Living Backwards (19 page)

“I told you I wasn’t waiting for you to figure this out anymore,” he whispered. “I want
you
, Jillian. No one else.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I managed to reply, but I didn’t mean it the way he thought I did.

“Me either.” But he meant something else too. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Grabbing me by the waist, he pulled me down onto the blanket. I knew I could list a hundred good reasons why I should turn around and leave, but I was always excellent at justifying my questionable decisions. So, in that moment, I decided not to think about consequences and focus on how his hands felt in my hair and how my legs felt wrapped around his torso. In that moment, I was seventeen and I was with Luke. It was exactly where I was supposed to be. I didn’t want to stop that feeling and not thinking felt really good.

I was sure he didn’t realize how huge this was for me. I wanted to stay here with him. I didn’t want to go back there and be who I was. He made my brain functions cease and my body do strange things.

Impulsively, I grabbed at the hem of his shirt, yanking it off him and dropping it to the ground. The initial shock on his face gave way to something darker as I rested my palms against his bare skin, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

“You have no idea how crazy you make me,” he whispered in a low, raspy voice.

“I think you’re wrong,” I replied, raising my arms and locking them behind his neck. I threaded my fingers through the back of his hair, using the opportunity to pull myself even closer.

There was no struggle for dominance, no awkward posturing. I let go, giving myself over and allowing Luke to set the pace. His hands were everywhere, grabbing, kneading and feeling so good. I laughed as my discarded shirt was sent sailing off into the darkness.

A sudden look of uncertainty passed over his face. I knew what he was thinking. Everything was moving so fast and he was worried that I was getting carried away. I was supposed to be a naïve seventeen-year-old who shouldn’t be rolling around in the dark with a boy. But
That
Jillian wouldn’t have been here with him in the first place.
That
Jillian would be at home reading Jane Austen and popping microwave popcorn.
That
Jillian hated Facebook because it reminded her that she never took any chances.
That
Jillian would definitely be peeing her pants right now.

“Luke, don’t think so goddamn much,” I said softly, mirroring his words from earlier. And because he still needed the encouragement and because I’d been dying to do it since that first day behind the school, I grabbed his crazy, unruly hair and pulled his lips roughly down to mine. He moaned against my mouth, and it was the sexiest thing I had ever heard in my entire life.
I wanted to hear it as many times as I could, and vowed to pull every last beautiful hair out of his head in order to hear it again and again and again.
Everything about him set my body on fire. My dad always wanted me to keep a fire extinguisher in the car. I wished I’d listened.

His left hand began making a continuous circuit from my ankle to my knee, then up my thigh and back down again, rubbing and kneading. I wanted
to say “Bring it, Luke”,
but I was an impatient, squirming mess. I wanted more.

Emboldened, I tugged at his zipper and was startled when he suddenly pulled away.

“Jillian, we should slow down,” he mumbled, panting. I was literally speechless.
He
was telling
me
to settle down? Really?
Sorry Luke, I don’t feel like behaving tonight.

I wasn’t expecting him to put up much of a fight. He was an eighteen-year-old boy after all. He wouldn’t need much convincing. Once my hands were back in his groan-inducing hair, my lips by his ear, skin against skin, there wasn’t any question.

Even though I wasn’t really a teenager, even though I had been down this road before—just differently—nothing felt familiar. I should have taken some comfort in the fact that I was supposed to know what I was doing. I should have felt like I had the upper hand. I should have had a little more control over my body. But I didn’t. I was shaking and quivering like I was about to jump off the ledge into the ocean below. I had never felt so bare, and it had nothing to do with the shirt and pants that had been discarded, lost somewhere in the night. No one had ever made me feel the way Luke did, and what scared me the most was that I was pretty sure no one else ever would.

So I held on tight to him, to us, and tried not to think of the implications of the decision I had made. I focused instead on the way he felt, the way we moved, the way we were together, so I could commit it all to memory. Because any boy that came before him didn’t matter. And if all of this ended tomorrow and I was sent spiraling back to my old life, no other boy would ever matter again. Just him. Just us.

