End of the Innocence (12 page)

We parked, and Brad got out of the car. I huddled there for a few seconds, not sure if I was supposed to follow. He looked at me through the front window and pointed for me to join him. I got out slowly, wondering if I could just go back to him breaking up with me instead of him kicking my ass before he dumped me.

I walked around the front of the car but kept out of arm’s reach of him.

“Okay, look,” he snarled. “I don’t know what your fucking mom has done to you, and, to be honest, I don’t want to know, because if I did, then it would be impossible for me to resist the urge to punch her in the face. We need to get a few things straight if this is going to continue.” He stopped, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to answer since there wasn’t a question. Instead I just nodded.

“I don’t know how she convinced you that you were worthless, but it’s bullshit. Plain bullshit. You are the most… just… you are the best person I have ever met, and I have shaken Nolan Ryan’s hand. There is
nothing
about you that doesn’t blow me away on every single level there is. You are smart, cute, brave, humble, and just….” He swallowed as he tried to contain the emotion in his voice. “You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me. Ever. And if you can’t get it through your skull how crazy I am about you—then we are going to have problems.”

This didn’t sound like anything I had imagined.

“I love you. That isn’t a like, isn’t a puppy love, and it isn’t a crush. The moment we kissed in my room, I was yours; it just took my stupid brain time to figure it out. You are everything I need in my life, but more importantly, you are everything I will ever need. I am
never
going to break up with you. Never. If we break up, and, God, I hope that’s a gigantic ‘if’, it will be because you realized I was not the guy you thought I was and that
you
can do better. So no matter what happens between us, I will never break up with you. Got it?”

I knew what he was saying was supposed to be romantic, but he sounded so angry. I just nodded.

“You are going to outgrow me, Kyle. I know that in my heart, and it terrifies me. But you should never, ever worry that I am going to break up with you. Because it will never happen.” He was close to crying, and it was killing me.

I cleared the distance between us in two strides and wrapped my arms around him so tight my shoulders hurt. He clasped me back, and we stood there in front of his car holding each other for dear life. “I am never not going to love you,” I said to him when I could talk.

He swallowed and looked me straight in the eyes.

“I used to fool around with Kelly.”

I felt a chill run up my spine and took a half step away from him.

Maybe I was hasty in saying never.

B
RAD

T
HERE
are times I wished I was a douchebag.

I know that sounds like something no one would want to be, but there are times I wish I was missing a conscience or whatever those guys didn’t have. Not having a conscience or whatever allowed them to be complete assholes to other people and never feel a thing afterward. I have seen Josh Walker be a complete shit to a girl. Then, within ten minutes of her confronting him with his fuckery, he could turn what he did around so completely that she was grateful to still be going out with him.

If I was a douche, I could have done that to Kyle and not been in trouble.

But I wasn’t and I couldn’t.

I could never have looked into his eyes and treated him like shit. I had a feeling even if I was one of those guys, I still couldn’t hurt him. I could have just assured him that I had no intention of breaking up with him and let it be, but I just couldn’t keep what Kelly and I had done away from him anymore.

“What did you say?” he asked me, taking a half step away from me.

“A long time ago, before you and I ever met, I fooled around with Kelly,” I said, resisting the urge to move toward him. The worst thing I could do was crowd him. If I had learned anything from dating Kyle, it was when he needed his space, he
needed
it.

His face just turned white, and he had a hand over his mouth like he was on the verge of throwing up. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked after gaining some composure.

He’d asked a good question. Why hadn’t I?

Well, I was embarrassed about it. That was at the top of the list. Followed closely by “I was afraid Kyle would one day realize I wasn’t the guy he thought I was and leave.” Good reasons, both.

In the end, though? In the end, the real answer was because, as I had since I was ten, I was deflecting attention away from my mistakes. Standing there looking at Kyle and realizing how truthful he had been to me since day one, I knew I needed to stop. I needed to man up.

