Twenty-Four

Winnie

I’ve been awake for about an hour, and when I open my eyes, I am so surprised the sun is out that I think I am still sleeping. Surely, I have to be dreaming because I haven’t gone a night without a bad dream in years.

Not worrying about the bells and being nestled in Jasper’s arms gave me a sense of security I’d forgotten existed. For a couple of hours, my problems vanished, and the only thing I had to worry about was sleep. Even the threat of Jasper’s mom finding me in her son’s bed was less worrisome than any night at home. I half laugh at how absurd that is. I actually have typical teenage problems, and I feel almost normal.

“Jasper,” I whisper, “are you awake?”

I’m pressed against his smooth chest, the scent of his body wash still all over his skin. Besides brownies baking in the oven, I think his soap is my favorite smell.

I haven’t made brownies since I lived in the apartment with Dad. I used to always unwrap Kisses or throw some M&M’s in the batter. Sometimes, I’d get a chocolate bar and do big chunks. Dad said you could never have too much chocolate. He was right. He was always right about everything.

Tess doesn’t let me have chocolate inside the house. Just looking at it sends her into a fit of rage, and if she found any I’d tried to keep hidden, she’d throw it into the street. Eventually, a car would run it over, and the stray dogs would lick it all up. I read an article once that dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate, so I don’t try to sneak any into the house anymore. I hang on to my happy chocolate memories and let the real thing go.

“Jasper,” I whisper again, a little louder this time.

“Hmm,” he mumbles and squeezes me tighter.

A little smirk stretches his lips into a grin, and I smile. He still wants me here, and that means more than any melty piece of chocolate ever could.

“It can’t be morning yet, Winnie. I’m still tired.”

He’s tired because we stayed up half the night. If we didn’t have to worry about getting caught, I’d stay in Jasper’s arms all day, listening to his heart thump against my cheek. The gentle tapping’s my favorite lullaby. Even without a single lyric.

“I have to get out of the bed, Jasper.”

“You gotta pee?”

We both laugh. His eyes aren’t even open yet, and he’s already the best part of my day.

“I’m fine, but I need to get out of here before your mom finds us.”

Why can’t life always be this good? Why can’t I climb through his window every night?

Jasper lets me move over top of him, but when I’m about to roll off his body, he grabs my hips and opens his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Finding you on the floor. You sleeping with me. Last night was—”

“Intense.”

“Yeah, intense,” he repeats. “I’m glad you came here though.”

If he knew what I had done before I ran through the trail and climbed through the fence, he’d eat his words. Nothing about kissing Trey makes me feel good about lying in bed with Jasper.

Jasper’s my age, and what we’re doing is right, accepted even. But Trey, he’s off-limits. When I kissed him, he wasn’t supposed to kiss me back. He was supposed to pull away and tell me that he couldn’t. At least, that’s how I had seen it going in my head. But I was young and stupid, and I had taken a chance. Now, I have no idea where things stand with Trey. I’m not even sure what I want from him. Maybe all I need is to hear him say that we’re okay, and then I can go back to the way things were before I screwed them all up.

I kissed Trey. I really did it.

I lick my lips, remembering how his tongue felt when it rubbed against mine. I’d never had butterflies that strong or felt a tickle that low in my belly. Trey sucked all the air from my lungs, and then he breathed the life back into me. When he pulled away, he wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for it to end either. The only reason we stopped was because that guy came storming into the trailer. Trey could be in a lot of trouble because of me, and all I can think about is what would have happened if we hadn’t been interrupted.

How far would Trey have gone?

If I had waited for him like he told me to, I might have spent the night in his arms instead of Jasper’s. Now, I’ll never know what his arms felt like, wrapped around me, because I freaked out, and then I ran away.

He’s probably so mad at me. All I can picture is him running out of the trailer, looking in every direction for me, panicked that I’m on my own when I was barely clothed and still bleeding from the cuts.

He’s going to kill me. Trey cares for all the right reasons, and maybe I already ruined our friendship, but I’ll beg him for forgiveness. One kiss can’t ruin everything. I won’t let it. Even if it was the best kiss I’d ever had.

