Authors: Beckie
and I’m not six years old. I simply throw him a frown and get into the car.
When he climbs in, he leans across me to grab the seatbelt. His face is centimetres from
mine. I stare at him. He stops when his hand closes around the seatbelt and turns to look at me.
I can smell the rain and fresh air that’s resonating off his wet skin. I can feel his scorching hot breath breeze across my lips. His eyes lock onto mine and then they fall down my face until he looks at my lips. I don’t fight the urge to lick them and quickly run my tongue along my lips. They taste salty. I hadn’t realised before when I was walking, but the rain here tastes like the salty waters of the sea. The rain in the woods just tasted like water. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes before he pulls the seat belt across my chest and clicks it into place. He mutters something incoherent and then faces forward in his seat, pressing the ignition button.
I place my hands in my lap and look out of the window as the car rumbles to life. “I don’t
know who I am anymore, Kaiden,” I confess.
I don’t turn to look at him to see if he’s looking at me and he doesn’t speak, but it’s a good
five minutes before the car moves away from where we are parked.
I’m almost dry by the time he pulls up in the front of my house. Kaiden kills the engine, but
doesn’t turn to look at me.
I unclick my seatbelt and let it slither across me and back into its holder. “Thank you for
taking me.”
He nods.
I finger the handle and click it open. “I don’t think we should see each other for a while,” I
say. “I don’t want to upset your girlfriend or cause any trouble for you.”
He laughs. “She’s always upset about something.”
If she’s like that all the time, then why is he even with her? I don’t understand why people
stay with someone if they don’t make them laugh every single day. Even when I was in the woods
and didn’t actually know what love or lust felt like, I always thought girls that stayed with their boyfriends when they didn’t really like them were stupid.
“Goodbye, Kaiden,” I say as I start to leave.
“Wait,” he says, turning towards me. “I’m having a party at my house on Friday. Will you
come? I’d really like it if you were there.”
I swallow. “I won’t know anyone.”
“You will,” he says, smiling. “Your cousin Bethany is coming, so you could come with her.”
I clear my throat. I don’t really know Bethany, and I’m not sure she’d like me tagging along
with her.
“Maybe,” I whisper. “I doubt it though. Bye, Kaiden.”
His hand shoots out and grabs my arm as I throw my legs out of the car. “Please,” he says, “I
really want you there, Serena.”
I shake my head. “I’m not promising anything.”
He nods. “Okay,” he says and I exit the car before he can say anything else.
Kaiden
I throw open my front door and crash through the hallway and into the kitchen where I find my
brother, Zak, cooking eggs. He turns when I barge into the room and smirks at me. I want to hit him right then and there. All of my anger that I feel towards Anastasia and the situation that I’ve found myself in with Serena is coursing through my veins, threatening to spill out any second now.
“Don’t start,” I grunt, slumping against the counter. “I’m not in the mood.”
He scrambles the eggs with the spatula. “I can see that. Are you going to hit me with a
baseball bat again?” he asks, obviously trying to lighten up my mood.
The reminder of what I did doesn’t make me feel less angry. If anything, it riles me up even
more. “I might,” I huff, “if you don’t keep your stupid comments to yourself.”
He pulls a tray of sausages from out of the oven and drops them noisily onto the counter.
“I’m making sausage and egg sandwiches. Do you want some?”
I think about how I rushed out of the house this morning without eating breakfast and nod
at him. “Yeah. Please.”
He turns around and raises his eyebrows at me but doesn’t mention the fact that, for the
first time in our lives, I’ve just used my manners when conversing with him. I push my hands in my pockets whilst I watch him finish our meal and feel the shiny paper brush against my fingers. I pull the picture of Serena out. It’s the one where she’s sitting in the middle of a bed of flowers. I smooth it down against the counter and stare at her.
Right there in that moment, she looks more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her look before. The
sun beats down against her blonde hair, making it shimmer in the light. Her bright green eyes shine brighter than the grass that she’s sitting on, and the purple, pink, and white flowers contrast
perfectly with her dress. Her tanned skin gleams and glows in the light, making her already pearly-white teeth look even whiter.
