Confessions of a Virgin Sex Columnist! (21 page)

"No," he whispers. "I figured you had your reasons, it wasn't really my place to out you."

I lick my lips. He was respecting me. And I should be glad about that, but for some reason it just confirms a little feeling I had shoved deep down, one that's rapidly rising back to the surface.

He's prince charming.

I'm Cinderella.

And in the fairy tale, that's great. But in real life, we're from different worlds—ones that don't fit. I don't belong with his parents. I don't see myself ever calling their mansion on the Upper East Side home. Blythe will never feel like a sister to me. And as much as I like Patrick, it's not enough. Maybe if I loved him, maybe then things would be different. But I don't. And I never will.

With perfect clarity, I realize why I'm not ready. Why I said no. And maybe it has something to do with Ollie, but it's about so much more than him. It's about me. It always has been.

"I don't care what my parents think," Patrick says, sitting up, sensing the changing tide.

"I do," I murmur, and then I focus my eyes, finding his alert stare, "and you do too. It's only natural."

"So what are you saying?"

I've never done this before. My tongue feels heavy, my lips fat. I don't want to hurt him, but I can't pretend anymore. "I'm saying I don't see a future between us. And I wish I did, and I tried, but it just isn't there, and that's why I'm not ready. Why I'll never be ready." I pause, taking a deep breath. "I'm saying we're over."

I wait for his protest.

I wait for him to say something mean, to get back at me.

I wait for any sort of reaction.

But his silence speaks louder than any words could. It tells me that he's always known there was no future between us, that he's always seen the expiration date, that we were always just a temporary distraction to him.

The realization hurts more than I thought it would.

"I should go," I whisper. And then I ease off the bed, backtracking, picking up my discarded garments and tugging them back on as I follow the trail back to the door. I shrug into my coat, and then let my hand hover over the doorknob.

But I can't open it.

And I realize I'm waiting.

He needs to say something. Anything.

"Skylar?" Patrick calls and I drop my arm back down, chest constricting and opening at the same time.

I turn.

He leans against the wall, chest bare, elastic shorts hugging his hips, hands settled into his pockets. And part of me wants to take it all back, because he looks good and for a while he was mine. But there's no going back. And a bigger part of me needs to move forward.

I wonder what he'll say. Goodbye? It was fun while it lasted? Or maybe he'll curse at me, spill my secrets to the world, seek revenge. I'm used to messy endings. John and I broke up in a screaming battle—me blinking through tears as I shouted at him to get out, to go to his other girls, to leave me alone. And Ollie broke me in another way, not loud, but through an earth-shattering silence.

Yet Patrick's eyes are soft when he opens his mouth to speak. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

My lips shift into a small smile. "I hope you do too."

And it's enough.

It’s the ending I was waiting for, the one I needed.

With Patrick still watching, I slip out the door and shut it behind me. The tears don't come until I make my way outside and realize how far away from home I am on the busiest night of the year. There are no cabs and the thought of the subway just makes me nauseous. So I hug my coat close and walk, unaware as snow starts to fall around me, white flakes speckling my clothes, my hair.

Maybe this was how my year was supposed to begin.

Alone.

The fresh start I've been seeking.

But the idea just makes me colder. My tears freeze against my cheeks.

By the time I get home, I'm numb. Unaware of the world. So far within my own mind that reality seems like a distant memory. Which is why part of me thinks I might be hallucinating when I open my apartment door.

I blink, closing my eyes tight, opening. But the mirage is still there.

Rose petals decorate the floor.

Candles flicker warm and bright.

But I'm stuck on the other side by an invisible barrier, unable to step forward, because I can't tell if I'm walking into my dreams or into my nightmare.

Want to know the real reason I'm a virgin? Because I want to be. Maybe it's idealistic, but I've been waiting to be in love with someone who truly loves me back. So maybe my first confession shouldn't have been that I'm a twenty-two year old virgin. I mean, who cares? The real confession is that I'm a twenty-two year old who's never been in love. And to be honest, that's much more depressing to me.

"Hello?" I call through the door. My voice can pass the barrier but for some reason I can't. The roses. The candles. The romance. It just doesn’t seem possible that it could be for me. I'm an intruder in someone else's happy ending.

"Bridge? Did you and your date come home?" I ask, raising my voice just slightly. But there's no response. Maybe they've already moved in to her room? Though I remember her telling me she likely wouldn’t be coming home tonight.

I bite my lip.

My eyes shift to the left and then to the right, and I have this out-of-body moment where I wonder how strange I would look to my neighbors, standing outside my door with tear stains down my cheeks, too afraid to step into my own apartment.

And really, right now, all I want is my bed.

