by Serena Grey
“Blythe will take care of me.” I say half-jokingly. “Don’t worry."
She snorts. “If she can keep her hands off that boy for long enough.” A cloud comes over her face, but it’s only for a moment. "Why don’t you go rest?” She tells me. “I can manage from here.”
I leave her in the study and go upstairs to my room, already inside before I realize I’m not alone. I feel the familiar shiver of anticipation going down my spine, and even before I look towards the bed and see Jackson sitting on it, I already know it’s him.
He’s wearing a dark blue shirt, jeans, and a wide grin, looking slightly disheveled but sexy as hell.
“Jackson!” I exclaim.
He puts a finger to his lips. “Shhh, come here.”
I go to him eagerly, sighing as he pulls me onto his lap and starts to kiss me.
“I was downstairs and I didn’t hear your car.” I say, when I come up for breath.
“I didn’t drive.” He lies back on the bed. “I was at a party last night, and I caught a ride home with Shane Colton,” he grins, “He doesn’t drink.”
Shane Colton lives miles away towards the edge of the town. “So you walked all the way from the Colton’s.” I ask, incredulous.
“Along the river,” he tells me with a shrug. “How’s it going downstairs? I saw the tables on the lawn.”
“Aunt Constance is wondering when you’ll arrive.” I say.
He chuckles. “I wouldn’t miss my own party.” He runs a finger along my cheek. “How’re you doing?”
I shrug. “Okay.”
“I’ve missed you.” He says, pulling me closer and kissing me again.
My body lights up. I’ve missed this, missed him so much. I reach for him, pulling at his clothes, and helping him get rid of mine, my frantic desire for him growing as his hands set fire to my skin and my blood. We’ve done this so many times now, but each time it still feels new and different. When we’re naked, I reach for him, sighing as my fingers close around him. He’s still sitting on the bed, and I slide down, so I’m kneeling in front of him. He groans when I take him in my mouth, his hands fisting in my hair as he throws his head back.
I suck on him, flicking my tongue around the silken skin and watching the muscles of his chest tighten as he tries to hold on to his control. With an impatient sound, he reaches for me, pulling me up, so I’m straddling him. I wait impatiently while he rolls on a condom, and then takes hold of my hips, lowering me unto his long hard length. I groan, moving my hips so I can feel every single inch of him inside me.
His hands tighten on my hips as he starts to thrust into me, holding me steady as he drives my body insane. In only a few moments, I start to shake, moaning incoherently, my body quivering as I come apart around him and fall unto his chest.
He’s not done, still hard, he rolls over without letting go of me, so that I’m lying on my back, and he’s on top of me, then he starts to thrust again. Pleasure takes over me, and I’m sure the whole house can hear my moans. I don’t even know when I wrap my legs around his waist, urging him deeper. He groans and starts to move faster, each stroke taking me higher and higher until I can’t bear it anymore. I hear his loud groan as he slams into me one last time and comes, the same moment as my body tightens and explodes.
Afterwards, we lie there naked and kissing. I love being so close to him, feeling the warmth of his body around me.
“I’ve missed you.” I say.
“Me too,” He kisses my forehead.
“Where’s Blythy?” he asks after a while.
“Out by the pool with Carter,” I tell him.
His expression hardens, but it’s only for a fleeting moment. “I’m going to go down to see Aunt Constance,” he says, getting up from the bed and putting on his clothes. When he’s done, he gives me a light kiss on my lips. “See you at the party.” He says.
I nod, admiring his perfect body as he walks to the door and leaves the room. It won’t be long now, I think happily, before we can really be together.
I’m about to doze off when I notice that, on the nightstand beside my bed, the light on my phone is blinking. I read the text from May.
So excited, cant wait tanx for inviting me to hang with yummy Jackson, and his yummy friends.
I sigh. May is such a boy freak, but it’s part of her charm. She doesn’t have a boyfriend because her ideal man, according to her, only exists between the covers of her billionaire romance novels.
