13 6

Before going downstairs, I freshened up in the washroom, and shortly after, I bolted out of the house to find Paul leaning against his crappy Caravan.

"Hey." He waved to me. "Let's go mobile. After this I gotta come back and drive May home." I wordlessly agreed and we got in the car. "I figured with the way you and May are, it would be best to make two trips."

He had no clue how right he was. Clueless yet wise as usual. "Good call." I remarked flatly.

He started the car and turned to me. "So, how was it? I understand why you wanted to leave immediately." He told me with a smile.

"Sorry, Paul, would you mind if I asked for a little silence? No disrespect or anything, I just… Rough night." I responded.

Paul got the message immediately. "You bet. Hope things get better soon." He said simply as he got onto the street. And that was the last thing either one of us said to each other that night.

***

My bed had never felt more comfortable than that night. My parents were still up by the time I got home, wanting to make sure their little boy was okay after his first party, and I used up the last of my energy convincing them I was fine and had fun. Afterwards, I immediately went to my bed with barely enough energy to take my clothes off, and finally fell into a deep sleep, feeling haunted. Haunted by my own actions. I was a god damn cheater. I truly was an asshole. And now, as far as the school was concerned, I was about to be a rapist. My mind travelled back a few months that night, as I realized just how much I hated myself again, for just being Adam, for existing.

"Adam." My conscience seemed to call out to me, mocking me.

"Adam!" It was relentless, needing only my own name and nothing more to insult me.

"Adam!!" A sharp tap jolted me awake. Someone threw a rock at my window. Rubbing my eyes, I lazily hauled myself out of bed. Who the hell could that be? Did Megan find out already? Was May back for more blackmail?

Nope. It was Nicole, looking as self-assured as ever. I opened the window, letting a cold breeze in. However, it looked like I was experiencing the tropics compared to Nicole, who was still in her bathrobe.

"F-f-fucking finally." She rasped with chattering teeth. "Could I come in? We need to talk."

Normally, I would have either gotten mad at her or just asked if it could wait, but I was emotionally sapped tonight and really didn't give a crap about anything. "Sure," I tossed out the window emotionlessly. I looked back at my door and added, "The front door is…" And turned back to see that she had already expertly scaled my wall and was climbing in through my window. She shut it behind her and shivered.

"J-Jesus Christ, Princess Aurora." She complained. "How deep a sleeper are you?! You kept me waiting for five minutes."

"Sorry." I flatly responded then climbed back into bed on autopilot.

Nicole jolted to attention, noticing how I was acting. "Are you okay?" She asked me urgently.

"I'm fine." I lied. "Long day. Really sleepy. What do you need?"

"W-well…" She started, still shivering.

Despite my state, I still took pity on Nicole, whom I knew hated the cold to begin with. "It's warmer in the bed." I offered.

I certainly didn't need to tell her twice. Instantly, she hopped in the bed, discarding her robe. As she entered the bed, her arm touched mine, and I realized just how just she was to the touch. It felt like a frozen metal pole. I could detect no warmth in her body. Nicole could catch hypothermia, or get frostbite. Instinctively, I hugged her. The feeling sucked, to say the least, and my body was getting cold very quickly, but after a bit, Nicole's shivering died down.

"Th-th-thanks, s-squirt." She said lovingly.

"You're welcome." I replied, a little bit more awake now. At this moment, I realized that Nicole wasn't wearing anything, and that her naked, cold body was pressed up against mine, with nothing but a pair of boxers separating us. The feeling was odd, certainly made odder with the cold added in the mix, but weirdly enough, not sexual.

"So what is it?" I asked after waiting a couple minutes for her shivering to die down completely.

She shrugged. "I just wanted to let you know that I forgive you, that's all." Nicole casually stated.

"You waited outside in the cold to tell me that? And you thought that couldn't wait until morning?" I asked her.

She shrugged again. "I felt like it was important you know. I just forgive you for all of those things you did. We're a-okay again, hotshot."

"That's not all. Nicole, I've had a rough night. Don't lie to me." I said coldly, pulling myself away from her.

"Don't…" Nicole said immediately and urgently, pulling me back into her. "…pull away. Please don't pull away. Please don't go away." She pulled me even tighter against her, and buried her face into my neck. A few seconds passed, and suddenly I felt small wet spots on my neck. Nicole was silently crying.

"Woah, woah, woah!" I said out of instinct, hugging Nicole tighter. "It's okay, Nicole. I've got you. Please tell me, what's wrong?"

She kept crying for a solid minute, sobbing loudly now that I knew she was crying. When she could finally contain her crying, she managed to say, "Phil."

"Phil? What about Phil? What did he do?" I peppered her with questions.

She sighed and pulled her face away from my neck to face me. She cleared her throat. "Well, originally, I wanted to go to the party tonight…" She began.

That would have been a disaster and a half, I thought to myself.

"…But he just wanted to hang out at his place, so I agreed. Like, an hour in, we started… doing stuff. Before I know it, we're naked and Phil says he wants to go all the way with me. I wasn't ready, so I refused. I think because of how I acted with him about the kiss, he just took my refusal as a challenge, and he… had his way with me."

"Phil raped you?!" I asked.

Nicole paused. "It wasn't rape. I wouldn't call it rape. It was just a misunderstanding. Anyway, I didn't want it, and he didn't even think of me, and went fast, and just… he hurt me. It really hurt, Adam. I just… I dunno what to do." With that, she buried her face in my neck again and out came a fresh batch of tears.

I held her for the longest time, what seemed like hours, before I felt like it was the right time to speak. "It's okay, Nicole. Do what you think is right and I'll support you. But what I would do is be honest. Tell him how you feel. If he doesn't feel right for you, break up with him. After all, it doesn't sound like he cares a lot about you if he hurt you with the act of love."

"It runs in the fucking family." Nicole muttered bitterly. I don't think she expected me to understand what she meant as fully as I did. Thanks, Paul.

"Above all, I just want to see you happy. If he's not making you happy, break up with him. Let him know why. You don't deserve to be happy any less than anyone else. I'm sorry he hurt you, but I'm here to help."

Nicole lifted her head yet again and gave me the sweetest and most genuine smile I ever saw her give me. "You make me happy." She softly muttered. "Thank you, Adam." She added, moving in for a kiss.

"Woah!" I exclaimed as I dodged the kiss. "I'm happy to help and all, but I have a girlfriend."

"I missed a lot." Nicole said, her soft tone still keeping. "Who?"

"Megan." I said. Noting her questioning face, I added, "I know it won't last that long, but I have to respect her. I made the commitment."

Nicole's smile went from vulnerable and genuine to proud and very, very happy. "You sure turned yourself around, Adam. You're quite the altruist." She said proudly, pulling me in for a hug. "I'm really proud of you."

