He Loves Me...He Loves You Not (6 page)

The locker behind me slams and I jump.
Panting, I clutch my chest. “Rosa.” I catch my breath. “What the
hell?”

“Dude. WTF. I like texted a million times and
called you last night. You pissed at me or something?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Then what’s with you ignoring me?”

“I was just busy!” I snap.

“Whoa! Someone’s got a lil PMS.”

“I’m just on edge. I wasn’t ready to come
back to school.”

“Who was? I’d rather be anywhere than
here.”

Rosa peers around me and giggles, pushing her
red metallic framed glasses higher up on the bridge of her nose.
“What’s so interesting?”

“Huh?”

“What were you looking at? You looked like
you were daydreaming.”

I grab a folder from my locker and close the
door. “Nothing.”

I’m lying to her and the fact that I’m being
secretive with my best friend kills me. I trust her, but this is
between me and Henry.

“Ugh,” Rosa groans as she pushes herself away
from the locker with her foot. She moves next to me and hugs her
books tightly. “Doesn’t that make you nauseous?”

I’m too afraid to look. Too afraid the
jealousy that’s beginning to eat me alive will escalate to the
point where I run down the hall, screaming like a lunatic off her
meds.

Rosa narrows her deep brown eyes and shakes
her head. “Seriously you two! Get a freakin’ room!”

The thought of witnessing the PDA is too
tempting. I curse myself as I spin around. Why do I always let my
curiosity get the best of me? A sigh of relief whooshes from my
lips. “It’s only Noah and Holly.”

Rosa glares at me incredulously. “Only Noah
and Holly. What do you mean by that?”

She’s giving me a questioning look. Can she
hear the sound of relief in voice? Does she know I’m hiding
something from her? “Um. Uh…” Quick, come up with something. “Last
year they made out like that every day.”

We walk down the hall and Rosa tucks her
blue-black side bang behind her ear. “That doesn’t make it right.”
As we pass Noah and Holly she yells, “Nobody wants to witness your
peep show!”

Noah flips her off, exposing the half-chipped
black nail polish on his middle finger. He keeps his hand out,
still lip-locked with Holly.

Rosa shrugs. “I guess some things never
change.”

****

Every year, the first day of school always
seems to breeze by. That’s probably because the teachers only have
enough time each period to pass out books and assign seats. In a
few of my classes my teachers went around the room and made the
students talk about what we did over the summer.

My summer. The summer of love. Thoughts of
Henry remain constant as I tell some lame ass fabrication of a
story about spending time at my aunt’s summer house on Lake
Michigan. Sometimes I surprise myself because I can be such an
amazing con and liar. The whole time I’m talking I’m fighting off
the vivid pictures of him in my mind. His lips brushing against my
ear. “I love you.” A whisper that sent chills throughout my body.
His teeth graze my earlobe and I’m unglued and mad—crazy with the
fire I feel growing inside of me for him. “I want you,” he’d
murmured. “You. Only you.” The flashbacks are so real that I
believe they are actually happening and I hope I’m not flinching in
front of everyone. I stifle a look around the classroom. Nobody is
paying attention. Thank God.

Eighth period comes and I have a study hall.
As I enter the cafeteria, I examine the students already seated in
the wide rectangular room. No Henry. I’m relieved. The only period
I have with him is lunch and that makes it easier to get through
the day in one piece.

I plop down at a table in the back as Mr.
Warner, the tenth grade biology teacher waltzes in. He stops in the
front of the room, sets down a book and pulls down his cardigan
sweater. “Sit wherever,” he announces. “You can talk quietly
amongst yourselves if you want.”

Soft chatter echoes throughout the cafeteria
and I opt out of being friendly. Aside from Rosa and this kid named
Jace who used to live next door to me, who I hadn’t talked to in
years, and Henry, I don’t have very many friends. Not because I’m
antisocial. I just enjoy my alone time.

