Page 33 of Accidental Attraction

Chapter Eleven

Jenna

“Be ready to go by noon, okay? I have to run to the office for a few hours. When I get back, we will leave,” Liam said, waiting for my answer. He apparently accepted my nod as an answer, as he smiled at me before leaving the house.

Liam and I were going somewhere today, but he wouldn’t tell me where. Yesterday he came home and suddenly announced we were leaving tomorrow. Even though I had asked, pleaded, and threatened in order to get information from him, he didn’t budge. How I was supposed to pack was beyond me, and I only had three hours to make sure I had everything.

A whole set of suitcases were sitting in my room, waiting for me to fill them, but instead of doing that, I decided to call Lennon. I smiled as I hit dial. Lennon and Blake had finally gotten together, and it was all because of me. Yes I was giddy, so sue me! Now if only I could get Liam to like me back, I’d be over the moon. The phone rang, and I started to think Lennon wasn’t going to answer.

“Hello?” Lennon said into the phone. She sounded breathless.

“Uh, hey. Am I interrupting something?” I asked.

“No, you’re fine,” she said, but I heard what sounded like Blake in the background yell, “Yes!”

“I’ll let you go. Have fun with Blake.”

“O-okay,” she stuttered, and I heard a moan. Immediately I hung up on her. I did not want to hear whatever she and Blake were doing. I’d rather not have that mental image. Groaning, I realized I had to now pack. I wasn’t the biggest fan of surprises, especially if I didn’t know what to pack.

Opening the suitcases, I went into my closet and started pulling random pieces of clothing. While I forced myself to pack, I thought about the last week. It went by surprisingly fast. One day I was doing wedding shopping with Liam’s mom and sister, and the next I was being woken up and told we were leaving for somewhere around noon.

On Monday, after I shopped with Julie and Lilly, we got to know one another better. To think I was nervous was stupid. They were both the sweetest people I had ever met, and they never once made me uncomfortable. When I had to lie about a few things with Liam, I felt terrible. I did not want to see their faces when they learned my relationship with Liam was fake. Especially after the personal information Julie shared with me earlier. They were what I wished for in a family. I wanted a sister like Julie, who loved her family and would even give up her dream to make them happy. And Lilly was the mom I’d never had. Ever since that Monday, she would call me every day to ask what I was doing or my opinions on some wedding stuff. She seemed to actually care about me.

I was slowly starting to become one with Liam’s family and friends. Lennon and I were getting close, and I was starting to consider her one of my best friends. I had only hung out with Blake a handful of times, but he seemed very sweet. I knew I shouldn’t be getting comfortable in Liam’s life, but I couldn’t help it. This was everything I had wanted when I was a kid. I wanted a loving family who cared about me, a group of friends who liked to hang out and didn’t care if I didn’t have a family, and an amazing boyfriend. I mean, Liam wasn’t my boyfriend, but I felt like he would be what I would have wanted. I also knew the more comfortable I got the worse it would be when I had to leave, but for now I was not going to think of that.

I hadn’t realized until recently how repetitive my life had gotten before the deal with Liam. I would get up early go to the diner and work hours on end, then I would go home with enough time to change outfits to go to the club. There I would work until the early morning before repeating the cycle. It seemed my entire life had been that way, even when I was in my foster home. I’d get up go to school, come home help with the other kids and do homework before trying to sleep, and then started again in the morning.

I guess I couldn’t say my life now wasn’t repetitive, because it was. I would get up, do stuff around the house for a little while, read, then, when Liam got home, we’d cook, watch TV, and talk about random things, then go to bed, but it didn’t feel like it was repetitive. Even though it was boring, I felt like my life had a little more meaning than before. Sure, I mostly stayed in the house, but I never really got fully bored. It wasn’t until Liam that my life was just a boring cycle of going nowhere.

As I thought about my life, my thoughts drifted to my mother. If someone had asked me a year ago if I saw my mother again would I be happy, I would have answered yes. But now my answer had changed. Seeing that my own mother didn’t even recognize me at the benefit party was the lowest blow and the worst hurt. I mean, I had hoped she would have recognized me even though it had been fourteen years and I had changed, but my own mother hadn’t even shown me an ounce of recognition.

