Addicted to Him (13 page)

I will myself to focus on the movie and dig my hands into my popcorn bag hoping that maybe stuffing my face with salty, buttery popcorn will help. After a few minutes it almost works, I’m sort of caught up on the movie plot. I wipe my buttery hands on my bare legs and reach for my soda. I feel Seth watching me and I turn to see him looking at my body with the same intensity that I’ve been feeling about him all night.

I watch him run his eyes slowly up and down my body. I can almost feel how much he wants to touch me and I hate myself but I can’t stop myself from responding by pushing my chest out and spreading my legs further apart. Seth’s tongue darts out of his mouth to lick the butter and salt around his mouth and I swear I can almost feel his tongue plunge inside me. My nipples harden and I feel a slickness between my legs.

When he meets my eyes I recognize the same fire that I’ve been feeling since the moment I saw him at the library that first day. I’ve never wanted anything as bad as I want Seth to touch me right now. I want to give him everything, which petrifies me. Whatever is between us feels dangerous and I have a feeling that if I give myself over to it, I might never find my way back to myself. I realize how crazy these thoughts are because even if we had a full blown relationship for the next two months, I’m still leaving in August. But part of me knows how hard it is already going to be to leave and wonders if I could actually say good-bye to Seth if I let things go too far.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I’ve never wanted anyone this bad,” he whispers, watching my mouth.

Oh, God. I can’t believe he just put words to what I’ve been thinking. But even if I don’t freak out once I let him touch me, surely a guy like Seth is experienced and who knows if I’m even going to know how to please him. I wrestle with so many different emotions that I know I must look completely bewildered.

I know that all I need to do is give him the go ahead and his lips and body will be against mine in a heartbeat. I ache to feel his hands on me and his lips on mine. A summer fling will be good for me, I remind myself. I deserve this, I tell myself, inching closer to Seth.

I run my eyes down his neck and imagine licking it. He watches me patiently, just waiting for the words. I lick my lips, so close to saying them. He doesn’t move toward me but watches me, urging me on with his eyes.

I’m almost there when Chastity’s screechy voice pops into my head reminding me that someone like Seth would never want someone like me. He only wants me because I seem like a challenge. Once he gets what he wants, I’ll never hear from him again. I want to believe the look in his eyes, promising that he would never hurt me, but I know that even if he didn’t mean to, he would. I jump up in the truck, slide my flip-flops on, and am shimmying the tailgate before Seth even moves.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say, bolting toward a concession area that we drove by when we first got here. I don’t look back, afraid that Seth is following me. I weave through the aisles of cars filled with people enjoying themselves, lost in the movie or the embrace of their date. None of them freaking out like I am. I wish I could just be one of those simple people who can live in the moment and accept it for what it’s worth but my head always gets in the way. I’m always living months and years ahead, worrying about what’s going to happen and missing my opportunity to be happy right now.

“Hey, beautiful,” a guy at the concession stand slurs as I pass by. I ignore him and continue on to the ladies room. I sit inside a stall for several minutes trying to calm myself down. I’ll just ask Seth to take me home and explain to him that it just isn’t going to work out.

If only I could convince myself that is what I really want but it isn’t. I’d spend every single hour of every single day with Seth, and that’s what really scares me. He makes me want a better life. A life without Chastity holding my head down all the time. A life with people who actually want me to be happy and succeed.

But I could never just abandon Wade. I wouldn’t be any better than Seth’s dad if I just disappeared forever one day. And if anyone knows that long-distance relationships don’t work, it’s me. As much as I love my dad, we still have a hard time communicating with each other because of the time we’ve been away from each other.

I rinse my face with cold water and head back out to the truck to ask Seth to take me home. I pull open the door to the bathroom and the drunk guy is propped against the wall.

“There you are,” he says, making me realize he’s been waiting for me all this time. My stomach flips and I feel sick. I glance around the deserted hallway but no one else is there.

