“You’ve got a key to get inside, right?” My eyes bulged at his words, because my usual way of sneaking in was up the tree house and shimmying across the large branch that stopped just outside my bedroom window.
“I don’t know if I can make it,” I mumbled.
“Make what?” Donnie asked, his tone sounded confused.
“The tree house,” I mumbled. “That’s how I sneak in and out of the house.” I knew without a doubt I’d fall out of the tree leading to my window if I tried. Fear filled my heart when I thought how my mom would react when I rolled up drunk at sixteen.
Not that I couldn’t take that, but I knew she’d go into sleuth mode and be relentless within the community until she found out where I’d gotten the booze. I had figured she’d even have involved the police.
“Fuck. Now what?” he asked, releasing me from his arm. He scratched his head and rubbed the back of his neck when he tried to think of a solution.
“Your barn. I’ll sleep there … just until I sober up enough to climb up, then I’ll go home.”
“You can’t stay there on your own, Tricia,” he said, staring at me like I’d suddenly grown tentacles. I began giggling. It was stupid and uncontrollable, and I had no idea what I was laughing at.
Donnie chuckled, staring at me, but as I got louder, he rushed toward me and covered my mouth with his hand. His worried eyes widened before his head snapped toward my house. I knew what he was doing, he was checking to see if my loud laughter had woken anyone up.
“Don’t worry, they can’t hear us from here.” My words and laughter were muffled by his hand. When he hadn’t removed it, I nipped his finger.
“Ow, what the fuck, Tricia?” he yelped, holding his finger up as he tried to inspect it through his drunken haze in the dark.
“God, did I bite you?” I asked, taking his hand in mine and stroking it tenderly.
Before I knew what was happening, we were hugging and kissing, and I can’t lie, I gave as good as I got in that kiss. In my drunken state it had felt much better than any kiss I’d ever had with Brad. Donnie had obviously polished his technique because the kiss was much better than the lip smacks he’d given me when we dated a couple of years before.
“I’ve got to break up with Brad,” I mumbled drunkenly, without much shame because a pang of guilt brought me to my senses. “We can’t do this,” I snapped, stepping back.
“I think we already did,” he replied, his voice raspy, a little slurred and thick with lust. When I didn’t reply he scoffed. “All right, sorry, but I just want to point out that was as much you as me,” he reminded me.
When I stared at him in the dark, my eyes welled with tears, but I swallowed audibly as I tried not to cry. When he saw me close to tears, he placed a palm on my cheek.
“Look, it’s okay, Tricia. Come on, let’s get you to the barn and get your head down. We’ll probably have forgotten we kissed by tomorrow.” Donnie and I trudged back down the lane, his hands shoved deep in the pockets, head down, and his shoulders swaying from side to side. It looked like the walk of a drunk man.
Following quietly behind him, my chest felt tight and my mind was muddled. I suddenly felt sorry for him, because he was right, he may have started the kiss, but I had wondered if it was me who had kept it going. My brain was so foggy, and I couldn’t think straight.
All I knew was since I’d spent time with him during those previous few weeks, I’d learned Donovan Clark was a really nice boy, who was flirty and sweet, and that night he’d confessed to really liking me.
What did I know? I was sixteen, inexperienced in life and relationships, and three sheets to the wind drunk for the first time in my life. The only thing I was sure of was I saw Donnie Clark in an exciting new light, and negotiating that thought with teenage hormones and my first taste of alcohol proved to make the situation between us highly inflammatory.
Chapter Twelve
Tricia aged sixteen
Waking in the dark with a warm palm sliding up my thigh made me stir with a pleasurable sensation. Generous tender kisses pressed into my neck as I writhed in unabashed desire.
Still drunk, I rolled over in the direction of the smooth full lips and they landed on my jaw, traced a path around it, and eventually stopped at the side of my mouth.
