by J. L. Wyer
“Would you rather,” she begins in a soft cadence as her voice turns husky with sleep. “Would you rather be rich and feel somewhat content, or poor and be extremely happy?”
“That’s easy,” I say. “I’d rather be poor and happy.”
“Me too,” she replies, eyes fluttering down in exhaustion. She’s had a very long, hard night. “You make me happy, Ryder.”
“As do you, sweet Elizabeth,” I murmur back but she’s already asleep.
Jayson
Mom, dad, and Julien just left to go home and eat and take showers. They stayed in the waiting room all night until visiting hours started up again this morning. The doctor on rotation came in not long ago and said I should be discharged later today after they do one more blood draw to make sure things look good. The hospital staff have been nice, but the food is godawful. I check my phone again. Still no word from Ryder or Liz. I text Julien.
Me: Bring me back two sausage biscuits. Hospital food sucks. I’m starving.
Julien: Got it. I’ll even throw in a side of hash browns. See you in an hour.
To pass the time, I pull up my Netflix app and decide to watch Patriot Act with Hasan Minaj. I hear my hospital door open, more than likely a nurse coming in to check on me. At least the blood pressure cuff isn’t going off every fifteen minutes anymore.
“Hey,” a soft voice says. My head whips up so fast I see flashing lights behind my eyes. Or maybe they are caused by the sight of my girl standing in front of me looking like a gorgeous fairy princess in a rose blouse and brown skirt, her long blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She is a sight to behold and my eyes devour every inch of her. I've wanted her to be here with me so badly.
Ryder steps up behind her. “Hey, man. How are you this morning?”
I don’t care how he did it, but she’s here. She’s really here, and I owe him so much for this, for convincing her to come, for bringing her here.
“I’m good. They’re letting me go home today.” I lick my lips which have suddenly gone dry as a desert and reach for the cup of water with the bendy straw in it. Liz rushes over to hand it to me and puts it back when I’ve taken a couple of sips. She looks nervous to be here.
I look to Ryder. “Does she know?”
“Yeah, she knows. I told her everything.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry.” I reach out to her, but she steps back and drops her head. Panic once again rises up inside me. She’s decided she doesn’t want me anymore. We’re done. She’s leaving me. It’s all my fault.
I watch helplessly as Ryder leaves the room and closes the door, leaving me alone with her, not knowing what to do or what to say to Liz to make things right. The room is so silent, only the sound of the hospital equipment and tiny rhythmic plops like raindrops hitting the sidewalk can be heard. I look down and see little puddles on the floor at Liz’s feet and my heart drops. “God, baby, don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” I choke up.
“Did you kiss her?” she asks, her voice broken and barely audible.
“I wish I could say no, but I honestly don’t remember. I would give anything to remember, to be able to tell you with absolute certainty that the answer is no, I did not kiss her. I pray that I didn’t. Wish it with all my heart. The only girl I want to touch, to kiss, and be with, is you, Liz. No one else. Only you. Please come here. I need you to come here. Please let me hold you,” I beg.
We reach for each other at the same time and I pull her over and on top of me in the hospital bed. I shower kisses all over her wet face, drinking up her tears. She wraps her arms around my neck, and it doesn’t take long for her to kiss me back. I try to tell her with this kiss that her lips and her body are the only ones I want against mine. I am forever hers, only hers. She owns every part of me.
“I missed you so much.” My heart soars when I feel her smile.
Liz kisses me one last time and pulls back. “We do need to talk, Jayson. I am still so mad right now. Did Jacinda and Samantha really do it?”
“We won’t be able to prove anything. I mean, yes, they handed me the drinks, but the cups could have been their drinks and someone else could have put the stuff in them beforehand.”
“What about the fight? Ryder explained to me on the way here there's a strong possibility that Marshall will bring assault charges against you.”