When I watched her through the viewfinder, I didn’t want to take her to my bed. I wanted to
hold her hand and pull her into me and protect her for the rest of her life. I imagined spooning her in bed and smelling her hair as she fell asleep in my arms.
Zak walks over to me and places my food down in front of me, eyeing the photograph. “So
that’s Serena?”
I look up at him and watch his eyes as they trail over my girl. “That’s her,” I say, taking a bite of my sandwich. The eggs are the best I’ve ever had. I never knew he could cook.
He nods and pushes the picture back over to me. “She’s hot.”
I chew. I continue to chew until there’s no other option but for me to swallow. “Yes, she is.”
“You like her, don’t you?” he asks astutely.
I think about all the conversations we’ve had over the past few years and can only recall
maybe two. I’ve always been jealous of him because he was clever, good at everything he ever did, and especially because he was Mom and Dad’s favourite. Because of that, I’ve never been bothered
to get to know him as an adult. “Yeah, I like her a lot.”
“What about the lovely Anastasia?” he asks.
I shrug. “She’s not Serena.”
“Oooh,” he teases, “you’ve got it bad.”
“What do you mean?” I ask angrily.
He sits down opposite me with his own plate of food. “You’re comparing your own girlfriend
to Serena and saying she’s not good enough. That’s never a good sign.”
I smile at him. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew Serena.”
“
I’d
like to know her,” he says cheekily.
“No,” I hiss, standing up quickly from my seat. Zak doesn’t flinch or look scared like he
normally does when my temper gets the better of me. He simply takes a bite of his sandwich and
watches me.
“Leave her alone. I mean it, Zak,” I warn.
“Relax,” he says, smiling as if he’s just won his very first argument with me. “I was only
messing with you. Well, I was only kidding about me getting to know her, but she is most definitely hot.”
I slump back down in my seat and pick my sandwich back up.
“What I don’t get is why you’re not doing anything about it. That’s not like you.”
I shrug. “I’m no good for her.”
“You’re no good for anyone,” he says bluntly.
I nod. “True.”
He leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. “But that doesn’t normally stop
you.”
I shake my head and put the picture of her back into my coat. “No, you’re right about that.
But she’s too sweet and innocent. We wouldn’t work.”
“You could,” he says, as he takes the last bite of his food and pushes his empty plate away
from him. “If you were nice. It’s not hard to do, Kaiden.”
I smirk. “It would be too hard. I’d do something stupid, like I always do and then we’d argue.
And I know that I’d just turn the whole argument around and blame her for it anyway, or I’d throw it back in her face that I had found her, or that I wished I hadn’t.”
“You make yourself sound like a monster,” he says.
“That’s what I am. That’s what Mom said,” I remind him.
He rolls his eyes. “That was seven years ago. I’ve forgiven you, and I think Mom has even
forgotten it ever happened.”
“I haven’t,” I admit.
“The difference is that now you’re sorry about it. That’s what matters.”
Am I sorry about it? I’m not sure. “Maybe,” I offer.
Before he can say anything else, the front door clicks open. We both sit and stare at the
doorway to the kitchen until Anastasia appears in it.
She holds her hands up and walks slowly towards me. “I’m here to say sorry, and you know
how I hate saying sorry.”
Zak frowns at me.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I say. “You were totally out of line back there.”
She huffs and sits down next to me, not even acknowledging my brother. “First of all, I don’t
think you can blame me for being annoyed when I found out that you went on a cute little date with Serena without telling me.”
“It wasn’t a date,” I say.
“It sounded like one.”
“It wasn’t,” I repeat.
“Whatever,” she mumbles, “and secondly, I realise how stupid I was to even think that you
might have been interested in her. All the papers make out like she’s this beautiful princess that’s been hidden away all this time, but really she’s just a girl who doesn’t wear make-up and needs a haircut. I know I don’t need to feel threatened by her.”
Zak raises his eyebrows in a mocking sort of way.
You really should feel threatened by her, I think. Aloud I say, “You don’t need to be a bitch
about her, Anastasia.”
