The Trouble with Kissing Connor

Chapter15 (Sadie)

I just couldn't do it.

I just couldn't be there and watch him perving over those other girls; looking at them all and wondering which one had kissed him while I walked around with my secret.

I wanted to go to bed before an actual headache did set in, but, to be nice, I sat in my lounge with Jarrod for a while, and listened to him talk about tech stuff. After an hour or so of hearing about the 'dark web'—this invisible secret part of the internet where you can hire hit men—I told him I was tired, and we said an awkward goodbye. I think he might have been expecting a kiss, or maybe a lingering hug because it was one of those goodbyes that didn't ever seem to get to the 'bye' part.

Jarrod wasn't a bad guy. In fact, he was interesting and certainly kind and considerate, but I knew I would never like him in that way. When I compared him to Connor, which is what I did with everyone, he didn't even come close. But no one would ever come close to Connor. And therein lay the massive problem of my life!

Once Jarrod had gone, I walked into my room and immediately changed, putting my Welcome to Bermuda shirt back on. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at this version of myself—the mascara lashed, pink cheeked, sticky lip-glossed thing. She looked pretty, I must say. But she wasn't going to be coming out again anytime soon either. I grabbed a handful of tissues and started wiping the make-up off my face. But within seconds, it became pretty obvious that dry tissues would not work. What does one remove make up with for heave sake?

I stared at my Bermuda shirt and wished I was there, sitting under the palms, watching the sunset—I wished I was anywhere else right now. Everything felt like it was closing in on me. The thing I could always rely on for stability now felt shaky. Connor. Our relationship had always been the one constant in my life. The one thing that never changed, the one thing I could always lean on for support, but lately, it was different.

For starters, I'd never lied to him before and it was killing me. Secondly, he seemed so preoccupied with this hunt for the mystery kisser that he just wasn't there—even when he was there. The more distant and obsessed he became, the more he seemed to slip through my fingers, not that he was ever in my hands in the first place, but any possibility of an 'us' seemed to be dying a fast death. And the more I lied to him and didn't tell him the truth, the more I closed up and pulled away. Lies change everything. My stomached knotted up again. I hoped this wasn't something that was going to end so badly that it would destroy our friendship—Ughh. I needed to distract myself.

I sat down at my computer and flipped it open—Time for some travel planning.

When my grandparents had died they'd left my sister and I some money and, unlike Mckenzie, I'd invested mine and it had grown enough to cover a whole year of travel. So, for the last year, I'd been planning my trip around the world. I'd already told my parents that I wanted to take a gap year before going to college. My mother had freaked out—obviously—but my dad thought it was a good idea.

At one stage Connor and I had talked about going together, but that felt completely off the cards now. Besides, he was probably going to win the tennis tournament next week, get some fancy scholarship to a university out of state, and go on to become some hot, famous tennis player.

The only thing that had stopped me from actually booking the trip had been Connor, that slight possibility that he would come with me, but after tonight, after all that had happened this week....maybe I needed some time away from him, instead of living with the daily torture of having my heart broken over and over again.

For too long now, I'd been closing myself off to any other relationship that might come my way. I pictured myself at thirty, without a partner because I'd been hopelessly waiting for Connor my entire life? He was never going to come.