by Nicole Thorn
“I can’t help you,” I told her.
“You can,” she responded, her temper shorter than before. “You can back off. Stop talking to him. Don’t look at him. Pretend he doesn’t exist, because he isn’t yours. Not anymore. I know that you’ve been getting into shit lately, and I don’t want him involved.”
Goodie, so everyone knew about my issues. Though getting punched would’ve been hard to hide. Odd, since no one had claimed they’d seen a thing. “If you and your band of cheerleaders are going to back up a liar and a psycho, then what makes you think I owe you a thing?”
“My team defends each other. If one of us says something, we trust them.”
“Have fun when that bites you in the ass.” I left her standing there, and returned to my friends.
Cathy glowered in Kelly’s direction. “What did the dumpster diver want?”
Poe smiled, and I said, “Nothing important. We should get out of here. I would rather not be around Tammy at the moment. God knows what she’s got planned next.”
Poe put his arms over both of our shoulders, and began escorting us back up the hill and to the car. “Ya know, in theory, I could mangle all of these people if I wanted to. Make them ache for days.”
“Bragger,” Cathy scoffed. “I can…tear their expensive clothes.”
“I can break their windows.”
Poe nodded, grinning proudly. “We’re born to rule the world.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: Make Happy
I laid in Poe’s bed, watching him knit the last of that scarf he wanted to make me. My hand rested on his leg, and the boy hadn’t commented on it once. Nor did he say anything about how terrible it made me that I did this so often. Touchy feely, when I’d turned him down. It must have hurt his feelings, but Poe was too kind to call me out on it. How long would that last?
“Ha!” Poe declared, setting down his needles. He held out a blue and purple scarf, presenting it to me. “A gift for my favorite lady over five feet tall.”
I sat up to take a better look at it, and I couldn’t stop smiling. It felt soft on my hands, and I loved it. “Thank you. I shall wear it everywhere I go.”
“Maybe don’t do that, since we’re approaching summer.”
My nose wrinkled. “You have a point. I can hang it up in my room so I can see it all the time.”
Poe smiled, and kissed my forehead. “I would like that a whole lot.”
I threw the scarf over my shoulder, and laid back down. I’d gotten all snuggly under the covers, enjoying the rainy day that had appeared out of nowhere. Cathy had gone back home to be with Cujo, while I wanted to stay with Poe. Alone didn’t work for me, and I’d given up on trying to power through it. It seemed so unnecessary, and Poe didn’t like the loneliness either.
We had the house to ourselves for another couple of hours, and we used the time to play a video game. Poe’s goal had been to scare me, claiming that this game had won some award for being the best horror first person…thing. I had hoped I would have been braver, but I kept ducking under the blankets to hide my face.
“I feel like you would rather we pick another activity,” Poe suggested as someone screamed in the game.
“I’m fine,” I squeaked.
He didn’t buy it, so Poe turned the game off and set the controller down on the nightstand. He joined me under the blanket, and I saw him smile before the covers wrapped us in darkness. It felt safe in there. I’d always liked the darkness. Not like other kids, assuming the monsters would have come for me when the lights went out. I felt the monsters all around me anyway, and I felt like the dark made it harder for them to find me.
“So,” Poe said. “What do you wanna do now?”
I had an idea, but that wasn’t an option. We had this house all to ourselves, and I felt happy and warm under the covers, next to Poe. I wanted to roll on top of him, and have some well-earned fun.
Thinking about that felt weird to me. When Peter dumped me, I couldn’t see myself ever wanting to be with someone else. I thought that my brain wouldn’t have been kind enough to reset, and allow me to picture a life with another person. I’d spent those first few days, sure that that had been it for me. Finished at eighteen, and hopeless. Poe should have been the first sign that the world hadn’t ended. He made me feel more human. Then I got Cathy, and even more humanity came back to me. Peace returned. Or, more accurately, peace and I got acquainted.
