Page 48 of My Fault
But I needed attention. My mother was on the other end of the country, and my friends and the people I’d known all my life werefar away. Everything here was new to me; I didn’t even know how to get around this gigantic city. Jenna was inseparable from her boyfriend, so I could forget about having her around too often. And I needed someone just then, someone to talk to or at least be there so I wouldn’t feel so alone.
At least I’d managed to get Nick’s dog to like me. Just then, Thor and I were both lying on the sofa. His dark, hairy head was resting on my lap, and I was scratching his ears at a steady rhythm. That dog was nothing like the way Nick had portrayed him: he was a sweetie, easy to win over as long as you had a handful of dog biscuits at the ready. That was how sad my life was: the one person I could lean on in this house wasn’t even a person, just a four-legged creature that loved to have his ears scratched and whose favorite pastime was chasing a ball over and over.
I was watching a movie on TV when I heard the front door open. Thor was so sleepy he just lifted his ears a bit when a tall figure appeared over the threshold. I saw who it was and felt almost sick.
Nick turned toward the living room and walked over, observing me.
Under the faint light of the TV and the lamp in the entryway, I couldn’t see much, but he was obviously exhausted. He leaned against the doorway and looked at me apathetically.
“What are you doing up?” he asked a few seconds later. I was briefly hypnotized and couldn’t answer. He looked older. Weary. But no less handsome. I tried to focus on the question.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said warily. It must have been the first time since we met that we’d talked to each other in a remotely normal fashion.
He nodded and looked at Thor.
“I see you’ve got him on your side. My dog’s a traitor.”
I smiled involuntarily when I saw that Nick really seemed irritated.
“You know,” I joked, “it’s not easy to resist my charms.”
Shit.
We paused and looked each other in the eye. Then he turned to the TV.
“Are you seriously watching cartoons?” I was happy for this change of subject.
“Mulanis one of my favorites,” I confessed.
He grinned, and I felt the butterflies in my stomach again.
“Chill, Freckles, it used to be my favorite, too. When I was four years old.” Despite his sarcasm, he came over and flopped down beside me on the sofa, resting his feet next to mine on the coffee table. For a moment, we watched the film in silence.
This was too weird. And just when I thought it couldn’t get more uncomfortable, I noticed Nick was staring at me. I froze, knowing how close together we were. This new Nick had nothing to do with the one I’d met when I arrived. He was so relaxed, with not a trace of that disdainful attitude from before…and in his eyes, there was a sadness he was incapable of hiding.
“Where were you?” I whispered. I had no idea why I’d spoken so softly, but I felt strange asking him. I didn’t want him to know I actually cared what he’d been doing.
“With someone who needs me,” he said, and I knew from his way of speaking that it wasn’t just another one of his girls. “Why, did you miss me?”
I felt him coming closer to me, but I didn’t move away. Something about him being here made me want to smile and had taken away that sorrow, that pressure in my chest, that I had felt the entire day.
“I don’t like being all alone somewhere so big,” I admitted.
His hand stretched across the back of the couch and made me feel like I was suffocating when it tenderly stroked my hair and then my earlobe. Time seemed to stop. I didn’t hear themovie or anything but his respiration and the mad beats of my heart.
“Good thing I’m here then,” he said, and bent over, pressing his lips into mine. It was a warm kiss and full of expectation. I closed my eyes and let the moment take me away, lifting my hands to his face to feel his stubble against the palms of my hands and then his hair. His lips were insistent, and I opened mine and let his tongue inside. I got goose bumps when he reached down past my shoulders, touched my ribs, came to a stop at my waist.
This was nothing like the other night. His touch was warm, soft, as if he were afraid of breaking me. I heard myself moan almost inaudibly as his hand moved from my waist to my back, which I arched almost involuntarily to let him closer to me. Then I acted without thinking at all.
I sat up, stretched a leg across his lap, and rested on top of him. He looked hypnotized and sat up to squeeze me in his arms. Our kissing was deeper now, more eager, and his hands were all over me. But just as I thought I would melt, I stopped, opening my eyes, my mind a blank. That was what he did to me—made me forget everything—and that was exactly what I needed.
I saw he was looking at my lips, and I needed him to kiss them again, but instead he pulled away, turning serious and telling me, “This isn’t right. Don’t let me do this again. You’re my stepsister, and you’re seventeen years old. This can’t happen again.”
He got up and left me on the sofa.
I was angry and hurt.First he kisses me, and then he says these things?And what did my age matter? I wanted him back, wanted him to make me feel good again. I needed him more than ever because this day had been horrible. I’d felt like shit, with no one to talk to, no one I could even call. Everyone I loved either was busy or had betrayed me.
“If you don’t want this to happen,” I said, “stop trying to make it happen. You were the one who started it all three times.”
