by Amanda Abram
I have no idea how long I stood there, numb and frozen. I just knew it was entirely too long.
“Um, Jase,” Eric said beside me, rather sternly. I'd almost forgotten he was even there.
At the sound of his voice, Jase and Kylie jumped apart.
I watched as Jase glanced over at Eric. The panicked look on his face indicated he probably thought Eric was a teacher at first, because then it quickly faded to a relieved look once he saw it was only his best friend. But then, his gaze flickered over to me, once he realized Eric was not alone, and that relieved look turned into...well, I couldn't tell, exactly.
“Lex.” He sounded surprised to see me. He stepped away from Kylie, who I was amazed to see didn't look the slightest bit guilty for having just been making out with someone else's boyfriend.
I knew it. All along, deep down, I knew it. Kylie was a lousy bitch, no different from every other pretty, popular, spoiled rich girl that attended Jefferson Elliott High.
Slowly, I began to back up towards the door Eric and I had come in through.
“I-I'm sorry,” I stuttered. I instantly wanted to kick myself. I just caught him with Kylie, and I was the one apologizing? What the hell was wrong with me?
Turning on my heel, I made a quick exit. I never walked so fast in my entire life. I entered the other half of the teacher's lounge. I exited to the hallway. I started walking past lockers, past empty classrooms. I was heading back toward the theater, although I had no idea what I was going to do once I got there.
“Lex!” Jase called out. He was following me.
I pretended not to hear him and quickened my pace. I had to go somewhere. Anywhere. Just so long as Jase wasn't there when I arrived.
But then, the anger started to sink in. The blinding rage. And I stopped.
It took him only a few seconds to catch up to me. “Lex, I—”
“What was that?” I exploded, turning around to face him.
“Lex—”
“It's not Wednesday, you know,” I snapped, not giving him a chance to speak. “It's only Monday.”
“I know that. But—”
“But what?” I placed my hands on my hips. “You couldn't wait two more days?”
Jase raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “I didn't plan it. It just happened.”
I snorted. “Yeah. A lot of your kisses seem to 'just happen' lately, don't they?” Like the one that just happened between us Friday night, on his bed. “What's wrong with you, Jase? I never thought you'd be capable of cheating on a girlfriend.”
“You're not my girlfriend!” he bellowed. The sudden volume of his voice made me flinch. “And just who the hell are you to be throwing stones, anyway?”
My mouth clamped shut. For a guy who had just been caught red-handed doing something he shouldn't have been doing, his angry voice almost indicated that he somehow felt he was the victim here.
“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, but as I spoke, the realization began to sink in.
“It means,” he said in a low voice, “that from what I witnessed driving by your house Saturday night, it appears I'm not the only one who's been 'cheating'.”
Oh God. He'd witnessed my kiss with Jeffrey the other night. Dammit! Stupid Jeffrey! Stupid me!
“You saw that?” I asked. Stupid question!
“You live on a very public street, Turner.”
I decided to play it cool. Cool and casual, like it was nothing. “That was different. Jeffrey kissed me.”
“Oh yeah?” Jase arched an eyebrow. “And then did you make him stop? Did you push him away? Because when I drove by your house, it appeared as though you were kissing each other. And it certainly didn't look like you were bothered by it.”
The knot that had formed in my stomach a while ago was now turning into a brick. “So what? You saw me with Jeffrey, and instead of coming to me and asking me about it, you just retaliate by making out with Kylie? How mature of you, Jase. And what does that say about Kylie, that she was perfectly okay with kissing another girl's boyfriend?”
He sighed heavily and shook his head. “First of all, you weren't meant to ever see that, so it was hardly retaliation. Second of all, it doesn't say anything about Kylie, because she knows.”
I stopped breathing for a moment. “She's knows what?”
For a moment, Jase's look of anger dissipated into one of guilt. “About you and me. About our fake relationship.”
Everything around me suddenly became brighter as my hands began to form into fists at my sides. “You told her,” I said, trying to remain calm. “Why would you do that? So that she would be able to kiss you with a clear conscience?”
“What does it matter why I told her? You and I were going to break up on Wednesday, anyway. And for all I knew, you might have told Jeffrey about it that night I saw you making out with him.”
“Why would I have told Jeffrey?” I asked. I was dangerously close to being on the verge of tears. “I didn't even want to tell Trish for crying out loud!”
He shrugged. “I don't see what the big deal is. Who cares if Kylie knows?”
“I care, Jase. Remember me? Your girlfriend?”
“You're not my girlfriend,” he repeated slowly. “And I'm not your boyfriend. In case you forgot, this entire relationship of ours was fake. I don't owe you any explanation as to why I was kissing Kylie, nor do I owe you any sort of an apology. And as for telling her the truth about us, this secret was just as much mine as it was yours and now that it's over, I think I'm allowed to tell anyone I damn well please.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “You know, this stupid idea of yours almost ruined my chances with her. Thank God I came clean with her when I did or I would have gotten nothing out of this whole thing.”
I gaped at him. I'd never heard him speak in that tone to anyone before. Ever.
