The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (359 page)

"Is this okay?" he asked before he stepped in.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. I closed my eyes again. Out of all the ways I had imagined this happening, this was not on that list. I was pleasantly surprised.

"May I?" He was holding a soapy loofah in his hand.

"Sure," I said as I instinctively turned my back to him to wash. He scrubbed the loofah gently from shoulder to shoulder blade slowly, taking care not to miss a spot. As he neared the small of my back, I arched slightly at the sensation of his touch. His free hand gripped my shoulder and pulled me in close to his body. I leaned back into him giving into the moment. He slid his hand down the front to my breast and caressed it gently as he kissed my exposed neck. I moaned quietly in pleasure. The sensuality had driven me to the edge of a cliff similar to the one we jumped off just hours ago.

I turned to face him, and before I could say anything, he took my mouth in his and kissed me with a hard urgency that I gladly reciprocated. His tongue tickled the inside of my mouth as we found a musical rhythm to dance to.

You know those epic kisses you see in the movies where the music pulses as two people finally find each other? This was that epic kiss. I could feel myself transported to a world free of my past that was filled with guilt, shame, and confusion. He had taken our souls to a place where they could dance free with the stars for an eternity.

The water streamed down over our lips as we continued to indulge in the taste of heaven. I grabbed his hair and gripped it tightly as my arousal rose with his.

His fingers crawled down from my breasts to my midriff to find my innermost state of bliss. As they entered me, I bit on his lip and then threw my head back as I felt his fingers dance within me, finding those intricate points of pleasure. He nibbled on my neck with every moan I released. The water trickled down his arm to his thrusting fingers that heated up my core. I didn't want to climax without him, so I took his fingers out and kissed him hard as I climbed onto his hips and let him enter me. He took it slow at first as we explored each other with our hands, tongues, and lips, letting our souls connect with every motion.

The hot water added to the erotic pleasure of our first time together. I didn't want to stop kissing and touching him. I gave him all of me. Every cracked part of me. With every rocking motion, he was cementing the pieces together so I would never fall apart again, and I loved him for that. I dug my fingers in deep as I reached my moment to which he quickly moved to join in.

He pushed me up against the shower wall as he tried to hold onto his own mounting pleasure. I rocked quickly to help him. He grabbed my hair and gripped down hard and let out a loud moan as I sucked and tugged on his earlobe.

When we were finished, we scrubbed each other while exploring any parts of our bodies we might have missed. Even him washing my hair was erotic. The night was clearly not finished. We wanted each other over and over again until our bodies were too exhausted to move.

We made love again in his bed. It was gentle and sweet and exactly how I had imagined it. Now that we had taken the edge off of the sexual tension, we were able to enjoy the sensuality of our skin grazing against each other and the butterfly kisses on the neck and the tickling of our fingertips.

At one point, we locked eyes and he leaned down and whispered, "I love you," into my ear and then kissed me passionately. How could I make this last forever? How could I make us last forever?

It turns out I couldn't. I couldn't even make it last twenty- four hours. Braedyn disappeared that morning before I woke up. Literally. That was the best and worst week of my life. Thank God Kylie was there for me. None of the guys would tell me where he went. Kylie and I hung out with everyone but him for the rest of the week. We still stayed at his place, but he never returned or called. He didn't even show up to take us to the airport.

I wrote him a letter. It was the hardest letter I had ever written, but I promised myself I wouldn't leave with regret, so I penned everything. I told him how I felt about him since I met him. I chewed him out for ditching me like a coward, and I told him I never wanted to hear from him again. The tears filled the pages making the ink bleed. I thought about rewriting the letter, but then thought it would be good for him to know how bad he had crushed me.

Let him see my tears. Let him feel the pain I was living. Between the dried tears and the shaky writing, I hoped he would regret this week for the rest of his life. I wanted him to be haunted by demons that followed me around like my shadow.

I left the letter on his nightstand beside the other one. As I grabbed my bag, I looked around and took in the last moments of our friendship. I was leaving half of me here. Dean stole the other half, so I had nothing left now. I was hollow.

Going back home wasn't easy. I had nothing to go home to. I felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my life. I wasn't really sure how to proceed.

That was the first day I learned the importance of surviving by just going through the motions. I wasn't sure if I would have made it through the dark days had I not just shut everything off. I focused on my classes and just tried to forget, something that Dean didn't make easy.

He still called every so often to check in on me. He always ended the short conversation with an apology. I hated it. It made me feel even guiltier about Braedyn.

Dean wanted to meet up, but I wasn't ready. I think a part of me was still holding out for Braedyn, but he never called. He never wrote. He deleted me from his life as I had asked him to, but didn't necessarily want. What I wanted was for him to come after me and beg for my forgiveness. To tell me that he loved me and that he was an idiot for doing what he did to me. I held out, but it never happened.

The fairy tale moment lived in a little spot inside my soul where it would resurface throughout the rest of my life and torture me. It would keep me from being blissfully in love ever again.

****

T
he semester ended, and I miraculously passed all my classes with
A's
. This was my last semester at the JC and soon it was going to be time for me to think about transferring to a university. I was still trying to convince Kylie to move out with me, but she had no desire to go to college yet, and she was happy living at her parents' house. They were rarely home, and she had it made there. I didn't blame her. Unfortunately, the closest university was at least two hours away, and I really didn't want to make that commute. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I got into all the universities in which I applied, so now it was a matter of getting the courage to do it alone. It was never the plan, but now it had to be.

I had the summer to think about it, so I did. I had always loved writing, but never really made time for it. My therapist encouraged me to write to get me through my attacks now that I didn't have Dean to comfort me. It helped, but it also opened up a Pandora's box of deep, dark, hidden memories.

