Aftertaste [COMPLETED]

Chapter 9 :: Happy Slapsgiving!

My ghost, where'd you go? I can't find you in the body sleeping next to me. My ghost, where'd you go? What happened to the soul that you used to be?

~ Halsey
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BERLIN'S P.O.V.

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JAMES LET OUT a low hiss as I wrapped his swollen foot in athletic tape. He bent his knee so that he was pulling his heel upward and away from my hands. I slumped my shoulders and smirked at his uncooperative behaviour. "James, I know that it hurts but I need to wrap your foot to keep the swelling down. Then you can ice it in the car on the way back to the university." James grunted with a frown, but nodded his head in agreement.

I held his swelling foot tenderly in my lap, holding it between my fingers with one hand, and wrapping it gingerly with the other, careful not to aggravate his already throbbing heel. I then recounted how he had gotten hurt in the first place. "You always have to be the hero," I muttered under my breath, more to myself than to James.

"What?" He had heard me anyway.

I let out a sigh."If you would've made that pass like you were supposed to instead of going for the goal, we wouldn't be sitting here right now."

He squinted his eyes a bit and cocked his head slightly to one side as if to say, Excuse me? What was that I just heard you say? He said,"You do realise that there were five seconds left? If I had gone for that pass instead of taking a chance on shooting that goal, we would've lost. I scored the winning goal. I guaranteed us a spot at nationals."

I shook my head in disappointment, he was misunderstanding my point. "There's no I in team, James," I said in exasperation as I rose to my feet. "Not yet, anyways. But watch me find it." I threw James a look from over my shoulder only to find him throwing one right back to me: a smug cocky sort of look that asserted his dominance. I didn't like the person he was turning into. I just wanted my boyfriend back. Where was the boy I had kissed so passionately on the steps of the frat house that night? The guy with the easy going demeanour that I saw myself falling for? Where was my prince charming?

It dawned on me just then that maybe my prince charming was on the steps with me that night, it just wasn't James.

With a sigh I opened the freezer door the cool air enveloped my face. I closed my eyes and suddenly I was back on the steps again that night in the bitter cold. And so was James. And so was Logan. The memory played through my mind in quick flashbacks.

The boy on the steps. The liquor. The warm feeling and the burning at the back of my throat. The kiss that had sealed my fate. Logan. Logan. Had he attempted to act as the rewind button that night? To save me from a horrible destiny? Or had he sensed something coming that I had yet to foresee? Was he trying to save me from James that night? Or was it from myself? My own reckless behaviour that had always proved to have dangerous repercussions? Perhaps it was both, I mused.

Once I had retrieved the frost-bitten ice pack from the way back of the freezer, I closed the door, and my heart nearly leaped into my throat when I saw James standing there, motionless and expressionless. His cool blue eyes locked with my frantic and startled ones.