Her saying that just made me feel more guilty. I wish I had the strength to tell her, but I just couldn't. I wasn't an altruist. I was a bastard. A selfish, cheating asshat. But I was going to change that. Silently, I swore to Nicole that I would become the altruist she thought I was. I would change. Adam Watson was going to be, as of this moment, a good guy. No longer a terrible, cheating lowlife.

And with that final thought, I held her, saying nothing, until I drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Ten

I awoke a good few hours later in the same bed, with the same regrets, and the same junior spooning me. Despite everything bad I had done and every negative emotion I was feeling, I couldn't help but smile. I was really glad to have Nicole back in my life.

I looked past her to my alarm clock. 11:42am. It was a good thing it was a weekend – I needed the sleep. That said, my parents usually looked for me if I wasn't up by noon, and I was worried that today would be no exception.

"Nicole," I said softly, nudging Nicole's lifeless body.

"Mmm." She moaned into the pillow.

"Nicole, you have to get up now. It's almost 12." I said soothingly.

"No." She cutely mumbled into the pillow.

"Please?" I asked, my hand remaining on her shoulder.

"I don't wanna." She responded, not even bothering to remove her head from the pillow. I wonder how she managed to breathe with her head positioned like that.

"Nicoooooole…" I replied in a sing-song voice. Slowly, she raised her head. Her eyes were half-closed, clearly sleepy yet clearly unamused, her hair was a mess and her face, although I hadn't noticed last night, was clearly becoming paler due to the winter. Despite clearly looking less conventionally beautiful in the morning, I couldn't suppress a small smile as I saw her face.

"What?" She barked in a raspy voice.

"You need to get up now." I said in a soothing voice. "Your parents are going to be looking for you."

Nicole's eyes widened, her expression turning grave. "Are they here now?" She asked, looking scared.

"No, no!" I reassured her, rubbing her shoulder.

"Then fuggoff." She replied annoyedly, her expression changing from what I realized was mock fear to annoyed as her head hit the pillow again. She got me. She certainly knew how to act.

"You're not going to make this easy, are you?" I asked her as I removed the sheet from the bed and got up, moving towards the dresser.

"I like my sleep." Nicole lazily replied, grabbing the sheet and pulling it back over her naked body.

"You need to get dressed, Nicole." I said sternly as I turned away from her, grabbing a pair of pants from my dresser.

"Do I have to?" Nicole whined as I put my pants on.

"Yes." I said firmly, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over my head. When I turned back around, Nicole was on top of the bed, fully clothed, staring down at her phone.

"Fine." She said flatly.

"Stop… doing that!" I said, a little freaked out. "You didn't even bring clothes here last night. How the heck did you do that?!"

"Graaaaade eleven." She replied nonchalantly as she continued playing with her phone. "So, what's the plan for today? Good to see you don't have a hangover."

"You knew about the party?" I asked her.

She looked up into my eyes. "I know everything." She assured me, getting up. "For example…" she started, looking around my room. "…You have a pair of speakers in your room."

I looked at my desk. The pair of speakers, positioned on top of my desk in plain sight, wasn't exactly hard to find. "Very good, Sherlock." I replied sarcastically.

"And if you have a pair of speakers and nothing plugged into it, you probably have a music player." Nicole continued, ignoring me. She eyed my desk drawer and opened it, rifling through it without my permission. "Aha!" She declared triumphantly as she held up my old mp3 player, which I hadn't seen for a few years. She immediately plugged it in. "Do you have Toto or Soft Cell on this?"

"It won't have power, don't bother." I told her. "Besides, I just put rock music on that. Nothing really 80s."

As if on cue, Africa by Toto started filling the room as Nicole beamed at me triumphantly. I never even heard of Toto before that day, but at this point, I didn't even have the strength to be surprised. She started swaying to the music, the baggy hoodie she put on swaying with her. Soon, she began to dance, at which, of course, she was great. Not missing a beat, she began to move her body in time to the music, gesturing me to join.

I shook my head. "I don't really dance." I said.

Nicole smiled, still dancing. "You didn't really do karate before, either." She retaliated. "The two are closer than you think." At that, she suddenly stopped dancing, as if she had a thought. "Oh yeah! Speaking of, why'd you stop showing up? You only just started."

Suddenly, I couldn't keep eye contact with her. "I…" I slowly started.

Sensing my tension, Nicole stopped the music and sat me down on the side of my bed. "What? What's wrong?" She asked me.

I couldn't even look her in the eye as I responded. Breathing sharply before doing so, I quickly responded, "I thought you were mad at me so I couldn't deal with seeing you."

"So you didn't go to karate because you'd feel like shit if you saw me and saw I was still pissed at you?" Nicole asked me. I nodded. Her expression turned unimpressed as she smacked me upside the head. "You doorknob." She spat annoyedly. "I don't hate you or anything. What am I, 12?"

"You sided with Phil at the council." I countered with a small voice.

She sighed. "Yeah, I did, didn't I?" She asked me. "Sorry, squirt. I was really pissed at what you did, and honestly thought Phil wasn't like…"

"Jeff?" I asked her.

Something flickered in Nicole's eyes for just a second. I think it was rare for her to slip up, and even rarer for her to notice, but I think she just realized she said too much. However, she recovered quickly. "What, like the VP?" She asked with confusion in her voice.

I was done beating around the bush. I shook my head. "Jeff Love, your boyfriend last year."

Nicole's eyes narrowed. "How do you know about that?"

With a surge of confidence, I winked at her. "Grade 9." I answered playfully.

"Hilarious." Nicole replied sourly, getting up off the bed and walking to a corner of the room, arms akimbo, staring at the wall.

I found her actions a little unfair as I considered how she handled things when I was pissed about something. "What, so when I'm upset you can laugh things off and be all playful, but when I do the same I'm the bad guy?" I asked her, my tone shifting.

"It's not the same." Nicole said flatly, keeping her gaze fixed on the wall.

"Right." I replied, my anger building. "This time, it's you with the problem. Let's all laugh off Adam, the immature grade nine. His problems are small. But just because I'm older, my problems are somehow bigger." I paused, waiting for a response that never came. "Damn it, Nicole, at least tell me why."

"Why?" She repeated calmly, slowly turning around to face me. Her expression reflected an anger of its own, a very calm anger that was more effective than all of the shouting in the world. "Get ready to feel like shit, squirt."

Nicole, maintaining her calm composure, sat down next to me on the bed. "So, yeah, I was with Phil's brother last year." She began. "Great guy. Grade 12, popular type. I was an artistic sophomore nobody. A diligent yearbook worker who had a background in the gifted program." She chuckled softly. "I didn't stand a chance."

"So?" I asked her after a little pause.

She glared at me. "I'm not done, knucklehead." She snarled. "Anyway, he really uplifted me. Took me to parties, introduced me to his friends. Said he found me genuinely pretty. Really made me feel like I was worth something. Made me popular, taught me how to be cool. It was actually really cool… I was being more social and everything. He made me really happy."

