I noticed his hand clench at his side, and then he brought it to my face and closed his eyes momentarily. Why was his hand shaking?
“I’ll always love you,” he whispered.
I put my hand over his holding it in place against my cheek. “Demetri, I love you.” I needed him to know how I felt. And it was all true, I knew it was true. I’d never felt so strong for anyone except Alec, but this clearly wasn’t the time or place to say something like that.
“I know.” Demetri smiled sadly and exhaled. “I’ll see you in another week or so, okay?”
“Okay.” I shivered and went to put on my dress, then felt warm hands pull me back into a hug.
“I’ll miss you,” he croaked. I nodded numbly and watched him pop something into his mouth.
“What are you taking?”
“Pain killers,” He rolled his eyes, “Because I’m in pain, Nat.”
I waited for him to say something else but he just threw the prescription pills back onto the bed and turned to face me again. He bit his lip and pulled out his phone.
“Gotta go, Nat.” He opened his mouth. I needed him to explain to me what was happening, but instead all I got was a, “I’ll text you.”
Why did it suddenly feel like I was dying? Why did my heart constrict as if he was saying goodbye?
I walked home in a haze of confusion. Forget Alec confusing me. Demetri took the cake in that arena. My heart felt sick, the kind of sick you get when you don’t know whether you want to throw up or go lie down and have a good cry. I stumbled up the stairs to my room and lay down on my bed. After a few minutes my eyes felt heavy. I allowed myself to succumb to the darkness, which was really the problem in the first place, wasn’t it? I allowed myself to succumb — to everything.
Chapter Twenty
Sunday came and went with nothing exciting to report other than the fact that my heart felt like lead, and every time I texted Demetri he refused to answer me. Odd, because he had always been really good about getting back to me when I chatted. But he was teaching, so it was possible he was super busy.
Later that night I was so viciously bored, considering my ultra-expensive phone wasn’t buzzing at me, that I turned on TV.
Rumor has it that the D in band AD2 has been seen sneaking around town with someone other than his girlfriend. Our sources tell us that Anjelica Greene was spotted leaving the star’s hotel room in the wee hours of the morning this morning with a very satisfied grin on that picture perfect face. Has the rock star dumped the local hottie? Stay tuned to find out!
What. The. Hell.
I threw the remote onto the couch and ran over to the guys’ house. I lifted my hand to bang on the door when it suddenly flew open, revealing a very shirtless Alec. Well, no one ever said life was fair, or easy, or awesome.
“What the heck is his problem!” I roared, stomping into the house like a woman on the edge.
“Good evening to you too,” Alec muttered behind me.
I ignored him. “First he’s all trying to take advantage of me at your house, then spouting nonsense about you and me, and then…” I began to feel hysterical. “He said that he wanted to be first. Of course, that was after his second attempt at getting me out of my dress and into his bed, and then he wouldn’t let me go, and then he got all weird and I saw pills and freaked. It was like he was saying goodbye. More like, Sorry Nat, but I’m gonna go screw some movie star instead!” I felt tears coming on but fought them back, allowing my anger to take over. “I’ve been heart-broken for almost forty-eight hours thinking I’ve done something tragic to him and he’s, he’s—”
“Nat,” Alec interrupted, his voice severe. “Stop.”
“No!” I whipped around and charged toward him, finally poking him in the chest. “You don’t get to tell me what to do! You rejected me! Twice — wait, three times!”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Listen, Nat. As much as I’d love to sit here and listen to you complain about my brother’s shitty decisions and lack of love for you, I’d rather not. Everything he’s done has been for you, and you repay him by coming over here and talking shit? Really?”
“How is him cheating on me doing me a favor? Because I’m dying to know. This ought to be good.” I crossed my arms and waited, finally allowing a tear to run down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away and broke eye contact, choosing to look at my Converse rather than Alec’s shirtless perfection.
“It’s complicated.”
My head snapped up. “Of course it is. It’s always complicated with you two, and you never tell me why! I don’t know why you’re here, I don’t know why you chose my mom out of all people to see, and I don’t know why you have the same stupid tattoo!”
“Get out,” Alec snapped, pulling my arm.
“I didn’t mean it was stupid, just that—”
“Out.” Alec gently pushed me out his door and leaned against the frame. “Nat, go home. We should never have involved you in the first place.”
“What are you saying?” I felt my lower lip quiver.
“I’m saying goodbye.”
“You’re shutting me out,” I said numbly, not allowing my heart to believe that I had successfully lost the two boys I loved in the course of a weekend.
He closed his eyes while he whispered, “Family comes first.”
“And I’m not family.”
Silence.
“Right.” I choked back a sob and ran back to my house.
