Part of Me (Jessa & Paxton #1)

by Haven Francis

  Paxton stares at me in silence, unmoving, while my blood boils. I’m trying, with everything inside of me, not to smash my knee into his balls. I’m so enraged with him that I’m shaking. “You know what sucks, Pax? I thought you understood me. I thought, when I met you, that I finally had someone in my life that got me completely. You made all the shit inside of me that I felt bad about disappear. You were the first person in my life that I felt like I could totally be myself around. And then you show up here and lay down a fistful of insults and you know what? It fucking hurts. It hurts to realize that all along you were sitting back and judging me like everyone else. So unless you want your precious balls torn off, I suggest you fucking move.”

  Paxton closes his eyes and shakes his head, but he’s still not moving. When he lifts his head again he burrows his eyes into mine. “Just stay here with me, Jessa. You’re better than that. You don’t need to go giving yourself away to some random guy you don’t even know.”

  “You are un, fucking, believable. Are you kidding me? Are you trying to talk to me about morals? Is that what’s going on here? You are trying to save me from being a whore?”

  He shakes his head at me, his jaw set tight, his eyes angry as hell. “Do whatever the hell you want, but don’t do it here, not in my life. Take your issues to campus or, here’s a novel idea, try to go a few weeks without fucking around. It might be good for you.”

  “You are such a motherfucker,” I seethe before ramming my knee up into his crotch. His arms come off the door frame and I leave the room “Fuck you,” I tell him before getting the hell out of there.

  “Shit,” I mutter, standing in the middle of the street with no clue where I’m headed. What the hell just happened? Paxton and I argue all the time, but we’ve never been in a fight. Not like that. I’m pissed as hell, but the hurt is starting to sink in too and I feel like I have it in me to shed tears – something I haven’t done for probably five years.

  I turn and start walking down the block, trying to clear my head and grasp this situation I’m in the middle of. I think about Paxton’s harsh words and wonder, like I sometimes do, if the way that I live my life is a problem. I know it’s not normal, but is it bad? Am I doing something wrong? I know that I will, never again, have a boyfriend- which would be a relationship with a label that would make having sex with one guy on a regular basis acceptable. Which, ironically, is pretty much what I have been doing since I lost my virginity, but the label I get from that is apparently, slut. Is what I’m doing really that different from what every girl my age does? Not every girl. There are plenty of girls who, by choice or out of desperation, have casual sex with multiple partners. That’s never been me, but is there a difference? Is it a problem that I need to have a physical relationship but that I cannot have an emotional one? I don’t know.

  I wander into a small neighborhood park and take out my phone. I need to talk to my girl.

  “Jessa! I was just about to call you, what’s going on?” Emily says and I feel better already, just hearing her voice.

  “All kinds of crap is going on,” I tell her, trying to sound better than I feel.

  “Oh, sweetie, what’s wrong?”

  I take a deep breath. “Paxton’s in town.”

  “Really? That’s good, right? I mean, you were missing him.”

  “It should be, but all those things I’ve been telling you; how everyone here talks about him like he’s someone completely different than the guy we know… they were right. Paxton is a total asshole.”

  “Shit,” she mutters. “What did he do?” Emily is angry already.

  “Basically called me a slut and told me to stop trying to whore around.”

  “He did not,” she fumes.

  “Yeah. He did.”

  “First of all, what you do with whatever guy you are doing it with is none of his business. Second of all, didn’t you tell me that every time you talk to him he is with a girl? And what the hell? He knows that’s not what you’re about. He knows you don’t sleep around. What an asshole. Is he there with you now? Can I talk to him?”

  I laugh to myself. I can totally picture Emily, ready to give him a piece of her mind like she did more than a few times over the course of last year. “No, he’s back at Violet’s apartment. I kneed him in the balls and then I got the hell out of there.”

  “Good for you,” Emily laughs. “You know he doesn’t really think those things about you,” she says, serious now.

