Part of Me (Jessa & Paxton #1) (2 page)

She stares
at me and I stare back at her like there are words passing between us, but neither of us is speaking. Her eyes become intense, her nostrils flare and her lips part and I don’t know what that means – is she turned on or pissed off? I lean in closer, needing her lips on mine. Her hands move from mine and I think she’s going to push me off of her- because that would be the rational thing to do when a stranger fists your hair and is about to kiss you- but then her hands move to the back of my head and her fingernails dig into my skull… and there is no going back after that.

I bite down on her bottom lip and it feels so good between my
teeth I’m practically growling and when I run my tongue across the flesh that’s trapped there, it tastes so good I need more. I want so much more. When I prod her mouth open and my tongue glides across hers, she licks me right back.

The way our tongues are exploring
each other’s makes me feel like I’ve done this with her a million times. Like we’ve spent years practicing until our kiss was perfect. But I haven’t kissed her before. I would remember kissing this girl. I would remember how it felt to have her in my hands. I would remember the taste of her mouth. Desire spreads through my body- I want this girl more than I’ve ever wanted any girl. My fingers clamp down harder on the base of her skull and her throat and I pull her deeper into me. She kisses me back with the same amount of raw lust as I push myself as far into her as I can - until she has no choice but to work me over with her tongue. And she does. Jesus, does she work me over.

I lo
se myself in her. My mind shuts down and all I can feel is her. I move a hand down her body, my fingers trailing over her, memorizing the curve of her breast and her hip and her back. When I pull her to me, the desire that’s coursing through my body becomes painful and in the middle of all this desperate need, something suddenly feels empty. Like a space is being created that’s not gonna get filled. Like I’m never gonna get enough of this girl…
Jessa
. Like I need her inside of me in a way I can’t fucking explain. It’s the strangest feeling. It’s overwhelming.

I pull her up my body
, trying to somehow get her closer… deeper. She clings to me, holding me tightly and it’s satisfying - I need her to want me like I want her. For a moment my eyes open and somehow, in the middle of this beautiful chaos, in the dark of night with her eyes so close to mine, I can see her clearly. And I get it.

The thing that I felt with the eyes… I can feel it again. That’s what this
shit is. I need her in some fucked up way that I can’t understand or explain. It doesn’t make any kind of logical sense, and it scares the shit out of me.

In that moment
, I pull out of her mouth and push her away from me. She stares at me with some level of confusion, her breaths heavy, her chest rising and falling with the effort. Her wet, pink lips hanging open, her turquoise eyes burrowing into mine like she can see straight into me. Like she knows me. “Fuck off,” I tell her before turning around and getting the hell out of there.

Chapter 1 - Jessa

On the drive with Dylan to Chicago I was already realizing that I had made a huge mistake. It could have been the way he sang along with the Ed Sheeran, Jason Mraz and John Mayer cds he played on a loop for six hours straight. Maybe it was the annoying way he kept both hands on the steering wheel at ten and two at all times. Or the way he talked excitedly about joining a fraternity and suggested that I join a sorority. That drive with Dylan made it blatantly clear that Dylan is not my kind of guy.

I kind of figured this would happen because it’s what always happens when you turn a fun, flirty, sexy relationship into a committed one. People get comfortable and the re
al them emerges and you realize that when people stop trying so hard to be the person that you will want to belong to, that they aren’t who they were pretending to be. The Dylan that I was just screwing for more than nine months back in River Bluff sure as hell didn’t break out John Mayer on me.

What the hell was I thinking? After warding off relationships through all of my post-pubescent years I decide to, not only force myself into one, but then act like it was cool when Dylan decided to follow me to college in Chicago.

The whole point of coming to Chicago was to find my future and people who were like me, who would get me. A year ago when Chicago boy Paxton showed up in River Bluff and I saw so much of myself in him, I knew I had made the right decision. But then I left my home town with a piece of it still clinging to me.

Watching my friend Emily and her guy Danny; the way they managed
to help each other through all of their shit and make each other better, did something to my brain. It made me want to be happy too and, in a moment of weakness, I decided Dylan would be the man to make it happen.

But Dylan is not the man to do that. No man is the man to do that. I know that. Men only make things complicated and confusing and force you to take your focus off of your real problems and make you focus on theirs. Or, more accurately, all of the new problems you have because of your relationship.

I need to let him go, I know I do. But how do I do that? How do I tell the guy that gave up his own plans and moved to a strange place for me that I no longer want him? That I, in fact, prefer he disappear from my life so I can leave my failed attempt at happiness in the distance.

