One More Year Ch. 22

"No." I laughed, dodging out of the way.

"I hope you and Melissa are ready to match tomorrow."

"Yep. She gave me the tie earlier. It's in my car." I shrugged. "Don't worry, I won't ruin your 'special evening.'"

"Good." Ellie grinned, and I walked around her chair and headed to the bathroom.

Sara's parents were home and probably sleeping, so to prevent them getting annoyed with us, she was keeping us out and making us use the semi-outdoor bathroom. It was almost around the back of the building, and the way to it was an incredibly narrow alleyway between the main house and the garage, where you had to step over a gutter to get out.

Very impractical, but you could just about squeeze through. Going in, I was completely alone, but on my way out, I saw that suddenly I wasn't. Louis was coming up the pathway towards me. He saw me and stopped, realising the issue. There wasn't really enough space for us to get past each other.

"Sorry, I'll go back," he said.

"No, it's okay. Here." I stepped up on the drain next to him, pushing myself against the wall so he could squeeze past me.

I realised it was a mistake as soon as I did it. He ended up pressing right against me on his way. The smell of his grapefruit face wash and the slight hint of the beer on his breath flooded my nostrils, and I almost groaned in frustration at the position I'd put myself in. Once he was past, I climbed back down, and turned to face him. He let out a deep breath.

"Okay." He laughed nervously. "Thanks."

He turned around and marched down the alleyway without looking back at me, and then opened the door and went in. I stood there for a second, trying to get the smell of him out of my head. Up until then, I had actually thought I was dealing with it better. But clearly, I wasn't.

I needed to talk to him. But how? I couldn't follow him to the bathroom, and it wasn't as if the others were going anywhere any time soon. He wasn't exactly angling to sit alone with me. I took a deep breath, and made my way back to the beach.

"You okay?" Ellie asked me as I came to sit back down next to her.

"Great, I see we're back to that question."

"Okay, fine, be grumpy." She grinned. "I'm having the best day. AP maths is over, I get to wear the dress I've been slaving over for months."

"Instead of preparing for finals-"

"While preparing for finals." She gave me a dark look.

"Sorry, sorry. It is impressive that you've sewn your own dress, and I'm sure you'll look beautiful..." I was distracted - Louis had emerged from the alleyway, and headed over to talk to Melissa.

"Thank you." She dipped her head, but carried on frowning at me. "Better than what you've been doing alongside finals. Falling in love with a guy and not even realising it."

"Not so loud!" I shot a worried glance over at Louis, but he didn't seem to have heard us. "And ouch. Was that really necessary?"

"Probably not." She chuckled. "Sorry. I know it's still not... yeah. Have you talked to him yet?"

"No. When would I have?" I sighed, and slouched in my seat. "He avoided me around the exam, and we've been around you guys all the time since then. The closest thing I've had to a conversation to him was a few seconds ago. We brushed together while I was leaving the bathroom, and he was headed towards it."

"Oh my!" Ellie put her hand to her mouth.

"Relax. It was hardly a magical moment." I scrunched up my face, and groaned. "Although, yeah, that didn't exactly help."

She chuckled, and put her hand on my shoulder. "Sorry. So you can't get him alone, huh?"

"No, I-" I frowned. "Wait, what are you planning?"

"Me? A plan?" She got up, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "What a crazy idea. Don't get in the water. I'll be right back."

"Don't get in-" It was too late, she was already gone.

I had no idea what she meant by that. There probably wasn't a point in trying to find out. And, honestly, the thought that Ellie had some magical solution to the Louis problem was kind of encouraging. I grabbed my drink, and watched as he headed towards where most of the group was gathering. I realised that if I didn't join them, I'd be the only one left behind, so I got up to make my way over.

Vince cheered when he saw me. "Awesome. Jay, we're all heading to the water. You coming?"

"Uh..." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ellie was straining to catch my eye. When I turned to face her, she widened her eyes and set her lips in a flat line. I blinked. "No thanks, it seems a bit cold."

Vince shrugged. "Too bad. Louis?"

"Uh, I actually have to leave you guys now. My mom's in the area, and she wants to pick me up tonight so she can help me get ready for the dance tomorrow."

