by Jordan Ford
“Who cares what people think!” I don’t mean to shout the words, but it’s a nice release and so I go for it, even throwing my arms wide.
My harsh tone doesn’t rattle her. Instead, she runs her fingers through her hair and murmurs, “I’m only here for a few more weeks. It’s seriously not worth—”
“What are you doing?” I have to interrupt her. I can’t hear any kind of break up words come out of her.
“I’m being realistic.” She shrugs, her gaze glued to the grass beneath us.
I step into her space, so close she’s forced to look up at me. Her eyes flash wide for a second and she tries to turn away, but I gently pinch her chin, forcing her to face me. “No, you’re acting scared. What happened to you between this morning and right now?”
Her eyebrows bunch as she snaps her eyes shut and tries to avoid me.
“Did someone say something to you?” My insides are going nuts. It’s kind of hard to keep my voice calm when all I feel like doing is smashing the person who put that look on her face.
Her lips press into a thin line before she steps back with another huff. “Maybe. I… He’s right, though! I shouldn’t be hanging out with guys like you. I should stick with my people.”
“That’s horse shit! You are my people.”
She slaps her hand over her eyes and squeezes her temples. “Not according to Anderson Foster!”
Anger spurts hot and fast through my core. I’m going to strangle that noxious weed.
“You’re seriously going to let that brainiac get to you? That guy couldn’t be more boring if he tried. And he’s saying you fit better with him than me? I thought he was supposed to be intelligent, not a dipshit!”
“Don’t talk about him like that.” She scrapes her fingers through her hair, bunching it at the nape of her neck.
“What? He’s trying to pull us apart and you’re standing up for him?” I can’t control my tone right now. I don’t want to yell at this beautiful girl, but I’m damn riled. “What the hell do you really want, Kaija? Because I thought it was me.”
“I can’t want you, Mack!” Her entire body goes taut as she shouts at me, her wild eyes flashing with desperation before she whispers, “You don’t get it.”
The expression on her face kills my anger. A shockwave of protectiveness fires through me and I step into her space again, wrapping my arms around her tense body and resting my chin on her shoulder. Rubbing slow circles on her back, I softly ask, “What did he say to you?”
Her voice is muffled against my shirt, but I still hear every word. “He just reminded me that I’m only here for a short time and I need to be careful…and he’s right.” She pushes her fists into my chest and as much as I want to tighten my hold, I force myself to let her go. “We shouldn’t…” She shakes her head.
“Yes, we should.” Before I can think better of it, I cup her face and dive for her lips. It’s not exactly how I pictured our first kiss, but I need her to know how I feel. And since my words aren’t working…
Her lips are soft, warm and luscious, like I knew they would be. I press my mouth against them, then swipe my tongue along her bottom lip. There’s nothing sweet and delicate about this kiss; it’s rough and passionate. I pour everything I have into it. Threading my fingers through her hair, I hold her close, willing her to give into the pulsing chemistry between us…and she does. With a soft whimper, she meets my tongue with an urgency that gives away her desire. Our tongues lash together like they can’t get enough of the heat.
I’m waiting for her arms to wrap around me, for her fingers to entwine behind my neck. If they do, I’m picking her up. I want her legs around my waist. I want to hold her so close that nothing can come between us.
But her arms don’t move, at least not the way I want them to.
She lets out a cry and pushes me off her. “This can never happen.” Her breath hitches and she covers her lips with the back of her hand, shaking her head and spinning away from me. She’s about to break into a run, but I lurch forward and catch her before she can. Wrapping my arms around her, I rest my chin in the crook of her neck and press my lips against her jawline. I expect her to struggle and kick. Her back is pressed against my torso and I’m holding her pretty tight, ready to battle it out, but she just kind of sags against me, her stomach jerking as she fights a sob.
Rubbing my nose against her cheek, I will my voice not to shake as I whisper, “We’re meant to be together. I’ve known it since the second I saw you. I know it because I’ve been acting crazy trying to win you over.”
