A Game of Love

My normal straight, blonde hair was curled, framing my face. My best friend, Savannah, had done my make-up and her and my friend, Annabelle, helped me pick out my blue dress. Both had Annabelle and Savannah continuously commented on how “hot” and “gorgeous” I looked, making me smile, before they got started on their own hair and make-up.

My date, Preston Michaels, had been fashionably late. His blond, blue eyed self showed up forty-five minutes after the promised time, but I had been so thrilled to have him as my date, I didn’t say a thing about it. He was one of the star players of the lacrosse team and my crush since I started high school nearly two years before.

I had been nearly speechless when he had first asked me to prom. I was only a fifteen-year-old sophomore and Preston was a junior who had just recently turned seventeen. He had done it casually, like it was no big deal, cornering me against my locker one afternoon. I had eagerly nodded my head once I got over the initial shock, barely able to let out a quick ‘yes’ in reply.

The evening had started out quite nice. We took pictures at my house with Savannah, Annabelle, and their dates, Lucas and Blake. Preston had bought me a lovely, pink corsage, delicately placing it on my bony wrist, and then later opened up the car door for me as the six of us headed to the restaurant for dinner.

Throughout the entire meal I could feel Preston’s large hand on my prom dress clad leg. At first it simply rested on my knee but after the drinks arrived his hand slowly made its way up my thigh, brushing away the fabric of my dress to rest on my bare skin.

I squirmed a bit at first, feeling his cold hand against my warm, bare leg. My eyes refused to meet anyone else’s as I stared at my soda, hoping nobody would realize what Preston was doing. When I finally worked up the courage to glance over at Preston beside me, I could see he was talking to Lucas and Blake about some upcoming lacrosse game, his mouth in a clear smirk.

The longer his hand remained on my leg and farther it reached up my thigh, the more uncomfortable I became. I lightly tried to brush his hand away, but he resisted, merely squeezing my leg tighter.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a familiar head of blond hair sitting across the table from a brunette. Despite the fact I had been all but ignoring the blond headed boy for the past ten years, I knew instantly who it was. Turning my head so I could see the young couple straight on, I let my eyes briefly connect with the stormy eyes of Jordan Staal. It seemed pretty obvious how bored he looked sitting there for dinner, like his company provided little interesting conversation. An unreadable expression formed on his face when his eyes connected with mine and I couldn’t help but wonder what that was about.

Across from him I could see his prom date, Patricia Moore, aka the biggest slut in the junior class. With her dark, smooth hair, long legs, and huge chest, Patricia Moore was nothing short than every guy’s fantasy in the school. It was within reason to say she had slept with more than half the male athletes in the school and she could careless who knew it about it. Her easy reputation was well known and she only used it to her advantage.

I watched as Jordan’s eyes drifted to the right of me, following down the length of Preston’s muscular, left arm as if he knew exactly what Preston was doing underneath the wooden table. Once again I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat, feeling both Jordan’s eyes on me and Preston’s hand on my upper thigh, though no one at the table seemed to notice.

It was not long before our meals came. Still, I found myself uninterested in the present conversation. I could hear Annabelle and Savannah shamelessly flirting with their dates in between bites of their garden salads, but I remained silent, eating my own meal, with my eyes downcast.

I had never felt so out of place. My brain was turning to mush, the only things on my mind were the hand moving from the top of my upper thigh down to my inner thigh and the occasional glances from a certain blond haired, blue eyed boy.

“You ready to go?” Savannah called out to me in her high-pitched voice.

Looking around the table I realized I was the only one still sitting down at the table, everyone else already pulling on their winter coats. Slowly I stood up, pulling on my own jacket. Glancing down, I saw that I had barely even touched my meal, but I had long ago lost my appetite.

“You should have just gotten a salad,” Annabelle pointed out, observing my mostly full plate, Blake’s arms wrapped around her from behind.

I nodded my head in acknowledgement of her comment, but didn’t speak. I fought the desire to look over in Jordan’s direction, but I knew he was still sitting there, his eyes on me. I could feel Preston wrap his own arm around my waist, lightly tugging me towards the exit.

I couldn’t understand it. Jordan and I never got along. What on earth was up with the newly developed staring contests? Why did he even care to look in my direction at all? What on earth was going through that boy’s mind?

I didn’t see Jordan again that night until a few hours later. I was a little bit sweaty and hot from dancing so much and I had definitely had way too much of the obviously spiked punch to drink. For the most part Preston had been acting slightly more gentlemanly than he had at the restaurant, keeping the groping to an almost minimal.

