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I’m crying.
I shouldn’t be.
But whenever I’m feeling extra emotional—angry, nervous, scared, whatever—my tears flow freely. It’s incredibly annoying, especially in times like these where I’m trying to make a stand.
“I can’t—I still can’t believe you! Oh my God!” I’m basically talking to myself at this point. I doubt Hugh’s even listening, and honestly, I’m kind of going in circles. Plus, I’m crying. Plus, he just said, nearly word for word, that he was only with me to get over lizzie. I mean, sure, I knew he still had some lingering feelings for her when we first met, but I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I’m over Patrick, and no matter how bad it got, I wouldn’t cheat on Hugh.
Well. Probably.
But that’s so not the point!
I had to find out from Helen and Shelley, of all people, and since they’re such gossips, I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that what they were saying was true. So I had to sit through an entire school day without knowing for sure whether or not my boyfriend had chosen his ex over me—because he had the audacity not to show up to lunch. He was probably getting it on with Lizzie in a bathroom cubicle, honestly.
Sure. Maybe I never truly loved my boyfriend. But I respected him. And now I know that he never had any respect for me.
“I just can’t wrap my head around it, Hugh! How long did you say this was going on for, again?” I do and don’t want to hear it, at the same time.
“Two months, give or take.”
“Two months!” I hate how calm and collected he sounds. I’m freaking the fuck out and he’s just sitting across from me like nothing’s the matter. And it never once occurred to you to tell your girlfriend of two years?”
He sighs. “Look, Katie, I was an asshole. I know. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, since I know I don’t deserve it.” How can he even talk like this right now? All reasonable—while he’s making me second guess the past two years of my life? “Maybe in the future, we can be friends again. I’d like that. I like you. But don’t feel pressured to talk to me just because I said that.”
Oh, how I absolutely loathe him!
I hear the ding! sound of a text message going through, and I scowl at Hugh’s phone when he takes it out. No doubt it’s Lizzie, desperate to know when she can hook up with my boyfriend again. Well, ex-boyfriend, now. There’s absolutely no way I’m staying in this relationship after what he just confirmed. Because he may not have much, if any, respect for me, but I respect myself, at least a little bit.
Hugh’s expression darkens when he reads the text, and he looks up at me, standing abruptly and pulling on his jacket. We’re at a restaurant, so typically, I’d be worried about causing a scene, but there’s only one other person here, and it’s the guy behind the counter that looks like he’s about to fall asleep, regardless of the very loud breakup happening just a few feet from where he’s standing.
“Shit, Katie, I have to go.”
“Oh, do you, now,” I sneer.
“It’s an emergency.”
I want to be mad at him for this, but he doesn’t sound like he’s lying, so I just give him a hard look and tell him to go.
He does, and that’s when I realize that I don’t have a ride home.
I let out a long, pent-up groan of frustration, then risk a look at the bartender. He hasn’t moved an inch since I saw him last. So I dab at my certainly flushed and wet cheeks with my napkin, and leave.
I don’t think anyone notices that neither Hugh nor I paid for our meal.
See, I knew something was wrong when Hugh asked to meet up way out of the blue yesterday. We usually plan out our fates pretty well, since we don’t have a lot of them. I agreed, and just this morning, Helen and Shelley confronted me in the bathroom before school and told me the news that was travelling down the grapevine. I’d always been on good terms with them, and so instead of letting the rumors boil around even more and eventually spill over, they cut the crap and told me. At least I have some halfway decent people in my corner, I guess.
It’s late spring, meaning that the air is muggy and warm. However, the sky has darkened and I can feel rain starting to drizzle down from the clouds. The rain is warm, just like the air, but it feels refreshing after the uncharacteristically dry summer.
I hear a car honk from somewhere behind me, and before I even get the chance to turn around and get a good look at what’s happening, a rusty blue pickup truck pulls up next to me and rolls to a stop. Normally, I’d be a little frightened—but I recognize this car, so I’m just incredibly annoyed instead. News flash.
I keep moving, but so does the truck. I hear its driver’s side window crank open, and then I hear the devastatingly familiar voice of the one boy I swore I was never going to associate with again.
“Need a ride, Kitty-Kat?” calls Patrick Feely.
“Fuck off, Feely!” I yell back, not even deigning to look his way. I know he hates that nickname, especially when I’m the one calling him it.
“A little birdie told me your boyfriend abandoned you in the rain and you needed a ride home. So here I am.”
“Would the ‘little birdie’ happen to be my boyfriend? Because, if so, you can tell him to take all his false niceties and shove them up his hole!” I huff angrily and keep moving.
Again, so does the truck.
