Going Under (26 page)

“I know what he has to do for his grandmother, but it’s not because he wants to. He told me everything and it doesn’t change how much I love him. I still want to be with him,” I pleaded to my mom.

She rose from where she laid and sat on the edge of the couch. “Jessie is a nice boy and he has endured some horrific circumstances. It’s an absolute miracle he is still alive, but I won’t allow you to become part of his world. It’s simply too dangerous.”

I felt the fury within me growing. “I just love how the two of you have made all of these decisions about what’s best for me,” I yelled.

“Jessie is smart and he knows your place isn’t with him,” she replied.

“If you know everything about him, then you know he doesn’t want to do it and he’s only living there until graduation,” I explained.

“We are not going to argue about you dating a boy that sells illegal drugs because it’s not happening. This topic is no longer up for discussion.”

I had to make her see. “He’s never had anyone to depend on in his life and look how he has turned out. He’s highly intelligent and so athletically talented. He is going to make something great of himself. He won’t always be like this.”

“Well, you’re not having anything to do with him while he is,” she insisted.

“I’ll be eighteen a few months and you can’t stop me after that,” I screamed in a tantrum as I stormed out of the living room to my bedroom.

I ran up the stairs to my bedroom and slammed the door. I prayed she didn’t come to my room to try to change my mind and she didn’t. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway because I wasn’t giving up until Jessie was back with me.

My mom didn’t allow me out of the house the rest of the weekend for fear I would go to Jessie’s. It was a smart move on her part because that is exactly where I would have headed even if he locked me out of his house and ignored me while I beat and screamed at his door.

Since I was homebound all weekend, I looked forward to school on Monday and I hoped Jessie didn’t skip. My muscles were tense with my jaw clenched tightly while I sat in my car waiting for Jessie because I knew what it was I had to do.

I saw him pull into the parking lot and I scurried out of my car and knocked on the passenger side window before he came to a complete stop. He hesitated and I knew he was weighing the pros and cons of letting me get in his truck, but he leaned over to unlock the door and I jumped inside before he could protest.

We sat in awkward silence for a minute, then I looked down at my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry about Friday night. I shouldn’t have come up in your house without you knowing. I guess that makes me no better than Forbes and I’m sorry I went all crazy on you like I did.”

I looked up and Jessie’s face was turned away from me, staring out the window of his truck. “I wish my circumstances were different, but there’s no way to change my reality right now. I love you with all of my heart, but I can’t have a relationship with you while I’m in the middle of this mess. You’ll end up hurt and I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

He still wouldn’t look at me. “If I’m choosing between being with you or keeping you safe, I’ll choose keeping you safe every time.” He turned to look at me and said, “Friday night was a real eye opener for me. I hate to think what might have happened if he had gotten past me.”

“I think I did a pretty good job of defending you and myself. Do I need to remind you I’m the one that sprayed him with pepper spray?”

“Do I need to remind you that the only reason you had to spray him with pepper spray was because you were with me? In case you have forgotten, it was an addict that came into my house and killed my mom in front of me, then tried to kill me.” He reached out across the truck seat and grabbed my hand. He squeezed it when he said, “I would never forgive myself if...” but he was unable to finish his thought.

I was desperate to maintain any form of contact and I slid across the seat. I took his face in my palms and said, “Please don’t cut yourself off from me. If I can’t be with you the way I want, I’ll take whatever I can get.”

He wrinkled his forehead. “Are you saying you want to be friends if we can’t be together as a couple?”

I closed my eyes and put my forehead against his, not a friend move, but I didn’t care. I said I would take whatever he would give and I meant it. “I am if it’s all you’re willing to give me.”

I felt him shaking his head, causing mine to move with his. “I don’t know.”

I couldn’t stand the pain of going back to pretending he didn’t exist, but even worse would be him pretending I didn’t exist. “Do you really want to go back to the way we’ve been for the last month?”

He put his hands on top of mine over his face. “I don’t want to go to anything but being with you every minute of every day, but that isn’t what’s best for you.”

He was quiet while he speculated on my proposal, then said, “I guess we can try it, but I think you should stay with Forbes because it will just make it more difficult if we’re both single.”

I shook my head violently. “No. Forbes isn’t the one I love and I don’t want to be his girlfriend anymore.”

“It does my heart good to hear that, but I think we’re setting ourselves up for failure as friends if we’re both available.”

I wanted to fail at being friends because I felt nauseated by the thought of him with another. “Does that mean I have to see you with someone else?”

“No. If it’s not safe for you to have a relationship with me, it won’t be safe for anyone else either. I don’t mind because I can’t see myself with anyone other than you.”

I wanted him to be happy, but I was glad I wouldn’t have to see him with another girl. I thought of the pain he would experience from seeing me with Forbes and said, “It isn’t fair. You shouldn’t have to see me with Forbes.”

“I’m being selfish by telling you to stay with him because I know you don’t love him. If you were with someone else, I would be worried and constantly wondering if I was standing by and watching you fall in love with someone else.

“So, this is it?” I asked, painfully.

He let go of me and the removal of his touch was like a painful withdrawal. “This is it. Friends from this point on.”

I looked around at the parking lot, then at my watch. I saw we were late for homeroom because we had talked much longer than I intended. “We’re late.”

He smiled and said, “Yeah, I know, but I don’t care.”

I took another look around. The parking lot was full of cars, but their occupants were long gone. “If we’re going to be late, we shouldn’t be just a little late. If we have to take a tardy, one minute is no different from ten minutes.”

