Girls, Breaking Hearts

“Let’s go on a real date.”

The words that came out of John’s mouth were so surprising to Brooke that she thought of it as a joke. They had never gone out on what one could classify as a real date before, for reasons that were blatantly obvious. And for John to suggest it now was ludicrous.

“I’m serious,” he insisted as he sat up on the couch and looked at her. “We can wear disguises and shit, it would be pretty cool.”

She stared at him as if he’d grown two heads, and as a response, rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me, you’re seven-foot tall, everyone will recognize you. Is that what you want?”

He pouted, laying back down beside her and burying his face on the crook of her neck, where it belonged. “I don’t care,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around her waist as if he never wanted to let go of her. “I just want to take you out on a date.”

This made Brooke roll her eyes. Sometimes it seemed like he was the teenager in the relationship. One minute he’d want to break up, the next he’d be so keen on taking the relationship to another level. But she liked this side of him, the one that was overly sweet after an argument no matter how petty. Even when they fought over the littlest of things, he’d always be the one apologizing first and the sweetness would last for a week tops.

“Let’s camp out in the woods,” he suggested seriously but she remained cynical, rolling her eyes once more.

“Cool, are you planning on killing me and dumping my body there?”

“Yeah after having sex with it maybe,” he shot back and she gasped, elbowing his ribs.

“Stop it, Dahmer!”

“For real babe, I wanna camp out.” He patted her stomach twice before sitting up again and pulling her up with him. “Just one night, you know? We can set up a tent and then do the whole romantic dinner thing, I’ll cook since you have a tendency to burn things.”

“It was one time, and-”

“Stay on topic babe.”

She glared at him as he smirked, and followed it up with a sigh. “Fine, when?”

“Next week.” He was suddenly very excited as he stood up from the couch to check the calendar hanging on his wall. “23rd, that work out alright for you?”

“Mhm.” Her phone beeped, and she extended an arm to retrieve it from the table. It was a text from one of her friends, Kelly. Going to the movies tonight, come!! Honestly, she wanted to spend her time with John, but she had blown them off twice already in the past week and a third time would create more suspicion and she really, really did not need to add any more fuel to the fire. Plus a movie didn’t sound too bad.

“I’m gonna catch a movie with my friends tonight,” she said, sitting up and straightening her hair. The statement changed John’s mood, from psyched out to down in one second flat.

“We were gonna have a movie marathon,” he tried, but even he knew it was a lame excuse. He enjoyed even her mere presence, and sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t mutual, if she got bored of him when all he wanted to do was laze around with her. He felt like his energy was slowly deteriorating and he wasn’t even that old, while she was full of it all the time. Worse, he felt shitty that he had never seen a movie in actual cinema with her so really, who was he to stop her from wanting to enjoy herself?

“I’ll be back,” she said which instantaneously lifted him up. “We’ll watch some movies then and if you’re lucky, I might sleep over.”

He found himself smiling as she walked over to him and kissed him on the lips. “You’ll let me do your nails?” he teased, causing her to roll her eyes.

“Whatever- do you want me to bring you anything?”

“Just you,” he responded and she smiled meekly, giving him a small wave as she walked out of his pad. John sighed when the door closed, walking back to the couch and finishing off his beer in one chug. In his own pathetic way, he missed her already.

~

As Brooke walked to her truck parked a few blocks away from John’s unit, she thought of what would happen if either or both of their families found out that they were together, and then remembered the first Shane almost caught them. Her parents had been on a vacation that time and she and John were at their house, making out on the couch with both their shirts off. He had been so ready to take the rest of their clothes off and his growing member proved that when suddenly, the doorbell rang and sent them into panic mode. He’d hastily grabbed all of his clothes from the floor and ran to the kitchen to hide as she frantically put her blouse back on and fixed her hair.

Her heart pounded as she opened the door, wishing her face showed anything but how she was feeling as of the moment. She felt like at any second her heart would jump out of her chest and she couldn’t make any possible inferences as to who was visiting her at 10 in the evening.

Her laboured breathing only got worse when she saw who was on the other side of the door. The smiling face and those eyes nearly identical to her lover’s made her melodramatic self want to jump off a bridge that very second as she thought of them getting caught.

“Shane,” she breathed deeply, trying to smile at him. “Hey what’s up dude?”