She turns towards my voice and I kiss her cheek.
“But you don’t know me.” She sounds so broken. So scared.
An uneasy disquiet stirs within as I gently spin her so I can look into those eyes. They’re shimmering and vibrant, tugging at my soul like nothing I’ve known. I brush her tears away with the back of my finger. “I’ve talked more to you in one week than I have to anyone my entire life.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done.” Her expression crumples. “I’m no good for you, Mack. We’ll just bring out the worst in each other.”
“What are you hiding?” My voice trembles. The emotions in me are so thick and strong I don’t know what to do with them. “Why are you fighting something you know is right?”
She flicks my hand off her face. “Because you wouldn’t feel this way if you knew what a horrible, arrogant bitch I am.”
“What are you talking about?” I hate hearing those words come out of her mouth. No one talks about my girl that way, not even her.
“I nearly got someone killed! Do you honestly want to be with someone like that?”
The words act like an air vacuum, sucking the life out of the empty stadium. We both stand there frozen for a second, jolted by her raw honesty. Her eyes round, fear skittering across her face as she stumbles away from me. Her foot catches on the bag she dumped somewhere during our argument and she starts to fall.
I rush to catch her, gripping her arm and hauling her back against me. She crashes into my chest and I gather her in my arms, sweeping up her legs before lowering us to the ground. My legs cross and I nestle her into my lap, then press my lips to her forehead, kneading the back of her neck as she starts to cry. Her heart-wrenching sobs remind me of Layla at Dad’s grave when his coffin was lowered into the ground.
My protective instincts had been working on overdrive then and they’re doing the same now. I want to wipe away her pain. Hell, I’ll take it as my own if I have to. Hearing the hitch in her breath followed by those soft little whimpers, feeling her damp cheeks as she lets the tears fall unchecked… It’s enough to crush any guy. I encase her in my arms, cradling her against me until the sobs ebb to quiet sniffles.
“Talk to me,” I whisper. “Tell me the truth.”
“You’ll never look at me the same,” she murmurs, curling her fingers into my jacket.
I gaze up at the blue sky above us, so crystal clear. The grass beneath us is cold and will soon be making my muscles ache, but I’m not moving. Not until she tells me everything. Running my fingers down the back of her hair, I kiss the side of her head and promise, “Whatever you say is not going to change how I feel about you.”
She pulls away from me, gazing into my eyes with a look of agony. “It should.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” I smile at her, caressing her tear-stained cheek with the tips of my fingers. “Trust me. Let me be your truth faucet.”
A fleeting grin crests her lips before she closes her eyes with a heavy sigh.
“When I was a kid, my best friend was Eloise Cochran. We did everything together. But then just before high school, she moved to Myanmar with her parents. I was kind of heartbroken and I guess a little bitter, not that it was her fault. I just felt sort of lost without her. When I started high school, I became friends with this girl, Anna. She was part of the cool crowd and I fit in way easier than I thought I would. My older brother, Corbin, was one of the hot guys at the school and
I think they wanted to get in with me to get with him. You know what they’re like.” She rolls her eyes. “But once he left, I still had a place with them.”
Her surprise makes me grin. She really has no idea how amazing she is.
“Anyway, by the time Eloise returned, I had a bunch of new friends and she was this girl who’d been living in the middle of nowhere. She assumed we’d be instant friends again… Maybe I thought we would too, but…my friends at the time took great delight in teasing her. She was so awkward and out of the loop. Any flaw they could find, and they found heaps, they went after it. Even her last name—Cochran—was turned into various cock jokes. You can imagine all the mileage they got out of that.” Her face scrunches, her cheeks burning red while her voice peters out to barely audible. “Rather than helping her, I just… I didn’t want to be lumped with her. I was scared of being kicked out of the cool crowd, becoming the butt of their jokes. I was worried I’d become an open target.” Her lips tremble as she sucks in a breath. “So, rather than doing the right thing, I turned into them, became this nasty, horrible, taunting, manipulative…”
“Okay, I get it. You were mean.” I wave my hand through the air, needing to cut her self-deprecation short.