Trey’s lips.

His tongue.

His hands.

“Winnie,” Jasper says. He’s out of breath. “Tell me what you want.”

I didn’t even realize I had been doing it, but my hips are grinding against Jasper. The shirt I’m wearing—Jasper’s shirt—is bunched up around my waist, and my panties are peeking out. If the blanket wasn’t between us, he’d feel the dampness between my legs. And I’d feel all of him.

“Jasper, I wasn’t…I didn’t mean to.”

Trey’s the first guy I’ve fantasized about. The only one I’ve been able to trust and separate from the nightmares. The ones that happen while I am awake, not the ones that haunt me when I close my eyes.

Jasper digs his fingers into my hips and groans a little bit. “I’ll make you feel so good, Winn.”

Winn.

Trey’s the only one who calls me that. Everyone else says Winnie. Still a nickname, but what I go by in school and everywhere else. For some reason, Jasper shortening my name seems like a slap in the face to Trey. Another reason for him to be mad at me.

Anyone else who spent the night with Jasper would repay him. If I were like all the other girls in our grade, I’d take my shirt off and throw it on the floor. My bra and panties would follow, and I’d ride Jasper, letting him touch me wherever he wanted. But, every time I think about sex, Trey’s face stares back at me. He’s the one I’m imagining myself with. Not Jasper.

I debate on letting Jasper have me anyway because he’s done everything right. I can’t though. Not until I talk to Trey and figure things out.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean to.”

Jasper gives me a little nod and then sets me on the bed. He climbs out, wearing nothing but a tight pair of boxer briefs, and I can’t stop staring. He’s hard from me rubbing all over him.

My face flames. I feel my cheeks heat up to a million degrees, so I cover them with my hands. I slept an entire night in his arms, yet it still seems wrong to look at him. We’re friends, and if I want to keep things that way, I can’t be half-naked, grinding all over him.

I say, “I’m sorry,” again—my favorite phrase—and wait for him to say something back.

He grabs my wrists and pulls me into a standing position. And then he slides his hands up my bare legs. His fingertips flirt with the edge of my panties, and I cover my face with my hands. Peering through the crack between my fingers, I see him staring at me.

“Don’t hide from me, Winnie,” he says.

My hands end up pressed against his chest, and the familiar warmth calms me down. He doesn’t take it any further, just keeps brushing his fingers back and forth over the same spot, waiting for me to make my mind up. I thought I already did, but the same energy I felt for Trey last night makes an appearance.

Jasper’s right in front of me, and Trey’s competing for my attention at the same time. Their faces are a merry-go-round in my brain, and I don’t think it’s ever going to stop spinning in circles.

His hands squeeze my butt, and he nudges me closer. The same impulse that pushed me toward Trey’s lips has me standing on my tippy-toes, dangerously close to Jasper’s mouth. He leans in even closer, and before we meet in the middle, nervous energy swallows me up. I take a step backward. Suddenly, my feet are stuck to the ground, and my lips won’t even part to speak.

I’m scared. I wasn’t scared to kiss Trey, but being with Jasper terrifies me. It should be the other way around. Jasper should be the easy choice. He’s someone my own age, someone I can be seen with. Someone who wants me and treats me like a princess.

There must be something terribly wrong with me. Letting Jasper down guts me, and all I want to do is lock myself in the bathroom and go over the lines on my legs again. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since the last cut, and I don’t even care. Those marks aren’t meant to ever heal. They are meant to be red and angry like my soul.

Jasper’s eyes flicker with understanding, and when he realizes nothing’s going to happen, he stops touching me. His hands hang at his sides, and the look of disappointment on his face almost makes me throw up.

“I want to kiss you,” I tell him. “I do, Jasper.”

“But you can’t,” he says. “Or you won’t.”

I look around the floor for something more to put on. I can’t have a normal conversation while we’re practically naked. Not that it’ll be any more normal once I’m dressed. I’ll still be keeping secrets from him, and we’ll still be no closer to what Jasper wants.

“It’s not like that. There’s so much that you don’t know.”

