
He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry,” he said, smirking slightly. “I’d bet that’s the first time in your life you’ve ever been impulsive. Don’t apologize for it.”
“Nah” I said, waving my hand in dismissal. “I hauled off and punched a girl a few weeks ago when I caught her kissing my boyfriend. That was the most impulsive I’ve ever been.”
Zack nodded his head, seemingly impressed with what I’d revealed. Then he smirked. “I thought you didn’t want to kiss me?” He leaned back again but didn’t move up to the bottom step he’d been sitting on before.
I noticed the cocky air he’d been exuding as he psychoanalyzed me had diminished, and I wondered just how off-guard I’d caught him with that kiss.
I shrugged, playing coy. “Things change.”
“What would your boyfriend say? Would he punch me if he saw what you just did?”
“Probably,” I said, matching his confidence. “But he’s not here.”
“No, he’s not,” was all Zack said, his gaze never leaving mine.
“We’ve been together for five years,” I suddenly blurted out, not really sure why I was opening up to a guy, who still hadn’t officially told me his name. “I love him. I really do. He’s perfect, but lately I’ve been feeling sort of unhappy with him.”
Zack raised an eyebrow at me, which I interpreted as him questioning how perfect Ben really was if he was making me unhappy. It was exactly what I’d been thinking but had been afraid to admit.
“He loves me so much, and he wants to marry me.”
“How does that make you feel?” Zack asked, and I couldn’t help smirk at his shrink-like question.
“A little excited and a little freaked out. He’s the only guy I’ve ever been with. What if I’m settling for the first guy I met and there’s someone else out there who’s a better match for me. I don’t know. He keeps talking about getting engaged and moving in together after we graduate, but I just don’t know. I sort of followed him to college. He got a scholarship to play football at UNC, so I went with him, so we wouldn’t have to break up. And I haven’t regretted it, but I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d gone somewhere else.”
Zack nodded, almost as if he understood.
“I just kind of hate that I was the kind of girl who followed a guy somewhere, and I’m afraid that if I follow him after college, I’ll be missing out on something great, you know? It’s like I’ve been having all these thoughts lately about wanting to see the world and experience different things. I’ve been taking baby steps, like getting my nose pierced. I haven’t even told Ben about that, because I’m afraid he’ll be disappointed in me. I also haven’t told him how much I’m second-guessing so many things in my life. I haven’t told him a lot.”
“Have you told him about me?” Zack asked, a slight smirk on his face.
“What?” I asked, thinking he was crazy. “I don’t even know your name. Why would I tell him about you?”
He shrugged. “I’m a pretty memorable guy, that’s all. It’s Zack, by the way. My name.”
“I know.”
“Oh yeah, I thought you didn’t know my name?”
“I’m friends with Molly. She mentioned you. I just didn’t want you to think I knew who you were.”
“See, there you go thinking again,” he said, shaking his head. Then he sighed. “Did you hear us fighting earlier?”
“Yeah, I did. What’s the deal with you guys anyway?” I asked, taking my shot to see if they were dating. A part of me hoped he’d say no, especially since I’d just kissed him.
“She’s my cousin – my over-protective cousin who doesn’t know when to butt out.”
Oh, they were related. That actually made sense. I wondered why Molly had never introduced me to him. We’d all been at a lot of the same parties that summer, and I’d met the rest of her family.
“Sometimes it’s good when people butt in,” I told him, “even if you don’t realize it at the time.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah, well, sometimes it’s better if people just mind their own business,” he said, and I took that as a cue that I needed to stop prying.
He stared out at the ocean, so I stared down the beach, not sure what to do or say next. After several minutes of silence, I was debating whether to get up and go inside. If Zack wanted to be alone, I would let him. But before I could move, he said something that made me take pause.
“So, Emily, how ironic is it that we met in your hometown and again here?”
“I’d say it’s pretty ironic. I never thought I’d run into Cute Coffeehouse Guy again,” I said, realizing too late that I’d said that out loud. I clamped my hand over my mouth.
