“Shut up,” I muttered, a muscle in my jaw tensing. It took everything in me to simply say those two words and not a whole lot more. My mind reeled, and I…I needed time to process. I needed…
Well, I thought I needed Kelsey, but with the way she was acting, she didn’t need me.
“Shut up?” Kelsey repeated, taking yet another step closer to me—dangerous territory, considering the conversation we were having. The most dangerous territory there was. “I’m finally talking to you, and you want me to shut up? Make up your fucking mind—”
She stood so close now, so close I was able to see the golden flecks in her brown eyes, the bit of color in their otherwise dark depths. Those eyes were not the eyes of someone who wanted a fight. Those eyes were the eyes of someone who just wanted to give up, not in. I knew it then: this was Kelsey trying to push me away, Kelsey saying these hurtful things to get me to stop. Whether or not they were true remained to be seen, but…
Fuck. This girl couldn’t help by making things easy, could she?
I shouldn’t have expected more from her. She always made things difficult. Difficult, I was pretty fucking sure, was her middle name. Mine? Stubborn. Stubborn and rash.
I had quick, fleeting thoughts about grabbing her and kissing her, wordlessly showing her that I meant everything I said, that she was never a lie to me, but those thoughts disappeared rapidly when I imagined her with someone else. Another guy. A rich guy with, in her words, a fat wallet and a bigger dick.
It was supremely difficult, but I held myself back from her. I held myself back, muttering, “I’ve made up my mind. It’s time for you to make up yours.” I said nothing else, spinning to walk away. For once, I was the one walking away from her. For once, she was the one watching me leave.
For once, I hoped Kelsey regretted the words she’d spoken.
“My mind is made up,” she called after me, annoyed, though I steadily ignored her. I ignored her, focusing on dragging one foot in front of the other, my back straight even though I’d just heard the worst news of my life.
Kelsey, with someone else. Kelsey, with another guy. It was like that night she’d gone with Grady to his car, only different because I wasn’t there to intercede, to stop her, to make her realize that she couldn’t go giving herself to some other guy when she was already mine.
Mine. She was mine. Why the fuck couldn’t that girl realize it?
Chapter Five – Kelsey
By the time I told Levi that my mind was already made up, he was gone, a figure in the distance. Probably a good thing, because what I said next would’ve only hurt him more. “I love you.” These three words I didn’t shout, because I didn’t want anyone else to know, especially Levi.
God, the look on his face when I told him about being with someone else…
I was a bitch. The world’s biggest, right about now. I’d said all that to hurt him—but hey, at least I told him the truth. I was with another dude, he just didn’t need to know that I hated myself for being with that dude. Nope. As far as Levi was concerned, I had fun over the weekend. I got my rocks off and my socks off by some rich boy whose dick shot money-laced cum.
The nitty-gritty details of the truth were so much less satisfying, but like I said, Levi didn’t need to know. He most certainly did not need to know I’d slept with one of my best friend’s crushes.
No. I’d made a mistake, and for the first time in my life, I regretted it. My life had been full of partying and mistakes, but this? There was no coming back from this. I’d said those things to hurt him, to push him away, hoping that he would finally just give up. Like, okay, he was persistent, I’d give him that, but that was about the only thing I could give him.
Levi and I couldn’t be together. There was too much baggage all around, and I…
Clearly, I only fucked up when it came to relationships. Why bother trying to have one if I was only going to mess it up past the point of no return anyways?
I did love Levi. Whatever weird part of me that still had feelings for him, even after sleeping with Sawyer, broke when I watched him walk away. In all of our encounters, in all of our arguments and bickering, I didn’t think he ever was the first one to walk.
I pushed him to walk first. This was what I got. This was what I wanted, even though it wasn’t. What I really wanted, of course, was Levi, but that was a pipe dream for a perfect world. The world we lived in was too messy, too burdened with past infractions. The real world sucked ass.
The sky let loose a single drop of water, and I felt the first raindrop on the tip of my nose. The cold water droplet startled me, and I slowly glanced up at the grey sky; soon enough this sky would be a permanent fixture. Sunny days were few and far between in wintertime, and since it was November now…
Yep. Winter was definitely coming.
Here winter meant the occasional heavy snowfall, but also freezing rain, sleet, ice, and hail. Yeah, fun stuff when the weather couldn’t make up its damned mind.
When another drop fell onto my cheek, I lowered my face and spun to hurry towards the sliding doors of the dorm building. Not even two seconds after I was safely under