I approach Mr. Warner as he sits down and
picks up the latest Stephen King novel and adjusts his gold wire
spectacles. “Um, Mr. Warner?”

He doesn’t look up. He’s fully absorbed in
whatever horrific world Mr. King has created for that particular
novel. “Uh huh.”

I twiddle my thumbs. “Could I go to the
library?”

I’ve always spent my study halls in the
library. I like using the computers. Mainly for pointless stuff
like surfing Forever 21’s sale page or popping in a burned cd and
listening to music while I work on some homework assignment.
Lately, I’ve been on a
Kings of Leon
fix.
Closer
and
True Love Way
are on repeat at all times.

Mr. Warner waves his hand as his eyes widen.
“Sure. Sure. Go ahead.”

He must be reading a really good part.

The quiet in the deserted hallway consumes me
as I scale the first narrow set of stairs. Usually there are a few
stragglers who linger at their lockers trying to get out of their
last class of the day.

The rubber soles of my Converse tennis shoes
echo against the tile after climbing the second set of stairs. I’m
worried the squeaking sound my shoes make is too loud, so I take
small, quiet steps on my way to the third and final staircase.

Then I’m caught off guard when a pair of
strong arms circle my waist and guide me into the boy’s bathroom.
“What the?”

Henry pushes me into the wall and spins
around quickly, locking the door with his long wooden hall pass.
I’m breathing hard. So elated and overwhelmed that I place my hands
above me on the cloudy teal walls.

Henry moves behind me, wrapping one arm
around my waist and the other around my chest. He pulls me close,
gripping at the bottom of my t-shirt with his fingers. The warmth
from his body sends me reeling, mixed with insanity and pleasure.
True Religion cologne lingers on his clothing and the enticing
scent invades my nostrils.

I ache when I can’t see him. Feel him. Smell
him. When I finally do get to see him, there’s a joyous eruption
inside of my heart that’s more boisterous than a volcano. I swallow
hard. His nose is on the nape of my neck and my whole body goes
limp. I’m play-doh. Useless. He can bend me, move me and do
whatever he wants because I know my body won’t function on its
own.

He breathes into my hair and his warm breath
down my back brings on fresh goose bumps. “I had to see you,” he
whispers. Such a soft, seductive, and at the same time, emotional
whisper that makes my legs tremble.

And I’m gone. So far gone that I’m certain I
can’t distinguish fantasy from reality.

I spin around and try to fight him off. I
push against him, but he’s stronger than me. He lifts me up by my
waist and backs me up into the wall. My voice has been caught in my
throat since he first surprised me, but I finally find it and choke
out, “Henry this isn’t safe. We’ll get caught. A teacher might walk
in on us or something.”

Trying to refuse him is painful when every
part of me inside is screaming for him.

He places his forehead against mine and I’m
over-heated, like an engine about to spontaneously combust. He
twirls a piece of my ash-blond hair between his fingertips and
exhales, “I don’t care, Riley. I don’t care.”

He pushes against me harder and traces the
curve of my neck with his kisses. I gasp, choking on my own
breaths, wedged in between his arms, the wall, and the sink in the
boys bathroom. Seconds later, his lips cover mine. I’m sucked into
his passionate embrace and I run my fingers wildly through his
hair. I’m drowning in his kisses, trembling beneath his touch, and
every time his fingertips glide over my exposed skin I feel like
I’m scorching—baking all day in the intense summer sunlight.

As our kissing progresses, I don’t care that
our tryst seems raunchy and wrong. I don’t care that I’m at school,
in the boys’ bathroom. I don’t care that to most people this would
seem cheap, dirty, and despicable. The only thing I can think about
while he kisses me deeper, harder, faster, is that Henry Garner is
the plague and the only thing I want him to do is infect me.

Chapter 9

Love - a wildly misunderstood although
highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain,
causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and
the lips to pucker.