She coughed, mostly out of discomfort. "But he wanted something, and kept pushing. He wanted sex. I… I just wasn't ready for it. Around the third time he asked me for it, it was just us in his basement. He asked me if I loved him. I… was stupid. I said yes, and asked him. He said he wasn't sure, but if we could have sex, if we could 'share that bond…'" She held up her fingers as if they were quotes. "…then he would be sure, that he'd… wanna be with me forever. I wasn't moving, but I wasn't saying no. He just kept repeating these sweet nothings, tugging at my shirt or something. Next thing I know, he was forcing himself into me. I never did anything like that before, and my God, did it hurt."

She paused her story and looked at me with intent. "Oh, yeah, by the way, if you ever fuck a girl for the first time, it hurts like a bitch. I don't care what they say. Don't move for like the first five minutes." She looked back to the wall and resumed her story.

"I didn't really know what to do. It was a new experience, a new feeling, and plus, it really fucking hurt, so I just sorta lay there, not even comfortable with it all, and let him take me." She paused again, and this time I let her take her time. She seemed to have difficulty explaining the next part.

"After… after he came, he may as well have thrown me away with the fucking condom. He laughed at me and said I was a 'terrible fuck.' And you know what? I accepted that, I accepted it like a fucking lady. After all, I didn't know what was going on, I just stayed there, I just figured, fair enough, you know?" At this point, she was getting really flustered, and she was looking straight down. I couldn't see her face amidst her hair, but I bet she was trying to hold back tears.

"So… So I just sorta went with it. Told him I���d get better. Lied, saying it was good for me, even though the reality was it fucking hurt and he didn't even have my god damn fucking consent. He had the fucking balls to tell me he couldn't be with someone who was that bad in bed. Drove me home, didn't speak with me for a week. I didn't either. I mean, fuck, I couldn't even look at him, but I really wanted him to say something. Not even 'sorry.' 'Hi' or 'are you gonna fucking be okay' would do."

I was starting to piece things together. "So asking me not to be an asshole to May… Always making sure I comfort a girl when she's upset… getting angry with me for not talking to Megan after I upset her…" I trailed off.

She looked up into my eyes. Her own eyes were red, but she successfully suppressed the tears. She nodded.

Then it hit me. Jeff said she was terrible in bed. "And that's why you were… I mean, that's why you're a…" My cheeks burned as I trailed off again.

She read my mind and chuckled. "A slut? Yup. I wanted to show that fucker I knew what I was doing. So I got me a few practice boys. I was popular at that point, and Jeff was SUCH a fucking gentleman that he didn't tell the whole school I was a bad fuck, so it was easy." She giggled to herself. "Hell, half the school knows for a fact I'm not a bad fuck now…"

"Half?!" I asked in disbelief.

She donned a sarcastic smile and punched me in the gut. "Figure of speech, dumbass." She said, half angry, half playfully.

Silence filled the room. I'm not quite sure for how long. Out of nothing, Nicole spoke up again, her voice more shaky this time. "I felt like shit, y'know. I felt like I was worth something for just about the second time in my life. Jeff fucking destroyed that. So I ran to the one person I could, the one person who would listen."

I thought about it for a while. "Who?"

She looked into my eyes with a deep sadness, a sadness I saw only once before. That once was last December, when she was in my room explaining what happened. Explaining what happened to Mitch.

She sensed I understood who. "I actually didn't even run to him. He caught me blowing a dude. He chased the guy out, but when it came time to deal with me, he… he didn't preach. He didn't talk down to me. He held me, he stroked my hair… He told me how beautiful he found me, how lucky he was to have a talented little sister…" Her attempts to hold back tears were beginning to weaken. "He asked me why I had to have sex to feel valued. And when I told him, he didn't stop me from doing it. He didn't just look after me, he understood me. He accepted me." She looked at me again. "He loved me, God dammit!"

After spitting that last sentence out at me, Nicole latched onto me in a tight hug, burying her face in my chest. She wasn't crying, but she didn't dare move either.

After about a minute, she pulled away. "Sorry." She mumbled.

"It's okay. You're upset." I tried to comfort her.

"Yeah, but that's no reason to throw all of my problems at you and latch on to you like the world's neediest koala every time I remember Mitch or something." She countered, her casual attitude quickly returning. She attempted to straighten her mess of hair and smiled at me. "So, feel like shit yet?" She asked, more warmly than one would expect.

I returned the smile. "A little." I admitted. "Sorry."

She waved me off. "It's totally fine." She said, her voice returning to normal. "It's nice to talk about this with someone who isn't… y'know… dead."

"Didn't you say you have two brothers?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Spencer and I never really got along. And that's all for the better anyway. I think he's in Chicago these days."

"Chicago, huh?" I asked, trying to keep up conversation.

Nicole nodded again, looking down at the floor then slowly into my eyes. Her gaze gathered intent until she suddenly launched forward, locking her lips onto mine. Her hands grasped around my head desperately as she kissed me with a passion I wasn't used to. Half of me was trying to pull back, and half of me was trying to keep up with her.

As quickly as it started, it ended as Nicole pulled back, her face flushed.

"You are…" She said sheepishly as she looked away, thinking to herself, pointing at me absentmindedly. "In a… you… Megan. Right."

I didn't say anything. I just looked at her, a look of what I was sure was curiosity and confusion on my face.

Nicole tried to read me and shrugged. "I missed you." she said casually, trying to play what happened off as if it were nothing. "It's your fault for not talking to me for God knows how long. If you'd just showed up to karate that wouldn't have happened."

"I'm in a relationship…" I said slowly and meaningfully.

"Well, I mean, kinda." Nicole shot back at me. "You said yourself, it ain't gonna last long. So really, you're not cheating since you know you aren't really together, y'know?"

"Not really." I said forcefully. "I don't."

She was silent for a second. "Huh." She finally said, her calm composure weakening somewhat. However, in an instant she built it back up again. "Well, I don't expect you to understand. You're young, hotshot. Call me when you're in grade 11. We'll have a nice chat then." She winked at me then looked at her watch. "Anyway, you're right. I should probably get going." She opened the window and waved at me, unintentionally making it obvious she didn't even want a response. "Later!"

With that, she jumped out of the window, down two flipping stories, as casually as one would walk out of the door. Naturally, I ran to the window to see if she was okay. I was met with the sight of her rolling as she hit the ground, as if she were Bruce Lee or something. She ended up with snow all over her, and I could hear her muttering, "Oh, fucking hell," as she attempted to shake the snow off of herself.

I returned my attention back from the window and sighed to myself. Some popular assholes, like those stereotypical movie jocks, may have been proud to have three nubile, clearly messed up vulnerable girls in their life. They may have even been proud that they managed to cheat on their girlfriend with two different girls. I could tell though, I was not one of those jocks. First things first, I needed to tell Carson the truth.

***

"And that would be time, class." Mr. Carrozza's articulate, strange voice filled the classroom. "Those of you that are done, please turn in your papers. Those who aren't quite finished, I can give you thirty more minutes."

