by S. J. Sylvis
And, the only person who could make me feel better was sitting five feet away with a dumbass baseball player. Ivy was like my cushion. She was my comfort, she was the one who could smile in my direction and make my worry fall away. I didn’t want to ruin that.
I couldn’t ruin that.
I couldn’t afford to ruin that.
I’d rather have her as my best friend than fuck everything up by trying to be her boyfriend. I would mess shit up, because let’s get real – I had no fucking clue how to be a boyfriend, and then our friendship would fade faster than the fucking sunset.
Jess’s soft voice wafted around me at the same time her arms wrapped around my neck. “Hey, wanna go inside?”
I cringed.
I openly cringed. Shit.
Her voice made my skin crawl. Her skin on mine irked me so badly I wanted to throw her arms off my shoulders.
I couldn’t get Ivy’s green eyes out of my head, or the way her breath felt against my mouth. If I’d just leaned in a fraction and kissed her… what would have happened? I mean, there had been times that she’d wandered into my deepest dreams, taking a hold of my heart, but I’d eventually wake up and shake it off. And there had been times that I physically couldn’t help but touch her but I just chalked it up to… being extra friendly. Friends flirt, right? I was realizing pretty fucking fast that I’d been lying to myself over and over again. Like the near-kiss from earlier was untying those knots I’d so carefully tied around my deepest wants. And top that off with seeing her with Andy… it drove me fucking nuts. There was no tying up loose seams. There was no denying what I felt.
I think it was particularly driving me mad right now because she actually looked as if she was truly into him. She wasn’t like this with Tyler. If anything, he annoyed her. She told me about all the things that irritated her when they were dating, as if she wasn’t that into him but watching her eyes light up as she stared at Andy’s angular face…holy fuck.
“No,” I said harshly. Jess’s arms unwrapped themselves from around my body quickly and I heard her gasp.
Max snapped his head over to me because he knew me almost as well as Ivy did. He knew something was up if I was denying a girl.
I briskly stood up, my chair falling backwards, landing with a soft thud on the grassy ground. My head turned slightly to the right and I saw Ivy staring at me with confusion and worry written all over her face.
The red and orange tint of the bonfire danced along her high cheekbones and she appeared even more alluring than before. Her eyes scrunched and her mouth puckered, highlighting those kissable lips.
I was so close to walking over to her and dragging her off with me, but then my eyes flickered to Andy standing behind her, who was eyeing me with severe suspicion. For just a second, I pictured myself leaping over the remaining chairs in between us, like a real-life Superman and plummeting my fist onto his face, but I quickly brushed it off.
Turning away from Ivy and her pounding stare, I stomped past Jess’s stricken expression and snatched Max’s cup out of his hand, heading off towards the woods.
I just needed to be the fuck alone.
Chapter Five
Ivy
The only thing I could think, even with one of the hottest boys in school wrapping his hand around my waist was, Something’s wrong with Dawson. Then that thought was quickly replaced with a surge of panic because I realized that I was more concerned about Dawson than the lack of butterflies in my stomach from another boy touching me.
After Dawson had dropped me off at Becca’s, I watched his Camaro take off down the road, spinning wheels and all. My entire body was in a frenzy and if I thought that Andy talking to me earlier had made me nervous, that almost-kiss from Dawson was from a different freaking universe.
I didn’t admit this out loud to Becca or Casey, even after they rambled on and on about how hot Andy was and how lucky I was to be going to the party with him. I acted as if I was excited when he pulled up in front of Becca’s house, but I wasn’t.
I could only focus on Dawson and how his eyes almost looked uncontrollable when I leaned over his center console, near centimeters from his mouth. He looked like he wanted me to kiss him. Then, my mind started wandering in every flipping direction… all leading back to two words:
What if?
What if I kissed him? What if he wanted to be with me like that? Does he like me more than a best friend? I mean, I knew he and I had a really strange, deep bond that people found peculiar. Dawson and I just… worked. I didn’t know why, but we did. We were so in tune with one another, so much so that I knew when something was bothering him just by the way his body felt near mine. The way his shoulders were stiffer than normal, the way the smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes.
I knew him better than anyone, but why couldn’t I figure out what he wanted with me? Was I imagining it? Was the inner hopefulness of my 15-year-old teenage heart making stuff up? Was something holding him back? Or was something holding me back?
Our friendship. That’s what’s holding us back.
Everything will change.
Everything will change if he and I kiss or date, or worse… have sex.
A surge of jittering nerves hovered above my skin. The thought of Dawson taking my virginity wasn’t just appealing but it was completely consuming. I wondered what it would be like…
Perfect.
The second I let my mind dig into those feelings I’d shied away from since I was a dweeby seventh grader, I internally gasped.
Oh, my God!
I’m totally in love with my best friend! He’s hot and funny and sweet, and he cares about me, and oh my GOD, get it together, Ivy!
Letting out a deep breath, I looked over at Andy’s sturdy jaw and twinkling eyes, feeling a small amount of guilt in my gut. “I’ll be back.”
