I looked over at my open window and felt lost. Aleks hadn’t been back. I reminded myself I didn’t care. I didn’t want him back.
The shower was relaxing on my aching back. I hadn’t done anything in nearly a week, which seemed to be killing me. I decided, even if I was dead-assed exhausted, I wasn’t going to bed until it was actual bedtime.
I felt so many emotions all at once that my poor little wall had been crumbled and ground into dust. I didn’t know what to do about Shane; he was the perfect guy for me. More though, I didn’t know what to do about Aleks. He was all wrong for me, but for some crazy hormonal and chemical reaction-based reason, my heart seemed to need him.
I pictured his face and I melted. I remembered our kissing and touching. Even though he had never crossed the second-base line, I felt naughty. Everything about him turned me into a person I didn’t know. Everything about Shane made me feel safe and relaxed—more like the girl I was before everything had happened. I just needed to decide if I wanted to change or be who I was.
I put my face into the shower and turned the water to cold, hoping the shock would be helpful. I had never been in real reciprocated love before, and of course, my first romance had to be a love triangle. And not just any old triangle—no, it had to have a supernatural being as the one I wanted, instead of the guy I’d always thought I'd loved.
My brain still treated him as a joke. I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that my dad had been feeding me all week long, and that I didn’t remember much. Perhaps, my memories of Aleks were also not correct.
Not feeling any more convinced of anything beyond my absolute love for him, I climbed out of the shower, angry with myself.
For all my grades and common sense, I clearly hadn’t gotten any taste in men. I decided maybe I could force myself to relearn to love the person that was right for me, instead of obsessing about the person who wasn’t even real.
I walked into my room to dry off to find Aleks sitting on my bed. I was naked, except for my towel, which only covered the essentials. I wanted to jump on him and kiss him, but I stood my ground at the entrance to my room and leaned against the doorframe.
He sat there quiet for a while, staring at the stuffed bear he was holding. It was my bear, Beary, from when I had my tonsils out when I was nine. He squished him, feeling the density of the fluff.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled devilishly, not taking his eyes off Beary. “Watching over your sister.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at him. "You’re cheating. I can’t get over you if you don’t leave me alone. Stop touching Beary; he doesn’t like you either.”
He looked up at me with his intense blue eyes through his long black lashes. “I don’t want you to get over me.”
I felt like I needed to back up, but his stare locked me in and was pulling me to him. If he stood up, I would scream, I told myself.
“You’re bad for me. You’re going to leave in a few weeks if that. Once the pervert is caught, you won’t need to hang around and that feeling is going to come back. You’ll need to move on to the next people.” I spoke the words fine, but to my heart they were hollow.
He nodded, still smiling dangerously at me. “I know. It’s a predicament.”
“I have to get ready, I need to go to Giselle’s and get her dress for the dance tonight. Plus I need to go see Jaime. She’s awake—no thanks to you.”
I remembered how angry I was with him. ‘Just keep chanting Jaime’ I told myself.
He stood up looking deeply into my eyes, as he seemed to fill the entire space of my room. “You’re going to the dance?” His tone was not something I had heard before. It was dangerous.
I nodded.
“With Shane?”
I chose not to answer.
He crossed the room in a step and looked down on me. “This is what you want?”
I nodded again, not able to speak, seeing his lips so close to mine. His scent filled the air around me making me frown, not at him but against my feelings for him.
He shook his head. “I don’t think it's what you want. I know it’s not what I want.”
“I can’t go with you.” The words were so much bigger than the dance; they were everything. No matter what he did from then on, I couldn’t go with him.
I gripped my towel and walked past him and sat on my bed. He closed my door and came to where I was sitting. He knelt in front of me and took my left hand in his. It looked tiny and thin compared to his huge hands. “Aimee.”
He kissed my hand once and spoke, “I am in love with you.” He kissed it twice and then turned it over and kissed my palm. He was driving my body crazy and my brain started to get foggy again. I couldn’t think around him; I seemed to only feel.
I pulled my hand away and swallowed hard. “I want to go to the dance. I want a normal boyfriend who isn’t going to abandon me. I want something in my life to be regular again.” I paused for a second, knowing that if I finished my thought, he would be hurt. As much as I knew I needed him to go away, I also knew it was going to crush my soul to make him go. I closed my eyes and let my mouth say the words. “I want a boyfriend who will answer my questions, not make more.” I opened my eyes, terrified of his reaction.