Shane looked at her weirdly, possibly noticing that she was a nervous wreck as of the moment. “You left your bag in David’s car, genius,” he teased, handing it over to her as she gasped and immediately grabbed it from him.

“Oh thanks, I thought I’d left it in Scarlet’s car but I called her up and she said it wasn’t with her and I thought maybe I left it on the school grounds or something and I really thought I lost it-”

“Whoa chill Brooke, why are you blabbering?” He laughed, and for a second Brooke did, too, just to cover up her nerves. But even in that state, she knew that Shane wouldn’t magically leave in the next few minutes. “By the way is John here?”

Suddenly, Brooke’s heart stopped beating. She could have sworn she heard him say John’s name. “John?” she repeated, feigning shock when in reality she was masking her nerves and hoping Shane couldn’t tell that she had stopped breathing. “John as in John Larson?”

“No, John as in my brother- I saw his car parked a few blocks from here and I thought maybe he came over or shit,” Shane explained, but Brooke was in no state to register his words. She just kept thinking of an excuse, but her tongue seemed frozen and she felt like this was the end.

“He’s not here why would he be here? Why would he be here I mean that’s weird as hell and you-”

As she was saying that, she knew she was done, that was it, they were done, the past month had been great but they’d been made and it was time to stop. She couldn’t control her mouth, though, it just seemed to sputter out nonsense at Shane.

“-know it’s weird like why would he even be here wouldn’t that be really weird like why would you even think that-”

“Okay, chill, God- what the fuck, Brooke- what’s with you tonight?” Shane asked as he put his hands up in defense, giving her a look that told her she was starting to scare him. “I just thought he went to see you because his car is near, no need to get your panties up in a bunch, jeez!”

“Sorry.” She just bit her lip, to hopefully stop herself from digging her grave deeper.

“Anyway, you alone? We’re coming over to Jessie’s house to smoke a bit, if you wanna come-”

“No thank you I’m actually not feeling well tonight.”

“No shit you look weird, do you want me to bring you something or ask Mckenna to come over? I mean I could maybe ask the guys to-”

“No Shane I’m all right, you can go-”

“-I’m sure they wouldn’t mind-”

“No really it’s all right-”

“I mean Lennon isn’t really-”

“No Shane just go!”

“What the fuck?” Shane took a step back, staring up at her wondrously. “Dude what’s with you I’m just trying to help, jeez were you jacking off in there?”

It was a silly joke, a poor attempt at making her laugh but the fact that it was so close to the actual thing that almost happened that it made Brooke blush. Which, in return, made Shane’s eyes widen in disbelief as he stared up at his friend and began to feel weird.

“Fuck, you were?! God don’t even answer that! Fuck, I’m leaving! I’ll leave you to your shit- fuck it, Brooklyn! Good luck or whatever, I’m out of here.”

He hurriedly left, muttering a few curse words to himself and she immediately slammed the door shut, feeling like she was going to die in any second. She sighed, relieved that even though she was acting really sketchy and basically freaked out when John was mentioned, Shane didn’t jump to that conclusion. Was he really that clueless, or did the idea of John hooking up with her seem impossible and unappealing to Shane himself? She didn’t really care which was which, she was just thankful they hadn’t gotten caught.

“What the fuck was that?” John demanded, emerging from the kitchen. He was now fully clothed and alert, making it obvious to her that he’d heard every word exchanged between her and Shane. “You were yelling and stammering, God even your voice was a dead giveaway!

“I’m sorry, I panicked!” she hissed.

“Clearly!” He scoffed, unamused with what happened. “And now he thinks you’re masturbating, what the fuck is that about?!”

“I don’t know but would you rather have him think there’s something going on with us?!”

“I would rather have my brother know I’m dating one of his friends than him think of how my girlfriend jacks off, seriously what the fuck was that, I’m going to kill Shane!”

“Will you stop!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest. “At least he isn’t suspecting a thing.”

John grunted, looking over at her with a scowl on his face. “That fucking douchebag, I swear if he tries to make a move on you-”

“Stop.” She stomped her foot on the floor for more emphasis. “Seriously stop, we’re just friends.”

“Well that won’t stop me from cutting off his balls and his hands the second he talks or even so much as think about you fucking jacking off.”