A Broken Life

Chapter 6

I look into his eyes to see confusion, desperation, and a hint of pain. What does he mean? How would he know what I did that night? I shake my head no, confused.

"Elle, think. What exactly happened that night?" His voice sounds desperate, like his life depends on me remembering. I scrunch up my nose, and think. I try to clear up all of my blurry pictures.

"I love you."

"Elle, your drunk." He smiles and taps his red, plastic cup against mine. The alcohol slowly creeping into his body also.

Sure, I might be a little crazy right now. I'm also broken, unloved, dizzy, and extremely, extremely drunk. "And I love you."

I look into his beautiful green eyes, "You have always been there for me. When my parents left you stayed, when people at school made me feel like nothing you treated me like I was everything. I love you, I always have but I've been to afraid to tell you because I know you only see me as a sister." I giggle and stumble towards him, "And it'd be weird to date your sister." I giggle, placing my hands on Jackson's chest.

I look up at him and he sets his cup down, grabs my face and kisses me. Unlike Tommie's kiss sparks flew, and I could feel butterflies swarm my stomach. We brake apart, and he smiles at me.

"Come on." I grab his hand and we run up the stairs and into a room, like we're trying not to get caught. We hide in a room and just stand there and laugh. The humming of the music blares from down stairs, and we dance to the beat. We practically imitate our sugar high party, but this time we're aren't high on sugar, we're drunk on the poison of alcohol and the blindness of young love.

I twirled my way into the bathroom connected to the room we're in. I start searching the drawers, and squeal when I find something. I run back to Jackson, and spray the blue spray in his hair. He looks at me dazed and confused, and tries to see what I did with his hair.

"This stripe is my style, my signature look. One of a kind ya know." I try to make my best impression of Tommie, and fail miserably. Jackson just looks at me and laughs. We continue to dance for what seems like hours until...

"We danced until..." I try to think but can't remember what happened next.

"You fell." Jackson smiles remembering the moment perfectly.

"I fell?" Wow.... I fell.

Jackson laughs as I sit there on my butt. I laugh, and he picks me up and sets me on the bed. Once I'm placed securely on the bed his gaze falls to my lips. He moves in closer, looks into my eyes one more time, then sparks fly once again.

It dawns on me, "It was you. I wasn't Tommie, it was you." I look at him and he hesitantly smiles at me. "Oh god, I woke up and saw the blue, I thought-" I look at him and hug him, "I'm glad it was you," I stop and pull away. I can't believe I said that out loud. He was probably just as drunk as I was. He probably doesn't even see me that way. Gah, why am I so dumb.

I stare at the floor, and the tension of awkward silence fills my living room. "Hey Elle."

"Hm?"

"I know you were drunk and all... but... uh," He rubs the back of his neck nervously, "did you mean it? When you said you loved me? Because I was kinda hoping you meant it."

I look at him and my heart races. Did he just say that? He looks at me desperately waiting for a response. My palms start to sweat, and my stomach turns. As I'm about to say something, I realize this feeling isn't love; this feeling is my stomach ready to hurl.

"Shoot!" I run upstairs to my bathroom, and barely make it to the toilet on time. I sit there, and disgorge everything in my stomach. I feel a hand hold my hair back, and another hand rubs soothing circles on my back.

I finally finish my embarrassing puke fest, and stand up to go rinse out my mouth. I wipe my mouth clean, and see Jackson's worried face.

"You okay Elle? What was that about?" Hesitation fills me as my breath gets caught in my throught. Should I tell him? He has a right to know. If I keep this from him, things might get ugly down the road, but if I tell him now I could be ruining his whole life.

I look at his face, and he rubs my arms to comfort me. "Yeah, I'm fine."