CHAPTER 2 — AJAX
Holy fuck. This girl is perfect. You know that cheesy pickup line about dying and going to heaven? I actually get it now.
This girl is stunning. Not to mention smart, witty, and caring.
I must have caught some brain-eating parasite because this is so unlike me. To be this wrapped up in a girl to the point where I'm second-guessing everything she says. I never second-guess women because I don't go for those kinds of women. It's not worth it.
But I haven't been myself lately. I've been acting off ever since I met her. I've been looking for her, and I never look for girls. Girls look for me.
Since then, I’ve caught myself looking for her whenever I’m near Tellard Avenue, the street where I first ran into her.
She was giving out sandwiches to homeless people, and I was dealing drugs.
She doesn't know that, though. All she knows is that I was the one who stepped up and helped her when one of the homeless men tried to attack her.
A week later, I ran into her at an off-campus house party and got to know her a bit better.
I found out that she goes to North Christian Tradition.
Which is funny, because I go there too… just not to study.
I go to deal drugs. Ever since I ran into her, though, I've started looking for her around campus.
Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, depending on who you ask, the students at NCT are some of my top customers. There are way more of them than there are at a typical state school. I guess it's all that Christian repression.
I hate a lot of them, but I also recognize that a lot of them haven't bought into the whole fanaticism.
Not to say all Christians are fanatics. A bunch of them are good people.
The ones that really piss me off, though, are the ones that walk around like the moral police, but then do shady shit behind everybody's backs.
A girl that beautiful needs somebody looking out for her, and clearly nobody in her Christian group is. If they were, they would have stepped up when a man tried to assault her the other week.
Thank God I was there to step in, because it doesn't look like anybody else was planning to do a damn thing. At this point, it's basically my moral duty to look out for her. I swear, I'm more of a Christian in spirit than the majority of those motherfuckers in her group.
I still don't understand how they could look on as Rodney, the resident drunk, tried to assault her and do nothing. I was furious.
When he called her a whore, I saw red. When he advanced toward her, I stepped in. That was all it took for me to start thinking of her as my angel.
My angel?
What the fuck has gotten into me?
I flip her onto her back, and her golden hair splays around her face like a halo. Her hazel eyes glisten, and her peaches-and-cream skin reminds me of everything good in this world. She smells like sunscreen and lavender, and fuck, I want to bottle it up and bathe in her.
“Are you sure?” I ask again.
She stares at me quietly. I can almost imagine the gears shifting in that beautiful mind of hers.
I almost can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. Or that I've said them twice now, waiting for her to answer.
“Are you sure?” is what you say to your best friend when he tells you he’s thinking of getting his girlfriend’s name tattooed on his ass. It’s not what you say when you've asked the most beautiful girl you've ever met if she wants to fuck, and she nodded yes.
I’ve always had a motto, a mantra, if you will: if you have to ask a girl if she wants to fuck, the answer is no, and you shouldn't be asking. You should be finding a girl who wants it instead.
Belle is different, because I know she wants it, but something is holding her back. Despite the obvious signs that she desperately wants to get fucked, I can sense the hesitation in her body language. Her words aren't totally matching up to her body, and that's a problem.
I'm guessing it's something to do with her Christian background, whether it's some Christian set of rules she's trying to follow or some puritan guilt nonsense. Whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that she's conflicted, and I don't fuck conflicted girls.
But no matter how much I try, I just can't get myself to stay away from her. I even went on two dates this past week, hoping it would get my mind off of her.
It didn't work, obviously.
Shit. Have I already gotten attached to this girl just by watching her give sandwiches to hobos? I'll admit, seeing her kindness warmed my heart.
There's not a lot that gets to me these days, but a show of true compassion like that, well, it's rare. She’s rare.
Which is why I'm acting like this, asking her if she's sure. I shouldn't be. I should be walking out her door right now. Every time I think that, though, I glance at her golden hair and rosy lips, and the thought dissolves like sugar on my tongue.