Chapter 19: Study Date

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The photo above is how I envision the perfect Brett Wells, as model Nick Bateman. What do you guys think? He's so....ah. No words.

Becca

"We're just studying, Mom," I groaned, completely annoyed. I've been repeating this for the past five minutes, but she has yet to believe me.

"No one actually studies on study dates, Becca!" Cassie called out from the bathroom, her voice muffled through the closed door.

"No one asked you!" I yelled back, rolling my eyes. I could hear her laughter from down the hallway.

This entire conversation was completely ridiculous. For the past half hour, my mother, Cassie and I have been talking about mine and Brett's "date" tonight. No matter what I said, they were convinced it was more than just studying. But it wasn't. Brett and I had drawn a a clear line, and I wasn't ready to cross it just yet.

Someday, I thought, but not yet.

My mother was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking her tea while she watched me closely. She got home from work early tonight for the first time in weeks. Figures, the day Brett is coming to pick me up, my mother happens to be home. I was beginning to think Cassie called her and they planned this. Scratch that, I knew they planned this.

The sound of the toilet flushing and water running broke the silence. Cassie walked into the kitchen and took a seat beside my mother, they were both watching me expectingly. I crossed my arms, staring them down while I leaned on the counter.

"Fine!" I threw my hands up in surrender, they weren't going to let this go. "Maybe Brett thinks it is a date..." My voice trailed off as I nervously chewed on my lip.

They exchanged knowing glances, smiling triumphantly.

"What?" I groaned, walking towards the table and taking a seat opposite them.

"Why are you so unwilling to admit that you actually like him?" Cassie asked, her eyebrows raised while I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.

She was right. I did like Brett, more than I care to admit to myself. He made me feel special. He made me feel wanted. And that was something I had never felt before. So what was I so afraid of? I shook my head, the thoughts slowly disintegrating in my mind.

"I don't want to talk about this," I grumbled, giving her a pointed look. My mother stared at me with sadness in her eyes and I knew she understood exactly why I was so against the idea of giving myself to Brett.

I hastily pushed my chair back, standing up on planting both my palms on the table in front of me.

"He's failing so I'm helping him study. That's it. Stop making a big deal over nothing," I snapped, my voice harsher than I intended. I turned away from their startled expressions, retreating back into my room and shutting the door behind me to block out the hushed whispers.

I sat on my bed and let my head fall into my hands. What I felt for Brett was terrifying, it was new territory I had never navigating before. Everything was so strong, so quick that my initial instinct was to run away; to push the thoughts and the feelings to the back of my head, to the back of my heart. Just like I had seen my mother do so many years before.

She loved my father more than anything. She looked at him with stars in her eyes, and he looked at her like she was his entire world. And I looked up to them, to their love and their beauty that transcended so much further than the eye could see.

As I child, I read. Over and over. Consuming myself with the love that only exists in fiction tales and setting my expectations too high. I didn't think that type of love was real, that it would exist outside of the book I held in my palms. But my parents showed me otherwise.

They shared that love, the kind so powerful it was your very life force. Your flesh and blood. The kind that would rip you inside out if the time ever came. And the time came.

My mother tried to hide the pain behind her smiles and her laughs, to make me think that she was okay, but I could see through that. I could see the ghosts in her eyes, the weight she felt in her heart. It destroyed me. She would never admit to it, but my father left and took a piece of her with him, a piece she could never get back.

I never understood it: how you could find love so beautiful and so rare and give it up in the blink of an eye, just like my father did. He looked at her like she was his entire world, until the day he didn't, the day the stars left her eyes but she never weeped, they simply disappeared as if they were never there to begin with.

Love meant heartbreak. It meant losing the very thing that kept you going, and I didn't want that. I was strong, independent. I rely on myself and no one else.

But Brett changed that.

It's like he dug inside me and turned on a switch, one that had been shut off for many, many years. He fixed something inside me, something that made me yearn to be more. To be more with him.

Maybe the reason this scares me so much is because this boy, someone I had known for only months now, had quickly grown to mean more to me than anyone I had ever encountered before. He was everything I thought about, everything I needed but never thought I could actually have.