“Then, tell me,” he says. “Make me understand. Have I ever made you feel like you can’t be honest with me?”

“No.”

“Kiss me, Winnie. Just once.”

“I can’t.” I don’t debate it. The words just fly out of my mouth, hurting him even more.

But I can’t touch Jasper. Even if kissing Trey was nothing other than another complicated layer of regret, it would be wrong to let Jasper think I was ready for more when I wasn’t. If I do kiss Jasper someday, I need it to be for the right reasons and not because I feel guilty for leading him on.

“Don’t you feel anything?” He says it like I must be crazy for not wanting him.

But I do want Jasper. I’m just not sure what to do about Trey or if there’s anything for me to do at all. Maybe he’s already forgotten about the kiss, convincing himself it was nothing.

He hasn’t. There’s no way, Winnie. You’re you. And he’s him. We’re more than a forgotten moment of time.

Without thinking, I wrap my arms around Jasper’s neck and hug him as tightly as I can. “I feel everything, Jasper.” I mean it. I’m not just spitting out words to make him feel better.

My heart’s thumping. My stomach’s in a giant knot, and I don’t want him to ever let go of me. I’ve already gotten so attached to Jasper in such a little amount of time, and that scares me more than kissing him ever could.

Attachment means loss, and loss means loneliness, crying over the best parts of my life that are continuously being taken away from me. I wouldn’t survive if I lost Trey and Jasper, and now, I’ve messed things up so badly with both of them.

I need them. I need Jasper in ways Trey can’t relate to—teenage things, like school and work at The Whip while being underage and trying to stay off the radar so that Ace doesn’t get in trouble. Preparing for senior year of high school and figuring out what we’re going to do with our lives after graduation.

Just like I need Trey for the parts of my life that Jasper can’t understand. Trey was Dad’s best friend. He’s been around Tess, and he knows what I’m dealing with in the trailer. Sure, Jasper’s seen enough to have a pretty good idea of what I’m up against, but we don’t have history. And Jasper doesn’t have a gun.

Jasper holds on to my waist and waits for me to say something. I’ve been staring at him long enough that I should have so much to say, but my decision hasn’t changed.

“If I don’t kiss you right now, you’ll still talk to me, right? We’ll still be friends?”

“Winnie,” he says with a little shake of his head, “I want you to kiss me because you want to. Not because you feel like you have to.”

Jasper walks to his dresser and pulls out a pair of shorts. He gets dressed first and then hands me a pair to put on. They’re huge at the waist, but when I roll them a couple of times, they have half a chance of staying up.

His answer makes me want to throw up, and he said nothing about staying friends if I don’t want to be with him. I’m about to lose my only friend because he wants more than I can give him. He doesn’t understand that it’s not about attraction.

Jasper’s tall, sweet, gorgeous, and everything I’d want if I were looking for a boyfriend. Maybe, someday, I’ll have one, but right now, I can’t give him that kind of commitment.

A kiss leads to sex, and sex leads to relationships. Jasper doesn’t strike me as the type to sleep around. When he finds someone he likes, he probably sticks with her and devotes all his time to making her happy. He’s done that with me, and we’re not even dating, so I can only imagine how intense and consuming being with him would be.

He’s so wrapped up in us that he doesn’t realize that dating me would be the equivalent of going to jail. Agreeing to date Jasper would be like me walking him into a cold, dark cell, locking the gate, and throwing away the key. I’d strip him of his happiness before he ever saw it coming. My life’s too messed up to ever be considered normal, and bringing another person to the dark side would be stupid and selfish.

Maybe that’s why I kissed Trey—because he already knows what hell’s like. Boundaries are blurred because he’s been walking through fire with me for months. When I think of safety, I see his face and hear his voice. He’s the calm in the storm. The center of a hurricane where all the rain and wind cease to exist.

I hate that I’m comparing the only two people in my life. It’s not fair to have to choose. I don’t know that I can choose. It’s not like I can have Trey. He’s wrong to want, yet he feels more right than any decision I’ve ever made. I don’t regret the kiss. Regretting it means I’d take it back, and I wouldn’t. The only thing I regret is putting the frown on Jasper’s face. I’d take back all the hesitation and each questioning glance I threw at him, and then I’d kiss him with everything I had just to see him smile.

