Olivia Christakos and Her Second First Time (24 page)

Chapter Six

I make it to the park before Wyatt and Charlotte, and when they pull up next to my car, Charlotte bolts from Wyatt and smashes me into a hug. She squeezes me so tight it’s like she knows me. Maybe I met her in the last few weeks and I just don’t remember.

When she finally lets go and runs off to play with the other kids on the swings, I offer Wyatt a small smile and he returns it. It’s still weird seeing him, like being blasted back to my childhood.

He looks good today. I tell him so, trying to keep my tone more friendly than romantic.

“What? You don’t like my Scouts uniform?” He points the way to a bench just outside of the playground. I head toward it.

“No...it’s...cute.”

“That’s a lie, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I say with a crooked smile. “Kind of. Sorry.”

It’s a super hot day—sweat is pooling under my arms—and Wyatt is sporting a tank top that’s so loose, I catch sight of one of his nipples when he moves. A little pink sombrero. I blush and Wyatt totally notices.

“What?” he says, smiling, like he somehow knows I was staring at his nipple.

“Nothing,” I squeak, remembering the first time I noticed Wyatt’s body. It was eighth grade and we were at Chloe’s house, at the pool, and he’d dived in to tag me. He’d filled out and it made me nervous just to look at him. And now, I could see he hadn’t stopped filling out. He isn’t beefy by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s leanly muscular. I want to reach out and touch his bicep.

I stand suddenly and walk over to a rusty seesaw so he can’t see my face, but then he follows me over and sits across from me. We keep each other balanced as I keep my eyes above his collarbone. “So what is it that you wanted to talk about?”

He takes a deep breath. “Well, all morning I had it planned that—for better or worse—I was going to give you a piece of my mind. I was going to tell you that I love you and James doesn’t and that you need to break up with him and give me a chance. Even though you don’t remember you love me, you do, dammit. But on the car ride over, I knew that wouldn’t work. You’ve always been the kind of girl that does the opposite of what she’s told just for spite.”

I chuckle. Hesitate. Then, with a small smile, I say, “James is an asshole.” It’s kind of a random comment, but I need him to know that I’ve had this revelation about James.

He steadies me with his gaze. “I know.”

I nod.

“So I guess the only thing I have at my disposal is my niceness,” Wyatt continues. “I’m a really nice guy, Olivia—or Liv, if that’s what you liked to be called now—and you probably remember some of that. I’ll win you over if you’ll let me. And if not, I’m going to force my way in.”

I stare at him, trying to let any hidden feelings for him come to surface. He deserves them. All of them. But the only things I truly own are those dreams and the memories of a small spark of attraction in middle school, and thinking about being remotely attracted to Wyatt Rosen warms up my cheeks.

“So, since you aren’t arguing with me,” he continues, “and you aren’t telling me to shut up, it makes me think that I have a chance. So, I need to ask you, do I have a chance with you?”

My eyes fall to my hands which are clasped tightly around the metal handle of the seesaw. Then to his, which are stuck in his armpits. “I...” I swallow. “You’re a nice guy and I’d love it if we could be friends.”

“You can count on that,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere. But I’m sensing that there’s a big
but
coming along in a second.”

I smile. I was totally going to say
but
, but instead I say, “
However
...”

He groans.

“I’m not in the mood to be with anyone right now. I thought I was, that I wanted James, but I think I’m just trying to hang on to someone I don’t know anymore. I was willing to be with him, or to try to be with him, even though he didn’t really want me. I shouldn’t have a boyfriend right now when my idea of what I want from one is so screwed up.”

He takes in a deep breath. “I can understand that.”

“We should say we had some nice times and leave it at that.”

“But you don’t remember those times,” he says, his voice small. “And if you did, you sure as hell wouldn’t say they were nice times. You’d say they were filled with drama and stress and whatever little amount of time we managed to get along in was explosive and amazing.”

My cheeks warm again. “Explosive and amazing? Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. I’m feeling a bit overdramatic today, I guess.” His eyes flick over to Charlotte who’s still swinging.

I wipe a hand over my face. “I’m so sorry I don’t remember.”

“Me too.” His expression turns dark. “Now I understand all that crap everyone says about love. How it kills you.”

I nod. I feel the same way about James and I wish I could take Wyatt’s pain away. I don’t want him to feel the way I did. “I’m tired of disappointing you. Maybe we should—”

“Don’t say something that would make us see less of each other. Please. It would be torture for me.”

I was about to say something exactly like that. That we should take a breather from each other. Until I know what I want. Until he knows who I really am, and what my secret is. He’s such a nice guy and he has this amazing vision of me. Even though it might be better for his sanity, I don’t want to break that vision into pieces right at that second by telling him about the abortion. “We can’t be how we were. Isn’t that worse torture?”

He thinks a minutes and then replies, “No. I mean, we hadn’t gotten to that comfortable pee-in-front-of-each-other stage or anything yet. It was constant back and forth and frequently awkward, so me pining for you on a regular basis and you ignoring me wouldn’t be much different.”