There’s another text, but it’s from Chace.
May drove by my house. I swear she’s hyperventilating about meeting hot guys, tempted to sedate her so she wakes up tomorrow after the party. See you at seven.
I smile, wondering if Chace and May would even be friends if not for me. Her bubbly nature amuses him, and his insistence on hiding his cuteness behind his glasses and the nerd hair confuses her. I invited them both to Jackson’s party, and I’m sure we’ll have fun watching people get drunk.
It’s only two hours until the party starts. Soon Blythe would burst into my room, frantically asking which one of several dresses I think she should wear instead of the one she’s chosen before. Aunt Constance would leave for the quiet dinner she's having at a friend’s so as not to be in the way, and then the guests would fill the house. It will be fun, but I’m more excited about Jackson, and after the party, when it will be just the two of us again, talking about our future, and making love until we’re exhausted.
May is mouthing the words to poker face and channeling Lady Gaga on the terrace, which is the dance floor for tonight. Chace and I are seated on the steps at the edge of the terrace, watching her, and taking pictures on our phones to torment her with later. There are other people on the dance floor, but nobody is dancing like May is dancing.
My eyes follow Jackson as he chats with his friends and dances with a couple of girls. We danced too at some point, his hand around my waist would have seemed innocent to onlookers, but I knew what the look in his eyes meant, and it made me eager and impatient for the party to be over.
I never get tired of looking at him, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that he’s mine, this guy who most of the girls in the room would give a hand to go out with. As if he can hear my thoughts, he turns to look at me and as our eyes meet. He grins at me, and I smile back.
“One day you’ll tell me what’s going on with you guys.” Chace says.
“Who says anything is going on?” I retort, without looking away from Jackson.
Chace shakes his head, making his curly hair bounce over his glasses. “I’m not blind.”
“But you’re imagining things.”
He yawns. “My imagination is busy with important stuff, but I can’t help that I can see the calf love right in front of me.”
“Calf what…!” I smack him playfully on his arm. “Anyway, it's not like you would know, you don’t know anything about any kind of love.”
He shrugs and adjusts his glasses. “May’s going to hate herself tomorrow if she spends the whole night dancing like a ninja.”
We both laugh, still laughing when someone trips over my feet and spills her drink on my new dress.
“I’m so sorry.” She exclaims, baby blue eyes so sincerely apologetic that I immediately suspect that it’s an act. It’s Lindsay Gorman, Jackson’s ex.
“It’s okay.” I tell her resignedly.
She smiles and walks on. “Now I have to change.” I complain to Chace.”
He shrugs. “Or you could just pretend that the wet patch is part of the design.”
“Thanks Chace.” I roll my eyes. “I’ll be right back."
He nods and goes back to watching May. I walk into the deserted house and make my way upstairs to my room. It’s dark inside except for the dim light from the window. Reaching for the light switch, I’m about to flip them on when strong arms pull me towards a rock hard chest.
I only manage to wonder how Jackson got upstairs so fast before lips descend on mine, hard, forceful, and smelling of alc
ohol. That’s when I realize that it’s not Jackson. Someone else is in my room. Someone else is kissing me, and my arms are locked so tightly to his chest I can't even struggle.
He moves, pushing me against the wall and crushing me with his body until my back hurts. Terror rises like bile in my throat. I try to scream, but his tongue is in my mouth, and I can make nothing more than a few muffled sounds.
Cold fear grips me when I hear the sound of my zipper tearing as he rips my dress down from the neckline, taking my strapless bra with it. I push against him, desperation filling me as I realize I’m no match for his strength. I’m still trying ineffectually to free myself when his hand covers my breasts, squeezing them roughly.
Please, I plead silently, please whoever you are, don’t do this.
Suddenly the lights come on, and the weight pressing me against the wall is gone. I open my eyes, lightheaded with the aftermath of panic, and the relief at being free of my attacker, and I see Carter standing in front of me, wiping my lipstick from his lips.
I stare at him, speechless. For a moment, I can’t even think clearly.
