The memory makes me dizzy, and the world tilt and spin.
Sage stares at me from across the classroom. His eyes cling to mine, like he knows I know.
He texts me. “Okay, you know how I said you talk in your sleep?—lately that’s not the only thing you do in your sleep.”
CHAPTER 12
After class, I march up to Sage at his locker. “You kiss me—at night.”
His hands go still. Slowly, he turns to me. “Actually, you kiss me.”
“No—the way I remember it—you kiss my neck. You gave me this.” I show him my hickey.
He glances at it, then stares into my eyes. “Yeah, I gave that to you—because you begged me not to stop.”
I redden, vaguely remembering that. Sort of.
I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, what’s been going on?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. Then slowly shrugs. “You sleepwalk … I guess.”
He grins slightly, but it’s faint, like he doesn’t really think it’s funny, but he doesn’t know how he should treat it, and he does that with things—treats them like a joke when he doesn’t know what else to do. He grins weakly, “Or you just want me. Really, really bad—unconsciously or whatever.”
I have an overwhelming urge to scream. And rip out my hair.
But he looks terrified that I’m going to do that—scream. And rip out my hair.
I open my mouth. Then shut it. Remembering stuff. Embarrassing stuff. Me begging for his kiss. Searing fire flows over my cheeks.
“You should push me away,” I tell him.
He shakes his head slowly. “It’s not going to happen.”
CHAPTER 13
For the rest of the day neon flashes of last night keep crashing through my brain. They haunt me. Make me cringe, yet at the same time, make me breathless. Sage sucking on my neck, me murmuring “more.”
Him smiling tenderly at that—my begging for more—running his warm hand down my back, through my hair. “I can’t,” he murmured gently, softly. “It’s going to leave a mark.”
“Please,” I coaxed. “It feels so good.” I tried to pull him closer to me, nudge him back to my neck, but he reluctantly pulled away again with a groan. “Gypsy, you can’t keep doing this. Coming here.”
“Why?” I murmured against his warm mouth, trying to get him to kiss me some more, have his hot mouth hungrily devour mine.
He gently pulled away, “Gypsy, you’d be mad if you knew about this—and embarrassed.”
He whispered in my ear, gentle and soothing, “I’m going to take you back to your bed. Stay this time, ‘cause I really don’t have a lot of willpower. Not when it comes to you.”
CHAPTER 14
“When did I start doing that?” I text to Sage.
“Doing what?—coming to my bed in the middle night like a seducer trying tempt me to do dirty deeds? Deeds that would leave me with the biggest guilt trip known to man?”
Groan. “Yeah. That.”
“Just a couple of weeks ago. It’s like your pent up feelings for your boyfriend were being taken out on me or something. But then I saw you kiss him all hot and wild at the classroom door the other day—nice PDA by the way—but when I saw you do that, I thought maybe you were going to get what you want from your guy now and weren’t going to haunt me at night anymore—tempting the soul out of me—but no, you kept doing it—sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you TELL me?”
“Um … ‘cuz I liked it?”
I groan and want to chuck my phone.
But then he writes more. “Well, no. Not going to lie, I DID like it. Of course. But that’s not really why I didn’t tell you. I was worried for you—and I didn’t want to embarrass you. You obviously have something going on—with your past—but you seem to be working it out. Slowly, but you’re doing it. Like, you don’t hide behind your weird glasses anymore, and you’re wearing your hair down, and not looking like you want to blend into the wall—which you can’t do, by the way, anyway—but so, I thought maybe you were just working stuff out, and you’d do it eventually. I mean, you’re dating a guy. (Gasp!) And you kissed him all daring-like. I’m proud of you, sis.”
Then he adds, “Well, not of you kissing the guy. I could have done without seeing that. But you’re making progress with stuff.”
“Yeah, but I’m kissing you in my SLEEP.”
“Well … maybe that’s helping you? Somehow? I mean, when I first got here, you seemed afraid of guys. Now you’re kissing them. So, apparently not terrified of them anymore, right? You kissed one in front of a whole entire, innocent class. And you kissed me—a bunch of times. Admittedly, you were sleepwalking when you did it. But …”
“Okay, go on,” I text. “Somehow make me feel better about that. Try. Please.”
“Okay, you’re not afraid to kiss a guy anymore—I’m talking about your boyfriend. So, that’s big, right? But you kissed me first—in your sleep. It’s like—like it gave you the confidence. And you kissed me because I’m safe: you know me, and trust me. But you couldn’t kiss me in real life—I mean, your awake life. Because, you know, I’m your brother, of sorts. So that’s forbidden. So couldn’t happen with your conscious working full-blast. So it did it while you were subconscious. In your dreams. So to speak.”
I face-plant my desk.
He texts, “There. Did that make you feel better?”
I thump my forehead on my desk a million times, but then have to admit, “Mildly.”
“Good. Glad to have helped, sis.”
Then he adds, “Sorry about the hickey.”
After a second, he adds: “I bet most brothers don’t say that.”
CHAPTER 15
During fifth period, I get a text from Sage: “Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you?”
