“Not if I can help it.”
“Seriously, enough of this shit!” Whit hops up off the bed and starts yanking on my arm. “Get up. We’re going shopping.”
“No we’re not.”
“Robs, I am not going to let you spend the rest of the vacation cooped up in this room!” Whit pulls me until half of my body is dangling off the edge of the bed. “Get up.”
I don’t move. Whit tugs on my arm with more force and grunts as she begins to make more progress. Now my entire abdomen is hanging off the edge of the bed and I’m digging my toes into the mattress to keep myself from falling. “Whit, stop!” Another forceful tug and I feel like she’s going to rip my shoulder out of its socket. “You’re hurting me!”
She doesn’t listen and says, “So.” Then she continues tugging. Finally I fall into a heap on the floor. Whit drops my arm while I lie there on the floor. She crosses her arms and taps her foot impatiently. “Get a move on it, Robs.”
“No,” I groan.
Whit crouches down right next to my ear. “Trust me, if I have to pull you out the door by your feet I will.”
I grumble and push myself off the floor, sitting up with my back against the bed frame. “Whit, the hurt still feels too fresh. Too new. Just give me another day or two. I promise. I’ll come out then.”
She shakes her head, standing up. “Nope. I’m not buying it.” She walks to the door. “Let’s go. Robs, I know you. One, you give up way too easily. Two, if things get hard or difficult you shut yourself out. You never face your problems head on.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And how is that a bad thing?”
“Because then the problem never gets solved. You’ll never have closure. You’ll never move on. Look how many years you’ve spent pining over this tool. The only way you’re going to be able to move on is if you confront the problem head on. Yeah, it will be painful. Yeah it’s going to suck. But at least you won’t be spending every vacation from here on out seeing him places and feeling awkward around him, wondering why.”
Her words make sense, but I’m still wary about leaving. What if I see Drake out with Sadie? I know that will be my undoing and I don’t want to give either one of them the satisfaction of seeing me cry in public over what they’ve done to me. Also, what if Drake asks me to talk? I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to have a normal conversation. I’m too pissed and heartbroken and more than anything I think that any conversation that I have with Drake will most likely lead to a slap across the face over me sticking around to listen to whatever lame excuse he’s going to give me.
And I know he’ll have one ready. A lame excuse.
Guys like Drake always have something prepared in situations like this. He’ll either say, “It’s not you, kid. It’s me,” or “I just don’t want to be in a relationship right now.” I swear I can hear the sound of my hand connecting with his jaw ringing in my ears already.
Whit extends her hand and wiggles fingers, leaning over inching closer to me. “Seriously, Robs. It’s only for a little while. If we see him and it’s too overwhelming for you we can come back.”
I glimpse at her from the corner of my eye. “Swear?”
She flashes me a cheesy grin. “I promise.”
Whit is so persistent. Sometimes I have a hard time telling her no—no I have a hard time telling her no all the time.
My parents give us the car to use for the day. They are headed down to the beach with the Marshalls. I’m in the driver’s seat and dad stands at the window and motions for me to roll it down. I hit the power windows button and he leans into the car. “Why don’t you guys take Sadie with you?”
“No.” I don’t think I can say it fast enough. Sadie walks in front of our house with her cell phone in hand, texting away. I scowl at her and wish that her phone would spontaneously combust and blow her hand off. She’s probably texting Drake.
“Hey, Sadie!” Dad calls.
I grip his wrist and squeeze. “Dad, no!” I glance at Whit and a nervous flicker resides in her eyes.
Dad ignores me.
Sadie stops, glares at me for a second, and averts her attention to dad, flashing him a fake smile. “What’s up Mr. M?”
I’m pretty sure my fingernails are digging into dad’s arm, but he doesn’t pay attention. “The girls are going into town to go shopping. Would you like to join them?”
If looks could kill I swear Sadie’s fierce eyes would give me a heart attack. “That’s okay,” she says coolly. “I have other plans.” A smug grin tugs at her lips and she waves at me. I assume by the look on her face and the way she said, “I have other plans,” she means that she has plans with Drake. And I feel like I’m about to go crazy on her.
“Jesus, kiddo,” Dad huffs. But I can barely hear him. I can’t take my eyes off of Sadie and the phone that’s glued to her palm. Is she talking to him? Is she? Is she? Is she? Or is she just saying it like that because she knows it will get under my skin and eat at me like a flesh eating parasite. Dad pries my hand off his arm. “Robin, sweetheart. You really need to cut those fingernails. They’re like claws.”
I face dad and he’s examining bright red crescent shaped marks on his forearm from my nails. “Sorry, Dad,” I mutter under my breath and try to look around him to see if Sadie is still on her phone, but I can’t see her. She’s disappeared from my view.
Whit shrugs and looks out the passenger window and dad leans into the car again. “Well you two be safe okay?”
“We will daddy.”
He kisses my forehead and then I back the car out of the driveway.