Zack’s eyes widened in surprise. “Cute Coffeehouse Guy?” he questioned around a smirk.
I felt my face flush scarlet and automatically looked down.
“Huh,” he said. “I like it.”
I was afraid to look at him for fear I would burst into flames. I thought if I could run away without looking like an idiot, I’d do it, but there was no way I’d be able to achieve that. I fixed my gaze on the wooden boards of the stairs instead. A few minutes passed without any words exchanged between us, but I could tell Zack was staring at me.
“I think I’m going to go in now,” he said. “I need to get home. Thanks for the kiss, princess.”
I just nodded, my cheeks turning red again as I stared at the ground. I heard him stand and start back up the stairs, thankful my embarrassment was finally ending.
“Don’t worry,” he said, from halfway up the stairs. I raised my head involuntarily to look at him. “If I’d have been that creative, I would have come up with a similar nickname for you.” He flashed me a wide smile. “For now I’ll just call you the cute girl I can’t stop thinking about and who I’m so glad isn’t in high school.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was three days before I saw Zack again, but I couldn’t get him out of my head. I looked for him wherever I went, but he seemed to be missing in action. I even asked Molly about him, but she said he was just staying in.
I thought a lot about what he’d said about finding other ways to deal with my issues and being impulsive and not thinking. I even considered what that would mean in the grand scheme of things, even though I guess that defeated the purpose of being spontaneous. I couldn’t help it. Not thinking about consequences just wasn’t in my nature. And even though I knew where he lived, and it would be incredibly spontaneous, I couldn’t bring myself to impulsively stop by and see him.
It would have been wrong anyway. I had a boyfriend. I had Ben.
But even though I talked to Ben every night, I found that when I should have been thinking of him I wasn’t. I was thinking about the sad guy with dark hair and light brown eyes who I’d kissed a few days earlier. I was wondering what it would be like to kiss him again. I was a bad girlfriend, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t get Zack off my mind no matter how hard I tried.
The day after the party, Chase and I had gone down to the beach. I’d been inside my head all morning and needed some perspective. It was still overcast, but at least it wasn’t raining.
“How wrong is it to cheat?” I asked him, studying his face as he thought about what I’d said.
“Are you talking about cheating on a test or on a person?” he asked, clarifying my question as his hand absently raked through the wet sand in a hypnotic pattern.
“A person.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Did you cheat on that d-bag boyfriend of yours?”
I shot him a look. “He’s not a d-bag. Don’t call him that. And I didn’t really cheat on him. I just kissed someone else. It was nothing.”
Chase offered me a cigarette, as he was pulling one out for himself, but I shook my head. Maybe if it had been one of Zack’s clove cigarettes I’d have taken him up on his offer, but I wasn’t a big fan of the regular kind.
“To be honest, I think it’s good that you cheated on Ben,” he said as he lit his cigarette. “I hate that guy. You’re too good for him, and you should have broken up with him years ago.”
“That’s not true. He’s a good guy.”
Chase raised an eyebrow at me. “No, he isn’t. He’s a dick. He walks around like he’s King Shit, still basking in his glory days when he was a high school football star. He’s a jerk to pretty much everyone, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was cheating on you. I mean for real, not just being attacked by Ashleigh Ballast at a party.”
“He’s not cheating on me,” I said calmly, knowing Ben would never do that. “Besides, he’s amazing at football. He should get to show off for it.”
“Okay,” Chase said, not seeming to believe me. “We apparently have very different opinions of the guy, so let’s just drop it. Who’d you kiss?”
“Molly’s cousin, Zack,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “You know the guy who’s always playing his guitar by the bonfire. We were talking last night out on the deck at that party, and I kissed him. Now I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“I’ve met him,” Chase said. “He’s a cool guy. I’d say go for it. Who cares? You’re young.”
“Would you cheat on Amy?” I asked him.
“Amy?” Chase asked, as if it was the strangest notion in world. “No way.
