“Don’t. Guys like me aren’t worth missing. After I leave, don’t waste another second on me.”
The self-deprecation and his body language were the first signs that he was going to start withdrawing and she didn’t want him to be cold and distant on their last day together. She needed to lighten the mood before it got too depressing for both of them.
“Let me rephrase,” she said. “I won’t missyouas such, but I will miss your rocking hot body. It’s the only good thing about you…Oh, and your dimples. I’ll miss those too. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but I may…possibly…even miss your cuddles.”
She looked back at him again and a wide grin stretched across his face. “I told you, you love the cuddles.” He pressed his lips against her shoulder and wrapped his arms tighter around her. “You know I’m still giving that shit away for free, right?”
His mouth went wild on her neck, rapid little kisses and nibbles that tickled her skin until she was giggling hysterically.
“Kevin! You psycho freak! Stop it!”
She tried to pull away, but he was holding on so tight, she couldn’t move more than a few millimeters.
“Aren’t these just the best?” he murmured, moving his mouth up her neck.
“Stop it!”
He nuzzled his nose against the sensitive spot below her earlobe and kissed her along her jaw, but as soon as his mouth met hers, it stopped being playful. He caught her lip between his teeth and kissed her with longing, with desperation, like the end had come too soon for him as well. She shifted on the chair and he lifted her legs onto his so she was straddling his hips. He deepened the kiss, burying his hand in her hair so she couldn’t escape. It made his intentions very clear. He was going to have her in every possible way before the sun came up the next day.
There’s a hormone in the human body called serotonin, a mood-stabilizer which generally makes a person feel calm and relaxed. Ever since she’d met Kevin, she’d noted a steady decline of this hormone within herself. At first it was because he pushed her buttons. He said and did things that hurt her, angered her until she felt neither calm nor relaxed. But as time went on, her brain compensated for the low levels of serotonin by pumping out dopamine. Increased dopamine makes one a little obsessive.
After their kiss in Vegas, he’d consumed her every thought. She was constantly conflicted, wondering what the hell was going on between them and the constant pushing and pulling had almost driven her crazy. She could blame the same hormone for her anxiousness, the way her heart beat out of her chest every time he touched her, the tingles. Dopamine got her addicted to all these little pleasures and was the main reason why she couldn’t get enough of him.
All of that could be written off as a simple crush, but over the last week or so, there’d been a rapid increase in her levels of oxytocin as well. Oxytocin was the cuddle-hormone and with all the cuddling they’d been doing in the last few days, that stuff was gushing through her in an unending cycle. Oxytocin led to strong emotional attachments to another person, created a bond that was usually much deeper than sex or physical pleasure.
Jasmin knew all this. Logically, she could argue that every emotion he invoked in her was just a chemical reaction in the brain. But the fact that he was leaving tomorrow made her see it for what it really was. It forced her to use her heart instead of her head. It made her realize that she was in love with him.
December, 9
Orlando, Florida
He still hadn’t left, but he was different. December, 6thwas blissful, filled with playfulness and heartfelt talks until the sun came up. The 7thwas even better. They watched movies and stayed in bed all day. But on the 8thall the magic stopped.
Jasmin woke up yesterday morning and realized that he still had no intention of leaving. She hadn’t known if it was because he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, or if he was simply procrastinating, delaying the moment when he would have to face the death of his best friend. His reasoning seemed to be a mixture of the two. She didn’t want the trip to end, but she felt like she needed to force it because he was quite content to stay at the hotel forever.
She’d offered to drive him to Florida and, once again, he abruptly declined. After an hour long argument, she finally managed to convince him to get into the car with her and their six hour journey began. He was okay at first, but as soon as they drove past theWelcome to Floridasign, he changed. Whatever he’d been trying to avoid became real and the gravity of what he needed to do hit him all at once. He was edgy and restless and distant, so different to the Kevin she had seen for the past two weeks. All the pain he’d kept locked away began to resurface.
After last night, she understood why he said he wanted to do this alone. He’d wanted their last days together to be filled with happy memories and this was anything but happy.
He was facing demons in his mind and he wanted her to have no part in it. He refused to open up. Instead, he’d just sat by themotel window, staring outside like he was waiting for someone. Every now and then she’d heard a deep sigh or a heart-wrenching sniffle and it killed her to know that he was carrying all that hurt by himself. He wouldn’t let her comfort him; in fact, he didn’t want to be anywhere near her. She didn’t know if he did eventually get some sleep. All she knew was that last night was the first night since Texas that she’d gone to bed alone.
This morning was no different. No kisses. No cuddles. She barely got a greeting out of him. And it didn’t help that his mom had called to tell him that Perry’s mother had been admitted into the hospital. Depression finally took its toll on her. His mother told him that Momma B was barely eating, not drinking any fluids and was rushed to hospital after she collapsed that morning.
That call pushed him over the edge. After that he became someone Jasmin didn’t recognize at all. She’d become accustomed to his moods, but he wasn’t just cold and distant. He was a zombie, eyes glazed over and emotionless, completely dead inside.
At that diner in Holbrook, when she’d first offered to take him to Florida, she’d envisioned that a trip to this state would be fun, but this was not fun. It was tense and loaded. The drive to Disney World wound him up even tighter and by the time they got out of the car, it looked like his nerves were frayed.
“You can leave me here,” he said curtly as they walked through the parking lot to the entrance of the park.
“Kevin, I can’t just leave you here.”
His jaw clenched and it looked like it took an insane amount of restraint for him to not snap at her. He said nothing, but quickened his pace and stayed a few steps ahead of her.
Once they were inside the park, he only became more anxious and aggravated. He didn’t seem to care about anything around him. The rides, the excited children, their favorite Disneycharacters who waved as they walked by. There was only one thing he was focused on. He was determined to find Ariel, and Jasmin assumed that it was something Perry had wanted.
After a forty-five minute trek through the park, they finally found her and it took another ten minutes before the kids around her dispersed. Kevin approached her as soon as she was alone.
“Hi.” His voice faltered just getting a two letter word out. “Can I take a picture of you?”
