Passionate Exchange

Chapter Thirty-Five

How many essays is considered the average amount to give a student in one day? If you're like me, you'll say the answer to this question is none. Personally, I think being forced to do school during the week is enough torture. So, can someone please tell me why my teachers have such different ideas to me that they think it's okay to give me four essays? Senior year is supposed to be the best time of your life. How am I supposed to have the best time of my life if I spend most of my time writing essays?

"What's up with you? You've been frowning the entire ride home." Penny drives down the road, glancing at me every so often.

I heave a sigh and slump into my seat. "How much homework did you get today?"

"Just a fill in the blanks task, why?"

"You've got to be kidding me," I hold my head in my hands as if I've just been told the worst news in the entire universe. "I got four essays. Four!"

She laughs at my display. "That's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" I stare at her amused face blankly. "That's easy for you to say, all you got is a five-minute task."

She flips her hair over her shoulder. "Not my fault all my teachers love me." She jokes.

"Yeah, yeah." I wave my hand in the air as we pull up outside the house.

She takes the keys out of the ignition and we climb out. The first thing I notice is the little silver car parked in front of us. Then, as we get closer, I can make out a girl sitting in the driver's seat and a boy leaning against the door. The boy's Archer and the girl is beautiful.

I push down the completely unnecessary jealousy that I'm starting to feel and glue my eyes to the floor, following Penny's black boots to guide me to safety. The last thing I need is to trip and fall in front of them.

I sneak a look which doesn't do anything to minimise my jealousy, it just adds wood to the fire. Is Archer the first boy that I've actually liked? Yes. Is he the first boy who likes me back? Yes. Is this the first time I've been jealous? Yes. Do I know how to deal with it? Absolutely not.

My body itches to go over to him but I know I shouldn't. Instead, my eyes zone in on his back, hoping that he'll feel me looking and turn around. My hopes are squashed when he doesn't move a single muscle. His gaze stays trained on hers. I can't help the disappointment that seeps into my chest.

I go into the house with a huff and shut the door behind me, trying to shut out the jealousy too but it still lingers with me. Great.

"I'm going to go change. These jeans are uncomfortable as hell." Penny climbs up the stairs.

I hum in response, unable to string a sentence together.

I kick my shoes off and sprawl out on the sofa. In all the movies I've seen, the woman gets jealous of the man when he's dancing with another woman, flirting with another woman, or both. So, someone please tell me why I feel this way when he's simply talking to a girl.

I turn the TV on to try and distract myself, but it doesn't work. All I can see is his smile as she laughed at something he said. I see her perfect blonde hair glowing in the sunlight shining through her window. What if he prefers blondes? I'm not a blonde. I see her flawless face that looks like it's never seen a pimple. She's achieved the perfect beach waves and we don't even live near a beach for heaven's sake! How is that possible?

My ears perk up when the door opens behind me. It's him, I know it's him. I refrain from turning around and instead try everything I can to not rip my eyes away from the cartoon playing on the screen.

He sits on the sofa next to me. I scoot away from him slightly. Don't look at him. He can't see that I'm jealous or I'll never live it down. Can you see jealousy on someone's face? If you couldn't before you definitely can now.

What feels like hours pass of us sitting in silence but, in reality, it's only a couple of minutes. My lip's starting to hurt from biting it so hard. The question that I'm dying to ask threatens to spill out and I do everything I can to hold it back.

"Why are we watching cartoons?" He asks plainly.

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. That's all it takes for my resolve to come crashing down. "Who were you talking to outside?" I blurt out.

Godamnit, Madison. Do you not have any control? I can hear the jealousy in my voice from a while away, there's no way that he didn't pick up on it. I pray to the Gods that he ignores it just this once.

A smirk is plastered on his face, telling me that my prayer didn't work. "Are you jealous?" He teases.

My eyes widen as my heart races. "No," I gulp.

His laughter rings in my ears. "Are you sure?"

I clutch the TV remote in my hand and turn the volume up so it's loud enough to drown out his smug voice. This doesn't go to plan when he snatches it out of my hand and mutes it before I can even process what he did.

I narrow my eyes at him. "Give me that back," I demand. He holds it higher so I can't reach it causing me to act impulsively. I throw myself on top of him, reaching for my saving grace that's resting in his hand, but my arms aren't long enough.

"Make me." He challenges.

His words bring me back to reality. I'm suddenly aware of our bodies pressed flush against each other. My heart thumps in my chest and there's no doubt that he can feel it too. I can feel his breath fanning my face from our proximity. If I moved closer ever so slightly our lips would touch. He notices this too as his brown eyes drop to my lips.

I hurriedly try to climb off of him, but his arms lock around my waist, holding me tight against him. I find myself staring into his eyes, unable to look away. The need that I felt to get off him has completely vanished, instead replaced by the need to be close. I find myself getting lost in his brown orbs. I want nothing more than to stay in this moment forever.

"Let me explain." He breathes. I can do nothing but agree with his every word.

"The girl I was talking to, her name's Maya," he starts. Why does her name sound so familiar? I didn't recognise her when I saw her. Wait, didn't Tyler say something about a Maya? Then it dawns on me.

"Maya's Tyler's sister," I mutter, blushing slightly at my stupidity.

I always thought I would be one of those girls who doesn't get jealous easily. Today has proved that I'm the exact opposite of that. It's not like he needs to reassure me about these things though. He admitted that he liked me, yes, but we haven't talked about what we are or anything. He's free to do whatever he wants. He said it himself, there's nothing to know. My eyes fall.

This time, when I try to climb off of him, he lets me. "You don't need to be jealous, especially not of her."

I can't help but thinks that there's a different meaning behind his words. You don't need to be jealous because there's no reason for you to be. I don't need to stay away from other girls, we're not together. I push the thought to the back of my head...he doesn't mean that.

"You're hot when you're jealous." He wiggles his eyebrows, and my cheeks turn a deep shade of red.

He lifts my chin, so my eyes meet his and kisses me. I let his lips distract me from all the worries and doubts I have. I tell myself over and over again he wouldn't have admitted that he couldn't stay away from me if he didn't actually like me.

But nothing lasts forever, and we pull away from each other at the sound of Penny coming down the stairs. I scoot away from him and pat my hair down furiously, hoping that it isn't obvious that I was just making out with her brother.

Archer rolls his eyes when she sits in the middle of us. If anything, I'm relieved that she did. If she didn't, he would have probably gone on to tease me about being jealous and I would have had to endure it and do my best to shut him up.

"Why's it so quiet?" She grabs the remote that fell onto the floor and turns the volume up on the TV.

We're back to how we started. Archer and I sat on the sofa in silence, our eyes on the screen. Except this time, I'm not trying to hide my jealousy from him, I'm trying to hide what I feel for him from Penny.