I was damn lucky I happened to be good at science. Otherwise, with everything on my mind I wouldn't have been able to complete my exam. I was too much of a coward to go through with it. On paper, it seemed great to go to Carson and tell him the truth, but when I saw his face, I just… Nope. Nothing. For a whole week, I just couldn't. I hung out with him, but every time it felt right to bring it up, I just sort of froze. It was too difficult for me to do. I feared for my own safety at the hands of his muscular arms. I feared for his feelings. I feared for May's reaction, Megan's reaction. I felt like I was on fire when I was near him. A cold fire. It hurt not telling him, but it seemed my subconscious was willing to settle for that hurt, rather than rolling the dice and possibly experiencing a greater hurt with telling him.

I got up and trudged over to Mr. Carrozza's desk, handing in my examination. "Thank you very much, Adam." Mr. Carrozza told me, staring up at me with his bug eyes. He was whispering so as to not disturb the rest of the class. "You were an absolute pleasure to teach this semester. I hope you pursue the sciences at an academic level in your grade ten year."

"Thanks." I said, trying to make it seem like I was paying attention to him. "Have a good day." He went back to his papers, and I exited the classroom. As soon as I did, my back hit the wall and I sighed to myself.

This whole thing seemed so unnecessarily complicated. Like everything blew up, yet it didn't have to. Like I was making a soap opera out of a little problem. And not telling Carson was just going to make it worse, and make it last longer.

My mind was made up. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone, texting Nicole, asking her if she could give me a ride later today. I had to tell Carson. I just had to.

***

I wasn't quite used to walking anywhere after school. Back when school was close to home, I still had a bus. When I got to high school, home was too far away to even consider walking, and quite frankly, I had no friends. So even though I could walk to Carson's house unannounced after the exam, it still felt weird.

Although, 'weird' was the best the situation could get, so swallowing my pride, I trudged through the snow for three blocks to Carson's place. It felt awkward coming unannounced, but I knew that leaving this whole thing behind me was definitely going to be worth it.

Shivering in the cold late winter air, I rang the doorbell, then waited. No answer. I rang again and waited, my body shifting erratically to cope with the harsh conditions.

The door opened slightly to reveal a conservatively dressed, brown-haired, stern-faced eleventh grade girl.

"Hello, Jenna!" I politely yet nervously began. "Is Carson home?"

"No, he's not." She flatly said. "I think he's still writing his exam. What do you need?"

"I wanted to see him about something. It's very important." I replied.

"Very important?" Jenna asked me, still keeping the doorway partially shut.

"Yes. Very important." I replied with a little more force. I was a little upset about how she was just keeping me outside in the cold, interrogating me, not even being polite enough to open the door more than a crack.

Jenna just stared at me for a bit before sighing. "Tell you what," She said, as if she was doing me a huge favor. "I guess you can wait in the living room until he comes home." She opened the door fully and let me in.

'Was that so hard?' I thought in my head, although all that left my mouth was "Thanks," as I entered the house and took off my boots and coat. I walked into the living room, sat down on the couch and immediately covered myself up with a blanket. Jenna followed me inside, sitting herself down on a couch chair with a hot beverage in her hand.

"So what's this very important thing?" Jenna asked me, sipping her beverage.

"A long story." I replied, looking down. "That's what it is."

Jenna lowered one eyebrow at me. "It's not like there's anyone around. You're in my house. I think I have a right to know."

"I just don't want to tell anyone. I'm telling Carson because he's involved, and that's it." I said firmly.

"I'm Carson's family." She argued. "What happened? Did he screw you over?"

"No, nothing like that." I quickly replied, defending him. "He didn't do anything wrong."

"So you did." Jenna flatly stated. I shifted around in my seat and said nothing.

"So he's pissed, and you came over to clear the air?" Jenna asked. "That may not be a good idea. When Carson's pissed, you should just leave him alone."

"No, he's not pissed. He doesn't even know about it." I replied, saying more than I should have.

"Oh, so you did something that would piss him off if he knew about it, huh?" She asked, thinking out loud. "Well, it doesn't sound like a prank or a rumor you started or something. What did you do?"

"It doesn't matter." I held my ground.

"Something that would actually affect him. You know he doesn't give a shit about anything, yet you're really scared." She continued.

"Please stop." I said, my voice getting quieter. "You're making me uncomfortable."

"And how uncomfortable did you make May?" Jenna asked me. I looked up to her face, the color no doubt leaving mine. There was no malice on her face, though – She just wore her eyebrows high on her face in what looked like a condescending half-smile.

"I don't know what you mean." I badly lied.

"You're a bad liar." She told me. "It's not too hard to figure out what you did. You had your way with Carson's girlfriend against her will."

"Now, hold on a sec." I said, suddenly finding more energy in my voice, like an adrenaline pipe had been opened. "That's not what happened at all."

"Maybe not from your perspective, but you're a guy." Replied Jenna, with a tone that let me know she was sure in what she was saying. "Your perception is warped. You did things to her against her will. Maybe she said she was okay with it, but that's just you taking advantage of her hormones. You took advantage of her."

"You don't even know what happened! She took advantage of me!" I protested. "She was drunk at a party and-"

"So you came on to her while she was drunk." Jenna interrupted. "The evidence is just piling up. I know you don't understand it yet, but that's pure misogyny. When you're older you'll see-"

"Shut up!!" I yelled at her with enough to make her eyes get a little wider, if only for a second. "This is exactly why I don't want to tell anyone else! And now you forced it out of me, so since you're going to hear the god damn story, you're going to hear the whole thing, without interrupting me. Got that?!"

She shrugged. "Fine, whatever."

And so, I proceeded to tell her everything, from the first time Nicole gave me a ride all the way up to the party. Her face mostly remained unchanged throughout the whole story.

"And then after that whole thing happened," I concluded, "she said no one could know about it, so she threatened me. She told me if I told anyone, she'd lie that I raped her."

Jenna sat in attentive silence for a few seconds. "Is that all, can I speak now?" She finally asked.

"Yeah, I'm done." I exhaled. "I just can't believe it. I need to tell Carson anyway, but she threatened to tell people that I raped her. That is just so wrong."

"It's because you did rape her. Just saying." Jenna said, sipping at her drink again.

"How?!" I protested. "She came on to me. I refused. I told her I was uncomfortable. She persuaded me to do things I didn't want to do, then threatened me afterwards when I wanted to do the right thing."

"That's just how you're seeing things after the fact to justify yourself." Jenna explained with the tone of a Harvard professor. "You've twisted the truth to the point where you're lying even to yourself."

"I didn't rape her!" I yelled at her, not knowing what to say. "Hell, she came closer to raping me."

"Girls can't rape." Jenna explained to me. "Only men can assert sexual dominance. Girls lack the moral inability, especially since men are used to oppressing women in our society. You see, rape has to do with power, not just sex. It's a systemic attack men innately use because of their inner misogynistic desire to 'put women in their place.' Of course you think rape is just non-consensual sex – you're going by the dictionary definition of rape, the one that was created by a man."