It turned out that being with Luke wasn’t like being caught in the eye of the storm at all. He was like a tsunami and I was ready, willing, to be pulled under with him. But I wondered—half-dazed—as I finally let go, now that I was truly here with him, would I ever be able to drag myself back to the shore?

There weren’t a lot of things that shocked me. If you paid attention, you could anticipate almost anything. It didn’t surprise me that someone invented a pill to help old guys get it up. I wasn’t shocked when Alicia Silverstone turned out to be a terrible Batgirl. And while the whole world was brought to their knees when the President’s intern was caught on hers, I wasn’t exactly blown away. All in all, I saw shit coming. I guess I
used
to see shit coming. Until now.

I didn’t see this.
Her
. Invading my space, my mind, my everything. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I wasn’t the guy who went to bonfires with drunken assholes. At least I hadn’t been. Until now.

I was there for her. Once I found her, I knew I could convince her to leave. She didn’t like those types of things anymore than I did. And I had a better idea. I wanted her on my bike again. I wanted to feel her wiggle onto the seat and press herself up against my back. I wanted to feel her lips, her hands, her breath. I just
wanted
. The memory of our ride on Sunday was still fresh in my mind, and I needed more. We needed to finish what we started.

Leaving my bike in the lot, I made my way through the crowd, trying to avoid talking to anyone. The air smelled of pot, beer and puke—a definite sign of amateur night.

When I spotted Danielle, I moved a little faster, rushing past the couples mauling each other in the sand. She was sitting on a blanket with Fletcher, drinking some kind of pink wine cooler. I never understood how girls could stand that shit.

“Well, hello there Luke,” she said, smirking. “Fancy meeting you here at the bonfire. Wouldn’t think that this was your ‘thing’.”

“Yeah, you didn’t mention you’d be here,” he added, grinning up at me like an idiot. He knew.

“Unless you’re looking for someone,” she added. “Are you, Luke? Looking for someone?”

“You’re hysterical. Are you done?”

“Oooh! So serious,” she replied. “And before you ask, she’s not here yet…which is surprising considering it
is
getting late.” Danielle furrowed her brow as she checked the time on her watch.

“She was supposed to meet you here though, right?”

“Yeah, but she had to help her folks with something. Maybe she got caught up?”

“You sticking around?” Josh asked, still smiling, still an asshole.

“Nah. I’m taking off,” I replied, turning to go. “Catch you later.”

As I headed off past the half-naked girls in the sand and the half-baked kids on the dunes, I heard Danielle’s voice off in the distance.

“Tell Jillian I said hi, Luke.”

I pretended I didn’t hear her. I pretended that I wasn’t about to hop on my bike and ride straight over to her house. I pretended I wasn’t insane. I had never even gone to her house before—never met her dad, who incidentally carried a gun. I wanted to see her, but I really didn’t want to make small talk with her dad when I had spent the better part of the night thinking of his only daughter laid out across the seat of my bike. He interrogated people for a living. If Josh and Danielle could see through me, her dad would probably know exactly what I was thinking before I even said a word. Yeah, I was obviously insane.

Despite coming to the conclusion that I had lost all sense of reason, I flew across town, making it to Jillian’s place in no time. When I rounded the corner onto her street, instead of seeing her crappy car in front of the house, her driveway was empty.

My frustration peaked because it shouldn’t have been this hard to find her. Reynolds wasn’t a big town. We had more than one traffic light, but less than a dozen. Where the hell was she?

Frustrated and annoyed, I headed back home. There was no way I would let Danielle and Josh see me back at the bonfire so that wasn’t an option. Clearly, it just wasn’t my night. We’d have to pick up where we left off some other night, but soon. I was sick of playing games.

As I passed the parking lot near the cliff, I slowed my bike down, noticing a glint of metal through the trees. As I got closer, I saw it. There, in the far corner almost hidden from the main road, was her car. A sudden burst of adrenaline flooded my system. She had to be out of her mind to go traipsing through the woods by herself at night. It was reckless and stupid. Yet why was I surprised?

