“It’s okay, Bailey. I’ll clean it up,” Kellen said. He turned to me. “Carson, come help me get some paper towels.”
“You can’t do that by yourself?” I asked, still bitter about my potato pants.
“No,” he said. “I need your help.”
I rolled my eyes and followed him across the room. He opened the door to a supply closet. “Can you shut the door behind you?” he asked. “The kids aren’t allowed in here.”
“Yes, because I’m your freaking maid,” I mumbled as I shut the door. With it closed I noticed that I couldn’t hear any of the noise from the toddler room. I also noticed that it was pitch black. “Couldn’t you have turned on the light?” I asked, annoyed. “Or did you think it’d be funny if I walked into a rack of toilet paper? You know, I wouldn’t have laughed if a little kid got mashed potatoes on your – ”
Suddenly I felt Kellen’s lips against mine. He kissed me softly at first, then harder. I put my arms around his neck and he backed me up against the door, one hand on my hip, the other twisted in my hair.
“Wait,” I said, breaking away for a minute. Kellen continued to kiss along my jawline, down my neck. “What about the milk?”
What about the milk? What was I saying?
I felt Kellen’s soft laughter against my throat. “It’s not going anywhere,” he said, but then he pulled away and I could see the white of his eyes sparkling in the dark. “Unless you want me to go clean that.”
I shook my head and pulled Kellen’s face to mine. My body melted against his and suddenly it felt like it was a billion degrees in the supply closet, but I couldn’t stop. Our mouths moved together perfectly, like they were doing a dance they’d been rehearsing for years.
I kissed him until I was dizzy. I couldn’t remember why I was ever upset. I couldn’t remember anything except how to move my lips against Kellen’s. When he finally broke apart from me I was breathless and my body was tingling all over, but all I wanted was for his lips to be back on mine.
I’d done many things in supply closets before, many things that went much farther than kissing. But nothing had ever made me feel like that.
“No, come back,” I said.
Kellen laughed softly. “I thought you were mad at me.”
“I changed my mind.”
He leaned back in and gave me another quick kiss. I could feel the smile on his lips.
“We have to go back out there,” he said.
I groaned. It would’ve been so easy to just stay in there. So so easy. I felt Kellen reach his hand over to the wall next to me and suddenly the lights were on. I blinked and when I opened my eyes I was staring at the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen, that I would ever see. I was completely and totally sure of that. I’d never craved somebody as intensely as I was craving Kellen right then – his body pressed against me, his mouth exploring mine, his hands in my hair. I wanted it all right there, right then.
But then the haze in my head started to clear and I remembered that we weren’t just in any supply closet. We were in a supply closet in his mom’s preschool and there was a room of toddlers waiting for us on the other side of the door.
“We have to go back out there,” I agreed. Kellen kissed my forehead and I backed away from the door. “Wait,” I added as he reached for the handle. “Don’t forget the paper towels.”
“Oh, right,” Kellen said, grinning. He grabbed a roll from a shelf and then grabbed my waist and pulled me close to him again. I felt his breath on my ear and I stood there paralyzed by it, waiting for what he was going to say. “And you know you would have laughed if I had been the one to get hit with the potatoes.”
Then he kissed my ear.
“Shut up,” I said as I laughed and pushed him away.
“Love you too,” he said as I started to open the door.
I stopped.
“What?” I asked, turning back around.
“I’m sorry,” Kellen said, running his hand through his hair. “I messed that up.”
“So you don’t..?”
“No, no,” he said, putting his hands up. “I do. I absolutely do. I just didn’t plan on blurting it out like that. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“You didn’t freak me out,” I said.
Did he freak me out? A declaration of love would’ve just about sent me into a coma a few weeks before, but now I wasn’t so sure how I felt. All I knew was there was suddenly a flock of hummingbirds fluttering around my stomach. Was that good or bad?
“You don’t have to say it back or anything,” Kellen added quickly. “People love at different speeds and it doesn’t make me love you any less if you don’t love me right now. And that’s one of the things I love about you, how I know you won’t say something you don’t actually feel, but how I also know that when you do say it you’ll mean it with your whole heart.”
Kellen kissed me on the forehead one more time before smiling and opening the door. He didn’t want me to feel pressured, which I was grateful for, because at that moment I was feeling so many things it was amazing I hadn’t started leaking emotions onto the floor. I was confused and scared and anxious, but I was also happy, really happy. And then there was that one other feeling poking its way through the cracks in my heart. It was a feeling I’d never seen before.
My face felt hot and I knew my cheeks had to be flushed as I stepped back into the room. I just hoped my hair wasn’t a total mess.
“Clean up on aisle three!” Kellen exclaimed.
The teacher looked up at us from the table where she was picking up plates. Oh God, she knew. How long were we in there? She had to know.
“We would have been out sooner,” Kellen said, kneeling down to wipe up the milk, “but this one walked right into the rack of paper towel rolls before I turned on the light. Knocked them all right over.”
Lame. There was no way she would believe that.
The teacher laughed and smiled at me. “You’re not the first one, dear.”
And then she went back to picking up plates. Kellen glanced up at me and winked.
