Stay

by Mulholland, S.

  For her to say she’ll call him is a legit red flag for me.

  I start to get butterflies in my stomach from my anxiety building up. “No! You dragged me here. What the fuck is going on?” I ask turning to look at our group of friends.

  I wish I hadn’t at that moment because I see a familiar face staring right at me.

  I feel a lump in my throat when I see him just staring at me with those same blue eyes I fell in love with all those months ago. He still has the same haunted-- almost sad look.

  My eyes start to water as I try to focus in on the meaning behind that penetrating gaze.

  As I focus in on his stare, it all comes back to me, “I love you, baby, always and forever—I should have stayed, Alexandra, that night in the alley, I should have stayed, baby—I’m so sorry. I love you—so much…”

  The memory of his words helps me realize that whatever it was…it was real.

  Jason and I belong together.

  Tears stream down my face because I can’t believe I’m looking at him again…Jayden—my baby boy—how? I sigh, I’ll see you again someday, baby.

  I start walking towards him but then find myself running.

  His eyes widen in shock.

  When I get closer, I throw myself at him wrapping my legs and arms around his body.

  I don’t waste any time in apologizing, “Jason, baby, you’re here, again! I thought I would never see you again…I’m sorry I left you, baby. The darkness was just too strong. I’m sorry I left you and Jayden—I’m so sorry!”

  His arms hesitantly wrap around my waist and I hear his harsh intake of breath.

  “Alexandra…” He whispers reluctantly.

  He tries to pry me off of him a little bit to look at my face but I don’t want to let go. It feels like I haven’t felt him in years.

  I hear him chuckle so I finally pull back enough to still be wrapped around him and face to face with those deep blue eyes.

  I blush at seeing him smile with that dimple I love so much.

  “I’m sorry, Jason…” I repeat.

  He brushes a stray curl from my face. “Alexandra, what are you talking about? There’s nothing for you to be sorry about…”

  Tears stream down my face even more now because I realize that he doesn’t know—doesn’t know what our lives are going to become after tonight.

  Suddenly, I hear his voice saying, “If I could take that day back, I would because that’s the day I lost you to someone I thought you deserved.”

  Is that why I’m here again? Am I really insane? Was all of what I went through not real? Was it all a lie?

  I have to find out if it was true or if it was all a dream.

  Avoiding all the eyes on us I whisper, “Let’s go outside, we need to talk.”

  He nods his head as I un-wrap my legs from around him and grab a hold of his hand.

  I turn around to walk to the exit with him behind me.

  I catch Magda’s eye and I can tell she’s pissed off but I don’t care. This is do or die time for Jason and me…literally.

  Walking out the door with him I hear the song change to Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’. I will fix us, Jason, I’ll fix you…you’re not letting us slip away this time.

  I turn the corner and lead him to that same alley where I know things changed for us.

  I stop in the middle and turn around to look at him. He looks confused and anxious at the same time.

  I need to know if everything that I know is true…

  “Jason…what are you doing here?” I ask before I spill my guts.

  He shoves his hands deep inside his pockets and looks down at his feet. “I—uh—I just wanted to tell you that I’m happy that you’re seeing someone new. I hear he’s a great guy. I just...I’m happy to see you with someone good and that will treat you the way you deserve to be treated—“

  I smile because he just proved that whatever I experienced is going to happen if I don’t put a stop to it.

  “Bullshit! Tell me the real reason you’re here.” I say confidently.

  He takes a step back and looks up at me. “What?” He asks confused.

  I smirk. “I call bullshit, now tell me the real reason as to why you’re here or I will…”

  His eyes roam my face and I can tell he doesn’t know what to say or do.

  He takes his hands out of his pockets and starts rubbing his head back and forth—nervous habit.

  “I told you—I—“

  I place my finger on his lips to shut him up because I know he won’t tell me the truth.

  I shake my head more to myself than to him because of what I’m about to do.

  “Jason, I know why you’re here. You’re here because you needed proof that I really had moved on from you—you needed to see it with your own eyes, if I remember correctly. Am I right?”

  I hear him swallow loudly.

  I smile again because I know that what I’m saying is hitting him. He knows I’m telling the truth.

  He stays silent so I continue on with confidence, “I’m going to assume that I am right based on your silence so I’ll keep going. I also know why you left four months ago. I am so sorry about that. I hope your mother, brother, and sister are healing, both on the inside and the outside. I know that you feel like you don’t deserve me or want to “taint me” with your life but really, Jason, you’re decision to not be with me is what really taints my life—our life together. Tonight you want to make sure that I move on from you so that it makes you feel like I’m going to have the life that you think I can’t have with you, but you have no idea how wrong you are. I know this because the person you think I should move on with becomes my worst nightmare. You will go on to live your life regretting pushing me away tonight and I will move on to a life filled with abuse and later that will be the death of me…” I stop to take a deep breath.

  I look down because I remember his eyes filled with sadness and regret before I took my last breath. I will not allow him to ruin our lives together again…I can’t allow him to not let me live my whole life with him and Jayden.

