Chapter 11
eleven
SASHA
Johnny almost kissed me.
I almost let him.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I shouldn’t have let him get that close, I should have pulled back and stopped it from happening. Shit, if my mom hadn’t come in then I totally would have let him.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter aloud, dropping my head into my hands.
This whole thing is so dumb, and I can’t seem to wrap my head around why he tried to kiss me. Sure, he’s flirty and sometimes I get that vibe from him, but he’s like that with everyone.
Besides, he is a notorious whore. That’s a little mean, but it’s true... he’s slept with a ridiculous number of girls. I’d probably just be another notch on his belt, nothing special, no one special.
Being another random girl he hooks up with is almost worse than being nothing to him at all.
But what if he actually does like me?
Jesus Christ, I need to get my head screwed on straight.
“Something on your mind, Chiclet?”
My father’s voice snaps me out of the mental battle I’m fighting and sends me into a whole other one. It’s been months since the accident, and he still isn’t able to look at me longer than a couple of seconds, let alone hold a decent conversation with me.
“No, I’m okay, Papa” I lie.
His eyes crease for a fraction of a second before he turns his gaze away from me, but he surprises me when he walks into my room instead of continuing down the hall. “I know when my daughter is lying, so how about you get whatever it is that’s bothering you off your chest.”
I don’t really know how to react, both because my father is actually talking to me, and because I don’t know how to talk to him.
When Jurian died, I didn’t just lose him, I also lost whatever relationship I had with the rest of my family. I lost my only support system and was left to face my grief all by myself. I became invisible to the only people who saw me.
Part of me hates my father for how he reacted, but the other part of me doesn’t blame him.
“What do you wanna hear about first?” I chuckle dryly.
“We could talk about how much I hate myself for killing Ian and J, or what about you blaming me? Oh! Here’s a fun one, we could talk about the fact that the only guy I’ve ever really liked tried to kiss me, but I’m pushing him away because I’m too scared to let anyone in. ”
Maybe I should go to therapy.
But what happens if I do let him in? All I can picture is him getting bored, or running as fast as he can when he realizes just how fucked up I am. The second I allow myself to get close to any of them, I know it’ll all be ripped away from me, and I’ll lose my only friends.
My dad sighs, rubbing his hands down his face before looking to me with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry, for all of it, but I never blamed you.”
Tears start to burn, and I have to fight to keep them from pouring down my face. Seeing my dad so emotional doesn’t happen often, it kills me to see him this way, but it’s not his own sadness that makes me want to sob… it’s knowing what he’s about to say next that’s getting to me.
“You two looked so much alike, and even though I still love you more than anything on this planet, I see him when I look at you. It breaks my heart knowing I can’t look my own daughter in the eyes without seeing my son, but it hurts knowing that I’ll never get to hug him again.”
I choke on my words, unable to get them out. My hands curl into fists, my nails digging into my palms so aggressively that I wince.
“There’s no excuse for how I’ve treated you, for not being there when you needed me most, and I promise that changes now.” He grabs my hands, forcing me to hold his, and looks me in the eyes. “You are my world, the best parts of your mother and I, please let me make this up to you.”
I don’t want to hate my father, and I don’t want Jurian’s death to rip this family apart. He would hate the way we’ve been acting recently, probably scold the two of us for letting this get between us.
Jurian was always so proud to tell people that our family was close, this family mattered to him more than anything.
So even if I have a little resentment towards my dad, I have to push past it for J.
You have to push past it for yourself.
“I love you Papa,” I tell him, smiling weakly.
He pulls me into a tight hug, like the ones I would get when I was a kid.
“This was not your fault, there was nothing you could have done to stop it.” I want to believe him, I really do, but maybe if I had just slowed down, I would have seen that truck coming.
“Now, who’s this boy you’re interested in? ”
“His name is Johnny.”
“Is he good?”
Nodding my head, I pull back. “He’s the kindest person I know, he has his own demons, but he never projects them onto others. He’s like Jurian was.”
His jaw ticks, his pale blue eyes boring into mine as he thinks. For the first time in a very long time, I really look at my father, noticing the way his eyes look a little too tired, and the grey hair that’s started to grow in despite it being completely black not too long ago.
He looks older —broken— and it hits me that he’s lost half his heart. He’s not the same man who would crack jokes at any given time, or blast music in the house and force Mom to dance with him. I haven’t heard them play in a very long time.
“Then why are you pushing him away?” He finally asks.
“Because I’m afraid to lose him.”
“You know, when I first met your mother, we kept telling everyone we were only friends, but both of us knew we were more than that.” He leans back against the frame of my bed and pulls me into his side, “I was terrified of losing her too, I didn’t want to mess up what we had, but I knew that it was going to be all or nothing, it was too hard otherwise. ”
“So what did you do?”
I’ve never heard this side of their story before. I guess I’ve just always assumed that they met, fell madly in love, and then lived happily ever after.
“I kissed her, then walked away. I left the ball in her court, because whether she loved me back or not, I could live with the fact that I at least tried.” His smile is wide, wider than I’ve seen in years, but I guess that’s what happens when you love someone more than anything else in this entire world.
