Denial

Chapter 11

~author's note~
this chapter is super long. you're welcome.

NASH'S POV

"How about an arcade?"

Yes. Yes! Yeah sure. YEAH SURE! I don't know how to respond to Cameron's idea because my stomach is doing cartwheels and I am way more excited than I should be. If I just opened my mouth right now I'd probably let out an extremely loud YES, but I don't want to sound too excited. But I don't want to try and play it too cool and just say "yeah, sure," and sound too un-excited. I am overanalyzing. Badly. I have one more second to respond before the pause in conversation turns awkward.

"Yeah that's a great idea!" I blurted out. Why can't I stop freaking out??

I hopped into the drivers seat and handed Cam my phone to dj since my driving skills are already impaired and scrolling through my music library while driving would be a terrible idea. "I'm glad we got here like 1 minute before the bell rang because no one's outside anymore, so nobody saw us leave," Cam said as I pulled out of the parking lot. "Are you gonna pick a song or are we gonna sit here in silence?" I laughed. "Hold on, hold on. Somebody's impatient!! Ok, there's a dilemma. Do we want to turn up or listen to something chill?" Cam asked. "That is an extremely urgent question. Hmmmm. I'm gonna go with turn up," I replied. "I have just the song!!" Cam said, and a few seconds later, Wild for the night by A$AP Rocky started and we rapped horribly to our hearts content.

After the song ended and we finished impersonating eachother's terrible dance moves, Cam said with an exaggerated yawn, "It is 8 AM and I cannot handle turning up again. I need to gather the energy. Goooodnight." Cam set my sleepy playlist on shuffle, leaned his seat back, and less than a minute later he was snoring (loudly I might add).

Today marks day seven of me ignoring my girlfriend Hannah and I feel nothing but nausea when I think of her. Even though we've dated for two years, I have never seen her without all of her clothes on, even when she's wanted me to. Every time we've ever fought it's always been over me not giving her enough attention, forgetting about her, or not wanting to move past making out.

It took months for me to be willing to make out with her, and every time we have, I make myself think about something else. I sit perfectly still with my hands limp at my sides while she kisses me and I think about what rain feels like, and if I've ever seen birds out in the rain, if birds are scared of rain, why there are so many different types of birds, who came up with all of the species' names, and how that someone convinced everyobody else to start calling a type of bird the name that they made up for it. I think about things that don't matter and weird things and anything besides the fact that she's kissing me and I don't want her to.

I met Hannah at Cooper's swim party the summer before freshman year when I was mildly popular but never talked about; everyone knew who I was and most liked me, but I blended in perfectly enough to where I was just background noise. She wore a neon string bikini that was a size too small and looked better than everyone else there because she was the only girl that had grown noticeable boobs and she had refused to get in the water for fear it would mess up her hair and makeup. She told her friends to tell my friends to tell me that she thought I was cute, so they did. Cooper said he heard she gave the best blowjobs out of anyone in the freshman class and that I was the luckiest guy in the world just to have her acknowledge my existance. Every guy told me I had to go for it! It was a sin not to. Those tits! That face! You sure are lucky Nash! Don't pass this up! My friends told her friends I was interested, even though I hadn't said a word. What could I have said? I would have been humiliated and talked about and shunned if I rejected her and I didn't know what to do. There was nothing I could do. My fate was decided for me and before I could scream no, Hannah was walking towards me looking less like an angel and more like a blinding, flashing hazard sign. "So...you think I'm cute?" she said. I looked over my shoulder, Cooper was giving me a thumbs up and Hannah's group was staring me down. "Uh..yeah....yeah," I croaked. My throat felt like it was full of sand. "Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?" she asked. Her smile blinded me and I felt like I was slowly sinking into quicksand. "Sure," I said.