When Zoey Fell Too Far

by Sparling,Amy

  An “Oh God” escapes my lips as his tongue trails down my collar bone. He looks up, an evil grin on his lips just before he presses them to mine.

  The bell rings, and in this little alcove the sound is amplified times a million. We both jump, and the moment is nearly gone, except for the blood rushing between my legs. I take a deep breath and Jonah runs a hand over his mouth then shakes his head.

  “No, Zoey, that’s—” He reaches out and runs his hand through my hair, fixing where it got all tangled up during our kissing frenzy. His eyes are wild, like he’s just as started as I am by what we just did. “That’s not me. I didn’t mean that.”

  It feels like all of the air has been sucked out of my lungs and now I’m drowning, suffocating on the disappointment he’s laid out before me.

  “Oh,” I say.

  His gorgeous face twists into something like grief, but it only lasts a second. “Sorry,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have done that. I can’t do this with you.”

  I nod, my hands sliding into my back pockets. Every inch of me feels so cold now, so lonely without him up against me. What the hell have I gotten myself into? First, going too far with Kris and now not going far enough with Jonah. This is too much for my heart to handle. Twenty-four hours ago I’d never even kissed a guy.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. I turn and leave. He calls after me and I take the slightest bit of comfort at how pained his voice sounds. He feels bad for hurting me. But that’s not enough to make me turn around.

  “Tardy,” Mr. Winklestein says as I walk into his classroom two minutes late.

  “Awesome,” I mutter as I head to my desk. All eyes are on me. In just a couple of hours I’ve hooked up with two different guys and got my first tardy ever, which means I’ll have detention after school.

  I guess this is what it feels like to no longer be a prude.

  Chapter 15

  I’ve never been to detention in my life. After third period, Mr. Winklestein hands me a tardy slip that I’m supposed to take to the attendance office after school. I only know this because I ask some guy sitting next to me what I’m supposed to do. They should really teach you these things in school, because it’s not like I would have known without the help of a fellow delinquent in my class.

  Because all I have to go by are the depictions of detention on television, I assume it’ll be a few bad students hanging out in a classroom. Wrong.

  The lady in the attendance office stamps my tardy slip and tells me to head to the cafeteria. When I get there, I see about forty other students sitting in one section of the cafeteria that doesn’t yet have all the chairs piled on top of the tables. The cleaning staff are mopping and scrubbing the other side of the room, so the whole place smells like chemicals and the pungent aroma of leftover cafeteria food.

  Some male teacher I don’t know is running the show with his clipboard and stern expression. “Have a seat, people.”

  He eyes me as I walk up. I probably look like a terrified gopher in a sea of lions, and maybe that’s a little of what I feel like. I recognize just about everyone in here as a troublemaker or delinquent. And then of course, there’s Jonah, sitting alone at the very end of a table. He looks up as I walk by, then glances at the empty seat next to him, as if I would actually be stupid enough to sit next to that asshole.

  He blew me off today. Not even in a respectable way. He could have stopped me the moment I launched toward him like a sex-starved freak, but instead he had some fun feeling me up, making me feel special under those stairs, and then he dropped the bomb on me that he wants nothing to do with me.

  My jaw clenches as I walk straight past him and choose a chair at another table. Sure, being tricked into a hand job with Kris was kind of shitty, but what Jonah did to me was a thousand times worse. I actually like Jonah.

  Well, liked.

  Now he can go to hell.

  The detention teacher clears his throat. “You guys can talk as long as you want, but detention is thirty minutes and the clock doesn’t start until it is silent in here.”

  That makes everyone shut up pretty fast. He takes long strides down the aisles between tables, looking at each of us. “And if anyone talks, the clock starts over.”

  This earns him some groans and I just sink my head into my palm, wishing I’d brought a book or something to help me pass the time. But it’s not like I woke up this morning thinking I’d be serving detention in the afternoon.

  “Okay,” the detention teacher says a few minutes later. He writes something on his clipboard and then looks out at us, lines of disgust etched on his wrinkly frown. “Anyone who guesses the number I just wrote down gets to pick up chairs and then go home. One through twenty.” He points at the first person next to him. “Go.”

  Hope springs up in my chest at the idea of leaving early. As he goes down the table, people call out a number but he doesn’t tell them if they’ve chosen correctly yet.

  I glance over at Jonah, immediately hating myself for it. He’s looking right at me. He mouths something, but I can’t make it out.

  I lift an eyebrow. He glances at the teacher, who is standing just a few feet away from him, but looking in the other direction. Jonah holds up four fingers, then nods toward the teacher. I roll my eyes and turn away.

  Screw Jonah. I’m not picking a number just because he tells me to. Still, when it’s his turn, he says four. When it’s my turn a minute later, I choose nineteen. Jonah shakes his head and looks down at the table.

  “The number was four,” the teacher says after the last detention student says a number. “You, you, and you. Luck is on your side today. Go home.”

  Jonah rises from the table and begins helping the other three people pick up chairs. I let out a long, deep breath and curse myself for not saying the stupid number. But I don’t want any help from him. I’ll be just fine suffering through the next thirty minutes without him anywhere near me.