Preston had been droning on and on about how good he was at lacrosse when a new song came on over the loud speakers and he decided he wanted to dance with me. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me onto the hardwood dance floor, rearranging our selves so my back pressed up tightly to his front.

The dancing did not bother me at first, but not long into the song I could once again feel his hands wandering. His sloppy lips found the crook of my neck as his right hand moved up from my hip to the underside of my breast, his left hand for the time being remaining on my left hip. I wiggled around, growing increasingly uncomfortable with each new beat of music. When his large, right hand squeezed my breast I couldn’t take it anymore, attempting to yank myself away from him.

I would not consider myself a prude, but I was still a virgin. While I never had any intentions of waiting for sex until marriage, I had always planned to wait until I at least had strong feelings for the guy, perhaps even loved him. And I certainly did not wish to be groped in the middle of the dance floor by some drunk, egotistical, pea-brained jock.

I continued to try to pull away from Preston, but he just held onto my hip tighter. “Don’t go anywhere, Baby,” he drunkenly whispered to me, his hot breath tickling my sensitive ear.

“Stop,” I forcefully called out, my weak voice drowned out by the blaring rap music the DJ was currently playing.

“Come on, Baby, you like this,” he replied, once again giving my breast another hard squeeze.

I felt like a slimy, disgusting slut at the moment, despite knowing I hated what he was doing to me. I felt as though I had no control of the situation, my voice and my desires powerless to the horny boy pressing his front side up against me.

Out of the blue, strong arms yanked me, pulling me towards them and a way from Preston. I stumbled a little in my heels as I felt the new pair of arms encircle my waist.

“Back off, man!” Preston told the newcomer, his hot breath reeking of alcohol as it brushed against my skin. His sweaty hands grabbed my wrist tightly, trying to pull me back to him.

“Leave her alone,” the new, masculine voice retorted. I froze. I knew that voice, but my buzzed mind could not place it. I tried to turn my body to see his face, but it was difficult by the way he held me. “She clearly does not like what you’re doing.”

Before Preston could give any kind of response, I felt my body lightly being pulled away from the middle of the dance floor, off to a remote corner of the room. I tilted my head up to be greeted with the back of a blond haired boy.

“What are you doing, Jordan?” I questioned him, once I was sure it was indeed him. I pulled back away from him, making him stop where he was.

He gave me a questioning look. “I thought I was saving you,” he stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I rolled my eyes at his words. ’Saving me? He was saving me?’ “And why would you do that?” I removed myself from his grasp and then crossed my arms over my chest.

“Because you looked like you needed some help,” Jordan answered, staring down at me. He was much taller than I had realized and well over six feet, making him nearly a foot taller than me. In our previous encounters over the years I had always managed to avoid being so close to him, never having to tilt my head upwards to look at him. But now, the height distance was causing pain to erupt from the back of my neck from our current staring contest.

“And you would actually help me out?” I muttered, suspiciously. We had never gotten along, practically ignoring each other for the past decade. I could not possibly understand why he would help me out in any way; it seems more accurate to say he would sit back, doing nothing in a time I truly needed assistance.

His hands slid into the pockets of his black, sleek dress pants. “I just did, didn’t I,” he pointed out, his voice losing signs of amusement and becoming more annoyed with each passing breath.

He did help me. But it was like we were going in circles. We were still returning to the initial why?. Why did he help me out? “But why?” I finally spoke after a brief, but noticeable pause.

He just stared at me a moment and sighed, before he opened his mouth. “Contrary to your own popular belief, Peyton, I’m not that big of a jackass that I would just leave you there to be molested by Michaels.”

My mind could not seem to process it quickly enough. Jordan was always such a jackass to me when the two of us were little kids. He would tease me, insult me, exclude me; why now would he actually do something nice for me. “You wouldn’t rather be off with your date?” I brought up, not spotting Patricia anywhere.

Jordan rolled his stormy blue eyes, leaning up against the wall behind him. “That girl’s IQ isn’t even in the double digits,” he reasoned.

I nodded my head in understanding. That left the two of us, here in the corner, dateless. I moved over to where Jordan was standing and slide my body down the wall, sitting on the dirty ground below. At this point, though, I didn’t care if my dress got a little dirty; my night was over anyways. I could feel Jordan do they same thing, taking a seat next to me only a few seconds later. We sat in an almost comfortable silence for several minutes, before I could not take it any longer. “Why do you hate me so much?” I mumbled quietly to Jordan, my eyes focused straight ahead on the people dancing and not on him.