I take a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

I cross the threshold, heart rapid in my veins, but nothing happens. A few petals crush beneath my feet, but aside from the subtle crunch, all I hear is silence. Shutting the door behind me, I peer into the kitchen.

"Hello?"

Still nothing.

Taking a deep breath, I walk a little farther, hesitant, and enter the living room. My eyes find him immediately. Ollie. Asleep on the couch. And even though I want nothing more than to zap him from my brain, I can't stop how my heart swells watching him there with his feet resting on the arms of the sofa and his hand flung thoughtlessly over his head. The look on his face is completely peaceful, totally at ease, already soft features made more serene by the candlelight. But the longer I look at him, the more an irrational rage builds beneath my skin.

What in the hell is he doing here? Asleep on my couch? Surrounded by roses and candlelight? My heart tightens, wondering if he could have possibly been waiting for me. But then I remember the countdown, I remember midnight, I remember the sinking realization that Ollie did not come to find me, that I was an idiot for even thinking it. And I shove that little shred of hope into the farthest reaches of my mind.

Ollie did not do this for me. No matter what I might wish for, what—if I'm being honest—I've been wishing for since I was five, there's no way Ollie did all of this for me. It's not possible. And I have to stop believing it is.

Which just leaves one question, who did he do this for?

Hence, the rage. Which, I might add, is growing stronger by the second. My fists curl tighter the more I take the scene in. How dare he use my apartment to set up some romantic evening with a mystery date. I mean, the nerve! Sure, we never dated, but there's a history there that needs to be respected. And I mean, the candles everywhere. Hello? Fire hazard! And what a sneak to tell us he had to work when really he wanted us out of our own apartment. Well, sorry I broke up with my boyfriend and ruined your plans by coming home early, Ollie.

I bite my lip, holding back the urge to scream.

Really, I should wake him calmly, tug on his shoulder, nudge him alive. But before I realize what I'm doing, I'm filling up a cup of water at the sink and charging back into the living room, seeing red—and I don’t just mean the rose petals.

"Ollie," I whisper furiously, just to be able to tell myself I tried to wake him up. In case I need justification for my actions a little while later, once I've calmed down and have started to obsessively relive the moment over and over again in my head, freaking out. And then I do what I really want to do, what maybe I've really wanted to do for four and a half years but never had the chance to.

I throw an entire cup of water on his face.

Bulls-eye.

"What the—" he spurts, jerking into a seated position, eyes practically popping out of his skull. Water drips off his eyebrows, making him blink rapidly as he wipes the droplets from his face. Without looking over, he asks, "Bridge, was that really necessary?"

I don't say anything.

I just wait with my hands on my hips.

"Okay," he says, running a hand through his somewhat soaked hair. "I—"

And then he finally decides to look up. All of his features freeze. The annoyance falls away, replaced with what I can only describe as shock, lips falling open, eyes widening. And then that somewhat devilish grin creeps across his face, the one that sort of made me fall for him in the first place. His eyes begin to shine bright as beacons, calling to me.

"It's you," he says.

I cross my arms, putting up the best guard I can. "Of course it's me, I happen to live here in case you forgot."

The smile deepens, grows more mischievous. "You're late."

"What are you talking about?" I ask, shaking my head. "I'm early and clearly I've interrupted something, but I hope you realize how easily you could have burned our entire apartment building to the ground. I mean really, falling asleep when there are what, a hundred candles in the room?"

But the more I speak, the less authoritative my voice becomes. Because Ollie is still looking at me with that look, with his eyes blazing and glittering in the candlelight, and despite my conviction, the tune of my heartbeat changes subtly.

Ollie stands. "I got tired of waiting."

I take a step back as he takes a step forward. "I'm sorry if you got stood up or something, but I've had a long night and I'm tired."

I start to turn, to run, to flee, but his fingers land on my arm and even the barest touch is enough to stop me dead.

"I didn't get stood up," he says calmly. "Like I said, you're late. But you're here now."

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

My heart pounds—fear or anticipation, I'm not sure what. But I can't concentrate on anything besides the fact that Ollie is still touching me, and I haven’t moved out of his reach yet.

My gaze slowly lifts. "What does that mean?"

"It means I wasn't waiting here for some girl," Ollie whispers, tracing a line of fire up my arm. I find I'm not breathing anymore. I'm hanging on his every word instead. Ollie licks his lips, taking a deep breath. "I was waiting here for you."

"Why?" The word tumbles from my lips, made almost entirely of air. A quiet gasp of disbelief.

Ollie lifts his brows, shaking his head just slightly. "Such a typical Skye response. Why do you think?"

But another question is the exact opposite of what I needed to hear, what I wanted to hear. It's another riddle, another game. And even with the roses, and with the candles, and with that passionate look in his eyes, I don't believe this can really be happening. I don't believe him.