“Tricia,” Donnie rasped, his hand sliding farther up my leg until his fingers teased the elastic on the edge of my panties. “I’ve been lying here, trying to do the right thing, when the only thing that feels right is to touch you like this,” he whispered seductively, in a shaky lust-filled tone that told me he was fighting to control himself.
Goosebumps sprinkled like a fine mist shower, scattering from where his fingertips teased between my legs and radiated outward to every extremity from my scalp to my toes, as waves of desire pulsed within me every time his hand moved. The thrill from how he touched me sparked desire from inside I just couldn’t ignore.
“We shouldn’t …” I started breathily, but my head rolled to the side, making access for him to trail more kisses down my neck to my collarbone. “Oh, mm,” I hummed as he rolled me under him, leaned up on one hand, and pulled his T-shirt over his head.
“You’re beautiful, Tricia,” he told me so quietly in a serious tone, and in that moment, I had believed him. His mouth traced the same line he had taken down to the neckline of my dress before he rose up and kissed me, his tongue swirling around mine in a slow sensual tease. Wetness pooled in my panties and I moaned long and loud as I took the weight of his body on mine, enjoying how hard he was as he ground his cock desperately against my pubic bone.
“Let me,” he mumbled, as our kisses became wet and sloppy, our breathing uneven and heavy. My head said no but my body reacted to the contrary, when I spread my legs as wide as I could until my dress material prevented me from going any farther.
Instantly, Donnie reached down and grabbed my hem. I instinctively lifted my butt and he yanked it up to my waist. When he smoothed his hand across the bare skin below my belly button, I bucked frantically when a sharp jolt of electricity shot through me. Moving lower, his fingers skimmed over my panties and he watched me carefully, as if he was testing me. When I didn’t object, he breeched the elastic and slid his long fingers inside.
Finding my clit, he immediately strummed it, “Oh, God that feels good,” I muttered with no inhibitions, spreading my legs even wider, but I whined when he removed his hand again. He growled as he slid two back inside again, and when they slid through my wet seam I whimpered. “Oh, hm,” I moaned when he poked a finger inside and instead of calling a halt to what he was doing I ground against it, eager for more. Bradley and I had fooled around before but the chemistry buzzing between Donnie and I had felt infinitely more.
When he pulled abruptly away I whimpered again, the loss spiking my frustration and a growl tore from my throat. “What?” I asked, my hand palming my forehead, confused as to why he’d stopped making me feel so good.
“I’m taking my pants off,” he muttered, his voice thick with frustration and a guttural rasp in his tone. After a few grunts and groans he was back kissing me, his cock wet at the tip, leaving a trail over my thigh. “Hang on,” he mumbled, fussing around at my ear with his hands until I heard a small tear. “Condom,” he muttered, lifting off me again, as a fresh pool of wetness seeped from my entrance.
Cool air crossed over my entrance until he was back, heat radiating from his lower body, his strong knees pressing between mine, as he inched himself closer until his thick length poked at my entrance.
“You’ve done this before, right?” he asked. I nodded, lying because I was too frozen in the moment to tell him Brad and I had never gone that far. Petting, yes, but never full sex. Although I hadn’t told him I was a virgin, Donnie entered me slowly, with care and concern, and whenever I’d flinched, he stopped instantly.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked. I bit my lip, thanking my lucky stars it was dark and he probably couldn’t have seen the faces I made. “Is th
is okay?” he asked softly again, before he went deeper. A tear streaked from my eye, and I had refused to wipe it, but my heart ached for betraying Bradley. Yet, even as that thought ran through my mind, I had still wanted Donnie to continue.
The sex itself was over in minutes and Donnie panted heavily on top of me. A few moments later, he slid off me and stood up on the barn floor. Fumbling in the dark, I felt sticky so I took off my panties and wiped between my legs.
“I’m going to get rid of this,” he mumbled, and I lay back on the hay and that was the last I remembered.
Waking to shards of light streaking through holes in the wooden barn where small gaps had formed over time, nausea came in waves as I held my pounding head while I tried hard to assimilate what the hell had happened, and how I’d gotten into the Clark’s barn.