A minute later I heard Bailey the little firecracker yell, “Cah-son, sit wit meee.”
I turned and saw her sitting on the floor by a pile of animal toys. I walked over and sat down cautiously, but the little monster seemed content after her feeding.
“You cawn be da raff,” she said, handing me the giraffe figure she threw at my face earlier.
“Thanks,” I said.
It was no dinosaur, but it was a giraffe and that seemed pretty cool to me.
I looked over at Kellen and saw that he was smiling at me. I could feel all of the scared emotions melt out of my body, leaving only the good ones. He loved me. Kellen Jordan loved me.
I smiled back. I wished he wasn’t all the way across the room. My body ached for Kellen.
Then I felt guilty for thinking about being with Kellen while playing with toy animals with a two-year-old. I was sure there had to be some kind of unwritten rule that said that shouldn’t happen. I was totally going to Hell.
Babe, a voice in my head said. You just made out with a guy in the supply closet of a preschool. Hell already had a spot with your name on it.
I guessed it wouldn’t do any more damage to fantasize about having a few more minutes alone with Kellen in that closet.
In reality though, I was glad things stopped where they did. I didn’t want to have rushed sex with Kellen in a supply closet. When it finally happened I wanted it to be real and right and perfect. I wanted to lay with him for hours, my head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. I wanted it to be beautiful and magical and everything it had never been, because when it finally happened I knew it wouldn’t just be me having sex with Kellen. It would be so much more.
I suddenly knew exactly what that little emotion growing out of my heart was.
Chapter 39
Feelings
Fingers tingling
Heart racing
Palms sweating
Legs shaking
I feel like I’m going to be sick
I feel like I’m on cloud nine
I feel like something bad is going to happen
I thought I might tell Kellen I loved him today.
This was big.
This was huge.
This made me feel like one of Cupid’s arrows had been driven right through my stomach before getting tangled up in my lower intestines.
I’d never said those words to a guy before. Heck, I hadn’t said those words to another human being in years. My mom and I just didn’t have a touchy-feely relationship like that. I couldn’t even remember the last time she hugged me, or looked at me like I wasn’t a colossal disappointment.
It wasn’t easy for me to say those words out loud, partially because of the family I came from and partially because I was scared. I was scared that I felt that way at all, especially since I’d only known Kellen for a short period of time. Love didn’t come that fast – it wasn’t supposed to.
But it did. Oh boy, it did. There was no doubt in my mind that what I was feeling was love, which was why I had to tell Kellen.
Hopefully I didn’t chicken out.
Kellen was on his way over. I’d asked him if he could help me fill out my application for the community college. My mom had been nagging me about my future again the night before and so I figured if I at least applied to a school she’d get off my back. After I did that then Kellen and I could go somewhere. I wasn’t sure where yet. Where was the best place to tell your boyfriend you loved him? Was I making too big a deal out of it? Ugh, I had no idea how this relationship stuff worked.
My body was too anxious to sit still so I got up and walked to the bathroom. I turned on the light and examined myself in the mirror. I didn’t really look at myself all that much anymore, so it was always a little shocking to take in my appearance when I did. The black was almost completely faded from my hair and my skin was darker than I’d ever seen it before, thanks to all the bike rides I’d been taking since Kellen came into the picture. Hello sunshine and tanned skin.
There were more subtle differences too, like the way that my eyes looked brighter – not dull and dead like they had before. I used to sit in front of the mirror and just pick at myself, finding new flaws and features I hated each time I looked. I never left the mirror feeling good. That was the biggest difference of all – the fact that the girl staring back at me had a smile on her face. Even though her insides felt like they were going to explode from nerves.
I heard the knock on the front door and froze. My hands started to shake.
“Breathe, Carson. Breathe,” I told myself out loud.
I took one last look in the mirror and headed to the door.
“Hey,” I said, opening it and seeing Kellen standing there.
His smile made my heart do all those flippy, twisty things that a girl’s heart did when she looked at a boy – the boy – and wondered how she’d gotten so lucky.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, walking in and wrapping his arms around my waist. He pulled me in close, kissing me slowly. Slowly, but with a fire that could take out a national forest. I could feel my chest burn, aching for more.
Kellen pulled away too soon, but his lips left a promise for later.
“You look a little tired,” he said.
I suddenly felt totally self-conscious. Were there dark circles under my eyes? Did my face look droopy? “Um, yeah,” I said. “I guess I didn’t sleep much – ”
And then I was off my feet, Kellen having just swept me up into his arms. He carried me over to the couch and sat down with me on his lap. I put my arms around his neck.
“Yep,” he said. “You don’t look so tired anymore. I think that was definitely what you needed.”
“Oh, really? I guess you’re a miracle-worker. Time to use some of those magical powers to get me into college.”
“You don’t need magic for that, babe. You’ve got this.”
I sat with my back against one of the couch’s armrests, my feet propped on top of Kellen’s lap and all I could think about was how I wanted to finish the dumb application and get out of there. I had way more important things to do than try to come up with some bullshit answer to why I wanted to go to that community college.
Because it was cheaper?
Because if I applied to a university they’d use my GPA as a punchline?
