Iced Out

25

I ditched school later that week. I couldn't handle it. I walked through the rest of the week like I was not even there. Nora's friend, Rory asked me to help with the dance committee. Setting up, decorating. But as soon as I walked in and saw the large photo of Nora, I had to leave.

"What is that?" I asked out loud, Arden by my side. "It's a memorial for Nora. We're going to put it up at the dance and nominate her for Snow Queen." Rory said coming up to me with a clipboard in her hand. It was the same photo they used at her funeral and I felt my stomach turn. As much as Mom said I needed the closure with the funeral, her beaten in face was all I could still see.

Rory was handing me things but I couldn't barely hear her. My face would be next. Right up there with Nora's. "And since you're here, you can help put up the streamers. You're tall enough." Rory said smiling at Arden. It was flirty and it didn't feel like I'd spew my lunch at this moment, I would have cared. I shook my head and shoved back the supplies into her hands.

"I'm sorry. I don't feel so good." I walked straight out of the gym, Arden on my heels. "Are you okay?" He asked. I nodded swallowing the bile. "Yeah. Let's go somewhere?" Arden nodded. We went to the look out spot where we had been before. Arden rolled down the window and lit up a cigarette. It felt like a weird sense of dejavu wash over me except this time, I took my own cigarette.

Arden removed it from my lips and and lit it. He handed it back. "Do you wanna talk about it?" He asked. I shook my head as inhaled.

"Where do you think we go when we die?" I asked. Arden jerked back at the question. "Uh..I don't know. I always liked to think Quinn went to a place where harm wasn't a thing. Like a utopia." I nodded and blew out the smoke from the cigarette. A buzz washed over me. "So you don't believe in heaven?" Arden tilted his head towards me. His eyes meeting mine.

"I believe in heaven on earth." I laughed. "Meaning what?" Arden leaned over and set his cigarette on the ash tray. "Meaning. You are heaven on earth." We pressed our lips together and I tossed my cigarette out the window. My heart raced as we deepened the kiss. He wrapped his hands around my neck pulling me closure. I couldn't control myself. I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled across the console. I straddled his hips and he pulled me in.

Our lips moved together and I slid my hands over his chest. "Fuck." He mumbled under his breath. I pulled my hands from his chest and placed them behind his neck. I spent so much time worried about how this would go, I didn't stop to think how great it would be. I felt like I was on top of the world as his hands slid across my back and up to my head. He pulled my head back by my hair, breaking the kiss. He pressed his lips to my jaw and then my neck. I was breathing loudly.

I wanted to move further. It was about to be all over for me anyways. I wanted to show Arden how much I truly loved him. How much I cared for him. He had to know it before i was gone. If the faceless man was going to do to me exactly what I thought, I wanted Arden to be my first.

I started unbuckled his belt as we kissed. I felt his hands move down hoping he would touch me, he instead pulled away from the kiss and stopped my hands. "Whoa. Spencer." He whispered breathing heavily. I looked up at him with wide eyes. "What? I thought-" He wasn't. He wasn't thinking that at all. My cheeks flushed red and got off his lap, falling back into my seat. I pressed my hands into my face.

"I'm so sorry." I said shaking my head. "I just thought we could.." Arden sighed and wrapped his arm around me. "I told you we don't have to do anything you don't want to Spencer. We can move slow." What he didn't understand was I didnt have slow. But how could I tell him that? I hadn't even told him about the police stopping by.

"But what if I do want to?" I asked. Arden didn't believe me. I could tell by the look he was giving me. "Are you okay? You've been acting off this week." Oh good. So he had noticed. I was trying so hard to be normal but it felt like I was on autopilot. No one got to decided when they died but I did. I was actively choosing this. And nobody knew that except me and the faceless man.