Moments Of Beauty

by J B Heller

  Unfortunately, my mother developed severe postpartum depression. After a couple of months she was put in hospital, and that’s when my dad started drinking.

  Her time at the hospital helped a little, she was put on medication and met a therapist that she seemed to like. But things just got worse from there. Dad kept drinking. And neither of them could stand to look at me, the thing that destroyed them.

  When I was two my mother left us. She disappeared, and I haven’t seen her since that day. I wouldn’t even remember what she looked like if it wasn’t for all the photos of her dad keeps around the house.

  He made sure I knew I was the cause of all their problems.

  My mother couldn’t love me, even though I know she tried. And my father never wanted me to begin with, and then I stole his happiness.

  I deserve his hatred. That’s why I’m doing everything I can to get out of here. Maybe it will finally bring him some peace, not having to see my face anymore? I hope so. It’s all I can think to do for him.

  I’ve thought about tracking down my mother, but I don’t know if I could face her. What if she’s found happiness and I show up and ruin her life all over again? I couldn’t live with myself.

  I’m lying on my bed flicking through my most recent photos when my phone pings, the only people who have my number are Eliza and Johnno. And since Johnno only texts to let me know where the job is for the day, I know it isn’t him.

  Eliza put herself in as Princess, and it makes me smile when I see it pop up on the black and grey screen.

  How you feeling today? Can I see you?

  I think about it briefly, I haven’t seen her since she dropped me home the other day after I met her at the stream. The bruise has faded to an off yellowish colour and the swelling has completely gone, so I agree.

  Stream or rest stop?

  Her response is immediate.

  Stream. I’ll meet you there in 20. X

  I opt for a hoodie again, even though it is hot out. But this time I grab a thinner one so I don’t die of heat stroke on my way there. I don’t bother with a shirt under it either. I throw on a pair of cargo shorts then slip on a pair of thongs before putting my camera in my pack. Swinging it over my shoulder, I head out the back door.

  This time I arrive before Eliza. I ditch my thongs and sit in the clearing, by the edge of the steam so I can put my feet in the cool water. Stretching my arms out behind me I lean back and close my eyes, enjoying the sound of nature moving around me.

  Then a foreign sound makes me sit up and look around, my eyes find Eliza standing at the edge of the clearing, a smile on her face and her phone pointed at me. I narrow my eyes, “Did you just take a picture of me?”

  She grins and nods, “Yep. Fair’s fair.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She scoffs, “Don’t pretend like you haven’t taken pictures of me on that big camera of yours.”

  I’d never really stopped to think if she minded, but now that she’s taken a picture of me it gives me pause, “Is that okay?” I ask.

  Slipping her sandals off she comes to sit by my side, dipping her feet into the water too. “Yeah, but I get to take pictures of you too. Okay?”

  Nodding I agree, “Fair’s fair.”

  She rests her head on my shoulder and holds her phone above us, then clicks a couple of times before bringing it back down and looking at the pictures she just took.

  Then I realise I still have a huge bruise on my face, “The bruise,” I say.

  She shakes her head, “It’s okay, your hoodie covers it.”

  Glancing over I look at the screen, and it’s not a bad shot. “Can you get one of those printed off for me?” I ask.

  Eliza grins, “Sure.” Then she puts her phone down on the grass beside us, and rests her head on my shoulder again. “The bruise is fading, you going to come to school next week?”

  “If it’s gone,” I tell her, hoping she’s not about to dive back into her line of questioning from the other day.

  “I hope it fades away over the weekend.”

  Looking down at her, she’s watching the water flow over the moss covered rocks. “Why’s that? Missing me?” I tease.

  Her eyes lift to meet mine, and I swallow as she replies with a soft, “Yes.”

  She turns her body more fully into mine, and pushes me until I’m flat on my back in the grass. Then she crawls on top of me, “I miss this face,” she says as her fingers trace my jaw, “I miss these lips,” she says with a swipe of her thumb over my bottom lip. Her hand trails up and slides my hoodie off my head, “I miss this messy hair,” she grins down at me and I’m so consumed by her I can’t speak.

