Chapter 38 #2
And I wasn’t so na?ve as to not know how that insufferable princess got so under my skin. I pushed the envelope too much when I saw her. Not to mention that most times I thought she was insufferable, a know-it-all, and a busybody.
After what happened with Austin, I thought I’d gotten rid of her. But just when I thought she didn’t need someone to protect her, yesterday at her house—that feeling. Her eyes seemed to hide a suppressed scream, a cry for help that she wasn’t was capable of expressing in words.
And what if she hurt herself? How could I protect her from herself?
“Tiffany doesn’t know what she wants anyway,” announced Taylor, interrupting my obsessive thoughts.
“It seems to me that she knows perfectly well what she wants.”
I walked up to the closet to get some clean clothes as Taylor looked at me from head to toe.
“No, she doesn’t, because one day she wants ice cream, and the next she wants cake. It’s confusing.”
“She wants both, I don’t think it’s that hard to understand.” I thought about Taylor’s more-than-obvious metaphor.
“You get why you’re like her, right?”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer. I wasn’t interested in what Taylor thought of me.
“So why’d you come here? What’d you wanna ask me?” I said, leaning against my desk.
“Since we haven’t seen each other in a while, I wanted to ask how you were. But given what you’re doing, I’d say not very well.”
“I was hitting the punching bag,” I retorted, annoyed.
When she didn’t get what she want, Taylor was the classic girl who dug her heels in. Her dad had gotten her used to having everything she wanted when she wanted it.
“No, I was talking about that crap you were watching,” she said, pointing at my computer.
I could’ve pretended I didn’t know what Taylor was talking about, but I actually knew it all too well. Sex and violence.
This was what my life was reduced to. A half hour of fun to avoid reality.
My sexual identity fluctuated in cycles and allowed me to explore territories that my friends didn’t seem interested in.
Sometimes I was the one who got on my knees in front of the guys in the school bathrooms; other times they were the ones who overpowered me.
My gaze drifted along Taylor’s tapered body, and I thought about all the girls who had been under my hands.
It wasn’t just a matter of beauty standards, but of character.
I liked them strong and decisive—the girls who were capable of pulling my hair and telling me what they wanted from me; giving them the freedom to express themselves and use me until it made them feel good made me feel satisfied.
Even though, to be honest, bending them over in the most indelicate way possible, was my specialty. Just to remind them that they could play with me as much as they wanted but I was the one who held the reins.
“How was the exhibit yesterday?” asked Taylor.
“Meh. Fine.”
Except that I was tangled in the mess called June White. I’d let her get in my head. Now I couldn’t get her out.
Taylor threw her long blond hair behind her shoulders as she stared at me suspiciously.
“So you’re sure about the drug testing? I’m talking about Jackson.”
I nodded, looking for a vape pen in my shorts pocket.
“Marvin told me that Jackson talked with Blaze.” I couldn’t decipher what Taylor was talking about.
“So what?”
“He spends so much time with Blaze.” What the fuck was she talking about now?
“Uh, no. That’s not true.”
Taylor flashed me a mischievous grin.
“Maybe you’re not Blaze’s favorite anymore, did you ever think of that?” she taunted.
The vape pen vibrated between my lips because I grumbled loudly.
“Bullshit.”
Blaze quivered just at the sight of me. His pupils dilated all the way when he saw me, and his chest started wheezing like crazy. I could have him when I wanted him.
He couldn’t help it; I had that effect on him. I had that effect on everyone.
It was me.
A kind of drug, a forbidden game that once they tried they threw away. Is that what I was afraid of? That she wouldn’t want me anymore after?
No, that was the classic bullshit of the failed psychologist.
If I hadn’t banged her yet, it was just because of William. If it was for her, I would’ve already shoved my tongue in her by now, and we probably would’ve banged. Because I know I like her.
A lot.
Sometimes I didn’t even understand it.
“Look, enough bullshit. We have serious stuff to talk about. What was your deal at Poppy’s party?” I muttered, bringing the vape pen to my lips.
Of course I hadn’t forgotten about the scene Taylor had made.
“Why are you asking me?”
I watched her shrug like someone who had nothing to feel bad about.
“Because you orchestrated a fucking disaster, and you know it.”
“Both William and that good for nothing Ariana would’ve done it sooner or later with or without the closet.”