In hesitating words, I began to explain how we started fooling around during football camp and how it was always Kelly doing the touching while I just lay there. Then I described how when people started becoming suspicious of the way Kelly acted toward me, I just dropped him as a friend. And then I added that I thought Kelly might harbor some feelings toward me after all this time.

And then I waited for Kyle to hate me.

“Was that why he went apeshit on me in the quad?” he asked.

It was a good question, one I had asked myself more than once over the past few months. I shrugged because I didn’t have any more of an answer than I did the day it happened.

“So wait, when you came out in front of everyone, you were telling the truth that Kelly used to….” He seemed to choke on his own words before he tried again. “Are you telling me that Kelly is not just a homophobic asshole but might be a jealous ex-boyfriend?” He really sounded mad now.

“He was never my boyfriend,” I said bluntly.

“Did he know that?” he raged back at me. “Or did you just smile at him and imply the whole thing?”

Now I was getting mad. “Are we still talking about Kelly?”

“I don’t know.” He was on the verge of yelling now. “How do I know you didn’t say the same things to him that you’ve told me? How do I know you won’t do the same thing to me you did to him?”

Something in my head snapped.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I screamed. “How many different ways can I say I love you? Seriously Kyle, is there a number somewhere that will quiet the voices in your head? Is it ten? Twenty? A hundred? Pick a number, and I will do it. Just let me know what it will take, and I swear to you I will not stop trying until you believe me, but this is getting old. I did not go out with Kelly; he sucked my dick for a week. I did not tell him anything I have told you. In fact, I didn’t tell him a thing, which just makes me a bigger asshole than the one you’re imagining. Whatever! I’m tired of hiding it. I was scared and horny and I used him for sex and then ignored him. If you think that is what I am doing to you, then obviously we have different ideas about what is going on here.”

I was trying to catch my breath, standing there staring at him. I had just finished practice half an hour earlier, and I was more out of breath now than I had been running laps.

He let out half a laugh before stopping himself. Since there was nothing I had just said that was funny, I frowned, which made him laugh even more. He held a hand up as he really started laughing. “I’m sorry, but that was the first time you’ve really yelled at me, and it was to tell me you love me.” He guffawed some more. “I’m just thinking that all that screaming was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” And then he just burst out like a hyena.

I had to admit, it was kind of funny.

“Well, you drive me crazy,” I said, trying not to laugh.

He looked up, and I saw him almost crying, he was laughing so hard. “Yeah, I saw the crazy part.”

“Shut up,” I said quietly, but I was smiling.

He shook his head as he tried to stop laughing. “Give me a second.” His hands were on his thighs as he tried to get his breath. “Okay… almost.”

I sighed as I waited for him.

He stood up and looked me. “One, you knew I was crazy when you kissed me, and if you didn’t, that’s on you. Two, I’m sorry, but there isn’t a number because I cannot wrap my mind around why someone like you would go out with someone like me, so I can’t help you there. And three, what you did to Kelly is exactly what I am terrified of, and you saying you’ve actually done it to someone is like admitting you’re Freddie Kruger or something.” He walked over to me and put his arms over my shoulders. “But I’m glad you told me.”

I pretended to be mad, but he saw right through it.

“You can pout all you want, but you know everything I just said was the truth.” He kissed my cheek. “So? Fight over?”

I couldn’t hold it and let out a huge grin as I grabbed his waist and picked him up. “You are so lucky I love you,” I said, sitting him on the hood of the car. “So I never dated Kelly, and you get I do love you?” He nodded. “Good. Because that wasn’t even what I wanted to tell you.”

His smile dropped.

“I know you are on the fence about it, but I need to go to this party.” I couldn’t read his expression, but that was nothing new. “Kelly stood up for me today, and he practically begged me to go.” I leaned my forehead against his. “I totally understand if you don’t want to go, but I wish you would.”

I felt him lean into me, and I held my breath as I waited for him to answer.