"Ah, okay, that sucks man." Vince nodded. "We'll see you tomorrow then."

"You coming?" Louis asked him.

"Not to the thing." Vince smiled. "But I'm totally crashing the after party."

"Awesome." Louis grinned. "Well, goodbye everyone."

He started hugging everyone goodbye. After Ellie let him go, she wandered over to Sara with a panicked expression on her face. Sara flinched, and I saw her mouth the word 'Ow' at Ellie, and the two of them leaned in to confer in whispers. I looked away as Louis stepped up to hug me goodbye, trying to not draw attention to them, but whatever they'd discussed had clearly been settled.

"Jay." Sara shouted, stepping up to us. "The gate gets stuck sometimes, so won't you go let Louis out, and make sure it closes? Since the rest of us are all going out into the water." She dangled the remote for it in front of me.

"Uh, sure." I grabbed it, turned to Louis, and shrugged.

Louis frowned. "Is that really-"

"Come on, everyone!" John shouted, and - like some weird hive-mind - the whole group bolted away from the two of us, leaving us standing there, staring after them.

Louis turned to me, a vaguely amused smile on his face. "Is this... some kind of set-up?"

"It might be." I grimaced. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay." He chuckled. "Ellie, I guess."

"Yeah." I bit my lip.

"Well, come on then." He gestured at the path to the gate. "You should let me out."

I nodded, and we both started walking. I had no idea how to begin talking to him about... anything. But he seemed equally quiet, and I wondered what he was thinking. By the time we got to the gate, the tense silence was obvious to both of us, and we both let out a bit of nervous laughter.

"So, um..." I scratched my chin. I was dying to ask him why he'd kissed me. Or how he felt about me. Or anything that could end up with us kissing again. But I had no idea how to even start that conversation, so I chickened out. "How long until your mom gets here?"

"I'm not actually sure. It could be like fifteen minutes."

"You could have gone in the water with them." Why hadn't he? I felt like I was second guessing everything. I'd already said I wasn't going in, but if he'd gone out on his own to wait by the gate... Maybe he wanted me to follow him, in that case. I couldn't figure it out.

He shrugged. "I would have needed to leave my phone behind. And she could be here in about five, maybe."

"Oh." Maybe it wasn't even about me at all, and I was overthinking things. I glanced at his face, but he was looking away from me. Five minutes seemed like an eternity, if we were going to pass them like this. "We'll probably need something to talk about, then."

"I actually have a good topic, but you'd have to do that talking."

"Yeah?" My breath caught in my throat. I supposed we had to talk about it eventually, but I still had no idea what to say.

He nodded. "Lord of the Rings. You could talk about that for hours."

"Right." I suppressed a sigh of relief, but I still grinned. I could talk about that, at least. We always did. "I actually have a pretty good new one."

"Hit me." He turned to look at me.

I smirked. "Fine. Sauron's the good guy."

"What?" He laughed.

"Sauron is a champion for the downtrodden. Orcs, trolls and goblins - and whatever else - flock to his banner, and he doesn't say no to anyone. They all share one pretty noble goal: To dismantle the racist status quo held in place by elves and men."

He chuckled. "You're so full of shit."

I leaned in. "No, seriously. The orcs - and all the other nasty looking things in middle earth - are peoples in crisis. They're basically hunted down by humans, and regarded more as pests that have to be eliminated than sentient beings. Why wouldn't they flock to Sauron, if he promises to save them from persecution and elimination? He's an effective leader, and he provides for his troops."

"Yeah, human flesh." He gave me a sceptical grin.

"Well, necessity can do that to an army." I shrugged. "Plus, Vegans pretty much think we're monsters for eating meat. Are you saying we're bad as orcs, because we're accustomed to a certain foodstuff and eat it when it's convenient? And some people in history have also resorted to cannibalism in dire situations, so there's also that."

"Okay, but Orcs are inherently evil."

"Yeah, and who tells us that? Elves and Men. Maybe Gandalf, I can't remember. The point is, of course the people who benefit from the unjust system are brimming with propaganda designed to uphold it. Hell, maybe they even believe it. It's not as if there's much of a call for academic studies into other cultures in Middle Earth, especially those who are already mostly deemed 'other'. Orcish society is probably just as much a result of their history and biology as that of any other race, but no one ever talks about that."