Yeah, but you humiliated June in front of everyone by doing it that way.
“Tell me the truth,” I urged her.
“What?”
I looked down at her, and for a moment she seemed to hold her breath apprehensively.
“Did you record a video the other night?”
I didn’t even have time to see her reaction because she immediately attacked me with her excuses.
“No, James. Don’t even think about it. I was joking when I hinted at that. I was angry.”
“Why?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Because I saw you dancing with her,” she admitted in one breath. Then she bit her lip, almost regretting admitting having said that.
“You always see me with different people.”
“But it’s you and me. With the others it’s just—it’s not nothing, James.”
I put my hand on my forehead and massaged it nervously. Her sentence bothered me, even though I tried to hide it. I could bang anyone, but I was only this much of an asshole to Taylor.
Because it was a game with Tiffany, and that was often only when there were other girls in between; with Ari it was a vendetta against Brian; with Poppy and the others it was a pastime to chase away the boredom, but I was a real bastard with Taylor.
She kept believing that I was just a physical object with the others, and I’d tried to explain to her in every possible way that it wasn’t worth it, that being with me didn’t make sense, but we always ended up talking about it in the end. Maybe I was drawn to her bitchy character.
“Then explain this to me James: If you don’t have sex, what are you always doing with her?”
Great fucking question.
I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to control myself.
Every time the princess and I argued, I was always an inch away from lifting up that damn uniform skirt and pressing my body against her, just for the pleasure of making her feel how much her obnoxious chatter turned me on.
“So you didn’t record a video? Nothing? Are you sure?” I demanded, now about to step in the shower.
“No, Jamie.” She shook her head. “And if I did, I would’ve deleted it.” I didn’t trust Taylor; she’d have a million reasons to make me pay.
“Uh, I don’t believe you,” I grumbled when she came closer to throw her arms around my neck.
“I love you, James, I’d never do something like that.” Taylor loved me. Sure.
They’d told me that so many times that I’d already lost count.
Strangers never said I love you, so I always wanted Sammy and the other girls at school to tell me that, even if it was just for fun.
What else did they love other than what they saw on the outside?
Did they love what I gave them? Drugs, sex, money, my affection?
How could anyone love someone who had so little respect for themselves?
Who spent day after day wearing themselves out in the hopes of self-destructing?
And the more my self-hatred grew, the more their love intensified.
They continued to adore me, oblivious to the fact that the object of their love didn’t exist. The guy they loved so much wasn’t real, was just an illusion—the result of thoughts and judgments that the others had of him. And I mirrored them continuously.
James is violent. James is toxic. James treats women badly. But loving others had always been a challenge for me. How do you pour into someone else’s cup if your own bottle’s empty?
I’d always envied Tiffany and how she never gave a damn about what other people thought.
Poppy and her carefreeness. Ari and the fact that she didn’t feel guilty despite so many betrayals.
Being with them was the equivalent of absorbing their light while I tarnished them with my darkness.
With the disappointment that I’d been carrying with me when I was abandoned for the umpteenth time by the same people who were supposed to love and protect me.
“Jamie.” Taylor’s voice brought me back to reality.
Maybe I was hiding a feeling of guilt for breaking her heart a million times behind the awareness that Taylor was strong and capable of handling anything.
She reminded me of her mom, who did nothing but put up with her husband’s cheating.
It was wrong, and knowing it should’ve made me feel like a monster, but the truth was that I, Brian, Amelia, Jackson, and even Will, all shared family histories that made us grow up lacking and chronically incomplete.
“I didn’t like what you did at Poppy’s,” I mumbled.
“Did it turn you on?” she asked me, insistently seeking my lips.
“No, you went too far, Taylor.”
I removed myself from her sharp nails scratching my cheeks, and Taylor’s reaction was predictable.
“I was pissed off because of the fight with my dad, then Will was a pain in the ass with that good-guy act he’s been keeping up since he met White!” she spewed, infuriated. “Do you know that now he doesn’t go to the races anymore?” she added.
“I didn’t know that. So what?”
“Look, James, I don’t want to drag you into more messes because of me, but I want the gun back before my dad gets in the middle of it. Do something!” she said, stretching out her arms.
“Will’s a good guy in his own way. Of course he’s not that way just because he met her,” I clarified.