I might have decided something then, but I couldn’t be positive. I wanted this, and Poe, and a bunch of other things. Things that I thought I wouldn’t want anymore. A future, and the sunlight, and someone else. What was the point of anything if I let one person ruin me? It would have been wasting my time, Poe’s, Cathy, and anyone else in my life. I didn’t want that anymore.
I did roll, and I did land on top of Poe. He caught me by the hips, and let me kiss him slowly. My legs had opened so that I could properly straddle him, making sure the boy wouldn’t dare try to run from me. I doubted he would, and I took a moment to revel in that oddity. I didn’t think he would leave.
I always thought everyone would leave. How the hell did that fear go away?
Poe explored my tongue with his, gripping my sides harder when my hips started to move. A little thrill rushed through me, as if I’d decided to break a rule. But I wasn’t breaking a rule, or doing something wrong. Maybe I confused the feeling with something else, because it was the same thing I felt when I’d ditched class for the first time, or crawled out my window with Poe. I felt happy. That had to have been it.
My hands rested happily on Poe’s shoulders, taking in the situation with different eyes. What a strange feeling, to be okay. It would be fleeting, I knew, because it always left me so fast. Like the world didn’t want me to have an easy go. Fuck the world, and fuck what it wanted to do to me. I could take things for myself. I could make my own happy if it wouldn’t be handed to me.
Poe let me pull him over me, and wind my leg around his middle. Poe pushed himself forward deliberately, grinning when I moaned, and my nails bit into his shoulders. He took my mouth again, and my other leg went around him, making sure he had the room he needed.
My hands left his shoulders when they wanted to get greedy. They slipped up his shirt, and I gasped gently at the feel of his skin at my fingertips. I tugged the bottom of his shirt up, silently giving him an order. Poe obeyed, sitting up to pull the shirt over his head. I smiled, and put my lips to the center of his chest.
How could someone be so pleasantly warm? How could a person make all the bad thoughts go away so easily? I didn’t know, and maybe I never would. At the moment, I couldn’t have cared less.
I wanted to play, so I swallowed all caution and decided to do something that in my head, I knew wasn’t that big of a deal, but in practice, felt like something I wouldn’t normally have dared to do. Partially because I had never done it, and didn’t fancy myself confident enough to pull off the expression. Slowly, I dragged my lips on his skin, and looked up to see if I had his approval. His eyes stayed fixed on the wall above my head, the stare blank. We sat in an interesting position, with us both sitting up, but Poe now with his legs on either side of me. So while I couldn’t read his face, I assumed from what I felt almost pressing against my stomach, he didn’t hate this.
Poe bent, putting his hand under my chin to tilt my head up. We kissed again, and I melted against the bed. He adjusted once more, not quite between my legs. I wanted to complain, but got distracted when he started yanking my shirt off. I let him remove it, leaving me in my bra and shorts. I didn’t like it when Peter would try to get my shirt off, because my affection for late night junk food showed pretty well. I would have pulled the covers up and over me, hiding the extra weight so that Poe wouldn’t see it. But I didn’t do that. I let him look, and touch, and I wasn’t afraid.
His mouth met the swell of my breast, bringing his teeth down on my skin. I gasped again, unprepared for how wonderful it felt. I let him pull the strap down, revealing more as his
other hand slipped down my stomach. I didn’t even flinch, and I felt proud of that fact. Then my thinking turned off when Poe’s tongue went exploring.
I felt Poe futzing with the button of my shorts, and when he popped it open, he paused. Poe waited for a response from me when he looked up, and I nodded. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what he had in mind, wouldn’t work. I still wanted him to try.
Poe pulled the zipper of my shorts down, and my heart went insane when he kissed me again. I couldn’t see where his hand went, so now the anticipation threatened my life. I waited, hardly able to kiss Poe back.
His fingers started at the band of my underwear, clearly giving me another out if I changed my mind. I didn’t intend to, so I put my hands on his face, pulling him closer to me. Poe accepted my permission, and then he touched me.