Did Carter just try to rape me?
He looks repentant, panicked even. He’s looking towards the door. Realizing that someone else must have put on the lights, I follow Carter’s gaze and see Blythe at the door, a look of disbelief, shock, and anger on her face.
“What the hell?” she cries, the words ending in a sob.
“Blythe I’m sorry.” Carter says, “She just jumped me."
It takes a moment for me to process his words. I stare at him in disbelief. “What?”
“How could you?” Blythe screams at me. “I saw you, you were kissing him.”
“Blythe he was…”
“Don’t say my name.” She cries. “Don't even say my name.”
Suddenly I feel weak, unable to support my own weight. I lean against the wall, shaking, only managing to pull up my dress to cover my breasts, before footsteps announce that someone else has arrived.
I look up and see Jackson behind Blythe at the door.
“Lindsay thought she heard shouting upstairs,” he says, moving past Blythe to come into the room. He takes one look at me, and he’s immediately at my side. "What happened?” He asks, his hand on my shoulder, “Are you all right?” He turns to Carter, and in the next moment, he shoves Carter so hard, Carter stumbles and almost falls.
“What the fuck happened?” he barks.
“Leave him alone.” Blythe cries, rushing to Carter’s side.
Jackson turns back to me. His hands are on my shoulders again, his eyes full of concern. “Tell me what happened.”
Blythe turns a fiery look at her brother. “Livvie was kissing Carter is what happened.” She spits, glaring at me with an expression that’s close to hatred. "She was practically naked, and her hands were all over him.”
The words seem to freeze the air, or maybe its Jackson’s eyes, as they suddenly turn to ice. His hands tighten on my shoulders, and then they’re gone, suddenly, as if the touch of my skin has stung him.
“I’m sorry.” I hear Carter say to Blythe. “I was up on the corridor looking for you, and she came up and said her zipper was stuck, and then she was all over me.”
By now Jackson’s eyes are positively glacial, and the way he’s looking at me, as if he doesn’t know me, as if we haven't spent the last few months getting to know each other in the most intimate possible ways, as if I’m the liar, the slut Carter and Blythe are accusing me of being.
A part of me is still convinced that he would wait, allow me to tell him the truth. That part dies when he turns and roughly shoves Carter out of the way, before walking out of the room. He’s followed by Blythe, who’s pulling on Carter's hand, while he follows her, his head bowed in an expression of perfect contrition.
I spend the night in my room, not even bothering to say goodbye to my friends. At first all I can do is throw up, retching until my stomach feels like a raw aching mess. I keep seeing the look on Jackson’s face, anger, and even disgust. I can’t believe that he and Blythe both choose to believe Carter without even asking me what happened.
‘Carter Felton is one of them,’ a voice in my head whispers, ‘you’re only a charity case, why would they even care anything about you?’
I don’t want to believe that my thoughts are right, but if Blythe were my friend, wouldn’t she have asked me what happened? If Jackson loved me, wouldn’t he have waited for me to defend myself before judging me?
‘He was only using you.’ The hateful inner voice continues, and it goes on like that all night. By morning, my eyes are red from crying, and I’m heartsick from waiting for Jackson to come to my room and ask for my side of the story.
When I venture downstairs, the house is silent. Luckily, I don’t see anyone on the way downstairs. I don’t think I can face Blythe, or even Jackson. I just want to tell Aunt Constance everything, because I know she’ll at least listen to me.
I hear her voice through the door to the study before I enter. She’s talking on the phone, and when she notices me, she frowns and holds up a hand to tell me to wait for her to finish her conversation. I stand there nervous and waiting, the knot in my stomach growing until I feel as if I might start to throw up again.
Finally, when she’s done, she turns to me. “What were you thinking?” she starts. She looks stern, and her voice sounds impatient and almost annoyed. "You ruined the party for the both of them. Blythe’s left town and God knows where Jackson is. I haven’t seen or heard from him since last night.”