“Then we go,” he whispered.

I looked up and saw him smile back at me. “You’ll go with me?”

He rolled his eyes as he said, “I suppose, if I have to.”

I began to tickle him, which turned into feeling him, which turned into kissing him.

I laid him back on the hood of my car, and I felt him move under me.

“Were you serious about the whole sex thing?” I asked after a few minutes.

“I think so,” he offered.

“Because if you did, I mean if you want to….” I took a deep breath. “Kelly’s parents have like five empty rooms. We can take one of them over and lock the door.” I leaned in and kissed his neck. “No parents, no interruptions.” I felt him sigh as I moved up to his ear. “Just you and me….”

“You promise no one could walk in?” he asked, pulling my mouth off him.

I nodded. “We wouldn’t be the first people who had sex at The Party, you know?”

He put a hand over my mouth. “I have heard enough today about who you have and have not been with. If you want to—”

“Do you?” I asked, interrupting him.

He hesitated and then nodded.

“You mean it?” I asked a little too eagerly.

He laughed. “Yes, yes I want to.”

I had to kiss him. No words could have expressed how excited I was.

And that was how we ended up going to The Party.

Something I don’t think I will ever stop regretting as long as I live.

K
YLE

O
VER
the next couple of days, a lot of things began to percolate to the front of my brain. Brad wanted to go to the party, which meant I needed to go, and, if I was going, that meant I needed a bunch of talking mice who knew how to sew.

Or I needed to beg Robbie for more clothes.

I was more inclined to obtain a grant to teach rodents how to manipulate a needle and thread before I actually went back and admitted to myself and to him that he had been right about me needing to face The Party head-on. Of course, I wasn’t going for the reason he thought I should go, but I had a feeling he was just going to smile and nod and give me that look every adult gives kids when they disagree with them. That “Oh, isn’t that cute! The baby can talk and wants to give his opinion. How adorable” look.

Sigh.

Today was Wednesday and The Party loomed ahead on Friday. That meant I had little to no time to grovel my way to some new clothes. I breezed through the day at school trying not to think how horrible it was going to be begging for new clothes. Brad noticed I was off, but he left it alone, no doubt thinking it was me trying to adjust to learning about him and Kelly. The thing was, I wasn’t surprised they’d fooled around. If anything, knowing they had and that Brad had treated Kelly like crap helped explain a lot of things.

Kelly Aimes behaved like a complete asshole unless you looked at his actions from the perspective of him being a spurned lover. At some point, I actually started to feel sorry for him. It wasn’t like I could blame him for having a crush on Brad. I mean, have you seen my boy’s ass? There was just no way the average human could spend more than a few days around him without getting at least a little crush on him.

But I have to be honest, I had absolutely no idea how to deal with this information.

I was just now almost getting my mind wrapped around the fact that Brad actually liked me; trying to expand that thinking to include the fact he liked me more than another person was just too much for me. The way my brain works is that me up against any other person in the world for someone’s affection is always going to end up with me losing. There is no way anyone, much less Brad, would pick me over anyone else, even Kelly.

For some reason I half expected Kelly to come by and sit with us at lunch, but it was just the four of us, Jennifer explaining the progress of the Prom Committee to Brad as Sammy and I ate in silence.

“So, you decided on that party?” she asked me quietly.

I nodded. “He wants to go, and I’ve never been before. It could be fun,” I said in a voice so pathetic I didn’t even believe it myself.

Sammy laughed. “You sound so convinced.”

I stifled the groan of anxiety I felt about the party, making sure Brad couldn’t hear me. “I am not going to know a soul; there will be all the popular people, and then me, sitting on the couch looking at my watch every fifteen minutes. You know what the worst part about that is?” I asked her. She shook her head. I held up my wrist. “I don’t even own a watch.”

She burst out laughing at that.

We both feigned innocence when Jennifer and Brad glanced at us. I elbowed her as they went back to talking. “You’re going to get us busted!”