I step away, breaking contact.

I breathe in cool air, trying to organize my frantic thoughts.

Ollie knows he made a mistake. "Skye?"

But I shake my head. "No, why tonight? Why this? How did you even know I'd be home? How'd you know it wouldn’t be Bridge walking through that door instead? Or no one?"

"I didn't," he urges, stepping forward. But I need to think clearly. I need to not be touching him. Ollie stops, dropping his hand and furrowing his brows, confidence shrinking before my eyes. "I didn’t know you'd come home. I didn’t know if I would be waiting here all night for nothing. But I hoped. Which is why I did all this. I decided to let fate play its hand. If you came home, I'd try one last time to make you see. And if you didn't, it's a new year and I'd let you go. But here you are, you came home. To me. Fate."

Neither one of us moves.

I'm made immobile by incomprehension.

"One last time to make me see what?" I whisper, eyes looking at the candles, at the roses, at my coat crumpled on the floor. Everywhere and anywhere but him.

Ollie takes both of my hands in his. They're small and delicate compared to his callused chef's palms. A heat gathers beneath my skin, warm, a rising tide. My eyes travel to the spot, thinking how perfectly our fingers seem to fit together, as though made to hold onto one another.

And then I finally look up. Right into those turquoise eyes that have a way of undoing me, of making me melt, of shattering all the convictions that so closely guard my fragile heart.

"Isn't it obvious, Skye?" he murmurs. "To make you see how much I love you."

I inhale sharply, releasing a slow breath. Part of me wants to rip my hands away and hide. Part of me wants to wrap them around his neck and never let go. I'm torn down the middle, frozen. But now that the words are out there, I can't ignore them. I can’t misinterpret them. I can't pretend they don't exist.

"Since when?" I whisper.

He holds me tighter. "Since I let you walk out my door four and a half years ago."

And with that, I do break away.

I thought I'd buried it, but the pain is still raw, and I'm not strong enough to sit there and take it. And if we're going to finally talk about that night after so long, I can't hold his hands and pretend that everything is okay.

"Ollie…" I challenge, trailing off, not sure what I want to say, to ask.

"Skye," he challenges right back, daring me.

My chest expands, swelling with all the unsaid words I've kept inside for the past four years, all the bitter remarks I ached to scream, all the vengeful accusations I've wanted to yell, all the nasty and hurtful things I've only said out loud in my dreams. But there's something else beneath all of that pain, something I told myself time and time again that I would never admit, not to him, not to anyone. But there it is, pushing past everything else, bringing a confession rather than an accusation to my lips.

"You broke my heart," I whisper.

"Skye." He sighs.

"No." I shake my head. It's my turn to speak. "You say you're in love with me? You say you've known ever since that night? Then how could you do that to me? How could you have been so cold, to not even speak to me, to let me walk out your door in complete silence while you listened to me cry? I don't think you even understand what was so horrible about that night, what made me need to never see you again. It wasn't the rejection. I was prepared for the rejection, I went in there expecting you to turn me down. No, the part that broke me was those few moments when I thought you loved me too. To have that little hope I always tried to ignore actually come true, and then to have it ripped away without so much as a sorry, without so much as a goodbye. Before that night, I never imagined you could hurt me so much. And ever since, it's the only thing I expect you to do."

Ollie steps back as though punched.

I stand firm. Because I meant every word and he had to hear them.

"I hated myself for hurting you," he says, still keeping his distance, vulnerable across the candlelight and the silence. "But you have to understand where I was coming from. Before that night in my room, I never once thought of you that way. You were my little sister's best friend, one of my closest friends. I never allowed myself to cross that line, not ever. And then you were there in my room, beautiful in the moonlight, like some sort of vision from my dreams, and something shifted. You touched me and sparks burned my skin, heat that had never been there before. And then you looked up at me, so honest, and told me you loved me. And I did the only thing I wanted to do in that instant, I kissed you. And it felt so right, I never wanted to stop."

I swallow the tightness in my throat. "Then why did you?"

Ollie shakes his head, laughing darkly, little bitter exhales. "Because, Skye, what was I supposed to do? You were leaving to start college the next day. I was leaving to go back to California, hundreds of miles away. We were in completely different places in life and I thought if I just stopped it, everything would go back to normal, that we would both forget. Only that's not what happened. I went to California and I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't escape the memory of that kiss. And I went home for Christmas that year wondering if maybe you thought the same thing, if maybe it was worth trying. But you never visited the house. You never came over for dinner, never came in to see my parents. Bridget always met you out somewhere. And I realized I got exactly what I wanted. You forgot about the kiss. But you forgot something else too. You forgot about me."