On the verge of tears, I take one more look around and then open the window. Jasper doesn’t try to stop me.

I can’t look at him when I say it, but I know he’s listening. “Being in your arms was like being wrapped up in happiness. Thank you for the best night I’ve had in as long as I can remember.”

“You don’t have to leave, Winnie. That’s not what I want.”

“But it’s what I have to do. Find someone who can take care of your heart and give you what you need. You deserve so much more than anything I can offer you.”

I’m petrified of climbing down the side of the house, but I don’t even hesitate. I can’t. If I get scared, I’ll have to ask Jasper to sneak me out the front door, and I can’t make him do that. He’s risked enough for me.

I’m on the ladder and about to lower myself onto the next rung when Jasper sticks his head out of the window and says, “Why does this feel like good-bye?”

I haven’t decided if I’ll go back to work at The Whip or not. Despite how much I need the money, life for Jasper would be easier if I didn’t go back. I can start babysitting again and try to make as much money as I can that way. There are enough desperate parents in the trailer park to keep me busy every night of the week if I try hard enough.

“Jasper, summer will be over before we know it, and then I’ll see you at school.”

He never talked to me at school, so I don’t know if that will change come fall, but I wouldn’t blame him if he forgot about me and moved on like I told him to. It’s for the best.

At the bottom of the ladder, I double-check nobody saw me climb out of the house. When the coast is clear, I hop off the bottom rung of the ladder and run as fast as I can toward the hole in the fence. Climbing through is a lot easier in the daylight, and I don’t have to worry about getting sliced open by the jagged edges of the wooden boards.

Once I’m on my side of the fence, surrounded by trailers instead of manicured lawns and decorative bushes, I take a deep breath, and I swear, the puddle I’m standing next to is urine and not leftover rainwater.

“Home sweet home,” I whisper and then start the walk back home.

I’m not sure what I’m so afraid of, but I walk extra slow. What’s the use in hurrying when I have nobody to go home to? At least there’s no money for Jax to steal this time. If he tore my room apart again, he won’t even find any food. Unless he needs some socks and underwear, I have nothing left to hide from him.

The closer I get, the more excited the butterflies become. They have nothing to do with Tess or Jax though. Little wings are fluttering and going crazy inside of me because of Trey. From where I’m standing, I can’t see if his bike’s in the driveway or not. I can either walk behind his trailer and check for the open window or I can go home and forget that we kissed last night.

Forgetting sounds like the safer choice, but if I wanted to play it safe, I wouldn’t have kissed him in the first place. All the feelings I had when I felt his lips come flooding back, and my feet suddenly have a mind of their own. I’m walking in between the trailers and then standing beneath his bedroom window.

The dreamer in me expects it to be hanging wide open still. It’s not. I don’t know whether to take that as a sign of rejection or to see it for what it is—that he didn’t want to let a million bugs inside the trailer.

I’m too short to see inside, so I walk around the side, toward the driveway. The front door must be open because I hear his voice. He’s arguing with someone, and it’s not like Trey. He doesn’t handle business anyplace someone could overhear him. When he gets a call and I’m with him, he lets it go to voice mail or walks away, so I can’t hear what he’s saying. He said it had to be that way, that the less I knew, the better.

A few minutes later, the conversation ends, and I don’t hear him anymore. I take a step forward, and the screen door flies open. It bangs off the side of the trailer, and Trey storms down the stairs, dressed in leather—his disguise.

He throws his leg over his bike and kicks the stand out from underneath the bike. I hate that he’s riding again. Dad would have hated that he was riding again, too. He raises his head, and even though there’s a darkened shield over his face, I know he’s looking right at me.

The kickstand hits the ground, and Trey’s off the bike in seconds. He rips the helmet off his head in broad daylight, and my mouth opens in shock. He’s angry—I knew he would be—but he’s risking being seen by Tess or Jax, and he doesn’t even care.

He barges past me and says, “Get in the trailer, Winn.”