“Okay, first of all,” I said, waving my index finger around, “this whole thing regarding Kylie was your bright idea, not mine. Second of all, I never held a gun to your head. If you didn't want to do this, you could have just declined. Actually, you did decline, and then you changed your mind once you realized you could use it to your advantage. Because God forbid Jase Holloway ever did anything that wouldn't somehow ultimately benefit him.”
“For your information, Kylie was only the second reason I changed my mind about helping you. The first reason was because I genuinely wanted to help you. I felt bad for you. It was pathetic how desperate you were to get Jeffrey to want you back. You were trying so hard and getting absolutely nowhere. It was painful to watch, so being the nice guy that I am, I threw you a bone. If anything, you should be thanking me right now.”
“I should be thanking you?” I spat. “For what?”
“You got what you wanted.” His voice so loud it was on the verge of a yell. “So stop acting like you actually give a damn about what you just saw. You are such a drama queen. You always have to make everything bigger than it actually is, in hopes that in the end, someone is going to feel sorry for you. Well, no one feels sorry for you. No one felt sorry for you when Jeffrey dumped you for someone else, and no one is going to feel sorry for you now. So get over it.”
His words...his complete disregard of my feelings was devastating. I could feel hot tears beginning to form in my eyes. Angry tears. Hurt tears. It was bad enough I'd had to see Jase, the boy I thought I had been in love with, kissing another girl. Now, he was acting like a complete ass to me as well.
“You know what?” I was pleased to note just how calm my voice was. The tears began to dry up as I realized this wasn't the time to break down and cry. It was the time to bite back. “You're right. It's over. And I'm not just talking about our fake relationship. From here on out, we're not friends. We're not even casual acquaintances. I want you out of my life, you got that? So don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't even breathe the same air as me. We're through.”
I was aware that I was overreacting, and I knew later on I was going to look back at the scene
and cringe. But I couldn't help it. The words just flew out of my mouth without any prior consultation with my brain. If I had just stopped, taken a deep breath and counted to ten, perhaps I would have realized the smart thing to do would have been to just let the whole thing slide. Pretend it didn't bother me that I had caught them kissing. Because if I had just been cool and collected about it, he would have thought nothing of it. Instead, yelling at him to stay the hell away from me for the rest of his life was a huge indication I was way more affected by his make out session than I should have been. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out maybe the reason why I was taking it so hard was because I had feelings for him.
But in the heat of the moment, I just didn't care. I walked away, and this time I didn't stop. I didn't even look back. Part of me was hoping that if I did, I would see he was following me. But I knew he wasn't. Why would he be, when he had Kylie waiting for him back in the teacher's lounge?
Like I had told him, we were through. For good.
***
Crying and walking at the same time wasn't easy, and that sucked considering I lived quite a walking distance from the school.
However, I didn't even make it a quarter of a mile from the school before I heard a car behind me pull over to the side of the street and slow down until it was creeping along beside me at about two miles an hour.
My first thought was that it was Jase coming to apologize. Coming to profess his undying love for me. Coming to tell me that it wasn't until the precise moment I'd kicked him out of my life for good that he realized he just couldn't live without me.
But out of the corner of my eye, it was easy to see it wasn't Jase's car. Not that I was surprised.
So my next thought was that maybe it was a kidnapper. He'd pull up next to me, get out of the car, rush over to me, shove me into the trunk and drive me off to some empty warehouse in the middle of nowhere, for absolutely no other reason than to make Jase, in my unexplained absence, worry about me and realize that he just couldn't live without me...
“Lexi!” came a voice from inside the car. Okay, so it probably wasn't a kidnapper, because the driver knew my name. Unless he'd been stalking me for some time now...
I turned and glanced through the rolled-down passenger window to see Eric staring out at me from the driver's seat. Quickly, I dried the remaining tears from my eyes.
“Hey, Eric.”
“Get in,” he said softly. “Let me take you home.”
I waved him off. “Nah, it's okay. I don't mind walking. I don't live that far from here.”
“That wasn't an offer, it was a demand. Now get in the car, please.” He leaned over in his seat and pushed open the passenger door.
If he was going to insist, then I guess I would just have to do what he said. I actually didn't live close to the school at all, so I got in the car and closed the door.
He studied me for a moment before reaching across me, opening up the glove compartment, and pulling out a small stack of napkins he'd most likely taken from a fast food joint. “Here,” he said, handing them to me.
His simple act of kindness, which really wasn't much of anything at all, made a fresh new set of tears emerge. “Thank you,” I said, dabbing at my eyes with one of the napkins.
“Look,” he said, his voice gentle, “I know this is none of my business, but what happened back there? I thought you two weren't supposed to break up until Wednesday.”
“We weren't,” I said, blowing my nose. The napkin was rough against my skin, but it was absorbent, which was all I could really ask for at the moment.
“Okay,” he said slowly. He put on his blinker and glanced over his shoulder before he pulled back out onto the road. “So then, I'm confused.”
“About what?”
“About everything. Why was Jase kissing Kylie? Was that part of some plan you guys concocted?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“So then he just...kissed her.”
