Page 36 of Those Summer Nights (Sweet Cravings 2)

He didn't call me Jellyfish Girl. His flirtations were gone. It felt like he had slapped me.

"Okay." I kept my arms wrapped around my legs. It felt like I was sinking into the sand.

"Things are just too complicated right now. Maybe after you're done school..." his voice trailed off. He pushed his heels into the sand.

"J.J.! Come on!" shouted a girl across the beach.

I turned my head and looked at her. It wasn't his friend Abby. It was some other girl with bigger breasts. It felt like Aiden was breaking up with me all over again.

"Right. Of course," I said. "You don't have to say anything else. I totally get it. I'll see you later then." I tried to make my voice cheery. It sounded weird. And definitely fake. Probably because I wanted to punch him, not be his stupid friend.

"Mila.

" He put his hand on my knee.

Don't touch me. I glared at him.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you. I just..."

"It's fine. Really. I completely understand." I didn't. We had so much fun on Saturday. Why was he doing this? “It wasn’t even a good kiss.” It was kind of true. Because in reality it was a great kiss. Describing it as good didn’t do it justice.

His hand fell from my knee. "Did you want to come to dinner with us?"

I looked over at the girl with big breasts and the rest of his friends. "I'm actually in the middle of a really good chapter." I picked up my book off the towel. It was the romance I had started and stopped. We didn’t have a chance to go to a bookstore the other day because of the rain. And I had no desire to pick this book up where I left off. Especially now. "But I'll catch you later, okay?" I opened up the book to a random spot and started reading. My eyes stung from my imminent tears. I tried to blink them away.

He sat there for a minute in silence. I wasn't sure if he wanted me to say something else. I kept my eyes locked on my book. Please go away. I wiped under my eyes as discreetly as possible. Was he trying to torture me? Humiliate me? Make me feel like shit? He’d accomplished all three in record time. He deserved an asshole medal.

"Okay," he finally said. He stood up. I heard him walk away but I didn't look up. I waited for as long as I could before dropping my book and putting my forehead down on my knees. I cried for a long time. Rejection had never felt worse. I was prepared to tell him that I didn't care if our relationship was short. I just wanted to see where the summer took us. I had let myself get excited about the idea of starting something new. Being home wasn't supposed to hurt like this. I was just starting to feel whole again.

***

I plopped the box of wine onto the kitchen counter. I had stood in the aisle at the liquor store for half an hour trying to figure out how many bottles it would take to get really freaking drunk. I’d decided it was more bottles than I could afford. Hence the box. I opened it up and filled my glass all the way to the top. And it didn’t take me long at all to get all the way to the bottom of the glass. I topped it off again.

I needed pizza. And not Grottos pizza, because that would remind me of J.J. and I didn’t want to be reminded of J.J. I started pulling ingredients out of the pantry. Also, I couldn’t really leave my apartment because I was two huge glasses in and there was no going back.

“Woah,” Kristen said from behind me. “Do you want to talk about whatever happened today?”

I slammed my fist back into the dough instead of kneading it the way I was supposed to. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Then why are you assaulting the dough?”

I laughed. And then I couldn’t stop laughing. “Assaulting the dough? You can’t assault an inanimate object.” Weirdo.

“I don’t know if that’s true…”

I picked up another wine glass, not caring that my hands were covered in flour, and filled it up all the way to the tippy top like mine.

Kristen accepted it without complaint. But she did grab the dish towel and wipe off my flour fingerprints. “So back to my earlier question…do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” If she could repeat herself, so could I. At least…I thought I was repeating myself. What had we been talking about again? I took another huge sip of wine as I started rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen. “Do we really not have a rolling pin? What kind of rental doesn’t have a rolling pin?”

“Probably most beach rentals. People usually come here to relax, not cook.”

“Well isn’t that nice for them.” I slammed the drawer closest to me shut.

“Seriously, what is up with you?”

“I’m officially on a new diet. So I’m a little grumpy. You’ll have to excuse me.”

---