First Kiss, First Love, First Heartbreak

Chapter 12

"How could you kiss him?" Cole yells at me. I jump at the amount of anger in his voice. Then he takes a deep breath. "Then I should probably tell you the truth." He looks down at his hands. The truth. About what? He sets himself down on the couch next to me. Nobody's home except the two of us. The blizzard two weeks ago didn't do any damage to our house. But it did damage my relationship. Not the blizzard, but Jere, and well, me. "I had a summer fling when we first started dating." I feel my heartbeat elevate. What? A fling? I feel the heat of tears on my face. I wipe them.

I stand up and open the front door. "Get out, you aren't allowed here ever again! You can't get mad because I kissed someone when you had a fling! Who was it?"

"What?"

"Who was the girl?" I ask with anger, hurt, and disappointment mixed in my voice. I keep holding the door open.

He tries to grab my hand but I yank it away. "Carolina."

Carolina. My brother's girlfriend. Now I'm not only mad at him, but her as well. They both lied to Matt and I. "Get out." I say calmly even though I'm losing my sanity.

"I'm sorry Livi."

"Don't call me that, and get the hell out of this house. And don't ever come back." He walks out with his head down, good. He should be ashamed. I'm boiling with anger. But I'm also trapped in a puddle of tears. Cole, the boy I was in love with. Why does this happen? Whenever I figure out my feelings my heart gets broken. But my heart can only break so many times. When will be the last time it can break and heal? I drop myself on the floor of the living room and let out my flood of tears. He's been lying to me this whole time. But the thing is, I would've never known. I would've kept dating him and loving him.

Will I ever find a boy who doesn't break my heart?

I turn the air up because I'm about to freeze with the coolness. I drop myself on the couch and pull the velvet blanket up to my chin. I tell the Alexa to play break-up songs and she obeys. I listen to slow songs that make me cry even more. I turn the volume up so I can't hear my sobs. I don't know how, but I hear a pounding on the door.

I get up and open the door. Jeremiah stands there. I suddenly become self-conscious of how I look, but then I stop caring. "I'm not in the mood." I say with no enthusiasm what-so-ever.

"Well, I was just driving by and I heard the music with my car windows up." He looks at my red-teary-eyed face. "Are you okay? Nevermind, forget I asked that. What happened? I mean you don't have to answer that either. Do you wanna talk about it?" I start crying again and hug him. He holds me in his arms and I feel safe. Like nothing can hurt me. Like Cole doesn't even matter anymore. The heat of his body makes me warm, even though it's freezing. I've seen him around school since the blizzard, but I haven't really talked to him.

I stay in his arms. "Cole came clean to me when I told him I kissed you. He said he had a summer fling." I say through multiple breaths. "But the worst part is, the girl he had a fling with is Matt's girlfriend. We were both played, and lied to."

He tightens his arms around me. "Oh Livi." He runs his hands through my hair. "I'm so sorry. I knew from the second that I met him that he's a lying asshat." That gets a small laugh out of me. "How about we go for a run?" I nod. "Alright, go get changed, I'll wait in the car."

"Okay." He let's me go, and I feel an immediate absence. I walk into the house and go straight to my room. I grab workout clothes, with a sweater, and get dressed. I put my hair in a low ponytail and walk to the kitchen. The kitchen still smells burnt. Matt tried cooking bacon yesterday, and it didn't end well. We ended up eating McDonald's for dinner.

I grab two bottles of water and walk to Jere's car. I open the door and all the memories from this car come rushing back to me. Since he's almost a year older than me, he had his car while we were dating. I sit in the, once familiar, passenger seat.

My thoughts travel to this one time when Jere and I had to take his dog, Sour Cream... I honestly don't know how he thought of that name... to the vet. I mean we didn't have to, but we volunteered to take him. Sour Cream wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He was actually very stupid. He was a tiny little yorkie. He barked a lot, which was very annoying. Well, anyway, when we were driving to the vet Sour Cream jumped on my lap. He started licking my arm for no reason at all. Then he decided he would pee on me. I screamed and threw him on Jere's lap, who was cracking up. Then Sour Cream decided he wasn't done with his business. He pooped on Jere's lap, and I started laughing. Jere drove back to his house and told his dad to take him. It took us forever to get the smell of dog pee out of his truck.

His radio takes me back to reality. "Is Sour Cream dead?" I ask. I mean, yeah, I could've been nicer about it, but I'm just curious.

He laughs. "No, he lives with my dad in Florida. He's still annoying and does his business wherever he wants." I laugh now. "You know that day when we were saying each other's favorites." I nod smiling at the fact that we remember everything about each other. "You forgot one of my favorite things." I turn to him, so he can tell me. "My favorite sound."

"I don't know your favorite sound." I say, because I don't.

Maybe it's ocean waves crashing. Or rain, we both love rain. Or even Sour Cream's bark. "It's your laugh." He says as he interrupts my thoughts. I feel my cheeks heat up. He looks at me for a second and smiles, then puts his eyes back on the road. "And my favorite feeling is when you touch me. From a kiss to even when your hand accidentally bumps mine. Your smile is my favorite smile in the whole world. And you're the only person I trust enough to cry in front of." I remember his mom saying he didn't cry about her cancer until he was with me. He puts his hand on my thigh. "I've missed you."

"Me too," he pulls into the parking lot of the park we run at. I get out of the car and grab my leg behind me to stretch. "I'm so gonna beat you. I've been running a lot." He stretches next to me and laughs. I start jogging in place. "Try to keep up old man." I say as I start running away from him at a full sprint. My feet hit the ground in a rhythmic beat. I can hear Jere behind me. I know he can actually beat me, but he never lets me lose. I pump my arms. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. I keep pumping my arms. I curve around a puddle, not from rain, from snow. I turn around and see Jere a few feet behind me. He's breathing easy, unlike me. My breathing is now heavy. The cool air feels bitter in my lungs. I slow down to a jog and so does Jere.

Once we hit three miles, we stop. I drink a lot of water. Jere let me win, I knew he would, but it still felt good. "You wanna go to the diner?" I say okay, and we get in his car and go to the diner. "Livi, you should come by sometime, my mom misses you a lot. She kept saying how you're her daughter, and she needs some 'girl' time." He says while making air quotations with his fingers. I feel special. She called me her daughter. She's always been like a second mother to me.

I laugh. "Tell her I'll come by anytime she wants. She has my number, tell her to just call me."

He nods, "She'll like that." I smile. I love making Mrs.Taylor happy.

We go to the table we used to always sit at together. We used to sit on the same side, but today we sit across from each other. "Remember when we were regulars?" I ask as we slide into the red and white booths. We came here every time after he played a football game, and when it wasn't football season we would come here after my swim meets.

He chuckles. "Yeah, that was pretty awesome. Livi, can we make it like old times? Can we make this a date."

"I would love to say yes, but usually people look good on their first dates." I say gesturing to my hair. He gets up from his side of the booth and slides in next to me. I feel the heat of his body and immediately love it. I feel little electric currents running through my body.

He shakes his head. "Livi, you look amazing. But fine, how about I pick you up Friday?"

"Okay."

"Okay?"

I nod. I don't care what people think. Maybe giving him a second chance is stupid, but maybe it's not. Maybe him being back is a good thing, I mean, besides his mom having cancer.

"Livi?" I recognize that voice. Before I can say anything, I kiss Jere. We were already so close that it doesn't look like I kissed him only because I heard Cole. I pull away from Jere and look up to see Cole and Carolina together. Oh, hell no!