“Why do you think you would complicate things?” I interrupted. I could feel the lump forming in my throat and I desperately tried to keep myself from crying. Dealing with rejection wasn’t something I had ever had to deal with, and boy did it suck ass.
“Because I know me,” he said truthfully. “I’m not boyfriend material, Scarlett. That’s just not who I am right now. I would end up hurting you or holding you back, and I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I did either of those things to you. I meant the things I said to you last night, more than you can ever know. You are, by far, the most incredible person I have ever met and I haven’t even known you 24 hours. I can’t even put into words how in awe I am of you.”
He continued, “I would love to say ‘Let’s be friends,’ but if I’m being completely honest, I know that there’s no way that I can be around you and not want to touch you… to hold you… to keep you as mine. And that’s not fair to either of us.”
Not knowing what to say, I just nodded my head and buried my face back into his chest. I truly believed that Ash thought he was doing the best thing for me because he sincerely wanted me to be happy. I felt silly for crying over someone I had known less than a day, I mean how emotionally attached could I have been? But the hurt was there nonetheless.
Drawing away from his chest, I looked into his eyes. He tenderly caressed my face and then cupped the back of my head and pulled my mouth to his. For one last time, we succumbed to the undeniable magnetism between the two of us. My first goodbye kiss was bittersweet in every sense of the word ~ a moment in time I would never ever forget.
“Goodbye, my sweet butterfly,” he whispered into my hair as he held me in a final embrace.
Chapter 5
When I finally left Ash’s room, I found Evie in the living room curled up on the couch, engrossed in her e-reader. She looked up as I walked in the room and cocked her eyebrows at me inquisitively.
“Well, I would say ‘good morning, sunshine’ except that it’s almost time for dinner and you would get all pissy about the ‘sunshine’ thing,” she said, clearly not happy with me. I shook my head at her and gave her the “please-not-now” look.
“Where’s Jess?” I asked hoping to redirect her thoughts. “What are you reading?”
“Jess is at work and I’m reading Taking Chances; I’m at 38% and it’s getting really good. You should read it, I think you’ll really be able to relate to this one,” she said with apparent irritation in her tone.
I ignored her attempted dig, I wasn’t even sure what she was referencing. “I was going to start that one this weekend, I saw that it got really good reviews. Why do you say that I’ll be able to relate?”
“Oh you’ll see,” she smirked as she stood up and stretched her petite body, uncoiling it as if she hadn’t moved for hours. “Come on, get your stuff, I’m ready to go back to our place.”
After I collected my things from Jess’ room, we jumped in Evie’s car and headed the short distance back to our place. The first few minutes we didn’t say a word to one another. I wasn’t sure why she was so pissed off at me to be quite honest, and of all times in my life, I really needed her support at that moment. I was an emotional basket case.
Evie broke the silence. “So are you going to tell me what happened last night, or are you just going to let me assume the worst?”
“I… I… I don’t know what happened. I’m a mess.” I said putting my face in my hands and shaking my head.
“Oh-kay. Well, let me start the story for you, tell you the parts that I know, then you can finish it and correct me if I’m wrong,” she offered.
Without waiting for a response from me she began recapping the events of the night before. “Last night, we went to Jess’ house where we met her roommates Meg and Ash. You and Ash eye-fucked each other up until the point we got to the party, which is where you and I discussed you not getting involved with him. You then met and made out with Dylan, a hottie that seemed like a pretty nice guy, that was clearly into you and only you. Meanwhile there was Ash, who had not just one, but two whore bags that hung all over him and suck faced with him all night. Everything seemed to be going great up until the point you and Ash decided to make the jam session a contest on whose song’s lyrics could piss the other off more.”
I raised my eyebrows at her last comment and she looked over at me in the passenger seat and laughed, “Yeah, I picked up on it pretty quickly. I thought “You’re So Vain” was a nice touch, totally unexpected but completely appropriate.
