Living Backwards (16 page)

“I don’t get it,” she replied, furrowing her brow, looking cute as hell.

“One day about a year ago, I snuck out to buy some cigarettes. I’m sure they thought I was asleep. I overheard Carter on the phone with the bank talking about some kind of college account for me. I heard him asking the person when I’d get access to the money.”

“Then why aren’t you going?” she asked, confused.

“Jillian, come on. Just how much more am I expected to take from them? If they wanted kids, they would have had them. Now they’ve been saddled down with a kid for the last five years. They both put a lot on hold because of me; Grace’s cookbook and Carter’s career. I’m sure he would have worked more if I wasn’t around. I’ve been a huge interruption in their lives. There’s no way I’d let them pay for college.”

“Luke, that’s a horrible reason not to go to college. Please tell me that’s not why,” she demanded. “If you felt that college wasn’t right for you, well, that’s different. I know lots of people…” She trailed off, suddenly looking frustrated, but I wasn’t going to let her complete her thought.

“I can’t take the money from them, and they wouldn’t let me turn it down,” I explained. “Anyway, I have the bar now.”

Even as I said the words, they sounded hollow to me. I had been so focused on Seattle for so long, but hadn’t managed to get myself packed or ready. The move really hadn’t been a priority lately—because of her. Now I just didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to wonder what was going to happen if I left, or what would have happened if I stayed. I needed to stop obsessing and just change the subject.

Jillian was staring blankly up at the sky when I turned to face her.

“You know, your cross is up there, too,” I began, pleased that I had found an escape from the current direction of our talk. “The Northern Cross.”

“Really? Where?” she asked, craning her neck up. I leaned back on my elbows and she followed me as we both stared up at the lights in the sky.

“See the group of stars right over there in the shape of a cross?” I asked, pointing above our heads. “We can see it in the summer and fall.”

“The phoenix and the cross are both constellations?” she asked, looking amused.

“Yeah, just never in the same sky at the same time.” The smile quickly left her face.

“I guess the timing is off, huh?” she added softly. I got the impression that we weren’t talking about stars anymore. I just couldn’t understand why. She was so hard to read. Before I had a chance to question her, though, she pushed herself up off her elbows and glanced at her watch.

“My parents are going to kill me if I don’t get home soon.”

When I looked at my own watch, I felt guilty for keeping her out so late the night before finals. I knew she was right and we needed to get back, but I still didn’t want to go. Something was off, though. There was a sadness in her voice that wasn’t there a minute ago, and I just wished she’d talk to me.

The walk back to my bike was quiet, as I wondered what had gotten into her so suddenly. I climbed on and offered her my hand, bracing myself for the warmth of her body as she settled in behind me. For the fifteen minute ride back to my house, I could enjoy the feeling of Jillian wrapped around me and not worry about the frustration that it would inevitably bring.

Pulling up to the house, I told her to hold onto my shoulders as she stepped off the bike. As soon as she was gone, I started thinking of reasons to call her back. I decided then and there that I’d do whatever it took to get her back on my bike again soon. I needed to feel her like that again…all the time.

I took off my helmet and hung it from the handlebar. I turned around as Jillian unclasped hers and slowly shook her hair out. It was a mess of curls and snarls, twisted and knotted from the blowing wind. She leaned against the bike with her hair flowing wild and something in me snapped. Without over-thinking it, I walked to her, ignoring the way she eyed me suspiciously and took her face in my hands.

Don’t tell me to stop, Jillian. I don’t want to play this game anymore.

My breath was shaky and my mind was reeling, but I could only see her lips. As soon as I leaned in and pressed against them, I breathed her in and parted mine. She didn’t pull away, but she wasn’t responding either.

“Let me kiss you,” I pleaded softly, grazing her lips again while my forehead rested against hers. She released a breath and slowly nudged my mouth with hers. Her lips were soft and warm and everything I wanted and not enough.

“Jillian,” I breathed out softly.
It doesn’t have to be this difficult.

It only took the slightest move from her for me to respond. When her defenses crumbled, I lost all sense of reason. I didn’t worry about scaring her away. I didn’t give her the opportunity to run. I didn’t even give her a chance to tell me she wanted me, too. I just didn’t think at all because kissing Jillian felt better than anything I had ever felt before.