My heart nearly stops when I catch a whiff of his cologne, and suddenly, I’m comparing it to Jasper’s body wash. Now’s not the time. I need to move before Trey gets angrier.

I knew better than to disappear all night, but I did it anyway. It was easier to bury my pain by being with someone else than sticking around and having a conversation with Trey about feelings and kissing and whatever else might have happened.

I run up the stairs and open the door. He’s unzipping his jacket, and then he throws it on the couch. His helmet’s on the table, and I’m standing in front of the door, yanking my shorts up so that they don’t fall down.

Trey turns around and opens his mouth to say something. He stops and looks me up and down. “What are you wearing?”

There’s no use in lying about whose clothing I have on. It’s obvious the shirt and shorts don’t belong to me. “Jasper’s,” I tell him.

Those dark pupils of his are back, and I’d rather stare at a crumb on the floor than figure out what his eyes are trying to say to me.

“You were with him all night?” he asks.

“Yes,” I whisper.

His fingers comb through his hair, and he’s pacing back and forth between the living room and the kitchen. It’s such a small space that he can be in both at once. “Why’d you run, Winn? You’ve run to me but never away from me.”

“Because.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that. I’ve been up all night, combing the streets for you. I called all the guys and had them looking for a girl with your description.”

“You told them?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t have to tell them shit. When I tell them to do something, they do it. And, last night, finding you was at the top of the list.”

“They probably thought I owed you money.”

“You owe me more than money, Winn. Money means shit compared to you.”

Money fuels his livelihood. It’s pretty important to him, given the fact that he spends his nights running figures and collecting what’s owed to him. Sometimes, he has to get pretty creative to get the cash, but he always comes through. Him not finding me probably made him crazy. He’s good at his job, and when he needs to find someone who’s hiding, he gets the job done.

“What do I owe you?”

He stops pacing, and the lack of movement forces me to raise my head and look at him. “The goddamn truth.”

“I ran because I was scared. I wasn’t sure what that guy would do or what you would do to him. If I stayed, I thought you’d yell at me and that maybe you hated me because I did what I did.”

“What did you do?”

He’s going to make me say the words. My stomach’s empty, but it’s full of bile, and it rolls. I think some might come up my throat, so I quickly get it out. “I kissed you.”

One.

Two.

Three steps.

The fourth, he slides a finger underneath my chin and pushes up. His chest heaves, and I swallow, scared that he’s going to tell me I took things too far and then cut me out of his life.

Trey can handle a lot. He puts up with circumstances that are always out of his control, but when someone crosses the line and does him wrong, he cuts them out of his life faster than they can say they’re sorry or feed him an excuse.

I don’t want to make excuses about why I kissed Trey. I did it because my body overtook my thoughts. It was mind over matter, and my mind wanted him. There was no back-and-forth debate. No right or wrong. Consequences didn’t exist when I was kissing Trey.

“Are you going to do it again?” he asks.

This has to be a trick question. We haven’t discussed the first kiss, and he’s already worrying about the next. My head’s spinning, and I’m overloaded with sensations. Little fireworks explode all the way up my spine, and my fingertips tingle with anticipation.

Can I kiss Trey again?

Do I want to do it again?

Yes, I do.

But I don’t move. I can’t figure out if kissing him will make him happy or set him off. “Do you want me to kiss you, Trey?”

“I’m not supposed to want you, Winn. You’re too young for me, and my life is no place for someone like you. But I haven’t slept, and I’ve had all night to think about what I need to do.”

“What are you going to do?”

He laughs, but it’s not because I said something funny. It’s disbelief wrapped up in reality. Like he’s a fool for kissing me and an idiot for not doing it sooner.

“I should cut you out of my life and tell you I can’t see you anymore. And I’d do it if I had to, Winn. You know I would.”

“You always come back, Trey. Even after you disappear, you find me.”

“Someday, you’ll understand,” he says. “My need to protect you outweighs every promise I’ve made and every ounce of loyalty I’ve dedicated. I intend to keep my word.”

“Whatever promises you made to my dad, you have to let them go. He’s not here to enforce anything, Trey, and you’re all I have left.”