  I can see his feet move towards me. His hand touches my chin and gently rubs it as he lifts my head to face him.

  His eyes are clouded and confused. “How? Why do you know all this?”

  I search his face for any clue that he now thinks I’m crazy, but all I can see is a genuine look of relief.

  “Jason—it’s going to take a long time for me to tell you how I know all this, you’re just going to have to trust me. I know that what you think is right for right now, isn’t right for us in the long run. Please, I need you to trust me. I want to be with you forever. I know that someday we’ll see Jayden again—I’ll explain about our son later…but I need you to believe that Zac is not what’s right for me…you are. You always have been. I’ve loved you from the first moment we met. I will stay with you throughout your road to recovery from the abuse of your father towards your mother and your family. That will in turn help me heal because of the abuse I went through with my mother—again, I’ll go into further detail later…I need you to know that we belong together, forever. If you stick to your decision to still push me away tonight, you’ll only live to regret it—I hated seeing that regret and sadness the day I died, Jason—crap…too much information, sorry. Look, if you give me a chance, I’ll explain everything but for now, I just need you to stay, Jason. Please tell me you’ll stay…”

  I reach out to hold both sides of his face and plead with my eyes to give me a chance…give us a chance. I see a lone tear slide down his face and I wipe it away with my thumb.

  “Please, baby…please—give us a chan—“ His lips are on mine before I finish.

  His hungry kiss takes me by surprise but I still manage to wrap my arms around his neck and again wrap my legs around his waist.

  Breathless he pulls away and brushes my cheek with his thumb.

  “I don’t know how or why you know all that but—I trust you…I always have, baby.”

  R
elief washes over me but I need to hear him say it.

  “Does that mean…?”

  His head falls back as he laughs. “Yes, baby, I’ll stay—I always wanted to stay…”

  I hug him tightly before pulling away and kissing every inch of his face. “Good, you kept me from having to pin you down and forcing you to stay…”

  With a sensual smirk he says, “Hhhmmm—I would love to see you try…”

  “Oh God, come on…let’s go to my dorm. I need you inside me now.” I say desperate to be with him.

  He stops breathing for a second before frantically kissing me again.

  I start touching him all over the place.

  He presses me up against the wall behind me and starts trailing kisses down my neck.

  Faintly, Alicia Keys’ ‘Sleeping With a Broken Heart’ comes on and it brings me back to reality—not tonight, Alicia…I’m not sleeping with a broken heart tonight…tonight I finally have who I’ve always wanted but we are in public and I don’t want to get arrested for indecent exposure.

  “Jason—I love you...“ I say breathlessly.

  He pulls slightly away from undoing my shirt. “I love you too, baby…but?”

  I look at him. “Well, we’re in public and…as much as I want to see Jayden again—I’m still in school.”

  Perplexed he steps back and fixes both of our shirts.

  “Are you going to tell me who Jayden is?” He asks pulling me close to his chest.

  I rub his cheek and give him a peck on those luscious lips of his before I answer, “I’m going to tell you everything because this time you’re not walking away—this time--you’re finally staying.”

  He hugs me tight until our noses are touching.

  Closing his eyes and breathing in deep he whispers, “Alexandra, I’m able to stay because you never let me go…”

  Jason’s Story, Never Let Me Go

  COMING SOON!!

  So check it, to prove it…here’s an excerpt!!

  Please Note:

  The following is not final and it may differ from the published copy:

  Chapter One

  Brown eyes look intently into mine.

  I try to rack my brain about how I know those intense brown eyes looking deeply at me but I come up empty.

  I feel her thumb caress my cheek where a tear is running down my face. I’m so fixated on those eyes that I don’t even care to know why that’s happening.

  I hear her angelic voice and it’s like I have no control over my own body, “Please, baby…please—give us a chan—“ I kiss her before she finishes because I can no longer stand being apart from her.

  The moment that my lips touch hers, my body instantly reacts to needing her.

  My mind is racing with all these emotions that are unknown to me. I don’t understand why she’s having this kind of effect on me.

  I set aside my unfamiliar feelings and just keep kissing her soft plump lips with this hunger I’ve never had for another girl.

  I have no idea where all this passion I feel is coming from but I don’t dwell on it because at this moment all I care about is kissing this beautiful creature with gentle brown eyes. Eyes that seem as though they can see right through the darkness that invades me.

  She wraps her arms around my neck and our kissing intensifies.

  I taste her tongue and it makes my dick twitch in response.

  Her legs come up to wrap around my body and I’m hard as steel in an instant.

  My arms wrap around her waist and as I’m about to grind my hips into her, I suddenly pull away from our kiss and brush her cheek with my thumb. What the hell? Why did I just do that?

  My eyes meet hers automatically and no matter how hard I try I can’t look away from her penetrating gaze.

  I hear myself speak softly to her, “I don’t know how or why you know all that but—I trust you…I always have, baby.”

  I’m in a trance because I don’t know how or why those words came out of my mouth. All I know for sure is that I don’t want to let go of her, I just want to keep her as close to me as possible.

