“You're never gonna beat me, Claire Bear,” Brad chuckled, sprinting toward our willow tree.
“Yes, I will, stink ass,” I giggled, chasing after him.
He bellowed with laughter. “Bring it, shorty!” he yelled over his shoulder, picking up speed as he did. “You’ll never catch me!”
Brad and I have been seeing each other since the month after he transferred to our school. He was instantly one of the most popular boys in school. An absolute god to us all. He was sweet, kind, and sexy as hell. The second his car pulled into the parking lot, some of the girls said I got this dreamy look in my eye. There might have been something mentioned about drool, as well, but I was too caught up in the sight of Brad Titan for the first time.
He stood over everyone in our class at around six feet tall, with dark hair and hypnotizing blue eyes. He was the epitome of sex. But that’s not where it ended with him. He was a straight-A student and captain of almost every male sports team our school offered. To say he was extremely cut in every way was a complete understatement. It looked like he was carved out of marble. The perfect man.
A month—that’s how long it took me to actually get up enough nerve to talk to him. Come to find out, he was just like me—smitten. That day I had been so nervous that I almost lost it a couple of times. But my girls had my back through the whole thing. God, I loved those girls to death. They were my rock. I can remember the day just like it was yesterday. He was sitting at the head table with a bunch of boys, joking around and talking.
God, I had been so nervous. The main thing that had me pushing forward was Cherish Sharp, the class whore. She cornered him many times asking him if he wanted to get together sometime. To me, there was no one as trashy as Cherish Sharp. I remember seeing her walk over to his table and start talking to him, laying her hand on his shoulder and laughing at something he said. Giving him the ‘come hither’ look the entire time.
That had been the last straw.
I started walking over to his table, catching his eye before I made it there. His eyes were the most beautiful I had ever seen; they captured me, as if they were never going to let me go. The color of his irises seemed to dance with mischief. A cocky smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He tipped his head in acknowledgement. When I came to a stop behind Cherish, he shrugged her hand off his shoulder and stood. I’ll never forget the first words he said to me. Not for as long as I live.
He smiled a megawatt smile, showing his white, straight teeth against the olive color of his skin. “Hello, beautiful.”
“Handsome,” I snickered.
And the rest was history. Ever since that day we were the ‘it’ couple of Cedar Grove High School. Guys wanted to be him; the girls wanted to be me. There was no other guy that I wanted to be with, and no other girl he was interested in. When we were not together, we were playing our sports—mine being softball. It was like a fairy tale.
In just the few months we’d been together, I had fallen head over heels for him. He was it for me, and there would be no one else for as long as I lived.
Shaking my head to release the thoughts of the past few months, I found him lying on the ground under our tree. “You cheated,” I giggled, lying down next to him.
He rolled over me, settling himself between my legs. “Never, love.”
He claimed my lips in a soul-splitting kiss. The kind of kiss that made you see fireworks behind your eyelids and feel electrical pulses shoot throughout your whole body. His lips always lit a fire in me, as if his kiss could imprint on my soul. Too late for that; he’d already imprinted himself on my mind, body, and soul a long time ago. His tongue slipped and slid across my lips, teasing me. He knew how much it drove me crazy to have him like this. No holds barred. It completely flipped my world upside down.
“Stop teasing,” I whimpered, as his tongue slid across my bottom lip.
He groaned, taking said lip between his teeth and nibbling. “You know what your whimpering does to me.” He ground his erection against my core.
I closed my eyes and moaned from the friction against my already swollen bud. He groaned against my mouth, grinding himself against me again. My whimpers and moans were always his undoing, and this time was no different.
But kissing is as far as he would go; I hoped this time it would be different. God, please let it be different; I wanted this…no, I needed this. The moment my hands touched the sides of his face, he brought his hands up to intertwine our fingers and raise my hands above my head. His kiss turned hard, fast, and oh so delicious.
Then he stopped…
Fuck me swinging…
“Don’t stop … God, don’t do this to me,” I pouted.
He rolled off of me and sat staring at the pond next to the tree, beginning to skip stones. “I just can’t go there with you, Claire. It could ruin the whole thing.” He exhaled a sigh.
He always skipped stones into the pond when there was something on his mind. I was sure this time was no different. I sat up and stared, noticing his entire posture was rigid and filled with tension. I’ve never seen him like this before, he looked so heartbroken, helpless. Scooting to where we were flush against each other, I put my arm through his, laying my head on his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” I asked sympathetically.
He scratched his chin that, until now I didn’t realize had a few day’s stubble lining his jaw. “Nothing you can fix.”
“How do you know unless you tell me?” I asked.
“I know you can’t, so don’t ask again,” he stated in a stern voice.
I jerked away from him like he’d slapped me. Brad was never the one to take a tone like that with anyone, even the people he didn’t like. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew for sure that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I faced him, crossing my legs. If he didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t push it. But damn, I wanted to know what caused this personality change in him so fast. Whereas just a few moments ago he was laughing, playing around, and almost got laid.
There was one thing he wasn’t going to do; he wasn’t going to talk to me like that. Ever. “Brad, I know something is going on. I’m not going to push you, but you will not talk to me like that. I did nothing wrong.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know; you're right. I’m sorry.”
I expected him to pull me into a hug, but he didn’t. There was something seriously different going on here. It made me fear what the future held for us. Was our future in question now? I sure hoped not because I loved him more than life. But the more I looked at him, the more I saw that this could very well be it. That our relationship has run its course. It broke my heart to think about it. I would do anything to save our relationship—anything. All he had to do was open up to me.
