Deep {COMPLETED}

f i v e

Riley Green

I'd walked off the dance floor leaving Ian behind, hopefully in a state of shock and utter confusion. What he couldn't see was the way I looked after leaving him, after he'd kissed me. I was a mess, a complete mess. Boys don't just kiss me softly and sweetly like Ian did, he treated me like I was anyone but Riley Green. I had paced back and forth outside, practically hyperventilating from lack of air, probably because he took all of it away when he'd kissed me.

I'd done everything that week to get him out of my head, everything I could to focus on anything but kissing Ian. All I could do was think about his lips and his tall frame and how this boy was tearing me apart when I was supposed to destroy him. His mind should have been fully occupied by the thought of me but it seemed to be the other way around.

I simply couldn't ignore the way Ian had made me feel.

So I had to think, how could I fix this? How could I turn the tables so that I was on top again? I don't think he even knew what he'd done to me, he had no idea what I was feeling because of him. I had no romantic interest in him, I didn't like him, he had just left me utterly confused. There had to be something to throw him overboard and keep me in control.

I had to do something.

I've known Ian Walker for three weeks, and he was making me go mad. I haven't talked to him since I walked away at the club, and today I would face him. Fingers crossed that I could pull myself together.

I bit down on my lip as I walked into the recreation room. Ian was already sitting down amongst the group and Kathy had just begun to talk.

"Oh! Riley, please take a seat we've just begun. You did miss the quote though, the consequences of coming late." I rolled my eyes and took a seat between two people whose names I hadn't bothered to learn.

We marked progress and I was able to add a tally mark this week, Ian took one off. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. When Kathy started into the lesson, I couldn't even try and pretend I was paying attention, because I wasn't. I had a target and he was sitting across from me with arms behind his head like he couldn't care any less about me.

Even though he tried to hide it, I caught him glancing at me occasionally. Each time he would lick his lips and run his fingers through his hair. His lips, they were so perfect. Even if I didn't like him I couldn't just ignore the fact that he had the most amazing lips I'd ever seen on a person, that was something worth acknowledging.

The session was dragged out, I couldn't focus on a single thing. Nothing but Ian. At the very end, as I had suspected since Kathy had been giving me dirty looks for not paying attention, I was called on.

"Alright, I want someone to share an experience that was supposedly bad, but in the end it made you a better person." No one raised their hand and Kathy searched the room for someone to call on. She made eye contact with me and I knew I was screwed.

Shit.

"Riley!" I rolled my eyes, making sure she could see, and crossed my arms over my chest to think.

An experience that was bad, but in the end it made me a good person...

That's the issue, I thought, I'm not a good person.

"I don't know.." I mumbled and trailed off. Kathy continued to stare at me, along with the rest of the group. It was clear that I was going to have to answer.

"Fine," I sighed, "When I was like, 15 I was dating this guy, I thought I was totally in love with him, and then I found out he was cheating on me. So of course I was devastated and wrecked, I mean like I just cried for days and thought it was the end of my world completely, nothing could've been worse. But then I was talking to this girl from my class and it turns out that he'd had this reputation for hitting girls, like abusively. So I was kind of glad he cheated on me and we broke up because, I don't know, it made me think like, the universe was trying to tell me something. And I just was thinking how the universe is unpredictable and it was odd how it had helped me out because I'm such an awful person. I'm the kind of person who would've deserved a boyfriend like that, we deserved each other because we were both miserable low-lives. Just goes to show that good things can happen to bad people. So I guess that made me feel a lot better whenever everything was going to shit."