I can’t imagine how I’ll react or how I’ll feel. The idea of seeing him again, and not just watching me from my window, sends shivers across my spine. I spent years trying to get over the idea of him; how his whole existence feels like a reminder of that night. A reminder of just how fucking naive I was. And now, the threat of his presence both excites me and angers me but more than anything, I wonder if seeing him again will help me remember the things my mind has been keeping from me.
I guess I won’t know until that happens; when he finally decides to show himself.
I shake myself back to the present, looking at my reflection as I tuck my pink strands behind my ears. I groan before bunching it up in my fist to pull it up into a ponytail just to let it drop back down again. I mess with it a few more times, wondering why the hell I even care. It’s not like I’m trying to really impress anyone.
I let out a frustrated sigh. I feel so out of my element. Then again, I’m not even sure what my element is these days. I can’t seem to make up my mind about much so getting annoyed at my hair is ridiculous in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I’m just anxious. I look behind my own reflection in the mirror to see that Alli has now moved on to messing with her phone.
"Are you getting service?" I ask curiously as I wrap my hair back up into a ponytail, hopeful that maybe if her phone is working, mine might too.
"Ugh, no. I haven't gotten a single bar since we started driving up this dumb mountain. I really hope it doesn't last like this all weekend." She turns around and peels the curtain away from the window, peering out into the forest. "The snow has slowed down for now but I’m sure it won’t stay like that for long." She drops the drape covering back into place before walking over to grab her jacket.
I give myself one last look in the mirror, and let out a deep sigh as I take the hair tie out of my hair to let it fall back over my shoulders once more.
“It looks better down,” Alli says with a titled head and I give her a lazy smile back. “You ready?” She throws her phone on her bed and grabs my jacket, tossing it over to me.
Before I follow her out the front door, I pick up the two small pieces of jewelry I had placed in my bedside drawer and stuff them into my jacket pocket, making sure that they’re secure before I head for the door. But right as we step into the frigid breeze of the October air, my instincts kick up once more.
The smoldering heat on my skin. The trickle of flames floating in my veins.
But this time when I feel it, my body floods with something forbidden. A desire derived from fear. Fear that I’m being watched. Desire because I like it.
And as we walk down the path and through the trees, I welcome both. Knowing that if he really is here, watching me, then that means soon I’ll be seeinghimtoo.
6
OLIVIA
“I don’t have memories from this place, I have scars.” — Elise Rainier, Insidious: The Last Key (2018)
Itwist the stick around in the crackling fire, watching as the flames burn against the fluffy marshmallow, eating at the outer layer.Thrillerby Michael Jackson echoes somewhere in the distance from someone’s music player, people laughing and chatting away. But I zone out watching the way the bright yellow flame spreads against the puff and starts to crinkle it, turning it black while melting its interior. Then, something snaps my attention away.
A familiar voice accompanied by a wildly obvious laugh hits my ears and I look up. Just on the other side of the firepit, Jensen is chatting it up with some blonde. I watch her touch his arm while he pulls his red solo cup to his lips, but never lets his eyes leave hers.
I know this is the game he signed up to play. The hot, popular, talented quarterback of the Marauders, inevitably surrounded by eager, flirtatious girls. Thatwas Deck’s life once as well so I'm no stranger to the fact that this is what it looks like for a football player.
I watch as Jensen pulls a smile on his lips, the girl practically fanning herself as he does so. It's the kind of smile the camera melts for when he's being interviewed after a football game. The kind that fangirls scream for when he throws a touchdown or when he acknowledges them in the stands. He’s always had this natural charisma to him and seeing him be flirty like this has never bothered me. Not now and not even when Jen and I were dating. I guess that’s also another tell that my heart was never fully in the relationship the way he claimed to be. It’s how I know that my decision to break up was the right one.
