All I Ever Wanted

ALEX: where r u? im super bored.

ALEXIS: it’s a xmas party, im being social!

ALEX: does ur mom always have parties

...

ALEXIS: for most major holidays. Dnt worry ill c u 2mrw =]

ALEX: I would prefer 2 c u now…

I roll my eyes and turn my phone on silent. If my mom sees me texting instead of talking to her friends she will kill me. It would be slow and painful.

Her Christmas parties are always big. She invites literally everyone she knows and almost all of them show up. She never let us kids invite a friend; it never bothered me. She and Jessica’s mom are good friends so Jessica was always at the party anyway. We would always sneak upstairs and play dolls when we were little.

Now, Jessica is sitting with her mom across the room. She looks bored and that doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

I somehow manage to excuse myself from a boring conversation about the cost of office supplies and make my way into the kitchen. The caterers are busy cooking, but Steven, Daniel and Max are hanging out at the kitchen table. There’s a plate of various appetizers that they must have convinced the caterers to give them. Max is texting someone (probably Luke) and Steven is playing tic tac toe with Daniel. They look thrilled.

“Steve, you were supposed to put Daniel to bed an hour ago,” I remind him before picking up a mini crab cake and eating it.

“I know. Hold on, 5 minutes,” he replies and he places an ‘x’ in the top right corner of the game.

I just shrug and sit down in the chair next to Max.

“I’m so bored,” I say, but he ignores me. “Are you texting Luke?”

He just nods and continues to type a mile a minute on his cell phone.

“Alright, this was fun, but I’m going to go back out there.”

Again, I’m basically ignored. It’s really great when you have brothers who care about you and listen to what you’re saying.

“Hey Lexy.”

I used to love the voice that says those two words to me when I walk into the living room. It used to make my day. Now it just makes me nervous.

Danny Allen is standing next to the staircase and I can either do one of two things: push past him and go up to my room and lock the door or I can run and hide behind Jake who has his back to me across the room. But for some reason, I don’t do either; my feet may as well be glued to the floor. I probably look like a deer in headlights.

“Lex, you okay?” he laughs and pulls me closer to him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“Why are you here?” I manage to ask. He smiles even more.

“Our moms met up in the food store this morning. They got to talking and well… here I am. Isn’t that awesome? Now we can hang out, right?”

“Uh, no. I don’t think-”

But he cuts me off. He presses his lips to my own and forces his tongue into my mouth. I try to push him away but he’s always been stronger. And how is nobody seeing this and stopping it?!

I start thinking the worst – that he’s basically going to rape me right here – and just as suddenly as he appeared, he’s gone. He’s always like that. Always coming into my life at random times and leaving just as quickly. It’s how I met him and it’s how I lost him.

I turn in time to see him round the corner and I feel my face turn red. I really hope nobody saw that now. My eyes are watering and if I don’t get upstairs in like 10 seconds, I will have a breakdown in front of all of my mother’s friends. I feel like that would be enough punishment for her; this is her fault after all. She invited him. But I would feel so awkward and I run upstairs to my room just before the tears start falling.

I drop my phone twice before managing to press ‘send’ on Alex’s name. It rings 3 times before I hear his voice.

“Hey, is the party over?”

“Can you come over?”

“I thought I wasn’t allowed?”

“You aren’t,” I say and wipe my eyes. “But I need you.”

*

“So this guy is downstairs right now?” Alex asks. He’s pissed. Actually, that’s an understatement.

“Just stay with me.”

“I could seriously do some damage to him! He’s literally like a room away.”

“I know.”

“But if you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

“Thanks. And besides, I don’t know how much damage you could do.”

“Was that a joke?”

I just laugh.

He lies down on my bed next to me and I rest my head on his shoulder. I’ve been thinking a lot about me and him, and I think I’m falling in love. But I don’t understand how that’s at all possible, because I’ve only known him for a month and a half. 7 weeks to be exact. But he’s just… amazingly perfect for me and I don’t know what I would do without him. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had never met him in the hallway that day.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?”

“What makes you like me?” I ask.

“The fact that you’re beautiful makes me attracted to you. But you make me love you.”