Because I didn’t know what else to do with my life?
Because my mom would literally throw me to the wolves if I didn’t go somewhere?
I didn’t think any of those were the answers the place was looking for, but I couldn’t focus because I was using fifty percent of my energy to not blurt out the three words that I was saving for the right time. They were right there on the tip of my tongue and I could feel them itching to jump out so that I could stop feeling so jittery, but I couldn’t let that happen. That would be the exact opposite of romantic.
Hey, what should my major be? Oh, and by the way I love you.
No, that was definitely not how I wanted to do it.
Anyways, the other fifty percent of my energy was being used to keep my hands on the keyboard and off of Kellen. This was another task involving a whole lot of self-control since all I wanted to do was throw my laptop onto the floor, crawl back into Kellen’s lap, and kiss his face off.
I guessed that wouldn’t be terribly romantic either.
I needed help.
“What did you put for why you want to go there?” I asked, nudging his leg with my foot.
“I heard they had awesome alien-watching programs.”
“No, for real.”
“I’m not helping you cheat on your application,” he said teasingly.
“What good are you?” I asked, huffing.
“I’ve been told I’m nice to look at.”
I typed in: I heard this school has awesome …backspace … amazing programs.
I shrugged. It sounded good enough to me. I clicked on the next button, hoping to see a “Congratulations, the torture is over” message.
Nope, another screen of questions popped up.
“Ughhhh, this is endless,” I said. “Now they want to know my talents and hobbies. I don’t have talents and hobbies.”
Kellen glanced up at me and lifted my poem book in the air.
Earlier when I’d separated myself from Kellen’s lap and grabbed my computer to start my college application, Kellen had picked up my poem book from the coffee table.
“Forever words,” he’d said, looking at the cover. I’d put it together with fancy letter jewels and other sparkly cutouts that morning.
“I liked the way it sounded,” I’d said.
The look on Kellen’s face had told me I’d chosen the right title. “This is awesome,” he’d said.
“You can read it if you want,” I’d said, my voice shaking just slightly.
I’d been working on the book ever since that day in the rain and I’d managed to put most of the poems from my old journal into it. I figured the poem book would just be a continuous project, something I’d keep adding to. I’d planned on showing it to Kellen, but it was kind of like carving a hole out of your chest and bearing your entire soul for someone to see. It was a little intimidating.
Kellen was great though, sitting and reading the poems quietly as I sat and very unquietly complained about having to answer ridiculous college questions. I’d almost forgotten that he was reading my poems. Now though he was giving me a funny look.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. He set my book back on the table and pointed to it. “You’re a poet, Carson. You’re a writer.”
“You finished?” I asked, feeling my throat constrict. “What did you think?”
“I think that if you don’t put writing on that application then I’m going to do it for you.”
I typed something out about how I sometimes liked to write and scrolled down to the next section. Suddenly my heart dropped. They wanted to know my high school GPA. Th
ey wanted to know what my extracurricular activities were. They wanted to know about any honors I’d received.
“This is pointless,” I said. “I don’t even know if I’m going to graduate.”
“You’re going to graduate,” Kellen said, pulling me towards him by my legs. I set my laptop on the coffee table and slid over to him. “The only class that could keep you from graduating is geometry, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well you’ve been studying with Bree and you’ve been doing a lot better. Didn’t you just have that big test the other day?”
I did. It hadn’t been just any big test either. It had been the big test, the last test that would be used to determine whether or not I was failing high school.
“I got a C,” I said. It was a high C and definitely an improvement from my other scores, but I still wasn’t sure if it would be enough to help me pass geometry.
“Well C stands for college, as in Carson is going to college.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, but I’m a happy idiot and that’s really all that matters,” he said. “Plus I have a pretty cool girlfriend so apparently I’ve been able to make my idiot tendencies work for me.”
“Don’t forget the tattoos,” I said.
“Right. The tattoos definitely help to boost my street cred.”
“Tattoos: the idiocy eraser.”
“You should go into advertising,” Kellen said, poking me in the side. I punched him in the stomach. “Speaking of being happy about things, though,” he started, pulling a highly folded piece of paper from his pocket. I could tell right away that it was the Happy List. “I looked at this last night and you’ve done almost everything on the list.”
“Really?” I said, trying to sound surprised. I didn’t want Kellen to know that I’d actually been thinking about the Happy List the other day, ticking off the activities in my head. When I realized I’d just about finished it I was actually proud of myself.
I didn’t really know why I didn’t want to share this with Kellen. Maybe it was because I was supposed to be this dark and angry girl that told society to shove it and spent her days trying to stick it to the man. Getting all giddy over a dumb therapy assignment kind of clashed with my I-don’t-give-a-damn image and my screw-the-world vibes. But was that even my image anymore? Were those the vibes I was still putting out? I mean, I knew I still had a minor attitude problem, but maybe who I thought I was before wasn’t really who I was anymore. Maybe I’d gone down a notch to being the I-don’t-give-much-of-a-damn girl. Maybe it wasn’t even really the list that I was proud of, but just the fact that I’d finished something for once in my life (well, almost finished).
Forever Mark Page 29