  After a while, I’ve memorized all the scratches on the table in front of me and it’s only been five minutes. In my sweater pocket, my phone vibrates. I don’t have to be skilled in detention to know that phones are totally not allowed in here, but as I glance around I find the teacher sitting at one of the lunch tables, grading papers. He’s not even looking at me.

  I slide the phone out of my pocket and tuck it into my sweater sleeve for easy hiding.

  Then I read the message, from a number I don’t know.

  What u doin?

  I write back: who is this?

  The reply is instant. Kris : )

  Heat rushes to my cheeks. I’m weirdly flattered that he went out of his way to get my number. I wonder if he really likes me? Or will he just tell me he doesn’t want anything to do with me like Jonah did?

  Ugh.

  I do another casual glance at the teacher. He’s still not paying attention, and it occurs to me how funny it is that as the girl who never broke rules, I’m now breaking several of them.

  I type a reply, making sure not to look at my phone too long in case the teacher does look over here.

  Me: stuck in detention. Ugh

  Kris: lame. Does it get out at 3:30?

  Me: Yep.

  Kris: cool, only ten more minutes and you’re free :)

  Me: :)

  I’m grinning like a lunatic for the last ten minutes of detention. Kris doesn’t write back again, but it doesn’t bother me because out in the free world (aka- not detention) ten minutes can easily go by without looking at your phone. He’s probably busy with sports or something and he still wanted to stop and text me. It feels kind of awesome. And even though earlier at lunch, I was thinking that I didn’t exactly have a crush on Kris because I had a crush on Jonah, now those feelings have flipped. Jonah can screw off. Kris actually likes me.

  And being liked by a guy is amazing.

  I heft my backpack up on the cafeteria table and unzip the little pocket on the outside. I want to make a check mark next to everything I’
ve done on my anti-prude list. I feel around inside the pocket but it’s not there shoved in with old gum wrappers and pens. Maybe I took it out and forgot about it.

  The bell rings, signaling the end of detention and everyone leaps from their chairs with an excitement that’s ten times greater than the usual excitement when the day is over. Detention freaking sucks.

  I’m staring at my phone, trying to think of something witty and interesting to text to Kris when I realize I forgot to ask Dana to come back and pick me up. Mom’s house is too far away to walk, so I turn away from the parking lot. I’ll just walk to Dad’s house and have him give me a ride back to Mom’s.

  Someone falls into step with me.

  “Hey there, cutie.”

  It’s Kris.

  I can’t help but smile awkwardly at the weird compliment. Cuties are a brand of tangerines, so it’s not exactly the best greeting he could have given me. Still, it’s better than the last thing Jonah told me. “I can’t do this with you.”

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Why are you walking this way? All the cars are that way,” he says, hooking his thumb toward the right to the parking lot.

  “My dad’s house is in that neighborhood, and I don’t have a car so the parking lot is kind of useless to me.”

  I mean it to be a joke, but Kris just narrows his blue eyes at me. “Oh, I can think of something useful about the parking lot,” he says, winking.

  A chill rises up my arms at the insinuation. “Oh yeah?” I say, doing my best to be flirty and bold.

  He slides his hand around my back, shoving his fingers into my jeans pocket. “Oh yeah.” His voice is deep, his gaze sultry. “Want to join me in the back lot?”

  I give a little nod, even though I’m not exactly sure how I feel about the situation. My mind won’t stop thinking about Jonah, about how freaking good it felt to have his lips pressed to mine. But he rejected me, and because of that, there’s this hole in my chest and it aches and it makes me hate him. I’m also dying to fill it, to cover the pain with something that feels good. So I swallow my pride and my anxiety and I say, “Yes. That sounds good.”

  Chapter 16

  The doorbell rings just as Mom and I are finishing our dinner on Friday night. Inwardly, I sigh. Sometimes Mrs. Patsy, the older woman who lives in the next apartment will come over and play cards until midnight. The old Zoey would stick around and have fun playing Canasta or Rummy, but the new me wants nothing to do with that. It’s Friday night and I want to go out.

  Of course I haven’t figured out how I’m going to convince Mom to let me go yet.

  Not to mention, I’m dying to get to my cell phone. Mom has a no phones allowed at the dinner table rule, so I’ve been half an hour without my connection to Kris.

  The last few days have been pretty fun. We only had a substitute that one day, so the rest of the week was filled with actual work in sign language class. Kris shot me a few subtle looks across the classroom, but we didn’t get to talk. On Thursday, he had some basketball thing at lunch so we didn’t hang out. But today was our third parking lot meeting. I gave him a hand job completely by myself, without his help. I actually felt confident about it, too.

  Unfortunately, he hasn’t kissed me the way he did that first day, all ravaging and like he’s really into me. Now he just leans back and whips it out and I get to work. Still, it’s better than no attention from guys, right?

  Last night, he asked me to send him a photo like on my Instagram, only sexier. It was a little terrifying, but after making him promise not to show it to anyone, I complied. I sent him the same type of sexy pouty lip pose at my makeup mirror, only with my shirt off while I wore my sexy pink bra.

  Let’s just say he liked it, a lot.