I thought I knew what would happen. Rubbing, a little frustration, and a little pleasure, ultimately leading to a whole lot of nothing. But when I didn’t react to what Poe did, he just changed his movements. He’d started with slow, longer strokes, and he might as well have been doing nothing. It seemed to me like he tested things out, because when he switched to faster and shorter strokes, I felt something. My breath hitched, so Poe kept it up. Every few seconds, he tried something else, and went from there.
I lost the ability to measure time, but eventually, I started feeling a build. My kissing got more and more frantic before I couldn’t keep up with Poe anymore. His mouth returned to my chest, and he tickled me with his tongue, trailing the edge of my bra. My skin tingled, and I couldn’t keep my hips still.
I cried out when I found that approaching edge, and Poe kissed me again when it ended. He fixed my bra, and turned me so that we could face each other while we laid in his bed. We both had smiles on our faces, though I had a blush that wouldn’t go away.
“Sorry if I’m quiet,” he said. “I didn’t think I would have you mostly naked in my bed.”
“To be honest, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
Poe looked like he was about to say something, but thought better of it. His next words felt like replacements. “I know you’re hesitant, and I don’t want you to feel pressured…”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t… I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want to be that person.”
He watched me for a moment, still reluctant to say what he wanted. “I’m not sure I know what you’re saying to me.”
I smiled again. “I’m saying that I want this. You. You make me happy.”
Poe exhaled, and stared at me for a long moment. “I’m glad you think so, because you make me happy too.”
“Wait!” I said, holding a hand up. “Before we make this all official, I wanna do it right. Can we wait until tomorrow? I know this is stupid…”
He laughed, but nodded. “Anything you want.”
“Great. We can keep making out though.”
Poe grinned wide, and then he was on top of me again.
***
I wanted to close the book. I wouldn’t get his blessing, but I didn’t want to keep this from him like he’d kept Kelly from me. I didn’t want to hide Poe, and I didn’t want Peter to accuse me of something later. I decided to tell him that I wanted to be with Poe, and I hoped it went well.
Poe headed home already, because I told him I’d meet him there. I had plans for today, and I wanted everything to go right. I foresaw problems.
Peter had almost walked to his car when I flagged him down, and he looked so happy to see me. God, he’d never smiled at me like that when we dated. A melancholy cloud had followed him everywhere he went.
“Clove,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I responded. “Great actually. I wanted to talk to you about something, if you had a minute. Is Kelly waiting on you?”
“She’ll be fine,” Peter said dismissively. “What’s up?”
Naturally, it felt weird telling my ex that I had a new boyfriend, but I knew it would have been worse if I didn’t tell him. So I took a deep breath, and started. “It’s about me and Poe.”
“Oh?”
I nodded. “Just so you didn’t hear some rumor, or think I was lying to you, I wanted to be honest with you here. Me and Poe are going to start dating. I don’t want things to be weirder between you and me.”
Peter didn’t respond quickly, and it worried me. I couldn’t read his face, but it looked like he thought about something deeply. I waited it out, because he might have needed a moment to accept it. But it would be okay, because both of us had someone new. That had been the point, to find someone who fit better. We did.
Peter exhaled, putting his hands in his pockets. “You lied to me then, back when you said nothing was going on.”
“No, I didn’t lie. This just happened yesterday.”
He laughed. “Sure it did. And now you wanna rub it in, and make me feel bad.”
How could he have thought that was what I had been going for? I wouldn’t have hurt him like that, and Peter knew it. And why would he have felt bad when he didn’t even want me anymore?
“Really, I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” I explained. “I’m telling you the truth here.”
He cocked his head. “You don’t even see it do you? You don’t see how incredibly bitchy this whole thing is. What, you’re jealous of Kelly, and you thought you would try and do that to me too?”
All right, I’d fucked up by trying to be nice, and I should have headed home already. I needed to get out of this before it got worse. “Sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
“Liar,” Peter said. “I hope you and your rebound enjoy yourselves.”
I turned, deciding to walk away before I broke his nose. This wasn’t the Peter I knew, and I’d rather keep the few good memories I had of him.