“At least we can look forward to prom,” I said excitedly. He closed his eyes as a pained look came over his face. I seriously wanted to know what the hell was going on now. Especially with him looking like that.
“Claira,” he whispered on a pained breath. “I’m not going to prom.”
I sat back with a dumbfounded look on my face. We had been planning this for months, and now out of the blue he’s saying he wasn’t going to go? Where the hell did this come from?
“Say what?” I strained to keep my voice from breaking as I looked up at him. “You’re not going to prom? When were you going to tell me so we could make other plans?”
I could care less about the prom, so as long as I was with him. But this shady shit he has going on, was giving me the willies. He was not the shady type. Yes, I have heard rumors pass around school, but I didn’t believe any of them. He was either with me or at practice, so there was no way that they could be true. He was rumored to have been fucking a lot of girls at school: in janitor’s closets, underneath the bleachers, his car, his room, empty classrooms. I made fun of the nickname our friends gave him, Brad ‘Thick Dick’ Titan.
“Maybe I should rephrase the way I said that … I’m not going to prom … with you.” He glanced over at me with saddened eyes, gauging my response.
Which was probably dead on what he thought it was going to be. The tears immediately began to fall. I stood up quickly, putting distance between us. I turned away from him, not able to look at him. The way he was looking at me was shredding me. I just couldn’t do it. Prom was supposed to be the night we took each other’s virginity. It was also the night I would remember for the rest of my life.
“Why?” I bring my hands to my face to stop the rainfall of tears.
“Why what?”
“Is there another girl? Are you just not going because of me? I want to know why,” I rushed out, my chest so tight I could barely breathe.
“It doesn’t matter. I told you that you can’t fix it,” he stated unemotionally.
I rounded on him, my hands balling into fists at my side. He was telling me all this a month before prom. After almost being together a year, he was telling me this. “Are the rumors true?”
“Rumors?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, Brad. I want to know if the rumors are true. You know, the ones I opted out of listening to for the past five months!” I screamed, my eyes boring into his.
He chuckled. “You mean the ones of me being Brad ‘Thick Dick’ Titan, and how I fuck everything that moves, and I’m just a jerk that’s too cocky for his own good?” He smiled at me, but that was the only emotion on his face. This was not the Brad I’d fallen in love with; I didn’t know who this man was. “Yes, sweetheart. I would say believing that would be a safe assumption on your part.”
My entire world felt like it was blowing up around me. I stared at him in utter shock, mouth gaping in an ‘O.’ It took me a few minutes before I could put more than a couple words together. “You’ve been cheating on me?”
“Well, nothing gets past you, sweetheart,” he feigned mock sarcasm.
I couldn’t look at him anymore, I turned and ran. I can’t believe this entire time the girls had been right. That everything I thought we were feeling together, the love, was all one-sided. No man has ever hurt me the way Brad Titan just did. I felt empty, gutted, like there was absolutely nothing left for me to live for. He was my first love, the only guy I ever dreamed about losing my virginity to.
A dream that was going to become a reality on prom night. I know that losing your virginity on prom night was a bit cliché, but I had a special night planned, and he went and ruined it. He ruined everything. Brad being unfaithful absolutely crushed me. There was no way that I would come back from this. He was my entire life. For him to do something like this to me was just unspeakable.
I was so glad that today was Friday. I would have the weekend to mourn the loss, then I would be right back at school again, facing him. It was too much to handle right now. There was one person I needed right now more than anything. It was just too bad that person was tied to Brad, too. Ever since Brad and I began dating, I slowly drifted away from my old friends. The only friends I had now were also Brad’s. What a fucked up situation I found myself in.
After sprinting to his room to grab my things, I ran to the front door. Opening it, I came face to face with his father, Henry Titan. The man was like a second father to me. Since my own father left town when I was just an infant, he was the only man that I looked up to. Too bad I would never see him again. That thought crushed me all the more.
He stood there, taking in my disheveled appearance and tear-stained cheeks. Concern etched his eyes as he began to frown. “Sweetie, is everything okay?”
His question caused me to break down more and I shook my head. “No, sir, it’s not,” I broke down and cried harder.
Without another thought he grabbed me up in his arms, pulling me into his chest. That was when the dam fully broke. I stood there clutching him to me, as if he were my last lifeline, dropping my stuff in the process. I didn’t know how long we stood there until I heard the kitchen door close. Shit. Stepping away from him, I glanced in the kitchen to see Brad standing there looking pissed off as hell.
“You were supposed to leave, Claire,” he brooded.
His father spoke up then. “Why is that, Bradley? She is welcome here anytime she wants; you are not the ruler of this house,” he growled, pulling me back into his chest. “Let me guess, you have something to do with this, you little prick.”
“That’s none of your business, Father,” Brad growled.
Between Brad and his father, there was no love lost. They barely tolerated each other, and that was on a good day. But to have Brad talk to his father this way, it was new.
“To hell it’s not my business. This little girl has been nothing but good to you, you ungrateful little shit.”
I pulled away from him, looking into Henry’s eyes. “I have to go, sir. I’m no longer welcome here.” I paused as the next words caught in my throat. “Brad doesn’t want me. He made that perfectly clear.”
His eyes softened. “Claire, I don’t know what he did. But let me just tell you something, it’s not your fault. Okay?”
“Thank you, sir.” My voice broke at the end. “I have to go now. Give Mrs. Titan my love, okay?”