He kind of reminds me of Seren in a way; socializing and always the center of attention. I think she would have been the one most excited about Jensen and I getting together. Or so I'd like to think. She used to push me so hard to be with someone,anyone, and she was particularly eager to hook me up with one of the football guys. Probably because she assumed that they’d be our best chance out of Indigo Pines. Smart girl. Though, most of the football guys are just egotistical pricks who think they rule the fucking planet. I never found appeal in that. But that wasn’t the reason why I never gave in to her efforts.
My problem was that the only guy that I was even remotely interested in was the one who was one hundred percent off limits.
My cheeks heat from remembering the times I got to watchhimplay on the field. I’d never been into football players the way Seren was. In fact, I wasn’t really focused on guys or dating at all back then. Butthere was something about the way he looked in his football pants that kept my eyes glued to him and the way he stood with so much fierce confidence as he locked in when he knew the ball was coming for him. He was proud but subtle about it. And he had talent that drew me in like a moth to a flame. I always knew I had a small crush on him. Hell, I’m not sure who didn’t. Though he never seemed to be one of those types who gave in to the flirtatious harem of girls who would swarm him in the halls or after games.
And because I knew my competition was deep and the chance I stood was little to none, I kept my crush to myself, knowing that nothing could ever come of it. I was just a seventeen-year-old girl hopelessly crushing on a nineteen-year-old college boy.
But one day everything changed.
It was fourth quarter with twelve seconds left; the Marauders were down by a touchdown. We all watched with bated breath realizing that our team was going to go for it. Right before the snap, I felt like my body was on fire. A feeling I’ll never forget. That’s when I noticed thathewas looking right up at me from the field. It was a fleeting moment that felt like it had lasted for hours. My heart was pounding and the cheers of the crowd faded out as I focused on the way he watched me. Then the ball snapped to Deck and he moved around in the pocket for a few seconds before throwing the ball into the air. I tracked it with my eyes, watching it fall seamlessly intohishands. He ran for the endzone and scored the winning points for the team. He was flawless. It was magic. And as the boys ran for him to celebrate, his eyes were onme.
I didn't really know why he kept looking up to me that day because before that point, we had never really exchanged more thanhiandbye.Though, I had craved his honey eyes on me for far longer than should have been allowed, so I reveled in the fact that he even just wanted to look at me. But I had to try my best to avoid his gaze because I didn't want to be caught. I didn't want it to be obvious that I was looking.
Though, after one of his games one day, he finally made the first move and approached me. That's when we started talking for the first time. I hate knowing that I probably touched him the way the blonde is touching Jensen right now, seeing how desperate it seems. But I was captivated and honestly inawethat someone likehimwas taking a risk to be seen with someone likeme. And I thought at first that maybe he was just feeding into the attention that I gave him, knowing that there was no way he hadn’t noticed it. But even when I intentionally tried to avoid him, he continued to seek me out. He hunted me down. We’d talk after his games and we’d catch each other sneaking glances here and there. Eventually we exchanged numbers and texted more and more everyday. He would ask me questions about myself and I didn’t shy away from answering anything he wanted to know and in return he told me things about him. Over the months, we really started to learn more and more about each other. But most of our in-person meetings were in secret and usually after his games when he had them.
Being around him was electrifying. He was elusive and different. Rough and sweet at the same time. And I was head over heels.
But I knew deep down that I felt guilty about my happiness with him. I knew I could never tell anyone about him and I warned him to do the same; to keep us a secret. Because not only was my dad skeptical about him and Deck might have had a few things to say, buthewas also Seren's older brother.
When we were younger, Seren and I both made a pact not to date each other’s brothers because if something were to happen between those relationships, we didn’t want it to affect our friendships with each other. I grew selfish by thinking that as long as I was careful, she’d never know. And I mean, it started out as a hopeless crush at first. I guess now I know it was a classic case of wanting what I was told I couldn’t have. Though thinking back on it, I’m not so sure that we were ever expected to take that pact seriously. We were only about eight or so, it was just something we did as kids, right? But I didn’t want to risk finding out what she’d think if she knew I was being deceitful to her; and worse, that I wasfallingfor her brother.
