After that, she lay down and stared straight ahead, trying to let the music take her mind off things, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t stop thinking about Blake. It almost seemed like he didn’t want to be around her, but that couldn’t be true. Before this, he’d given her no inclination that his feelings had changed. In fact, quite the opposite. Even still, her heart hammered in her chest. She curled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Hours later, a car horn honked, and she jumped, still sitting in the same spot she’d been in.
“Arielle, your boyfriend’s here to pick you up. At least I guess he is since it must be him honking instead of comin’ to the front door,” Dad yelled upstairs.
She stood on weak legs, hobbling down the stairs. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll be back a bit later.”
“Ten. I know it ain’t no school night, but it’s still ten.”
Arielle nodded, then flew out the door, ready to get this out of the way. She jogged to the passenger side of Blake’s car through the cold drizzle and slid inside, a bit damp. Darkness had already chased away the brightness from the sun, but when Arielle opened the door, the light inside the car popped on, showing Blake’s pale face. “Okay, what the heck is wrong with you?”
He held up a finger, motioning for her to wait. As soon as she closed the door, he pressed the gas pedal down, throwing up dirt and loose stones from Arielle’s driveway. Her back slammed into her seat, her seatbelt locking up against her chest.
She bit her lip to keep quiet and stared out the window, watching the rain stick to and slide down the glass, which stopped her from giving Blake an earful. Letting him have it before she knew the whole story might be harder than she thought, but she would try to let him explain himself. Maybe something happened with his dad. They had a lot of issues and didn’t get along well. Maybe he didn’t want his son to go home for the holiday or something. She needed to somehow turn her mind off because it wouldn’t stop reeling.
Blake pulled into the back of an abandoned parking lot, the first one he’d ever taken her to, and parked the car. “Ari, I’ve got to talk to you.”
“I could kind of tell, so what’s up?”
He sighed. “Listen. I’m sorry, but I have to break up with you. I…I can’t do this right now.”
Arielle’s heart dropped to the floor and all the breath rushed from her. She touched her lips together, then opened her mouth back up, not able to even form words. None of this made any sense. They’d been happy, at least Arielle had thought they were, and now, for no reason, he wanted to break up.
Before she could stop them, tears welled over her eyes and slid down her cheeks like the rain she’d watched fall down the window.
Blake cleared his throat. “I’m sorry…”
She turned, glaring at him. “Yeah. Thanks. But you already said that.”
“Ari, I’m into you. Like a lot.”
She chortled. “Great. It seems like it.”
He touched her arm and she yanked it into her lap, moving as close to the door as she could. She couldn’t get far enough away.
He winced. “I am. Believe me, I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think I had to. But since I won’t be here more than a year, there’s no way this will work when I go back to South Carolina.”
Arielle couldn’t hear any more. She opened her door and got out, right into the cold rain. She wrapped her arms around herself as the drops soaked into her long brown sweater and she ran, but she had no idea how to escape this.
The sound of a car door slamming followed her, which made her run even faster. She had to get away from him. She couldn’t face him.
She started crying harder, which slowed her down even more. It didn’t take long before Blake grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. She fell into his chest, crying, and he wrapped his arms around her.
She jerked away. “Don’t touch me. What is wrong with you? You break up with me and then try to hold me?”
Blake’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry…”
“Quit saying you’re sorry!” she screamed, her words echoing through the darkness.
“I don’t want to lose your friendship, Ari. You mean too much to me.” Blake ran a hand through his hair.
Arielle took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can be just friends with you Blake. I lo—” She almost said it, but somehow stopped herself before she could make even more of a fool of herself. She couldn’t tell him she loved him after he’d broken up with her.
He walked forward, closing the distance between them. Cupping her cheek, he wiped his thumb across her face. Back and forth. Over and over. She leaned into his touch then stopped herself.
Being his friend would hurt. She had feelings that ran all the way to her core, but if she could keep him in her life, maybe she should. Even if it was as a friend.
Maybe she would learn to stand on her own two feet, not lean on someone else all the time. She’d always had Jess, now Blake. She’d never had to be alone. By herself. Never had she had to find her own inner strength. Maybe now she could.
She stepped away from his touch. “Fine. You want to be friends? Great! But that means no more touching. No more hugs. No tickling. No flirting. Nothing.” She backed away from him, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t know if I can be your friend. All I can do is try. But if you think you can keep everything as it was, you’ve got another thing coming.” Arielle sighed. “Can you take me home?”
He nodded. “Yeah, an early night would be a good idea since I have a long drive to South Carolina ahead of me tomorrow.”
How perfect for him. He broke up with her and would be able to disappear for a few days while she had to stay behind and live with all the memories and be in all the places they’d been together.
If only she’d trusted her instincts before when she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop…but no…she didn’t listen to herself and the damn shoe smacked her right upside the head on its descent to the ground.
She climbed back in the car, stapling her lips together. She had no more words to say. Not tonight, at least. He’d broken up with her out of the blue. She hadn’t seen it coming and still didn’t have a clue where it had come from. It made no sense. But she couldn’t say any of those things yet unless she wanted to sound like a crazy, clingy person, and she had never been that kind of girl.