It would help if I had a legitimate excuse, but I don’t. Not that I have
any real experience in this department- Dylan’s my first real boyfriend. When I was fifteen, I stupidly thought I was in love, but he turned out to be the biggest asshole I’ve ever crossed paths with. Compared to that sleaze bag, Dylan is the ideal boyfriend. He’s nothing but sweet to me. He’s attentive – way too attentive. He’s everything a perfect boyfriend should be. And we do everything a perfectly boring couple does. Parties aren’t fun because I’m suddenly a possession that Dylan needs to be attached to at all times. I’ve seen every new release at the theatre and eaten at every restaurant within twenty miles of campus because… what the hell else is there to do with your boyfriend on a Friday night? He came over in fricking sweatpants the other day.
Sweatpants
. And not the sexy kind that some guys wear that hang low on their hips and make you want to find out what’s under all that baggy fabric, but stained ones with a hole in the knee.
Jesus
.

As far as relationships go, I’ve always preferred the kind
that were loosely defined by the sex I was getting. Those kinds of relationships don’t require dates and can’t take issue with you talking to another guy. That kind of relationship is about having fun and experimenting with each other’s bodies. In those relationships it’s mostly easy to get out. And I always know when it’s time to get out. It’s like a switch is being thrown and suddenly I cannot stand being kissed by the guy. It happens every time. And when it does it’s time to go. And I go. Maybe they protest, but hell,
you’re not my damn boyfriend
.

I’ve hit that point with Dylan. I can’t stand his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth makes me want to vomit,
his groping hands make me want to knee him in the balls. The problem is that I can’t just go. It’s not that easy. Which is why…. I don’t do this shit.

Lesson learned. Won’t happen again. But that doesn’t solve my current problem.

“Whatcha thinking about over there?” my roommate, Taylor, asks me from her bed, which is four feet away from my own.

“Dylan,” I tell her.

“Oh, yeah? I bet I know what you’re thinking of,” she giggles.

“I bet you don’t,” I say,
unintentionally mocking her high-pitched tone.

Taylor is a sweet girl. She’s from a small town like me. Hers is in Wisconsin. She moved here to be with her boyfriend, Will. They met in Mexico on spring break and it was love at first site.
They are deliriously happy and they are our new ‘couple friends’ – Will lives on Dylan’s floor in the dorm next to ours. It’s all so sweet and perfect and it makes me feel claustrophobic and miserable and like a complete phony.

And, Taylor has appointed herself the official welcoming committee and friend to all. Therefore, there is a fun little dorm party in my room just about every night. And on the nights when I’m not interacting with my floor mates, by no choice of my own, I am on a double date, or just a regular date. None of this is me. None of this is what I want to be doing. I can’t even pretend anymo
re that I’m having fun. I just want out.

“Well tell me, what were you thinking?” Taylor asks.

“I wasn’t thinking anything really… just about tonight.”

“Tonight is going to be so fun. What are you going to wear?”

I look at Taylor and force myself to smile. “Um… I don’t know. I have to make a phone call,” I tell her, getting out of my bed. “I’ll be back in a little while and we can figure it out.”

“Oh. Okay,” she tells me with a puzzled look on her face.

I take the back stairway out of the dorm and walk to the edge of the tiny patch of trees that is behind it. I’m planning on calling Emily, but I end up pulling Paxton’s number up.

I haven’t talked to him for a few days. He’s in Venice, California with his dad. Apparently Venice is where he spent
most of his summers growing up and it’s the place he considers home. Not that he ever mentioned the place, or his dad and the rest of his California family, until six months after I met him. I realize now that he never really talked about his life at all – not the one in Venice and not the one here, in Chicago. We spent so much time together during his year in River Bluff and I feel like I know him so well, yet if I had to make a list of facts about his life I couldn’t even fill a page.

“Beso… it’s you,” he says, calling me by the,
oh so funny
, nickname he has recently bestowed upon me. Beso means kiss in Spanish and he will never let me forget about that first night we met. Ever since Paxton’s been back home he tends to throw a Spanish word in every once in a while. I guess it’s a Venice thing.

“Paxton… you’re high.” I can hear it in his quiet, dreamy voice. Every time I talk to him
he’s at some loud party or just about to get it on with some chick… or high and completely disengaged. He’s not the kid I knew in River Bluff, which is disconcerting, but the least of my problems at the moment.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No.”

The line goes silent. All I hear is Paxton’s breath. “I know you’re calling for a reason, kid. Spit it out,” he eventually mutters and I wonder why the hell I chose to dial his number. Ever since he went home all I get is a
pissy attitude on the other end of the line.

“I just came outside to get some air and I was bored, staring at the trees, so I thought you could keep me company, but that’s not really panning out for me.”

“I’ll keep you company.”

“Yeah,” I say, taking a deep breath; hesitating. “So… I’m kind of in a bind.”

He lets out a low laugh. “You always got a reason.”