At first, there wasn’t much coming forth, but when clipped images floated through my mind about what we had done; I shook my head in disbelief. Although alarmed by the images in my thoughts, I initially thought I’d had an erotic dream. Afterall, I had woken up alone and Donnie was nowhere to be seen. Yet as I clambered to my feet the discomfort between my legs shattered my denial that we hadn’t done anything wrong.
A strong jolt of electricity pierced through my heart when clearer memories from that night began to filter into my brain. Panic then scattered my thoughts in a million different directions. Anxiously my eyes scanned over the barn floor and my heart stopped for a beat the moment I saw my white blood-streaked panties crumbled in a heap about a foot from my shoe.
Fear, shame, and worry mixed a heady cocktail when mingled with the alcohol left in my system. It fueled an adrenaline burst that only served to add to the chaos I already felt. My chest grew tighter and tighter as I staggered around the floor and snatched up my underwear. I hadn’t known which way to turn, what to do, or how come to terms with how stupid I had been.
Startled by the sound of a tractor in the distance, I knew I had to get home. I had no idea what time it was and with no watch on, I was almost certain I’d already been missed. Oh, God, I’m dead, I thought as I snuck out of the barn and ran down the hill to our land.
At first, I felt relieved when I saw no movement from the back of our house. Sneaking along the fence boundary between our two parcels of land, l kept out of sight until I came to the side of our house.
My mom’s going to kill me, I thought. I’d believed there was no way my mom hadn’t missed me, but as I kept my eyes on the back patio doors, I felt relieved each time I encountered no movement.
I’d almost made it to the perimeter of our building line when my mother suddenly opened the patio door. Frozen to the spot, I waited for her to let loose on me.
For a few moments I held my breath as she eyed me up and down. “Well, that’s a far better improvement, Patty. You should always wear dresses instead of that baggie ensemble you insist upon. However, I insist you go back upstairs and brush that braid out, you look like you’ve slept in it… and put some moisturizer on your face, now’s the time to take care of your skin. You’ll thank me when you’re fifty and wrinkle-free.”
“Yeah, I was going to do my hair after breakfast,” I mumbled, not believing my luck that she hadn’t known I had been gone.
“No point in wearing a lovely dress that shows off your figure if you forget the rest of your appearance.” Relief washed through me that she had no idea I’d been out all night. I’d been too far away for her to accurately assess what I’d been wearing when I’d left the house the day before.
“Actually, I don’t feel too well today, hay fever, and I think I’m coming down with something… a summer cold maybe? I think I’ll go back to bed,” I mumbled, flashing her my most pathetic expression and hugging myself. My panties were scrunched tight in my hand and I knew I had to get away from her.
I held my breath when she stepped forward and felt my forehead. “You do look a bit washed out, but I can’t feel a temperature. Take a shower at least before you go back to bed, that way if you do develop a fever it’ll help to cool you down.” I didn’t understand the reasoning behind some of the things my mom said, but I nodded obediently and didn’t talk back.
“All right, I’ll catch you later,” I said, as my heart pounded and a wave of relief ran though me as I walked away.
“I’ll check in on you later … bring you some soup,” she called after me in her matter- of-fact tone.
Fast forward ten weeks and my mom put me through an emotional wringer to the point where I barely recognized myself. I was a schoolgirl in my senior year, concealing a pregnancy at my mother’s insistence.
The day I told her she went ballistic, screaming and shouting what a slut I was and freaking out about her reputation. She told me I’d ruined my life. At one point she suggested I name the father and tell the police he raped me. But that would have been a lie, and I’d never have wrecked someone else’s life because of the mistakes I’d made.
Unfortunately, Donnie Clark hadn’t felt the need to show the same loyalty toward me as I’d shown toward him. He, Alice, and my other so-called friends had heard rumors and not wanting to be associated with me, they made themselves scarce. However, turning their backs on me was one thing, but it hadn’t stopped their tongues from wagging. It came as a real bombshell when I found out my friends had deserted me.
