The Trouble with Kissing Connor

Chapter 22 (Sadie)

I stood dead centre in the middle of my room looking at myself in the mirror. I was still wearing his headband, and it was still moist from his sweat. A normal person would probably think it was disgusting, but me... well, cheese balls, it was the nicest thing he'd ever given me. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the moment we'd shared, before Jarrod had come along and everything had gotten so damn awkward.

Connor's eyes had met mine. He'd looked surprised for a few seconds, and then he'd just stared at me. No blinking. What the hell was going through his mind? For me, the stare had put me right back to that night. The night of the kiss. I had been transported to that moment when Connor had his arms around me.

I heard a sound at my window and panicked. It was Connor—Fuck! I ripped the headband off and threw it to the other side of the room—Why the hell did I just do that? But as the body tumbled through my window and onto my floor, I knew it wasn't him.

"Brett?"

"Ooowww." He winced in pain. "And you guys do this all the time! Fuck!"

I bent down to help him up. "What you doing here?"

"I've come to save your ass, Sadie," he said before collapsing onto my bed.

"What do you mean?"

He looked around the room. "Is Connor here?"

"No. Why?"

"Because I don't want him to hear what I'm about to say...ever."

"Okay..." I sat down on the bed next to him, tentative.

"I know everything, Sadie. I know that you kissed him and I know that you are emailing him and most of all, I know you're now making up all this shit about your divorced parents and fake counselling him."

"WHAT?!" I flew off my bed, "You... you, how?"

Brett looked at me and rolled his eyes. "It's pretty obvious, Sadie. I would have guessed it anyway if I hadn't been right behind you guys and seen it all happen."

"You saw, the kiss...?"

"Yup! X rated stuff there."

"Shit." I hung my head in absolute embarrassment. Of course he knew. It made perfect sense now. The way he'd been behaving...he knew.

"Plus, I know you've been in love with him for like,...well, your whole life."

"That obvious?" I asked wondering who else knew. My dad knew, Mckenzie knew— Does everyone at school know too?

"Clearly not to him though," Brett said with another roll of his eyes. "But I'm not here to discuss that. I'm here to save you from the biggest mistake you've ever made.... You have to end this email stuff. Now! This lie is going to rip you guys apart. What do you think is going to happen when he finds out it's you, and that you've been lying? It's gone too far, Sadie. I mean, how the hell do you imagine digging yourself out of this?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, Brett." He was right. The whole thing had gone too far, but I couldn't take it back now. "What do you suggest?"

"Delete that account now and never mail him back. He must never know about this, and I'll never tell him. It ends here. Tonight. You know it's the right thing to do."

I nodded. My emails to Connor had been the only way of telling him how I felt. If I deleted the account, I would never be able to talk to him like that again.

"What about him? If she just disappears?"

"He'll get over it, trust me," Brett said standing up and putting an arm on my shoulder. "Besides he's not really into this chick."

"He isn't?" I asked, wondering whether I should feel happy about this, or rejected.

Brett shook his head. "Connor is going through a rough time, he's just confused and looking for support and affirmation wherever he can get it."

"Damn!" I looked at Brett, "Have you been secretly studying psychology on the side?"

"No. It's called common sense, Sadie. Clearly something you lack in abundance."

I started nodding my head slowly, trying to take it all in. Trying to figure out how I'd feel when I deleted that account. My stomach tightened. "But... but..." I felt a tear well up.

"I get it. You're getting to tell him how you feel, and he's saying nice things back. But it's not real, Sadie. The two of you don't stand a chance if mystery mint kisser is allowed to live."

"We don't stand a chance anyway."

There was a small pause. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

My head snapped up and I looked at Brett. "Bullshit!"

Brett smiled at me. "You just leave that part up to me."

"What do you mean? What part?" I felt a tiny flicker of hope rise up, but I made sure to kick it back down quickly. I'd felt hope before and I'd always been disappointed. Besides, even though mystery mint kisser wasn't real, he had still chosen her over me. He'd chosen to tell her things that he hadn't even told me yet. His best friend. And now there was all this stuff with Jarrod. I suddenly felt like I wanted to cry.

I felt Brett watching me and looked up at him.

"Connor is just blind. And he needs to see it, really see it."

"See what?" My legs started to shake. What did he mean? Was he actually implying that Connor....that he...I couldn't go there.

"You let me deal with that, but you have to promise to kill mystery mint kisser. Tonight! No one else needs to find out about this." Brett grabbed my hand, "And don't worry, I'll take this secret to my grave."

I threw my arms around him. Brett was always a good friend, but up until that point, I hadn't realized just how good of a man he was. He was going to make some girl really happy someday.

"Now walk me home. My mom's cooking macaroni and cheese and I'm guessing you would prefer to come to my house for dinner and eat that."

"You would be right," I said, slipping my arm through his and heading to the door. "How bout we take the stairs this time."

**

When I arrived back home, the first thing I did was sit down at my computer to delete the Gmail account. Brett was right, and a part of me was relieved to be done with my crazy project. I knew that I'd dug myself so deep that there was almost no way to get out- this was the only way. But something felt wrong. My laptop wasn't completely closed—that's odd. I looked around and noticed that the pens on my desk had been bumped, and one was now on the floor. "Huh?"—maybe that happened when I threw the headband.

Ignoring the weirdness, I picked up the pen and opened my computer.