  Watching her as she moves on top of me is making me hard and I feel like an arsehole for it. That isn’t what this is about. This thing with us is different, and my dick needs to back down. Then she shuffles back until her arse is right over my crotch, fuck.

  A satisfied smirk lifts her pink lips, “Looks like I’m getting better at this seduction thing.”

  “It would appear so.” I force the words through my clenched teeth, then she starts grinding down on my hard-on, “Fuck, Princess, what are you doing?”

  Innocence blankets her features, “Nothing,” she says as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

  But I know better. I’ve had that mouth and it’s hot and sweet. I reach up, wrapping my hand around her neck and pulling her down to me, “What are you doing to me?” I breathe against her lips right before I kiss her.

  She moans into my mouth as I buck my hips up into her while she grinds down on me. I haven’t dry humped a girl since I started having sex when I was fifteen, I forgot how fun it can be. Smiling into her mouth, I enjoy the feel of her body gyrating against mine.

  I will allow myself this, but no more. The simulation of sex would have to be enough for me. It had to be.

  “Hux,” she groans then pushes herself up, grabs the hem of my hoodie and starts tugging it up, “Off, I want it off,” she demands.

  I love how bossy she can get. It’s fucking cute. I oblige her, and sit up until we’re chest to chest, making her lean back to pull the hoodie over my head. Then she throws it behind me and grabs my face in her palms, before kissing me harder than she ever has.

  She’s still grinding and I know she’s getting close, I can feel it, she’s trembling slightly and panting between peppering my face with kisses. I take her hips in my hands and help her keep her rhythm until she gives over total control, allowing me to move her how I see fit.

  Running my tongue up the column of her throat, she moans and rolls her head to the side, giving me better access. I wish I was inside her right now, balls deep. The mental image that thought conjures makes my dick twitch trying to get inside her.

  When she comes, she pants my name, and I kiss her as she shudders in my arms. She lifts her eyes to meet mine, and they’re glazed, her chest is heaving and her lips are kiss swollen. I may have gotten carried away for a minute there.

  Sliding my hands into her hair I tell her, “You’re going to break me, Princess.”

  Eliza smiles and presses one last, soft kiss to my lips, “You’ve already broken me. In the best possible way.”

  I spend the weekend with my girlfriends shopping and attempting not to think about Hux while we watch the latest romcom at the movies. Guess what? I fail. Miserably.

  He’s quickly become my favourite person. I would rather spend time with him at the stream or the rest stop than with the people I’ve spent most of my childhood hanging around. Even when he won’t let me kiss him.

  Being with him is fun, and exhilarating. But I never know from one day to the next if he’s going to kiss me senseless or push me away. And the fact that he still won’t tell me who hit him is driving me insane.

  I want to ask him about it, even though I know it won’t do any good. He won’t tell me. I have a feeling, deep down in my gut, that things aren’t good for him at home. I know it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out s
ince he won’t let me near his house.

  But when he first asked me to drop him at the end of his street, I thought it was just because we didn’t know each other very well. It took his reaction to my threat of knocking on every door in the street to check on him for me to realise it was so much more than that.

  I wish he would open up to me, but he’s always got his guard up. Regardless of his refusal to confide in me, he’s still my favourite person. Being around him is so easy.

  I’m beginning to get tired of the front I put on for others, and lately I’ve found myself questioning when and why I even started doing it.

  Waiting for Hux at the end of his street, I decide to torture him with some more Bieber, purely for the enjoyment I get from watching his facial expression when he recognises the song.

  But the sound of the passenger door opening as I’m selecting the song ruins my plan. I grin at Hux and a knowing gleam fills his eyes.

  “You do it on purpose, don’t you,” he states.

  My grin widens into a full blown smile, “Maybe.”