“I know,” she says. “And I know you’d never pick anyone like her over me. She’s just
so…wild.”
And fun, intelligent, happy, and carefree, I think. She’s not wild; she’s so much more than
that.
Zak clears his throat. “What did you do?”
Anastasia finally turns and nods at my brother. “Oh, hello Zak.”
He smirks. “Anastasia.”
“I’ll tell you what happened on their little
date
,” she says. “He took her to the fucking zoo.”
Zak looks at me and winks. “The zoo, eh? Nice. I like taking girls to the zoo on a date.”
“It wasn’t a date,” I say again.
“What’s so special about the zoo?” she asks.
“Oh, you know,” he says, “plenty of walking and holdings hands. There’s a meal in the
middle of the day and you’ll most likely end up seeing a big penis if you watch the rhinos for long enough.”
I snort, thinking about the elephant that I saw. I had to quickly turn Serena around so she
wouldn’t see it and even after she asked me for the tenth time what I was hiding from her, I couldn’t tell her.
“You’re sick,” she says to my brother, wrinkling her face up.
He holds his hands up. “You asked why I take girls there and I told you. It’s usually fun and
girls like fun guys.”
“Well, he’s my guy and only I can have fun with him.”
I roll my eyes at Zak.
“What day did you take her to the zoo anyway?” he asks me, feigning innocence.
Anastasia spins her head around and narrows her eyes at me. “Yes, Kaiden. What day did
you take another girl on a
date
?”
“It wasn’t a date,” I repeat. “I went to the zoo with Serena - as
friends
- on Monday.”
“Monday?” asks Zak.
I glare at him.
Anastasia snaps her head back around to face Zak. “What’s so special about Monday?”
“Oh,” he says, a smile playing out over his face, “nothing, except he didn’t get home until
midnight on Monday.”
“Midnight!?” she shrieks. “The zoo doesn’t stay open that late, so what the fuck were you
doing with her until midnight?”
“Who says I was with her the whole time?” I ask defensively.
“Were you?” she spits. “What did you do after the zoo, Kaiden? And don’t lie to me.”
“Nothing,” I mumble. “Can we just drop this now?”
“Why didn’t you get in until midnight?” she demands.
She’s really starting to get on my nerves. If she doesn’t see Serena as a threat, then why is
she carrying on about it so much? “Forget it,” I snap.
She narrows her eyes at me. “Where. Were. You?“
I huff and shake my head. If she wants it, then she can have it. “I went for some dinner.”
She blanches, but composes herself so quickly I can’t be sure I really saw it.
“With her?” she growls.
I glare at Zak over her head, but he just smirks. He’s enjoying this.
“Yes,” I huff, “I took her out to the diner on the beach and we had dinner together.”
“That closes at ten. Even if you were there until closing, why didn’t you come back home for
another two hours?”
I’ve lost. I know they’ve cornered me, and right now I’m not sure who I’m more annoyed
with. I hate the fact that I feel like I can’t lie. I’m blaming Serena for my new-found honesty.
“Swimming.”
She blinks. “What?”
“We went swimming.”
She frowns. “Where?”
“In the sea.”
She smirks, but I’m not sure why. “Together?”
“Yes,” I tell her, not breaking eye contact.
“Were you naked?”
I love how stupid she is sometimes. “No Anastasia,
I
was not naked.”
I don’t use the opportunity to be completely open and honest with her, like Serena tells me I
should be. I don’t tell her that Serena was stark naked. I also don’t tell her that I’ve often thought about Serena and her naked body whilst showering or lying in bed. Anastasia doesn’t need to know
that I can still feel Serena’s firm breasts pressing into my back if I think about it hard enough.
She shakes her head and pinches the skin in between her eyes with her fake nails. “I can’t
believe this, Kaiden. You’re a shit all of the time, so why are you suddenly acting like a nice guy for her?”
I shrug my shoulders again. “I’m not acting. We just have fun together.”
“Why don’t you ever ask me to go swimming?” she asks sounding annoyed.
“Because you’d drown.” Has she really forgotten that she can’t swim?