“Well, clearly, if I’m just looking to chitchat you and your new badass attitude are not my go to. I just need to talk to someone out
side of this quaint little life and you are the least quaint person I know.”

“Jock Boy getting on your nerves?” he asks, using one of his nicknames for Dylan. He’s got a long list of nicknames for him. Jock Boy is one of the more generous on the list.

“Everything’s getting on my nerves. I know once I spew all of this you are just going to be an arrogant ass and tell me you ‘told me so’ and I need to stop being such a poser, but I can’t keep it inside and I seriously have no one to talk to here.”

“Lay it on me, Jess.”

“I just… I can’t do this anymore… this cookie-cutter shit with Dylan. I don’t want to go on dates. I don’t want his thoughtful lips on me. I’m sick of rom-coms. I don’t want to be part of a group of couples. I don’t want to hold anyone’s hand. I don’t want to have to check in every half hour and account for every second of my life.  And the dorm – the girls, I can’t handle it. I don’t want to sneak sips of peach schnapps in a ten by ten room with twenty other girls. I don’t even know how to giggle. I get glared at every time the truth comes out of my mouth because no one here sees anything except rainbows and butterflies and I can’t keep living in this pretty little world. It’s making me crazy.” When I hear how hysterical I’m becoming, I stop. Paxton’s quiet. I know he’s trying hard to hold back the words that are blowing up his mouth. “Just say it, Paxton.”

“I told you so,” he half says, half laughs. “You don’t belong with that guy, Jess. I mean, I know you think the long, wavy hair is sexy and you love the big, blue eyes. And damn, he worked on that tan all summer. And those rugby shirts he wears are hard to resist. But Jess, he’s a pussy. You’re too much for him. You’ve been running his ass over for a year and he
just lays down and takes all of your shit which, contrary to popular belief, is not a good thing. You need a fighter. You need someone who’s going to stand up to you.”

“I need no one is what I need. I need to be myself again.
Myself.
Not someone’s girlfriend. Not anyone’s anything. I’m not cut out for this shit. It’s suffocating. Why do people do this? I mean, why does everyone couple off and think they’re not complete until they find their ‘other half’? There is no other half. We are not missing half of ourselves. It’s so stupid and I can’t believe I got caught up in this bullshit system.”

“That’s my girl,” Paxton says. “I missed her.”

“She’s a treat,” I say, taking a seat on the grass; feeling exhausted by the mess I’ve got myself into.

“So what’s the problem? Break up with him.”

I take a deep breath and try to form rational thoughts. “He followed me here. He gave up his plans and followed me here.”

“You didn’t ask him to do that. It’s not your problem.”

“I didn’t stop him. It’s not like we didn’t discuss it. It’s not like he didn’t ask me if I was sure I was okay with all of this.”

“And you said you were?” Pax
ton asks through a laugh full of disbelief.

“Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t throwing a party to celebrate but I also didn’t tell him there was a really good chance I would be tired of him before we hit the state line. It’s been a month. We’ve been here for one month. I just feel like I’m obligated to stick it out for at l
east three. I mean, three is at least giving it a shot.”

“Yeah, I think three is what’s standard in
the system
. Are you listening to this madness you’re spewing, or does bullshit just fall out of your mouth all the time now?”

“Fuck off, Paxton.”

“You called me, sweetheart. I’m just trying to help you pull your head out of your pretty ass. Come on, Jess. What are you really doing there? Why are you letting yourself get sucked into this shit? Since when do you have it in you to
stick it out
when everything inside of you is telling you to cut ties? I mean, shit, that girl I met at that field party in River Bluff wouldn’t have put up with any shit from anyone. Where’d she go, huh?”

“Cut me a break, Pax. I don’t know this city. I don’t know a soul outside of the dorms. Forgive me for being afraid of being completely fucking alone.”

“You want me to come there?” he asks, catching me completely off guard.

“To Chicago?” I smile into my phone. I wish he were here. I miss him. He makes me feel like…
me
. In River Bluff I had the two best friends in the world, but none of us were alike. Which was fine, it was good, it was why we were best friends. But when Paxton showed up I knew that there was an affinity between us. Which is why there has always been tension between us; why our words are harsh and our emotions run high. But it’s also why we get each other. “I miss you, Pax.”

“I miss
you too. So what’s the answer, beso, you need me there or not?”

Paxton doesn’t want to come to Chicago
. I don’t even know if he can come to Chicago; I think his mom probably has an invisible fence around the state line that will keep him out. Plus, he’s doing his thing and figuring his own stuff out. I don’t know what that stuff is, but it’s been clear, since day one, that there is a lot of it. And I know that he needs to be in Venice to do that. “No. I’ll figure it out. I always do.”