Four Doors Down (30 page)

“Are you being serious?”

He nods his head and a wry smile crosses his face. “I am so in love with you, Becca. Always have been.” He pauses, studying my face for my reaction. “Everyone knows it too and I couldn’t care less. I’m sick of pretending I don’t think you’re the best person I know. That I don’t think about you the whole time. I think you’re the only one who hasn’t picked up on it.”

I think back and it all starts to make sense. I remember how he always seemed to be there, how he was always watching me if I was talking to someone. How Jake was always trying to push us together, how when we’re not fighting it’s so easy to be around him, how its comfortable and relaxing, like being with my best friend. Then I think how Ryan is capable of pissing me off more than anyone else I’ve ever met, and how I’ve not been able to stop thinking about him or our kiss since it happened.

Oh my God. I’m stupid. I love him too!

A huge smile crosses my face. I can’t help it. I’m literally beaming.

Ryan lets out a breath he’s been holding and tentatively returns my smile. I take a step toward him and he meets me halfway. He takes my hand and I feel a shiver run up my spine. We stand like this for a few minutes, just grinning at each other like idiots, soaking each other in, seeing each other in a different way.

Then he hesitantly leans forward to kiss me, slowly, giving me the chance to pull away if I want to. I step forward, pressing my lips to his and wrapping my arms around him and pulling him into me.

Everything just feels right.

We should have done this year’s ago.

I
walk out of my coach’s office still grinning like an idiot. There’s no hiding it; I’m crazy happy. I never thought it would ever happen with Becca. I’ve wanted her for as long as I can remember and now she’s finally mine. I can’t even believe it.

I remember the moment I realized that I loved her. We had just started high school and I knew I liked her. I knew her ignoring me gave me a weird ache in my stomach, but I didn’t recognize it as love.

I had been sitting at a table in the cafeteria along with some of the guys from the football team. The older guys had been checking out the new “talent,” as they called it. Seeing which girls in the incoming freshmen class were the hottest and who would be worth talking to. They’d already seen a dozen girls that they were interested in when Billy Jameson, this arrogant junior, whistled under his breath and demanded, “Who is that?”

I knew just by looking at him he’d spotted Becca. I already knew where she was sitting—I looked for her the minute we walked into the cafeteria—and he was looking that way. Becca had always been pretty, but she had changed over the summer, grown taller, had a tan, her hair was longer and was impossibly shiny and she had started to gain some curves. She was generally looking incredibly hot. I’d been dreading anyone but me noticing it.

Jake, Mason, and John turned to see where he was looking and then as a group turned to look at me. Even back then they had an idea of how I felt about her. Billy noticed and glanced at me. “You know her, Jackson?”

I just shrugged and took a bite out of my burger.

“So who is she then?”

“Becca McKenzie,” I replied.

“Is she yours?” God, he was a prick. Like anyone could own anyone, especially Becca. And no matter how much I wanted her to be mine, I knew that she wasn’t.

I had shaken my head, refusing to look at Jake. At that moment, Becca jumped up and I could see she had knocked her juice all over herself. She picked up some napkins and started dabbing at her shirt, lifting it up to inspect it. I swear, I think I audibly swallowed, catching a glimpse of her flat stomach, and I know I wasn’t the only one looking. She glanced up and caught us all looking, instantly dropped her shirt, and sat back down looking away.

“Dibs!” Billy announced making everyone laugh, although I could feel people looking at me too, wondering what the story was there.

I then spent the next few weeks watching him make his move on her. She never looked particularly interested, but when I saw her by her locker laughing at something he had said, it had made me feel sick. He announced a few days later at the end of practice that he had a date with her that Friday.

I was surprised when they showed up at the cookout and as she walked up next to him holding his hand, I felt a jealousy so intense it shocked me. When she excused herself, I headed over to him and the few people he’d been standing with. I didn’t care what I said, I just wanted him to be put off, so I insulted her as best I could, not knowing she was listening in. I actually didn’t know about the bet they had made and there is no way I would have let them go through with it, but then she stepped out of the shadows and I knew she’d heard everything.

I could see that she was trying to control her emotions, that what she’d heard had hurt and humiliated her. I thought for a second she was going to crack, that she was going to lose it, but of course, she didn’t. Becca is so good at hiding her emotions, at pulling it together, that she just calmly made it clear that she would never speak to Billy again. Then she looked at me with utter loathing and walked away.

Jake went crazy when he heard what happened. He hadn’t been there, but Mason filled him in on the details and told him exactly what had been said.

“What the hell, Ryan? Why would you do that to her? This is Becca we’re talking about. Not some random girl,” he demanded.

“Yes, I know. I didn’t know she was listening,” I fired back, getting irritated. I didn’t need reminding of how badly I had acted.

“This is how you think you’re going to get her to like you again? You would actually have let them bet on sleeping with her? Fuck, Ryan, what is wrong with you?”

“Shut up,” I growled back, stepping closer to him, my fists were actually clenched at my sides. “I didn’t know about the stupid bet. What do you care anyway? I know you like her, just come out and admit it.”

He had shaken his head in disgust at me. “Yes, I like Becca, she’s my friend. We’ve been friends for years and years. But why don’t we talk about how you feel about her? You think I don’t see you staring at her? Why don’t you just grow up and admit how you actually feel and not treat her like shit.”

I just glowered at him before he brushed past me and left the room without another word.