I threaded my fingers into the tangle of snarls and curls in her hair, drawing her as close to me as I could get. All of the pent up frustration from the past two weeks came crashing down, and I couldn’t control myself anymore. When I felt her hands settle on my forearms, grasping tightly, I wound my fingers deeper in her hair, tilting her head to the side. And when the kiss deepened, I fought back every impulse in my body that screamed for me to lay her down on the seat of my bike and show her how she had ruined me.

It was when she let out an inadvertent groan that I felt her stiffen before pulling away completely. Her eyes were wild, her skin was flushed and she was beautiful and dangerous, panting in front of me. I couldn’t understand why she was making this so goddamn difficult.

“Jillian,” I began, attempting a pre-emptive strike on any excuse she was going to give me. Why couldn’t she see how right this was? “We need to—”

“Luke…” she interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. “I just…It’s not that I don’t…I wish you knew how hard this is for me.”

“You’re making it hard,” I replied, reaching out for her.

“I have to go,” she choked out, hurrying over to her car. This was all new to me. I had never had a girl run away from me—nevermind one that did it every time I came close to touching her. I assumed that Jillian wasn’t the most experienced girl in the world, but it was getting ridiculous. How many times did she expect me to chase her?

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Luke,” she added with a sad smile before climbing into the car. I stood there dumbfounded as she drove down the gravel path that led to the highway.

What the hell just happened?

I watched as her car disappeared, leaving me standing there alone…again.

No.

No.

I wasn’t doing this again.

We were going to talk about this tomorrow.

No more veiled comments. No more games.

We were going to figure this out because this…whatever
this
was…whatever we were….
this
was right.

No more running. No more hiding.

Screw this shit.

On Monday morning, I was leaning against Megan’s convertible, trying with little luck to listen to her rehash her date with Nate. I vaguely remembered her mentioning an argument over the origin of the onion ring and a competition that involved the winner eating the most disgusting food combination. (Nate won with pickles and pistachio ice cream.)

“And then we were walking out of the theater and I was saying that this bullshit they’re selling about The Force being some normal biological response not only spoils the original mystique, but insults the intelligence of true fans,” she raved. “I was like ‘New Hope, my ass.’ Then he stopped dead in his tracks, and I thought he was actually going to defend the stupid movie because, for the love of Christ, he can’t agree with a thing I say. Instead, he just looks at me with this dead serious expression and says ‘Go to the prom with me.’ I agreed and we went to the arcade at the mall and played Tekken. I kicked his ass!” she added triumphantly.

“How romantic, Megan,” Danielle replied, clearly not understanding the dynamic she’d come to know very well in the years ahead. “Sounded like a disaster there for awhile.”

“Disaster?” Megan spat back. “Are you kidding? Were you even listening? Not a disaster at all. He has an original Millennium Falcon, Danielle! We went back to his house and—”

“…he let you play with his rocket ship?” she asked sarcastically. It was probably true.

“Screw you, Danielle. Back me up, Jillian.”

I heard Megan call my name, but I wasn’t sure what the question was. Were we really discussing
Star Wars
action figures when my life was falling apart around me? Every thought that ran through my head would bring me back to Luke. Everywhere I looked and everything I did brought him to mind. I was even seeing him in my sleep. I had tried so hard to keep my feelings at bay, but after everything that happened over the weekend, it was impossible.

Everything I thought I knew had been turned around in just two days. And the scariest part was that just one of the things that happened would have chipped away at my resolve. From holding my hand at Seth’s, to taunting me with his strawberry lips at dinner, then telling me his secrets by the cliffs and breaking me down when he kissed me. I was in uncharted territory and I was lost.

I replayed that kiss in my head a million times, maybe more. I’d kissed my fair share of toads over the years. There were the timid, tight-lipped kissers and the overly-ambitious slobberers. There were sweet kisses and ones I’d rather forget, but
nothing
came close to what I felt when Luke kissed me. It wasn’t like in the movies when you’d see fireworks, or in romance novels when you’d feel an electrical charge. No. Everything was quiet and still, like the eye of the storm. We were in our own world…until I heard myself groan like an animal.

I couldn’t deny that I wanted him. God, did I want him, but giving into that feeling scared the living shit out of me. I didn’t have a spirit guide or a cool sidekick telling me what to do, and I could screw some serious shit up if I wasn’t careful. So, I ran away like a…well a teenage girl, and Luke probably hated me. Hell,
I
hated me.

“Earth to Jillian!” Danielle interrupted, waving a hand in front of my face. I turned to respond just in time to witness Luke’s bike pull into the lot. He looked straight at me and while he didn’t look angry, his expression seemed serious, and it was unnerving.

