Page 145 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
I gritted my teeth.
“What? Nothing to say now?”
“I said go away.”
“Oh, come on,” I challenged, hot on her heels. “You’ve been doing your damnedest to get my attention all night. Well, you’ve got it.”
She scoffed. “Contrary to your belief that the world revolves around you, Jamie, you were the last thing on my mind tonight.”
“Bullshit.”
She spun to face me then, seething. “Just leave me alone! Go back to Jenna and give her the Tour de Jamie’s Bedroom. I’ve heard it’s quite the tourist spot on campus.”
And that did it.
I’d had efuckingnough.
“Damnit, B!” I yelled, slamming my palm against a nearby truck. “What the hell do you want from me? You give yourself to me after all this time, and then treat me like scum the next fucking day, saying it was a mistake and didn’t matter to you.”
My chest heaved, emotion surging through me like a tidal wave.
“But then, you act like a goddamn fool when you see me with your best friend?”
I stepped into her then, desperate for her to see.
“You think I slept with Tina? I didn’t. She’s in my class, nothing more. You think that night didn’t matter to me? It did. It’s all I’ve thought about since,” I confessed, my voice breaking.
B swallowed, her lips trembling as I moved in even closer.
“You think it doesn’t kill me to see Ethan’s hands on you? It does. It fucking murders me.”
I panted, shaking my head.
“You think what happened between us wasn’t real? It was.” My eyes fell to her lips then, those plump, trembling lips that belonged to me. “And it still is.”
I descended on her, catching her gasp with a hard kiss as I pressed her into the truck. She relented only a moment before her hands found my chest and she shoved, hard.
I stumbled back, the two of us watching each other with heaving chests like wild fucking animals.
And then, she launched for me.
Her mouth found mine, eager and desperate, and she clutched at my sweater as I lifted her. I pinned her against the truck, kissing down her neck, sucking on her collarbone, branding every piece of skin she had just in case she ever thought to forget again. When I found the swell of her breast over her tank top, she hissed, moaning and leaning into the touch.
“Stop,” she breathed, and I groaned at the game, at how hot it was even now. My hand dipped under her tank top and B whimpered, breathing hard into my mouth as I slid my tongue inside her mouth.
But then, she shoved me back again.
“Stop!”
I swallowed.
“We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” I panted.
“B?”
I whipped around to find Jenna staring at us, her eyes narrowed and somehow wild at the same time.
She crossed her arms, gaze bouncing between the two of us. “What the fuck is going on?”
I let out a long breath through my nose, suppressing a curse.
“Come on, Jenna,” B said. “Let’s go.”
And then, she grabbed Jenna’s hand and left me there.
Had I known then what I know now, what would happen next, I would have stopped her. I would have told Jenna to fuck off and carried B back to my bed. I would have spent every last precious minute with her between my sheets before our world came crashing down.
But I didn’t know.
I thought she needed space. I thought I was doing the right thing by letting her go.
The next morning, I learned just how cruel life could be.
• • •
Jenna was the one who called me.
She was frantic, telling me between sniffs and sobs of her own what had happened to B’s dad the following afternoon. I was already getting dressed, already pulling on my sneakers as she continued.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “Her mom called her this morning, and for a long time she just laid in bed and cried. Then, she asked me to start packing her things. She… she grabbed her board and called a cab until she found one who would take her with it.”
“I’ll find her.”
It was a promise, and I ended the call, already jogging for my Jeep.
My mind raced the entire drive to the beach, thinking about the last two days and all the shit that suddenly seemed so small, so insignificant. I would have laughed at the stupid games we played the night before if it didn’t make me sick to think about.
I think I knew, even then, that she was going to break my heart.
Relief found me when I saw her standing on the beach at the very first spot I took her surfing. She had her board tucked under her arm, her hair whipping in the wind as a storm blew in, and she stood there at the water’s edge, waiting.
I walked to her slowly, not really sure what I wanted to say, what I could say to make it okay.