“Why don’t you just tell Becca that you love her?” A voice said from behind me. I turned to see Lisa standing there, leaning against the doorframe of my bedroom. She had just graduated from college and was home for a couple of months. She clearly heard the whole fight.

“I don’t love Becca,” I scoffed at her.

She cocked an eyebrow at me and smirked. “If you say so little brother.” Then she turned and walked away.

I had sat down and tried to think about something else. Tried to think about anything but Becca McKenzie. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t get her out of my head. The way she looked, the way she laughed, the way she rolled her eyes. She kept playing on a loop over and over in my head.

I had gotten up and made the twenty minute walk over to Jake’s house where he was shooting hoops. When he saw me, he passed the ball over, and I took aim and watched it fly through the hoop. I turned to him. “I think I love her.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Well, yeah. Duh.”

After that, I tried to apologize to her, but she just ignored me and kept on ignoring me. The only good thing about that whole mess was that it seemed to put her off dating for a long time because I didn’t see her with anyone else.

She still totally ignored me, but she didn’t ignore Jake, and that was how I pushed my way back into her life, even if only fleetingly. When she was talking to Jake, I would be there and make a cocky joke. She couldn’t wait to get away from me, but at least it was some interaction with her. I could see how frustrated she grew when I was near her, how her walls came up, but I didn’t care. At that stage, I would do anything just to talk to her, but she would just stare blankly back at me or flat out ignore me.

I even turned up where I knew she’d be once or twice, but it never worked out how I hoped. One time I overheard Sam saying she was going to the beach with Becca, and I couldn’t resist the urge to turn up, the temptation of seeing her in a bikini too much for me. Sam had just smirked at me—I think she’s always known how I feel about Becca, but she’s too nice to call me on it—and Jake had laughed out loud when he realized Becca was at the beach and that was why I dragged him down there. Becca just sat there, ignoring me, letting the three of us have a conversation around her. Unfortunately, she was wearing a tank top and shorts rather than the bikini I had pictured her in but I was just enjoying being away from school with her and after an hour of Jake’s teasing and jokes she eventually relaxed just slightly and even said something directly to me at one point. But then Mason and John and a bunch of other’s from school turned up and she tensed up again. I didn’t even know how they knew where we were, but after the girls laid their towels out and I started throwing a ball around with the guys I turned back to them to find Becca and Sam rolling up their towels, getting ready to leave. Sam had waved goodbye in my direction and Becca said a few words to Jake and then they were gone. That’s kind of what always happened. Becca always got away from me as fast as she could.

I remember at the end of junior year telling myself that I had to get over it. I had to stop thinking about her the whole time. She really was not interested in me, she couldn’t stand me and I was only hurting myself by having this dumb, constant hope that she would change her mind about me. I wasn’t even letting myself think about her being my girlfriend. All I wanted was for her to talk to me again, to be civil to me, to have her back in my life in whatever small way I could get, instead of the looks of disgust and disdain I always got when I tried talking to her.

I thought I managed it. She was away the whole summer and I told myself I was over it. I dated over the summer, stayed busy working and playing ball, hanging with the boys the whole time. But then on the first day of senior year, I saw her get out of her car all the way from across the lot and that same old feeling was there, that same old hammering of my heart and that longing that’s only seemed to grow since she stopped talking to me. I saw her greet her friends as she walked to the main entrance, smiling and laughing at something someone said. I know the exact second that she saw me because her face turned into the mask she’s used on me since the day I fucked up our friendship when we were twelve years old. She didn’t even glance at me. Of course, I wolf-whistled as she passed, anything to get her attention, but she didn’t even look in my direction. The guys saw it though, and although they didn’t say anything, I knew they knew how I felt about her. It was getting harder and harder for me to hide it. Jake’s the only one who knew how deeply I really felt about her, the only one I’d talk to about her.

As she passed us on the steps, Jake reached out from the end of our group to grab her for a welcome hug, and I tried not to grimace in annoyance. Jake’s my best friend in the whole world, but I hated how she was with him. She was herself with him; she always relaxed when she saw him and let down that wall she puts up with everyone but her close friends. I was jealous—really damn jealous. I mean, I know their relationship is purely platonic and they’re just good friends who have known each other for years, but I’d give anything for her to genuinely smile just at seeing me. She walked on and Jake saw me looking at them and rolled his eyes. He’d been telling me for years just to talk to her, to tell her how I felt. I didn’t want another lecture about it.

I remember seeing her at that party. I spent the majority of high school hoping she would show up at a party, that maybe she would be more relaxed outside of school and maybe let those walls down. Hell, I even made sure I invited my entire grade to my sixteenth birthday, literally everyone, hoping that if some of her friends came, she’d be more likely to turn up. All it got me was a trashed house and a month’s grounding for letting the party get out of hand.

I was so shocked when I saw her standing there in that corner. When she didn’t turn away immediately, I figured she was drunk. She probably thought she was hiding it pretty well, but I could see her swaying. She gave me her usual attitude, but when she said Kevin groped her because of the way I treated her, Id felt sick. I still couldn’t believe he’d been dumb enough to try that shit with her. As soon as she left, I thrown him into the nearest lockers and made it clear he was done as far I was concerned. He told me he was sorry, that he didn’t know I cared. The idiot practically begged, but I was done with him. And I made it clear to the rest of the guys too. I know Becca thinks I have some stupid power at school, and maybe I do, and for once I was happy to use it to destroy Kevin Wilson. I didn’t want anything to do with him.