Chapter seventeen - Marvelous Mates

~*~

A weird feeling fills my stomach as I desperately try to open my eyes. It's early, I know that much. The birds aren't singing yet and the sun isn't even peeking through the curtains. Normally, when I wake up, I see orange fragrances even with my eyes closed, but now it's all black.

Everything feels so foreign. I can't even remember what day it is, nor why I have woken up this early or why I am lying on my back. I always sleep on my side, never on my back, so why'd I do that now? And why is there a heavy weight pressing against my stomach?

Feeling a little dizzy, I reach out to replace the weight on me.

As I do so, this thing next to me starts moving. "Hmm," it hums.

Wait what?

Suddenly I'm wide awake, my eyes shoot open in no time and I spring up as I see that the thing I picked off my body was nothing less than a bare arm. A bare arm, for crying out loud!

I start to yell and jump of the bed, praising myself lucky that I find my phone in the process. I turn on the flashlight that I had - lucky me again - put on my main menu.

"What the-" the creature that's currently lying on my bed grumbles and I recognize the voice.

Oh god, I so recognize it.

"Geo-Geoffrey." A brick sinks into my stomach. I find the light switch and switch it on.

It's him.

Good God, it's him.

This isn't good, this is bad, so, so, bad.

My breathing increases as I start to realize why the bastard's in my bed. I start pacing back and forth in my room.

"Oh no, oh no." I rub my temples which are painfully throbbing.

"Lor-"

"Shut up!" I yell, "Just shut up, Geoffrey, I'm serious, okay!" And then the ranting begins. "I can't believe this, I can't, why-why'd you do that to me? I-I mean, this was my first time, it was supposed to be special!" Tears start piling up in my eyes as he tries to speak up again.

"What the hell are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you stole my virginity, you asshole!" I cry, "I can't believe this, I can't even remember anything about it."

"Calm down will-"

"Don't you dare tell me that I have to calm down! I was drunk! Y-You just took advantage of me! How could you?" I scream at the top of my lungs

"Will you listen for Christ's sake!" He tries to move forward, the sheet currently hanging two centimeters above his crotch. One wrong move and it'd be exposed in the open, god no!

"Don't move!" I cover my eyes with my hands.

"Chill out." He chuckles. "I'm wearing boxers."

"Do you think this is funny?" I ask, arching my eyebrow. "Ha-ha, you just had sex with a defenseless drunk girl, that's hilarious!"

He gets up from the bed as he tries to get a grip of my arm. "Don't touch me!" I say, ready to kick him in the nuts with one wrong move.

He waits until I stand still before speaking up.

"Are you sore in certain places?" he asks, sounding worried all of a sudden. Two-faced asshole!

I reply annoyed and still mad, "My head is hurting terribly, and my stomach has been better but- oh," a blush rises to my cheeks, "you mean there."

"Yes, I mean there." He grins.

"No, I'm not, so ha that doesn't say much good about your dick does it?"

He shakes his head. "We didn't have sex."

"We didn't?" I ask suspicious.

"No," he assures me.

"Wait a minute, than why'd you ask if I was sore?"

"To find out whether or not I'd have to kill a certain Cody guy."

I shoot him a questioning look. "Why Cody?"

"Because he was the one who brought you home and you were crying."

"Oh." Memories of the night before come floating in. The party, the drinking, Cody driving me home, me crying, Latoya still being here when I arrived.

I swallow at the thought of her name.

"Now come back to bed, it's like six in the morning," Geoffrey directs, lying down on the bed again and pulled the sheet over him. My sheet might I add.

As I lie down next to him, my head facing the wall, I realize something, with a lump in my throat I ask, "W-Where is my bra?"

"It's in the bathroom."

"How did it get there?"

I don't even wait for his answer, I just jump up again and sprint over to the bathroom.

My clothes are thrown on a small pile, no chance on Earth a drunk, emotionally unstable girl did that by herself.

My reflection in the mirror is another thing that caught my attention. My face isn't a mess, there's no make-up smeared around my face, nor are there signs of me having a major cry session.

My index finger and thumb make their way over to my ears, tracing the small holes in them. Damn it, I lost my earrings.

"Are you okay in there?"

"Uh, yeah, kind of, why?"

"Just checking if you weren't vomiting again." I swing the door open at that.

"I threw up?" My mouth hangs open.

"Uh, yeah."

"You didn't see that, did you?" I ask, avoiding eye contact at any moment.

"Well, someone had to hold back your hair."

I smack my forehead, I can't believe he saw me in that state.

"Do you happen to know where my earrings are?"

"One was missing, I put the other one back in the box with your jewelry." I nod, remaining silent.

"My face doesn't look all bad."

"You didn't want to go to sleep looking like you did, said you felt ugly."

He cleaned my face? Erased the make-up? Took out my earrings?

My eyes scan the bathroom as if it was a place I had never been in in my entire life.

"Can we please go back to bed now?" He still wants to sleep in my bed?

"Do you remember anything you said or did last night?" he asks as I crawl back onto the bed, stuffing up my pillow.

"I remember you," I hide my reddened cheeks from him, "carrying me up the stairs."

"You don't remember anything after that?"

"No, I don't, is there something I should know about?"