I twist up my mouth. “Sounds like loads of fun.”

He shrugs. “It kind of was sometimes.”

We stop talking and watch Charlotte and the other kids play. She’s friendly with the other children. Always smiling and sharing. I notice then that she talks a little differently and I remember someone saying something in high school about Wyatt adopting a deaf “Little Buddy” for a week. I guess the relationship stuck.

“I like her spirit,” I say.

“And she loves yours. She can’t stop talking about you.”

So I have met her. “I’m sure she loves everyone. She has that personality.”

“Sometimes, I guess, but not girls my age. I’ve had a couple over before and she’s never taken to them like she has with you.”

A twinge of jealousy worms around in my chest. I have no reason to be jealous, so I’m not sure why I have this reaction. Maybe the girl I was for a few weeks is still in there somewhere. “Oh, yeah? Other girls? Do you get around a lot, Wyatt?”

He smiles. “Well, it’s not exactly like that. They were girl volunteers with the Scouts and, I’m sorry to say, they had more feelings for me than I did for them. To be totally truthful, I’ve been hung up on you since third grade. Every other girl pales in comparison.”

My heart breaks a little but I can’t shake the thoughts of him dating other girls, good girls, who volunteer their time to children, and him being enamored with me, who has killed one. Something within me turns dark. Maybe I should tell Wyatt what I did so he won’t be hung up on me anymore. I lick my lips, the words ready to fall from them.

“I have secrets,” I say, but it sounds like I’m trying to be mysterious rather than full of disclosure.

“I bet you do,” he says, and if he were any other person, he’d wink. “You seem like the kind of person with gobs of them.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant.” I want to disappear, to be sucked into a magical portal so I don’t have to have this conversation. I want to ask something general to see where he falls in the opinion of abortions, but I doubt
do you believe in a woman’s right to choose
would go over well. And anyway, it’s one thing to believe it and another entirely to want to date someone who’s used that right.

“Are you worried about what I will think of you if I knew your secrets?” he asks cautiously.

Surprised he might possess the ability to read minds, I nod, slowly.

“Whatever it is, I couldn’t possibly love you any less.”

My insides tighten in an embarrassed cringe. “Could you do me a favor?”

His gaze presses into mine. “Anything,” he says heavily, as if he’s offering me one of his kidneys.

I roll my eyes. “Could you...not be so intense?”

“Like how?”

“Could you stop saying you love me or say anything that might imply you’d jump off a bridge if I told you to? I mean, I ask you for a favor and you telling me you’d do anything like you just did gives me the creeps.”

“But I’ve been holding these feelings in for years and...” He shakes his head. Hesitates. Begins again. “I know you and you wouldn’t ever tell me to go jump off a bridge. I know you enough that if you need a favor, I’m going to do whatever is in my power to deliver the goods.”

“Deliver the goods?” I laugh. “You sound like a gangster.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Well, maybe I am. I have secrets too.”

“Oh,
do
you?”

His eyebrow falls. He sighs. “No. Unfortunately, I’m an open book. What you see is what you get.”

If I had any feelings for him, I’d be a lucky girl. I would love those long limbs wrapping around me and those lips dragging down my neck. My eyes close and I start to get warm again. Okay, maybe there is something, deep inside me, that feels something for Wyatt, but my brain doesn’t remember what that is.

“Friends?” I ask with some trepidation.

He seesaws me down. “It would be my absolute pleasure.”

A thrill tingles my spine. I seesaw him down. “So you’ll promise you’ll back off a little?”

His smile goes all sideways and twisty. “Yup. But you can’t control what goes on in my brain. I’ll be telling you I love you a million times a day.”

My heart warms and I fight a smile that would give the budding of new feelings away. “I don’t remember you being so confident,” I say. “Is this a recent thing?”

“Actually, it is. If you actually showed me any actual attention, I would probably shut down again.”

“You said the word
actual
like three times.”

“You have that effect on me.”

I tug on a chunk of my hair until it hurts.

Wyatt notices I’m uncomfortable. “Sorry,” he says. “It’s just that now my feelings are out there, it’s difficult to rein them in.”

I nod, but the gesture is empty.

We check on Charlotte again and it looks like she’s slowing down. She’s walking around the playground alone—all of the other kids have gone—and she’s kicking up rocks.

“So friends can call each other every day, right?” Wyatt asks, returning his attention to me.

I shrug. “I don’t talk to Chloe that much.”

“But we’re going to be special friends,” he says, smirking. “Ones that call each other every day.”

I return his smile against my will. Even though I’m kind of looking forward to those calls, I say, “We’ll see about that.”

Chapter Seven

A few days later, driven by wanting to be done with days upon days of severe laziness, I make a decision: figure out what it is that I want. School, friends, boys, life. Easy, right? I just need to make a decision. Or two. Or a million.