He smiled and narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you getting at, Princess, because I know there’s a hidden meaning there that I’m not seeing?”

My heart rejoiced when he called me Princess because I loved it so. I scooted so closely to him air could barely separate us. “I need a moment to say goodbye if we’re only friends from this point on.”

He pulled back slightly and said, “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. You know it’s going to start something that we’ve clearly decided should end.”

“You decided it should end,” I reminded him. “And I’m not letting you go until I get a proper goodbye.”

I leaned around and tilted my face toward his to take the kiss I deserved. I teased him at first by placing a light kiss on his mouth, then sucked his bottom lip into my mouth and tugged on it lightly. I prolonged the playfulness of our kiss another minute, then heard him moan lightly and it sent me into orbit. I simultaneously knew I loved him with all my heart, but was never going to be like this with again and I felt an intense desire to make the most of it.

I raised onto my knees and climbed across him with a knee on each side of his leg and he didn’t stop me like I thought he would. Instead, he reached under my skirt and pulled my hips hard against him as he pressed himself against me firmly. I reached down for the button on his jeans and said, “I want you to do it. Right now. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

He reached down to help me with his jeans, then I realized I was wrong. He grabbed my hand instead and stopped me from going further, but I continued kissing him down his neck even as he told me, “This isn’t what you want.”

Between kisses, I muttered, “The hell it’s not. I’ve never wanted anything more than you right now.”

He grabbed my shoulders and gently pushed me away. “We are not doing this in the school parking lot in a parked vehicle for anyone to walk by and see.”

I was desperate to not lose this moment. I licked my lips while I looked at his mouth and said, “Take me to your house, then. Take me to get a room. Drive away from here and park where no one can see us. I don’t care.”

I felt the tears building and I covered my face when I couldn’t stop myself from crying. I heaved from the sudden uncontrollable sobbing and said, “I just want to be with you. I don’t care where.”

When I opened my eyes, Jessie was crying with me and he pulled me closer so that my forehead rested against his. “I know. I know.”

I sat straddled on top of him and we held on for dear life while we both cried about our imminent goodbye. When it felt like I didn’t have anymore tears to cry, Jessie whispered, “We have to go in.”

I knew he was right. He was always the voice of reason, but I squeezed a little tighter and hoarsely said, “Give me one more minute, just one more, then we will.”

He gave me five more and I cherished each one like it was the last I’d ever have with him because for all I knew, it was.

32 Accidental Grazes

Jessie

It was a silly notion to think Claire and I could have a goodbye kiss that didn’t turn into...that. The physical attraction we shared was crazy and I agreed to her proposed goodbye knowing it would be intense, but never dreamed we would end up crying in each another’s arms like we would never meet again.

We stood side by side at the office window waiting for our tardy slips and she allowed her fingers to graze mine, sending a tingling sensation all over my body. I thought it was an accident, but when she did it a second time, I looked at her and silently mouthed the word, “Stop.”

Although she smiled devilishly, she looked like she might begin to cry again. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, making them look even greener, and I thought she never looked more beautiful because I knew the tears she shed were for me and the loss of her hope for us being together.

She slowly grazed my hand with hers a third time. I looked around for prying eyes, then reached for her hand and brought to my lips for a quick kiss. This brought a true smile to her face and I promised myself we would do better tomorrow because I just wanted to make her happy today.

After we received our tardy slips, we walked toward our first period classes. We came upon my classroom first and she said, “I’ll see you in Humanities.”

I looked down to see how late we were. Yikes, we were really late for class. “Yeah, pretty soon judging by the time on my watch.”

She walked away backwards and said, “Good,” before she turned around to go to class. I stood next to my classroom door watching her make her way down the hall. She turned around to see if I was still there watching her and smiled when she saw that I was.

We were being ridiculous like two teenagers in love-because that’s exactly what we were. The ridiculous part wasn’t how we stood around grazing hands when no one was looking or how we watched one another hoping no one would take notice. Because we couldn’t be two carefree teenagers in love was the senseless part of it all.

I wasn’t in Calculus long before it was time for second period with Claire. I was strangely neurotic about being in class with her today. Things felt so different and strangely unsettled although we both agreed we were saying goodbye to anything between us other than friends.

For the first time, we met one another on the way to class. Claire instinctively reached to loop her arm through mine and sent my heart to galloping. A second later, she remembered why she shouldn’t and pulled it away, causing me to be saddened. It was awkward to have been so intimately close in my truck only a half hour ago and now unable to touch physically.

We were only in Humanities a couple of minutes when Mrs. Tanner announced we would be spending our class time in the library today. We walked silently to the library, both of us wondering what the other thought about going to our private table toward the back of the library. We stopped to look at one another as our classmates dispersed without the least little thought about their choice of table.

Claire became quite aware I wasn’t going to make a move and said, “Do we go with tradition or is today the day we choose a new table?

The safer thing to do was choose a table in the middle of all the other students, but I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to share Claire today. I wanted her at the back of the library where it was just the two of us. “I think today has already been filled with enough surprises, so why don’t we stick to what we’re used to? I think we do great work without all the distractions.”

She smiled because she liked the sound of that and said, “I couldn’t agree more.”

We sat at the table and she leaned forward to get something out of her backpack. I watched the way her hair fell forward slowly, forming a curtain that hid her face. It reminded of when I laid under her on my bed and it fell forward, brushing my face and bare chest.