I wrap my arms around my waist and press my forehead against my desk. I know he’s been wondering about that. Wondering the whole time—and patiently waiting for me to tell him. But I can’t. I’ll start crying—telling him about my ex-boyfriend coming to my room…. I shudder.
I press my palms against my eyes and exhale. Finally, I give him a condensed version of the story: “I was attacked. By a boy. In middle school.”
“I’m sorry.”
When I don’t reply, he adds, “I figured it was something like that. Did you talk to a counselor?”
“Yeah. For a while. When it first happened. She basically said I’m scarred for life because it happened in my “formative” years.… I’m messed up.”
Suddenly, the warm words, “Hey, we’re all messed up,” is whispered soothingly in my ear.
I jerk my head up to find Sage sauntering away from me to fake a trip to the pencil sharpener—which he apparently did from the other side of the classroom, since that’s where he sits, with all of his hockey team friends.
I quickly text with a groan, “But I SLEEPWALK and make-out with my brother.”
I see Sage grin slightly as he texts back, “Your brother doesn’t mind.”
Fireworks shoot through my body.
Okay, he probably sees that I’m now on fire. Awesome.
I growl as I punch out the words, “Push me away from now on!!”
He squeezes his eyes shut, then ducks his head. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 16
Sage got a real girlfriend like, immediately after I found out about the sleepwalking thing.
Seriously, right after he finally agreed to push me away—bam! He got a girlfriend.
It was his first real girlfriend since he had moved back here. I know I’d called all the other girls he dated his “girlfriends.” But he never called them that. And there had been lots of them. All at the same time. But he was all exclusive with Anya. And he actually called her his “girlfriend.” It was sweet. Sort of. Yet, heart-wrenching. Majorly.
It hurt to see him all tight with one particular girl … and it not be me.
When I brought this up to him, in a joking way (I hoped), he grinned sort of sympathetic l
ike, “Now you know how I felt when you got together with Dream-guy.”
Yeah, but the sad thing was, “Dream-guy” wasn’t my dream-guy. Sage was my dream guy. North was just my substitute. And though he was awesome, he wasn’t Sage. So … not my dream guy.
However, the dream-thing did bring me to a question I’d been wanting to ask Sage ever since I found out about my sleep-walking, but I’d been too shy to ever bring it up, “How come I always woke up back in my own bed?”
He shrugs matter-of-factly. “I put you back there.”
“You carry me to my bed???”
He grins wanly, “Every night.”
My eyes pop open and I about have a heart attack. “Every night?”
He laughs softly. “No, hardly ever. Especially not now, since me an Anya got together. You know, I can’t cheat on her … not even with a dreaming girl.”
My heart calms—slightly. Though it sort of twists as well. Which is disturbing. (I’m very messed up.)
I swallow, “Well, that’s good—that I’ve stopped.”
I try to make light of it, “—I guess my subconscious has a conscience, it knows better than to mess with a committed couple.”
I hold my breath, waiting for what he has to say about that—the “committed couple” thing. But he doesn’t say anything.
Instead, right at that moment, he gets a text (groan). He breathes out a laugh as he reads it, our conversation forgotten since his girlfriend obviously sent him a hilarious text.
I know I should feel better—ecstatic, that I’ve basically stopped sleepwalking. And I am so relieved. I am. Of course.
Only, man, it hurts that he’s so into Anya that he totally forgot he was in the middle of a conversation with me.
I slink to my room, and get ready for my date with North. North, aww. Of course we’ll do something awesome and fun. I love North … like a brother.
Kind of ironic, huh?
I love my brother like a boyfriend, and my boyfriend like a brother.
Sigh.
CHAPTER 17
After a super fun night at this place called “The Castle” where we rode a huge Ferris Wheel that looked down at the lights of the city, and then we played miniature golf—which I can never get any of my friends to do anymore—after all that, North bought me cotton-candy, and took pictures of me riding an elephant. A real elephant. (Her name is Glenda.)
When we got back to my house, North stood outside my front door with me, but he declined my suggestion that he come in for a while.
He rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. It gave me a doomed feeling in the pit of my stomach.
All night I could tell he had something bothering him. Something that he wanted to tell me, but instead, plied me with cotton candy and Glenda. Finally he just spit it out, “Gypsy, I’m gay.”
I blinked. “What??”
He gave me this half-sympathetic, half-apologetic look, “I’m sorry. I tried not to be, but that’s dumb. Because, I am. I’m gay.”
When I just stared at him, he backed away. “I’m really sorry. I’m going to go.”
Then he … left.
My gay boyfriend.
… who I guess is now my ex-boyfriend.
CHAPTER 18
Once I finally went into my house, almost immediately I got a text from North. I guess to explain.
He wrote: “Look, you just seemed safe to figure things out with. It seemed like maybe you were trying to figure things out too—and your smile that day, it kind of told me you were choosing me to figure them out with. And I felt honored. And very willing. So, thank you.”
I breathed out a ragged breath, then typed, “You’re welcome.”
Because I guess he was right.
On all accounts.
