Don't Hurt Me

Chapter 19

It's been less than twenty-four hours since I went to Josh's apartment. Right now, I'm at school. It's lunchtime, but I'm hovering outside the school cafeteria, pacing nervously.

I'm not hungry. I just want to talk to Alex. But today's a Tuesday - that means it's a 'lunch with Adam' day. A couple of girls walk past me, chatting away among themselves. They push past the cafeteria doors, and I get a glimpse of a swelling school crowd packed between four walls. I catch sight of Alex at our usual table, Adam at her side.

To hell with it. This is urgent.

I make my way inside, hurrying over to their table with my head down.

"Clare, hey!" Alex greets me.

Adam smiles. "Sit down," he says.

"No, thanks. Sorry, but Alex, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure." She gets up, and I practically drag her into the hall.

"Clare, what's going on?"

I turn to face her. "I need to tell you something."

"What? What is it?"

"You remember how Erin kept bugging me about whether I talked to Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I went to his house yesterday."

"You ... what?"

"I went there, we were talking, and then he - he .... "

"What?" she asks, eyes wide and anxious.

The words are right there on my tongue, but they seem so absurd. Did that really happen? To me? It wasn't just one of my many daydreams about Josh? "He kissed me," I blurt out.

Alex blinks slowly at me. "He kissed you? He made the first move?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he did."

"What did you do?"

"I got scared and ran out of there."

"He didn't say anything?"

"No, but I didn't really give him a chance to."

"Clare," she says disapprovingly. "You shouldn't have gone over there."

"I-I know."

"Now, he's cheated on Erin."

"What should I do?"

"I think you should talk to him, ask him to figure out how feels about you and tell him to make a choice. He can't have you both."

"No. Of course not." I let out a heavy, tired sigh. Somehow, I have this really awful feeling that if I talk to Josh about this, he's going to end up saying something I don't want to hear. Something that will hurt. "But why do I have to be the one to go to him? He's the one who kissed me."

"You're as much at fault as he is for going over there. There's no reason why it shouldn't be you."

She makes it sound so easy. I don't know how I could possibly face Josh after what happened. Even before this happened, just being around him brought on feelings too intense, almost overwhelming.

The bell goes off then - a shrill scream in our ears.

"Damn it," Alex curses. "I need to go. Let me know how it goes?"

"Yeah, sure," I answer, watching her take off.

For the rest of the school day, I sit through classes in a blur.

I betrayed Erin. She wanted to me to talk to her boyfriend, and I ended up kissing him. No, wait, that's not right. He kissed me. What was he thinking? Why did he do that? What did he expect would happen?