My Desert Haven (BOYXBOY)

Chapter 20

My hands were torn up and dry, I was exhausted, but the patio looked nice. I guess. There was much more to putting it together than I thought there would be, but Tom seemed pleased with the end product. No one stuck around to see if his wife would be, too. Except Seth, I noticed. He didn’t leave when everyone else did. This made Dave paranoid, and as we headed home he made Luke reassure him some more. Luke did, but he also mentioned that Angela’s next boyfriend would probably be a real one, so Dave should act soon, or just forget about it. I had to agree, but didn’t say anything. There was too much on my mind to get drawn into their conversation, at least until Luke dropped Dave off. I wanted Luke to drop Dave off so I could start questioning him about Seth. Unfortunately, Luke decided to bring Dave home with us, and I had to wait.

The two of them were so busy arguing over whether or not Dave should ask Angela out at Rick’s party that neither of them noticed me slip away. I ended up in the basement again, and I took my second shower of the day. I would have said that I needed this one more than the first, but trying to wash Aaron off had seemed pretty important at the time.

As I wiped the steam from the mirror and looked over my reflection, my eyes fell to the hickey on my neck; and as I moved my fingers over it, feeling my pulse beneath, it seemed so much worse than the bruise that was still on my face. I think that’s because I was a little disgusted with it--and with myself, for thinking that if things had been different, I might have been a little happier to have that hickey.

As I dressed and went to my room and my thoughts drifted to Aaron, I couldn’t help wondering where he was, or what he was doing. Before I could stop myself, I even wondered if he felt bad over what had happened the night before. I wondered what had been going through his mind. I wondered if he really meant the things he said. As I stretched out on my bed, I wished that I had something that reminded me of him, so I could either destroy it or stare at it and try to remember what I ever saw in him that wasn’t a result of physical attraction. I wondered if the big knot in my stomach was there because I missed him. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet. That notion seemed kind of pathetic to me.

Aaron was bad news. There was no doubt about that. But still... I couldn’t help wondering about him. I couldn’t help the way that my head was suddenly full of daydreams as I imagined seeing him again, him apologizing. Is that what I wanted? An apology? I didn’t really know, and that was frustrating.

My mother unexpectedly entered my mind. She hadn’t been around long enough for me to tell her about my first boyfriend. I wondered what she’d say about Aaron if she was around. I wondered what she would have thought of him when I first met him, and what she would have thought of him now. I wondered what she’d tell me if she knew how I felt right now. I wondered what she’d think of Luke. My mom would have liked Luke. I know she would have. She would have liked that he was a friend to me, when I didn’t have anyone else. She would have liked him because he had the ability to make people smile. I doubted there was anything about Luke that my mom wouldn’t like. I wondered what she would have said to me if I told her about how Luke and Seth had seemed way too cozy today. Given the kind of person Seth was, I doubted that she’d approve. She’d probably be worried about the same thing with Luke and Seth that she would have been worried about if she’d seen me with Aaron. She’d be afraid that Seth would get Luke into trouble, hurt him the way that Aaron hurt me. Maybe that’s what I was worried about, too.

I found myself reaching under my bed, feeling around until my hand came over the top of the familiar box, my fingers searching what I knew to be smooth, shiny red paper, feeling the slight indentation of where my mom’s handwriting was. Maybe I would open it before my birthday. That’s what she would have wanted. My mom would have expected me to have opened it by now. But now, I couldn’t. With everything else going on, that box scared me, or at least, what I would find in it scared me. Part of me thought that for the time being, I was better off not knowing. But that still didn’t stop me from lifting the box as I turned over on my bed, placing it on my chest and then trying to guess what was in it. It wasn’t something store-bought. I already knew that much. It was something personal. Maybe that was why I was so afraid of it. It was something personal, from my mom.