Page 37 of Regrets

He smiles but seems nervous as he swallows and then nods, taking my hand as we climb from the couch and exit the crowded room. The lake house is almost as big as their actual house with room after room, and I follow Colt up the stairs to the third bedroom on the left.

His room.

He closes the door, and I feel his hands on my hips.Finally.

Everything feels so right as his lips find mine, and we start to kiss each other in the dark room, our bodies moving slowly toward the bed.

This is right. This is what I want.

Just Colt and me. Like it was always supposed to be.

My body falls under his on the bed as I lift his shirt up and over his head, and we kiss sweetly, softly, like we have so many times.

“I love you so much, Colt,” I say between kisses and holding onto his shoulders as his body hovers over mine.

“I love you too, Pea.”

This is going to happen. And I’m ready.

Although my heart is thundering in my chest.

I lower my hand to the button on his jeans and undo it, feeling that he’s hard and ready too.

His right hand braces him, lifting him up as he looks down between us. The moonlight peeking through the window creates enough light to reveal the pained look on his face before his forehead rests against mine. “I can’t.”

I swear my heart shatters to a million pieces in my chest as I look up at him. “What?”

“Pea, I can’t do this.”

“Why? Don’t you want to?”

“I do.” His voice is strained and sounds so weird.

“But you won’t. Why?” I feel sick and try not to vomit when I voice my greatest fear. “Am I too dirty for you?”

He climbs off me and sits on the edge of the bed, his hand in his hair as he leans hunched over. “Of course not.”

I’m angry now. I can’t take the rejection anymore, and I maneuver my body to sit next to him. “Then why? It makes absolutely no sense, Colt. We’re eighteen. We have two weeks until we’re out of high school. I’m on the pill. We supposedly love each other.” I stand up from the bed, feeling the nauseous feeling attacking me, and I point angrily at him, unable to keep my calm any longer. “Just say it, Colt.”

His head lifts, and he looks at me. “Say what?”

“That I’m not good enough for you.”

I see the silent war on his handsome face even in the minimal light. Something is so wrong here. I feel it, but I can’t place it. He isn’t himself. His voice is meek, and he looks sick. “When I saw you with a black eye . . .”No! I knew that would haunt me.I knew something changed that day.No. No. No. “I just realized how different we were.” I place a hand over my stomach as it revolts. He looks away from me and out the window. “We grew up so differently. It made me wonder what else you were hiding from me.”

He meets my eyes as mine well up with tears. He thinks I’m dirty. He thinks I’m a liar.

He’s not wrong.

I’ve hidden so much from him but not on purpose. I just never wanted my life to touch him. I was never touched other than the one black eye. But the horrible housing conditions I grew up in, my drug-addicted mother, the stories I’ve heard from other foster kids, I didn’t want him to know about any of it.

I was afraid he’d look at me the way he is now.

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“Come on, Pea.”

“Is there someone else, Colt?”

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