He took such a long time to answer me that I was almost positive he didn’t even hear me. My eyes found Preston grinding with some other girl and I was almost surprised when I did not feel any jealously towards his actions. “I don’t hate you,” he replied, nearly as quietly as my own question.

My eyes glanced over at him to see his eyes focused on the dance floor, his face serious. “Oh,” was all I could seem to say.

Jordan nodded his head a bit and I almost expected him to speak up and say something, but he did not.

“Then why were you always so mean to me?” I wondered allowed, partially curious and partially just wanting to avoid the silence.

He took a moment to answer, as if choosing his words carefully. I still could not manage to hold his gaze and I wondered why he refused to even look over at me. “I’m sorry.”

He’s sorry? He’s sorry? While that’s all good and well, he still did not answer my question. “But why? It was bad enough Matt and Charlie did not want to include me in stuff, but why you too, especially when you guys played hockey.”

He looked in my direction, his eyes finally meeting my own. “I didn’t want you playing with us; you could have gotten hurt.”

My face automatically scrunched up in confusion. What?

Jordan must have been able to read me, for it was not long before he replied, “You could have gotten hurt if you played hockey with us and I did not want that to happen. What if we had gotten carried away or were playing around and accidentally hurt you?” He paused for a breath. “You were too… delicate and I might have had a bit of a crush on you. You know like that silly little thing where young guys tease the girl they have a crush on… I guess that’s what I was doing.”

“I was not delicate!” I retorted quickly, obviously offended.

He let out a short, bark-like laugh, shaking his head, but refusing to comment further on the subject. “That’s what you took out of that?”

His laugh was like a chain reaction, causing me to let a giggle escape past my slightly chapped lips. It was odd, Jordan and I smiling at each other, but as I sat there in my prom dress on the floor, I could not help but feel good about the situation.

I almost did not see it coming when his lips came crashing down on my own, perhaps it was because I was still buzzed, or perhaps I was just so caught up in the moment, but I quickly found myself melting into the kiss.

Jordan Staal sure had changed.

--

To say my family was surprised when Jordan and I started dating only a few weeks later was a complete understatement. Needless to say all three of my older brothers were sending threats his way, even Nathan who was away at college.

It was odd, going from ignoring the guy one week and then desperately trying to get to know him the next. We spent so much time together at the beginning of our relationship, every waking moment, talking in person, on the phone, through the computer, whatever. We couldn’t get enough of each other.

I’d lay awake each night, trying to figure out how everything changed so much, not that I didn’t mind. I wondered how things would have been different if Jordan wasn’t so mean to me as kids, or if I had just stopped ignoring him sooner. Would we even be dating now? Or would we have been dating for a few years now? Or would we just be friends? Or what?

Despite the fact that we could not get enough of each other and wanted to spend so much time together, we still took our relationship slow. Jordan knew I had never really had a serious boyfriend before and did not want to rush the psychical aspect of our relationship.

It took awhile for our friends and family to get used to, but once they did we fast became seen as the perfect couple. We were disgustingly cute; always holding hands, feeding each other food, little kisses on the cheek, whatever. You name it, we did it. But in the words of Robert Frost, “nothing gold can stay,” and I knew some how, some times our golden perfection would change.

On our one-year anniversary, I took the big step into the next stage of our relationship, giving the boy I was so sure I was in love with, my virginity. My parents were out of town for the weekend, Nathan was away at college, and the twins went to their friend’s old roommate’s new neighbor’s party. He was so sweet, caring, tender, understanding. He constantly made sure I was okay and that I was sure I wanted to do this. I simply nodded my head, assuring him everything was pefect.

When it was over, we curled up in each other’s arms, whispering how much we loved the other, and I feel asleep with a smile on my face.

Unfortunately that wasn’t how I woke up.

I could feel the high, bright sun hitting my face through the window and I knew it was time to get up. I moved around in the large, double bed, stretching, before opening my eyes. Something felt way off, as I tried to remember what happened the night before. As everything came rushing back to me, I froze.

Opening my eyes I quickly glanced around the room, but came up blank.

He left? Jordan left?

Quickly I threw on some sweats and ran out the room. I wished desperately that I could smell Jordan cooking breakfast, that he was still here, but as I entered the kitchen, everything in my life came crashing down.

He really left me.

--

After he left, I wondered if everything from the past year had been a complete lie. Did he ever have feelings for me? Did he ever love me?

It wasn’t until a few days later that I heard from my parents that Jordan would be leaving in a week for hockey, going to play for an OHL team.

I only saw him a few times before I left, each time more awkward than the last and every time we simply ignored each other.

I couldn’t believe our relationship was over just like that. But it was.