“Can I have a word?” Donnie called out after the bus dropped us both off at the end of the path, a week after I’d found out I was expecting his baby. Mom had warned me not to tell the father or she’d wash her hands of me. I was scared and knew I could never have coped being homeless at sixteen with a baby, and by that point I had felt scared of everything.
After the way he’d behaved, he was the last person I’d wanted to talk to. Ignoring him, I walked briskly up the hill to get away from him, but it was obvious he’d been waiting for a private opportunity to talk to me. As he gained speed behind me, I swallowed hard to stem back tears.
“Is it true?” he asked, running past me and jogging backward as I continued at the same pace I had set.
“What?” I asked, flashing him a puzzled look like I had no clue what he was talking about. The school rumors about him sleeping with me could only have been started by him.
“A baby?” he asked hurriedly. My feet instantly faltered as did my heart.
“What!” I shrieked, instantly panicking. How could he know? I took a breath and tried to remain calm. “Baby?” I asked, sounding deadpan that time, when inside I was falling apart. Somehow my feet began moving again. Scowling, I shoved past him and cast a glance in his direction that told him I’d thought he was nuts.
“Did you or did you not go to Walgreens two towns over and take a pregnancy test?”
“Walgreens? Pregnant—me? No. Although I’m not in the least bit surprised someone concocted that lie up, considering all the rumors that’ve been flying around about me; mostly started by you, I might add. I was extremely foolish and trusted you.” I shrugged. “We slept together, I can’t deny that, but you took advantage of my situation. I thought we were friends, Donnie, and I’m devastated that you ran around telling everyone. Given all the ways I tried to help you, I can’t believe you’d do that to me.”
The smug look he’d been wearing suddenly fell from his face like he had an attack of guilt with my words. I had no idea how I continued to walk and behave like I had no idea about there being any baby. Inside my heart felt as if it had been about to explode in my chest with every step I took. I had wanted to scream at him that the condom he’d been so quick to get rid of had failed, but I kept my mouth shut.
Mom had been dropping me off and picking me up from school every day since my first day back, her desperation to keep my condition a secret had made her hypervigilant of me. That day she’d had an appointment at the doctor’s office and I’d had to go home on the bus.
“You didn’t answer my question, are you having a baby?”
“Where exactly did you hear that?”
“My aunt�
� she happens to work in that Walgreens. She told my mom she’d helped a young girl and told her she thought it was you.”
“Well, she was wrong. Do I look pregnant to you?” I asked, lifting my hoodie, which I could do as my belly was still flat. “See, I’m not pregnant, thank God, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having a kid that was yours.”
Unfortunately, the rumors persisted for a bit, then someone else did something foolish and the spotlight was passed on to them.
If I’d thought those fall and winter semesters back in high school had been torturous for me, they were a piece of cake compared to the nightmare that came my way with spring when my once resilient emotional wealth, confidence, and self-worth were almost completely destroyed by the traumatic ordeal my mother forced me to face.
Sixteen and pregnant would have been a devastating event for most young girls, but I’d spent most of my time at home in the previous months, in isolation thanks to my mother.
No girl in my position should have had to endure the constant pressure of hiding a pregnancy from my classmates and family, and my mom and Donnie’s contribution to my plight had added suffering and shame to the frightening position I had found myself in.
Chapter Thirteen
After lying awake for most of the night reliving my past, I sighed heavily and felt surprised that I somehow felt less affected by the memory since Erin had come back into my life. When I recognized that fact, I took another cleansing breath and that time, when I exhaled again, I felt the tightness that gripped my chest ease.
I turned over to face James and slid my hand over his waist. He stirred in his sleep, his hand slipping from under the comforter to rest on my head. His steady breaths fanned my face and I instantly felt the rest of my tensions dissipate as I stared at him in the dark.
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