In Paradise all the town shops are so bunched together. One right next to the other, kind of like the beach house we come to every year. And it’s nice that everything is so close. One because then you don’t have to walk far to get to where you want to go and two because it’s extremely hot and you don’t have to spend too much time in the blazing heat. There’s like a ten second time span in between walking from one shop to the next.
After we park the car, the first shop we go into is a swimwear shop. It’s a small cubicle of a store with the girls swimwear on the right half and the boys on the left. When we enter Whit flashes me a look with an excited gleam in her eye. “Do I smell a sale?”
My eyes focus on the back of the store and there’s big read sign hanging over and few racks that reads; 25 percent off. “You’ve got a good sniffer there, Fido.”
Whit doesn’t hear me. She’s already walking with a pep in her step to the back of the store.
While Whit peruses the sale rack, I thumb through a few of the racks in the front of the store, but every bathing suit I pick up has like a zillion dollar price tag. I pull out a skimpy white lace bikini and examine the contents of it. Seriously, who wants to pay a hundred bucks for some string and two fabric triangles that barely cover your nipples? Not me, that’s for sure.
I make my way to the back of the store and Whit has a few suits in her hand while she continues going through the rack. “I see you’ve found some stuff,” I mutter and skim the sales rack. I’m over the shopping trip and it just started. I wish I would have just stayed cooped up in my room for the day.
Whit faces me and holds up a neon orange bikini. I frown and point to it. “What is that?”
Whit glances at the bathing suit then back at me. “Um, a two piece bathing suit. You should buy one sometime, Ms. Speedo.”
“I’ll pass. It’s way too loud for my taste.” The last thing I want to wear is a neon orange bikini. “It reminds me of an orange caution cone on a construction site.”
Whit scrunches up her face and places the suit back on the rack. “Good point.” When Whit turns back around her eyes widen and her mouth drops open.
I start turning. “What?”
Whit grabs my arm and squeezes before I can twist all the way around. “Don’t turn around.
“Is it him?” I lower my voice, and a flash of worry sparks in my eyes.
“No,” Whit says. “It’s w
orse. It’s her.”
Sadie.
What about her damn plans? She probably just said that to avoid riding with us. Not that I really care. She’s the last person on the planet I’d want riding in a car with me right now. The sound of metal scraping against metal throbs in my ears as Sadie looks through a rack of swimsuits. “Whit, we have to get out of here,” I whisper.
There a huge part of me that wants to confront Sadie, but when I think about it I really have no right to. I mean I do, but I don’t. Sadie and I aren’t friends anymore so how would she know that I’ve been head over heels for Drake for the last three years. Then again, she saw us at the party together. If she couldn’t tell by the way I acted around him that I was interested in him than she had to be really drunk. Or maybe she didn’t care that I was interested. Some girls thrive on that you know.
But Whit doesn’t give me any time to confront her. A nanosecond later she’s stuffing the swimsuits in her hand back onto the rack and yanking me out the door before I can give Sadie a second look.
Outside the store Whit places both of her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eye. I meet her gaze and exhale as a million questions pound through my brain and my heart begins to dislodge from its cavity. I focus on the sidewalk, staring at a few loose rocks. I can feel the tears building, ready to fall, drop from my eyes and dampen the cement.
Whit shakes me. I look at her and pain ripples through her features. She embraces me. “I’m so sorry,” she says apologetically. “I shouldn’t have made you come today.”
I back away from her and wipe my tears away with my wrists. “Its fine,” I sniffle. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would be this difficult.”
All I can think about is the way their limbs were tangled together and the way Sadie was kissing Drake. So deep. So passionate.
“What? The shopping trip?”
“No.” My voice cracks. “Mending a broken heart.”
~17~
Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it's better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together. ~Author Unknown~
For some reason that I can’t explain, I tell Whit I’ll be able to handle it if we go to one more store. But I don’t know if that’s true. It seems like every time I say that I’ll be able to handle whatever the day throws at me, my day automatically takes a turn for the worst.
I guess that’s ironic because as soon as we walk into the CD shop my day does get worse. Much, much worse.
Elliot spots us as soon as we walk into the shop. He’s in the back of the store and he raises his eyes from a CD in his hand. He and I exchange a glance then he smirks and bites his bottom lip. A quirk that totally reminds me of Drake and I have to look away. I close my eyes and see Drake’s face. I see his lips. He’s whispering words. He bites his lip and my breath hitches just thinking about it.
I feel Whit’s eyes on me, but I don’t meet her gaze. I know the look she’s wearing and it will be too painful for me to stare at her when she’s wearing the “I’m worried about you, Robs,” look. Instead I mumble, “I’ll be in the front of the store.” Then I distance myself from her. I don’t wait to see if she’s following.
I pick through a bin of CD’s finding nothing that appeals to me and move on to the next one. After picking through that bin, I still can’t find anything and now I’m not only tortured and in pain, but I’m frustrated too.
“Nothing good, huh?”
Elliot’s voice startles me and my head snaps up. “What?” The sound of his voice stabs my ears and I dig into the bin in front of me, shuffling through piles of CD’s to do everything I can to avoid looking at him.
