If I Can't Have You (12 page)

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 the 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.”

The guy outside is Bobby Coulsen, a kid we’d gone to high school with. Well, he was more like a God at our high school. Every girl wanted him at one point during their high school career.

But Whit…

Whit had him. She’d dated Bobby Coulsen for six months our junior year and was envied by every girl in our entire school, me included.

She’d once said, “I don’t why he likes me.”

She might have not known, but I did. Not only was Whit beautiful with her long, strawberry blonde locks, flawless ivory skin, and child-like blue eyes, but she was fun, kind, and sweet. I’ll never forget the day Bobby Coulsen strolled up to our cafeteria table to talk to her. Whit was hardcore blushing (which is rare for her) and I almost choked on my turkey on wheat.

 
Sadly, ‘The Bobby and Whitney Show’ didn’t last too long.

And what was even worse was that he was her undoing. He’d cheated with some bitch on the cheerleading squad and Whit was devastated. She lost it after that. A lot of drunken benders. A lot of one night stands.

“Did you know?” she asks with a trembling voice.

“Did I know what?”

“Did you know that he vacations here?”

“No.” My eyes widen. “I’ve never seen him here before and I’ve been vacationing here practically my whole life.”

And that’s the truth. Honestly though, it doesn’t surprise me that we’d seen someone we know here. It’s only hours away from our home town and a lot of people come here randomly in the summer.

Whit and I are looking at each other and the sound of Bobby and the girl he’s with laughing echoes through the air and wafts toward us and Whit’s chest sinks and she starts sobbing again. In a flash, desperate to make the laughter disappear, I turn the car on and hit the power windows button. But the laughter doesn’t disappear. It presses on the glass and gets louder and louder and I think Whit might be sobbing harder purposely to drown it out.

For a while I just hold her. I let her cry on my shoulder and run fingers through her hair, trying to comfort her. Part of me thought that Whit was over Bobby. He’d dumped her the summer before our senior year and every time I’d ask her if she was okay, she’d huff and say, “Okay, I’m great. That tool did me a favor.”

Even though she said those things I knew that wasn’t true. She put up a good front, but I’d catch her staring at him all the time; in school, or at the mall, or at Friday night footballs games because he was the captain of the team.

She’d always check his Facebook status to see where he was or what he was doing. And sometimes, she’d purposely jog past his house in the mornings just to get glimpse of him, getting ready for school in his bedroom window.

You see Whit lost her virginity to Bobby, and it wasn’t long after he took that part of her that he cheated then dumped her for Jennifer Berger, the co-captain of the cheerleading squad. I’d kept a watchful eye on Whit during that time because every time she’d look at Bobby, I’d see the longing in her eyes. I’d see the pain in her eyes and I would have done anything to take it away.

Eventually, even though it took some time she returned to her normal self, but I’d still see her give Bobby those longing looks and apparently I thought she was over him and she really isn’t. “Don’t you see,” she sniffles and digs her fists into her eyes. “Don’t you see why I’ve been so insistent about the whole “Drake” thing?”

“What? Are you saying it’s because of Bobby?”

Whit slouches in her seat, blows out some air and places her head against the window. “I don’t want you to end up like me.” She stares at me intensely. “Look at me.”

“I am.”

“No I mean really look at me,” she raises her voice. “I’m a wreck! A stupid, pathetic blubbering mess over a guy who cheated on me and dumped me over a year ago!”

I shake my head. “You shouldn’t be blaming yourself.” I grab her hand and squeeze. “Nobody would have ever thought that Bobby would have turned out to be such a mega douche. He was very charming and deceiving.”

“That’s exactly my point!”

“Huh?” Now I’m confused. “What point are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you being like me. Infatuated with someone who doesn’t give a crap about you and letting your whole universe revolve around them. Bobby never gave a fuck about my feelings. All he ever wanted to do was fool around or talk about football or talk about himself. I just tuned out all of the bad and pretended everything was good so that I didn’t have to face reality. Because reality sucks. And you know what the reality was; was that I was nothing to him, but a piece of ass.”

“Whit, I—.”

“Let me finish. I was a piece of ass and I had my heart broken and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever let that happen to you. It will be a cold day in hell before I let some jerk hurt you the way Bobby hurt me.”

I’m elated and moved and I can’t even think straight. I’ve always known that Whit cared in her own off-kilter way, but this is deep. Abyss deep. “Come here.” I stretch my arms and pull Whit into a warm embrace. She cries into my shoulder and it’s weird that her saying all of that about Bobby makes me realize that she’s right…

I’m worth more than being a piece of ass to some hottie and so is she.

~18~

Some emotions don’t make a lot of noise. It’s hard to hear pride. Caring is faint, like a heart beat. And pure love, some days it’s so quiet you don’t even know it’s there. ~Author Uknown~

Whit decides to turn in early. After today’s events I don’t blame her. Today was definitely an emotionally draining day.

I lie down for a little bit, but can’t sleep so I decide to walk down to my spot to watch the sunset. Maybe it will take my mind off things or at least distract me for a little while.

Walking out the front door, Mom passes me and catches me by the elbow. “Where ya going?”

She lets go of me and I step away, walking backwards. “I was just gonna go watch the sunset.”

She smiles. “We’re going into town with the Marshall’s. They’re having a firework display. You want to join?”

“Thanks, mom. But I think I’m just going to stick with my own plan.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Mom waves and walks through the front door as I stroll away from the house.

The sky is cloudless and I watch the seagulls as the whip through the miles of orange, yellow, and magenta. The sun hangs low, casting a shimmering reflection off the water and it looks like lightning bugs are resting along the surface. The sight of it relaxes me, soothes me, and sweeps me up into an embrace of ambiance.

I sit close to the water. The waves are calm today and as a small one rolls into the sand with its white caps and fizzing bubbles it feels surprisingly warm against my skin. I shut my eyes and listen to the sounds of the roar of the crashing waves, feeling completely lost and calm, visualizing myself floating in the deep blue sea, not a care in the world.

Keeping my eyes closed, I fall back onto the sand and spread my limbs out. The rough texture of the grains of sand is irritating yet calming at the same time. I feel like the sand is scratching away pieces of me. Every time a grain rubs against my skin it’s scraping off a new piece. First there’s hurt. Then regret. And who knows what will be next. Maybe foolishness.

Footsteps plod into the sand and pull me from my thoughts. I sit up and open my eyes and glimpse over my shoulder, noticing a body moving toward me. “Whit?” I shout.

Maybe she woke up and decided to come looking for me. Or maybe she decided she needed a distraction too.

“No!” A deep beautiful voice shouts back. Not Whit. Then I see his perfect, white smile gleaming beneath the light of the moon as he comes into view. Elliot.

Instinctively, I stand as Elliot picks up his pace and starts jogging toward me. He’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of hunter green board shorts. That’s the bad thing about being on vacation; hot ties always walk around flaunting their perfectly chiseled abs.

Elliot is a hottie that I want to avoid at the moment, so I turn and start walking

.

He’s getting closer. “Hey!” His voice hangs in the night air. “Where are you going?”

I ignore him and keep walking until he finally catches up to me. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” He keeps up with me and walks next to me.