Trouble

What had started out as a sweet kiss, comparable to the sealing of our new honesty toward each other, had quickly evolved into an entirely different beast.

Liam laid down on top of me, our lips and tongues dancing together in perfect harmony. Our ragged breaths carried through the house, loud and harried, and I was incredibly glad that none of my sisters were home.

Although the situation was creeping closer and closer toward the scenario Alejo had spelled out for us all that time ago, I knew that I wasn’t going to let this creep that far. I was under control. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

I weaved my fingers through Liam’s short hair, tugging lightly, making him groan into my mouth. His hands were on my sides, rubbing up and down, though not journeying too far north or south. Somehow, some way, it seemed that he could sense what my comfort level was, and he refused to try to pass it.

Just as I wondered why I hadn’t started trusting him earlier, he nibbled at my bottom lip, making me shudder underneath him.

“Sol,” he mumbled, reaching up and wiping a bit of hair off my face. “Soledad, you’re perfect. You know that, right?”

“No, I’m not,” I laughed, shaking my head, closing my eyes once again. “I’m not even close to perfect.”

“You’re perfect to me.”

I didn’t feel in the mood to call him out on his cheesy bullshit, so I just pushed my neck up a little more to connect his mouth to mine again.

He took in a sharp breath of surprise at my initiation, but he didn’t do anything to argue, picking up right where he’d left off. A few minutes later, he moved his soft lips from mine to my jaw, trailing kisses down my neck, to my collarbone and back again, occasionally flicking out his tongue or grazing his teeth against the sensitive skin.

I had goosebumps all over, and I wasn’t sure exactly what to feel, but I knew that I didn’t want him to stop. I’d let my fear and anxiety over the situation hold me back for so long, and I was incredibly sick and tired of it.

Liam managed to find my pulse on my throat, and I let out a long, drawn-out sigh, tightening my hands around the muscles in his upper arms.

His hands were still moving on my sides, exploring, feeling out the territory, and I stiffened when I realized that his hands were heading south. Very south.

I didn’t know what to do or say, and Liam didn’t seem to notice my hesitance, since he was still kissing my neck, which clearly wasn’t going to have any reaction back to him. My heart started to pound even faster than it had been before, and it vaguely occurred to me that it was entirely possible I could have a heart attack, right then and there.

“Sol,” he breathed against my neck. And then there was a tugging at the waistband of my jeans, and I felt a sense of release around my hips. He’d undone the button and zipper.

And then, I started to feel nauseas as his fingers played with the top band of my panties before slipping underneath the thin fabric.

“GET THE FUCK OFF ME,” I screamed, my voice wavering with emotion, as I shoved him away.

He collapsed onto the floor with a heap, slamming his head against the hardwood. “Shit,” he gasped, reaching up and touching the now-tender part of his scalp. “Sol, what the hell?”

“What the fuck were you doing?” I was shaking like a leaf, my fingers trembling so much that it took me a solid minute to redo my pants and hide my dark purple underwear from him.

“Wait, what?” he questioned. And then he started to smirk. The fucking pendejo started to smirk. “Sol, do we have to have The Talk?”

“This isn’t fucking funny!” I cried out, bordering on absolute insanity. My shaking intensified, my stomach churned, and my brain felt like it had gone swimming in the English Channel. I was positive that I was going to puke, and I definitely didn’t want to do so in front of Liam.

“Wait, Sol! Did I…did I…?” His thick eyebrows pulled together in concern as he advanced toward me, reaching out to touch my arm, attempting to comfort me. “I’m so sorry if I pushed you toward something you weren’t ready for.”

The second his fingertips made contact with the skin on my upper arm, my symptoms intensified, my memory reliving the sensation of him slipping those same fingers into my panties again and again and again.

I started to sway back and forth, and I had to struggle to keep myself under control for just a couple minutes more. “Get out of my house,” I growled, tugging away from him. “Now.”

“Sol, please. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean it. I swear, I didn’t feel anything.”

I’d trusted him. I’d fucking trusted him, and he managed to screw everything up in a matter of thirty seconds. My vision was starting to go blurry, which was an uncomfortable and scary sensation, as I pointed toward the door. “¡Vete ahora! GET OUT.”

He watched me carefully before shaking his head emphatically. “Soledad, I can’t leave you like this. You look like you’re going to be sick. Just…”

I was too busy focusing on my breathing to see him move forward, ever so slowly forward, and wrap his arms around me.

The moment started to play on repeat, bringing forth memories that I’d so long been trying to suppress. Anger bubbled up in my chest, and the little girl who had always lived inside of me finally got the revenge she’d so been craving.

Without thinking, I snatched myself out of Liam’s hug, reared back, and slapped him across the face with all my might. My palm stung like a bitch, like a thousand bees attacking at once, and I was sure Liam’s face must have felt the same.

Shocked, he reached his hand up to his cheek, touching the red welt tenderly. He looked more hurt than I’d ever seen him before, and although there was a slight feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach, it was so overwhelmed by nausea that I couldn’t dwell on it at the moment.

Without saying another word to beg for forgiveness, he turned and left the house, shutting the door calmly behind him.

And I darted for the bathroom, my hand cupped over my mouth, desperate to make it to the bathroom on time.

For what seemed like hours, I was violently sick, my knuckles turning white as I grasped the side of the toilet, my entire body shaking uncontrollably. My body lurched with every new wave, and I kept going and going and going until there was nothing left, yet my body still felt the need to purge, dry-heaving again and again and again.

Once my episode was over, I was left gasping loudly and hoarsely for air, feeling weaker than I ever had in my entire life, resting my face against the side of the porcelain bowl. It was cool and dry, a nice contrast to my heated, sweaty forehead.

Yet the memory wouldn’t stop replaying in my head, the old mixing with the new, and the shaking wouldn’t go away. I knew I had to pull myself together before Esperanza or mamá came home, knowing that the scene would do nothing but scare them, but I couldn’t manage to make the proper moves.

Eventually, I gained enough strength to pull myself up and flush the toilet, which got rid of the rancid stench that was certainly not helping the situation. But even that simple movement had completely drained me of energy, and I felt myself crumpling to the floor.

At some point, my consciousness faded, and for once in my life, I was completely uncaring toward my outward appearance, what people around me would say or think. After all, it would be easy enough to convince everyone that I had the flu, with my flushed face, my weakness, my nausea.

But I knew the truth, and it was eating me up inside. So long fighting against my demons, and they were still so totally in control of my life, my decisions, my relationships.

And I had kicked out the one person that I hadn’t known for my entire life that had been venturing toward gaining my trust. I had never known it was so easy to go from on top of the world to the deep, dark abyss that I was facing.

My only hope was that I’d be able to make myself presentable by the next morning when Claudia and Marisol came home. They could never know that I’d taken such a stumble, what an incredibly weak and cowardly person I was.

What a great role model I was.