  Before I have a chance to press play he’s sliding a CD into the player. “Hey, driver choses the tunes!”

  “Then you best move your arse, Princess, ‘cause I am not listening to one more Bieber song if I can help it.”

  I roll my eyes, “Geeze, whose acting like a Princess now?”

  “Still you,” he retorts with a smirk.

  I’m trying to think of a decent come back as unfamiliar music filters through the speakers, “What’s this?”

  The look he gives me can only be described as disgust, “It’s Blink,” he states, but continues when he sees my deadpan expression, “Blink 182, you’re kidding me right?”

  I shake my head, “Nope.”

  He closes his eyes and rests his head back against the headrest, “I’m genuinely concerned about you’re lack of musical education,” he says while shaking his head back and forth. When he looks back at me it’s with pity.

  “Hey, I have a very broad musical appreciation. Just because it doesn’t include your punky boyband doesn’t mean I’ve been deprived of a musical education,” I say as I pull away from the curb and steer us toward the rest stop.

  An outraged look crosses his face at my description of this particular band. “Stop the car, I can’t be with a girl who not only doesn’t know who Blink 182 is, but then has the nerve to refer to them as a punky boyband.”

  Laughter ripples up my chest, “Are we wearing our Drama Queen panties today?” I tease.

  Hux levels me with a flat stare, “First of all, I don’t wear panties. And second of all, I’m not wearing any underwear.” Then he winks.

  My pulse picks up its pace as I imagine his bare skin beneath his zipper, my eyes flick down to his crotch before heat sears my cheeks and I redirect my attention back to the road ahead of me.

  “Feelin’ a bit flushed this morning, El?” he smirks beside me.

  “Asshat,” I grumble under my breath. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me, and he’s clearly enjoying it.

  We make the short drive to the rest area in companionable silence, me thinking dirty thoughts, and him smirking like the cat who got the cream. I wonder if he knows the things running through my mind right now? Would he push me away again if he did?

  When we get out of the car he rounds the hood and waits for me with his hand outstretched, and I take it before he has time to rethink it.

  “What are you thinking?” he asks as we approach the picnic area we seem to have claimed.

  “You don’t want to know,” I mutter. I’m sure my ears are as red as my cheeks right now and I’m glad my hair is covering them.

  Hux waits for me to sit on the bench then settles in behind me, and wraps his arms around my body and pulls me back into his. I’m surprised by this new position, not that I don’t like it, just that he instigated it. Normally it’s me throwing myself at him, hoping he won’t shut me down. This is the first time he’s willingly initiated contact.

  I settle back into his chest and enjoy the feel of his arms holding me.

  “So, what were you thinking?” he asks again.

  Shaking my head a little I turn my face up to his slightly, “You really don’t want to know. It was in no way virtuous, so you wouldn’t be interested,” I say dryly. I’m no fool, I know he’s holding himself in check around me, especially whenever I try moving things in a physical direction.

  I feel his chest rumble against my back at my words, “I’m getting the sense that you’re a needy little thing, El.”

  Settling myself back into his chest more comfortably, I reply without looking up at him, “I am. But it’s not my fault.”

  His fingers begin to trace patterns over my exposed thighs, “Yeah, who’s fault is it?”

  “Yours,” I tell him frankly.

  He chuckles, “How so?” he says as his fingertips continue their tortuously soft movements.

  “Where should I start?” I ponder aloud, “There’s that face, and those hypnotising grey eyes that make me feel like I could fall into them like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. And those lips, I know what those lips feel like and its impossible not to think of them on my skin, even when we’re apart,” I continue, and I can feel the change in his breathing against my neck.

  “I’m a total sucker for that voice too, it’s deep, with an edge of huskiness that makes me crazy. Every time you call me Princess it sends a shiver though my body. Then there are these hands,” I say as I move my hands over his against my thighs, “nothing feels better than these hands against my skin.”

  “Fuck me, Princess,” he murmurs from behind me, and I grin.

