Island.

Chapter 18

Eighteen.

There were drunk teens all over the place. They were dancing in front of the house, in the middle of the street. They were even in the water which only made me hope that no one drowned. We walked in towards the back, and I immediately saw Phoebe. I had to admit the girl, even if she was a bitch sometimes, was beautiful.

 Her tan skin was almost glowing under the lights. Her eyes connected with mine, for just a second. There was no emotion in them. Just a blank stare. I felt Keanu move apart from me. While he let his grip on my hand go, he nudged me to the side a little and turned to face me. He saw me tense up, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Relax. I’m going to talk to some of my cousins. Go over to Leia and Cady. I’ll come by later.” He gave me one of those half smiles and went off to the other side of the yard. I sucked in a breath, and slowly walked over to them. But in my head, I was a little angry that he just stalked off like that. I missed him this whole week. And the only night I had to spend with him, we were at this party.

“Hey guys,” I said rather glumly and took a drink off the table. Tonight was one of those nights, where I just didn’t care about what happened. I just wanted to go with the flow. They noticed my overjoyed expression, and a pair of Cheshire cat grins were before me in an instant.

“Okay, who’s the boy?” Cady was the one who asked.

Its so amazing that they always knew when I was upset about something. And she was dead on about the guy thing. I wanted to tell them everything. What was stopping me?

 Oh yeah, the boyfriend’s constant, nervous, glances at me, and his warning eyes, were the only things stopping me cold in my tracks.

They both waited patiently for my response. It was different tonight. Everything seemed off. I thought he wanted people to know we were together. He told me himself. But here he was acting like the biggest ass on the this beach, and the worst part was, he was completely ignoring me. Life hates me.

“Don’t make me beat it out of you. I don’t feel like getting blood on my clothes tonight.”
Cady said while smiling. These girls were too much. I swear.

“I know who it is” Leia practically sang. She gave me a mischievous grin.

 “If I tell you what I think, will you tell me if I’m right or not?” She sounded like an eager five year old.

“Okay, I’ll play along.” I laughed. Sometimes, all you needed was a friend to put a smile on your face, and everything felt just a little bit better. She came close to my ear and whispered in her sing-song voice

“Keanu!”.

A little stunned, I pulled back, and looked at her. How did she know? She took one look at me.

 “I knew it! Why didn’t you say anything?” She practically yelled at me.

I took a minute to get over the shock. She took that as a moment to fill Cady in, and then it hit me. They knew. This heavy pressure that seemed to be on my chest lately felt like it had been lifted. And I was grateful for the relief.

 I snuck a glance at Keanu, and gave him the look. The look that said, they know. And I was expecting a smile, or a look of relief. But I got a cold, angry glare that just made me want to die right where I was standing. I didn’t understand the mistake here.

What did I do?


After the small but very annoying conversation on the topic, the conversation sort of  died down. I felt like the night dragged on. The music was great. The food was great. Every damn thing was great. Except for me.

This feeling of ‘I screwed everything up’ was gnawing at me, and making me want to throw myself off a bridge. He hardly looked my way, and I was tempted to go over to him. But I held my ground. I was not about to just apologize for doing what he wanted.

That would be absurd.

The drinks kept increasing, and the dizzy feeling was just starting to creep up on me. But I wasn’t drunk, just a little buzzed. I watched as Sam sauntered over to us, practically tripping in his own footsteps to come over to Cady. He draped an arm around her shoulders and had this big ‘I’m too drunk to walk’ smile on his face.

“Hey guys, having fun?” His words were all slurred and his eyes were glazed over.

 “I know I’m having a damn good time.” Cady laughed and put her hand to his cheek.

“You’re so wasted. C’mon let me get you to your bed. I’ll be right back guys.” She said while leading him towards the house. They were obviously very open about their relationship, and couldn’t care less about what anyone thought. Why couldn’t Keanu learn from his cousin?

All of these thoughts were just making me flustered. I needed a few minutes for myself.

“I’ll be right back. I need to go to the bathroom.” Leia nodded and I left her by the table. I remembered Sam’s house from the other party. And I knew where the bathroom was. I had just barely made it up the steps, when I heard someone running up the stairs behind me. I turned around to see Keanu, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the end of the hall.

 The look on his face was cold, and blank.

 “Do they know?” he asked. It sounded more like a growl. I’ve never seen him this angry before. I nodded my head timidly, and averted my gaze.

He just looked at me, anger emanating off of him.

“I don’t understand, I thought you wanted this.” He stormed off, completely ignoring me and walked into another room. I wasn’t going to drop this until I found out what his problem was. I followed him into the room, shutting the door behind me.

“I’m sorry, I’m being a dick. But I realized that I didn’t want anyone knowing. It just seemed too soon.”

Something about the way he said this wasn’t right. It just didn’t make sense that he’d get so worked up over it, and just let it slide. I wasn’t that stupid to side step that. But I could feel the drinks starting to catch up to me, and I really wanted to let go of everything for the night. I decided to cut this argument short.

:What’s wrong Keanu?” Even my voice sounded tired. I sighed and closed the door behind me, shutting out the noise coming from outside. He sauntered towards me, his black eyes glinting in the low light of the room, making me shiver. I backed up against the door, as he came closer, using his hands to trap me between him and the door.

“I wanted you to myself just a little while longer.” His voice was low, and kept getting even lower as he dipped his head to kiss along my neck. My head was swimming but I knew I couldn’t let him distract me like this.

“Keanu, stop trying to act like this is okay.” I tell him, using my hands to push him away. I wasn’t going to be with him in secret. I had nothing to hide, and I wasn’t ashamed to be with him.

“Don’t you understand what they will think of you?” His anger seeped into his voice, and I knew I would have been scared. But I didn’t care.

“I really don’t care what people think of me, Keanu. It’s none of their business if I want to be with you. They could say what they want to.” I was beyond pissed. The people in this town made him like this. Afraid to be himself in front of them. Ashamed of who he was. He shouldn’t be afraid to be with someone.

I let my anger get the best of me, even though I knew it was irrational. But I didn’t want to fight with him.


“Look, I just cant deal with this right now. I’m going back out.” Halfway out of the doors,

I heard him call after me.

“Ava, wait” I didn’t turn around. I just needed to get out of here.

 Was I not enough for him? Was there someone else?

All these questions were brewing a storm inside of my head. I felt like I was hopelessly running around in circles. How were we going to ever move forward from this if Keanu wasn’t willing to take the biggest step yet?

I swallowed back my tears. I wasn’t going to let this get to me. It wasn’t worth it.

But why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?