Chapter 30 #2
Wait. That’s not what I want though. I want her to hate me. I need her to keep her distance.
I quickly shake my head as she walks into her room, and I continue downstairs to the living room.
I spread out across the couch, turn on the TV, and pretty much snooze for an hour and a half while Eden is upstairs getting ready.
I didn’t take my pills this morning, so I’ve done nothing but mope around all day and all evening.
I would happily skip this party entirely and just sleep off the rest of this shitty day, but Tyler Bruce doesn’t miss out on parties, especially his friends’ parties, so I force myself to head upstairs at eight thirty to shower.
If I am to survive this party, I need a buzz.
I shower, work some gel into my hair, pull on some black jeans and a black leather jacket, then spray some cologne. I would have a beer or two before I head across to the party, but I need to drive to Declan’s place first, so I hold off for now. I fire him a quick text:
Can you hook me up now?
A minute later, he replies with a thumbs-up and a wink.
Grabbing my car keys, I slide my phone into my jacket pocket and turn off the lights in my room, then open my door. I step out into the upstairs hall at the exact same moment Eden does, and we come face-to-face with one another again.
“I’m about to go over there,” she reluctantly tells me, and it sounds like she’s fighting back a sigh. She frowns, and despite telling me earlier that we weren’t heading over to the party together, she asks, “Are you coming with me?”
I can’t help myself from staring at her.
She looks different again, almost like she did at Austin’s party a couple weekends ago, but better.
Her dark hair flows down her back in waves and her eyes sparkle with silver, her lashes thick, her eyebrows dark and defined.
My eyes travel down her body, taking her in.
She’s short, but her heeled shoes make her legs look longer, and this time she’s wearing a dress that suits her.
It’s sort of peach, neatly fitted but not too clingy, and my gaze rests a little too long on the cleavage that’s showing through its keyhole design.
“I actually gotta head out real quick,” I force out. Suddenly, my mouth has gone dry.
Eden looks down at the ground and anxiously folds her arms across her chest as though she knows I’m looking. When she glances back up, she asks, “Where?”
“Just somewhere.” Shit, I hope she’s not about to interrogate me over this too.
I don’t want to get mad at her. I never want to see that flash of fear in her eyes again, even if it was only for a fleeting moment.
“Just go over,” I tell her, and I am mentally pleading that for once, just once , she listens to me. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“But where are you going?”
So, she’s really doing this again. She’s really going to question me until I explode.
I refuse to break though. She’s looking at me from beneath those thick, dark eyelashes of hers, and I know that she is genuinely concerned.
Her glossy pink lips are parted slightly as she waits for my answer.
“Damn, Eden.” I throw my hand up into the air and turn away from her, retreating back into the safety of my room, but of course she follows me. She’s so fucking stubborn.
“Why are you getting mad?” she asks quietly through the darkness of my room. When I look at her, I can see the glistening of her eyes as she stares straight back at me. She is slowly coming into focus. “I’m just asking where you’re going.”
“I’m going to meet someone, alright?” I shoot back at her, my voice raised, my tone hard.
I’m snapping already, way quicker than usual, and I can feel my temper rising up through me.
She needs to stop now. “I’ve got shit to pick up and you gotta back off about it.
” And right now, I need that shit more than ever.
Eden goes quiet. I’m watching her expression: a blank canvas that slowly fills with disappointment. “You’re meeting Declan,” she says into the dark silence. It’s a statement. “He’s not going to the party so you’re going out to meet him instead. Right?” She talks slowly, her voice kept low.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. She knows.
She fucking knows, and now that she does, she is going to fight against me.
I love that she cares, that she challenges me, but right now, I really need her not to.
I am desperate. “Just go to the fucking party already,” I hiss at her once I open my eyes again.
“No,” she says, her voice raised now. Her features sharpen with determination as she takes a step closer to me. “I’m not letting you go out to meet him.”
“Eden.” I say her name gently, firmly. Then, I step closer to her too, closing that distance between us.
I lean down toward her, my face inches from hers, and I lock my eyes on hers.
I fix her with the most threatening of glares I can possibly pull off, my eyes sharply narrowed, my anger held captive within them. “You can’t do anything about it.”
“You’re right,” she states, but her voice is laced with fury and exasperation.
She shakes her head at me, her glossy hazel eyes a mixture of everything that I have learned to hate.
Disappointment, worry, disapproval, and most of all, pity.
She feels sorry for me, and that is the worst feeling in the world.
