Nearly Euphoric {Nate Jacobs}

Chapter 20

When I opened the door I was met with a pair of sad, tired-looking eyes. Nate immediately noticed my bruised neck.

"God, I'm so sorry Brina," Nate sighed. I open the door wider and motion for him to come in.

"I need to talk to you," I say. "I think my dance teacher knows something's up."

"How?" he asks.

My nerves get the best of me and I start to ramble. "Well, at class today she saw my neck, and then I passed out 'cause I wasn't eating since I was all stressed out about everything. And then she asked me what happened so, obviously, I lied and told her I did it to myself. But she didn't believe me and she kept telling me just to tell her what happened. But I didn't because I don't want to get you in trouble. I think she might tell someone though, like the school or something. I'm not sure who she would tell, but I wouldn't put it past her to say something because she told my parents about my eating disorder before. So I'm sure that if she thought something was wrong she would tell somebody. I just don't want you to get in trouble or anything because I know you didn't mean to hurt me. Although, it still makes me mad that you did that. But I don't think you deserve to go to jail for it. Oh my God!! Would you actually go to jail for that?! No, probably not since you're a minor--"

"Sabrina! Calm the fuck down," Nate interrupts. "It'll be fine," he says trying to calm my nerves. He hugs me and I just start crying. I swear I've never cried so much in my entire life as I have in the past month.

"I'm not mad at you. My dad has connections so I'm sure that even if I would get in trouble, they would go easy on me," he says.

After a few more minutes of me bawling my eyes out, I sit up and wipe away my tears.

"So... are we going to talk about the part where you said you have an eating disorder?" Nate says. Oh shit! I didn't even realize what I was saying.

"Oh... yeah. I used to have a little bit of a problem with that, but I'm fine now," I lie.

"Really? Because you just told me you weren't eating and that's why you passed out," he points out.

"Well, that was just from stress, not because of my eating disorder," I say. Nate looks at me skeptically.

"Trust me, I'm fine. That's the last thing you need to be worrying about right now," I say.

"Sabrina, I'm always going to worry about you," he says looking at me with love in his eyes. How can he be such a monster one second and so sweet another? And then I wonder why I keep going back to him. It just makes me think about how I always used to judge Maddy for putting up with all of his bullshit, but now I'm doing the same exact thing. I wonder if he ever hurt her too and I didn't even know. I was supposed to be her friend, and I might have let her go through that all alone.

"Sabrina?" Nate says snapping me out of my daze. "Hmm?"

"I asked if you wanted me to go," he says.

"Oh...umm, no you're fine. You can stay the night if you want," I say hoping he will say yes.

"Yeah sure, let me go get my phone out of my truck though. I think I left it in there," he says getting up.Once he closes the front door I sprint upstairs to my room and make sure that it's clean and doesn't have anything embarrassing in it. I never had a boy in my room before. I clean off all my textbooks, notebooks, and binders from my desk and put them in my closet. I studied all last night for my calculus exam I have tomorrow. Then I pick up the pillows on the floor and lay them out back on my bed. I run back downstairs and get there right as Nate comes back in the house.

"Were you just running a marathon?" he asks referring to my being out of breath.

"Oh, no I was just... going to the bathroom," I say.

"Oh," he says still confused.

"We can go up to my room," I say. I lead him up to my bedroom anxiously. What if he sees something embarrassing? Or what if it smells bad and I just don't realize because I live here? I'm being ridiculous. I'm literally a neat freak and I clean every weekend... what am I so worried about?

Once we get into my room, I sit down on my bed as he stands and looks around. It feels like I'm a real estate agent watching him look around to see if he likes the house I'm selling him. I wait for him to say something but he just walks over to my book shelf and looks at all the books I have.

"Do you read a lot," he asks.

"Yeah, I've already read most of those books. I just can't bring myself to get rid of books once I've read them," I say. He just nods and walks over to my snow globe collection that I've had since I was a little girl. I used to get one on every vacation, but now that I'm older my parents don't even take me with them on trips anymore.

I can't stand watching him look around my room like this any longer. "So, what do you want to do?" I ask.

"What do I want to do?" he repeats, as if he's confused by the question.

"Yeah, like what did you Maddy do when you would hang out?" I ask.

He raises his eyebrow, "Do you really want to know the answer to that?" I realize that was a stupid question now that I said it out loud.

"Probably not," I mumble.

Nate can tell I look slightly upset now. He comes over and sits beside me on my bed. I sit there and twiddle my thumbs.

"Don't worry so much about what me and Maddy did. We had a very different relationship... which is probably why it always ended so badly between us. I'm with you now for a reason. Why don't we just watch a movie?" he suggests.

"Okay," I say, cracking a smile. "What should we watch?" I ask.

"What's your favorite movie?" he asks.

"Black Swan," I answer.

"Okay, then let's watch that," Nate says. I smile.

I turn on my tv and play "Black Swan." At first I just kind of sit there on my bed, but Nate wraps his arm around me and pulls me into him. I cuddle up to him and lay my head on his chest. For a moment I forget about all the hell he's put me through and just enjoy the evening with him. We both fall asleep before the movie is over.

**Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Sorry about the slow updates. I hope to wrap up season one pretty soon though! :)