I roll her to my side and allow her to get comfortable, which is hard as the bed is narrow, but I’m not letting her go any time soon. “We’ll just have to wait and see and hope for the best. If it comes down to it, I can prove I was not responsible for my actions because someone drugged me.”
“And you have me and the guys. I’ll make an official statement about how Marshall instigated the whole thing by provoking the fight if I need to.”
“Do I, Liz? Do I still have you?” I link our hands.
“Yes, Jayson. You have me. I’m yours. I love you.” I feel a huge weight being lifted, releasing the stranglehold on my heart, and I can breathe again.
“Thank you, Liz. Thank you for believing in me and trusting me. I promise I won’t be that stupid ever again. You have my word.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what happened. I thought my world had ended when I saw you and... her.”
“No, Liz. Never. I love you, princess.”
“Ryder helped me see things more clearly.”
I kiss a trail down her cheek until I reach her neck where I nuzzle in close, breathing her in. Liz and I stay snuggled together for the rest of the morning, to the nurses’ amusement. Julien and my parents come back, and I’m finally discharged. I text Ry a heartfelt thank you for bringing Liz back to me, thinking I wouldn’t see him the rest of the day.
So imagine my surprise to see him, his parents and sisters, along with Liz’s parents and Hailey, all sitting in our living room when we get home.
“Mom?” Liz questions, her confusion apparent.
She releases my hand and goes over to where her mom and Hailey are sitting on the couch. Hailey and Liz start talking in hushed voices to each other. Julien joins me and we just stand at the entrance of the living room not knowing what to do. Our parents, however, know exactly what they’re doing.
“In light of everything that happened and everything we learned about last night,” my mom begins, “we thought it best for all of us to sit down and talk.”
“Talk about what?” I ask.
“Drinking, drugs, and sex to be more specific,” my dad says. “Boys, please have a seat.” We do as he asks, knowing now is not the time to argue.
Ryder’s and Liz’s parents stand up to join my parents, so they are all facing us, serious expressions plastered across their worried faces. I take a seat next to Liz on the sofa, while Ryder and Julien sit on the floor in front of the couch, and Brea and Jamie occupy the armchairs on either side of us. I reach over to take Liz’s hand, and at first, she pulls away but then stops. Her unsure reaction to my touch breaks my heart all over again. The room grows tense as we wait. Everyone looks to my mom.
“I think it’s safe to say that we are all very disappointed in you.”
Jamie is the first one of us kids to speak up. “Hey! Wait a minute! I didn’t do anything. I was at work.”
“For brevity’s sake,” Faith responds to her oldest daughter, “we will be using the ‘royal we.’ So regardless if you were at the party last night or not, we feel that what we discuss today is important for all of you to hear.” Faith motions for my mom to continue.
“Like I said, we are all disappointed. To find out our children are attending parties where there’s underage drinking and drugs, concerns us greatly. It also scares the hell out us. Look what happened,” she aims her silver gaze directly at me. “We are so thankful that you are alright, but things could have turned out much, much differently.”
Liz’s mom’s breath hitches. It could have been Liz that got slipped the date rape drug. Liz notices her mom tear up and immediately gets up to go to
her. Hailey follows and they form a tight circle, arms around each other. Liz’s dad is out of town again, and my guilt skyrockets a thousand-fold knowing Ann is having to deal with this all on her own without her husband here to lend support.
Brea starts crying watching them, so Faith goes over to her youngest daughter to comfort her. Once everyone has settled back down, our parents talk to us. Over the next two hours, we have a serious discussion about what our parents expect from us, including the always dreaded sex talk. They ask us questions about Fallon’s party, and talk to us about the dangers of underage drinking and drug use. Ann and Faith have a conversation with their daughters about date rape.
Needless to say, these were two of the most excruciating hours of my life. Not because of what our parents said, but because, for the first time in my life, I broke my parents’ trust in me. I seem to be breaking people's trust a lot lately. Not only do I need to rebuild trust with my parents, I need to rebuild it with Liz. I’m still working on it with Ryder.