  “I’d like to, but I have a feeling you won’t let me,” I say in response.

  “Jesus,” he swears under his breath.

  But I hear it because we’re so close, his nose is against the shell of my ear and I can feel the way my words are effecting his body. A hard ridge has formed against my hip and I relish in the knowledge that my words alone can do that to him.

  “Why won’t you fuck me, Hux?” I ask.

  He chokes, “What?”

  “You heard me, why won’t you fuck me?” I repeat.

  His hands have stopped moving, and his fingertips are digging into the soft flesh of my thighs. “Jesus, El, you’re killing me here.”

  “Answer the question, Hux.”

  “We can’t. I can’t, El. I’ll be gone in a matter of weeks. I can’t stay, and I can’t take you with me. If I let myself feel you, all of you, fuck, I can’t, Princess.” He pauses and takes a deep ragged breath, “I already feel way too much for you. It’s already hard enough to control myself with you, if I let myself go, I won’t be able to stop.”

  That’s exactly what I want to hear. To know he feels the same way about me as I do about him, it’s exhilarating. Tilting my head back I look up at him, his grey eyes swirling with heat, lust and restraint.

  “If you say so,” I whisper and start to trace patterns on the top of his hands that are still gripping my thighs. I know there’s no point in arguing with him. In his head, we can’t be together.

  I understand his reasoning. It would be smart to avoid any unnecessary hurt where we can right? I mean being a teen is hard enough, trying to figure out what we want out of life, and who we are without dealing with heartbreak as well. And it looks like that’s the only possible outcome of this relationship.

  But despite my understanding, I still want him. I still want this, us.

  She’s trying to kill me. I’m sure of it. If not with her driving, then definitely with her dirty words.

  I don’t know how I kept things PG at the rest stop earlier this week. She’s been taunting me with her mischievous smiles and kinky texts ever since I admitted to not wanting to fuck her.

  She knows exactly what she’s doing too. And I’ll be damned, but I think it’s starting to work. It gets a little harder each day that passes to keep my hands to myself.

  She tempts
me in the worst possible way. She makes me want to forget my plan, to stay here, with her.

  But I can’t.

  I won’t.

  This need I have for her sears itself deeper into my soul with each breath I take. Making my chest burn with exertion when I’m around her.

  I never thought I could feel this much for another person. And it damn well feels like she’s in as deep as I am. But I don’t deserve it, deserve her. How she can possibly want someone as worthless as me to begin with blows my mind, but that she wants me as badly as I need her, that’s what’s going to kill me.

  I can’t count the amount of times Eliza has pushed my control to its limit in the last two weeks. It’s like since I admitted that this isn’t going to go beyond heavy petting she’s more determined to bring me to my knees.

  We’ve been this, whatever we are, for over a month now and I’m pretty sure BJ suspects. I’ve noticed him watching her more closely recently. I know he’s into her, everyone knows. But she’s been shutting him down for longer than I’ve been around.

  I’m sitting under my tree, leaning against the trunk eating an apple when I see him approach her and pull her away from her group of friends to talk. She humours him, and supplies a coy smile just for him. I know she’s aware of me watching them when she turns her back on him to lead the way and throws me a little wink before spinning back around to face BJ.

  He crowds her against the side wall of the auditorium, leaning into her with one of his arms propped above her head on the wall. I don’t like the way he’s towering over her, almost like he’s trying to intimidate her. Then he turns his face, and looks directly at me.

  It’s right then that I know what he’s doing and I get to my feet, ready to make my approach. But Eliza reaches up and pulls his face back around to her and says something to him. I pause, waiting to see how this will go and if I need to intervene. A moment later BJ lowers his head and as he does Eliza slides out from beneath him and struts away.

  BJ spins around, glaring at her back as she goes back toward her friends. Then he turns his attention back to me again, and I don’t back down. He’s trying to fuck with her because of me. I can see it in his eyes, he doesn’t like being rejected, especially if I’m the one getting what he wants.