With each word that comes out of her mouth, my misery increases, somehow I’d thought that even if everyone else believed Carter over me, she wouldn’t. She was my last hope that somewhere in this house, there was someone who would give me a chance. I close my eyes against the tears and desperation threatening to come to the surface. Suddenly I want my mom and my dad. They would have listened to me. They would have believed me, and they would have made sure Carter paid for what he tried to do to me.
Aunt Constance mistakes my silence for remorse. She sighs sympathetically. “Olivia, I understand that at your age making out with a cute guy can seem like it’s the most important thing in the world, but there are other things that matter, like loyalty to people who have been kind to you.”
I swallow the painful lump in my throat. I can’t even look at her. I’ve spent so long admiring her and wanting to emulate her, and I can’t reconcile those feelings to the sense of anger and betrayal I feel towards her right now.
I want to throw a tantrum, to scream, to demand that she asks me what really happened, but I decide that it’s no use. She has judged me, concluded about me, even before hearing me out. She’s picked Blythe and Carter over me, as she always will.
“You’ll have to apologize to Blythe,” she pronounces, dismissing me. “Heaven knows she’s crazy enough about that boy to never want to see your face again.”
With that, she turns away and goes back to whatever she was working on. My eyes are smarting as I leave the study and walk out of the house. Outside, the sky is so blue and the day so beautiful that it makes no sense how miserable I feel. The tables on the lawn are gone. The whole place is as spotless as if the party never happened. I wish it had never happened. I wish I could erase yesterday from my memory, and everyone else’s too.
I walk down the drive, past the gates, and out onto the road, and I keep on walking for what seems like hours until I get to the cemetery.
It’s a peaceful place. The silence only disturbed by the rustling of leaves on the trees along the perimeter, which shield the graves from the street. There’s no gate, so I just walk in through the paved drive, passing old graves and new ones, simple headstones and elaborate ones until I get to the spot where my parents are buried.
I remove the carcasses of the flowers I left the last time I was there. In my misery, I’d forgotten to bring new ones, so there’s nothing to replace them.
Leaning against the headstone, a thick
, black, slab of granite, I trace my fingers over the engravings of my parents’ names, the dates of their births and deaths, as well as the words, ‘Loving Parents.’ Near the bottom of the headstone, the phrase “To live in the hearts of those you love is not to die,” is engraved in script. I requested those words to be added, but now I know they mean nothing. When you die, you’re gone, and you leave the ones you love behind, and no matter how long they keep you in their hearts you never come back to help them when they need you the most.
I start to cry, depressed with the unfairness of everything. For the first time in a long time, I find myself wishing we’d never moved to Foster. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so miserable. Maybe my parents would still be alive, maybe I'd never have met Jackson, and he’d never have broken my heart.
As if I’m not miserable enough, it’s starts to rain. It’s only a small drizzle, but it’s enough to make me feel as if the whole universe has conspired against me. I leave the grave and start the walk back to Halcyon, imagining how the whole of Foster must have heard by now that I tried to steal Blythe Lockewood’s boyfriend, even Chace and May would have heard some version. Would they judge me too, believe what everyone is saying without giving me the benefit of the doubt? The thought makes me even sadder. I wish I didn’t have to face anyone ever again. I wish I could float away in the air or something, and let go of my misery as I go.
By the time I get back to the house, Jackson’s car is parked in the drive. It wasn’t there when I left, and my heart tightens with apprehension at the thought of facing him. Instead of going into the house, I turn towards the gardens, picking my way through the flowers and shrubs to the lily pond and the gazebo that overlooks it. Somewhere in my mind is the thought of remaining there until I can sneak into the house without the risk of running into Jackson and facing his condemnation again.
The lilies are blooming in the pond, and they look beautiful as they float on the surface of the water. I stare at them for a while before I go towards the gazebo. It’s a small structure with a tiled roof, round, with chest high walls topped with well-tended flower boxes. I used to come here to be alone when I first started living with the Lockewoods, and right now, I need the solace I always found here.