“Okay, let’s get you into bed.” I dropped her down onto the mattress and bega
n the torturous task of undressing her.
“No,” she murmured, trying to fumble with her clothes. “I can do it.”
“You can barely talk, let alone get undressed.” My fingers peeled hers away. “Let me do it.”
“Why?” she murmured, her head rolling like a rag doll. “I’m no one. Nothing.”
“You’re not nothing.” I brushed the hair from her face, fighting a smile, and ignoring the giant lump in my throat.
Couldn’t she see she was someone to me? That she was slowly becoming too important, which is why I had to walk away? Before we were both in too deep and things became too messy.
Felicity relented, her body pliant as I peeled her shirt and jeans off before tucking her into bed. Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and steady. She’d drunk a lot tonight. Too much. And I knew it was my fault for how things went down earlier.
“Fuck,” I muttered, stepping away from her before I did something stupid. Something more stupid than sneaking into her house on a Thursday night while her parents slept down the hall.
But I couldn’t seem to drag myself away either. Because in that moment, with her passed out on the bed, I could pretend. Pretend she was mine and I was hers. Even if it was only a dream. One I knew could never become reality.
Leaning against her desk, something caught my eye. Reaching for the stack of papers, the familiar crest stared up at me. “What the...” My eyes squinted as I snatched up the college application, a sinking feeling tugging at my stomach.
There was no way.
No way she was applying to Penn, my fucking school.
Yet, there it was, staring me in the face, like a giant screw you from the universe.
“J- Jason?” Her soft voice hit me dead in the chest. “Are you still here?”
I wanted to go to her, to reassure her everything was okay. That she was just disorientated from all the liquor in her bloodstream. But I was paralyzed by the papers in my hand. At what they implied.
Penn was Ivy League, one of the best colleges in the country. What were the chances that Felicity also had plans to go there?
Unless... no. She wouldn’t pull that kind of crazy shit.
Would she?
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. My chest tightened around my lungs like I’d been sacked by a hulk of a linebacker. Quietly hurrying to the door, I glanced over at her one last time before ducking out of her room and retracing my steps out of the house.
Felicity was never supposed to be a distraction. She was never supposed to bury her way under my skin.
Only she had.
And for as much as I’d resisted, for as much as I knew it was a terrible idea, deep down, I had been coming around to the idea of exploring this thing between us. The inexplicable pull. But I wasn’t looking for anything serious. Didn’t have time for it. Not now. Not when I went off to Penn next fall. So the idea she would be there, on campus, showing up all over the place... I couldn’t deal with that shit.
It was better this way.
Better she hated me.
Better she got all ideas of her and me out of her head.
Felicity deserved Prince Charming, not the misunderstood Knight with a chip on his shoulder and hate in his soul.
The vibrations of my cell pulled me from my thoughts and I dug it out my pocket. “Yeah?”
“Check your snapchat,” Grady said. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Do I even want to know?”