It took a few weeks for our parents to ease up on their worry whenever we left the house to go out. Once again, I was grounded. I didn’t mind. Liz and I took that time to focus on mending our relationship. Ryder was right. Fallon’s threats worked and no charges were brought up against us for the fight. No other videos were posted either, and the one that did pop up was taken down and disappeared within a day after it had been posted.
Things between all of us were good. Better than good actually. Our unit was tight, our friendships were solid. We continued on with our junior year looking ahead to our senior year and the future beyond. I would later regret those words.
Chapter 16
Elizabeth
It’s Monday morning and I’m sitting on Julien’s bed waiting for Jayson to get out of the shower. I still can’t believe that I let them convince me to wake up an hour earlier so we could grab breakfast before school. Julien is video chatting with Elijah, and I am propped back against his headboard reading on my tablet. I swear, Jayson’s worse than a girl when it comes to getting ready. He takes for-freaking-ever, whereas I am ready in about fifteen minutes. The irony is not lost on me. Julien taps my shoulder to get my attention.
“Yeah, we’re getting ready to leave in a few,” he tells Elijah and turns his phone toward me. “Say hi and bye to E, Liz.”
Elijah’s grinning face greets me on the screen. “Good morning, Liz! I still can’t believe they were able to get you up this early.” He chuckles.
I groan and put down my tablet so I can hold Julien’s phone. “Hey handsome. Yep, it’s a miracle upon miracles. They want to make this a regular thing for our senior year.” I roll my eyes. “Looks like my mornings will be hijacked the entire year now. But I can guarantee that I will make them pay up by buying me a coffee and a cinnamon scone. I can’t turn down free breakfast. Hey, are you coming with?”
“Nope. It would take too long to drive there and back. Would be easier if we all went to the same school.”
Julien and I hear the shower turn off in the adjacent bathroom and Julien plops down beside me so that both of us can be seen on the video screen. “Babe, I got to go,” he tells Elijah. “Love you.”
“Love you too, J. And you too, Liz,” he adds when I pout. Julien hits the button to shut his phone down.
“God, you two are so cute,” I tease.
He kisses me on the nose and pops up off the bed as Jayson enters, a towel around his waist and steam billowing up behind him from the bathroom. I take a moment to ogle his gorgeous body and I bite my bottom lip.
“Keep looking at me like that, princess, and I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
Julien takes that as his cue to leave.
“Okay, I’ll meet you guys downstairs. Ryder said he was on his way so no hanky-panky, kids, as we’ve got to go. You have ten minutes,” he says and walks backward out of the room doing that finger to eye thing that says he’s keeping a close eye on us. Jayson laughs and flips him off before closing the door and locking it. He turns around and looks at me with a cocky grin plastered across his face. Oh boy, I’m in trouble.
“Jayson, what are you doing?” I think I already have a pretty good idea and my heartbeat picks up with excitement at his possessive smirk even though I’m scrambling off the bed to try and escape.
“He said ten minutes. I only need five.” He grabs me by the waist before I can dash to the door and hauls me against his still damp body. I should care that he’s getting my clothes wet, but I don’t.
“We need to be quick,” he whispers close to my ear. Jayson and I haven't had sex since before the party. Even though things are better between us, I'm not ready to be intimate with him again just yet. He seems to be okay with it, but he's a guy. So any chance he can get to kiss or touch me, he's taking it.
I grab his shoulders and he leans in to capture my lips with his. He kisses me deeply and I sigh when we pull apart. “I wouldn’t mind waking up early every day for that,” I tell him.
Jayson kisses my neck and nibbles on the bottom of my ear. “One day, I’m putting my ring on your finger.” Jayson’s been saying things like that a lot to me the past couple of weeks. His words make me nervous and apprehensive.