“She chased after me, told me she needed time to figure out her feelings, but she didn’t want me to disappear.
A day later, she was waiting on my doorstep in the pouring rain. ”
That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard, but my smile mirrors my father’s nonetheless. I love hearing about their lives before J and I came into the picture, and I love how in love they are with one another even after twenty-five years of marriage.
“You gotta try Chiclet, don’t let fear choose when it should be your heart.”
I’m sitting on Johnny’s bed, waiting for him to get out of the shower, when Claire taps on the doorframe.
Her long brown hair is pulled into a ponytail at the top of her head, small pieces hanging out framing her face effortlessly.
Her bright blue eyes sparkle in the afternoon light, while her lips tip up in a smile.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s beautiful, and it’s not hard to see why Lucas fell for her. In the short month that I’ve known Claire Taylor, I’ve been able to see the side of her that everyone talks about, the side of her that makes everyone like her.
It’s hard not to like her.
“How’s it going?” She asks, taking a couple of steps into the room and sitting next to me.
“I’m good, you?”
She chuckles, “I can only ever be so good living with these boys. They’re a handful.”
That’s one way to put it.
When I walked in earlier, August had Blair in a headlock. The two of them were screaming over some video game while Lucas laughed hysterically from the couch.
I actually thought August was going to kill one of them.
The absurdity of the whole thing was made a whole lot worse when Johnny came down in his boxer shorts and nearly gave me a heart attack. The guy took one look at me, then at his friends, shrugged and joined in on the whole thing.
I’ll never get used to them.
“Steph just got here, we’re gonna watch a movie and have some much-needed girl time,” she continues, “any chance you wanna join?”
“Really?”
Guilt hits me so hard I don’t know what to do with myself. She should hate me, despise me for what happened to her, and yet she doesn’t because she doesn’t know.
Claire Taylor is being kind to me, and I’m the last person who deserves it.
“I know you’re here to hang with Davis, but I promise Steph and I are better company.”
Somehow, I can’t decide if that’s true or not.
But after he tried to kiss me, I feel like I most definitely need to get away from him. I don’t even know what I was thinking coming here today, we’re getting too close too fast. He’s going to figure out all my secrets.
I have a really bad feeling that if Johnny asked the right questions, I would fold and tell him everything he wants to know.
He has that effect on me.
He makes me feel safe, comfortable.
“Are you trying to steal my girl from me, Clarity?” Davis asks. A towel hangs off his hips, so low that I can see the perfect sculpt of his abs and the deep V that leads to somewhere I can only imagine.
The way he calls me his girl shouldn’t do the things it does to me, make me feel the way it makes me feel, but knowing that doesn’t stop my heart from wanting to pound out of my chest.
Claire laughs, “I don’t think I could steal her away from you if I tried, but yes... that’s basically what I’m doing.”
Johnny’s eyes shift to me, taking me in from head to toe with a look that tells me he doesn’t want me to go, but knows that I’m in desperate need of some friends. “Can I have her back after?”
Claire gives him a knowing look, “that’s up to Steph.”
Stephanie Saunders scares the living shit out of me. She’s nice and all, but that girl has got some bite to her bark. She’s headstrong and sassy as all hell. I think she could kick my ass if provoked.
A calm silence washes over the room for a moment before Claire stands up and makes her way out to the hall. “We’ll be in my room,” she calls over her shoulder, “feel free to join whenever you’re finished in here.”
Johnny closes the door behind him, and I instantly feel myself start to panic. I’m alone with him in his room… and he’s basically fucking naked.
This is not good. Not good at all.
“You gonna go join them?” He asks, knowing damn well that my heart is thundering in my chest. I mean, who’s wouldn’t when he’s standing there looking like that?
Wet, hot and completely out of my league.
I nod my head, suddenly at a loss for words. I don’t know what to say to him, how to talk about the feelings slowly taking over every part of me, or about that almost kiss from the other day.
He takes a couple of steps towards his dresser and grabs a pair of boxers, a smirk tilting his lips as he motions for me to turn around.
I realize then that I’ve been staring, and turn as fast as I can to hide the pink staining my cheeks, which only gets worse when I hear him chuckle from behind me.
This whole situation is unfair. How could I have everything I want within my reach but not have the courage to grab it? How could he try to kiss me and then act like nothing happened, and worse, taunt me because he knows what it did to me?
Johnny has always been flirty, but it seems cruel of him to do this. Even if he doesn’t know how I really feel. Playing with someone’s feelings is mean, regardless of the situation.
But I can’t bring myself to be angry at him, or lash out and tell him how horrible he’s being.
When I feel him take a seat on the bed next to me, I finally turn back around and instantly lock onto those bright green eyes that make me weak at the knees.
“So, Little Pixie, you ditching me for the girls?”
“Are you mad?”
His eyes soften, “not even close. Go have fun.”
He kisses me on the top of my head, and that one little gesture makes me think that maybe there’s more to Johnny and me than I originally thought.