Year Four/Week Eighteen to Twenty-Four – Present
And so it began.
Blu and I spent every chance we could get making out in empty classrooms and flustering each other in seminar.
Just last week we’d been watching a media documentary and she placed her hand on my leg, inching up and up until I couldn’t take it anymore and squeezed her fingers.
“Behave darling,” I’d whispered in the way she liked. “We have an audience.”
There was a one-stall washroom we quickly sought out after Professor Granger’s class and made it our own playground. It was unsanitary, disgusting and always stank of rum.
If a drunk student was having fun in there, we were too.
As the weeks went by, my feelings for her grew into a frenzy of lustful passion – I couldn’t keep my fucking hands off her. Scott’s warning of becoming too invested in each other suddenly seemed like a prophecy.
When I told Blu I wanted to do things right, I didn’t know what I meant. At first, I was set on the idea of us just being friends. But the second she pressed her lips to mine it was game over.
She was too good, too sweet, too interested.
I needed it and her and the affection.
Maybe we used each other, maybe we helped each other. Semantics. It was all the same.
She was the fix I needed to stop worrying about what my brothers were doing, what direction I was taking and who had or had not noticed me.
I was the intensity she craved, the buzz she sought, the man she challenged and won over.
I never saw it that way, though.
We fit perfectly when we needed to. Everything was right.
Until it wasn’t.
Blu had come over for our last reading week ever, and I introduced her to my mom. Dad wasn’t there. He never was. He wouldn’t have given a single shit either.
“Hi sweetheart,” Mom said, as if she hadn’t been crying over my absent dad for the past couple months.
Blu shook her hand and beamed. “So nice to meet you.”
That was it. A cordial exchange. I took her to my room shortly after that and began taking her clothes off.
“I’ll never get tired of this,” she released in between kisses, unzipping my pants and pushing me onto the bed.
Her bra was off in seconds and my fingers dove deep inside her, willing her moans.
“Fuck,” her breathing was ragged and high-pitched. I covered her mouth.
My dick was the next thing to enter, slow and gentle, then filling her all at once. She grinded her hips against me, my fingers coated in her slipped between her lips.
“I love when you do that,” I said, increasing my rhythm.
We stayed a tangled mess of sweat and sex until I released on her stomach, quickly grabbing a tissue to wipe her clean.
She began to talk but I silenced her, rotating my thumb on her clit while she squirmed beneath my touch.
There was no better feeling than this, seeing her cave to me, crumble beneath my hand. I did this. I was good enough. No one could take that way from me.
After a few minutes, she half-whispered half-moaned, “I’m coming.”
I kneeled beneath her and pressed my mouth to her entrance, licking and nipping at her sweet spot until she climaxed onto my tongue.
She kissed me, tasting herself, and let out a satisfied breath. “You’re too good.”
I brought her to my chest, curling her body into mine and slid beneath the sheets.
“We’re pretty healthy now,” I teased, drawing invisible hearts on her bare shoulder. “Who would’ve thought?”
She laughed sweetly. “Not me.”
There was silence for a few moments, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just a shared appreciation for the girl I held, and the man she desired.
“How did we get here?” she asked.
“I couldn’t tell you.” That was the truth. I had no idea, but I was glad.
“Do you think we moved too fast?”
I shifted my gaze from the ceiling to her eyes. “Sometimes, yeah.”
She pressed her lips together. “Then I’m not going to say what I was about to say.”
“Alright, you can’t just say that and not tell me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“And I didn’t want to pose in a checkered tuxedo for Baxter’s photoshoot but adjustments needed to be made.”
She chuckled, turning her body to face me completely and poked my cheek.
“Come with me to Paris.”
At first, I wanted to laugh. She had to be kidding, I mean. She’d told me a few weeks back that she wanted to live in France for a year or two and travel, but I was under the impression she wanted to do that alone.
Not with me.
“When?” I swallowed, forcing a smile.
“After we graduate. I want to…” she paused, her brown eyes bleeding into mine. “I want to go with you.”
Scott’s words.
They held a different meaning now.
Too intense, too much – the warning bells in my head alarmed like sirens.
“We graduate in a little over a month and I thought it would be a fun trip. I don’t know, I don’t –”
That’s when she realized; when my best efforts couldn’t hide what my mind was thinking.
Immediately she shot up, scrambling for her shirt, her pants, her fucking everything – Jesus Christ –
“Blu, stop,” I reached out a hand but I didn’t know what the fuck to do with it. “Blu.”
“Blu what, Jace? What do you want to say?”
My brain hurt trying to find the right words. But any word was better than none right now.
“You asked if I thought we moved too fast,” my jaw tensed as I gritted my bottom teeth, “This, this is too fast for me. A trip? Across the world? You said you wanted to live there –”
“Forget I said anything.”
