He drags me all the way to the detention class room. It wasn’t one of the real classrooms in one of the hallways. It was in one of the grey portables on the side of the school.
I groan, “How come when I finally want to ditch, you won’t let me?”
“You wanted to be in detention, remember? You felt guilty about what happened with Zac.”
I roll my eyes, “I’m starting to see how stupid that was.”
“It was stupid,” he says and then kisses the top of my head. “Now go.”
“But-”
“Go,” he pokes me again.
“Why do you keep doing that?” I ask laughing.
“Because I am starting to realize how ticklish you are.”
“I am really ticklish,” I say as I begin to walk up the ramp leading into the classroom.
Hayden smirks before walking away, “Good to know.”
I shake my head and laugh as I walk into the smelly little makeshift classroom. I feel heat rise in my cheeks as I notice all 30-40 pairs of eyes were on me.
“You made it with one minute to spare, Miss…” I hand her my detention slip and hold my breath as she looks over the signature, “Brown. Take a seat.”
I look back at all the students in their chairs and my eyes land on Emily who, surprise surprise, was sitting next to Zac. Zac motions with his head for me to sit in the empty chair on the other side him. I make my way through the desks telling myself not to trip the whole time. I make it to the chair and set my stuff down.
“Okay class. You know the rules; No talking or getting up unless it is to use the restroom. I have marked down where everyone is sitting so I will know if you have changed seats,” Ms. Right, the detention teacher says sternly.
I almost burst out laughing when I see her walk through the door.
Are you kidding me? She’s really going to leave us here alone for the whole 40 minutes and expect us not to talk?
Teachers can be so stupid sometimes.
She locks the door behind her and as soon as she gets far enough away from the window, everyone gets out of their seats. In just one second, it had gone from being quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop to sounding like the party on Saturday night.
“Is she really going to leave us alone all throughout lunch?” I ask Zac.
He laughs, “Like always.”
I lean back in my chair, “Wow.”
“I know right? Detention is stupid if you ask me,” Emily butts in.
No one asked you, Emily.
“What if you have to go to the bathroom, though?” I ask.
“There’s a bathroom right there,” Emily says like I’m stupid. I look over and see a brown door leading into a small bathroom. Just then, a girl and a tall guy walk into the bathroom, locking the door behind them.
I look questioningly at Zac and he smirks a little. “People also go in there to make out.”
I hear Emily giggle and look to see her smile, something I really wanted to smack right off her face.
Without thinking fully, I say the only thing I can think of that might make Zac mad, “Then I should come here with Hayden sometime.”
Zac gives me a confused look and I mentally punch myself. Did I really just say that out loud? That I should come here with Hayden to make out in the bathroom? God, I’m an idiot. I just said it to get a reaction out of Zac. I guess I kind of did, it just wasn’t the one I wanted.
“How long have you been dating Hayden?” Emily asks.
“A little over a week, I guess.” I respond. I think about it for a second.
It’s only been a week? That’s such a short amount of time.
I think out loud, “Weird, it feels a lot longer though.”
“Nice,” Emily smiles and sticks out her fist. Is she really fist bumping me right now? Not knowing what else to do, I stick out mine and she bumps them together. “He’s attractive.”
Zac glares at Emily, making her laugh, “But not as attractive as you, Zacie-Pooh.”
She kisses him on the cheek.
Oh this is not happening.
“How long have you two been dating?”
“Since yesterday,” Emily smiles at him.
Zac squints at me, “Feels a lot longer though.”
Now there is the reaction I was looking for.
30 minutes later, Ms. Right comes back into the room. And of course, the room was back to being completely silent.
“Time for second roll everybody.”
She glances at the list and then back up at everyone for a few minutes, making sure people were in their seats. “Emily and Zac, glad to see you two decided to actually stay for a whole detention today.”
I see smirks appear on both of their faces and finally the bell rings. God, I have to endure four more days of this.
I quickly pull my bag over my shoulder and race out of the room. I am halfway to the hallway door when I hear Zac call me. I stop in my tracks and turn around to see him and Emily walk up to me.
“You go on, Emily. I have to talk to Jenna real quick,” Zac tells her with a peck on the lips. I feel my eyes roll.
“Why?” Emily asks peering at me.
“Nothing important. Just go Em.”
She grabs him by the cheeks and pulls him in for another kiss. This one lasts about ten seconds and I almost laugh at how ridiculously awkward it was. Emily leaves with a final smirk at me.
“You wanted to talk to me, Zacie-Pooh?” I ask looking up at him. I use my hand as a shield to block the sun away from my eyes.
Zac rolls his eyes, “Are you mad that I’m dating Emily?”
I gasp innocently, “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“You have no right to be mad Jenna,” he says angrily. “I told you how I feel about you and you told me you didn’t feel the same. Now you’re dating my best friend. I wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for you. What did you expect?”
“How do you feel about me, Zac?”
“Felt. I said felt.”
“I heard feel.”
