Against all Sanity

~16~

Okay here's the next chapter. i hope you like it don't forget to show your support, i'll love you forever!

The funny thing is that whenever there's something you are not looking forward to, said event comes around far too quickly. That was how I felt right now as I carefully maneuvered my car into the parking lot of the school.

I had dreaded for Monday to come around, begged and prayed that some kind of higher power – whether it was God or Allah or some kind of green alien that watched over us – would just skip Monday this week, just magically make it disappear. Obviously I knew that that still meant that I would have Tuesday to worry about, but I would worry about that as it came. Maybe they could just erase an entire week? And the week after that?

But no matter how much I begged and pleaded and prayed that something – anything – would happen so that I wouldn't have to get my sorry ass out of bed this morning and face everyone at school like nothing happened, because it had, and I had come to a realization.

The cloudy, rainy Saturday afternoon I had spent on the couch with my favorite Ben & Jerry's and some romantic comedy, that I for the life of me couldn't remember the name of and it was actually pretty annoying, and while the main character, a lonely single woman living in a worn down New York flat, was screwing the undoubtedly handsome and sexy plumber I had realized that I lusted after that.

Not screwing my plumber, but having sex with someone I lusted after. Someone like Landon.

After realizing that I lusted after Landon I had spent the better part of the night and all of Sunday wallowing in my own self-pity. Don't get me wrong the guy was still the biggest jerk to ever walk on earth and I still absolutely loathed him. I don't want to be in a relationship with him, hell I don't even want to be seen with him in brought daylight. But hating someone didn't mean that I couldn't non-obligatory fun with them, right?

I would like to think that think this made me cheap, then I could at least feel bad about it. But Anya was right, there was nothing wrong with wanting to be with a person intimately that way without obligation, and despite what some people may think I didn't make you a slut. A slut was someone who slept for money, not someone who was with a guy they lusted after, not matter how many guys that might be.

And I know I don't have the most sexual experience. The first time was awkward and weird and just plain uncomfortable, and for the longest time I hadn't wanted a re-try. But now I did, so what was stopping me? Landon and I had already crossed the line from massive enemies to... what? Acquaintances? A little less enemies? I had no idea, but apart from the fact that I had no idea where we stood nothing was stopping me. Maybe the fact that nothing was stopping me was so scary that it was, in fact, stopping me.

Because that last thought was a little too complicated for me to handle on a Monday morning, where I had been so late that I hadn't even had time to eat breakfast and my mom would force an apple in my bag on my way out of the door, I quickly got out of the car before I could talk myself out of it.

I had always loved the routines of the daily school life. I would go to school with my head held high and my confidence on top, and I would go to my classes and be with my friends and have fun, well as much fun as you can have in school. But my confidence was crumbling and with every day I spent walking down these halls, I felt less and less like it was my place. Whereas the confidence was real before it was now fake, and it was all because of him. I didn't like that he had the power to do that to me, to strip me from all confidence and make me fear rejection from people I didn't even know. Hell, I didn't even know what he had done!