If I Can't Have You (21 page)

 
At first I don’t really care that I might have spilled his drink or something. My mind is too far gone to feel any remorse for my actions. But when he rambles on and says, “It’s all over my damn shirt.” That’s when I freeze. That’s the moment when my spine stiffens and my heart plummets to the pit of my stomach.

I know that voice, a voice that has whispered seductive, sweet things into my ear. A voice that could make my heart go up in flames with one word. Elliot’s voice.

Turning slowly, I feel like I’m suffocating when I lock eyes with him. His blue eyes are fierce, filled with anger, and he keeps glancing at the wet spot on his shirt then at my face. Seconds later a blonde girl slinks up beside him and slides her arms up his torso. “Everything okay, baby?”

Her sweet, high-pitched voice is deafening and for me it drowns out the loud music, the assortment of random voices, Elliot’s bitching as he continues to complain about his shirt, and more than anything it cuts into the screaming sound off in my head.
Everything okay, baby?
I wish she was a radio so I could her turn off. But I can’t. The words keep playing and playing and playing over and over again in my head. They’re throbbing in my temples, jabbing at my brain.

And the way Elliot is looking at me makes me want curl up in the middle of the dance floor and cry. My lip starts to quiver, but I’m able to get a hold of myself. Instead, I turn off the emotion and say with a bit of bitchiness, “Are you seriously bitching over a stain on your shirt?” Elliot’s mouth hangs open. “Grow a pair and quit whining like a little bitch.”

The girl he’s with steps forward and scoffs, “What the hell is your problem?”

Can’t he speak for himself?

The room is spinning and Elliot’s girlfriend’s face is swirling around me really fast.

Then she multiplies. There’s like ten of her. I blink and swallow, but I can feel my dinner rising up my throat. My eyes go wide and I clamp my hands over my mouth, but I can’t hold it back. Then I add another stain to Elliot’s attire when I throw up all over his brand new looking white tennis shoes.

~30~

Sometimes we make love with our eyes.
 
Sometimes we make love with our hands.
 
Sometimes we make love with our bodies.
 
Always we make love with our hearts.
 
~Author Unknown~

“Eww!”
Someone groans.

“Did you see that?”
Another person adds.

“Dude, that girl just lost her lunch all over that guy’s shoes!”
That one was the zinger.

I’m panting and embarrassed, but I think I’m about to be sick a second time. Elliot notices the look on my face, mutters something to the girl he’s with, and then escorts me from the room to the ladies room. I barely make it through the first bathroom stall before I’m hugging the toilet, completely emptying the contents of my stomach. A piece of hair falls into my face and I feel someone’s hands on me as they scoop up my hair and hold it away from my face. “Whit?”

“No.” It’s Elliot. He doesn’t sound happy.

“This is the girl’s bathroom,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t be in here.” He sighs. He sounds frustrated and exhausted and it hurts me that he thinks he’s doing me a favor. I swat behind me and smack his thigh. “Leave.”

“I’m not leaving you. You’re sick,” he says. Normally I think that would sound sweet coming from a guy, but from him it sounds like he’d rather be shoveling shit from a pig pen than standing in the bathroom holding back my hair.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah. It looks like it.”

“Go back to your girlfriend, Elliot. I’m fine.”

“She’s not my girlfriend and stop lying. You’re not fine.”

I try to push Elliot away, but he still he keeps his grip tight on my hair. After I throw up again he helps me to my feet and guides me over to the bathroom sink. “If she’s not your girlfriend why did she call you babe?”

“Can we not talk about this?”

I don’t really want to. The last thing I want to talk about is his relationship or according to him a non-relationship with another girl. I turn on the faucet, scoop some cold water, and rinse my mouth out. My stomach is still a little queasy, there’s still a rancid after-taste resting on my tongue, and I feel slightly dizzy, but I think I spewed out my drunkenness with my dinner.