I’m sick of being dependent on other people and I’m going to officially be an adult soon and I want to be able to say that I’ve accomplished something, anything, on my own. And right now I can’t say that.

School is looming so closely in the future, so I will conquer that first. My parents have enough to deal with right now, so I’m on my own.

After poring over a student loan packet that I picked up at the library while eating M&M’s—wondering when I started eating refined sugar—I realize I don’t want to go back to L.A. There’s nothing there for me. I finally understand why my parents were so ticked with me about my indecision—it wasn’t cheap. I fly off my bed and up the stairs to the computer. After I pull up a search engine, I type
colleges in Santa Barbara
and I realize it might be a better option for me to take classes down here. I spend hours researching each school, settling on the city college because the credits are the cheapest. I’d hate to throw away all those credits I’ve already completed at UCLA, but maybe I can transfer some of them.

I print off their course book. If I decide to go to school here I won’t see Chloe as much, but I would get to see my family. And Wyatt. My stomach tightens when I think about him. I take a deep breath. My eyes scan the pages, and
Marketing
and
Photography
stand out. Those are things that I think I would interest me.

For fun, I write out what classes I would have for my first semester, and it looks doable. I could work two jobs—one for my parents and the debt and one for tuition—and go to school. It’ll be really hard work, but I’m feeling confident about it. When I search on their site to figure out when the deadline is to enroll, I freeze. Tomorrow. I have to decide before tomorrow if I’m really going to make this big change.

I have all the paperwork—transcripts and such—that I would need. I could go down there today. Right now.

I go back to my room and finish the rest of the bag of chocolate while I think.

* * *

About an hour later, I’m driving from the city college fully registered with a list of all the books and supplies I need for my new classes. There are still a few weeks before school actually starts, so I can find a second job, make some money and buy this stuff myself instead of asking my parents for a loan. I’m so excited and proud of myself and the first person I want to talk to about it is Chloe.

When I get to her house, she’s already packing.

“What are you doing?” I ask when I get to her room, which is still covered in posters of the hottest celebrity boys. I wonder when she’ll grow out of them. She’s sporting a pair of cotton shorts, a plain tank top, and her hair is a mess on her head. “You look cute today.”

She rolls her eyes at the compliment, like I’m teasing her, and then changes the subject. “I’m probably going to head up to school this weekend, maybe tomorrow.”

My excitement dies a little in my chest.

“You want to come up with me?” she adds. “We could help each other set up rooms!” She folds a pink shirt and adds it to her overflowing black bag.

I hesitate, and then shake my head. “You’ll have to go without me,” I say.

“What do you mean? Do you need to take medical leave or something?” she throws a pair of heels into the bag.

“I’ve decided to go to school down here.”

When she looks at me, I suddenly feel so guilty. Why wouldn’t I run this idea by her first? But then she cracks a smile. “Why on Earth would you decide that?” She pokes me in the arm.

Confusion sweeps through me. I thought she would be upset. “What do you mean?”

She bats her eyes. “Got a new guy on tap?”

My lips are still twisted in confusion when I finally get it. She means Wyatt. I laugh and shake my head. “No. I mean, I did not make this decision because of some boy. It’s what I want to do. It’s cheaper, and since I have to pay for it myself, I figured school is what you make of it, not the amount you pay.”

“Wow, that’s kind of deep, Liv,” she says and we sit on the bed next to each other.

I smile at her. I like the nickname
Liv
. Chloe started calling me that a few years back after a party at Tyler’s house where I took off my bra, hung it on the ceiling fan, and commenced to dance on the coffee table. She said I knew how to
live
. That girl on the table without a bra is kind of embarrassing to think about now, but I have to remind myself that she was a part of me and I shouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed about someone who I was. It’s not like I’m done having fun, I just need to redefine what that word means.

“Maybe I can come to school down here with you!” she says.

“No way. I wouldn’t let you give up that full scholarship.” Chloe and I are similar in the brains department, but she surpasses me in motivation. She worked towards great grades while I worked toward getting into James’s pants.

She sighs. “Yeah.”

“We can see each other on the weekends. I can come up there sometimes, you’ll come home for holidays. It’ll be like a long distance relationship—but this one’s gonna work.”

She nods, slowly, and curls a loose chunk of hair around her finger. I might have to curl her hair one more time before she goes.

When my phone trills in my pocket, I pull it out. Wyatt.

What are you doing today?

I write back,
Talking
to
Chloe.

When you’re done, you want to bring her and Natalie to Bob’s Bouncy House? Charlotte is here and we’ve decided there’s no one else we’d rather bounce with than you.

I smile and force my heart to stop trying to think for me. I need time, dang it. But I will go hang out with him.

Sure, give us a few minutes.

* * *

Later, when I’m in the air watching Wyatt’s hair bounce and Natalie and Chloe and Charlotte giggling and laughing and falling over each other on the World’s Largest Bouncy House, Wyatt’s eyes meet mine and I know I won’t be able to fight him off much longer.

I feel it down to my toenails.