The Last Goodbye

Bella's POV

I felt warm, soft, determined lips kissing me and without hesitating, I kissed back.

It felt so perfect.
It was perfect.

Immediately I saw sparks and fireworks between us as we kissed. I felt this electric connection forming and all of this felt right. Everything and everyone faded, and it felt like we were the only two people in the world. Everything on my mind faded.

Cameron pulled me closer, took my hands and put it on his chest, and held me so tightly that I couldn’t move my arms, so my palms remained on his chest. He was kissing me so passionately that I forgot where we even were.

Were we at the park? No…can’t be, how did we end up dancing at the park?
Were we at school? No…can’t be that either. It was a Sunday, right?
Wait. School.
Students staring at me at school because of….
Jack.

It was then that I remembered that I was at the fair with Cameron.

And it was then that I realized that I just cheated on Jack by kissing Cameron back.
I pulled away from Cameron and stared at him.

“Bella?” Cameron was looking at me with a concerned look on his face. I just continued to stare at him, furious at him for what he just did.

“Bella, what’s wrong?” It was that question that made me even angrier. Didn’t he know what was wrong? Didn’t he realize that he just put me in a place where I cheated on my boyfriend? The guy I’ve liked for 6 years now!

“What’s wrong!? WHAT’S WRONG!? How can you ask that!? How can you kiss me!? I have a boyfriend, for God’s sake, Cameron! I have a boyfriend! And do you realize I just cheated on him? No thanks to you!”

“Bella—“

“And you know what’s worse? He trusts me! Imagine how he’s going to feel when he finds out I cheated on him! God, Cameron, how could you kiss me!?”

“I kissed you because I wanted to! Is there a problem for wanting to do something for so long!?”

“You knew I had a boyfriend and you kissed me!”

“And you know that I liked you, Bella! You knew that I liked you, really liked you! But no, you’re just going to go after the guy who JUST noticed that you like after all this 6 years! And what was I doing all this time? Hoping that you’d forget about him and realize that the guy for you is standing right here and have always been since before we could even talk! But instead of trying to convince you to forget about him, I supported you because all this time I want you to be happy. Did you know that Jack asked me whether he should ask you out and asked if I knew whether you liked him? I could’ve set him off. I could’ve told him that you had no interest in him. But wanting you to be happy, I told him to go ahead and ask you out. And here you are yelling at me! God, I can’t believe you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless. I had no idea Jack asked Cameron about this. I had no idea Cameron told him to go ahead. But I did know Cameron liked me. But I’ve…I’ve liked Jack for so long...and here I have a chance at actually being with him. Now that could be slightly ruined.

I looked away and quietly said, “Just take me home, Cameron.”

He just stayed there staring at me with this hatred look on his face. I felt like crying. My best friend who’s always been there for me, hated me.

“Fine. Whatever.” He said, almost spitting the words at me.

I kept my head down, and stayed quiet during the whole walk to Cameron’s car. He didn’t look my way once. He unlocked the car and I put Mr. Snuggley Huggley in the backseat. Then I climbed in the front seat. I stared out the window as Cameron put the car in reverse and drove out of the parking lot. How did I come to a situation where I ended up cheating on Jack and made Cameron hate me?

I mean yeah, Cameron kissed me, but it was my fault for kissing him back. But even if I hadn’t kissed him back, Cameron would’ve gotten hurt. Was him hating me worse than him being hurt?

And me cheating on Jack…usually, it’s the popular boy who cheats on the shy girl, but this time the shy girl cheated on the popular boy.

And Jack trusted me.
And I ruined that.
And Cameron was my best friend since before we could even walk.
And I ruined that, too.

I started to cry. It came out of nowhere. I just couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want to be in this situation. Why did I have to be in this situation?

Cameron certainly didn’t expect it because he looked at me and said, “Oh god, Bella. Please don’t cry.” But that just made me want to cry even more. He didn’t say it in a harsh way. He said it in a such soft, sincere way, which I in no way deserved.

Cameron sighed and pulled the car into some empty parking lot.

“Bella, I’m sorry. I’m stupid I know. It’s all my fault this is happening. I can’t go telling someone to go for the girl I like but then kiss her when they start dating. I don’t know what came over me. Please forgive me. I’m really sorry.”

I sniffled and asked softly. “Do you hate me?” I looked up at him and his whole face changed into a softer expression. He took off my seat belt, put his arms around me, hesitating first, but then lifted me out of my seat and pulled me into his lap and wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tightly.