"Fair enough. Orcs aren't ALL bad, but I still think Sauron is."

"Well, that's a different discussion, so I'll bore you with that later."

"You could never bore me." He smiled softly. "Not when you're so wrong."

"Your rebuttals weren't exactly that good." I shrugged, laughing softly. I put my hands in my pockets, and dropped my gaze to the floor.

"Yeah, well." He sighed deeply. "I'm distracted."

I looked up at him. We were standing very close. I guess I'd edged nearer than I thought while I was on my rant about Middle Earth equality. He was starkly lit by the streetlight which filtered through the gate and onto his face - bars of brightness against stripes of darkness. His head was turned slightly away from me, at first, but then he noticed me staring at him and our gazes locked.

It had always felt like Louis' eyes could stare right into my soul. How had I not known what that had meant? It felt so obvious now. I couldn't help myself. I didn't even know if he wanted to kiss me again, but I was already lost in his gaze. It didn't even feel like my hand that grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to me, or my neck that pushed my face towards his.

My lips felt like mine though. More mine than anything else in the world, when the fire and electricity of our contact rocketed through them into the rest of my body. I felt as if I was humming as our tongues connected, twisting past each other, sending tingles through me with every motion. As our bodies fit together - so perfectly, like they were made for each other.

I never wanted it to end. I knew the world wasn't a fair place when I was kissing Louis, because if it was, I'd have already been kissing him all the time. We were absolutely synchronised, and complementary. It felt exciting and unpredictable, but at the same time it was like coming home.

The smell of him surrounded me - the scent of his face wash mingled with the clean, fresh smell of his clothes, the light scent of his sweat, and the hints of smoke that had clung to him from the bonfire. I lost myself in the way his mouth tasted. Fresh, with just a hint of the beer he'd been drinking. And his face was cold from the wind, but I could feel him warming up as we kissed. All my senses rang with him, and it was otherworldly. I never wanted it to end, but it did. Far too soon.

He was pulling away, gasping, fixing me with that anguished look of his that made me regret... everything. Not only the stuff with Eric, and Nick. And Jamie. Every bad feeling that I could ever have caused Louis. Any second of pain, or disappointment, or annoyance that he'd ever felt while knowing me. Things I knew about, and the ones I didn't. It didn't seem fair that I could have brought any of that down on him. I almost couldn't face him, but I had no choice to listen to him as he started breathlessly spilling out words.

"Can you just... Just tell me that you don't want me? That you can't see me as anything other than a friend. That if we did things together, it would mean nothing to you, like it did with Jamie." He panted. "Tell me that, and I'll never kiss you again."

I looked up to him, and locked my gaze to his. "I can't."

He looked away sharply, and it almost felt like something was tearing in me. I still couldn't figure out why he was acting like this. We'd had the same kiss, after all. The only thing I could think of was that my worst fears were true. That maybe, even though he didn't care - as my friend - about how many guys I'd been with, and how many messy situations I'd gotten into, he probably didn't want to be with someone who was so easy.

"What do you want, Jay?" His voice was almost a whisper.

I want you to be happy. I just don't think you could be. Not with me. But I couldn't say that. It hurt too much to even think it. If Louis didn't want me, I'd probably understand. But hearing him say that I was a bad decision could actually break me. I wanted us to keep kissing. I wanted to be a better choice for him, but I didn't think I could be. "I... don't know."

"Don't you think you should figure it out?" His tone sounded almost... scared. As if he were the one who could be seriously hurt by me, instead of the other way around. I didn't know what to make of it.

"I... Louis, I-" At that moment, my phone started ringing. I didn't move. I couldn't, until he broke the spell.

"Who is it?" he asked softly.

I snapped out of my stupor, dug my hand in my pocket, and pulled it out. The name on my screen wasn't helpful in bringing me to any kind of sense though. Because it felt fucking surreal. It was Eric. I looked up at Louis - from the look on his face, he'd clearly seen who it was. He nodded.

