I suddenly felt a pang of jealousy that I couldn’t define. I didn’t like my brother. Why was I all of a sudden feeling bad that he wanted to hang out with Keely and not me? It wasn’t like I had any desires to sit on the back porch and talk to him about what he did with his idiot friends while he got high.
“I guess,” I said, going for aloof. I couldn’t let Keely know I was borderline upset. “Did you hang out with him for a while?”
“Um, sure,” she said vaguely, and I realized she wasn’t telling me everything. She was holding back, and I suddenly figured out why.
“You smoked with him!” I accused, pointing my finger and catching her off-guard so much so that her head snapped up. Her eyes gave her away. I knew in an instant that she’d gotten high with Chase. “Keely!”
“What?!” she said, sounding both defensive and a little hurt at the same time.
“What do you mean, what?! You said you would never do that! You’re too good to become like Chase and his loser friends. What were you thinking?”
Keely looked down again. “I’m sorry, Emily, but I wanted to see what it was like. Plus he was being nice to me,” she mumbled. “I told him I couldn’t sleep, so he offered. I didn’t want him to think I was a baby, so I took a few hits. It was sort of fun. I was really relaxed and calm.”
“You took a few hits! It was fun! Unbelievable,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down, so our parents wouldn’t hear. As much as I disliked Chase, I didn’t want him, or Keely, to get in trouble.
As if on cue, Chase, baked to a crisp, chose that moment to appear in the kitchen. His eyes were heavy and a lazy smile played on his lips. It soon turned to a look of amused confusion when he saw me looking up at Keely, since she had a good four inches on me, my hands on my hips. He could tell we’d been arguing.
“Told you she’d freak out,” he said to her in that slow way he talked whenever he was freshly high, a lazy smirk creeping onto his face.
He knew instantly what we were talking about. Hell, he could have heard our whole exchange.
Keely shot him a look, pleading for him to shut up.
“It’s cool, Keels,” he said, chuckling to himself as Keely shrunk back against the wall.
Chase walked past us to the refrigerator, grabbed a two-liter of Coke and took a big swig right from the bottle before putting it back. I reached over and smacked him on the back of the head just as he set the bottle down, sending him lurching forward slightly, as if his reaction time was slower than normal.
“What the fuck, Emily?” he said, slowly turning to face me.
I glared at him and crossed my arms in front of me. “She’s seventeen, dumbass, that’s what. Besides, that Coke does not belong to just you. Use a glass. That’s gross.”
Chase smirked, grabbed the bottle and took another drink just to spite me. Keely’s head snapped up at that moment, an almost delayed reaction as she processed what I’d said about her.
“Hey,” she said, causing us both to turn in her direction, but she was looking at me. “I’m not a baby. I can make my own decisions. Last night, I decided to smoke weed with my brother. Big deal! It’s not like I killed someone. Quit being so self-righteous!”
With that, she turned and stormed out of the room. My jaw dropped slightly, since Keely rarely yelled and especially not at me. Chase recognized that fact and stared at me in mock interest before he shook his head and started to leave the room. God, he made me so mad sometimes.
“Chase,” I said curtly, as he reached doorway to the kitchen.
“Yeah,” he said, lazily turning around, not at all fazed by my tone.
“Why?” I asked simply.
“Because it’s really not that big of a deal, Em. You should try it sometime. You’ll see. Hell, it might even make you less rigid.”
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, his words eating at me. I was not rigid.
“No thanks. I’m good,” I said firmly, standing my ground.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said, turning away from me. Then he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “You know, she’s not a dumb kid anymore. You might want to give her some credit.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond – not that I knew what to say anyway. He just headed back upstairs. Within a few minutes, I could hear his music pulsing through the ceiling.
Standing there in the kitchen, I realized I was beyond fuming. I was furious at Keely for being so stupid, and I hated that she was mad at me. If only she realized what a big deal smoking weed was. I didn’t need her following suit on Chase’s bad habits.
I should have been more upset with Chase for our interaction, but with him, well, that was pretty much a par for the course conversation for us. He was a jerk, and I’d challenged him blow for blow. I wasn’t sure we’d had a conversation that didn’t involve digs, glares, and smirks since we were in middle school. Sadly enough that was as good as it got with my brother and me.
Chapter Five
“Babe,” Ben said, taking my hand. “I really want to see this movie, and so does everyone else. Come on.”
I was being stubborn, because Ben was being annoying. Ever since he’d picked me up, I’d been irritated with him. There wasn’t one specific thing he’d done that was bothering me. It was just being in close proximity to him that I was finding aggravating. He kept trying to hold my hand and touch me, and I just wanted to be left alone.
We were standing outside the Movietown 8 Theater with Rachel and Ben’s best friend, Eric, trying to decide on a movie. Rachel and I had talked about seeing a new romantic comedy, but once Ben and Eric had seen that Don’t Close Your Eyes had opened that day, they’d decided they had to see it. Rachel said she was in, which left me as the odd man out.