Parking my bike next to her car, I bolted down the path quickly, grateful that the route was familiar even without a light. When I finally entered the clearing, I found her standing there, eyes wide and panicked, raising a goddamn flashlight over her head. Was she planning to club me to death?

I had spent the whole night trying to plan what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her to cut this shit out. I wanted to tell her I was done playing games. Then I saw her eyes, deep brown and wild, and everything I planned to say seemed stupid and trivial because nothing would ever be enough. How do you tell the girl you only really met three weeks ago that there had never been anyone that made you feel the way she did? How do you tell her that you hadn’t returned Jonas’ phone calls or that you couldn’t imagine going to Seattle now? How do you tell her that you were going with her to New York? How do you say all of that without freaking her out? Because honestly, I was freaking out myself.

You couldn’t.
I
couldn’t.

But she looked so conflicted. I didn’t want to hear that she didn’t want this. I didn’t want to hear that she didn’t want us. I needed her to want me the way I wanted her. My entire life had been turned upside down in just a few weeks because of this crazy girl who carried a pink flask and wanted me to find depth in Green Day.

It only took the slightest touch and we were flying. And it was so good.
We
were so good. It wasn’t part of the plan, but I didn’t care because the plan had just gotten infinitely better.

Sometimes even when you pay attention to what’s going on around you, you can’t even imagine what’s going to happen next.

“You’re a million miles away,” she said into my ear as we lay wrapped up in each other, looking up at the sky. I didn’t even know how long it had been since I had last spoken. I felt like I was in a fog. The vision of her moving underneath me replayed in my mind over and over while I struggled to find the words to tell her how I felt. It shouldn’t have been like this and I needed to…God…apologize for letting everything get so out of hand. It shouldn’t have been like this. She deserved better and I screwed up.

“I was just thinking,” I muttered, my brain unable to pull together the right words. I needed something profound, something to let her know that she wasn’t just any girl. She was
the
girl. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she whispered softly. “A little chilly.” She pulled the corner of the blanket up under her chin and burrowed into my chest. I felt her warm breath on my skin as she inhaled.

“Do you want to leave?” I asked, because I didn’t know what the protocol was in situations like this. The Danas and Lauras of the world were used to screwing in offices and under bleachers. They wouldn’t have had a problem with where we were, but this was Jillian, and she was special. My mind was racing and I couldn’t focus on anything.

I should have stopped this.

She didn’t even have the common sense to be pissed off about it. I always thought girls wanted their first time to be on a cloud surrounded by flowers and candles and shit. Not like this—wrapped in a scratchy, wool blanket with a Mag Lite. The guilt was overwhelming. I never had a problem talking to her before and now when it mattered the most, I couldn’t find the words. All I could think about was that for the rest of her life, she’d wince remembering the scratch of the blanket and the chill in the air because the guy she chose to have sex with didn’t have the decency to tell her to hang on and take her someplace nice.

“Um, yeah, I probably should get back,” she stammered, tucking the blanket under her arms and sitting up. Everything was coming out wrong, and it sounded like I was trying to get rid of her. I felt my heartbeat accelerate and was thrown into a panic again, desperate to think of something to say other than “don’t go”.

“I…um…don’t know where my shirt went,” she added shyly.

That’s right. Not only do I lack skills, I lack class, as well.

I grabbed my boxers, pulling them on quickly, before popping up to search for her clothes. At least it would give me time to think so I wouldn’t need to stall.

When I saw the bright white of her blouse a few feet away, I walked slowly over to it. I knew I needed to get it together, but I couldn’t stop thinking of how she looked, how she felt, what we did. I wanted all of her, all the time. But before I could have her, we needed to talk. I needed her to know that this wasn’t a passing thing for me despite how reckless I’d acted. But I had lost my mastery of the English language. I threw my head back, defeated, staring up at the star-filled sky.

Is this what the phoenix feels like when it’s about to burn?