"You should find out what he wants." He shrugged. The sound of an engine rang out from beyond the gate, and we both looked up to see his mom's car. He smiled sadly. "You should find out what you want, too."

He quickly took the remote from my hand, and pressed the button. The gate started rolling open, and he leaned in to give me a gentle hug. Then he stepped back, turned around, and was heading towards her car. She waved at me, and I mechanically waved back, plastering a fake smile on my face as my phone kept ringing.

They drove off, and I stood there until my phone went quiet. I stared at the missed call notification in a growing rage. Why now? Why tonight, and why at that precise moment? Eric had already done so much damage, and now this. The part that hurt, though, was that it wasn't as much his fault as it was mine. If I could have just talked to Louis, then maybe he wouldn't have had to leave while looking at me like that.

Either way, I wasn't exactly in the mood for a relaxed beach party. I ran back to the chairs, left the remote behind, texted Ellie, and hopped in my car to head home. No way I could go back to them like that. All I wanted to do was to flop down on my bed, scream into my pillow, and wish for a time machine. So I could go back and fix what had become a very fucked up year.

Not that Eric was making that easy. I got six more phone calls on the way home - only one of which was Ellie, trying to make sure I was okay. But after I'd talked to her, with three busy signals popping up in that very short call, there were still seven more until my stupid phone finally went silent.

Of all the nights - of all the situations - to pelt me with phone calls, why tonight? A reasonable part of my brain tried to tell me that it made sense. One way or another, he could have figured out that my final exam was today, and assumed I was free. But I wasn't in the mood for logic, and a stupid clicking noise at my window was distracting and annoying me.

I glared up at it, and frowned. I wasn't actually sure what it was. It seemed very irregular - not mechanical at all. There were also no trees by that window, so it's not as if the wind could have been blowing branches against it, either. I stepped over to it slowly, and pulled back the curtain, looking out onto the street.

Eric was standing there, a handful of pebbles, one of which he threw at my window before it rebounded with a tiny click. I glared at him as he let the rest tumble into the garden bed and gave me a shy grin. I nodded in the direction of the gate, and let the curtain drop back into place.

Gritting my teeth, I stormed across the garden path to the gate. Which was where I found him waiting, stuck on the other side. I crossed my arms. "What?"

"Hello to you, too."

"I'm not in the mood, Eric."

"Oh, shit. Sorry. Did the exam-"

"The exam went fine," I practically growled. "Everything's fine, except for you. What are you doing here?"

"Right." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm here to apologise."

"Oh, really?"

"Uh, yeah." He shrugged. "Sorry."

I tried very hard to not roll my eyes. "What are you apologising for, then?"

"I... don't know." He scraped his foot along the ground. "For the whole thing with Nick, I guess."

"Right." I nodded. "Is Louis not talking to you?"

"Uh, no, not at the moment." He frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You're a lot better at apologising when he's there to tell you how you fucked up."

He groaned. "Jay, I really am sorry, okay? For everything I've done wrong. Can't you just tell me what it is that's bugging you, and then I can apologise for that?"

I laughed bitterly. The way he tensed at the sound made me think he knew how I felt, but maybe he still thought there was a way forward. I nodded. "Fine. Well, there's telling me you loved me when you still had a boyfriend."

"Fine. I'm sorry for that."

"And getting a new boyfriend, when you still had feelings for me, instead of just waiting for me to feel ready."

"I'm sorry for that too."

"Then, of course, there's also that thing where you slept with your ex-girlfriend at church camp and didn't tell me about it." I held up my finger. "Sorry, before being a dick to me, horrifically breaking up with me in a public place, and then trying to get back together with me while still hiding it."

The way his face fell made me feel a grim satisfaction, but I really was too tired. I couldn't feel happy about that. All I felt was pissed off again - at being lied to, and manipulated. At the fact that his very existence was ruining my chances with the one guy I might be happy with. I broke the silence that he seemed unwilling to, or unable.

I shook my head. "Get the fuck out of my life, Eric. Preferably forever."

I stormed back down the garden path and into my room, then I threw myself down onto my bed. He could stand at that gate all night, for all I cared. It was locked. For him, it always would be.