I started walking away, but not before I caught a strange look in his eyes. Cold and calculating, like he’d been loading bullets into a chamber.
Then he let the bullet fly. “I fucked Kelly.”
My feet stopped, because my whole body revolted to the impact. Like a hammer went right through me, my chest collapsed. I turned again, looking at Peter’s face. He stared at me as I mumbled the word, “What?”
He nodded, running his tongue over his teeth. “Yeah. After you and me broke up, I needed someone to talk to. Someone stable. So I called her, and she came over. About four days after I broke up with you. She came over, and we had sex. Sorry, sweets.”
“You, you said you didn’t get together until two weeks after.” My voice sounded like it belonged to a ghost.
“We did, but we were fucking earlier than that. Just thought you needed to know.”
Four days. It took him four days to be with someone else, in a way that we’d been waiting for, for so long. We had plans to make it special, and important. He told me how much it would’ve meant to him.
My brain tingled, and I felt like I might have lost balance from the force of those words. I had nothing to hold onto, and I couldn’t breathe.
Not enough. I’m not enough. Never enough. Worthless. Waste of time. Why am I here? I shouldn’t be. I wasn’t enough for him. Couldn’t make him happy. I didn’t mean anything to him. How much was a lie? Why am I so easy to throw away? Replaceable. He never loved me. Always wanted her. I should have seen. So stupid. He thought about her while he touched me. Had to. Why wouldn’t he? I don’t understand. I believed him. I trusted him. I thought I meant more to him. More than nothing. I’m nothing. We were nothing. Disgusting. Unloved. Unwanted. Burden. He said I was a burden to him. I’m a burden to everyone. Too heavy in the heart. Who would want to carry me? Broken, so why would he want me? Everything breaks. I shouldn’t try anymore. How could I have believed him? After being together so long, for him to decide I didn’t matter that fast… God, it was fast. I wasn’t even breathing then, and he was fucking her. I didn’t exist for him. Still hurting, while he was fine. Happy. Happy. Happy. Without me.
It popped like a fucking balloon, and the colors of the world
changed. I saw with clarity, and calm, and a choice had been made when I stopped panting. I stood tall, and looked into the eyes of the boy who hurt me because he knew how to.
I’d watched him thinking, and finding the exact thing he needed to say to break me. Trouble was that I’d already been broken. Not because he broke me, but because I hadn’t been whole to start with. Why? I didn’t know. I knew nothing about being whole, but I sure as hell wanted to get there anyway, and my first step needed to happen now.
I learned something in those words he’d said to me. It took years, but it clicked so perfectly with that final blow he’d struck. Peter never made me happy. Not really. We had moments, and they were good. Really good, but he didn’t make me happy. He never would have, because he couldn’t give me what I needed. No one could. I had to make my own happy.
“I’m done,” I said. “Finished with this. You. Caring about what you do, or say, or think. It’s doing nothing but tearing me apart, and I don’t hate myself enough to let this sword keep slicing through me.”
“You’re so selfish,” Peter hissed. “Always. That’s you’re prob—”
I lunged forward, and shoved him against the car. Inches from his face, I spoke low, and steady. “Listen to me, you insecure little prick. I will only say this once, so I’ll make it slow for you. I’m. Done. I don’t want to be your friend, and I don’t want to be who you talk to when you hurt. I’ve never thought I deserved much, but I sure as hell deserve better than a person who shoves me down so that they feel safe. You had me,” I growled. “You had me in the palm of your hands, convinced that no one would have wanted me, because you told me that, and I believed you. I trusted you. Even with that, even with me at your side, and as loyal as a person could have been, you kept going. You kept hurting me, making sure I didn’t like myself enough to look for better. Someone who would have taken care of me. I would have stayed with you forever, being anything you wanted me to be, and you knew it. I quit. I want better for myself, and I deserve better. I’m ending everything you and me could have had, and I won’t ever look back. Do you wanna know why?”