As I lie in bed that night I can’t help but
wonder if Henry will still come over, tonight. Probably not, but I
can still hope, right? I smile when I think of a moment earlier
when he kissed me before leaving the boys bathroom. A powerful,
loving kiss that even after our interlude made my knees buckle.

“I’ll call you later,” he shouted over his
shoulder as he made his exit.

But he hasn’t and the blank screen on my cell
phone is driving me crazy.

I grab my laptop off of my nightstand. I open
it, log into Facebook, and skim my wall. I freeze and my breathing
stops. Henry Garner is tagged at Callie Banfield’s house at 8:30
pm.

I can’t stop staring at the tag. I’m furious.
Jealous. Depressed. I close my laptop and kick it off my bed. I
don’t care if it breaks. Damn you, Henry. Why did you have to steal
my heart? Why can’t I forget about you? Why can’t you choose me and
not her? Why do you think you’re so special that you get to have
both?

Sometimes I don’t feel so bad about my
relationship with Henry. Callie isn’t exactly a nice person. Back
in elementary school she used to tease me repeatedly because I went
through a tomboy phase and I wore boy’s clothes. “Don’t talk to
it
,” she’d say. “Seriously, what are you?”

I know that’s no excuse. I know that just
because Callie is a bitch, her nature doesn’t justify what I’m
doing with her boyfriend, but sometimes it makes me feel like I’m
finally getting revenge for what she’d done to me all those years
ago. But as much as I despise Callie Banfield, she doesn’t deserve
this. No one does.

For what feels like days, I stare out the
open window in my bedroom, hoping the cool breeze will miraculously
send Henry flying through my window like Superman. Minus the cape.
Then he’ll climb into my bed like he has so many nights before and
hold me. He’ll keep me warm all through the night and I’ll wake up
the next morning with his arms around me. Then we’ll kiss for hours
and hours until the suns sets in the sky. What a pleasant dream to
have and I know that’s all it will ever be, a dream.

****

My alarm goes off and I growl as I feel
around for the snooze button.

Nine minutes isn’t enough of a snooze and as
the alarm blares again I hit the snooze button a second time and a
third and a fourth. By the fifth time, my Mom opens the door and
flips the light on. “Riley Elizabeth Davis! Would you stop hitting
that snooze button?”

The sound of her heel tapping against the
hard wood floor floods my ears and I wrap my pillow around my head
and roll over. “Uh, Mom,” I whine. “Come on, ten more minutes.
Please.”

Mom flicks the light on and off over and over
again. “I don’t think so, missy. Get up. You’re going to be late
for school.”

My eyelids flutter and I roll over. I squint
at Mom, still disoriented and not fully awake.

Mom is wearing a red tweed suit and she
smooths down the skirt to cover her white slip underneath.

I wipe my eyes and yawn. “You showing houses,
today?” My Mom is a realtor and spends a lot of time working. She’s
always showing houses our hosting open houses for potential
buyers.

She fluffs her golden shoulder length bob
that glimmers under the light. “Several.” She spins slowly. “Does
this suit say
sale
?”

I don’t verbalize my answer. I simply
nod.

She steps away from my door for a second and
returns with a lint brush. “You’re going to be on your own tonight
for dinner, okay kiddo?” She rolls the lint brush over her arms and
down her chest.

I scoot to the edge of my bed. “Cool.”

Mom palms the lint brush. “There’s food in
the fridge and I left money on the counter in case you’d rather
order pizza.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing, kiddo.” She kisses my forehead.
“I’ll be home late so don’t wait up.”

“Noted.” Mom waves at me quickly and walks
out of my room.

I get ready fast and stalk to my car. I grin,
thinking about having the house to myself for a while. I text
Henry.

My mom won’t B home 2nite. U can come ovr if
U want.

I try to think if texting him this early
would be bad. Does he pick up Callie for school? Does she go
through his phone? I shrug it off, nah. I can’t remember him ever
mentioning anything about that.

But while I’m at my locker, before the
warning bell, I realize texting Henry this morning was a bad
idea.