I felt totally guilt-ridden coming here with him but running off to be with Dawson.
But… Dawson needed me.
I didn’t give Andy time to respond; I spun on my heel and wandered in the direction that Dawson did.
The dormant butterflies in my belly, the ones who’d been asleep just now while with Andy, were slowly starting to stir. They were swirling and whooshing around faster and faster as I took each step, hearing sticks and branches break beneath my white Converse.
Why is it that I was totally into Andy earlier when he’d asked me to come here with him and now I can’t get away fast enough? I rolled my eyes at the thought… I knew exactly why.
“Dawson?” I yelled out, my ears perking to attention.
“Ivy?” he answered back. My heart leapt in my chest but I ignored it, swallowing every ounce of excitement and focusing only on the relief that also filled my body. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
I finally found him sitting on top of a large log lying horizontally on the wooded floor. The sharp smell of the forest filled my nose with its refreshing pine scent, and it was honestly nice to be away from the smoke of the fire.
“You should go back to the party, Ivy.”
I huffed, sitting down beside him, rubbing my hands along the bumpy bark of the log. His body was tense beside mine and I almost reached my arms around his expansive torso. “What’s going on? You’re definitely not acting like yourself, especially since after school…”
Silence stretched around us to the point that it became awkward and that didn’t sit well with me, because things with Dawson – they were never awkward.
“I just…I don’t like you with him.” His voice was so low that I could barely hear him, but I did. I heard exactly what he said.
“Why? He’s not going to hurt me, I don’t even like him that much.” I laughed and he whipped his body towards me.
“You don’t?”
Shadows from the night sky imprinted themselves along his chiseled face, the same face that I’d always turn to when I was upset about something. The same face that made me laugh and gave me comfort, and maybe a little something else, to
o.
“Not really. I thought I did, but I realized that he doesn’t really give me all those swoony butterflies that girls always feel when they’re around a boy they truly like.” You know, like I feel when I’m with you sometimes. I laughed again, turning my attention to the ever-expanding trees in front of us. “Like, every girl who’s ever around you probably has those butterflies.”
“Do you?”
I paused. My entire body stilled. Even my breathing. Can he read minds?!
“Why are you asking me that?” I whispered, heartrate accelerating to an alarming rate. What the heck is going on!
He let out a raspy chuckle. “I don’t know, never mind.”
And…just like that, my heartrate decreased dramatically.
“So what’s really wrong?”
He answered, “Nothin’.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know you way better than that, idiot. What’s wrong, Peanut?” He chuckled at my nickname for him.
One time, my dad had called us Peanut Butter and Jelly because we were literally stuck together all summer, the summer after my eighth grade year. We’d spend most of our days in my backyard, fixing up the old treehouse that my dad had built Mia and I when we were in grade school. It was the summer that all of our friends had told us we were weird for being so close – no one ever quite understood our friendship. Sometimes even I didn’t. It’s not often that girls and guys can be best friends like us, so yeah, we were like one in a million.
After I giggled, taunting him with the name Peanut again, I paused and pulled my phone out of my hoodie pocket. I scrolled down to the last tweet I’d seen before coming to the party, knowing that it was more than likely what was troubling him. “Is it because of this?”
I shoved my phone up to his face, illuminating his blue eyes.
They scanned it for only a second before he turned his head away.
“Yeah.”
I whispered, taking my phone back. “Things bad?”
I knew that his brother was into some rough stuff and that his parents weren’t really… the caring type. They were the polar opposite of my parents, that’s for sure. We didn’t talk about his family much, especially since Emmett had to go away to military school, but I knew it bothered him. He was pretty upset about it when Emmett had left; in fact, in an attempt to make him feel better, I had gone to the video store and rented all 10 seasons of BattleBots (the bane of my existence- I can only watch robot-like things obliterating one another for so long until I want one to actually come through the TV to obliterate me). We watched them all day long, in the privacy of my finished basement…that is before my dad came down and joined in on the fun. I was basically nonexistent at that point.
Dawson’s voice tore me from silently cursing BattleBots. “No worse than usual, but he’s just being such a dipshit and it’s pissing me off. He’s just… being stupid.”
I jutted out my lip and nodded. Then he started talking again.
“I don’t feel like being here tonight. I feel off.”
I pursed my mouth, letting out a held breath and ignoring the replay of the near-kiss from earlier scratching the inner walls of my brain. “Then let’s get out of here.”
He pulled back, his shaggy hair falling into his eyes. “What about Andy? You can’t leave your date.”
I giggled. “Says who? My best friend needs me tonight, he can eff off.”
That had him laughing out loud, then he abruptly stopped when I asked the same about Jess.
“I need my best friend so she can eff off.”
Then we both laughed together. He shot up onto his feet, the ground loudly crunching beneath his football player’s build. He extended his hand down to mine and I eagerly placed my hand in his, letting him pull me upward.
We didn’t go back to the party.
We didn’t even say goodbye to our “dates.” We walked hand in hand to his Camaro and drove off, together.
Right where we belonged.