He was too perfect, too good. Too kind and caring. Too extraordinary for someone as ordinary as myself. But he didn't make me feel ordinary, he made me feel more.

Like we could be more.

And we could, I felt it in every fibre of my being. Every time he looked at me; every time he touched me; every time he kissed me. The feeling of more consumed me, tugging at my heart and my soul, wanting me to cave and give into it, to open my heart to Brett and the love and the inevitable pain that would come.

And I felt myself caving. Piece by piece, my amour was crumbling until there would be nothing left except for me. After all, all you could ever really give someone was yourself. Eventually, I would be exposed completely, and it would be his choice. To love or to leave.

I forced myself to take deep breaths, retreating out of my mind and coming back to reality. The light yellow walls of my room calmed me. Familiar and safe.

To love or to leave, I thought.

When the time came, I knew which I would choose.

Brett

"Dammit," I grumbled, adjusting the blanket and sheets on my bed so they weren't a rumpled mess.

Becca was coming over tonight - to study, I reminded myself - and my hotel room was an absolute mess. Empty water bottles littered every surface. Clothes were thrown everywhere, on my bed, on the floor, hanging off chairs. The sink in the small kitchen was overflowing with dirty dishes, crumbs dotting the counter like golden specks.

I was still roughing it out in the hotel room and had no intentions of leaving anytime soon. My father had yet to leave my house and I refused to step foot in it until he was gone. I was growing accustomed to living alone, welcoming the constant solitude.

Satisfied with the appearance of the newly-made bed, I began to tackle the water bottle fiasco. The mess didn't bother me at all. I had never been a neat-and-organized type of guy, a characteristic my mother despised. But I didn't want Becca walking in here and thinking I was a complete slob.

Even though you are, my mind taunted me. I rolled my eyes as I continued to walk around the room, picking up empty water bottles and throwing them into a trash bag.

I chuckled to myself thinking back to the look on Becca's face when I held her so closely under the stairwell. She seemed startled at first, embarrassed by our close proximity but, as usual, that lasted for mere seconds before her eyes clouded over and she gave me that look that drove me wild.

In that moment, everything I felt was so heightened -- like I would explode if my lips didn't find hers. She softened under my touch, I could feel her trembling as I trailed my thumb over her lips. I was going to kiss her, I had every intention to until the door opened and the moment dissolved around us.

The timing was never right. Every time I got so close to giving into my desires, something or someone interrupted us and ruined the moment. It was like fate was taunting me, telling me that it was too soon and I needed to slow the hell down or I would scare her away.

The night ahead of me held promise though, to the point where I actually felt nervous. Hell, I couldn't remember the last time a girl made me nervous. I was even watching the clock, willing for time to speed up so I could leave already and go pick up Becca.

An hour later, I smiled triumphantly at my surroundings. The room was decently clean, no clothes or garbage to be seen. The kitchen was free of dishes and crumbs, the bed neatly made.

I stared at the bed, the large mattress taking up the majority of the room, the white sheets a stark contrast to the dark grey paint that covered the walls. My mind inevitably wandered back to Becca and our encounter in the stairwell; our kiss on the rooftop and the feel of her completely giving herself to me, casting aside for one moment the wall that held her heart so protectively.

I didn't know how long I stood there, staring at the bed and thinking of Becca. The two images morphed into one until I could literally envision her before me, laying down on the white sheets, her hair fanned out on the pillow, her eyes blue and wide, always watching, taking in everything.

I could see it so clearly; me walking over to her until our bodies were touching; the tint of pink decorating her cheeks as my eyes roamed down her body for the first time; me kissing her with no restraint, no one to interrupt and make me leave her before I was ready to.

In my head, it was just the two of us, our bodies moving in rhythm until the space between us was non-existent and we were one, one heart beating in sync.

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands, the vision leaving my mind as easily as it came. I had to leave. Now. Before my mind took me to places that I would never return from.

Grabbing the keys off the table, I strolled to the door and shut it behind me, blocking off the images that swirled through my head.

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I published the next chapter with this one, as together they were 6000 lines so I had to separate it, haha. Without further ado...Enjoy! I think you're going to love it ; )

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