When I don't reply, he grabs his clothes off his bed, dropping his towel to pull up and zip his shorts and tug on his T-shirt. I go into the bathroom to look in the mirror so I can smooth down my hair and adjust my clothes until I feel presentable enough. He takes my hand and we make our way downstairs to where Julien is waiting for us.
Julien looks down at his wristwatch. “Nine minutes. I’m impressed.”
Jayson grabs his car keys off the hall table and punches his brother in the arm. “Let’s roll.”
Ryder passes me the yellow packets of sweetener and I rip two of them to pour into my coffee.
“Coach told me there would be a couple of scouts at the game next week.” He’ll play against Highland High, and the thought of seeing or being anywhere near Marshall again makes my teeth clench with anger and my stomach turn over with trepidation.
“Are you ready?” Ryder asks Julien while shoveling a ham biscuit in his mouth. Julien's doctor cleared him for play, so next week's game will be the first time he's played since his injury.
I nibble on my scone to allow time for my coffee to cool down enough so I won’t burn my mouth trying to drink it. Jayson has his arm resting along the back of our booth and he’s playing with the ends of my hair.
“You know,” he says, “we need to decide which college we all want to apply to, that is if we still want to stick together. Right?”
We all agreed that we would start discussing college plans even though we're still more than a year away from having to make that decision. We know Ryder is going to take over his dad’s garage and could care less about going to college, but is coming with us anyway. I couldn’t imagine not having the three of them with me at college. No matter what, where they go, I will go. What choice do I have?
Julien throws a sugar packet at his brother. “There’s no rush to decide Jay.”
“You know we’ve always talked about Carolina University.”
I roll my eyes. Jayson and Julien have been obsessed with CU since I’ve known them. I should count myself lucky that Jayson let me have his favorite CU T-shirt, which I stole and refuse to give back to him. I like to sleep in it.
The waitress drops our check on the table and Jayson pulls out his wallet. “On me today. We need to head on out if we want to make it before the first bell.” Jayson slides out of the booth and reaches for me. “Jules, you with us or Ry?”
“I’ll ride with Ry.”
I hug Julien and Ryder, and Jayson opens the passenger side door of his truck for me to get in. It’s not like I won’t see them again today. Since I work at the library after school today, Jayson’s going to drop me off and pick me back up once I’m done.
The choir director emailed me adn the rest of the singers last night about before-school practice sessions. Ou
r choir group will compete in a big national competition in the spring. We’ll be up against about one hundred other show choirs from schools across the country. Mrs. Deagle, our choir director, has already contacted me about performing a solo piece of my own work.
Once we get to school, we park in the senior lot. Maria is already waiting next to the walkway that leads from the lot to the school building, and runs over to Ryder’s car when he pulls in. I watch as she jumps up into his arms as soon as he steps out of his car, plastering a big kiss on his face. He puts her down and I notice he doesn’t take her hand or put his arm around her. If I wasn’t watching so closely, I would have missed the scowl on her face. I jump out of Jayson’s truck before he has a chance to come around to open the door for me.
“Maria,” I call out and she jogs over to me.
“Hey chica!"
Jayson bends down to place a quick peck on my lips and walks over to meet the guys. I loop my arm with Maria’s and grab my bag. “Skip walk,” I tell her, and we begin to skip arm and arm down the paved sidewalk. Our silliness gets a lot of looks from other students but we don’t care. That is, until two of those looks come from Samantha and Jacinda who are standing in the quad with what I assume is the rest of the cheerleading squad since they're all holding blue and gold pom poms.
“Skank alert,” Maria says loudly.
“Who are you calling a skank?” Samantha sneers as we skip past them. Maria stops and pulls away from me.
“You,” Maria tells her.
“Maria, let’s go.” I try to tug her back, but she isn’t budging.
Jacinda joins Samantha and looks at me. “I don't get what Jayson sees in you. Guess he got bored and that's why he wound up in bed with me," she taunts, flinging her long ponytail over her shoulder.