I didn’t know that I had been crying so loud. My mom pounded on my door and finally I opened it, probably looking like some crazy person with mascara-stained cheeks.
“Oh, Baby!” She embraced me and I cried even harder.
“What’s wrong, Sweetie?”
Sweetie? Baby? She never said those things to me. I wanted to tense up, to recoil and pull back, this wasn’t familiar for me, but I needed her comfort so much that I didn’t care. I just wanted to be loved, by someone.
“Boys are so stupid.” I shivered and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
Mom sighed. “Any boys in particular giving you grief?”
I nodded.
“Would these boys be my clients?”
I nodded again.
“Natalee.” Mom’s grip tightened on my arm as she held me cradled next to her body. “Those boys aren’t normal.”
“No crap, Mom.”
Mom tensed next to me. “No, Nat, not like that. I mean they’re so much more than they seem. Life has dealt them some pretty screwed up situations. They stick together because they’re all they have. Does that make sense?”
“No.” Well, kind of, but I was angry so I said no anyways.
Mom pushed back my hair and kissed me on the forehead. Seriously, someone beam me back to the planet, this was so foreign. “A year ago, they were dealt a very hard blow. The fact that they were able to even pull out of it is astonishing both to me and to everyone else who knows.”
“Knows? As in, you know?”
“Confidentiality, Natalee,” she reminded me.
I sighed.
“Anyway, I imagine if any of this involves you, then a grand dose of fear is also involved, and when you allow fear to rule your emotions and your choices, well, you end up pushing away those you love most.”
I knew it well. Oh, how I knew it. I pushed my mom away, afraid that if I allowed myself to be attached that she would constantly reject me, because it seemed like she always did. But did she? Or did she just assume I was really happy and leave me alone to figure my own stuff out?
“I’m confused, my head hurts,” I complained.
Mom laughed. “Why don’t we go make some dinner?”
“We?” I repeated, my voice absolutely deadpan with sarcasm.
“I canceled the rest of the night.”
I pulled away from her and looked into her tired eyes. “May I ask why?”
“One of your confused boys asked me to.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Natalee, Sweetie, I didn’t know.”
I got up and tried to ignore the feeling of guilt and anger that washed over me. “What are you talking about?”
“I thought you were happy. If I would have known you wanted more, Honey, I would have given it to you. You’re just always so closed off I thought you didn’t need me, or anyone for that matter.”
A sob erupted from my throat before I could stop it. I fell to my knees on the floor, my body violently shook from years of grief kept inside.
“Oh, Honey!” Mom swept down next to me and pulled me into her lap, rocking me back and forth like she did when I was little. “I’m so sorry! Can you forgive me? Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry!”
I nodded, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Geez, you’d think someone really was dying.
By the time I stopped crying it was near midnight. We made a late night pizza and put on a movie. Just my mom and me. She promised she would try harder as long as I didn’t push her away and put on the I’m fine and independent face. My dad wasn’t due home tonight because of a late surgery, but mom promised she would talk to him when she could.
I went to sleep for the first time in years feeling like my parents cared, that they actually saw me. No longer was I invisible, and even though the rejection from both Alec and Demetri hurt, I felt confident. For the first time I was confident.
Apparently having a parent show affection did something to a person, because when I closed my eyes after crying all those tears and severely dehydrating myself, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
****
My alarm was so loud I nearly had a heart attack when it went off. My legs were tangled in the sheets and I hadn’t slept very well, considering I kept dreaming that Alec was in a car trying to run me over with it while Demetri stood by laughing.
I forced myself to expel their images from my mind, which of course meant that when I drove to school every radio station in the known universe was playing their songs. I flipped off the radio then passed a store that just happened to have their faces splashed across the windows.
Basically, I was ready to scream by the time I arrived at the school. I slammed my truck door and marched through the front doors, only to be met by mocking stares and smirks from the student body. Does nobody read anymore?
Alesha was by my locker. “Oh, my gosh, Nat! I’m so sorry about Demetri, do you need anything?” She touched my arm. I flinched.
“Nope, I’m fine. We’re fine,” I said through clenched teeth even though he still hadn’t texted me back or answered my frantic calls. “It’s just celebrity gossip, you know how that goes.”
She nodded her head. “Yeah, of course. Well okay, I’m gonna go to class.”
Did I mention that I can’t lie to save my life?
I opened my locker and briefly contemplated attempting to climb into it, but it was twenty sizes too small, meaning I would have to become a contortionist in order to pull it off, and even then it would be uncomfortable. The bell rang. With a moan I put my head inside the locker, cursing all men for their inability to keep it in their pants and communicate like normal humans.