I thought about how I would reply to that, trying to use her situation to reason with her why she was wrong. However, as I began to realize something a laugh began to form in my throat.

"What's so funny?" Jenna asked me, caught a little off guard.

"Of course you would see guys that way." I explained to her with a smile. "You live with Carson, and have to experience the Carter family. From what I've heard… They're not the best example of guys." I regained my serious composure. "But that doesn't mean you can paint all guys with the same brush. If I was a girl and was telling you the same story, you would totally be on my side. That's a little sexist, don't you think?"

"Me, sexist?!" Jenna exclaimed, offended. "You're the sexist one! If you were a girl you wouldn't have done what you did, because what you did was sexual harassment. Do you want to know what you should do?"

"I'll bite." I replied, and was surprised to find that I was actually beginning to enjoy this debate instead of hate the debate, or Jenna, for it. "What should I do?"

"Drop Nicole, definitely drop May, and break up with Megan. She can do a lot better than a cheating rapist." Jenna fired back, aiming to offend me back after I got under her skin. I kept my cool, since showing I was offended would have meant her victory.

"All three?" I asked, curious. "You don't think I belong with any of them?"

Jenna shook her head. "Nope. You took advantage of Nicole's nature for some quick, easy sex, you coerced Megan into liking you just for the sex, and you basically raped May. Do you see a common theme here?"

"They're all completely different stories from what actually happened?" I quipped.

Jenna ignored me. "They all have to do with sex. I saw this before, with Carson, and you do not want to end up like him. You're searching for the wrong thing. Sex has warped my little brother."

"Warped." I repeated in slight disbelief.

She nodded. "He doesn't really know what love is anymore, and just confuses love with sex and good conversation. Maybe that's why it was so easy for you to coerce May." She paused and took a sip from her drink. "He has a different sense of love and belonging now… A wrong one. You're kind of inexperienced compared to him, so I feel like you can still be saved. But if you keep hanging around those and keep getting cheap sex from them, you won't be. I'm trying to help you, you know."

I'm sure in her own mind, she had nothing but the purest intentions. "And what if I do end up with any of them in the end?" I asked her.

"You won't." Jenna replied simply, taking yet another sip from her drink.

With perfect timing, the door swung open after just the right amount of silence had filled the room and in swaggered Carson. He didn't quite see me at first, and went into the kitchen. I heard him sigh loudly as he fiddled around in the kitchen. "Man, the English exam today was a bitch." He proclaimed loud enough for both of us to hear it.

"You know I don't like it when you use that word, Carson." Jenna barked back at him. He clearly knew how to get under her skin without even trying.

You could practically hear Carson grinning from the kitchen. "Well maybe that's why I said it," he smugly retorted as he marched right into the living room, only then noticing I was in the house. "Oh…" He simply said. "Hey… buddy…"

"Hey, Carson." I replied back, trying to force my nervousness down. "Sorry for coming over unannounced. I just need to talk about something with you."

"Uh… Sure, cool." Carson replied flatly, taking a seat. "What do you need to talk about?"

I shot Jenna a look of nervousness. Quite frankly, I both didn't know how to begin and didn't want her to be present. However, at the same time, with my eyes I pleaded with her to start the conversation for me, to ease me into the topic so I wouldn't have to go through with the painful awkwardness of bringing it up.

Unfortunately, either Jenna wasn't as good at reading minds as Nicole was, or didn't really want to help, because after about one second of eye contact, she promptly stood up. "Probably something stupid," she lamely commented as she stood up and walked towards the staircase. No one said anything until she disappeared up the stairs. Soon after, Carson and I heard a door shut.

"Ignore her." Carson ordered. "What's up?"

Well, my lifeline was gone. Here goes nothing, I thought to myself. "So, you know the party that happened last night?"

"Yeah." He replied, disinterested. "May invited me, but I didn't really feel like going, so I turned her down."

Almost relieved that the topic was shifting, I sat up, attentive. "You turned your own girlfriend down?" I asked, smiling in slight disbelief.

He shrugged. "I didn't wanna do it. I shouldn't have to do it if I don't wanna. She went anyway, though. I wasn't worried, though. She was kinda pissed that I shut her down, but in the end she'll come crawling back to me." A grin sported his face as he finished his sentence.

Yeah, Carson. By all means, make this more difficult. I inhaled slowly, and exhaled sharply before I told all. The encounter in the hallway, Megan's interruption (which led to discussing Megan, though I made sure to leave out Nicole), May's reaction to me being at the party and how she got more drunk and horny as the night progressed. As I explained, Carson's expression quickly changed from a grin to a serious, disapproving yet glazed glare. After I was finished, a good minute passed before Carson spoke.

"You could have told me you kissed her already." He simply said.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for… everything." I replied, trembling slightly.

He waved me off. "You're too dramatic, man." He said, with a more serious voice than I've ever heard him use before. He paused again before continuing. "It's cool. I don't blame you."

"What?" I asked.

"I don't blame you." He repeated. "These kinda things happen. I've been drunk before, man. I totally get that you weren't thinking straight. I don't wanna hold this against you."

"Oh." I simply responded. It wasn't really lying if I didn't acknowledge it. I was stone sober the whole night, of course, but I guess he didn't need to know that.

"Was May drunk too?" He asked, with a little more hostility.

"May was definitely drunk." I said with a slight chuckle. My eyes met his and my small smile disappeared entirely.

He nodded slowly. "Okay." He said, then softened up a little. "Relax, buddy. You look like you're going to have a heart attack."

I became self-aware enough to notice I was two steps from hyperventilation. I started inhaling and exhaling slowly again.

"Hate the game, not the player." Carson remarked out loud. "It's cool. As long as you were drunk and weren't thinking clearly, I'm not upset with you."

I shifted in my seat and didn't say anything. Carson accepted it as a continuation of my previous silence and moved on.

"I do need to talk with May though." He thought aloud. He loudly sighed, then stood up. "Um, listen…" he began. "I need a little time to myself. Would you mind getting out of here? No offense."

"Uh, sure, yeah." I quickly said, thanking the heavens that went down as quickly and smoothly as it did. Wordlessly, I stood up and walked towards the front door. Carson didn't accompany me or anything. I think he went straight to his room.

I was supposed to feel better after telling him, but I ended up feeling worse. I didn't dare look back – I never really saw Carson so drained like that before, and the knowledge that I caused that made shame burn through my cheeks. Feeling kind of drained myself, I trudged out of the door. I was what I expected to see, a black Ford Focus and a hipster in sunglasses casually eating a granola bar.

"12:30″ my ass." Nicole bitterly declared as she looked at her phone. "Try 1:06."

"Carson got home late." I justified myself. "Didn't you see him walk by?"

