Who Said Anything About Love?

Madeline’s POV

Last night I had ended up Instant Messaging my cousin Jean for a few hours catching up on each other and then discussing Cerise. Whether or not Tom’s Cerise was the same one Jean had dated I still didn’t know. But this is what I had found out…

A few years back Jean had met his Cerise through his best friend Travis at a party. They hit it off immediately and he knew she was the one for him. He told me how she said all the right things at all the right times and he never once doubted her compassion. After a few months they became more involved and that’s when she’s started requesting sex all of the time. She said it was because she wanted to show him how much she loved him and it was the most powerful form of expression in her eyes, so he didn’t question her. He said he’d never felt so in love in all his life, and even though he was only seventeen and she was fifteen he said he wanted to propose to her. He was really nervous about asking her at all so he went to Travis for advise. When he mentioned how much he loved her Travis went off the handle. Jean had no idea what was wrong with him.

He said he went back to his house and wanted to call Cerise to ease his mind and maybe have her help come up with a reason as to why Travis would react that way. He called twice and got no answer so left her a message asking her to call back when she could. When she did she told him she got grounded because of her marks in school and couldn’t see him until the weekend. He understood and left it at that. Travis continued refusing his phone calls and Jean just couldn’t understand what about him loving Cerise would push away his best friends since birth.

That weekend he went over to see Cerise and she wasn’t as happy to see him as he’d hoped she’d be. She smiled and was polite, but whenever he tried to kiss her she turned her head from him and tried changing the subject by bringing up some random topic she thought of. It went on like that for a few days before she was back to her usually self; wanting to ‘express her love for him’ every day. Poor Jean was so blind.

After another couple months of her constant bipolar-like attitude he’d just about had enough of it. He planned on going over to her house and explaining what was on his mind and if things went well he’d propose. He walked all the way over knowing her dad wouldn’t be home from work till later that night so they’d have the house to themselves for a while. If she accepted he’d make sweet passionate love to her for hours.

He approached the front door to her house and entered without knocking hoping to surprise her; mistake one. He then crept to her room, smile splashed across his face, ring in his pocket and all the confidence in the world. He reached for her door knob but was stopped my a loud muffled moan from inside her room. Was she…with herself?, he questioned silently trying to picture the young girl pleasuring herself. But his thoughts were interrupted by a loud grunt that came shortly after the moan. It sounded far to deep to have come out of Cerise.

‘Travis…mmm, baby faster.’ That, on the other hand, was Cerise. She was calling out Travis’ name, his best friend who wouldn’t speak to him because of his love for his girlfriend.

‘Mmm…baby, I’m so clo- Ahhh!’ and there was Travis.

Was this supposed to be some kind of joke? Jean stood out side the door completely shocked at what he was hearing. As if the sounds emitted weren’t enough to confirm, he opened the door slowly and his mouth fell open at what he saw.

Cerise lying naked and beautiful underneath his best friend, joined at the hips with him, head thrown back in a lusty manner as she moaned out Travis’ name again while she came. They both were breathing so heavily that they hadn’t heard him enter, but as soon as Cerise opened her eyes to look up at her partner in crime she gasped and reached for the sheet at her ankles to cover up her wrong. Problem was he saw right through it, all of it.

‘Hey man, what are you doing?’ Travis asked. Jean was speechless as he stared at his girl friend in astonishment. How could she…why would she?

‘I came to propose to my girl friend, but now I think I want her to answer something else for me.' he’d started.

'Girl friend? Baby, what is he talking about?’ Cerise was no longer acting like the woman she felt, she was a scared 15 year old girl who knew all hell was about to break loose.

Come to find out, the night after Jean and Cerise started dating she had started seeing Travis and about a week later they started dating. So for the entire seven months my cousin was with that girl she was with his best friend. He left them there in her bed that day saying he never wanted to speak to her again. He left the ring on her dresser and left.

Travis, in all his stupid pride, blamed Jean for the whole thing saying that if he’d just backed of when he asked him too none of it would have happened. Travis stayed with Cerise for about a week before she left him for some other kid she went to school with.

Travis and Jean still don’t speak to this day. I felt awful for him that he’d had to go through that. But he’s found himself a very nice girl now and keeps a close eye on her; his has trust issues now.

So, was Jean’s Cerise Tom’s Cerise? I didn’t know yet. Jean said that her last name was Kuniff, and I hadn’t asked Tom about anything like that…yet. I was rather curious if this was in fact that same girl. If so we’d have some problems, I must say.

I was pulled from the memory of my conversation last night by the tinkle of the bell above the Bookstore door. I looked up from the front desk counter to see the smile that sent my heart aflutter. He walked toward me, hands in his pockets and came to stand in front of me.

“Hallo, Madeline.” he said as he placed his forearms in the counter leaning on them.

“Hallo, Tom.”