If It Were Me

This Is A Loneliness I Have Come To Love

“Grant would be pissed at me if he found out I was doing this,” I exclaimed, twiddling my thumbs. Parker raised a sardonic brow at me, his translucent skin glowing in the coming storm. He grinned. 

“I didn’t realize he already had such control over you,” Parker’s lips twitched as he looked back at the wheel, “he moves fast,” he murmured.

A nagging feeling prodded at my chest, but I pushed it away. Grant wasn’t moving at any rate or direction near me.

“He doesn’t have control over me. I just respect people’s privacy,” I jeered haughtily, my fingers itching to pick at my sleeves. Parker turned his gaze to me and winked. I tried to pull away from the sudden tingling sensation in my arms, the yank in my hips. It was already bad enough to lust after Grant, no need to add another bad boy into it.

“How noble of you,” Parker mused and my cheeks became a flamed partly from annoyance and embarrassment. He probably thinks I’m old fashioned, with my too large clothes and pulled back hair. I frowned. Once again, I’m a disgrace to the aesthetics of the female race. Shaking my head, I moved on to the act of treason I was about to commit.

“Okay, first question: what are you to Grant?” I asked, tugging on strand of hair.

Parker pursed his lips, thinking. I played with the frayed ends of my sleeve, waiting for his reaction. The nagging feeling returned stronger than before, roaring in my ears. I shoved it down harder, trying to forget the fact that what I was doing was morally, ethically, and ridiculously awful. I was 99.9% positive that I was going to hell for this.

“Grant and I have been friends for a long time. Our dads worked for the same corporation, so it was only natural for us to become friends,” Parker said, his languid smile sitting peacefully on his countenance. I bit my lip softly. Something so wrong should never feel this good. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

“Then why hasn’t he mentioned you?” I countered, pulling my legs up to my chest. Parker shot me a warning glare and I took my feet off the leather seat. Whoops.

“Well, my dove, if you haven’t noticed,” Parker made a left hand turn, ignoring the livid swearing of another driver, “Grant prefers to be on the secretive side. He’s too considerate to ever let someone actually know him.”

“Too considerate?” I raised an eyebrow. Excitement bounded inside me like a pinball machine, hitting my stomach before going straight through my heart. Parker nodded.

“Grant didn’t get the easy road in life, which is often a misconstrued assumption.” He glanced quickly at me as he said this. I felt my face flush at my earlier observations of Grant- rich, good looking, probably spoiled. Was I really so transparent?

Parker continued as if I had said or done nothing, a courtesy to me. “You become a good friend to him, someone he cares about and he’ll shove hard. I’m sure he’s done it to you plenty of times.”

He looked at me again, differently this time, and I realized maybe he knows more about what’s going on between Grant and I than I do. I reminisced on all the times Grant blocked me out: at the mall, picking me up every morning, when he cried and completely ignored me after… I felt my throat close up at the obvious signals that Grant had been practically blaring in my face. When did I become so selfish?

I cleared my throat, my mind now jumbled. “What, uhm, happened to his father?” At this, Parker became quiet, his eyes now focused on something beyond the road.

“Shooting big, are we?” he teased, but I could tell his heart wasn’t into it. My mouth wouldn’t open or respond to him. I couldn’t say anything except blink back all the guilt that was now trying to swallow me whole. Parker seemed to sense my distress because he raised a hand. His fingertips brushed my cheek all the way to the hollow of my collar bone; he smiled when I shivered.