"I was busy doing other things." Nicole defended herself, her mouth full of her granola bar. "Exam time is actually crunch time for the school paper too, you know. And typing is a lot more difficult in a car."

"Maybe you just couldn't see him." I quipped, pointing to the sunglasses. "What's with the shades?"

"Snow is bright, bozo." Nicole shot back, a mischievous smile on her face. "Just get the fuck in the car."

We got in the car and Nicole started it, beginning to drive without a word being exchanged between us. Almost out of a sense of obligation, I justified myself again. "You could have texted me if you needed to get out of here."

Nicole stopped at a stoplight before she looked at me, one eyebrow visibly cocked behind her sunglasses. "You stopped going to karate to avoid talking to me. The last time you texted me in who knows how long was because you needed me to be your chauffeur. Want me to hold your fucking hand too?"

I tried to formulate a response, but my blind anger quickly faded to allow my brain to soak in the truth of her words. "Sorry." I eventually croaked.

Nicole sighed loudly. "I'm sorry too."

Silence followed. To see if Nicole was still pissed, I looked in her direction, only to realize that with the sunglasses, I couldn't quite make out what emotion was on her face. Out of habit, my eyes travelled downwards to her boobs. The way they rose and fell with her breath. Memories of sucking on them for the first time arose within me. The little smile she gave after everything we did in her room…

Nope. I was still in a relationship. I wasn't allowed to be thinking about her that way. My eyes scanned around her car, looking for something new to look at. There wasn't much – a few empty energy drink cans, an empty bag of fast food, her camera (apparently she needed to take it EVERYWHERE), jumper cables and other car equipment…

"Can't take your eyes off them, huh?" Nicole commented slyly.

"Yeah, your jumper cables are quite interesting." I fired back.

Nicole chuckled. "You're getting better with your comebacks, squirt." She remarked. Then, even though she was still driving, she worked her shirt over her head. Of course, she was only wearing one layer, and soon my gaze was met with her beautiful boobs, each proudly displaying her large areolae and erect nipples.

Half of me was instantly turned on. Luckily, that was no longer my dominant half, not after the party. I coughed nervously. "Nicole, I'm still in a relationship. You can't be exposing yourself like that to me. Please put your shirt back on."

Nicole huffed. "You were a lot more fun when you were single."

"Why, because I was easier to manipulate?" I retorted. I groaned internally as I made a big realization – We may be talking again, but now there was clearly a wedge driven between Nicole and I.

"Whatever." Nicole said flatly, putting her shirt back on. "Do what you want, squirt. It's not like you're my only option." She threw me her cell phone. "As long as I'm driving, could you text Brendan Bennett and tell him I wanna hook up?"

I was torn between fuming and laughing out loud at that comment. I did what she asked and put the phone in the cupholder, thinking to myself how painfully obvious it was, what Nicole was trying to do.

"Are you jealous, Nicole?" I asked her finally.

"Yes, Adam. Because I'm completely the jealous type." Even behind her shades, I could feel her rolling her eyes. "Just accept that I have needs and if you're not filling them because you're in some emotional shit with some other girl, I can't just wait for you two to be done. I gotta take care of my own needs."

I was expecting her to admit defeat, but I couldn't make heads nor tails of what she had said. On the one hand, she replied instantly and sounded like she was telling the truth. On the other, I'd seen her lie before, and she was good enough to fool a room full of people.

Silence filled the car. Finally, Nicole piped up again. "Fucking break up with her."

"Huh?" I asked in response.

"Break up with Megan. The sooner, the better. You're turning into a different person, and I don't like it. You're losing yourself, I've seen it happen before." Nicole stated forcefully.

"We won't last forever, but I don't see how this is any of your business." I shot back with just as much force.

"I'm not just a walking set of tits with a car, Adam. I care about you." Nicole argued.

"I asked you to put those away. You can't use that against me. If you want to show them, fine. But you can't hold that against me when that's your own choice." I argued back.

"See, you're just focussing on that stuff. It's like you can't even see how I care. She's changed you." Nicole retaliated. "I miss the Adam I met. We used to hang out, have fun. Now you just use me just so you could share a joke with your friend Carson, and when I try to be myself around you, you tell me to stop it. Break up with her, it's damaging you."

A joke?! I fucking wish it was a joke. The real joke was her attitude during an emotional day for me. ��Nicole, I get you had some bad times with Jeff, but that doesn't mean you get to be my personal psychiatrist. Just because you don't like what he did with you doesn't mean you get to criticize my relationship. Now step off."

I had absolutely no clue why I said that. I cringed as soon as I finished. Nicole's breathing got heavier as she drove from that point onward. She began driving slower and slower, until she parked by the curb. As soon as she shifted the car into park, she turned and looked at me, her breath still heavy.

"Get out. You're walking from this point on." She said coldly, full of fury.

I sighed. Fine, I thought to myself as I opened the door and got outside.

Before I could shut the door she spoke. ��When you're ready to talk to me without being a dick, text me." She reached in to the cupholder and pulled out her phone, dangling it in her hands. "I wanna be your friend again, but you seriously need to get yourself under control and stop having periods so you can have fun and be happy like a normal fucking person." She paused before adding, "Plus, if I tell you something in confidence, don't fucking bring it up." Her voice began to quiver. "Let me know if you come up with some funny fucking jokes about Mitch too, huh?" Her eyes were showed the beginnings of tears. She reached over and shut the door.

I opened it again before she could drive off. "I'm sorry, Nicole. That comment was uncalled for." I admitted.

"I fucking know it was." She replied with anger. "Now shut the door."

I admitted defeat and shut the door. As she drove off speedily, I sighed again. I totally fucked up with that comment. Comparing a forced and painful first time and being treated like crap to being in a fake relationship… I definitely deserved what I got.

As I began walking home, I justified the situation to myself. I'd been forced into cheating, blackmailed, and I still told Carson, which was one of the hardest things I had ever done, all due to the moral code that Nicole herself taught me. Of course I was gonna lash out, especially since she seemed to be begging for an argument today.

Well, one down, one to go, I bitterly thought to myself as my house came into view quite a few minutes later. I told Carson, now I had to tell Megan. And I couldn't do it at school, I had to tell her at her home. Even though her parents, and Matt…. Oh god, Matt… Would probably be there. Well, tough. I fucked up, and if I was committed to telling her, I had to do it right. God knows who was going to drive me home afterwards, too… On day one of confessions, I had managed to fuck it up again and once more, alienate my ride… No, my best friend. Nicole must hate me, I thought to myself.

Of course, I had thought this without noticing that Nicole was sitting at her window, having eagerly awaited to see me come home for the last half hour, feeling guilty as hell and wanting nothing more than to see me come home safely. I probably would have thought, and done, differently if I saw her at her window, a look of worry replaced by one of relief on her face as she saw me approach, clutching a CD close to her chest – the one I got her.