As soon as we grabbed some McFlurries from Mcdonald’s, we drove straight to Dawson’s house. It was only a block away from mine—talk about convenient. I shot Becca a text and told her to let me know when she was going home so Dawson could take me over to her house, since I was staying there tonight after the party.
My parents knew I was at the party and they didn’t mind. My mom and dad were probably the most laidback parents in the entire world, but I think that’s because they knew I had a good head on my shoulders (that’s what they told me, anyway). I wasn’t a rule breaker by any means. I’d never been like that. I hated disappointing people and I hated when people were upset, so I’d always done my best to do what I thought they wanted of me.
“I see my parents are gone, go figure,” Dawson gruffed from the driver’s side seat of his Camaro. I glanced up at his two-story home and saw that there were absolutely no lights on inside. Despair fell over me for a tiny second. How strange would it be for my parents to never be home like Dawson’s? How strange would it be to feel like you were living with complete strangers?
Lonely.
I bet it was really lonely.
“Is your brother gone, too?”
Dawson slurped up his McFlurry and I watched in awe as the corded muscles in his neck tensed with every gulp. I gulped too, but only because I realized that I was staring at my best friend’s muscles with a weird feeling in my lower stomach.
He chuckled. “He’s probably at a party. I’m surprised he didn’t show up at Shane’s.”
I bit my lip. I was so lucky that my sister was an angel and that she was younger than me. I could set a good example for her, unlike Dawson’s older brother, Emmett.
“Well, do you wanna go chill before Becca texts me?”
He thought for a second, staring up at his house with a desolate look in his eye. Then he nodded and started to climb out of his car, welcoming the cool, spring air.
Once we were inside, Dawson didn’t even bother turning the lights on in his house. We both stormed up the carpeted stairs, me tripping a couple times and Dawson laughing, and made a bee-line for the only room he truly felt comfortable in: his bedroom.
I’d been in Dawson’s bedroom so many times, but I was never as nervous as I was right now. Even in middle school, I’d come over and hang out with him after school for a few hours before heading to my own house. Usually, we’d just lay on the floor and do our homework together while MTV played in the background but over the last year or so, we’d either go to my house (where my parents constantly interrupted our homework doing by continuously talking to Dawson—they loved him) or we’d just drive around the backroads of our town, blaring music.
He’d never come out and tell me he didn’t like to be here, at home, but I knew him so well that he didn’t have to say anything.
He wore his emotions on his sleeve—at least with me, he did. I could read him like a Jane Austen novel, over and over again, feeling the depth of his feelings so deeply that they felt like they were mine. Unless, of course, it came down to deciphering his feelings for me. I was still contemplating the notion that I may have just made up the almost-kiss from earlier. Actually, no, I was certain that I was making stuff up from earlier.
Absolutely certain.
As soon as we walked into Dawson’s bedroom, he flipped the lamp on and I jumped onto his bed, sliding my Converse off. My white-socked feet wiggled at being freed from my shoes and I finished off my McFlurry before looking up at him.
He was being totally weird.
“Why are you being weird, still? Do you wanna go to my house instead? My parents won’t care, you know they love you.” I laughed and he grinned.
“Can you blame them?”
I smiled, watching him cross the room to get on the other side of the bed.
He let out a huff and pulled his body up to rest against the headboard. He checked his phone for a few seconds and rolled his eyes. Before I could ask what he was rolling his eyes about, he turned his phone to me.
I scanned it
quickly and had the same reaction.
Sure enough, there was a picture on Facebook of Andy and Jess, who were sitting together on the hammock at Shane’s, hands intertwined. It probably should have bothered me.
But it didn’t.
“They’re perfect for each other,” I mumbled, reaching over Dawson’s body to grab the remote.
His entire body stilled. My body was hovering slightly over his, one arm leaning on the bed beside his hip, the other reaching for the remote on the side table.
I noted the way he tensed so I craned my head over to his. Our faces were so close that I could feel his breath on my face. I wanted to ask why he was being so strange, but the words got jumbled up in my throat. My heart was pounding ferociously in my chest and I instantly felt a dazing wave of heat flow through my body.
It freaked me out.
I had felt this exact way earlier in his car, when I’d inched my face closer.
He cleared his throat and I hurriedly grabbed the remote and shot my body back, crawling up to rest against the headboard, just like he was. Except I made sure that our bodies weren’t touching, not even our legs.
My eyes stayed glued on the TV placed on the dresser in front of us as I tried to clear the tense air surrounding us.
What in the actual hell is happening? It’s like a switch had been flipped earlier in the day. My heart was acting in a way that I’d never felt before and I kept getting hot flashes.
Maybe I was having a stroke.
Dawson mumbled from beside me, “Don’t even think about it, Ivy.”
I let out a giggle and pressed my finger down on the small, rubber button.
He groaned and threw his head back against the bed, looking up at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong with this?” I prodded, my voice full of mirth.
He turned to look at me. He was trying to act annoyed but he was failing miserably. His grin was slowly stretching across his face, which caused me to smile.