“Excuse me, my boyfriend is waiting for me,” I say, trying to move around him. He reaches out for me and I start backing away. I end up backing myself into the dead end wall at the end of the hallway as his hands reach out to touch me.

“I saw the way you looked at me. Don’t act like you don’t want it,” he slurs, stumbling toward me.

“You’re mistaken,” I squeak out. I want to scream, hoping that someone from the concession area will hear me, but my voice is locked out of fear. Phil’s face flashes in front of me and I feel helpless, just like I did all those times he put his hands on me. “Please stay away from me,” I try to scream but it comes out like a whisper.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, his hands almost on me now when I hear the most sickening crunch. My eyes flutter open to see the guy writhing around holding his nose with blood pouring into his hands. Seth stands in front of me, glaring down at him with a murderous look in his eyes. He starts kicking him in the ribs over and over until the guy is begging for him to stop.

I reach out and touch Seth’s arm bringing him back from whatever dark place he’s retreated to. He scoops me up in his arms and I bury my face into his chest the entire way back to the truck. He doesn’t bother with anything in the back of the truck but speeds out of the drive-in and onto the highway.

I want to reach out and touch him but he still seems very angry so I just let him drive. I can tell that he isn’t taking me home as we keep getting farther and farther away from the city.

A few minutes later, we are meandering down a dusty gravel road. Seth slows near a section of large trees and pulls into a barely worn lane that I never would have known was here. My heartbeat picks up exponentially when I realize that we are in the middle of nowhere together.

“Follow me,” he says, jumping out of the truck.

The truck sinks down as Seth hops into the bed. He knocks on the back window to get my attention. I slink out of the passenger side and walk back to the bed of the truck where the blankets and cushions still are from the movie.

He holds his hand out to help me up. He effortlessly pulls me into the bed of the truck then eases me down into the softness of the blankets. I expect him to climb on top of me and start ravaging me but instead he lies next to me and strokes my hair. I gaze up at the millions of stars twinkling down on us and listen to the cricket orchestra all around us. The tall oaks completely surround us, making it feel like we are completely deserted. The only two people left in the world.

“Why didn’t you scream for help?” he asks, propping himself up on his elbow and staring down at me. I start to squirm knowing that I won’t be able to stop myself from giving him everything if he even so much as touches me.

“I’m shy.”

“Bullshit. It’s more than that. You could have kicked that guy in the balls and gotten away from him but you were cowering in the corner and couldn’t get a word out. Somebody has done something to you.”

I have to stop myself from gasping out loud in surprise. I barely know this guy yet he seems to know my darkest secret. I thought being with him for the summer would be a nice distraction to make myself feel normal again, but now I realize how dangerous he really is. Being with him could bring my carefully constructed world crashing down around me.

“I want you to take me home,” I demand, getting up.

“No, you don’t. You just don’t want to tell me the truth. You don’t trust me,” he says, his blazing green eyes taking on a sad quality.

His comment flusters me, making me want to kiss him instead of fleeing home like I wanted to just a second ago. “I do trust you.” At first I think I’m lying, but then I realize that I’ve allowed myself to be driven out into the middle of nowhere with Seth and I’m not even nervous. I actually want him to touch me.

“Do you know how much I want you?” he asks, his eyes on mine.

I steel myself to say what I want to say, knowing that I’ve never taken control of a situation like this before. But if I’m going to do this, I have to do it on my terms. “If you want me then you just have to be willing to accept what I’m willing to give,” I say, easing myself back down.

He just looks at me for what seems like forever. I’m sure that any second he will jump out of the bed of the truck and dump me off at home. You would think that a girl willing to give it up without forcing him to hear about her problems would be any guy’s dream but Seth seems to want more. He licks his lips and moves closer to me.

“I want this,” he says, reaching under my dress and rubbing his hand over my panties. I gasp and arch my back, knowing that his fingers are mere millimeters from entering me and the thought almost makes me come. “But I also want this,” he pulls his hand from under my dress and places it over my heart.