***

Megan was initially thrilled when I wanted to come over to her place. Frankly, I was kind of glad myself – the school atmosphere felt harsh during exams. Naturally, the fact that I didn't dare look Carson in the eye during our math exam didn't help this fact, so it seemed like everything was falling into place. Even so, the sense of inevitability made me sick. I wasn't going to Megan's place to chill out and be happy. I was going over there to tell her I was a cheater, and break up with her.

I thanked my lucky stars that her parents didn't happen to be home. The thought didn't cross my mind until we were already inside and she shouted up the stairs for them, only to be greeted with silence. There are a few memories about high school people don't forget. One of mine, for all the wrong reasons, was when she looked at me right after realizing her parents weren't home, pouted, and said, "Too bad. I wanted them to meet my boyfriend."

God damn. If guilt had a name…

"Megan…" I sighed, following her into the kitchen and sitting down at their dinner table, "We need to talk about that."

I could detect an air of nervousness as she helped herself to an apple. "Why?" She asked.

"Sit down." I offered, gesturing to another chair. She took a seat reluctantly as I continued. "I already told you how we're a really fake couple and how the feeling isn't real, right?"

She thought she understood where I was going as she dropped the apple onto the table and grabbed my hand, covering it with hers. "It's okay, Adam. We can work through that. Love develops, it doesn't just show up. I'm sorry if it's a little weird right now but…. I just need this. I'll get better, you'll see. You'll be glad to have me, I promise."

I wasn't sure if the guilt was growing or if it already grew so much that I, for some reason, reached that magical point of not caring. Nevertheless, I just laughed softly, looking into her confused, frightened eyes. "It's not about you, Megan. Don't worry. It's not about that."

Her fright was replaced with more confusion. "It's not?" She asked me, slowly letting go of my hand. "What's it about?"

Here we go, I thought to myself. I sighed and my eyes hit the floor. "Megan…" I began slowly. "Remember that party I went to? The one you were supposed to come to too?"

I heard nothing for the first few seconds. Then again, I was still eyeing the floor, not daring to look up at her since I was already through the looking glass. For all I knew, she could have been nodding. "Yeah…" I heard her say slowly, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"Well… I'm not going to sugarcoat this." I was going to spin the story a bit, but I wasn't going to sugarcoat it. "I've never really been to a party like that before, and there was booze and people everywhere. It was a bit too much for me." I justified in my head that if making it seem like I was drunk would soften the blow to Carson, it would soften the blow to her as well. "Before I knew it, one of my friends had convinced me to… I found myself in… We did things, Megan. Like, sex things. I'm sorry."

My eyes stung. No tears were happening, but my heart was pounding in my ears. "Okay." I heard Megan quietly say. I still didn't look up though, and didn't until Megan grabbed my hand again with both of hers. I looked up slowly to look into her eyes and saw that her face was surprisingly neutral.

"Did you hear me? I said it's okay." Megan explained.

Wait, what? "Huh?" I asked her lamely.

"It happens. Every good relationship has its bad moments. You did something bad, but you told me. That means the world to me, Adam." She said, a small smile forming on her face. She paused, then continued. "I still think we can work. I'll try as best as I can not to let this change us. Who was the girl, by the way?"

Um… No. This wasn't supposed to be the result. She was supposed to get angry. Slap me. Argue with me. We'd break up. I'd move on with my life. She'd be more dependent with hers. This wasn't the plan at all.

"I don't wanna say." I managed to say through all of my conflicting thoughts. "It would just cause unnecessary shit."

Her look grew distant and a small scowl replaced her slight smile. "It's Nicole, isn't it?" She asked me.

"No!" I immediately replied, finding more energy in my voice. "It wasn't her. Nicole wasn't even at that party. I just don't think the person was relevant. It was my fault anyway." I looked down in shame again.

I felt Megan's finger on the bottom of my chin, pulling my face up. My face was lifted to meet hers as she sweetly kissed me. "We're okay, Adam." She softly whispered, going in for a hug. Megan was an interesting character, I had to say. She went from hopeful to sad to gentle in roughly 30 seconds.

I pulled away from the hug. "No." I said softly. "I just can't do it. I can't be in a relationship with you like this knowing what I did." Half of that was B.S. just used to justify me wanting to break up with her, but the other half found some truth in that statement.

She immediately leaned in to me. "No, it's okay." She said frantically, pulling me into another hug. "We're okay, Adam. We're okay." She pulled away to look me in the face. Her face looked very sad. "I just got you. Don't tell me it's ending like this."

"Megan, you don't want me." I reasoned, breaking away from her and standing up. "I'm a cheating mess, and I don't even know who I am anymore. In a relationship you give some of yourself to the other person, and they share it with you. I can't do that if I don't even have enough of myself to give. And it's stuff like that that probably led us to this situation. If we keep going like this, who knows how else I'll hurt you? I don't want to lose myself. Plus, your dependence on me kind of scares me. I want you to be your own wonderful person." I gave her a small smile before continuing. She didn't smile back. "I feel like you'll get too used to being Adam's girl instead of being Megan Schneider if you were with me. That's wrong. The fact that you can't even stand up for yourself when your own boyfriend cheated on you is wrong."

She was silent for a long time. "Who was the girl, Adam?" She finally asked in a small voice.

I sighed. "I'm not going to say."

"Who was the girl?"

"It's just going to cause unnecessary drama." I reasoned.

"Who was she?"

"I don't-"

"Who was she?!" She asked loudly, jumping up from her seat, then covered her mouth with her hands. She plopped back into her chair, her hands still covering her mouth, and breathed heavily.

I got down on one knee in front of her. "You okay?" I asked her. She nodded. I chuckled. "You don't yell a lot, do you?"

"Not ever." Megan said in a timid voice, muffled by her hands. "Adam, I don't want to lose you. I don't know how to be…" She paused. "Never mind." She finished.

"No, please. Say it. I'm listening. Intently." I insisted, leaning in with interested.

She slowly removed her hands from in front of her mouth. "I don't… know how to be confident around you. I don't like myself. I want to be like the other girls and have confidence, have their smile, their bodies, their… I want to be them."

"Megan, you're perfectly fi-"

"I want to be Nicole."

I was taken aback. "Nicole? Why her?"

She shrugged, looking off into the distance.

"Why Nicole?" I repeated.

She pulled her lips together nervously. "Remember the first council, where she kissed me?" I nodded. "I never even thought about kissing anyone, let alone a girl, before that day. She seemed so fun, so full of adventure. So confident. Like she doesn't care about anyone, she just likes being herself. I want to feel like that. I want to feel like no one is judging me when I walk through the halls." She thought to herself. "Actually… No. I want to not care when I see people judging me. I don't want people to giggle when the shy girl turns pink when a romantic moment happens in a book she's reading. I don't want people to stare when I'm holding my books really tight in front of me when I walk through the halls. I don't want people to look down on me. I want them to… To…" She started fumbling with her words.

"Respect you?" I offered.