“Right.”
“While he was still fake-dating you.”
“Right.”
“And now you're upset because you have feelings for him.”
“Right.” I paused, my eyes narrowing into a glare that I directed over at Eric. He was looking at the road, not at me, but I could see a small smirk grace his lips, as if to say, “gotcha!”.
But then it faded and he said, “Does Jase know how you feel about him?”
“Of course not.” I folded my arms tightly over my chest as I stared out the passenger window. “And he never will.”
“You need to tell him.”
“Why does he need to know? He's going to get with Kylie. What would be the point of confessing my feelings for him now?”
He turned to glance at me real quick. “From what I could hear of your argument back there, you just banished him permanently from your life. That's a pretty big deal. He probably thinks you hate him now.”
“I do hate him.”
“You don't hate him,” he corrected me. “You're hurt. I get that, trust me. But you guys have too much of a history together to just throw it all away.”
“What history? Yeah, we were friends as kids, but we've spent the last three or more years completely ignoring each other. And not even on purpose. We pretty much just forgot about each other. That's not much of a history.”
“Whatever,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I still think maybe you were a bit harsh with him, and I still think you should tell him how you feel.”
“I was harsh with him?” I gaped over at him. “If you heard any part of our conversation back there, then surely you heard everything he said to me. He was being a callous jerk.”
“I did hear what he said to you, but I think he—”
“I'm never going to tell him. Never. And if I find out that you've breathed a word of this to him, I will make sure Trish never thinks of you as anything more than her older brother's annoying best friend.”
Oh wow, that was bitchy.
Amazingly enough, though, Eric just gave me a half-smile and said, “Okay, you can't deny that was mean.”
“I'm sorry,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “That was horrible of me to say, and I didn't mean it at all.”
“It's okay.”
We then fell into an uncomfortable silence that lasted until he turned onto my street a minute later, at which point I said, “What is it about the Holloway siblings that just drives us absolutely mad?”
Eric chuckled as we approached my driveway. “I'm willing to bet it's their good looks and charm.”
I nodded. “Those things certainly don't hurt, do they?” I paused for a moment and then turned to look at him. “Why don't they want us?”
Eric pulled to a stop in the middle of my driveway and sighed heavily. “Honestly, I couldn't tell you.”
We exchanged sympathetic smiles before I gathered up my stuff and opened up the passenger door. “Thank you for the ride. And for the napkins.”
“Anytime, Trish's best friend.” He winked at me as I climbed out of the car. I was just about to shut the door when he spoke again.
“Hey, Lexi?”
“Yeah?” I leaned over and peered inside the car.
“For what it's worth, I really thought you two were good together. And I was actually hoping it was going to turn into the real thing, because believe it or not, you're perfect for him.”
I had to refrain from snorting, because obviously Eric was just trying to be nice. “Thanks.”
I was about to pull back from the car again before he said, “Oh, and Lexi?”
“Yeah?”
“A very wise girl once told me to hang in there, and to not give up on someone I care about. I thought it was pretty good advice, so I thought I would pass it along to you.”
Now that I'd heard my own advice spoken back to me by someone else, I realized just how horrible it was. I made a mental note right then and there to never become an advice columnist. Or a therapist.
I gave him an
other smile. “Goodbye, Eric. Thanks again.”
He nodded as I shut the door. I stood back and watched him drive off. Once he was gone, so was my smile as my heartache began to sink back in.
I used the last clean napkin in my hand to blow my nose once again, as the tears began to well up. I had no idea why I was so upset about this. Jase was right. I wasn't his girlfriend, and he wasn't my boyfriend. Sure, I'd recently come to realize I was crazy about him, but maybe this crush was just a result of all of the pretending. Maybe now that the whole thing was over, I would forget about him and my crush on him would disappear.
Yeah, that was exactly what was going to happen.
In a perfect world.
But I didn't live in a perfect world.
***
Later that evening, I sat alone in my bedroom listening to emo music. I thought maybe it would fit with my mood, but all it did was irritate me.
So then I tried watching a romantic comedy, but that just made me want to kick over the TV.
I considered reading a book, but in the same respect of the movie, all I had were novels containing strong romantic undertones, which would only serve to remind me of what I didn't have.
Eventually, I just ended up lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. Every time the phone rang, I jumped up, hoping it was for me. One of the times, it was. Trish, of course. I expected her to mention what had happened with Jase earlier, but by the way she was chattering on about frivolous stuff, apparently she hadn't heard about it from him yet.
I knew he wasn't going to call me, but that didn't stop me from hoping he would. Or wanting him to.
But why would he have called? I told him never to speak to me again.
After about ten minutes of thrilling ceiling-staring action, I heard a soft knock on my door.
“Come in,” I mumbled.
I turned my head to see Aaron enter my room, holding what looked to be an article of clothing in his hands.
“This belongs to you. Somehow it got in with my laundry.” He held it up for me to see. It was one of the short skirts Trish had urged me to buy, all part of her plan to make Jeffrey regret dumping me for another girl.