Ben wouldn’t see the movie without me, but he was dying to see it. I knew that. He was a huge horror movie fanatic. He never got scared. I, on the other hand, was a huge chicken, and afraid of the dark, so the last movie I wanted to see was one about bad things happening in the dark where I would inevitably be in just a few hours.
Ben squeezed my hand and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I promise I’ll hold your hand the whole time. I’ll be right next to you. I won’t let you get scared.”
He stood back up and looked down at me, smiling slightly.
That was why I hadn’t broken up with him. He was really sweet at times – even when I was being a total brat, which had been a regular occurrence since we’d been home for the summer. His gesture was enough for me to forget about how annoying he was being. I couldn’t be mad at him when I needed him to hold my hand.
“Okay, fine,” I said, begrudgingly cracking a small smile as I turned to face my friends.
I watched Ben’s mouth break into a wide grin. “Yes!” he said, pumping his fist into the air.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, holding his hand tighter. “No letting go, okay?”
“Never,” he said, as he leaned down and kissed me.
Suffice it to say, I screamed out loud three times. The rest of the time, I either had my hand over my eyes or my head buried in Ben’s shoulder. When we got back to my house, I made him come upstairs with me, since I was pretty much afraid of everything around me. I definitely couldn’t be alone until I calmed down and distracted myself.
The light in my parents’ room was on, but their door was closed. We had to be extra careful not step on Randy, our Yellow Lab, who was sprawled out asleep in front of their door as we crept toward the stairs,. If we woke him up, the barking would ensue and we’d be caught. It wasn’t like Ben wasn’t allowed to come over. My parents knew the depth of our relationship and that I spent several nights a week at his apartment when we were at school, but I wasn’t a big fan of them knowing he was in my childhood bedroom in the middle of the night.
On the second floor, from behind her closed door, I could hear Keely on the phone, no doubt talking to one of the many guys she was dating. I guess when I thought about it, it was good that Chase was e
xerting his big brother authority, since Keely was in a situation that could potentially end badly. Maybe she needed someone to have her back, although thinking about Chase being that guy was unsettling.
Chase’s door was open halfway, the light was on, and I could see part of him sitting in front of his window, smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke out into the night. I shot a glare at his back hoping it would hit him. What he’d said to me earlier was still bugging me.
Once behind the protection of my bedroom door, I let my guard down just a little, but still held Ben’s hand as we sat down on my bed. He tried to start kissing me, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I brushed him off. Since me getting upset and holding onto my emotions was a new thing, Ben didn’t even catch on – just like he hadn’t caught on earlier that I was annoyed with him. He just laid back on my bed, so I laid next to him, and he took my hand again.
I sighed once, as if to communicate to Ben that I was irritated. When he didn’t react, I looked over at him. He was gazing at the ceiling, so I tried again. This time I huffed, well aware I should be able to just be an adult and talk to him about what was bothering me, even if he was the catalyst and it would undoubtedly be an uncomfortable conversation. Of course, maturity eluded me that night.
Ben heard me. He didn’t turn his head but said casually, “What’s wrong, babe?”
I sighed again, really drumming up the drama. “You don’t think I’m too rigid, do you?” I asked, assuming that he would automatically refute my statement.
Instead, he said nothing. He just looked over at me, with an expression that told me he wanted to say something, but he was trying to figure out how to word it. He opened his mouth, a look of wariness on his face.
I interrupted him before he could speak. “Oh, great! You think I’m too rigid! That’s just fantastic.”
I looked away from him and stared hard at my alarm clock. The bright red numbers read 12:19. I watched them until they became too blurry to read and then felt Ben twist and put his arm over me. I pulled away from him.
“Babe, come on. I don’t think you’re too rigid.”
I looked at him through my peripheral vision but didn’t change my position.
“You’re structured,” he continued. “And that’s a good thing, because you keep everything so neat and organized. I can’t remember dates, but you can. I’m messy, and you’re not. It works, you know.”
I softened my posture a little bit and looked over at him. “So you think Chase is wrong?”
“Chase? What do you mean?” he asked, looking confused. “I thought you were talking about something else.” The last part came out mumbled as if he hadn’t really meant to say it out loud.
I moved back to put some distance between us. “I got pissed at Keely for smoking weed with Chase, and he told me I was rigid. What do you mean something else?”
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. Ben and I had argued more in the past few months than we had during the entire length of our relationship, and never once had he asked me what was wrong. I assumed he was frustrated with me, but he’d never once actually validated that assumption. I could just tell, just like I could tell he didn’t want to tell me now what he’d been referring to. He looked startled, like he hadn’t thought I’d picked up on what he’d said.
“Oh, well, um, I just thought that you were talking about tonight at the movies,” he said, shrugging.
Now I was thoroughly confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Babe, just drop it. It’s no big deal,” he said, as he tried to pull me into his arms. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Oh no,” I said vehemently, pulling away from him. “I’m not dropping this.”
Ben sighed, and I could tell he really didn’t want to be having this conversation. He hesitated before saying, “Well, it’s just that lately you’ve been different – sort of angry or something. I don’t know.”