“Sorry to cut the chat short, ladies,” I stammered. “But I promised I’d quiz Suzanne before her Spanish final this morning so I have to head to the library. Catch you later?” I hurried into the building without waiting for a response and made a bee-line into the safety of the Reference Room. I threw myself into the seat next to Suzanne, burying my head in my hands.

“Problems this morning, Jill?” she asked gingerly.

“You have no idea,” I mumbled through my folded arms.

“Wanna talk about it?”
Did I?
If I didn’t say something to someone I was going to go explode.

“Let’s pretend for a moment that I studied for finals,” I whispered louder than I probably should have. “Let’s pretend that I wasn’t riding around on the back of a motorcycle last night or that I wasn’t meeting his family and seeing his room and smelling his smell. Let’s pretend that I’m not in so ridiculously over my head that I can’t even see straight anymore. Can I please pretend, Suzanne? Because I am seriously losing it.”

“Shit, Jill,” she replied wide-eyed. “What’s going on with you?”

“Luke,” I replied, dropping my head back down on the desk.

“Luke Chambers? When did this happen?!”

“He’s taking me to the prom,” I added, raising my head for a moment before returning it to my hiding place.

“And this is a bad thing?”

“Yes, Suzanne, this is a very, very, very bad thing,” I replied, still agitated.

“You’re going to have to spell this one out for me because I’m not getting why going to the prom with Luke is a bad thing,” she added, sounding concerned. I couldn’t blame her. I sounded like a raving lunatic. Hell, I
was
a raving lunatic. I was changing the past, for Christ’s sake, so Luke being a “bad thing” was the understatement of the year…and possibly the next decade.

“Suzanne,” I began, trying unsuccessfully to rein in my overwhelming panic. “It’s bad because Luke and I are just not supposed…we’re just not…” I collapsed back down on the table defeated. I had been reduced to a stuttering idiot. Years of schooling and studying the English language had been obliterated by a motorcycle-riding bad boy with messy hair. If he bottled this shit, he could rule the world.

“Jillian, before you hurt yourself, can I give you a piece of advice?” she offered gently. “You may think you know what’s best, but I’d hate to see you pass up on something that might actually be good. He clearly has some kind of effect on you,” she surmised, motioning to my body sprawled across the library table. “You just don’t want to be one of those people years from now who looks back on high school and says ‘I wish I had’.” she added. “Regret sucks. You don’t get a ‘do over’.”

Stunned, I stared at her just waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind the stacks to tell me that I was being
Punk’d
. When he didn’t show up, I just laughed at the irony of the situation. While her comment about changing the past was quite obviously wrong, she was right about one thing. Regret sucks. I just wished there was some way of knowing whether I was doing the right thing or not.

“Thanks, Suze,” I replied, grabbing her in a bear hug. “You always know just what to say.”

“Anytime,” she began with a mischievous grin. “So, are you going to be able to concentrate today or are you still ‘smelling his smell’? What’s that all about?”

I shoved her arm, laughing. “Don’t judge me, Suzanne, unless you’ve been there.”

“Fine, fine. So are you going to go find him and sniff him some more?”

“You’re hysterical. Really. Have you always been this funny?” I asked sarcastically. I mean, really, apparently my life needed to fall apart for Suzanne to perfect her standup routine.

“Seriously,” she urged.

“I think I need some time to decompress, but yes, I’m going to go and sniff him some more,” I answered with a smile.

“That’s my girl!” she replied, raising her hand for a high-five.

“All right. I’ve amused you enough for one morning. I’m off,” I quipped as I picked up my books.

“See you at the bonfire tomorrow?” she asked, raising a brow. My body stiffened again. The bonfire.
Shit
.

“Yes,” I replied. “Danielle’s forcing me, so I’ll see you there.”

I walked to my trig final feeling uneasy. It could have been the fact that I still had no idea what a reference angle was or that I was still hiding from Luke. It was likely a combination of both along with the impending forced fun of the school-sponsored bonfire. Instead of obsessing, I decided to focus on a new high school experience. I was about to fail my first test.

Shuffling into Mrs. Jacobs’ classroom, I noticed Val filing her nails and checking her iridescent gloss in her compact mirror. It looked to me like she had just eaten a glazed donut. Probably not her intention. I couldn’t help but laugh at how desperate she was.

