A Hotter Touch, A Better F... Than Any Girl You'll Ever Meet

Chapter 22

It's funny how words can make your world crumble. Those two sent mine spinning out of control. Everything had been looking up. I'd been so fucking happy, I'd been with Bren. Now... Now I didn't know anything anymore. Everything was fucked up.

My legs seemed to have lost all strength and I was grateful I was right next to the couch, because it was that I fell into rather than the floor. My hand went to the coffee table, shaking, reaching for the cigarette pack Spencer had left on the table. Quitting be damned, my mind was a mess again.

I opened the pack, only to find it empty. I groaned in frustration and tossed the useless carton across the room before slumping back in the couch.

I looked up at June again.

She looked like she was close to a breakdown, tears running freely down her cheeks as she stared at me helplessly.

But what was I supposed to do? I was just as helpless. It was all I could do not to say something stupid like 'shit' or 'fuck' out loud, but I managed to keep it in, not wanting to make her feel any worse than she already was.

I'm sure she could see it in my eyes, though, could see all the curses and obscenities I wanted to utter but didn't. All the desperate emotions I didn't know how to express.

Why the hell couldn't Spencer have left just a single cig? I knew I hadn't smoked in nearly a month, not even with the being-called-a-girl incident. But now I needed one, needed it badly.

I could've laughed at my previous anger towards Brendon, at any of the stupid conflicts we'd had. They seemed so minor now, so insignificant. I guess it takes something completely life-altering to forget the petty little problems and appreciate what you'd had.

"What the hell do you want me to do?" I asked exasperatedly, feeling clueless and helpless beyond anything I'd ever felt before. I threw up my arms in a surrendering motion. "Marry you?"

The fact that she didn't answer for a while worried me to no end, made me suddenly realise what I'd just more or less offered. And I felt like such an asshole. I may not have even touched her while I was with Brendon, but I was still cheating in every other sense of the word. The one thing I'd promised him I'd never do. Back to hating myself again. How many damn lives was I going to ruin?

"No," she finally answered. "It was nice of you, but you're honestly not who I thought you'd be." She shook her head slightly. "If you'd been, we'd never have ended up in this fix. We might still have slept with each other, but you'd at least have been decent enough to stay so sober you could still have worked a condom."

Alright, so now it was all my fault? Well, that had kind of been my conclusion already, but I had seriously expected her to take at least a part of the blame. No such luck, though. And that pissed me off. "It goes two ways," I hissed. "You were just as irresponsible as I. I didn't neccesarily have to be the one in charge of protection."

A hurt look flew over her face and once again the resemblance between her and Brendon stunned me. The expression mirrored the one I'd seen too many times on my boyfriend so perfectly that I couldn't stay mad at her.

I sighed, shaking my head lightly as I placed it exasperatedly in my hands. "Fighting won't get us anywhere," I muttered before looking up to meet her eyes again. "Do you have any plan at all?"

She shrugged slightly. "My family... they're kind of strict. My cousin was pretty much disowned by my uncle and the rest of the family when they found out he was gay. Being an unwed teenage mother is nearly as bad." She took a deep breath. "But I can be forgiven, or at least tolerated, if I just make it go away." She paused, looking at me expectantly.