Page 44 of The Problem with Perfect

I grit my teeth as I slowly realize what she means.

“Is that why you jumped me downstairs? Because you don’t want Connor to be the only person you’ve had sex with?”

Bellamy just stares at me, a slightly sheepish expression on her face, and I clench my fists.

“Don’t ever do that again. I’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to throw my friendships away just because you’re filled with regret.”

I leave the room and head down the hall, irritation boiling like acid beneath my skin as I stomp downstairs and over to my liquor cabinet. How could I not have seen what was really happening? Obviously it’s because I’ve foolishly allowed myself to develop feelings for her.

Fuck.

I pull out shitty whiskey, the stuff I use when I want to get good and fucked up, and take a long drink straight from the bottle. I know Bellamy is drunk, and people do stupid things when they’ve been drinking, but still. That would have been a huge mistake.

Really, I’m not even that mad at Bellamy. I’m mad at myself. What I said to her was true—my friendshipsdomean too much to me to throw them away for a drunken hookup with her.

Taking another long swig of whiskey, I try to remind myself that things with Bellamy are supposed to be fake. They’re not supposed to become physical or emotional like this.

Somehow, I’ve let myself lose sight of that.

Somehow, I’ve fabricated some kind of connection with her.

I need to remind myself of what we’re really doing and let go of the rest.

chapterthirteen

Bellamy

I shut the medicine cabinet, wincing as it closes with a loud snap.

Normally I’m a wine drinker, so last night was rough for me, and now I’m reaping the consequences of my very stupid mistake. Mistakesplural, I guess. It began with too many beers at bonfire night then steamrolled into me doing shots of tequila at Rusty’s and trying to get him to have sex with me.

Ugh.

I wince again, but this time at the memory. Mortified doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.

Squirting toothpaste onto my toothbrush, I aggressively try to scrub the taste of stale tequila and regret from my mouth. I’m also in desperate need of a shower, and the idea of standing underneath the hot spray of water sounds incredible.

I finish up with my teeth then reach into the shower and slap the handle, turning it on to max heat before stripping out of the clothes that still smell like smoke. The water feels incredible when I climb in, and I sit on the floor, letting the water just rain over me.

Rusty was livid when I got up, which I know because he barely looked at me and only spoke about three sentences. He just told me he was taking me home and drove me silently back to my parents’ house, hardly saying a word.

My foggy, hungover brain feels confused. Didn’t he kiss me first? In the car?

It was incredible. I’ve never been kissed like that before. But then Connor and Stace arrived, and that was the reminder that Rusty had only kissed me because they were there.

It’s wild to me that his kiss was a ruse. I might have only kissed a few men in my life, but it sure felt real to me. The way he touched my face and gripped the back of my head…I shiver just thinking about it, even under the heat of my shower. I was drunk on the high of that kiss long before I got drunk on tequila and jumped him in his living room.

Closing my eyes, I try to remember what he said while I was straddling him. Did he say something? Or was it just those deep moans that make it hard to regret what I did?

All I know for sure is that he was angry this morning, back to his grumpy, bear attitude, the ‘keep away from me’ vibes I’ve always gotten from him prior to the past few weeks. And I’m more upset about it than I thought I’d be.

I’ve begun to enjoy being around the Rusty who teases me on the phone and listens to me vent. I can’t remember the last time someone listened to me, really listened, like they cared about all the little pieces of why something had upset me or excited me. He was becoming my friend, and now I’ve gone and fucked it up because I can’t keep my emotions in check when it comes to Connor and the past.

I pull myself up to standing and go through my shower routine. Shampoo. Conditioner. Body wash. Shave. When I’m done and I’ve turned off the water and dried my body, I really do feel like a new woman. Showers will do that.

But I feel like my insides need to be cleaned, too. My mind feels…mucky. Not just because of the hangover, although the fog from that is still lingering for sure, but also because I feel terrible about the way Rusty and I left things. He was so upset, and the one thing I really remember him saying was that he didn’t want to throw his friendships away because I’m filled with regret.

I wish I could tell him that, yes, there is a part of me that doesn’t want to have only ever been with Connor, but I’m starting to think that wasn’t the driving force behind my attempt at seducing Rusty.

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