“I was brutal.” Her voice breaks over the word brutal, her face bunching as a fresh wave of tears fills her eyes. “I don’t know how she put up with it for as long as she did. She just quietly endured it, stoic and strong. I felt bad sometimes, but most of the time I just brushed it off, thinking she could handle it.” Tears course down Kaija’s cheeks. I try to wipe them away, but she stops me with a shake of her head, swiping at her own tears.
I can’t help wondering if this is the first time she’s ever let the whole truth out, because it seems to be almost cathartic for her. The color of her eyes changes, a hint of blue storming into the green as a look of sick regret courses over her face.
“About a month ago, I got home from school and she was lying on my bed, white as a ghost. Red-rimmed eyes, blue lips.” Her eyes go wide and glassy, as if she’s seeing it all over again.
I swallow, recognizing her expression. I’d seen it before, the day we’d jumped out and scared her in the hallway. “Shit, the masks. I am so sorry.”
“You didn’t know.” She shook her head, trying to smile at me but failing. “No one can know. I’m so ashamed. She downed a bottle of pills because of me.”
The words hurt her and I feel them like a punch in the gut. I want to make it better, to take away her pain, so lamely I choke out, “You don’t know that.”
“I do!” She squeaks. “She left a note about not being able to do it anymore. School was a battlefield and her armor had disintegrated. She felt naked and alone, pelted and bruised. She just wanted it all to stop.” Kaija sniffs, pressing the back of her quivering hand against her lips, then biting the skin.
I gently pull her hand away before she can leave teeth marks. Rubbing my thumb over the tender skin, I stay quiet so she can keep going and let it all out. It’s killing me to see her like this, but I have to let her finish.
“She said, ‘I’m tired of feeling so afraid and sick all the time. I can’t fight anymore. I’m done.’” Kaija’s chin trembles as she looks into my eyes. “I pushed her over the edge, Mack, and she made that abundantly clear by trying to finish herself on my bed. It was like her closing statement.”
“But she didn’t die.”
“No, I called an ambulance and did CPR, kept her alive until they got there and took over.”
I give her a soft smile, my chest squeezing tight. “So, you saved her life.”
“Ironic, right? Yet another reason for her to hate me.” Her biting words are bitter and hateful. I know all of her emotion is directed inward and I have to stop it.
“You did the right thing.”
“Only after I did so many wrong things I lost count. I was a coward, Mack. More worried about my status than someone who needed me.” She closes her eyes, a few more tears slipping down her cheek. “After it happened, I told my boyfriend and he turned on me, made me feel like I was totally to blame, and then all my ‘friends’…” She makes air quotes while I try to wrestle the word ‘boyfriend’ out of my brain. I clench my jaw and tell myself her derogatory tone must mean they’ve broken up. “…joined in, spreading rumors and exaggerating the story. I went into hiding, and when I came here, I swore I wouldn’t get involved with those kinds of people again. Girls like Roxy, and guys like…well, you, bring out the worst in me. I don’t want to be that horrible person again.”
“You think I bring out the worst in you?” I smirk, desperate to lighten the moment.
She fights a smile, shaking her head with a perplexed frown. “That’s what I don’t get. I’ve spent most of high school dating guys just like you, but being around you makes me feel…like nothing I’ve ever known. But you’re everything I shouldn’t want! You’re cool and gorgeous. You can prank like a pro. All the guys look up to you, all the girls want to get with you. I can’t become like them again, Mack.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know that?” The question shoots out—sharp and desperate, her internal struggle so obvious.
