The Separation Situation: Sequel to The Renovation Complication

42. So Wrong

Tori

I can't breathe. All I can feel is him, him on my lips, his hand touching mine and it's suffocating me, it's so wrong. I'm so wrong. What the hell was I thinking?

What the hell was Liam thinking? I have a boyfriend, which has been made very clear. I thought I made that very clear. Did he think that he could step in and be my knight in shining armour, solve all of my problems? No. That's my job, and I don't want anything to do with him.

I kissed him back.

It's true. For a second there, I kissed him. Because I was lonely and pathetic and scared that I would be alone and that when Mason left me, I would have no one, so I kissed him back. I shouldn't have done that. There is no amount of synonyms for wrong or shouldn't that can explain how much that shouldn't have happened.

There are twigs and dirt and pine needles in my clothes, and in my hair. Mason's fricken sweater is tainted with everything that just happened. It smells like last night, like fire and Liam and the goddamned forest. I take it back, that camping trip wasn't a good idea.

The sun only rose about an hour ago, and when it did, I didn't hesitate to speed over the boulders on the track, and out of that place. I should have left last night, but by the time I got to my car, I collapsed from exhaustion. I must have sprinted just short of four miles.

Another horrible superpower to add to my list.

To be honest, though, I don't think I fell asleep so much as blacked out the instant I tried to start the engine of Alex's stupid car. By the time I awoke, the sun was up and I stank like sweat and tears and Liam. You never notice someone's scent until it's all over you and you can't get it off.

And that brings me to the now, where I'm transforming a two hour trip into a forty minute roller coaster ride. If there are any cops awake on this dreadful day, I'm dead meat. Not only speeding, but texting Ashley that I'll be home early, I am an absolute hazard.

Oh well, let me die. I can't live to face what I have just done.

What am I going to tell Mason? Am I going to tell Mason? It's so hard to answer that simple question, because either way they're wrong.

Everything is so wrong right now.

If I tell him, he'll either be furious, hurt, or will shut me out completely. I will definitely lose him. But if I don't tell him, then I'll have to go on like everything is fine and that the worst thing about our relationship is that he called me childish. That seems so minor now.

I cheated on him.

And you might think that I'm overreacting, because people only count cheating as having sex, but you cannot possibly imagine my guilt. There was no drunk sex, there was only a conscious decision to kiss a boy that I almost could have had feelings for.

And what keeps replaying in my head is that if things were different, I could have very well been with Liam. If I never met Mason, and there was a genuinely kind boy who showed an interest in me, what would have happened? Surely I couldn't have felt the way I feel about Mason for anyone else? That can't be real.

But what if I did?

I'm torturing myself, and I wind down my windows until the sharp breeze stings the tears out of my eyes. I feel sticky and dirty. I feel like everything I have ever done has now been tainted because I am such an idiot, so stupid for reasons I can't even explain.

I want there to be real red glittery shoes that I can just tap together and go anyplace I want. I could make this not exist. If I never have to confront my actions, they don't exist, right?

By the time I reach Annandale, my hysteria has somewhat dimmed. This town, these people don't know what I've done. As I pull into my driveway, I see Liam's mother and almost throw up. She looks like him.

Ashley's car isn't anywhere nearby, so I assume she's gone to work. She replied to my text a while ago, to let me know that she wouldn't be in when I got home. I need to be alone right now.

I need to hide away in my room for a few weeks, and forget about him. I need to gain a few pounds from living off of Ben and Jerry's, make myself something different to what I am now. I can't even look at myself in the reflection of the windows. The sight of this girl, this girl who has broken Mason Donovan's trust, makes me nauseous.

I lock Alex's car and cringe at the damage. If I thought it was bad when I had carefully avoided stray branches on the way in, my delirious escape has shredded the thing to mere strips of red. I can see more metal than paint. I'll have to get that repaired before he comes to visit next.

Or maybe just buy a new car, seen as it has been added to the list of things tainted by last night. I should make a bonfire and burn the car and these clothes and my hair and anything else I can remove from myself. The blonde is already getting old, anyway. Quickly.

I search my bag (thankfully, the one thing I managed to snatch last night) for my house keys, and when I don't find them, frantically try to twist the knob anyway. It's a stupid idea, seen as no one's home, so surely it'll be –

Unlocked. The front door is unlocked. But Ashley isn't here. Maybe she forgot and left without taking basic safety precautions. Maybe she was late, maybe...

Alex is home.

"Wow, you look horrible." My brother says, and my lungs get caught in my throat. My brother, my boyfriends' best friend, is standing in the kitchen. He looks the same as always, but I don't'. I don't because I'm tainted with another boy who I don't love, and I wonder if Alex can see it in my eyes.

He can't. "You look like you ran three miles through a hurricane." Four miles through a forest, I don't say. He raises an eyebrow at my stunned silence. "Ash said you'd be home early. I would hug you, but you're kind of disgusting." Oh, you don't know the half of it. "Go have a shower and I'll consider it." He gives me a teasing smile, just like old times, where we'd exchange insults, like normal siblings.

What part of 'I need to be alone' do you not understand, universe?

Dragging behind me a heavy back pack and a heavier conscience, I stagger toward the staircase. Alex is so unintentionally right – I need to have a long, tear filled shower to every sad Panic! At the Disco song ever. I need to scrub my skin with that stupid vanilla soap that Ashley keeps buying me until everything bleeds the way it should. I need to lose every layer of skin, brush away my lips and my gums to get rid of any trace of Liam. I need to wash him out of my hair and keep those curtains closed for the rest of my life.

I never want to see Liam Thomson again.

The only thing that I can reassure myself of is the fact that I still have time to figure out what to say to Mason. I can get myself together while he still thinks I'm angry at him. Right now, just the thought of seeing his face, so unaware of what I've done, twists in my gut.

I still have time.

But before I even reach for the entrance to my room, I sense something that makes me want to run. Not a sound, not a sight, not even a feeling. A scent. That haunting scent that makes me dread opening my own door. The smell of summer and fireflies and blue eyes and fruit.

Peaches.

And he's standing right there.

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Damn