  I just have this overwhelming feeling in my chest—like my heart has been aching to be with her.

  I can’t see all of her but I can feel her and that’s all I need to be able to do right now because this connection that I feel between us is undeniable. I just don’t know why it’s there.

  I can see her need for confirmation about something by the way her eyes are looking at me questioningly.

  “Does that mean…?” She asks hopeful.

  My body responds by laughing and then reassuring her with my words, “Yes, baby, I’ll stay—I always wanted to stay…”

  She must have liked my answer because she starts kissing every inch of my face making me close my eyes at the feel of her lips on me.

  Her tender touch feels so good that it makes my mind think of the other areas of my body that I want her to do this to.

  “Good, you kept me from having to pin you down and force you to stay…” Her playful voice gets my mind out of the gutter.

  I smirk at the thought of having her “force” me to do anything.

  Looking into her eyes again I picture her doing just what she said. “Mmmm—I would love to see you try…” I say returning her playfulness.

  All of sudden she’s no longer playing around because I see pure lust in her eyes and it makes me want to explode in my pants right here, right now.

  “Oh God, come on…let’s go to my dorm. I need you inside me now—“ She says almost breathless.

  Her words leave me speechless and so turned on, it’s almost painful.

  I look intently into her eyes with total admiration at her boldness before frantically kissing her and touching every curve of her body.

  I pull her closer to me, needing to feel her up against me.

  Her hands start roaming my chest but soon move down to my ass.

  I push her up against the wall and start to trail kisses down her chest.

  Out of nowhere I hear a song playing somewhere but I’m not in the right frame of mind to register what it is or where it’s coming from. The only thing on my mind is being deep inside her as soon as humanly possible.

  She arches her back to give me more access and breathlessly says, “Jason—I love you...“

  I pull away from undoing her shirt and look up. “I…”

  “Roberts!”

  Shit! Right when I was about to see her face.

  My body rocks back and forth like someone’s pushing me.

  I rub my chest because I feel heaviness there.

  I ignore the emptiness and sadness that I feel when I hear someone yelling, “Roberts!!”

  I turn my head towards the voice rubbing my eyes and squinting as I look up.

  Standing there with a shit eating grin is my tall ass roommate Ryan.

  “Jesus Christ, Ryan—what the fuck?” I chastise glaring at him.

  He laughs looking down at me. “Dude, is it me or are you really happy to see me?”

  I scrunch my forehead in confusion, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  He waggles his eyebrows and points down towards my basketball shorts.

  I look in that direction and see that I have a massive hard on. Fuck!

  “Ah, shit!” I pull my covers over me to fix my big problem and then shrug unashamed.

  He came into my room not the other way around.

  I probably wouldn’t have this issue right now, if he hadn’t interrupted me.

  Bending over laughing he says, “Dude, were you having a wet dream?”

  My body gets goose bumps at the memory of what I was about to do with my dream girl, “I was, douche bag, and you interrupted me right when I was about to see her face.”

  He looks at me incredulously, “Holy shit, you didn’t even see her and you had that big of a boner? Whatever you were doing must’ve been pornographic.”

  Maybe it would have been if he wouldn’t have put a stop to it. Now
I’ll never know who she was or what would have happened.

  I sit up on my elbows before I respond, “Shut the fuck up—why were you even looking is the real question. Sick fuck.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Dude, a fucking blind person could have seen that shit…Jesus.”

  I shake my head at him. “Can you just stop with the “dude” thing and stop talking about my massive wood…thanks. What the hell do you want anyway?”

  Regaining his composure he questions me seriously, “We’ll get to that. I want to know who you were really dreaming of. Not like you have a girlfriend, nor have I ever seen you with anyone—so who was it?”

  I don’t say that he will never see me with anyone.

  He doesn’t need to know jack shit about me, nobody does and nobody will. That’s a promise I’m going to keep because no one needs any of the bullshit I come along with.

  I ignore his underlying question. “I don’t know, I told you, I couldn’t see her face, just…her eyes…” I pause and think about those brown eyes that had me in such a spell that I wasn’t able to see the rest of her face. I rub my buzzed head back and forth remembering what was about to go down in that vivid dream, “It just seemed…so real—”

  I sigh heavily and flip over on my stomach slamming my head in my pillow.

  I groan when I realize that I’m still hard because I was about to fuck some imaginary girl in my dream. Well I know who’s going to be rubbing one out tonight.

  I might just be more fucked up than I thought. Or maybe I just need to get laid.

  “Well, shit…it seems like it’s got you all hot and bothered. Must’ve been some chick…” He says sounding amused about his conclusion.

  I ignore him again and will myself to stop thinking about her. Everybody forgets their dreams right away. I just have to give it some time, that’s all.

  I lift my head up from my pillow, “Yeah, some chick…but I’m not hot and bothered and it was just a dream, anyway. Now, what the fuck do you want?” I ask, trying to get him back on track and away from my dream girl.

  He smiles and shakes his head at me. “Well…I woke you up from your wet dream because we’re all headed to the party. It’s time to go…”