As Mrs. Jacobs placed a copy of the test on each desk, I held my breath, offering up a prayer to God, Michael J. Fox, the guys from
The Big Bang Theory
and anyone else who could get me through this mess. Turning it over, I immediately recognized a few problems that we worked on in class, but the majority of the test looked like gibberish. If I was lucky I’d manage a D and then use my fake head injury as an excuse for failing. I could always explain that I knew for a fact that trig was useless in my future life. It was worth a try.

While trig was a disaster, my next two finals weren’t quite as bad. After taking Spanish all throughout high school and college, I was able to fake my way through that final with a lot more ease. Although at one point I think I wrote that I was turned on by the lesson instead of that I
understood
the lesson. That might have actually worked to my advantage though because Señor Gustavson was a bit of a pervert. Maybe I’d get extra credit.

World Lit was a breeze because I knew the material inside and out. I had to stop myself from quoting passages from other works and drawing comparisons to authors I studied in college, though. It was difficult to maneuver, but in the end I think I did fairly well.

I was exhausted after taking three tests in quick succession. My thoughts briefly flickered to Luke as I wondered where he was and what he was doing. I knew we’d need to discuss the shift in our relationship soon, but I was still struggling with the possible ramifications so I walked swiftly through the hall, hoping we didn’t cross paths. I still had to tackle two finals so a little study time in the library would do me some good. The added bonus being that it was also a great place to hide. As I jogged around the corner towards the double doors, I felt a hand grasp my elbow.

“I think we need to walk in this direction,” he whispered in my ear, turning my body completely around to walk back down the stairs.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ve avoided me long enough,” he replied matter-of-factly, steering me towards the pathway to the gym.

“You can let go now,” I added, rolling my eyes and motioning to his grip on my arm.

“So you can find another reason to run off?” he asked. “I think I like my way better.”

“I’m not running off,” I sneered childishly.

“Oh?” he replied. “So you weren’t going to spend the day hiding in the library?”

“I wasn’t hiding,” I lied. “I was studying. There are finals today in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Incensed, I wrestled my arm away. Everything he was saying was true, but he was still pissing me off. I stormed around the corner behind the gym, probably looking like a toddler having a tantrum. “Was that really necessary?” I fumed, folding my arms across my chest.

“It wouldn’t have been if you didn’t have a habit of taking off when we needed to talk,” he replied darkly, stalking towards me.

“My life is really complicated right now, Luke,” I added, trying to offer an explanation. “I wish you could understand.”

“I told you already, you’re the one making this hard,” he responded, closing the distance between us. I wondered if he chose those words intentionally, but then chided myself for having my mind in the gutter. “You know that, right?” he added as he ran the tips of his fingers softly down my arm.

Startled, I took a step back, colliding with the brick wall behind me. He held one arm up against the building and leaned over me slowly.

“I will hold you down if that’s what I need to do to get you to talk to me.” His voice was low and rough, causing me to shiver.

God, that’s hot.

The intensity of his stare and the positioning of our bodies clearly affected my ability to function. In an attempt to escape his gaze, I forced myself to look away, but my eyes stalled and focused on the lips that had been haunting me all day. He was only inches away and I wanted to laugh because I knew Suzanne would ask me if I was smelling his smell.

I don’t want to smell his smell. I want to taste his lips.

Before I could second-guess myself or think about the consequences, I launched myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling his bottom lip between mine. His surprise was apparent as I felt him stiffen for just a moment before quickly recovering. He wasted little time, raising his hands to twist into my hair. My hands settled on his waist, instinctively pulling him closer. As he pinned me against the wall, his warm lips tugged at mine. I gasped as I felt his right hand move down from my hair, dragging along the side of my torso before wrapping around my thigh and hiking it over his hip. He ground himself against me, and I suddenly couldn’t remember why I had been holding back for so long.

Everything about him was enveloping me. I had always been a level-headed girl. Sure, I let my flask make a few decisions for me here and there, but overall, I thought things through before acting. But at that moment, I didn’t care how old I was or where I came from. I didn’t care about Peggy Sue or the goddamn space/time continuum. You could have told me that I had a photo album full of headless friends and family. Nothing at that moment mattered but us.

“What are you doing to me?” he panted softly, pulling away to catch his breath.
What am
I
doing to
him
? Is he serious?

“Luke,” I sighed, feeling dizzy and breathless. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea. We should talk…”

I was saying the words but I didn’t mean them. His hips were flush against mine while my leg was still hitched up around his back. We were both gasping and panting, and I was suggesting we have a cordial talk about the fact that I was an insane visitor from the future who was probably ruining his life. The absurdity of the situation was not lost on me.