Love's Not A Competition

After a few minutes I calmed down but I still didn’t want to go inside. I knew that as soon as I saw his face again the anger would come back. I still couldn’t believe his ignorance. He was completely oblivious to other people’s feelings. I didn’t know why my heart still ached whenever I saw him. He was selfish and mean and arrogant and completely irrational.

Later that night while everyone was sleeping I sat outside under the stars. The stars always made me feel better. I would have gone for a run down the beach but the tide had come in and it wasn’t exactly easy to run through the sand. It was around midnight and I kicked off my flip-flops before diving into the pool. I had been wearing my bikini under my clothes since the beach and felt like taking a swim under the stars. I did a few laps before floating on my back. I was still pretty shocked about Brittney and Katie nearly drowning and I nearly cried whenever I thought about it. I had nearly lost two of my best friends and I know I hadn’t exactly acted all that concerned while it happened but I truly was. After I thought about it for a bit the realization had hit me like a punch to the stomach. My friends had nearly died today.

I went under the water and held my breath, wondering how long I could hold it and if I would be able to survive after a minute of being under water. I only lasted thirty-two seconds before my lungs started hurting and I had to come up for air. When I came above the surface I saw someone bending down beside the pool. I had to wipe the water out of my eyes before I recognized who it was. I narrowed my eyes before swimming to the other side of the pool.

“Do you mind if I get in? I couldn’t sleep,” Zeke said.
“Do whatever you want,” I said coldly.

He pulled his t-shirt over his head and I kept my eyes on the bottom of the pool as he slipped into the water. We stayed completely still for a few minutes before he starting swimming laps. I watched as he tore through the water and shook myself. No, I couldn’t stare and I wasn’t attracted to him in any way. I had Jesse. Yes, think about Jesse, I told myself.

“Did you hear me?”
I blinked and looked at Zeke. His black hair was sticking to his head and he pushed it out of his eyes as he swam closer to me.
“No, what did you say?” I asked, feeling nervous.
He stopped a few feet from me and rolled his eyes.
“You really should stop daydreaming. I apologized to you for acting like a jerk and you don’t even listen.”
“Sorry, why don’t you try again?”

“I’m sorry for acting the way I did this afternoon. I didn’t mean to offend you like that. I was just trying to make you understand and I wanted you to be the first person that I told about my past to.”
“You’ve never told anyone about your family life and the way you grew up?” I asked, shocked.
“No, I told you, I didn’t have any friends when I was younger and I don’t exactly want to tell all the girls I date otherwise they will tell their friends and it will be all over the school which would ruin my reputation.”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed. “As soon as you start acting like a normal person again you go and say something like that.”
“I was only kidding.”
“Why did you tell me then? We aren’t exactly friends and how do you know that I wouldn’t tell anyone?”
“Would you tell someone?” he asked.
“No but that’s beside the point. Why trust me?”

“I don’t know. It’s just because you have your own dark past and you would be the only one who truly understood what it meant to someone to keep their skeletons in the closet.”
It was funny that neither of us had even noticed the distance that seemed to disappear between us. I just had to move my hand an inch and I would be touching him. He must have seen my hand twitch with the urge to touch him because he reached out and grabbed it. We stared at our joined hands that were under the water before I looked at his face. Our eyes met and he smiled lopsidedly at me.

“Just say no and I won’t come any closer,” he whispered.
“Why would I say no?” I whispered back.

He smiled, a proper smile, before closing the small gap and pushing his lips against mine. My legs wrapped around him underwater and he wrapped his free arm around my waist, pulling me right against him. Our hands still stayed joined under the water by our side as the kiss deepened. I had never kissed Zeke like this. It had always been pecks and barely touching but this one had everything. He opened my mouth with his and his tongue slipped into my mouth. I tangled my free hand into his hair and he placed his free hand on my cheek.

“You bitch!”

I jumped and pulled away from Zeke. We both stared at Katie. Her face was wild as her angry eyes darted between the two of us.
“How dare you?” she yelled.
“Katie, please, I can explain,” I said quickly.
I had no idea what I would have said if she had asked me to explain but I never got the chance. She jumped into the pool and charged through the water towards me. She grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me under the water. I tried to break free from her grasp but was struggling to get oxygen into my lungs. I finally lashed out and hit her in the stomach. I didn’t mean to hurt her, I had just needed air. I came to the surface and sucked in air greedily.

“Katie, don’t overreact,” Zeke said.
“Shut up you jerk! I knew it! I knew that you two had been sneaking around for a while now,” Katie yelled. She turned to me and glared. “You had been trying to steal him from me from the start, haven’t you? I asked if you liked him right before we went out and you said that you didn’t like him. You lied to me but still tried to get him to yourself. Do you want to know something? You don’t mean a thing to Zeke. You’re just his rebound girl. Why else would he go for a girl like you?”

My face fell and I felt my heart squeeze. Her words were spiteful and I wished that she was trying to drown me again rather than saying that stuff.
“I didn’t try to steal him from you,” I said quietly.
“Then why were you kissing him just now? Are you not satisfied with your own boyfriend that you have to go and steal someone else’s?”
“Katie, you and Zeke broke up.”

This only seemed to anger her even more. She charged at me again and grabbed my hair, trying to yank it out. I tried pulling her off me but it didn’t work. She slapped me across the face and I must have yelled out or screamed because soon everyone was standing on the deck, watching Katie trying to drown me. It wasn’t until Jesse jumped into the pool that Zeke seemed to come to his senses. He grabbed Katie while Jesse grabbed me around the waist, trying to pull me away from Katie’s grasp. I felt her let go of my hair and didn’t waste any time getting out of the pool. I shivered next to Brittney while she looked at me with sad eyes.

“You should have known that it would eventually come to this,” she said.
“You can’t blame me for this. If it wasn’t for him then I would never have been in this situation. He’s the one that kissed me first all those months ago.”
“Wait, what?”

I turned and looked at the others who were staring at me with wide eyes. I guess I had been talking louder than I thought. They had all heard what I said. I looked at Jesse, reaching out to him but he shook his head and pushed past me. I would have cried then if too much other stuff wasn’t going on. Katie was still squirming in Zeke’s arms, trying to get free for round two. Brittney led Aidan inside and I felt a hand rest on my shoulder.

“What I said this afternoon still stands. I won’t push you away just because you’ve made a few mistakes.”

I tried to smile at Eric but it just wouldn’t come. Zeke pulled Katie inside and Eric followed them. I sat down on one of the sun loungers and put my face in my hands. One kiss, one kiss was all it took to ruin my life. Okay, so it was a lot more than one kiss but it seemed odd that I felt like my life started with just one kiss as well. It was that very first kiss, the one that had happened before Katie and before Jesse, it was the kiss that had happened after my dad’s accident and after the first time I had slept in the same bed as Zeke. It had been on the night after we had gone bowling when Zeke had been dating Lola Fulton. I had been upset about my dad and had told him I felt nothing when he had kissed me out of no where. That was the first kiss and there were many more to come but we had never been caught, not even when we had kissed out in the open that one time in the lounge at school, not even at the Christmas party. Why is it that after everything had been going right it all had to be taken away?