  Now, I’m angsty for my phone, dying to know if Kris has texted me anything else since we texted earlier about how great my hand job skills are getting.

  And yet there’s someone at the door. Ugh.

  “I’ll get it,” I say, jumping up. Please be a door-to-door salesman.

  I pull open the door and Dana grins at me from her place on the welcome mat. “Sup?”

  “Did I forget that you’re coming over?” I say, stepping back to let her inside.

  She shakes her head. “Devin has strep throat. Just found out at the urgent clinic like fifteen minutes ago, so we decided I should stay away from him so I don’t get sick either.” She tosses her arms in the air and follows me back to the kitchen were Mom is. “I texted you that I was coming over, but you probably didn’t get it since it’s dinner time.”

  Dana knows full well about Mom’s no phone rule, which is probably why she rarely stays for dinner. Mom gives her a warm smile. “Hi honey. How have you been?”

  Dana shrugs. “Bored, mostly. Senior year is like the easiest year of high school. None of my teachers give homework.”

  Mom chuckles and takes her empty plate to the sink. “Enjoy it. College sucks, which is why I never got past two years of it. So what are you girls up to tonight?”

  Nothing special now, I think. I’ve spent all day text flirting with Kris and hinting that I’d like to hang out with him tonight. That definitely won’t happen with Dana hanging around.

  “Dunno,” Dana says, turning to me. “You have any ideas?”

  I shrug. “Wild crazy party with underage drinking and sex?”

  They both laugh, and the irony here is that I’m not joking. I sigh. “Guess we’ll just watch a movie.”

  “Well, have fun,” Mom says, drying her hands on the front of her scrubs. “I’m going to shower and binge some Netflix in my room. Have a good night, girls.”

  The second we get to my bedroom, Dana closes the door and whirls around, her eyes accusatory. “Okay, spill.”

  I walk over to my bed and turn on my TV, just for something to do. “Spill about what?”

  Dana puts her fists on her hips. “Don’t be coy with me. You ditched me twice for lunch, and Krissy Cho said she saw you leave with Kris Edgemont again.”

  I shrug. “We hung out. He buys me food.”

  “So, are you two dating now?” She joins me on the bed, sitting cross-legged as she pulls a pillow into her lap. “You should tell me these things, Zoey. We’re best friends.”

  I shrug again. There’s not really a good reason why I haven’t told her the full truth. Maybe I just feel too weird about it. “We’re just hanging out,” I say as I grab my phone and secretly freak out because Kris has sent me three texts.

  One is a photo of his naked torso in front of a mirror. There’s nothing X-rated because the countertop cuts off just below his belly button. Kris is a big guy, stout and muscular. He has a little bit of a farmer’s tan, but it’s cute. I close the photo and go to the next two messages.

  Kris: Show me more

  Kris: I’m waiting…

  “Is that him?” Dana asks, looking over at me with a curious little smirk.

  I nod, thankful that she can’t see my phone screen from the other side of the bed. I quickly type back sorry, with Dana. I’ll text later. And he immediately replies.

  Kris: She can get in the photo too ;-)

  Disappointment falls over me and turn off my phone screen then shove it under my pillow. I want him to want me, not me and my cousin who is infinitely more attractive than I’ll ever be.

  I look at Dana and she’s watching me with this curious but caring expression. She’s absolutely right; she’s my best friend and I should tell her what’s going on.

  “We should talk,” I say, glancing back at the pillow with my phone hidden underneath it.

  “Uh oh,” Dana says. She takes the TV remote and turns up the volume, our universal gesture to hide our conversations from my mother, should she happen to walk by my room.

  Dana makes this little grin. “Spill.”

  “He took me to lunch on Wednesday, as you know,” I begin, swallowing when I think of that first encounter with the hot basketball player. “When we got back, he made out with me in his truck.
”

  “Whoa, girl,” she says, playfully punching my knee. “Kris is hot. He’s kind of a man-whore, but that’s okay, I guess. You need some experience flirting before you meet Mr. Right.”

  I draw in a deep breath through my teeth and then let it out slowly. “That’s…that’s not all we did.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “Details.”

  Suddenly I don’t know how to say the words. Hand job sounds so dorky, so degrading. I need her to know, but I don’t want to say it. I even consider making the obscene hand gesture to mime it, but then I blush.

  “He, uh, well he helped me get him off.”

  Dana’s jaw falls. “What the hell does that mean?”

  I shrug and look down at my fingers in my lap. “He covered my hand with his hand over this…thing…and then he like… you know.”

  “You gave him a hand job?” Dana clearly has no problem saying the words. She sits a little straighter. “Did he ask if you were okay with that?”

  I shrug. “Not really, he just whipped it out, but it’s no big deal.”

  Her lips press into a thin line, a little crease appearing in her forehead. “He should have asked you if you were cool with it.”

  “I was,” I say, my voice coming out all defensively. “I was fine with it. Then we did it again after school, and another time today. Only now he didn’t, like, guide me with his own hand.”

  “Whoa,” Dana says under her breath. It feels like she’s fighting the urge to be judgmental. “And how did he ask for this? Did he do it for you too?”