I lick the edge of my mouth, knowing that answering too fast might come off as callous. I want her to know I believe every word I’m saying. Cupping her cheek, I gaze into those eyes that capture me and rub my thumb across her cheekbone. “Because you’ve had the living crap scared out of you. I can see it in your eyes. You will never go back to being that girl. But denying who you are isn’t going to work, either. You can’t do that for the rest of your life. You’ll turn yourself inside out trying.”
“You’re one to talk,” she mutters, her right eyebrow arching. “You’re totally living the lie too.”
I snicker, my tone serious when I finally reply. “Yeah, I am.” I blink, my eyes skimming the ground before landing back on hers. “So maybe we should do something about that. Maybe all this change starts with us.”
A soft smile crests her lips as she places her hand over mine. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say shit that makes me fall even harder for you.”
I grin at her dry expression. “I mean it, you know.”
She nods and whispers, “That’s why I’m falling.”
Her words draw me in, pulling me towards her lips. Our second kiss is soft and filled with something I’ve never experienced—kind of like a promise. And it’s in this moment that I’m certain she’s my girl and I’ll be calling her that for a very long time.
#22:
Adorkable
Kaija
“No.” I laugh. The giggles rupturing my stomach are making it hard to run. “Pass back. Your arm movement is all wrong.”
Mack gives me a doubtful frown and tries again, flicking the rugby ball off to the side. He looks awkward, which I find hilarious. The most athletic, gorgeous, coolest guy in school and he can’t even throw a rugby ball.
I race for the ball, catching it on the bounce, and press it into my stomach, bending over so I can laugh a little more.
“Give me a break. I’m used to throwing the ball over my shoulder.” He storms towards me, muttering, “Stupid game. You kiwis don’t know anything.”
I pop up, faking insult, but I can’t pull it off. Red-faced, grumpy-ass Mack is kind of cute. I tip my head, putting on my best smile. “You know you’re completely adorkable when you’re trying to play a real man’s sport, right?”
He stops short, his dry glare making me chuckle. “Adorkable? You did not just say that to me.” He growls and starts running straight at me.
I squeal and throw the ball at him, spinning fast to make a quick escape. He deflects the ball easily and keeps charging, wrapping his arms around me and lifting me up. I yelp and start laughing as he tackles me to the ground, making sure he turns at the last minute so he’s the one hitting the grass first.
I run my fingers down his strong jawline and press my
thumb into his deep chin dimple. “We need to work on your tackling too.” I grin before cutting off his argument with my lips.
He lets out a pleasant moan, like he’s tasting chocolate for the first time, and drags his hand up my back. His fingers thread into my hair, cupping the back of my head. I suck his bottom lip into my mouth, hungry for a taste of him. We only shared our first kiss two days ago, but Mack’s lips are like a drug. I promised to teach him rugby this weekend and the reason he’s probably doing so badly is because we keep getting distracted. But how can we not? His mouth was made for mine.
I shift my knee, tucking it between his legs and nestling myself more firmly against his chest. His strong arms anchor me to him, holding me steady, promising to keep me close. I tip my head, delving deeper into his exquisite mouth. My hair slips over my shoulder, cocooning us from the world. I don’t feel the sun’s feeble attempt to break through the clouds. I don’t feel the cold grass threatening to freeze our limbs. Mack’s jacket rustles as he runs his hand down to my hip, splaying his fingers across my jeans and pressing me even closer to him. I flick my tongue against his, warm energy sizzling right through me. I want this moment to last forever.
But good things never do.
The sound of distant voices and laughter jerk us apart. I try to scramble off Mack, but he tightens his hold on me, lifting his head to see who might be coming.
“Let me go.” I push against his shoulders.
“Why?” His frown is soft and curious.
“Because I don’t want the attention. If people know we’re together, everything’s going to change. I don’t…”
The worry scorching me obviously shows because Mack runs his finger down my hairline with a soft smile and whispers, “Your secret is safe with me. I promise you. I’ll never tell anyone.”
I swallow. “I don’t want people talking about me.”