How could she move forward as his friend? They went together like Cheerios and bananas. A perfect match. She might not know everything about love, but she knew enough to know she loved Blake. And now they were friends. A word she had started to hate.
Sometimes, life sucked.
Chapter 9
Preparations
When Arielle walked into her house, the tears she’d somehow dried up when she’d been with Blake fell harder.
Mom stood from her reclining chair and rushed to her side, wrapping her arms around Arielle. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“He broke up with me, Mom.”
“That no good…” Dad said.
“Dad, don’t.” Arielle stopped him. “He wasn’t mean about it. He wants to be friends because he’s leaving at the end of the year. It’s fine, but it hurts…a little.” Or a lot.
“Honey, boys are going to come and go from your life. Don’t take this one too hard. It was your first boyfriend.” Mom tilted her head to the side, then pulled Arielle close for a hug.
Arielle hugged her back. “Thanks, Mom. If it’s okay with you guys, I’m going to go upstairs.”
“Jess has been calling,” Dad said, bending in his chair to face her.
“I’ll call her back later.” Then Arielle opened the door in the living room and climbed the stairs to her room.
It was early, about nine thirty, but she left her light off, cranked the volume on the radio, and lay on her pillow. She cried for a while longer, then sat up, tired of feeling sorry for herself. She pulled her journal down from the small shelf above her bed and started writing. It might hurt. It might sting. But h
er life hadn’t ended. Writing about it would help, so she poured everything out from her heart onto the paper in front of her. Her mom was right, there were plenty of boys out there in the big world. She didn’t need this one. Boy, did she want him, though.
***
The next morning, she woke up thinking only a few hours had gone by, but the clock read eleven a.m. already and she was late. Her mom had asked her to help with some things for Thanksgiving dinner, which was tomorrow, and there were a lot of preparations they had to take care of before then.
Arielle threw the blankets from her and scrambled out of her room, marching downstairs in the oversized t-shirt and shorts she’d worn to bed.
As she rushed into the kitchen, breathing in the fresh scents of pumpkin and apple pies, she said, “Mom, I’m sorry I overslept.”
Her mom bent down in front of the open oven, oven mitts on her hands and a blue apron around her waist. She pulled a cherry pie out, setting the pan on top of the stove. “It’s okay, honey. I am almost done with the pies. I was going to have you cut the cheese.” She snickered.
“Wow, Mom.”
She couldn’t stop giggling. “Sorry, honey. That joke never gets old. Anyway, cut the cheese and veggies and do the pickle and olive tray. Would you mind?”
Arielle shook her head. “I don’t mind at all.”
So she got to work, grabbing a knife from the drawer and about seven different types of cheese from the fridge. She started cubing Swiss since it was her least favorite, but when she did the Colby-Jack, she could have sworn she ate at least half of the block. Half for her, half for the tray.
The cheese tray didn’t take long to finish, so she covered it and carried it through her parents’ door to the backroom, her dad’s tool area. It stayed cold back there all the time, so it had basically become another refrigerator when they couldn’t fit everything in the one they had. Needless to say, on holidays, the small fridge in the kitchen never had enough room. Mom had a tendency to go a little overboard.
After she placed the tray on the steps which led to the creepy attic, she wiggled back out of the narrow doorway and fell back into her chair at the kitchen table.
“So, how you feeling today?” Mom asked, stirring something on the stove.
Arielle popped open a jar of bread and butter pickles. “I don’t know. Still sad, but a little better, I guess.”
“Remember, sweetie, that sometimes your heart is going to break. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s how you pick yourself up that matters.”
Sometimes her mom said things that connected, and this one hit her head on. Arielle didn’t want to be sad all the time and mope around. Even though her heart still felt like it had broken into a bunch of tiny pieces, she wouldn’t have a hard time putting them back together. “Thanks, Mom.”
The pickle tray had bread and butter pickles, sweet pickles, and dill, but also black and green olives and some little smokies in the center when she finished. It looked good. Pickles were a weakness of Arielle’s and she had to stop herself from eating them all. After she covered it, she took it out back, setting it beside the cheese tray.
When she moved on to the veggie tray, she glanced up at the clock and saw it was almost four o’clock. Time sure moved when you were having fun, except in this case, “fun” happened to be “work.” Arielle enjoyed helping her mom, though, who hummed behind her as she pulled another pie from the oven. Arielle threw her arm over the back of the chair and shifted as Mom held the pie under her nose, sniffed it, and set it on top of the stove to cool with a smile on her face. Arielle couldn’t see, but she could smell the tangy sweetness of apples.
“Smells good, Mom,” Arielle said.
“Thanks. That was apple. So I’ve got cherry and apple done and been working on pumpkin all morning.” She chuckled. “Well, I guess I can start saying afternoon now. I can’t believe the time.”