"Want me." She said flatly, shocking me. "I want people to look at me and think, 'Gosh… I want to be with her.' And when I saw you and Nicole, I got so jealous. She had that too. She got to have you. And even May had it. Yet another cute boy, and when I tried to talk to him, I come off as too shy and he doesn't care."

"So you seduced me." I concluded.

Megan bit her lip and nodded nervously. "I wanted you to want me too. You were cute and you seem to really care about people. So I took a big risk. I figured if it didn't work, there was no point trying for anyone anyway, so it's not like my reputation would matter anymore…" She laughed sadly, which turned into quick breaths, which I gathered was her attempts not to cry.

"Hence why you were so upset when I didn't hold your hand?" I asked her.

She shut her eyes and quickly nodded. "It backfired. You wanted me, but only because I offered sex." She continued, her voice quivering. "But you couldn't accept being with me in public. I thought something was wrong with me. Then when I saw you with May, I wondered if… If you just saw all girls that way."

I coughed in expectation. She looked at me and softly smiled. "I know, it was different with her." Her smile gathered tears. "It always is with the other girls. You even cheated on me, and don't think I'm worth enough to know her name." The tears started flowing.

Yup, I was a jackass. A complete and total jackass. I was going to say something, but she continued. "I get it, though. I'm not right for you. I don't think you cheating was part of a plan or anything, but it created a good opportunity to break up with me, didn't it?"

"The truth?" I asked. Trying to curb her crying, she nodded. "Yeah. It did create an opportunity. But I promise, the cheating, I did not… I wouldn't normally…"

She took my hand yet again. We stared into each others' eyes for several seconds of silence. "We're okay." She finally said, and hugged me.

The hug lasted forever. By the time we broke away, the redness in her eyes was fading. "So, I guess we've broken up now, haven't we?" She asked.

I made a sad, sympathetic expression and nodded. "I meant what I said about finding your own person, Megan." I said. "It's the best thing for both of us right now. But I'm glad you told me everything." For the first time, I took her hand in mine. "I'm glad I got to learn about what you want. And boyfriend or not, now that you told me, now that you were honest with me and being your own person… I care about you. I'm not judging you. I'm glad you're my friend."

Megan broke into a grin. "Is it weird for exes to hang out and be friends?" She shyly asked.

I returned her smile. "I sure hope not." I replied.

A sudden slam of the front door broke us from our trance. Megan, immediately nervous, got up from her seat and stood in front of me, as if to block me from someone's view. When Matt emerged in the kitchen doorway, I understood why.

Upon seeing us, his eyes flashed with confusion, then anger. "You…" He began menacingly. "What are you doing here?" He turned to Megan. "What is he doing here?"

He had a look that could burn a hole through a man's face. Before I could speak up, Megan did it for me. "Matt, it's okay." She said soothingly. "I invited him over. We just wanted to talk, that's all."

"Talk?!" Matt sputtered. ��Meg, last time you two wanted to 'talk,' he convinced you to blow him, then made you feel like shit afterwards. Did you forget that? I don't want this slug in my house."

Megan turned pink. I guess she didn't have the talk with him about me, despite her promise. "Matt…" She began shyly. "He didn't make me fellate him. I wanted to."

I had never seen a human being with a bigger look of bewilderment on their face than Matt at that moment. As a matter of fact, I never saw a human face mimic the look on his face before. It looked like drawing a shocked face on a marshmallow then putting it in the microwave. "Excuse me?" He finally managed.

"I wanted to fellate him." Megan repeated, a bit more nervously this time. Presuming Matt knew what the word meant (I certainly didn't, but I think I could guess), he was even more appalled the second time he heard this. "What are you saying?" He managed.

Megan shrugged and her stance lost confidence. Her shoulders moved inwards and her knees moved together. Her gaze lowered down to her shoes. "I wanted someone to want me, so I seduced him. He accepted, but misunderstood, and thought I only wanted his… you know. So I got upset and lied to you about him. He's a good guy, I just got upset. Please don't get angry at him."

Matt's face was twisted in a combined look of confusion and anger. Frankly, I don't blame him – if someone were explaining me something I didn't know about, and they explained it like that, I'd be confused too. He took a few seconds to stomach what she had told him, and his face dissolved. "Is that so?" He finally asked calmly.

Megan nodded. "I'm sorry for lying to you, Matt."

He shook his head solemnly. "No, you shouldn't feel bad for lying." He sidestepped so he could look past her, right into my eyes. "You should. You've trained my sister really well, haven't you? I thought you were a good guy. Man up and face the truth. Don't use my own damn sister to pull the wool over my eyes."

I could practically hear Megan rolling her eyes, despite not being able to see her. "Matt, don't make him the bad guy just b-"

"Shut up." Matt fired fiercely at her, his eyebrows met in a V.

"Okay." Megan weakly conceded, sitting down.

"And you." Matt continued, pointing at me. "If you cause my sister any more trouble you'll be sorry you were ever born." He moved his finger from pointing towards me to the door. "You aren't going to spend any more time around my sister. You're not going to talk to her any more. You're going to make good on your promise to me."

Megan turned around to me. "Promise?" She mouthed.

"I'll explain later." I mouthed back. She lowered an eyebrow and cocked her head in curiosity, but shrugged and turned back around.

"And you're banished." Matt finished.

"Banished?" I asked him.

"Banished from this house. You're bad news, Adam. I thought you were a good guy, but you let me down. You're nothing but bad news, and now you've dragged my sister into all this. Now get out."

I remained unmoving, not quite challenging him with my eyes, but eyes locked with him all the same. He lowered both eyebrows and narrowed his eyes. "Get out!!" He yelled, repeating himself.

I understood defeat. Matt intimidated me. I had to leave. Standing up, I wordlessly told him, 'okay.' Megan immediately launched forwards towards me, wrapping her arms around me in a desperate hug.

"Cut it out." Matt interjected, a little more calm than before. Softly yet forcefully, he separated us with his arms. Megan, now a good few feet away from me, managed a small smile. I returned it as I sighed and left.

Matt followed me to the door. He nodded as I opened the door and stepped outside to the snowy porch. "Good boy." He said sternly. "Now stay away from her, and don't cause any more trouble. Make Phil proud of you."

A shot him a look at the mention of Phil's name as Matt closed the door. This time, I had no ride. I sighed as I started my journey back home through the snow. By car, it would have been fifteen minutes, so I probably had three hours of walking ahead of me. As I took my first few steps, I felt a vibrating in my pocket. I took out my phone and turned on the screen.

I'm so sorry. <3

It was from Megan. Sighing, I gave my phone a small smile. I didn't feel like texting her back, but I think I did need to text a certain someone. Searching for Nicole in my contacts, I found her and brought up the messages screen.

You were right. I broke up with Megan.

I hoped that would soften her disposition towards me somewhat. Though, as I expected, she didn't text me back for the rest of the day. Although, that didn't stop me from being disappointed for every second as I made the multiple-hour-long journey home.