Chapter 5 – “august” - Taylor Swift #2
“Can I tell you a secret, Augustus?” she whispers in my ear, and the lower region of my body reacts in a way I really wish it wouldn’t.
“Sure.”
“I love you.”
“That’s not a secret.”
She laughs, pulling away from me. Her brown eyes reflect light in a way that appears endless, like an abyss, which is fitting, considering I can’t stare at her without getting lost.
“I love you, too, Elena.”
“That’s not a secret,” she mimics me. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told I love, besides my parents and my dumbass brothers. That’s the secret.”
“What about my dumbass brother?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “But I think I might tonight.” She bites her lip, and I wish I were the one biting it instead. But that reverie is ruined when I realize what she just said. She boops me on the nose. “Want to know another secret?”
I don’t answer because I don’t think I want to know this one.
“I’m going to have sex tonight.”
I didn’t know it was possible to end a human life in six measly words, but I’m fairly certain I just fucking died.
“No, you’re not,” I snap.
She’s drunk. She’s drunk. She’s drunk.
I repeat the mantra in my mind, convincing myself she didn’t mean it.
Except Elena’s brow furrows, and those beautiful caramel eyes catch fire. A serious expression takes over her face as she rears back. “Yes, I am? Who the fuck are you?—”
“You’re shit-faced, Elena.” I take the plastic cup from her hand and set it on my other side, out of reach.
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t fight me for it back. “I’ll sober up beforehand.” Raising three fingers in the air, she adds, “Scout’s honor.”
My stomach is in my goddamn throat, and I can’t breathe. She just dropped bricks on my fucking chest, and she’s smiling at me like it’s no big deal, like she didn’t just destroy me. Elena Ramos is a nuclear bomb, wreaking havoc on my entire world.
I grab both her arms, forcing her to look at me. Her mouth shuts and her eyes go wide with shock and alarm. “Elena, I am begging you.” My voice shakes with desperation. “Do not give my brother?—”
“Auggie!”
The sound comes abruptly from behind me, but before I have the chance to turn and find its source, a force rams into me, sending me tumbling down the steps of my back porch into the yard.
There’s a pressure on my back, and I’m too on edge to deal with bullshit right now.
I’m fucking feral, I’m raging, and I want to set fire to everything around me.
I shove back against whoever pushed me down the stairs, rolling over on top of them, cocking my fist, ready to break their face.
Leo’s sad, blue, puppy dog eyes look up from beneath me, a pout on his face. “I’m sorry, dude, I’m sorry!” He holds his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just missed you. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“Dammit, Leo!” I shove at his chest, rolling off him.
He sits up, rubbing his neck before bursting with laughter. “Yeah, man. I don’t even know which way is up right now, and I get kind of panicky when the room’s spinning. I thought you went missing.”
I roll my eyes, glancing back up at the porch. Everett’s smothering his sister in a bear hug, muttering something about how he’d never want to share a womb with anyone else. They make a lot of womb jokes, and I think it’s fucking odd, but I guess it’s a twin thing.
Elena shoves him off, but she’s laughing like our entire conversation just moments ago hadn’t happened. She and Everett stand together and walk inside, and she doesn’t spare a glance back at me.
I brush off my knees, grabbing Leo’s arm to help him off the ground. “I’m fine. I’m not missing, but I need to take a fucking walk.”
Leo follows my gaze through the door, and he nods as if he understands. “Don’t stay away too long. I will call in an Amber Alert.”
That earns a rough laugh from me, and I slap my friend on the back before I step away, stalking around the side of my house and out the back gate.
Once my feet hit the pavement of our street, I run.
I run until I’m numb, until I can no longer feel her touch, her breath on my neck.
I run until I’ve all but forgotten the words she said to me, the secrets she told.
Yet one echoes in my head, keeping pace with the rhythm of my feet hitting the ground.
You’re the only person I’ve ever told that to.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
The party had begun to die down when I returned home, only a few kids from school lingering around the kitchen.
My brother and Elena were missing, and his bedroom door was shut.
Leo and Everett were passed out on the living room couch, cuddling each other’s feet.
After taking a photo I’ll definitely use for blackmail later, I not-so-politely kicked the loiterers out of my house before I cleaned up the kitchen and went to bed.
The issue with a daytime party is that it’s only nine o’clock now, everyone around me passed out or MIA, and I’m stuck staring at my ceiling, a bullet train of images flashing across my mind of the girl I’m madly in love with and my older brother who doesn’t deserve her.
I know I should put on some music. A movie.
Anything to avoid a rogue sound coming from Zach’s room across the hall.
But I don’t. It’s almost like I’m searching for it, the confirmation, hoping the silence remains so I can convince myself nothing is happening at all.
It’s hard enough to know that on weekends, Zach sneaks through her bedroom window, or vice versa, and they sleep next to each other, but I allowed myself to live in blissful ignorance, pretending that’s as far as anything ever went.
I chose to walk through each day convinced she’d realize I was so much better for her, and she’d choose me instead.
I rub a hand down my face, taking a deep breath.
If my two best friends weren’t passed out on my couch, I’d have gone to their place tonight and crashed there.
If I showed up on Monica and Carlos’s doorstep right now, they’d let me in, no doubt.
But they also might ask where their kids are, and I would then have to explain that two of them got shit-faced, and the other may or may not be actively losing her virginity.
I decide I need a glass of water—or maybe some of Leo’s fucked-up punch. Maybe it’ll kill me. At the very least, it’ll help me pass out too. I need to escape my own mind for a little while. I throw myself out of bed, trudge to my bedroom door, and toss it open as I wipe at my heavy eyes.
I blink, adjusting my glasses as another door creaks open. My blurry vision focuses, and Elena stands in front of me. She gasps, stepping back suddenly before pausing.
“You scared me,” she murmurs. I take note of her smeared eye makeup, the halo of distressed curls around her shoulders, and her bare legs beneath one of my brother’s oversized T-shirts.
My heart, my stomach—all my internal organs, really—fall to the ground beneath me as I soak her in. Every confirmation I didn’t want to receive is written plainly in the space between us, and I’m not sure I’ll ever recover.
A prickling sensation spreads through my chest, the blade of a scorching knife tearing its way through my flesh.
“Are you still drunk?” I find myself asking.
She shakes her head. I study her eyes, finding them clearer than they were earlier. Despite the raging hatred for him flowing through my veins, I trust my brother enough to know that he wouldn’t go there unless Elena was completely sober and willing.
“Are you okay?” I ask this time.
There is a soft smile on her face as she nods. I’m sure she assumes it’s a reassuring expression for me, but she has no idea that she just ripped my heart from my body, taking my soul right along with it.
I can’t bear another second of standing here across the hall, staring at her like a soulless ghost with a hollow chest. “Goodnight, Elena,” I murmur as I step back inside my room.
Her face falls as I shut my door in front of her.