Her mom was the best baker. The best cook too. Of course, Arielle might be a bit biased. Every holiday, at least the winter ones, Mom had to bake extra pumpkin pies because every single family member wanted one to take home. Arielle stepped through the kitchen into the dining room. Sure enough, there were already five pumpkin pies sitting on the table.
Holidays were spent next door at Aunt Margie’s house. Arielle had a close relationship with her and used to spend the night all the time, but had kind of grown out of it recently. Aunt Margie always did the turkey and ham for Thanksgiving, and Mom always did the pies and the trays, as well as the mashed potatoes.
Since Mom worked so much, Arielle got to spend more time with her when she helped in the kitchen. So, even though it might be a ton of work, she enjoyed the extra time with her mom.
Her heart dropped realizing she’d have all the time in the world now.
“Mom, why are boys so stupid?” Arielle asked.
“Because they have a penis.”
Arielle’s jaw dropped open. “Mom!”
Her mom laughed, then turned to face her as she wiped her hands down the front of her apron, leaving white flour marks all over it. “You might not want to hear it, but it’s the truth and the one thing I’ve ever been able to make sense of. Think about it. Their penis is the difference between them and us, so it has to be the reason they are the way they are.”
Arielle’s cheeks heated. She did not need to hear this from her mother.
Her dad walked in, clearing his throat. “Did I hear what I thought I heard in here?”
Arielle dropped her forehead into her hand.
Her mom placed her hands on her shapely hips, smirking. “You sure did. Men are idiots because they have a penis.”
“Okay, Mom. You can finish the veggie tray. I’m heading to Jess’s house.” No way would Arielle be involved in this crazy conversation.
“Be back by ten, okay?” Dad said.
She nodded, threw the knife down on the counter, and all but ran to Jess’s house. Maybe she should have called first. What if she’d left to spend time with Damien? Guess she’d find out soon enough. Arielle should have called Jess last night, but she didn’t have it in her. Things were too hectic and her head was a mess. Today, her heart didn’t hurt quite as much. Still broken, but on the mend.
At least it might be if she kept telling herself that.
Arielle held her hand up to knock, but the door opened before she could. “Where the heck have you been?” She pulled Arielle inside.
“Blake broke up with me last night.” No sense in beating around the bush.
Jess gasped. “You’re kidding me! But he likes you so much. You two are perfect together.”
Arielle shrugged. “He wants to be friends because he’s leaving at the end of the year.”
“Awesome. I knew there was something wrong with him. He’s a coward.”
Arielle laughed. Jess always had her back, no matter the situation, which made Arielle love her even more.
“He isn’t a coward, Jess. He’s a little mixed up is all. He’ll come around, or I’ll have another great friend in my life. Either way I’m okay with it.”
“How can you be okay going from kissing the guy to not kissing the guy all in the matter of a month?”
Arielle shrugged again. “I don’t know. If you would have asked me last night, I would have told you I’d never be okay again. But…that’s a wee bit dramatic.” She pinched her fingers together for emphasis. “Today, I guess I’m happy he wants to be in my life at all.”
“Well, I’m glad you came over.” Jess hugged her. “I missed you, Ari.”
Arielle made a face. “Listen, I had to come. My mom was telling me guys were idiots because they had a penis and then my dad came in all…dadly…you know? It was either fly the coop or hear a conversation my fragile ears weren’t anywhere near ready for.”
Jess chuckled. “Good call. You want to hang out and watch a movie?”
Arielle nodded. “I’d love to. How about The Breakfast Club?”
“You read my mind.”
; The rest of the evening, they sat on the couch eating Ruffles potato chips and watching a movie about teenagers who didn’t fit in together but found new friends in a day of detention, nothing like the reality of high school.
Afterward, Jess’s mom drove Arielle home since it was dark. She wouldn’t let her walk this late, ever, which Arielle kind of appreciated because she didn’t want to walk in the dark anyway.
When she went inside, her dad leaned back in his chair.
She smiled at him. “Hey, Dad. Where’s Mom?”
“She’s sleeping. She has been working hard on all those pies. I swear, she can’t ever cook for a small family, it’s always for an army.” Dad chuckled.
Arielle smiled, sitting on the sofa across the room. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sure she knows.”
Dad pressed his lips together. “Tell me, how’re you holding up?”
Arielle shrugged.
“Let me tell you something, and this is my honest opinion. I’m real good at reading people, Ari, and that boy’s eyes when he looks at you tell a different story. He might say he wants to be friends, but there ain’t no way. Maybe he is scared because when he goes home, if he lets himself fall for you and stay as attached to you as he has been, he won’t be able to let you go.”
Arielle tilted her head toward the ceiling. “Maybe. Either way, it is what it is, Dad. He wants to be friends, so I’ll give him a friend, but when I go on a date with someone else, he can’t be getting in the middle.”
Dad winked. “That’s my girl.”
Arielle crawled up the stairs. She sure did love her dad. He didn’t talk a whole lot, but when he did, his words were important and meant something, like tonight.
Chapter 10
Break’s Over
Crush: A YA Romance Collection Page 81