The first real thing I wrote about was the miscarriage. I didn't realize until I put it down on paper how much it actually affected me. I had become so good at disregarding my feelings that I never really took the time to feel them. It hurt like hell purging them, but it was also cathartic. I somehow felt lighter after each writing session, even if it wasn't about anything personal.

I had always been into writing, but now I started to feel like I was meant to be a writer. I wanted to be a writer. This would alter my college plans, but since I was living a different future now, what difference would one more change make?

I was sitting on a blanket overlooking the valley watching the sun set as I finished writing about my first episode that led my parents to take me to a therapist. It had been prompted by a very bad choice. One that solidified my negativity toward drugs of any kind.

Before I met Kylie and Dean, I had fallen into the wrong crowd. I was so lost when I started high school that I just fell in with anyone who would take me. I came from a private school, so I didn't know anyone. I should have thought twice about this crowd, but I was a gullible, insecure kid that would do anything. I had a boyfriend in the crowd and just did whatever they did, including drugs.

At first, it was just smoking pot and drinking, but they were also into heavier shit. I stayed away from some of it, but when they asked me to shroom with them, I did it. It was a natural psychedelic, so I thought it would be fine. I was dead wrong.

I tagged along with my boyfriend's crew to the beach to get high. It was one of the worst nights of my life. I had eaten an eighth of shrooms on my own, and when it didn't seem like it was working, they convinced me to smoke pot to enhance the effects. That was an understatement. Once it kicked in, I was gone. I started down the road to a bad trip and never came back.

Everyone ditched me, too afraid that I would cause them to have a bad trip, too. Like it was a contagious fucking virus. My boyfriend wasn't high, just drunk, so he stayed with me while I fought for my sanity for what seemed like hours upon hours. It turned out to be only a couple of hours, but when you are seeing bugs crawl all over the place, you have to concentrate just to breathe, and hearing "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails play over and over again in your head, it felt like a fucking eternity. I lost my mind.

My parents were concerned, so they took me to see someone and that was when I was first diagnosed with manic depression. It was good and bad to hear there was a label attached to my psychotic breaks. Good because I felt a little less crazy; bad because I was medically diagnosed as crazy. They wanted me to take pills to help, but I refused.

Although the bad moments were horrific, they weren't unbearable, and I had gone through enough of them to know there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I had no desire to fill my body with manufactured poison. I had survived before them, so I would continue to survive without them.

The summer was coming to a close, and I still hadn't decided what I was going to do for school. At that point, it was probably best to just postpone it. I was really enjoying the stress- free life. I spent most of my time in my spot writing. It was my escape from reality.

I hadn't heard from Dean in a while, and I was starting to miss his voice. Recently, thoughts started creeping in about trying to reconcile with him. When things were good between us, it was amazing. Funny how I could only focus on the good now that we were apart.

Braedyn had completely disappeared from my life. Well, almost. He still haunted me at night when I lay in bed. He was usually the last thought that dashed across my mind before I fell asleep. A love like that couldn't be that easily forgotten, but I was trying. I wanted to feel that again with someone. I wanted that again.

It was starting to get dark, so I gathered up my things and walked back home. I had the sudden need to talk to Dean. He had tried for so long to reunite, but I continually denied him. Now that he stopped trying, I was ready. I had finally come to terms with his betrayal. I knew I could never be with him again if I couldn't learn to let go and forgive him for what he did.

I didn't want to be in a relationship where I couldn't trust someone whole-heartedly. I couldn't live waiting for the next betrayal to smack me in the face. It wasn't fair to either of us. I needed to be sure, but I never imagined that day would come. But I suddenly felt free of the past. I trapped it in the pages of my journal where it was permanently etched.

I had yet to write down anything about Braedyn. I wasn't ready to relive that. That small part of me that held his memory in a straightjacket wasn't ready to let go.

When I got home, I went straight to the phone and dialed Dean's number. I was ready to see him. I was ready to talk about what happened. I was ready to try again. We had so many good times together, and my heart ached for the loss of so many years, memories, and feelings.

I was nervous as his phone rang. We had never gone more than a few days without at least saying hello, and now it had been almost two months.

"Hello?" giggled a girl.

I froze. That giggle sounded eerily like Kylie's giggle. That was the last thing I was expecting. I tried to say something, but nothing would come out.

"Hello?" she said sassier.

I hung up. I felt stupid for doing so because he would know it was me from the caller ID, but I didn't know what to say, or even if I should say something.

What if that was his girlfriend? I don't think she would be happy about his ex-girlfriend calling. But really, did I give a shit what she thought? No. I was hurt, and I felt an unwarranted sense of betrayal. I guess I just figured he would tell me if he moved on, but he wasn't required to.

We weren't together anymore.

We weren't friends anymore.

We weren't anything anymore.

It finally hit me that I had truly lost Dean. I had felt empty before, but now I felt nothing. My sudden need for Dean was my intuition telling me I had finally lost him.

The other thing that pierced my most precious internal organ of life was the sound of that voice. It really did sound like Kylie, but that couldn't be right. They weren't even friends when we were together. Besides that, she would never do that to me.

Or would she?

I was so lost these days that anything was possible, and it seemed like the universe was pushing me deeper and deeper into myself with no point of escape.

I hadn't talked to Kylie much this summer. In fact, if you looked up
hermit
in the dictionary my name would be highlighted. I was trying to regroup and recover from a hard year, which in my world, meant isolation and self-reflection. My parents worried a lot, but they knew I was strong and they trusted my judgment. Plus, they stalked me tirelessly to make sure I hadn't hurt myself or lost my mind. The writing saved me from a mental collapse.

I thought about calling Kylie to debunk my suspicions, but I felt stupid. And what was I going to do? Just straight up ask her if she was hanging with Dean? Or ask her what my mind really wanted to know, if she was hooking up with him. The silent rage built in me.