Chapter Twenty-Five

"Hey, where the hell are you guys?" Mike's voice sounded from within the home, and they parted like the Red Sea.

Mike soon flung the door open and stood at the doorway, gesturing at them with a questioning look in his eyes. Keanu turned away from her and took a few steps away, his hand wiping over his face.

"Keanu, you alright?" Mike asked.

He turned around without a word and walked down the lawn, heading to the pavement and disappearing into his car. He drove off within moments.

"What's up with him?" Mike said.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it," Alice said.

"We were watching Criminal when he kept looking out of the window. Then he suddenly told me he needed to fetch something from his car and before I knew it, he was gone for an hour."

"Oh," she said.

"He's been acting weird lately," Mike said. "I swear it's some new girl he's been dating recently like we said, right?"

She swallowed. It was obvious to her now that the girl was none other than her.

"He'll open up to us about it soon enough," she said.

Sure, when time ends.

"Yeah, I'll keep pestering him about it," he said. "You do that too." She nodded.

The days passed normally and things between them returned to normal but with a slightly different undertone. He treated her as formally as he could, but she could read between his lines and see the yearning for her in his eyes. Things would never go back the way they used to be and part of her hated that, but part of her loved the hell out of it.

She didn't know what to think. She knew how wrong being with him was, and how it would ruin years of progress they made with either of their families, but she wanted him for herself at the same time. Oh, how she wished they had met under different circumstances! If that had happened, she knew she wouldn't think twice before starting something with him, and at this point, she was sure he thought similarly.

The thoughts of them together plagued her mind day and night, and she waited and waited for her emotions to abate, for something in her to wake up and realise they don't stand a chance. She willed her emotions to quieten down, and they seemed to do that, until one day.

She was scrolling on her Instagram first thing in the morning as usual and was breezing though the posts when her finger froze. It hung in the air for a solid three seconds before she scrolled back up and there it was. Clear as day.

Leonard and his new girlfriend.

It was a picture of them at the beach, and they were in swimsuits. The girl barely had anything on, and she was all over him. She clicked onto her profile and saw that the girl was one of his classmates. But she was not Sabrina. She was another classmate.

That destroyed her mood. She refused to eat breakfast because her appetite left her and her father repeatedly knocked on her door, asking if she was okay. She told him what had happened and he asked if he could come in to talk to her about it. But she refused to open the door. She only opened it when she heard Keanu's voice on the other side of the door.

He stepped into her room, his face full of concern. She sighed and climbed back onto her bed. She tried to avoid looking at him so she wouldn't cry, but the tears flowed from her eyes anyway. She tried to brush them away, but she was only spreading the wetness.

He climbed onto the space next to her.

"Hey, your dad is out to grab your favourite Subway cookies, it's just us for the time being," Keanu said.

She didn't respond.

"Don't keep everything in. Let's talk about what happened with Leonard."

She cried. "We only broke up recently! And he's off with another girl already. I can't believe it!"

"I'm sorry, Alice."

"I hate him! His new girlfriend wasn't even the girl he cheated on me with. It's another one of his classmates. I can't help but wonder," she said, stopping to catch her breath in between her sobbing. "I can't help but wonder how many other girls there were!"

"Alice, I know you don't believe it now, but you'll get over this someday."

"And how the fuck do you know?" Alice said with a raised volume. Then realisation struck her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you."

"I know because Leonard's mom also cheated on me."

She paused and turned her head to stare at him. "Really?"

"You've heard from him that she left me because I was too focused on tennis as a career, right?"

"Yeah."

"The one who wanted me to pursue that career was actually her."

She gasped. "No way."

"She was obsessed with the prestige and the prize money. She used to play professionally too but an injury destroyed her career, so she found me. But when she became pregnant with Leonard, I decided to give that up to be a parent. She hated that she had lost her dreams again because of me, so she cheated on me and as Leonard grew up over the years, she managed to turn him against me."

"Why didn't you leave her?"

"I wanted to give him a whole family," he said. "Though I suppose our family was never whole from the beginning."

"You should've left her!" Alice said.

"Trust me, I wish I did," he said. "But what I'm trying to tell you by sharing this is that it's not your fault. I know what went through your head the moment you realised what Leonard did. You blame yourself again, right? Sometimes, the person you think is your other half betrays you, and it's not your fault. Sure, I could've done some things better and I messed up in many ways too, but not you, Alice. You're always innocent."

"What is Leonard doing now? Is he at home?"

Keanu's expression turned serious. "Alice, forget it. Don't try to fix something that can't be fixed."

"I want to talk to him," Alice insisted.

"And say what? You'd obviously end up wanting to get back together with him and if he decides to choose you instead…" Keanu said. "But he's actually out of town now, and will be for a while." Alice's heart sank. He pursed his lips. "Honestly, I don't want to see the both of you back together."

"Why?"

"Why? Why do you think?"

She looked at him. Their faces were close, and his eyes trailed down her wet cheeks and rested on her lips, which parted.

"Why?" Alice asked again.

"Because when you are near, Alice, I realise I am futile. Without you, everything I do, I do in vain - "

That was it. Alice closed the distance between their faces, her lips crashing onto his. His body froze for a moment as she kissed him fiercely but in the next moment, his hand raised to cup her right cheek, his palm covering the back of her head partly. He licked the bottom of her lips before he pushed his tongue into her mouth. They parted momentarily to catch their breaths, but their lips met again in a wrestle of passion.

Alice drew back from Keanu, whose eyes were alight with electricity. She licked his taste off her lips and got onto her knees on the bed. Reaching one leg over to his other side, she enclosed him under her body. He held both hands on either of her hips as he gazed up at her in wonder.

"Christ, Alice," he sighed.

She touched her lips to his again, kissing him teasingly with every swipe of her tongue. She ran her fingers through his hair, gripping hard onto it. His hand inched up her waist, cradling her with rugged hands.

"Keanu, you have no idea how long I've wanted to do this," she said. "I kiss you in my dreams at night, only to kiss you again in my daydreams."

She bit into his lip, kissing him before her mouth found his jawline. She nibbled onto the hard edge of his jaw, and she felt him hardening under her.

"Fuck, Alice!" Keanu said. He grabbed hold of her hips and yanked it backwards. Lifting her off him, he pushed her back onto the bed and it met the bed. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he hovered over her, one of his hands holding her wrist against the bed.

Her breathing was ragged, her mind haywire. His lips were on hers, before it was on the side of her neck. He kissed her repeatedly, his mouth sucking onto her tender skin as he went lower and lower. Drawing back momentarily, his hands caught at the buttons on her shirt, and he pulled them apart with one swift tug. The shirt parted in half and her back curved.

"Keanu!"

He rained kisses down on the swell of her breasts as her mind took flight, her composure fraying at the seams and the world destructing in a whirlwind of fire.