  “He does, Em. Seriously, if you saw him, how he is here, you wouldn’t even recognize him. He’s mean and I’m pretty sure he hates everyone in this town- me included.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the asshole, but that’s hard to believe, Jess. When he was here it was obvious how much he cared about you. It’s got to be something else that’s making him treat you that way.”

  “I get that he’s got a messy past and an atrocious mother and that being back here is stressful for him, but it was pretty damn obvious that he believed every word he said to me. I’m not gonna let him treat me that way just because he can’t deal.”

  “You better not let him treat you that way. But it would suck to see something come between the two of you, Jess. I hope you guys don’t let that happen.”

  “I don’t know how I’m gonna recover from that verbal beating he just gave me. I mean, it was one thing to be called a slut by those girls in the dorm, but hearing it from him…”

  “You’re not letting yourself believe him, are you? You’re not letting his words question the way you live your life, Jess.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know, Em. I can’t change who I am but I’m starting to wonder what the hell is wrong with me- why I can’t fall in love or any of that normal shit.”

  “You can fall in love, Jessa. You just need to find the guy that makes you want all of him. I know you don’t believe that there is someone out there who is meant for you… I don’t know if I believe that. But there is definitely someone who will bring out a part of you that you didn’t know existed. There is someone out there who you will feel more complete with than you have ever felt on your own. There is a guy out there who will be everything you didn’t even know you wanted. When he comes along you will be capable of falling in love. Until that happens, just keep living your life however you want to, doing whatever makes you happy. If Paxton’s got his own shit going on that he’s projecting on you, that’s his problem. Don’t let it become yours.”

  I’m listening to Emily’s words that are meant to cheer me up and I feel myself becoming depressed. I know what she’s saying is possible – I watched it happen to her. But I’m pretty sure that it’s not in the cards for me. “The thing that really sucks, Em, is that I felt some of that – with Paxton. I felt like myself with him more than I did without him. And I believed that he would always be there, that he would always be my friend. It just sucks to lose that.”

  Emily’s silent on the other end of the phone. I guess there’s nothing else to say. “Jessa?” she says quietly.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want to piss you off, but did you ever consider that Paxton might be the guy you are meant to fall in love with?”

  “Ha!” I sneer. “Paxton is not a guy you fall in love with. And no, I never thought that- because he was my friend. And I care about our relationship enough to protect our friendship because it meant a lot to me. Fucking irony- I finally find a guy I want to keep around and I make damn sure that I don’t do anything to jeopardize that relationship and he turns out to be the one guy that wants to let me go. God, I really hate him.”

  “Again… I’m not trying to piss you off, but Jess, it was blatantly obvious that there was something going on between the two of you beyond a friendship. I know you never acted on it, but it was always there. I mean, Paxton is my friend too, but what I had with him was completely different than what he had with you. There was no sexual tension when Paxton and I were in a room together.”

  “There was n
o sexual tension when he and I were together either,” I spit.

  “Jess… you guys fought like cats and dogs.”

  “Yeah, because he’s an asshole.”

  “He was not an asshole, not here when he was with you. You guys argued all the time… because you were both frustrated. You guys both wanted something that you had already decided you weren’t going to get and both of you are too stubborn and proud to ask for it.”

  “Em, I love you, but that’s just stupid.”

  “I know you have excuses for why all of his friends were keeping you away from other guys but didn’t it ever occur to you that it was because he asked them too… because he doesn’t want anyone to have you besides himself?”

  “No, Emily, it didn’t. I was screwing around with Dylan the whole time he was in River Bluff and he never had a problem with that. Why, when he’s thousands of miles away from me, would it suddenly be an issue?”