“This is bigger than your dad, Winn. He’d murder me if he were alive. But, alive or dead, he’s the least of my problems. Hal won’t say a word. I made sure of that. But, if the wrong person did see us, my life would be over.”

“I’m almost eighteen.”

“Do you think the court would take that into consideration? She’s almost eighteen, so it’s okay.”

“What about what I want? Doesn’t that matter?”

He takes my face between his hands and closes his eyes. “You don’t mean that, Winn. It’s all the more reason your age does matter. A girl your age doesn’t know what she wants. At your age, I wanted whatever moved or looked in my direction. That didn’t mean I wanted to marry or spend the rest of my life with whomever I was fucking.”

“We both know I’m not your average seventeen-year-old, Trey. I think everyone sees that but you.”

Trey’s age doesn’t matter to me. Mine is irrelevant as far as kissing him is concerned. It doesn’t take being a year older to validate what we shared. Because, let’s face it, in ten months, I’ll be eighteen, and my life will still be the same mess it is now.

This time, I grab his face, and I run my fingers over the stubble on his chin.

“Winn,” he warns.

He thinks I’m going to kiss him again.

“Do it,” I tell him. “I dare you.”

“This isn’t a game.”

Day by day, life doesn’t seem to change much. Each day is like the one before it. Yet, when I look back, it’s completely different. That kiss is embedded into my memory like a footprint in wet cement. There’s no getting rid of the impression Trey left behind unless I destroy the sidewalk and resurface it. I’m not going to let him ruin us, no matter how determined he is to erase what happened.

Drugs killed my dad. They’ve buried more people than cancer and accidents combined. And here I am, practically setting myself up for a repeat. Losing Trey would kill what’s left of my soul.

I want Trey.

Trey wants me.

But I’m not selfish.

“You’re right. Kissing you is dangerous. I’ll wait ten months or however long I have to wait for it to be safe.”

I let go of Trey’s face and take a step back. Then, I turn around and head toward the door. It’s time I go home and forget about how weightless I felt while kissing Trey. Gravity wasn’t pressing on my shoulders, practically sinking my feet into the ground, like it usually does. His lips touched mine, and I floated toward the sky, dancing from cloud to cloud with a smile on my face. I’d have drifted all the way to heaven if Dad wasn’t there. But he’d have grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back down to earth.

“Get your head out of the clouds, Winnie.”

I should take a hard look at myself and realize how stupid I was being. Dad was always right.

There’s only one other time I was close to escaping with that kind of freedom. In Jasper’s arms. In his bed with my head against his chest, I floated around on a pillow, untouchable to the demons whispering my name from underneath the bed.

If I had half a brain, I’d run back to his house and kiss him. I’d show him how thankful I was to have him in my life and try to give back some of the comfort he’d given me. Without him, I’d have spent last night outside, huddled in the tube slide at the playground, because I couldn’t go home. The punch he had taken at The Whip would have nailed me in the face instead of his. And, when I had been weak and fallen over in the kitchen, there wouldn’t have been anyone there to catch me. Without Jasper, I’d be in an even darker place without any sunshine at all.

He’s the right choice. He’s the one I need to focus my energy on, and then I need to let Trey live his life however he needs to. His job should be his priority because, if it’s not, I’ll lose him forever. Once I’m old enough to live on my own and break free of Carillon, he’ll either want me to go with him or he won’t. But I need to give him a fair shot at leaving the business before I ruin his chances.

Jasper’s the safe choice.

Trey’s the one I can’t live without.

But I have to let them both go.

Instead of being selfish, I’ll get back into babysitting and focus all my energy on making money and growing my design portfolio. When school starts, I’ll see Jasper again, and maybe we can be friends. Maybe, by then, he’ll have moved on and found a real girlfriend who can give him the attention and time he deserves. He’s capable of that kind of magic.

I’ll go back to depending on the bells to keep me safe. No more climbing in and out of windows. No more kisses, and no more leading Jasper on even if that was never my intention.

I am me. Alone and by myself.

“Winn, wait.”