“Sorry, Kitty-Kat, no can do.”
“Why not?” I bite out. I start to look his way—then stop myself.
“Why don’t you get in my truck and find out for yourself?”
I scoff, finally giving in and leveling him with a glare. He looks amused at my display of anger. “Go stuff yourself."
“Give me another chance.”
“Drop dead.”
“Does your boyfriend know about your feisty little temper?”
“Does your mother know about your free-range roaming dick?”
“Fuck, I love it when your claws come out, kitten.”
“Careful, fuckboy. Be very careful.”
He has the audacity to laugh at me. I flush red and scrub at my cheeks, hoping he can’t tell that I’ve been crying.
“Come on, Katie.” His voice softens. “I’m just trying to help.”
I hesitate, but he looks sincere and I really don’t want to have to walk home in the pouring rain. So I walk to the other side of his truck, open the door, and get inside.
“Where to?” he asks.
“My house.” I promise, it doesn’t bother me one bit that he doesn’t have to ask for my address.
-
A song I don’t recognize plays softly in the background as he drives. The windows are still all cranked down and the balmy air pours into the cabin. Outside, the rain has picked up a bit, and I stick an arm out the window, catching raindrops in the palm of my hand.
“Do you want to … talk about what happened?” Patrick asks, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the song. He looks way too chipper, energetic, while I’m sitting here on the peeling bench, working through a thousand thoughts inside my head.
“To you?” I scoff. “Please. You just want the details so you can run your mouth about me later.”
“Hey, don’t come at me. Just trying to help out a … an acquaintance.”
“Oh, and what wonderful help you’ve been for the past two years, while my boyfriend, your best friend, has been getting off with my tormentor behind my back. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It was obvious, wasn’t it?” I draw my hand back in through the window and dry it on the fabric of my jeans. Patrick’s car doesn’t have any seatbelts, so when he rounds the next turn, I dig my fingers into the seat, hoping he knows what he’s doing. It’s not like he’s never driven me before, but it’s been a while, and we’re in a totally different situation.
“I tried to tell you, Katie,” he says, sighing like he’s been through this with me a million times already. “But you never wanted to talk! You were always pushing me away, telling me to leave.”
“For a good reason!”
“Well, for the record, yeah! It was obvious. I can’t believe you didn’t find out sooner. But then again, everyone’s so quick to believe that Hugh's some sort of saint, while you’re still stuck on the idea that I’m a whore.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re thinking that.” The car slows, and I realize we’re out on a country road, at least a couple miles from the city. Patrick pulls over to the side of the road, stops the car, and turns to look at me. “Look, Katie … I know I fucked up.”
“You did,” I say. But I can still feel the anger being pulled out of my body. I feel … calmer, somehow. I don’t know why that is; I just spent a good five minutes yelling at the boy I swore I’d never talk to again. “And I’m still mad about it, by the way. Don’t think that me accepting this ride from you is also me accepting your apology.”
“Who said I was apologizing?” I narrow my eyes at him. “Katie—”
“Here we go again!” I throw my hands up in the air. “Are you ever going to take accountability for what you did? And no, I don’t mean some stupid, meaningless, drunken—”
I think I could’ve gone on for much longer, but Patrick shuts me up. Except, he doesn’t do it with an interruption, with anger, even with a hand over my mouth. No, he shuts me up by pressing his lips to mine.
What surprises me most is that I can’t bring myself to hate it. Not after two years straight of pretending I didn’t know him. Not after nearly convincing myself that I hated him.
I don’t kiss him back right away. But I don’t make a move to pull back either.
He’s the one who pulls away first, which does terrible things to my ego. I’m supposed to be yelling at him right now, telling him how I really feel. Instead, I’m nearly completely at his mercy.
“Fuck, Katie, I’m sorry—”
“I’m not.” I lean back in and press my mouth to his.
A rush of heat nearly overwhelms me, and then all of a sudden, we’re kissing like there’s no tomorrow. Like the next day, I’m going to be back on with Hugh and he’s going to be left pretending like he never felt anything for me at all. I know he liked me. I know he still does. And I know that I do too. I never stopped, actually, which is the pathetic thing. But unlike Hugh, I’m not a cheater. And even if I was, I would’ve owned up to it immediately. I don’t think I could suffer through an entire two years like he did, being torn between the person I feel obligated to be with and the person I actually want to be with.
My mouth parts on a whimper as his hands slide to my hips and he tugs me onto his lap. The van is just spacious enough to give me a few inches between the steering wheel and my back. He groans in response, and I can’t help but regret that we never got this far back when it was our first time around. Still, maybe the wait made it that much sweeter.