  “He was not okay with you screwing around with Dylan. Every time he saw the two of you together he looked like he was going to kick the kid’s ass. Every time Dylan’s name came up Paxton would go on a rant about what an idiot he was. That line he gave us that first day of school about how he was not going to get attached to anything in River Bluff… he meant that. He didn’t want to get attached to you, but he did, Jess. He got attached to you. You know that. When he left you he probably realized how much. Why is he in Chicago anyways? I thought he hated that place, that he wasn’t even allowed to return?”

  “He had some things to straighten out with his former band.”

  “He did not. He came back for you and he’s treating you this way because the idea of you with someone besides him pisses him off.”

  “I know you want to believe that, Em, but you’re wrong.”

  “I might be. I just want you to be open to the possibility that you are misunderstanding his behavior. I don’t want you guys to lose each other.”

  “I don’t want to lose him either,” I admit, “but if he keeps this shit up I’m not going to have any other option.”

  “Stay strong babe, but not too strong, okay? Call me after you talk to him.”

  “I will. Thanks for talking to me, Em. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  I put away my phone and try to consider the things Emily just told me, but all I can see is the hate in Paxton’s eyes and all I can hear is the truth in his voice when he told me off.

  Chapter 11 - Paxton

  “What’s with the pissy attitude?” Billy asks me.

  I probably shouldn’t have come here, but after Jessa left me and I came to my fucking senses and hit the campus looking for her, with no luck, I decided to head to Billy’s. I need time to think before I’m with her again. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but I know the shit I said to her was wrong. “Just a lot of shit running through my brain,” I tell him, picking up one of his acoustics off the floor ad absently running my fingers across the strings.

  “What did she do to you?” Billy asks me. I gotta assume he’s talking about Jessa.

  I let out a bitter laugh. “Nothing man, just keeps treating me like her best friend, flaunting her half-naked body around the place, telling me how she hopes that now that I’m here, you guys will understand that she and I are just friends so she can finally get laid.”

  “Shit,” Billy says, shaking his head. “What the hell, man? I thought the girl was cool. I didn’t understand why she was insisting you two were just friends, but man, why is she still playing that card now that you’re with her? That is some cold-blooded bullshit.”

  “We are just friends,” I mutter, putting down the guitar and pushing my hands into my skull.

  Billy lets out a laugh like I’m just messing with him. I stare at him until he stops. “Are you serious?”

  I give him a tight smile.

  “Then why the hell are you so hell bent on keeping tabs on the girl? Why did you come back here for her if you don’t even want her? That don’t make no sense.”

  “I do want her, Billy. She’s the only thing I want.”

  Billy shakes his dumbstruck face at me, “Then take her. What the hell are you waiting for?”

  “She’s not like that, man. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Noticed what? That she’s down for a good time? ‘Cause yeah, I noticed that.” He stares at me and creases his brow. “Hold on. Are you telling me you spent a year in that town with her and the two never got it on?”

  “Yep.”

  “How the hell did you manage that?”

  “It was extremely fucking difficult.”

  “But now that you’re supposed to be in California, and she’s here, you suddenly decide you’re interested? What the hell, Pax? Get your piece and get on with your life.”

  “Let me explain something about this girl. She’s all down for a good time- she’ll give you what you want and she’ll give it only to you. But you give her even a shadow of an idea that you might be wanting more from her she will cut your ass off like you never even existed. And fuck, the first time I met the girl I was already unqualified. That girl’s had me since day one.”

  “So you played the motherfucking friend card and now that’s what you are and you’re playing along just to stay in the game. Jesus. You, Paxton Alvarado, playing the friend role. Holy shit. You gotta know that bullshit’s never gonna get you anywhere. No girl wants to screw her best friend. Hell, she’s talking to you about the guys she wants to have sex with? You better start back pedaling asshole, ‘cause the road you’re on ain’t going where you think it is.”

  “Shut the hell up, Billy, I already know that. I just don’t know how to get off of it and it’s turning me into a complete asshole. She kneed me in the balls this morning. That’s how monumentally I’m fucking this shit up.”

