Winning Skylinn

23

"Skylinn!"

At the sound of my name, I turned, hoping it was Jonny. I'd been looking for him everywhere!

"Oh thank God! Where were you?" I ran up to him and gave him a hug. I don't know why I was so worried.

"I-" He paused, his face scrunching up in what looked like pain. "I can't talk about it here. Can we please leave?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" We hurried out to my car, and I noticed that Jonny seemed a little woozy. "Is everything okay?" I asked him as we drove through the neighborhood.

He took a deep breath before he burst into tears.

"Jonny? Jonny, what's wrong?"

He just kept crying. He wouldn't look at me.

Once we were out of the neighborhood, I pulled over on the side of the road. We needed to talk.

"Jonny, what happened back there?" I asked.

"I-I..."

Wanting to stop his shaky sobs, I reached out and touched his shoulder. "Jonny, it's okay. You can tell-"

"How can you even do this?" he interrupted.

"D-do what?"

"Touch me. Comfort me. I'm a terrible person. I don't deserve to be your friend."

"What are you talking about?"

He paused, trying to collect himself. It wasn't working. "I-I drank tonight."

"Seriously?!" I hadn't meant to scream.

He stared into my eyes, his lips chapped from being bitten, and the expression on his face broke me.

"How could you do that?!" Jonny had always swore he wouldn't drink a day in his life. So why tonight? What happened?

"Skylinn, please don't be mad. I couldn't take it if you were mad at me."

"I-I'm not mad. I just can't believe, after all this time-"

"I know. And I feel awful." His voice had calmed down enough for him to speak clearly, but he was still shaking a bit.

"Why did you drink? What caused you-"

"Shellbee."

"Shellbee? As in...?"

"Yes."

"She was there?" I hadn't known that.

"Mmhmm." He bit his lip.

"You're gonna have to stop doing that, our your lip's gonna fall off one day," I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Can you please not do that right now?" he snapped.

Whoa. Where was this coming from? Jonny never yelled at me. Something was clearly wrong with him tonight.

"I-I'm sorry. I'll, uh, let you finish."

He took another deep breath, still looking pained. "We, um."

"Kissed?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"Yeah."

"You did WHAT?!"

"No, no, we didn't! But...we almost did."

I brought my hands to my eyes, shaking my head. This couldn't be true. Not Jonny. Not him. Out of all people, it couldn't be my best friend.

"Jonny, how, why?"

"I don't know! I wasn't even expecting her to be there, and then she was, and she was drunk, and she was flirting with me, and she kissed me, and...and it just kinda went from there," he explained in a rush.

"But...nothing happened?"

He looked away, but I could see the tear rolling down his cheek.

"You said nothing happened."

"And it didn't. But I was so tempted. I was lost in the moment, and I had no idea what I was doing, or what was going on. And I let things get way too far with a girl that I don't even love. I-I'm so ashamed." He started crying all over again.

I didn't know what to say. So I looked at the clock. It was exactly 12:01.

"Hey," I whispered into the darkness. "It's gonna be okay." I leaned over and kissed his cheek as softly as possible.

His eyelashes fluttered at my touch, and he looked at the clock. "Oh. Happy New Year, I guess."

"See, now what happened is in the past. It was all the way last year." I gave him a wink.

He sniffled, but he was smiling. "Really, you're going with that joke?"

"All I'm saying is, that wasn't you. You weren't yourself in that moment. And I'm proud of you, for saying no. For leaving before things got carried away. I love you, okay?"

It was something I'd only told him maybe three times in my life, the first being when he got me Taylor Swift concert tickets for Christmas a few years ago.

"You know you were my first New Years kiss?" he replied, quietly.

"What, just now?"

"Yeah."

"That was barely a kiss."

"Are you saying you could do better?"

It sounded like a challenge. I couldn't explain the feeling in my chest, but my heart was pounding so fast I thought it would explode.

Finally, he broke the silence. "We should get home."

"Yeah. We should."

I pulled back onto the highway and drove home. My heart wouldn't slow down, but I told myself it was just because it was New Years. I wouldn't allow myself to go there.

"Oh, you wanna know what else is crazy?" I said into the darkness.

"What?" Jonny answered.

"Leo tried to kiss me tonight."

"What?!" He yelled so loud I slammed on the brakes.

I heard a loud car horn, and then CRASH! And everything went black...