“I want you to trust me enough to tell me what’s going on with you because if you can’t do that then there is no point in us going any further.”

I can’t even think I want his hands back on me so bad. Nothing else matters. Besides, he doesn’t know anyone back home so it’s not like he’s going to tell anyone. Not to mention the relief I’ll feel at finally getting all of it out in the open.

Even though it is pitch black out here, I can see his green eyes shining down at me. They are filled with so much emotion that I feel like my heart might burst straight out of my chest. No one has ever looked at me like this before. For the first time in my life I feel like I might finally be getting what I deserve. I want to tell him everything.

“I hate my mother,” I say into the dark night air. I’ve never said such a horrible thing out loud and I’m terrified that Seth will think I’m some wicked girl and leave me out here to fend for myself, only to never see him again. He doesn’t say anything, just hovers over me in silence. Even the crickets go silent, mortified by my horrific confession.

“I hate my dad,” Seth confesses, curling up beside me. We both turn to face each other. Seth covers us up with one of the light blankets to keep the mosquitoes off us.

“You don’t think I’m a horrible person?” I ask, brushing a curl off his face.

“I think you’re finally being honest for the first time,” he says, intertwining his fingers with mine under the blanket. “I like it.”

Knowing that my confession didn’t repulse Seth gives me the strength to explain myself. “I think she’s jealous of me but I can’t figure out why. She says and does these horrible things,” I say, everything pouring out of me. Seth seems riveted beside me, listening intently.

“Has it always been this way?” he asks.

I try to find a time in my memories when she wasn’t completely horrible and nothing bubbles to the surface. I realize that the meanness has definitely amped up in the last two years though, which I hadn’t figured out until now.

“Things have definitely deteriorated in the last few years.”

“What’s been going on in the last few years that wasn’t happening before?” he asks innocently, but his question strikes my chest like a sword.

“Oh my God, she knows,” I whisper, my head spinning. She must not have been as oblivious to Phil’s stares and extra attention as I thought she was. But how could she just sit by and do nothing? Shouldn’t she see Phil as a predator preying on her innocent daughter? Doesn’t she love me at all to try and protect me?

“Knows what?” Seth asks, interrupting my mental debate.

All this time I’ve kept my secret, thinking that I was just protecting Wade when really I wanted to protect them all, even Phil. I never stopped to think about protecting myself for an instant. All this time I thought if Chastity knew what Phil was doing she would kick him to the curb and smother me with her love to make up for it. How could I have been so naïve?

“She knows that my stepfather has been trying to have sex with me for the last two years.”

I can’t believe that it is out in the universe now. I never thought those words would pass through my lips but the sense of relief I feel to have someone help me carry the load is unbelievable.

I’m so busy feeling relieved and better than I have in two years that at first I don’t notice Seth getting worked up. When he jumps off the bed of the truck, I think he’s disgusted by what I told him.

“I’ll fucking kill him,” he screams, punching the side of the pickup as hard as he can.

I scramble off the pickup as fast as I can, but by the time I reach Seth he has already had time to punch the truck several more times and his knuckles are bleeding.

“Seth, stop,” I scream, pulling on his arms, but I’m no match for his strength and he still manages to punch the truck several more times. At some point he slows and I duck under his arms and come up inside of them. “Please don’t do this,” I sob, touching the blood now running down his arms.

“No one is ever going to hurt you again,” he promises, placing both his bloody hands on the side of my face.

I’ve never seen someone react so violently but instead of feeling scared, I feel powerful. Like for the first time in my life I have someone in my corner. Someone who cares enough about me to harm themselves when they hear that someone has hurt me.

“Don’t ever hurt yourself again.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, looking ashamed. “But the thought of him touching you…”

“It never went that far. He just got a couple of lingering hugs in before I realized what was happening.”

“Nothing else?” he asks, holding my gaze on his. “Don’t lie to me.”

“There was one time he cornered me in the kitchen and begged me to give it to him just once. He was hard and he tried…”