“Aw, Bella. No, I could never hate you. No, no, no. I don’t hate you. I’m sorry if it seemed that way at the fair. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I was just…upset. I’m so sorry, Bells.”

He hugged me even tighter and whispered into my ear, “I’m sorry.”

“I deserve you yelling at me.”

“No, you freaking don’t. None of this is your fault.”

“It’s my entire fault.”

“No it’s not. He can’t blame you. It’s not your fault. I kissed you first. So if anything, he should blame me, and if it makes him feel any better, I’ll let him punch me. Okay?”

“No! That’s not okay! I don’t want you to end up getting hurt!”

Cameron sighed. He brushed a strand of my hair away from my wet, tear-eyed face. “You’re still so sweet after what I did.”

“No, you’re still so sweet after what I did to you.”

“You did nothing to me.”

“Except break your heart enough to yell at me.”

Cameron chuckled. “Yeah, except for that part. Don’t worry about it though.”

“How the hell can I not worry about that!? I broke my best friend’s heart!”

Cameron shrugged and smiled. “I said don’t worry about, so don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not that easy.” I mumbled.

He looked at me with my face all red, tear-eyed and snot coming out of my nose. He reached out and wiped away the tears on my cheek with his thumb and then dug into his pocket and pulled out a napkin in which he wiped off all the snot coming from my nose.

“Come on. Let’s get you home.”

He lifted me up from his lap and sat me down on my seat again. I put on my seat belt and sniffled.

He drove out of the parking lot and headed towards my house. I still sniffled all the way home but I no longer cried. I was sure that I would when I got home.

We finally reached my house 10 minutes later. I was climbing out of the car, when Cameron said, “Bella, I really am sorry. If you need help telling Jack…I’ll help you. He’ll be mad at me instead of you.”

I nodded and said, “See you, Cameron.”

I was ready to go when he said, “Wait! I brought you the Hunger Games like you wanted me to bring.” He extended out the book and I took it.

“Thanks. Bye Cameron.”

“Bye.”

I closed the door and walked towards my porch. Cameron was still in the driveway. I opened my house door, got in, and shut it. Then I exhaled loudly. I looked around and saw that no one was home. I walked upstairs to my room and flopped down on my bed. How was I going to tell Jack?

I took out my cell phone from my purse and saw that it was dead. I got the charger and plugged it into the outlet and put my cell into charge. When my cell phone came alive, I saw that there were three missed calls along with three voice mails.; one from my mom, Jack, and recently Cameron.

I checked my mom’s voice mail first but she only called to say that she was going to come home late with dad. Then I took a deep breath and listened to Jack’s voice mail.

“Hey babe. Sorry for not calling you this weekend or texting you back. My family went up to Washington for a family reunion. They had crappy reception up there and I couldn’t use my cell at all. I couldn’t text you back. I couldn’t stop thinking about you all weekend. I wanna have a date night soon.” I heard him sigh and then say, “I’m really tired. It’s been a long day. Call me back when you get this. Miss you.”

The voice mail ended and I broke down crying again. He was thinking about me all this time and all I did was hang out with Cameron and not think about Jack a single time until the end. What kind of a girlfriend was I?

I cried and cried and cried for 2 hours straight, blowing into two boxes of tissues and feeling miserable and guilty. My phone kept ringing but I ignored it. I was in no mood to talk to anyone.

I was still crying when my doorbell rang. My parents probably just came home and I was in no way ready to face them and explain to them why I was crying. It was too complicated. I’ll just pretend that I’m sleeping. Then maybe they won’t see me. Besides they have keys to get into the house.

The doorbell rang again. I ignored it. It kept ringing until to a point to where it was really annoying me and giving me a headache, that I finally got out of bed and went downstairs and opened the door. Only it weren’t my parents who were at the door. It was Stella.

“What the hell!? I’ve been calling you all night and you don’t pick up! Then I come to see if you’re okay or whether you were kidnapped and then you don’t answer your door until 10 minutes la—“

She stopped yelling at me midair from what she was going to say next and saw my red face covered with tears.

“Bella, oh my god, are you okay?” she got in and closed the door behind her and then hugged me. I shook my head no but instead of explaining why, I said, “I’m sorry for not picking up the phone…I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. And I thought it were my parents who were at the door. I didn’t want them to see me like this.”