“Can I—” Patrick pulls back again, and I allow myself a moment to catch my breath. “I’ve got to know what the boundaries are here, Katie.”
“Everything,” I say in a rush. “I want everything, Patrick.”
He acknowledges my response with a groan that he muffles just in time against my neck. I never much liked this part with Hugh, but Patrick’s lips are soft and dry against my pulse point, and I can feel myself squirming on top of him, out of my own control. He sucks what I know is going to be a mark into my skin, and I let out a breathy moan. I can’t wait for Hugh to see me on Monday, when we go back to school. Will he be mad? Probably not. But I want him to see just how fast I’m able to move on.
Patrick slips his fingers under the hem of my shirt and drags it over my head in one quick motion. There will be other times where we go slow, but I’ve been waiting too long to torture myself like that right now. He leaves my bra on, but mouths over the swell of my breast. My hips back against his, and he pulls back with dark eyes.
“It’s going to be over in about … two minutes, if you keep doing that,” he warns.
“I can’t help it,” I say. “Hurry up, Patrick. Come on.” I start tugging at his shirt, and he helps me pull it over his head. His chest and abs are muscular and defined, and some part of me wants to take time to appreciate the sight before me; kiss a path down his chest, over the ridge pressing between my legs … but not now. “Do you have a—”
“Glove box,” he breathes out, already tugging at my skirt. “And I want this off, Katie. That okay?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, twisting on his lap to reach the glove box. Sure enough, there’s an unopened package of condoms lying in there, among a bunch of other papers I don’t spare a second glance at. I grab one packet and hand it to Patrick while I rid myself of my skirt and underwear. Am I worried that someone might come by and see us like this? Maybe a little, but the sky is dark and the rain is pouring so heavily that I doubt anyone could see more than a few feet in each direction, honestly. We’ll be fine, and the roads are pretty much deserted at this time of night anyways. I tug at his belt. “Off.”
“Hold your horses, Kitty-Kat,” he says with a breathy laugh. “Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you're in my car, naked.”
“Not naked.” I point to my barely-concealed chest. “I still have my bra on.”
“Take it off.”
I arch a brow. “Ask nicely.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Well, I’m not, either.”
He stops unbuckling his belt for a second to meet my eyes. Then he lets out a muttered fuck it and tugs his jeans and boxers down in one smooth movement, leaving himself completely unclothed in front of me. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve loved a sight more. I’ll take more time to appreciate it later, when we’re not just hooking up in the driver’s seat of his truck.
He slides the condom on and I move into position above his hips, wrapping my hand around him.
“You’re not a vi—” I slide down his length in a single movement and whatever he was going to say is lost to the moans we both let out.
“Hmm?” I ask, adjusting to the feel of him inside me. He’s big and the fit is snug, but it feels comfortable. Right. Better than it’s ever been with Hugh.
“You’re not a virgin?” His voice is breathy. Hah. I made him sound like that, all by myself. I can’t help but feel a little accomplished.
I scoff. “Are you?” He laughs a little, placing his hands at my hips again.
“Touché, Kitty-Kat.”
I begin to move against him, rolling my hips in short, sweet bursts that have me panting and moaning in seconds.
“I—mmm …” I trail off, throwing my head back and squeezing my eyes shut. “I still—ah—don’t forgive you, you know.”
He groans into my chest, one hand trailing up my back to tease at the clasp of my bra. He undoes it and the straps fall down my shoulders. I don’t put up a fight when he circles my nipple with his free fingers.
“I guess I’ll have to work pretty hard to earn your forgiveness, then, right?” he says against my skin, closing his mouth around my nipple.
I moan freely, the sound lost into the rainy night. Already I’m too close. I guess I was pretty worked up. And, I mean, I have been waiting for this pretty much since the moment I met him.
“I’m going to—”
“Yeah,” I manage. “Me too.”
And then it’s over and I’m squeezing tight around him, arching my back so far it digs into the steering wheel. Patrick groans into my skin and I feel him twitch inside me before his body relaxes and I fall against him, in a sweaty, exhausted mess.
“Oh my God,” I say after a long moment. “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“Is that a good response or a bad one?” I giggle. “I’m serious, Katie. Please tell me I didn’t mess that up, too.”
He sounds so genuine that I straighten and cup his face in my still shaky hands. I look deep into his eyes and press a sweet kiss to his lips. His eyes close slowly and his lips chase mine even after I pull back.
“Patrick,” I say softly, with a smile in my voice. “It couldn’t have been more perfect.”
I think I’ll be able to forgive him someday. But for now, I just want to live in this moment.