“Are you avoiding me?”
Elliot catches on fast. I want to tell him, yes I’m avoiding you. You remind me too much of that douche-lord sibling of yours, but instead I keep my eyes on the bin of CD’s, praying that Whit will come over and insert one of her famous, one-liners. I wait a minute and Whit doesn’t show. God never answers my prayers when I want him to. “No.”
Elliot leans closer to me and I can feel his warm breath in my hair before its wafts down my neck, bringing on a trail of goose bumps. “I think you are.”
I face him, but keep my eyes low. I can’t look at his face. Well, I can, but I don’t want to. Instead, I stare at his abs that are hidden beneath a thin, white cotton shirt. I find myself wondering how it will feel to run my fingers over them then I push that thought to the side, finally meeting his gaze. There’s warmth in his blue eyes, warmth that I’ve noticed residing in Drake’s eyes a few times too.
For a moment, neither one of us says anything. We’re standing in the middle of the CD shop, gazes locked; only focused on each other. The cash register dings and shuffling footsteps echo in the background, but I tune them out. And even though Elliot is staring directly into my eyes, I can feel his watery orbs everywhere. They are touching my shoulder, caressing my thigh, and squeezing on my heart. “No I’m not.”
Finally breaking away from Elliot’s magnetic gaze, I scan the store for Whit. She’s in the back, thumbing through a row of Cd’s. She lifts her head, locks eyes with me and I give her a look of desperation, a look that says; “save me.” A few seconds later she abandons her search and starts toward me and Elliot.
“I think you’re lying,” Elliot tells me.
So what if I’m lying. I scan Elliot’s face and narrow my eyes. He reminds me too much of his brother with his trusting grin and perfect proportional features and top of that, Drake has broken my heart and my trust. I was blinded by a beautiful face, stellar smile, and washboard abs. I was taken advantage of by a man who led me to believe I meant more to him that just some summer fling and I’ll be damned if I let that happen to me twice. “I’m not lying. Why would I be avoiding you?”
A coy smile creeps across his face and he shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I thought maybe you’d want to avoid me because of what happened with my brother.”
I don’t want to have this conversation. The last thing I want to do is talk about what happened with his brother, especially when it still feels so…so… so fresh. “Well, you guessed wrong.”
Whit steps up next to me and laces her arm through mine. “You ready to go.”
“Yes.” The word couldn’t leave my lips fast enough.
I take a step forward, pulling Whit with me when Elliot stops us. He touches my arm and a smoldering fire crackles on my bare skin. His fingertips burn and suddenly he catches himself touching me and yanks his hand away. “Sorry,” he says and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to invite you guys out on my boat day after tomorrow. Either one of you ever been sailing?”
“No,” I say. “I think I’ll pass.” I can’t help but think that Drake might be on this little trip and I don’t want to take any chances.
I look at Whit waiting for her to mirror my reply, but she purses her lips. “Once.” Then she shifts in her stance. “It might be fun.”
Elliot flashes a dazzling grin. “So is that a yes?”
I narrow my eyes at Whit and she shrugs. “No,” I say, lowering my voice. “It’s a we’ll think about it. Check back in two days.”
Elliot nods and he seems to be satisfied with my answer. “Will do, ladies. Will do.” He flashes us another million-dollar grin and strolls of the CD shop whistling.
After we walk back to the car, I slam the driver’s side door as Whit hops into the passenger seat. “I can’t believe you just did that,” I huff and fasten my seatbelt. “I do not want to go sailing with him, Whitney!”
She closes the door and pulls her seatbelt over her shoulder. “So don’t go. Look, Robs, I don’t know how many times we have to go over this. You need to stop being a baby. You didn’t love Drake. Yes you may have deep feelings for him, but, I know it wasn’t love. It was some kind of weird infatuation and you’ve got to get over it. And if that means hanging out with his equally hot brother. Then so be it.”
The sound of Whit’s seatbelt fastening fills up t
he confined space and I sigh, planting my forehead on the top of the steering wheel. “What if he’s there, Whit? What if Drake is there? Did you even add that into the equation?” I turn my head to the side and peek up at Whit, but she isn’t looking at me. She’s staring, eyes wide, out the windshield. “Whit, what is it?”
“Bobby Coulsen,” she mumbles, transfixed in a trance-like state.
“Bobby Coulsen?” I scrunch my eyebrows together, confused. “That was random. What about him?”
Whit nods at the windshield and drops her gaze, playing with her fingers.
I look out the windshield, and observe a guy and a girl. The guy is tan with spiked, chocolate brown hair and caramel colored eyes. He’s bulky, but not in a chubby way. He’s bulky from being packed with muscle. He smiles and pulls the blonde that he’s with close. They both laugh and before I know it, Whit is sobbing so hard that she’s gasping in between her cries. She lifts her head slowly, sucks back her tears and the look of pain that flashes in her eyes breaks me. “Whit,” I say softly and pull her close. “Don’t cry. It’s okay.”
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