Seconds later Whit stumbles into the bathroom. She catches her balance and positions herself against the wall, “Oh, heeeey, Robs!” She squeals, slurring her words. Her glazed, red eyes wander over to Elliot. She squints. “Elliot? Is that you?”

Elliot nods. “Hi Whitney.”

“Oh,” she giggles. “I forgot I have to pee.” She stumbles away from the wall and crashes through the second bathroom stall. I turn the water on again so that Elliot doesn’t have to listen to her trickling stream of urine. Plus I know Whit likes to have the water running. She says it helps the flow come out faster. Whit moans in relief and seconds later she staggers out of the stall.

She zigzags over to the sink and rams into it. Elliot grabs her by the arm and steadies her as she washes her hands. “Easy there,” he says.

“Why thank you Elliot,” she says in a sing-song voice as she dips her hands underneath the running water. “Dude, did you guys hear what happened? Some girl barfed all over this guy’s shoes.” Whit shakes her hands drying them and laughs. Then she drops her gaze, staring at Elliot’s shoe. She turns to me. “Oh, shit. It was you.”

****

After Elliot cleans off his shoe he offers to drive us home and I politely decline. “No thanks. I’m pretty sure I can handle it from here.” I’m not cool with drinking and driving, at all, but I don’t think I can handle being in a confined space with Elliot right now. It might be the one thing that pushes me over the edge of insanity.

“You’ve been drinking, Robin,” he assures me.

“So have you,” I shoot back.

“No. You spilled my drink all over my shirt, remember?”

My reunion with Elliot has been anything, but happy and I’d planned on spending the entire ride home listening to sappy love songs and crying my eyes out.

“Just let him drive,” Whit butts in.

Thank you, Whitney.

“It’s settled then.” Elliot snatches the keys from Whitney’s hand. “I’m driving.”

Elliot and I help Whit into the back seat of the car and she sprawls out, her mouth hanging open and starts snoring before I can even close the door. I climb into the passenger seat and fasten my seatbelt as Elliot hops into the driver’s side.

Neither one of us talks for the entire ride back to our dorm. Elliot whistles softly, tapping his hands against the steering wheel and I spend most of the ride staring out the window. But there are moments where I can feel Elliot’s eyes on me. His pools of gray-blue melt right through my skin and kick my already racing heart beat into overdrive.

Having him right next to me is difficult because I fight the better part of myself that’s telling me to hurl my body over the seat and smother him with my kisses. Then I fight the other part of myself that wants to break down and sob. And I’m struggling. A tiny tear trickles down my cheek and I swat it away quickly before he has the chance to see it. I’m a sliver of a crack in a glass windshield. I’m spreading, and widening and soon I’ll stretch all the way across.

The car comes to a stop in the student parking area of the dorm and I quickly wipe all of the emotion off my face and help Elliot carry Whit up to our dorm. Elliot waits outside the door while I undress Whit and put on her pajamas and after she’s sound asleep I walk him out.

In front of the building, I kick a rock down the sidewalk, eyes on the ground, refusing to look into his mesmerizing eyes. “Thanks for driving us home.”

“No problem,” he says. “I wanted to make sure you guys got home okay.”

I lift my eyes and glare at him. “Why?” His actions might have been thoughtful, but his attitude made it seem like he didn’t care at all. “And what about your girlfriend? You left her at the club.”

Elliot meets my gaze and narrows his eyes. “Again, she’s not my girlfriend. She didn’t come to the club with me and finally I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

I’ve reached my breaking point, the point of no return. He and I are about to have it out in front of the dorm and I don’t care who sees us. “You’re a hypocrite, you know that?” I snarl and jab my finger into his chest.

He swats my hand away. “Fuck this.”

He turns to walk away and I grip onto his arm and spin him back toward me. “Does the truth hurt, Elliot?” I release his hand and shake my head. “You know what? Go ahead and go. It’s what you do best.”