“No there was a ‘t’ in there.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry because I am not jealous,” I say simply.
“Oh really? So what was that whole ‘I should come with Hayden here sometime,’ thing about then?”
“Jealous much?”
“You’re the jealous one. Not me.”
“I’m not jealous. I just don’t understand why you like her.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s annoying and fake. That whole ‘I’m so much better than everyone’ thing? You could do so much better.”
“She’s actually really cool. You’re jealousy just overlooks all the good things about her.”
“I’m not jealous, Zac. Date the entire cheer squad, I honestly don’t care.”
“Good, because I might if I want to.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I cross my arms. “Oh look, here comes my wonderful boyfriend now. Good luck with Emily, Zac.”
I brush past him and meet Hayden next to the double doors.
“How was-” he asks but I interrupt him by pushing my lips up against his, pushing his back into the wall. I feel his tongue enter my mouth and after a few more seconds of making out, I pull away.
“Wow, miss me?” Hayden asks smiling.
“A lot, actually,” I casually look over to where I was talking to Zac to see that he was watching me and Hayden.
Good.
“Detention wasn’t so bad, was it? I mean the teacher doesn’t even stay in the room,” Hayden laughs, grabbing my hand.
“Yeah, you never told me that.”
He laughs again, “I wanted you to worry. I didn’t want you knowing detention isn’t even bad.”
“Well thanks!” I laugh.
“You were scared.”
I laugh and see Zac turning to walk away, “Let’s go with that.”
As soon we get back to Hayden’s
house, I walk to his room and get in the bed.
“I’m tired,” I say as he walks in after me.
“Oh, I bet,” he sits next to me on the mattress. “Sitting for 40 minutes in detention can be exhausting.”
I smack him on the arm, “It is.”
He gets in the bed too and lies down so that his face is over mine. “You know what will make you less tired?”
“What?”
He smirks, “This.”
I feel him grab my stomach and start to tickle me.
“Hayden!” I cry out. I start laughing uncontrollably. After many attempts, I am finally able to get the word “Stop,” out of my mouth. But he wouldn’t stop. I try to roll up into a ball but it doesn’t make things any better. I grab Hayden’s arms and attempt to pull them away but he is too strong for me. I dig my nails into his biceps and finally he stops.
I gasp for air and Hayden collapses beside me from laughing so hard.
I smack him, “Why would you do that?”
“That was hilarious,” he says through his laughter.
“I could barely breathe!” A tear rolls down my cheek. “Oh great, you made me laugh so hard that I’m crying!”
He continues to laugh as I get out of bed and look in the mirror. I wipe away the tear and fix my mascara.
I get back into the bed and Hayden finally stops laughing to examine his arm. “Dang, you’re violent.”
“I am?”
“Look,” he shows me his arm and I see four horizontal red scratches from where my nails had dug into his skin.
I can’t help but laugh, “I’m sorry.”
“It looks like I got attacked by a cat. And you kicked me a few times in the stomach.”
I laugh again, “You deserved it.”
He rolls on top of me again, “Well, unfortunately for you, I’m not ticklish.”
“Of course you aren’t.”
“Even if I was, I could take you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I would be able to stop you.”
“Oh really?”
“Oh yeah,” he smirks. “I just proved it right now by how you couldn’t stop me from tickling you.”
“That was different. You were on top of me.”
“Fine,” he rolls onto his back. “Let’s try it then.
“Fine.”
I sit on his stomach with my legs on either side of him.
“Oh, I like this,” he smirks up at me.
I roll my eyes, “Shut up. On the count of three. One, tw-”
He pushes me off of him and onto my back so that he was on top of me again.
“That’s not fair! I wasn’t ready. You have to do it at the count of three.”
“Fine, let’s do it again.”
He lies on his back and I do the same as before.
“Okay. One, two, three.”
Once again, he ends up on top of me.
“I thought you said you would be ready,” he says smugly.
“You cheated.”
“How?”
I glance at his silver airplane necklace dangling in front of me from around his neck. “Give me a second, I’m working on it.”
“You’re cute,” he leans down and kisses me. It wasn’t a usual kiss. This one felt different. More passionate, I guess you could say.
I tug on his necklace and he pulls away, “What’s that from?”
“My necklace? I don’t know. I’ve just always liked it.”
“Me too,” I whisper, fiddling with it between my fingers.
He sits up and puts his arms behind his back, unhooking the necklace. “You have it.”
“What? No, I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant-”
“No, take it, for now at least. It will look better on you than it will on me,” he says and hooks it around my neck.
I look down at it, feeling the cool metal against my chest. “I love it, thanks Hayden.”
He smiles and leans back over me again. I tug on the collar of his white t-shirt, pulling him down for another kiss.
Chapter 27: For the First Time
Ding, Ding, Ding.
My eyes shoot open. I jump up and hit the alarm clock to shut it off quickly. Hopefully it didn’t wake up Hayden. I slowly climb back into bed so the mattress wouldn’t move and snuggle back up to him. Still asleep, he wraps his arm around me, bringing me closer. He is so warm. I just want to stay in bed all day.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Hayden mumbles.