Somehow, her clothes were on within the matter of a minute and she was already darting for my door.
I couldn’t even get a breath out before she turned to me with tears in her eyes saying, “It’s a fling, whatever’s between us. It’s not real. I don’t –” she squeezed the bridge of her nose, “I can’t afford to fall for temporary anymore, Jace. We’re finished, whatever this is, we’re finished.”
And so I watched her go, because that’s what I should’ve done the second I hurt her. Over and over and over, I hurt this girl. How invested was she in me? In us? How invested was I?
We had a few more weeks left with each other. What, was she just going to avoid me? She couldn’t. We’d talk this over. We’d be fine in a few days.
My head readjusted to the soft indent of my pillow as I relaxed, realizing that she just needed to blow off steam and it was another pointless argument that required no resolution but time.
A knock sounded at my door. “Blu?” I asked.
But it was my mom who entered.
“Back away for a second, Mom, I have to get dressed.”
It probably would have been weird had my mom not given me “the talk” when I was barely a pre-teen, but her and I were always so close. She respected my privacy, I respected hers. Even if I knew that her “privacy” equated to loneliness, and it wasn’t privacy she wanted at all, but my father’s attention.
I threw on my sweats and a tee, opening the door for her enough to enter.
“Why was that girl crying?” she questioned, crossing her arms. Very motherly of her to do; it was a nice act.
“She’s a bit emotional right now.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Don’t pry, Mom. It’s being handled.” That was that.
My PS5 controller was in my hands, the new Call of Duty game booting up, but she was relentless with her curiosity.
“Are you two dating?”
“No,” I responded flatly.
“Friends with benefits or something?”
“Mom –” I warned. “It’s being handled.”
She huffed, running shaky fingers through her blonde locks. “You said that already.”
So I didn’t respond, at least not for a few minutes while she hovered near the door, staring into my soul.
“Anything else, Mom? Or can I play my game?”
“I don’t want you hurting anyone, Jace. I raised you better than that.”
At this, I paused the T.V. and threw my controller behind me. “I’m not hurting anyone. She’s hurting herself by asking ridiculous questions.”
“What sort of questions?”
Holy. Fuck. “She just expects a lot more out of this and I guess…” Saying it out loud was nuts, considering I spent the past few weeks with her non-stop. “I guess we’re just not on the same page.”
She tilted her head, eyeing me with suspicion. Didn’t have a clue what she thought she’d find, but I let her watch. Her choice.
“Does she know that?”
“Clearly not,” my voice was strained but I laughed anyway. I didn’t understand how girls worked, what they got mad over, what they cared about.
The more I sat on it, the more I realized how the crazed obsession I often felt with her dissipated the second she left. Maybe it was because I knew I’d see her again, knew she’d be there.
It was probably a good thing she left. She wasn’t the only one who needed time to think.
I knew I cared about her, I did. When she finally opened up to me about the trauma of her past, my knuckles were white with rage. The shit she’d gone through, the people in her life – Fuck, fuck.
Still, a part of me always felt like she was holding something back, like she didn’t fully trust me. That bothered me.
Maybe I didn’t fully trust her either.
I’d been so deep in thought that I hadn’t realized Mom already left my room, probably pissed that I didn’t give her more information on why Blu had run off. Justifiable, I suppose. But I owed no one anything.
It was a courtesy text that I sent Blu, even though this situation was beyond my level of comprehension.
6:31pm – Jace: I hope you’re doing okay. Give me a call when you feel up for it. See you Wednesday.
Honestly, I didn’t expect a text back, but when her named flashed on my phone seconds later, I wasn’t shocked.
6:32pm – Blu Henderson: I’m not going. And I meant what I said. We’re done.
The good guy in me wanted to demand why, wanted to wipe away the stress and anxiety she clearly felt. But the biggest part of me knew how ludicrous the argument was.
I understood liking someone, hell liking someone a damn lot made you do insane things sometimes. But her wish for me to accompany her to Paris? Come on. She couldn’t be serious. She probably didn’t even want that.
My guess, it was after sex, she was riding a high (like she always did) and got sentimental. Didn’t blame her for that. In a few days, she’d know what she asked of me and come to terms with my reaction herself.
In the meantime…
Morris and Bryce hopped in the C.O.D lobby, bringing my attention back to the game.
“Where’d you go, Boland?” He said my name like he did in high school.
Once, it was a nail gun to my ears, now it was a salute to being an equal. We were on the same playing field, him and I. No one was better than the other.
I definitely was. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Mom was nagging me, sorry boys,” My voice travelled through the mic as I picked out a camo skin for my gun.
I could practically feel Morris rolling his eyes when he released, “Women.”
Paris.
Fucking Paris.
I shook my head. “Tell me about it.”