Grabbing the shirt, I walked back to her. She had found her jeans, but was still wrapped in the blanket looking as uncomfortable as I felt. I passed her the shirt feeling like I was in one of those movies where the audience starts yelling at the guy to stop acting like such a tool, but I had no idea how to fix this mess.

She wasn’t making it easy for me. Every time I looked at her, I lost my focus. She kept running her fingers through her tangled hair, and her skin seemed to glow in the moonlight. I stared at her with her tousled hair and her red, swollen lips. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“You’re beautiful,” I said out loud, sounding low and raspy and awkward. She smiled, looking down at her fingers. I waited for her to say something, watching as she shifted from one foot to the other.

Help me fix this, Jillian.

“I should get home,” she said breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Sure.”

I wanted to ask her why she chose this place—why she was here. I wanted to know if she would even want me to go with her to New York. There was so much I wanted to say, but instead I just began walking toward the path to the parking area.

“I’ll follow you home,” I told her.

“You don’t have to—”

“Hey,” I said, stopping her mid-sentence. This had to stop. I couldn’t deal with her telling me that I didn’t need to follow her home. It made me feel even more like the selfish bastard I always knew I was.

I reached out to touch her cheek because I just needed to feel her again. Searching her eyes, I found that conflicted look on her face again—a look that I clearly put there. I brushed my lips against hers, testing the waters, not even knowing how to kiss her anymore. When she exhaled her warm breath against my mouth, that was all the encouragement I needed. I’d be lying if I said my dick wasn’t pleading with me to throw her down and show her how good I could make her feel, but I needed her to understand what I was failing miserably at saying. I couldn’t even say the words myself. It didn’t make sense. You don’t fall in love with someone in three weeks. Not in real life. But shit. She was everything.

So I didn’t listen to my dick. I didn’t jam my tongue down her throat or wrap my fingers around her hair. Christ, I wanted to. I kissed her softly again, then pulled back to look into her eyes.

“I’m following you home,” I added firmly.

Pushing back the desire to pin her against the car, I kissed her again—soft, slow, rated PG. She broke away first, her smile tight on her face, not really reaching her eyes and I knew she was still in her head. I just needed to get the hell out of there before she decided I was an idiot and never spoke to me again. I turned away, slapping the hood of her car twice as I passed by heading to my bike. She was supposed to be on the bike with me. Not alone in her car. Everything was all wrong.

I followed close behind her, killing the engine a few houses down from hers. I didn’t need to alert the entire neighborhood that I was there. She jumped out of the car, gave me a nervous wave and practically ran into the house. If there had been a wall near me, I would’ve slammed my head against it. Twice.

I flew back home, breaking every traffic law imaginable and dragged my ass up to my room, avoiding any possible conversation with Grace or Carter. I could only imagine how that would go:

“
How was your night, Luke?” Carter would ask.

“
Oh, it was great. I had sex with Jillian outside by the cliffs. What did you do?”

“
Grace made lobster bisque. We saved you some.”

“
Thanks, Carter, I had been hoping to have dinner with Jillian, but since I’m a douche, that didn’t pan out.”

“
That’s too bad, Luke. Do you need to talk? I’ll grab the telescope.”

“
No, Carter. I can never go to the cliffs again because of said sex and douchbaggery. Ruined. Forever.”

The end.

I stared at my alarm clock from the spot on the bed that I had occupied since I got home. It was one in the morning—three hours since I followed Jillian home without saying anything to her at all. As if I hadn’t screwed things up enough already. I had to make it right, and as terrifying as the idea was, there was only one thing to do.

I was no amateur at sneaking out of the house undetected, but in my Jillian-induced haze, I went barreling down the stairs to the kitchen where I had dropped my jacket and keys earlier. Carter was sitting at the kitchen table reading
Newsweek
with a glass of milk.

“Shit,” I exclaimed startled by his presence, “What’re you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he replied raising his eyebrow and glancing at the kitchen clock.

“I was going to check something…with my bike,” I stammered nervously.