His left eye twitched, as if his face would have flinched, but he fought it off.
He leaned into me and it was as if his body grew in size. Somehow he took up all the light in the room. “You’re mine, mine.” His words were spoken softly but the meaning was clear. His love scared me. I understood what my sister meant when she said that she was scared of Blake and losing him.
Aleks leaned in slowly and brushed his lips against mine. Then he dove out my open window and was gone.
I still felt the warmth of his lips against mine as I attempted to process him in my mind.
I got angry again, but I smiled. He hadn’t bested me; he had come back and made me doubt my ability to be with anyone else, but never answered a single question. I, unlike him, was a mental case who contemplated everything. I had learned to shut my heart off, not around him, no, but when he was gone I could do it. I chuckled to myself. I could force myself to be the girl I was only weeks earlier.
I got dressed, more determined than ever to make things work with Shane, or at the very least, make it through the dance. Then I would take it one day at a time. Shane was the boy I had loved for a decade. It wasn’t going to be work with him.
I made it down the stairs to see my sister watching TV with headphones on, listening to her iTouch. I laughed tapping her on the arm. “Hey, ready?”
She nodded, shouting at me, “Yeah, let’s go.”
I pointed to her ears and she pulled the baby-blue head phones off, laughing. “Oh, yeah.”
She babbled the whole drive over to Giselle’s parents’ house. I tuned her out right away with my usual thoughts of how annoying I found her friends to be. I hated how the petty story she was telling was nothing but dribble. I stopped my thoughts mid criticism and looked at my sister. She was babbling and her story was dribble, but it mattered to her. She was a passionate person and where she rarely thought about anything, she felt everything. I admired my sister, and thankfully, I was still able to ignore the trashy story she tried to corrupt my intelligence with.
She parked in the driveway and waited for me. I walked up to the door and knocked. The house wasn’t huge like Shane’s or Blake's, but it was bigger than ours. It was a very large split level. Her dad opened the door looking very rough. His hair was ruffled and his eyes blood shot. I knew I had woken him, and he had been drinking every day he didn’t spend at the hospital with Giselle.
“Hi sir. I'm Aimee James. Giselle told me to use her dress for the dance. Can I just come in and grab it?”
He looked at me for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, she told me about that. Come on in.” He looked out at the driveway to see my sister wave at him. He waved back and closed the door.
“How is she feeling lately?” I ask, trying to be casual. I felt nervous around him.
He shrugged. “Not much better, but we heard yesterday that they may have found a donor. So, I guess she will hear tomorrow. How are you feeling?” he asked, giving me a weird look.
I nodded. “Better, thanks. Is her room this way?” I asked, pointing up the stairs to the left.
He nodded. “First door on the right. Everything is the same as it was before she got sick. I haven’t been able to go in there.”
I turned to smile at him but I saw the way he was looking at me. It made me feel dirty. He looked at me like the jeans and t-shirt I was wearing a bikini.
I turned and walked up the stairs very quickly, I didn’t have the energy to run away from him, but I did my best. My heart was pounding and I thought about Shane. I needed Shane. He always saved me from my own ridiculous ways of putting myself in danger.
I got to the top of the stairs and entered her room. Her dad didn’t follow me, but I closed her door anyway.
Her room was just like Alise’s, a mess. There were clothes and shoes on the floor, with makeup all over a dressing table, and her bedding was ruffled all over her bed.
I walked to her closet and found the dress; it was in a dress bag. I didn’t even worry about what it looked like. I saw papers on her floor in her closet. It was stationary with handwriting. It looked like poetry.
I crouched down, trying not to get dizzy as I looked closely at the letters. They were love letters of some sort, written to Giselle but not signed. I grimaced, seeing the wording of one, and I stuffed them in the dress bag. When I left the room, I looked around for her dad. He was at the bottom of the stairs. “Want to stay for a drink?” he asked, trying to smile. I nearly threw up in my mouth.
“No thanks, sir. My sister is waiting for me. Thanks though.” I turned and ran out of the door.
I got back to the car and got in quickly. I was exhausted from the energy I had just put out and winded from exerting myself.
My sister looked at me worried. “Did he touch you?”