“Anyways, so we left the party, you and Dylan seemed to part on good terms, and you and Ash didn’t say another word to one another. Right after we got back to the house, you, me, and Jess got ready for bed and went to sleep,” she continued. “Now this is where it gets a little sketchy for me because the next thing I remember is waking up at 11:00 this morning in an empty bed. Jess was in the shower getting ready for work and you were nowhere to be found. I checked in the living room, thinking maybe you had gotten uncomfortable with all of us in the bed, and moved to the couch… but noooo. I looked in the kitchen, the bathroom, even Meg’s room, but you weren’t in any of those places. I knew you couldn’t have gone far since your purse and phone were on the kitchen counter, but after about thirty minutes I started doubting my ‘she-went-for-a-walk’ theory. Before I went into complete freak out mode, Jess convinced me to let her peek into Ash’s room just to make sure you weren’t in there, which of course, I knew you wouldn’t be…
“So you can imagine my surprise when she told me that you were cozily sleeping, wrapped in Ash’s arms.” She pulled her car into the parking space at our place but neither of us moved. “What the fuck, Sam? The one thing I had told myself last night was that I wasn’t going to let you sleep with anyone. I know that you feel inexperienced compared to everyone else, I know that you feel like you need to hurry up and do everything, but there are other virgins in college. I didn’t want it to happen your first night out… not like that… not with someone like him!” She was yelling at me at this point while pounding her fists on the steering wheel.
“Evie, wait,” I cut her off mid-rant. “I didn’t have sex with Ash.”
“You didn’t?” she asked, confusion covering her face.
“Uh. No. Give me a little credit, My God, E. I mean, I do have a little self-respect.” I said. I tried to lighten the conversation, “I may be a little desperate and over-eager but I’m at least going to require a good dinner before I spread my legs for someone and I would prefer that he hadn’t been with someone else in the previous 24 hours, neither of which Ash fulfilled.”
Evie’s shoulders dropped as she exhaled a huge sigh. “Oh, thank God. Do you have any idea of the guilt I’ve been living with for the past few hours? Thinking that I had failed in my best friend responsibilities? I mean I went to the point of getting in bed with you at 3:00 in the morning, thinking we were all going to sleep… only to find you in the bed of some self-proclaimed man-whore the next day!” her voice escalated again. “If you didn’t fuck him, what did you do? What happened exactly?”
“Can we please go to our room to finish this conversation?” I asked, hoping a break from talking and the fresh air would calm her down a bit. She nodded and we grabbed our bags and headed upstairs.
As soon as the door closed, Evie turned to me and grabbed me in a tight hug. “I’m sorry I was upset with you. I’m sorry I assumed that you would do that. I know you are upset right now, so tell me what happened. Tell me everything and we will work through this.”
This was why I loved Evie. She was the best thing in my life, and I knew that she would always give me advice that was in my best interest. She was my life-cheerleader. Evie had saved my sanity on more than one occasion and I couldn’t live without her.
I gave her the full rundown of what had happened, beginning with the nickname conversation in the kitchen to the most explosive, soul-capturing kiss in the history of the world to sleeping in cloud nine to being given the pink slip in the morning.
“So this afternoon when we woke up, it was like waking up in heaven, Evie. Our arms and legs were tangled together, his masculine scent all around me, I could feel his erection on my back… it was seriously like a scene from one of our books. I was afraid to move, afraid to break the moment. And as most things that seem too good to be true, it was.”
When we woke up, Ash told me that we couldn’t see each other or anything, that last night was it. He acknowledged that there was some unexplainable fascination between the two of us, different from just a physical attraction, but I needed this time of, oh what did he call it? Oh, my time of changing from a girl to a woman, or some bull shit. He said that I was better without him and that he would just hurt me or hold me back. So basically he was letting me go because it was the best thing for me. And then he called me his butterfly, his Psyche… whatever the hell he meant by that. Honestly, I was too caught up in the fantasy of the whole thing, I didn’t want to ruin it by asking. It was like my one little night of fairy-tale.”