I had wished so many times that I would find my mother after all these years and she would welcome me back with open arms. That she would say she had been looking for me all these years but couldn’t find me. Or that she had a good reason for leaving me when I was five. I had not once in a million years thought the reason she left me was to marry a rich man. Maybe she did try looking for me, but I would never know. I did not plan on talking or meeting her anytime soon, or ever for that matter. What she did was something that was unforgivable.

As I continued to pack things I thought I might need into my suitcase, I thought back to when I was seven.

It had been two years since my mother left me at the doorstep of the orphanage, and I was in first grade. It was the middle of the year, and I had yet to make a friend. Since I was in a different part of town than I used to live, I had to go to a whole different school. Even though I had been told I would make plenty of friends, I never did. It seemed I was the odd new girl and that I was cursed or something.

I was sitting underneath this big tree the school had that was pretty far away from the playground. No one ever really came over there, so I was free from the annoying kids. I was sitting there minding my own business, eating my plain sandwich by myself, when a group of kids that were in my class came up to me. At first I had thought they were going to be nice and ask me to play with them, but I was sadly mistaken. Somehow one of the kids had heard from their parents that I didn’t have a family. They all stood there, staring down at me while making comments that my mom never loved me and that was why she left. Or how I must have been evil and it drove her away.

For a week straight, the kids made fun of me, but when I stopped crying after the third day, they slowly realized they weren’t going to get a reaction. The kids stopped but not completely. They told all the other kids things about me that weren’t true so they wouldn’t come near me. It ruined any chance of me having any friends. If a new kid started coming to school, they got to them in an instant and spread thelies.

All through elementary to high school the same kids messed with me, but I just ignored them. After hearing how my mother didn’t love me so many times, I learned how to numb myself to everything they said. I kept telling myself not to believe them and I didn’t, or, well, not fully.

There was always a small part of me that said she loved me, but that part was squashed when I’d seen her a week ago. The kids were right. My mother must have not loved me. That was why she left.

Deciding that I was done depressing myself, I shook my head. I looked down at my suitcase and smiled, proud of myself. I had only filled one big suitcase, and all my clothes were folded neatly inside. Not knowing where we were going, I decided to pack for any kind of weather. I had two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts, a few long-sleeve shirts, and a few tank tops. I wasn’t going to pack the swim suit, but I wound up throwing it on top. It sounded like a lot of clothes, but I didn’t want to pack all light clothes and end up cold.

Mentally cursing Liam, I headed to my bathroom to grab some stuff I would need. I had never left the state of New York before. As I packed I was feeling a little nervous but excited. I had always wanted to get out of here and see new places but never had the money to do so. I didn’t know what Liam had planned, but I knew I was going to like it, even if it was a surprise.

Zipping up my suitcase and my little one filled with bathroom stuff, I stepped back. I put my hands on my hips and nodded. I did good; I only needed one suitcase. Why Liam thought I’d need five, I had no idea. Glancing at the clock on my bedside table, I saw I had a little less than two hours until Liam would be here. Seeing as I was still in my pjs and hadn’t showered, I figured I’d better get ready.

After showering, I slipped on a pair of sweats and an old Nirvana shirt. If we were driving or flying, I wanted to be comfortable. I was one of those people that traveled in comfortable clothes and the minute they got home they changed into PJs. I didn’t get how people could just come home and sit around in their jeans. It had to be uncomfortable. With my wet hair pulled into a careless bun, I left my room, not even caring if I looked homeless.

I had gotten a lot better at navigating the house than when I first moved in. I acted as if it were my own place, not really caring that it was Liam’s anymore. He was home more than he been at the beginning but still not enough. Ever since I moved in, it seemed homey and less deserted. Gone was the pre-paid food. Liam had a cleaning lady before, but now I cleaned the house, making it look ten times better than when I first moved in. At first I was amazed by the size of this place, but now I was so used to it I could walk around with my eyes closed.

Making sure dishes were washed and put away and that everything was off, I was ready to go. I was getting more nervous as I waited for Liam to get home. It wasn’t that I was entirely nervous about going on a trip; I was more nervous about being alone with Liam. I mean, yes, we were alone together practically every day, but this was different. We were going somewhere together.

Since I discovered my feelings for Liam, they seemed to grow each and every day. Each passing day I found something I liked about him and another reason to fall for him even more. Maybe it was because I’d never been in a real relationship, but my feelings were growing faster than I thought possible. It was like admitting that I was falling for him opened a gate that would no longer close.

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