“I can’t do anything about it, because you don’t care.
You don’t care about the fact that I’m worried that you’re going to overdose one night or have a bad reaction or end up dead.
You don’t care about the fact that you’re seventeen and hooked on coke.
You don’t, do you?” She pauses for a second, but I’m not giving her an answer, because she already knows that she’s right.
“You only care about looking cool at parties, trying to impress people with this whole badass image you’re trying to pull off. It’s pathetic.”
There’s that word again. It’s true though. I am pathetic. She’s right about that, but she isn’t right about everything. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I’m only trying to cope; I’m only trying to survive. “That’s not why I do it,” I tell her quietly, shaking my head.
“Then why?” she desperately pleads. She’s so close to me that the only thing I can focus on is that fucking pity in her gaze, and I can feel the weight of it pressing down on me. “Is it because you’re trying to fit in with those loser friends of yo—”
“Because it’s a distraction!” I yell at her, cutting her off.
Fuck, I said it. I close my eyes so that I don’t have to look at her, so that I don’t have to see that pity for a guy who depends on distractions in order to live another day.
I take a minute to console myself, breathing deeply.
“It’s a fucking distraction,” I murmur under my breath.
I feel like sometimes I have to admit it to myself too.
Slowly, I open my eyes again and find Eden watching me silently.
I’m furious now. Not just at her, but also at myself.
I’m mad at myself for being such an idiot, and I’m mad that she knows it.
I’m mad that she sees straight through me.
I’m mad that my facade doesn’t work around her.
I’m mad that, for a split second, I see understanding in her hazel eyes.
“And right now,” I admit, “I could really do with a goddamn distraction.”
Suddenly, Eden’s hands are reaching out for my jaw as she slams her body into mine.
Her lips crash down against mine so fast that I become paralyzed from the shock.
I can feel the warmth of her and all of her energy radiating between us, and I close my eyes, absorbing the sensation of her mouth on mine.
That fire in my chest fades away, replaced by something new that I can’t quite comprehend.
Relief? No, it can’t be. But suddenly I am not thinking about anything else but her.
I’m kissing those lips. Those plump, pouty lips that have weakened me for weeks now.
I didn’t realize why they had such an effect on me, but I do now—it’s because I wanted to feel those lips against mine.
I am just about to reach out to touch her face, to really kiss her, when slowly I feel her pulling away from me.
My eyes flicker open and meet hers. I stare at her, bewildered, as she retreats away from me. Her gaze has flooded with fear and alarm, and I can see her hands trembling. Did she really just do that? Did she really just kiss me?
Something changes then. A realization hits me hard.
It is relief I felt. I have spent weeks asking myself what it is about Eden that gets to me so much, asking myself why I like the fact she cares, asking myself why I can’t just be Tyler Bruce around her like I can with everyone else.
And now I finally understand. It’s because I like the damn girl.
I like that she gets under my skin. I like that she makes me uncomfortable, that she tests me, that she pushes my boundaries.
I like that she cares when no one else does.
I like that I don’t have to put on an act around her even though the real me is pathetic and tragic.
And I like her husky voice and her full lips and her hazel eyes.
“That wasn’t me. I don’t—I don’t know what that was,” she begins to babble, her voice fragile and husky, just the way I like it as she splutters her words.
It’s like she wants to give me an explanation, but she doesn’t have one.
I’m staring at her mouth in a daze as her lips move.
I am craving their touch again. “I—I don’t—I’m—I’m sorry. I was trying to—to distract you—I—”
It’s me who reaches out this time. I step forward and cup her face with both hands, pressing my lips down against hers.
I’m so desperate to feel them again, and I kiss her as hard as I can, weaving my fingers into her thick hair.
My body is against hers again, and I don’t realize I’m pushing into her until we hit my bedroom wall.
I kiss her for real this time, properly, like the way I should have a second ago.
Deeply and intensely, quickly and desperately.
She is kissing me back. Our lips are capturing one another’s, her hands are on my chest, she is quivering.
I drop my hand to the small of her back and bring her even closer against me, fighting for more, but then I freeze.
Eden is my stepsister. I’m kissing my stepsister.
Quickly, I break off the kiss and as much as I don’t want to, I force myself to pull away from her. I stop touching her body. I step back. We both stare at each other with the same exact look in our eyes as we breathe heavily through the silence. It’s a look of despair, of guilt.
She’s realized it too. We are stepsiblings.