“Then why are you telling me it’s okay to cheat?!”
“Because, the only person you’ve ever dated is Ben. I have had many girlfriends. You need to expand your horizons. Besides, no one will ever know.”
“I guess,” I said, not entirely convinced that what he was saying was true.
“Don’t guess,” he said, taking a deep drag off of his cigarette. “Just do.”
How ironic that he was giving me the same advice as Zack.
“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before.”
But it was easier said than done. Once I cheated, that would be it. Ben and I would be over. I would have to tell him. I’d have to break up with him. He wouldn’t be my boyfriend anymore, and we certainly wouldn’t be getting engaged after graduation. How did I feel about that?
“It’s good advice,” Chase said, stubbing his cigarette out in the sand and burying the butt.
I wasn’t sure I agreed with him, so I figured I’d push the unsavory thought from my mind until I was ready to revisit it.
“You’ve really had tons of girlfriends?” I asked Chase, wondering how it was that I knew so little about someone I shared DNA with.
Of course we’d lived in different cities for three years, but still, I saw him at holidays. I would have thought he’d have mentioned who he was dating at some point.
“Sure,” he said, as he piled a mound of sand over his buried cigarette.
“How come you’ve never talked about these girlfriends?”
“I did, you just never chose to listen.”
“That’s not true,” I said, slightly offended by his dig.
“Emily, before this summer you were incredibly self-absorbed. You never bothered to look past your own personal drama to see what was going on around you. You wrote me off, labeled me as an asshole and left it at that.”
“But you were an asshole,” I defended
“No, I’ve always been the same person. You just never took the time to step out of who you’d become to see it. I’m not like you and your friends, and I have no desire to be. I’m okay with not being popular or even well-liked, but for you, it’s like a crutch, and it’s been that way since you hit high school. You define yourself by how other people view you. You’re terrified of anyone seeing you as less than perfect, so you walk around trying to please everyone and always do the right thing. It’s actually made you a pretty hateful person.”
“I’m not hateful,” I interjected. “I’m the nice girl. Everyone knows it. Rachel’s the sarcastic, bad girl, and I’m the sweet, nice girl.”
Chase raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you think?”
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly losing my confidence.
&nbs
p; “You can keep telling yourself that, but I don’t think you’re as sweet as you think you are. You’re pretty good at being a bitch when you want to be.”
“That’s just you’re opinion, because you and I have never gotten along.”
“Maybe so, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Did I mention that in addition to being hateful, you’re also pretty hated?”
My head was spinning at his words. What he was saying couldn’t be true? I wasn’t hated. Sure maybe people were jealous of me, but they didn’t hate me. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t kept in touch with all of my high school friends as much as I should have, but was that really a reason to hate a person?
“Who hates me?” I demanded.
Chase just laughed, got up and dusted the sand off of his black cargo shorts, shaking his head as he walked away. “Don’t worry about it,” he called over his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, Em.”
“Chase! Who hates me?” I called after him, but he didn’t respond.
***
It was raining again, and I sat on the swing on our front porch watching the rain soak the lawn as I rocked back and forth, hugging my knees to my chest and wishing Rachel was there. Keely had gone to a movie with Keg Boy, and Chase and Molly had left for Raleigh that afternoon. They were spending three days at some music festival, so Molly could scout bands. Even though she was on the island for the summer, she still had to work on occasion, which mostly meant listening to prospective bands when they played nearby. Her boss was really laid back, so he let her work when she could. Since there was some sort of showcase happening, she’d decided to take advantage of the opportunity and see as many bands as possible. Chase had agreed to go with her, and I half-wondered if something might happen between them while they were away together.
With all my friends gone for the night, I was left to either hang out with my mom who I still wasn’t getting along great with or sit and stew alone with my issues. I chose to stew, so of course what Chase had said was eating away at me. I was irritated that I wasn’t able to let go of what he’d said, and truthfully, it had been bugging me all day. I decided to call Rachel to see what she was up to.
Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns) Page 15