“Don’t worry about it. Come on. Let’s go up to your room.” We went upstairs to my room and sat down on the bed. But then Stella said times like this called for ice cream, so she got up and went downstairs and brought back cookie dough ice cream.

“Okay. So what happened?”

“Cameron kissed me.”

Stella nodded. “I know. He called me and told me everything. He wanted me to check up on you and see if you were okay.”

“So why’d you ask what happened?”

“I want to hear your point of view.”

“Well, Cameron kissed me; I kissed him back which means I cheated on Jack. How am I going to tell him? He’s going to hate me!”

Stella shook her head. “Nope, he’s not.”

“But I cheated on him.”

“Accidentally. You didn’t realize what you were doing until you actually did it. It’s not like you kissed Cameron first.”

“But he’s going to be so mad at me for kissing Cameron back. And how does someone accidentally cheat on someone?”

“Look, if he really likes you, then he’ll forget about this and forgive you. If he doesn’t, then screw him. He’s not the guy for you if he can’t handle one mistake that you made on accident.”

“Kissing someone back isn’t an accident.”

“It is if you weren’t aware about the fact that you had a boyfriend. You got caught up in the moment. It happens.”

I gave her a confused look.

“Okay, let’s say a girl has a boyfriend, okay? So she loves him and all and then she sees this other guy. She really likes him and thinks he’s super hot or whatever. So she kisses him, making the first move, knowing that she has a boyfriend. That’s cheating on purpose. Now accidentally cheating is being caught up in a moment and not knowing you’re cheating until the very end.”

“That’s the worst part! I forgot that i had a boyfriend! How could I forget!?”

“Like I said, caught up in the moment.”

I sighed loudly.

“Not only am I going to hurt Jack, but I also hurt Cameron. Two guys at the same time. Cameron’s probably hurt that I pulled away from him and never gave him a chance. Ugh. I hate myself.”

“Please. Cameron feels sorry for kissing you when you had a boyfriend. He basically hates himself right now. He hates that he put you in this position. He thinks he ruined your friendship with him. It broke his heart when you started crying in the car.”

“He told you all that?” Stella nodded.

“How can I be mad at a guy who’s as sweet as him?”

Stella laughed. “Beats me.”

I sighed and asked quietly, “Does he regret kissing me?”
I couldn’t help wonder this. I mean yeah the kiss ended up making things complicated but the kiss…as much as I feel guilty saying this, I have to admit that the kiss was perfect and I enjoyed every moment of it.

“Nope. He doesn’t regret it.” I looked at her with an expression that means ‘go on.’

“He feels sorry and bad about putting you in his position where you ended up crying but no, he doesn’t regret it because he really wanted to kiss you and loved every moment of it.”

“Oh.”

“Do you regret it?”

I looked at Stella and bit my lip. “I don’t know.” She gave me a look.

I sighed. “Fine. No, I don’t regret it.”

“Hah! Cameron’s gonna die when he finds out!”

“Don’t tell him!”

“I never said I was going to.” She winked at me.

I laughed. “I know I should regret kissing back and all since I have a boyfriend but the kiss between Cameron and me, it felt like everything a perfect kiss should feel like.”

“Which is the complete opposite of what you felt when you and Jack kissed.”

I bit my lip and nodded. Then I sighed. “Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

“Because that’s just life." We stayed quiet for a few moment, and just kept on eating some of the ice cream.

“Oh, by the way, Cameron called you.”

“Oh! I forgot to check his voice mail. I was too busy crying.”

I got up from bed, got my cell from the top of my dresser and sat back down again. Then I dialed voice mail and put the cell on speaker phone.

“Hey Bella. Listen, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have kissed you, but I couldn’t help it. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to kiss you and for how long. I finally do it and I mess everything up between us. I don’t know if you hate me but I don’t regret kissing you. I don’t know if you felt everything I felt when we kissed but it felt right. Perfect in fact. It’s one of those kisses that you never forget about. I’m sorry for the position I put you in, but it’s time you knew how much I like you. Which you already do, but still. I understand it if you don’t want to be best friends with me anymore, but I still care about you. I still want to be friends. Are we still friends? Wear the charm bracelet or necklace I gave you, tomorrow at school. Then I’ll know if we’re still friends. If you don’t,” Cameron sighed, “then I guess you hate my guts. I really am sorry.”

The voice mail ended and Stella and I stared at the cell phone.

Stella sighed. “Man. I wish I could tell him that you feel the same way about the kiss between you guys.”

I chuckled. “Shut up.”