CHAPTER 19
Only a moment after I read North’s text, Sage comes through the front door.
“Forgot something,” he tells me, heading up the stairs like he’s in a big hurry, but then he freezes. He turns back to me, and gives me a quick look, his eyes scanning my face.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I must not look like it, because he lowers his brow, and trails back down the stairs towards me.
“Did something happen?” he asks.
“North is gay,” I choke out in a teary whisper.
“Ohh.” Sage sounds uncomfortable. And sympathetic … but not surprised.
He gives my hand a little squeeze, “You okay?”
I wipe away a tear. “I guess.”
I tilt my head up at him. “You knew he was gay?”
Sage winces. He looks up at the ceiling a second, then back at me and rubs the back of his neck. “Look, it was easier that way, okay?—me knowing you were out with a gay guy.”
I frown. “But you knew?”
“Well, not knew exactly. But suspected—definitely.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“I would have if you were getting married or something. But he just made you happy. And made me happy, since I knew you were having a good time and yet he wasn’t going to be making wild moves on you. Believe me, I would have definitely told you if it looked like that was in the future.” He rubs the back of his neck, his lips quirking slightly. “But that didn’t look too worrisome.”
I groan. “You should have told me.”
“No. He should have told you. I should have just kept my mouth shut—well, anyway, that’s what I figured. Let him figure things out … and I thought maybe you’d figure things out.”
A little shudder goes through me. Should have I figured it out? I actually didn’t have a clue. It never occurred to me. Not once.
Sage sits beside me really close—really, really close. Like to be comforting. He runs his hand gently through my hair. “Look, you’re not used to guys,” he says soothingly. “You chose North because you felt safe with him. Your instincts told you he was a good match—and he was … for the moment.”
He makes me look up at him. “It was a good thing, okay?—whatever you guys had. It was working for you—both of you. And now you’re both ready to move on.”
“Come on,” he says, suddenly taking my hand.
He tries pulling me to my feet. “Let’s go celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” I whimper, refusing to budge. I had big plans to wallow. And not move. He’s kind of messing up my plans.
“Yeah, celebrate,” Sage says. “You’re progressing—moving on. To bigger things.” He grins, “Well, straighter things.”
I groan. “No thanks. I just want to curl up in a ball.”
He breathes out a sympathetic laugh. “No, I’m not going to let you do that. And I threw away your fake glasses, so don’t look for them. And if you put your hair in a braid, I’m going to take it down, and if you curl up right now I’m going to pick you up and drag you out to my car.”
“Don’t you have a date or something?” I remind him. “—with your girlfriend?”
His brow lowers. “Oh yeah.” His jaw muscles tick. “I should text her.”
He lifts his eyebrows, “Meanwhile, get off the couch, and put your shoes back on. We’re going to go celebrate—with ice-cream … and ice-skates.”
My eyes light up. “Really?!”
“Wow,” he grins. “You’re actually smiling.”
“Well, you just offered me heaven.” I glance up at him, “But you’re really actually going to abandon your girlfriend on a Friday night to take me ice-skating?”
“Apparently,” he murmurs as he texts his waiting girlfriend.
I suck in my breath. I wonder what his text says? ‘Dear Anya, sorry to break our awesome sex plans, but my poor little sister’s gay boyfriend just dumped her and I have to feed her copious amounts of ice-cream or she’s going to curl up on our couch and die—also, she’s probably going to start haunting my bed at night again. Just a heads up. I hope you don’t mind.’
Whatever. I’m going ice-skating!!
CHAPTER 20
Of course ic
e-skating with Sage that night was awesomely fun. (Everything is fun with Sage.) It was so sweet of him to bail on his (erotic) plans with his girlfriend to cheer up me. I guess that’s what brothers are required to do, though. Right? Well, Sage seemed to think so, and I was glad, glad, glad. Okay actually, thrilled.
He took his cheer-up responsibility very seriously, and used the utmost gentle care and attention with me, which made my heart pound with aww and warmth (and, yes, longing and desire and all that kind of stuff).
His sweet attention almost made me glad my boyfriend turned out to be gay. (I stress—almost.)
CHAPTER 21
Right after the ice-skating celebratory/cheer-up thing, Sage takes me to a coffee shop for hot chocolates to warm us up.
When our mugs arrive, he has us clank them together for a toast. “To your next boyfriend,” he says. “May he be straight.”
Then he adds, “—and worthy of you.”
Aww.
I get a warm toasty feeling in my heart from the way he looked at me when he said that. His eyes are all warm and affectionate and awww. I melt.
“And may my dates with him be as fun as this one has been,” I murmur, then (yikes!) quickly correct myself, “—I mean, not that this was a date …”
“No, it was,” he interrupts my blathering, sounding all serious. “—a practice date,” he says. “You did very well, by the way,” he grins. “Your real date will be really lucky.” He emphasizes earnestly, his eyes staring into mine all dreamy, “Really lucky.”
Swoon!
For a moment, we just gaze at each other, our stares locked in a trance. There’s like this magical spark of electricity between us, keeping our eyes glued on each other.
When I Fell For You Page 15