  Billy’s head rolls and he lets out a loud laugh. “Shit, man. What is your plan?”

  “I don’t know but if I don’t get some of her soon I’m going to explode. My dick’s been hard since I showed up here. It’s painful.”

  “So let me get this straight. In this town you were living in, you guys were getting it on with other people and you were both acting cool about it. You guys were strictly friends. For an entire year.”

  “I didn’t get it on with anyone in that town.”

  Billy shakes his head again in disbelief. He starts stuttering a word and then stops, like he can’t even speak. “You dug yourself one deep hole, Pax. What kind of game were you playing?”

  “I wasn’t playing a game, man.”

  “Well you’re gonna have to start playing now. Listen to me, this shit is so obvious and you’re playing it all wrong. To her, you don’t belong to anyone but her. She’s never had to see you belong to anyone but her. This jealousy shit you’re running off of…. Doesn’t exist inside of her. Why would it?”

  “She knows I’ve slept with plenty of girls since I left her.”

  “But has she seen it? There is a difference.”

  “Nah, man, she hasn’t.”

  “Well there you go,” Billy says, slapping his hands down on his legs like all my problems are solved.

  “The thing is, Billy, that might get me into bed with her, but just screwing the girl ain’t an option. Not anymore. I’m not gonna be the girl’s fuck buddy. I need more from her than that.”

  “You already have more from her than that. She loves you, man. The only thing that’s missing is the sex. You gotta go there, and you gotta do it quick before the fuck buddy position is filled.”

  “You’re not hearing me, brother. I don’t want to just fuck her but she’s not interested in anything more than that.”

  “Would you rather be her friend or her fuck buddy? Keep in mind, if you choose friend, you get to watch her with the other guy.”

  “Shit,” I mutter. I guess I don’t have a damn choice, ‘cause I’m not going through that bullshit again.

  #

  The guys and I are at a bar next to Billy’s pla
ce. I figure it’s safer to show my face on this side of town and besides, there’s no chance Elijah’s gonna show up here. Which I don’t want to happen because, even though Jessa told me she’s over his ass, I’m hoping she’s gonna come sauntering through that door with Vi any minute and I still don’t want her around him.

  When I talked to Vi she told me Jessa had been hanging around the salon with her all afternoon. She asked me why that was – why Jessa wasn’t home with me. I told her I had been at Billy’s all day. When I asked her how Jessa was she told me the girl was ‘great’. I spent my entire day going insane, strategizing the Jessa takeover, and after the shit I said to her she was ‘great’. I’m starting to wonder if she gives a shit about any part of us. I needed that extra boost of Unattainable Jessa in order to pull off this shit.

  Billy and I spent the afternoon drinking and messing around with our instruments. By the time we showed up here I was already deep into a buzz. When the ladies started flocking to us it wasn’t as much of a problem to let them in as I thought it might be. Billy had his eyes all over the blonde with the killer body, but when she made her way over to me, Billy didn’t protest – he’s taking one for the team- although it don’t look like he’s complaining about his girl. The four of us, plus Louis and Jimmy, are wasting our time playing pool. Right now me and my girl are the odd men out. I’m at a table on a stool and she’s got herself situated tight between my thighs, her fingers are creeping up my t-shirt.

  “How long are we planning on sticking around here?” she asks me, biting on her bottom lip, batting her eyelashes at me – all part of the production women put on.

  “You ready to get out of here?” I ask her, grabbing onto her ass and pulling her in tighter.

  “Yeah, like now,” she tells me.

  She pulls on my hair and raises herself on her tip toes, going in for the kiss. I would keep her at bay but I hear Jimmy call out, “Hey, babe,” so I open my mouth up to the chick and grab tighter onto her ass.

  She kisses me like a porn star- moans and all- and I want to laugh but I keep my head in the game, biting down on her tongue, hoping it will shut her up, but all it does is make her pull out of my mouth and tell me, “Please, Paxton… let’s go. Now.”