A spark of pain resonates in his baby blues. “Do you know you broke me after what you did with my brother?” He’s reached the point where he’s shouting. “I couldn’t eat! I couldn’t sleep! I walked around for the rest of summer feeling lost and empty! I’ve never fallen so hard for someone in entire life! I loov—.” He catches himself before he says the rest of his sentence.

“No! I wouldn’t know any of that because you wouldn’t talk to me!”

Me I’m thinking this is a crock of shit. So he’s fallen for me. So he’s about to say those three big words. When you love and care about someone you fight for it. You jump in head first and work out your issues along the way. You give love everything you have if you believe in it. All Elliot has ever done was walk away. When things got too tough he walked away. That’s something I used to do, but I’ve learned that love isn’t simple, it’s complicated and crazy and more often than not it’s worth the fight. “Elliot, you once told me I was just like Drake.”

“Yeah, so. It’s the truth.”

“No,” I gasp as a steady flow of tears stream from my eyes. I let out a crazy laugh. I’m falling apart in front of him, but at this point I don’t give a shit. “You are! You’re a coward, just like him!”

“I am not a coward!”

“You are!” I scream. “You’re the biggest coward I’ve ever met in my entire life!”

Cowards walk away from things that frighten them instead of sticking around and fighting it out. In this case I was the fight and Elliot chickened out. He didn’t even stick around long enough to try.

“You also said I can’t say for sure that I love you, Robin, but I wish you’d let me try. What was that shit?”

“It wasn’t shit!” He moves closer to me. Our bodies are almost touching and his eyes burn into mine. “That was the truth.”

“It’s not the truth,” I say, my eyes still locked with his. “Because you didn’t try, I did. I tried and tried and tried and you gave up on us!” Coward.

I turn to walk away and Elliot grabs my elbow. He lowers his voice. “I was afraid of you hurting me again. I never wanted to feel that kind of pain ever again. So I guess I am a coward.” I face him and close my eyes as more tears spill down my cheeks. He cups my face and wipes the tears away with his thumbs. “But as much as I’ve tried to forget about us and what happened,” he exhales, “seeing you again was like a wakeup call. Seeing you again tells me that I can’t fight the way I feel about you anymore.”

“Then don’t,” I whisper.

“I’m not going to.”

I open my mouth to respond, but before I can Elliot presses his lips against mine. He envelopes me in his arms and kisses me hard. A kiss that’s full of love, passion, and ferocity. A kiss that’s full of beauty and unrequited bliss.

Our lips part and as the kiss deepens his tongue dances around in my mouth for a moment before he pulls out of the kiss, gazing lovingly into my eyes. “Robin, I’m—.”

“Shut up,” I tell him. “Just shut up and kiss me again.”

I’ve wanted this for days, for weeks, for months. I’ve craved it like a drug addict who needs a quick fix.

And he does kiss me again. This time more hungrily. More sensually. More erotically.

Before I realize what’s happening we’re in his dorm. “Where’s your roommate?” I ask, breathless and Elliot pulls my shirt over my head.

“He’s never here.” Elliot gasps as he rips his own shirt off.

His mouth rests against my cheekbone and his raspy breathing fills my ears. He lays me down his bed and he hovers above me. My hands slide up over his muscled abs and I pull him closer to me. His skin is smooth and soft and my fingertips trail down his back. He brushes his lips against my neck and I feel like I’m about to explode, so full of love and desire that I can’t handle it.

I want to feel him inside of me, a passionate haze of himself thrusting into me, melting into me, and numbing me until I can’t remember any other guy’s name but his.

My legs tremble as he slides down my underwear and his fingers glide over my abdomen.
 

Then he stops, resting his lips against my ear and whispers, “I love you, Robin.”

He moves away from my ear and I stare up at his face, illuminated by the light of the moon beaming in from the window. I pull him down to my level, his lips only centimeters away from mine. “I love you too, Elliot.” I think I always have.