His voice makes me jump. “I thought you were asleep.”
He chuckles, “We aren’t ditching today, Jen.”
“Hayden,” I whine. “Why not?”
He tries to push me up but I hold on to him tightly. “Jenna, come on, get up.”
“Hayden, why not?”
“Why do you want to ditch so badly all of a sudden?”
For several reasons.
1.) To avoid Zac and Emily
2.)
Wait, I guess to avoid Zac and Emily was the only reason.
“Because this bed is so comfy and you’re so warm.”
He laughs, “If we skipped school, we would have to get out of bed.”
“Why?”
“My mom doesn’t work, remember? She would get mad if she knew we skipped so we would have to leave the house and make her think we still went,” he explains.
I sigh, defeated. A few seconds later, my head pops off Hayden’s chest and I look at him. “We can go to my house.”
“What?” he asks. “What about your parents?”
“They won’t be home, they are on a trip.”
“Well…”
“Pleaseeee,” I beg, pressing my forehead against his.
He sighs, “Alright.”
“Yes!” I jump up and run to the bathroom to get ready.
“Oh, now you get out of bed.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Hayden asks me, turning the steering wheel to pull out of his driveway.
“Yup,” I say instantly.
He laughs, “Where do you live?”
“Near Luke’s.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, like a few streets away. Weird, right?”
He nods, and for the next 15 minutes, we blast the radio and sing loud and obnoxiously along.
“Turn here,” I say and he does.
“Which house is it?”
“The one at the very very end.”
We pull up to the place I call home. Hayden stops the car outside the gate and I look over to see his mouth agape.
“What?” I ask confused.
“This is your house?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s huge.”
I shrug and roll down the window to type in the code on the keypad. There is a buzzing noise and the iron gates open.
Hayden drives forward, “You have a four car garage? Are there four cars in there?”
I nod.
“What? Why did you ask for my sister’s car then?”
“The cars aren’t mine. They’re my parent’s,” I explain.
“What do your parents do, exactly?” he asks.
I sigh, “They are lawyers for celebrities and stuff. They go away on out of state business trips a lot. Our maid usually stays with me, but because I haven’t been home lately, I told her she didn’t have to come over the past couple of weeks.”
He parks the car and I open the door to get out, “Come on.”
“So, I’m guessing your parents don’t know about the Slave Auction?” he asks, walking up the stone bath to my front door behind me.
“Nope.”
“And if they did, would they have let you do it?”
“Nope.”
I pull the key out of my pocket and unlock the door. “I didn’t even want to do the Slave Auction. So of course my parents wouldn’t want me to.”
“Wait, what?”
“Jessica signed me up for the auction without me knowing. I tried to g
et out of it, but Courtney wouldn’t let me.” I explain open the door.
“I didn’t know…” He stops talking as we walk into the living room. He whistles, “Wow.”
I watch him as he leans his head back to look up at the tall ceiling. He takes a few steps forward, his footsteps echoing off the marble tile and large white walls. We had a few paintings and family pictures hanging on the walls, but there were still a lot of bare places all over. The whole room just felt kind of empty. Sure, there was a large leather couch placed along the wall under the window and a large wooden table with ten chairs sat around it, but the room just gave me a weird feeling. I hardly ever come in here; usually I just walk by to get in and out of the front door.
I giggle as Hayden does a little spin in the center of the room on the tip of his Converse. “Why have we been staying at my house all this time? We should just stay here.”
I shrug, “I like your house better. It’s not so empty.”
I begin to walk down the hallway and towards the kitchen, “Plus, I am tired of this place.”
I hear Hayden follow me, “What do you mean?”
I keep walking through the kitchen and climb the spiral staircase next to the pantry. I sense Hayden stop behind me and I turn around to see him staring at the kitchen. It was similar to his, except that we had 42 inch flat screen TV mounted on the wall over the small counter where I usually ate.
“I’m stuck here, day after day alone, doing nothing but homework and watching TV. It’s just,” I pause, “it’s just nice to get out of here for a while.”
I allow myself to look right at Hayden. He opens his mouth, probably to say an “I’m sorry” or something, but I turn away and head up the stairs. I don’t feel like going into an emotional conversation about my parent problems right now.
At the top of the stairs, I stop and wait for Hayden to catch up. I see the top of his curly head appear and I entwine my fingers with his.
“For once we are going to be walking into your room instead of mine. It’s weird,” he laughs.
I lead him into my room at the very end of the hall. It felt good to finally be back in my own room. The familiar smell of my perfume reaches my nostrils and I fall into my bed as if I was doing a belly flop into a pool, the hard mattress barely moves.
“I remember why I like your bed so much,” I say looking at him.
He stops from looking at my cork board covered with pictures of me and my friends from over the years and glares at me. “That’s why you’re dating me, isn’t it? You’re using me for my bed.”
The Last Girl Page 16