My eyes narrowed at his comment, but secretly I was glad he was finally acknowledging the obvious, so I let him continue.
“Like tonight, for example. Everyone else wanted to see that movie, but we had to practically beg you. It was like if you didn’t want to see it, none of us could. You were sort of bitchy.”
“That is not fair,” I said, shaking my head. He was well aware of my phobia of all things dead or dark. I did not think I was being unreasonable.
“You were being selfish, Em, and it’s not like you to be that way. It’s like lately you’ve gone from being disciplined to difficult.”
I didn’t say anything for several seconds. I just let her words sink in, letting the gravity of them wash over me.
“I know,” I finally said. Tears of anger and regret pricked the backs of my eyes.
“You do?” Ben asked softly, and he just sounded so dejected.
I suddenly knew what it had been like on his end for the past few months and instantly felt shitty for how I’d been treating him. He looked sad and distraught, like he wasn’t sure what to do with me, but how I’d been acting toward him had clearly been upsetting him for a while.
“Ben, I’m sorry if I haven’t been that fun to be around. I’m just dealing with a lot right now, and I’m not really sure how to process it all,” I said gently, trying to calmly explain my position. I ran my fingers back through his hair. “I’m just not sure what to do.”
I watched him closely, trying to gauge his reaction, but it seemed nothing I was saying was hitting home. Instead of asking me what was wrong and what I was dealing with, he was refusing to accept it, and I think I knew in that moment what our problem was. If he’d ever shown any inclination that he could tell something was wrong, maybe I would have opened up to him, but I knew Ben, and I knew that he hated anything that would rock his perfect world. His girlfriend going through a life crisis of sorts wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You’ll figure it out,” he said, as if it were that simple.
I turned away, infuriated with him again. “You really don’t get it,” I muttered, my chest constricting with the thought of how far apart we’d drifted.
“Babe, don’t be like that,” he said, sitting up next to me, reaching for my hand. He obviously still didn’t get it. “Come on. You’re just tired. You need to relax.” He kissed the spot behind my ear before moving his kisses down my neck, so I knew exactly what he meant when he told me I needed to ‘relax’.
“Don’t,” I said moving away from him and crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I do not need to relax. I’m not tired.”
Ben sighed. “Babe, listen. I get it. This is a big year for us. It’s our senior year. I know you’re worried about what will happen next, but you just have to trust that everything will work out. I’ve got a job lined up at my uncle’s accounting firm in Atlanta, and you can do your PR thing. We can live in Buckhead. It’ll be great.”
I smiled at his enthusiasm, but it didn’t reach my eyes.
“But, if I have a great season, I could get drafted next year. I know it’s a long shot, but how cool would it be – me in the NFL and you as my hot wife who cheers me on at every game.” His arms encircled my waist, and he pulled me against him. “Everything will work out for us, you’ll see. I love you so much. You are sweet and kind and adorable, and I knew I wanted to marry you from the moment I set eyes on you.”
I couldn’t help a small, genuine smile peeking out at his words. He was being sweet, even if he still didn’t get what I was dealing with.
“Ben what if I want to work?” I asked, looking over to gauge his reaction.
“Then you’ll work,” he said, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear. “I just want you to be happy, and if having a career makes you happy, then you’ll do it.”
I nodded, but he still looked at me appraisingly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, searching my face for some kind of clue as to what he could possibly be missing. Unfortunately
, even I didn’t know the answer to that. “Aren’t you happy?”
No, I’m not.
In that moment, there were a million things that I wanted to say – that I should have said, but I didn’t. It would freak him out to know what I was truly thinking, and he was already starting to look a little uncomfortable.
“Of course, I’m happy,” I said, putting my hands on either side of his face and kissing him.
“Good, because I can’t have my future wife mad at me,” he said, around my lips. I felt him smile before he deepened the kiss.
Within a few minutes, we were half-dressed, and Ben had succeeded in distracting me enough that I’d stopped obsessing about the unknown. He started to move his kisses down my stomach and back up.
“Please,” he murmured in my ear, as he moved his hand to my hip and trailed his finger across the lace at the top of my underwear.
I instinctively put my hand on top of his to stop him. He looked up in disappointment. I knew that look well.
“No,” I said, softly. “Not here.”
“Come on,” he begged, and I could tell he was getting frustrated. “No one will hear us. I promise I’ll be quiet.”
We’d only had sex a few times since we’d been home, mostly because we were both living at our parents’ houses, and it felt dirty to have sex with them down the hall. We’d had to wait for limited opportunities when our parents were at work and our siblings weren’t home, which wasn’t often.
I shook my head. “No way.”
“Em, you’re leaving in a few days. Come on.”
I kissed him deeply, making him groan slightly. I could feel against my leg how much he didn’t want me to turn him down, and it wasn’t easy to push him away.
“We’ll have the house to ourselves once my parents are gone,” I promised, knowing there would be at least one night Keely and Chase would be out. “It’ll be just a few more days.”
Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns) Page 5