"Uh, no." Okay, now he has gotten me scared, the tone of his voice didn't sound calming at all.

I pin myself down onto the matress when I realize that it really isn't a good idea to sleep in the same bed as him.

"And just so you know, I'd never have sex with you when you're in that state." His eyes try to find mine but I refuse to give in. "Certainly not now that I know you're still a virgin."

Aaaaand that's what I was waiting for, I knew this would come.

"Yep, indeed I am, so bring it on with the never ending jokes; I am a seventeen years old virgin and I'm proud of it," I say annoyed.

"Do you see me laughing?"

"No, it's too dark in order to see you."

A small adorable laugh followed. "I meant that I won't laugh at you, I'm just a bit surprised, that's all."

"Why surprised?"

"You don't look like a prude," he says.

"I'm no prude."

"Then why haven't you slept with anyone? I'm sure there are plenty of guys who'd want to volunteer."

"But then what's the point of having sex if the person you're sleeping with doesn't mean anything to you? Okay if you just want to have sex but this is a decision I made for myself, and I don't really care about what others think of it."

"I just don't get why someone would decide that, to me personally, it sounds a bit odd."

"The thing is that with my parents, all there ever was, was meaningless sex and that just seems pointless to me." He remains quiet, taking in my words I guess. Or chances are he just fell asleep. "Plus I believe that having sex with someone you truly love is much better and more special than with anyone else, and I think that's worth the wait."

"That's beautifully said." So he didn't fall asleep...

"Is that true or am I just telling myself that? That there's a difference between having just sex and making love?"

"I don't know." A heavy breath follows.

"You've never really liked someone?"

"I have."

"Then why can't you tell whether or not there is a difference?"

"Because I never got the privilege to sleep with her."

"You didn't?"

"Nope," he let out, "when I first really liked a girl I was like fourteen years old and she didn't even like me back, same for the second one."

A pang of pain went through my chest at the thought of a fourteen year old Geoffrey being heartbroken.

"She didn't like you?" Disbelief is written all over my face.

"Nope, the first one said I was too fat and I witnessed the second fall in love with another guy."

I swallow, feeling so sorry for him. Especially since the first girl turned him down because he was too fat for her liking.

A couple of days ago Geoffrey was sitting at the kitchen table as I entered. Lana had just left my house and my mom and Geoffrey's dad had left that same morning, going on a romantic trip.

He was reading in some kind of huge book, which surely surprised me: he didn't seem like the guy that liked to spend his hours of spare time with his nose in books.

"What are you reading?" A few steps later I reached him, leaning on his shoulder as I stood behind him.

I saw pictures, a lot of them, taped neatly with four on a page.

"Is that you?" A smile rose onto my face as I saw a cute little boy holding onto a woman's leg. He had the same dark hair as Geoffrey, only in the picture it was styled into this old school way. His cheeks were painted with a beautiful shade of pink and the glitter in his eye had still remained throughout the years.

"Yeah." He smiled.

"Whoa, you were one handsome little man."

He let out a deep breath. "That's my mom."

His finger traced over the woman whose leg he was holding onto. She had much lighter hair, but the eyes were unmistakable. Her hand rested on Geoffrey's head as she smiled at the camera.

"She's so beautiful," I whispered as I lowered my face next to his to take a proper look.

"I know right." I locked my arms around his neck, giving him a small kiss on the cheek.

"Want to see the rest with me?" I took a seat next to him, as he shoved the book to the space between us.

Page by page I was surprised by different stories of all the memories a simple picture could hold. His mom was in them almost every time, his dad on the other hand was only mentioned once.

"This is the last one I have with my mom." He traced his finger over the photo.

When he turned the page it was as it we entered a new universe. His clothes had visibly changed into something three shades darker and his smile was never as genuine. At the sight of each picture my heart broke a little more.

"I'm actually embarrassed to show these to you," he admitted.

"If you don't want me to see them just tell me, I won't take it personally, I understand." Nevertheless he turned the following page, sucking in another deep breath.

There was this kid in it, around the age of twelve, thirteen, I guess.

"This is you?" I asked, not believing what I saw.

"The one and only." He chuckled bitterly.

"When was this?"

"At my thirteenth birthday party at my grandparents'."

I couldn't believe what I saw. There was this kid, completely dressed in black, staring at his candles. He didn't look like a happy birthday boy, not even with that colorful crown on his head. His eyes looked tired and angry as a man was standing next to him, looking like he was clapping in his hands.

"You-You look so..."

"Fat?"

"No... unhappy."

"You can call me fat you know, I can handle the truth." I looked at him, he was close to crying, I could give you that.

With each page that got turned he seemed to gain a bit more weight, and he actually looked depressed.

On one of the last pages I made him stop turning pages by putting my hand over his. It was like a replica of the one we had stopped on previously.

"Your fourteenth birthday?"

"Yeah, since my mom died my grandma took over the responsibility to make an album for me, but I only saw her on special occasions."

"You changed so much," I whispered.

"This was at my worst point actually."

"How did this happen?" The kid in the picture was close to obesity, something completely in contrast with how he was now. "How did you get this fit again?"

"As a kid, my mom and I would always bake all kinds of stuff together, she's the one from whom I inherited my love for cooking. When she died I couldn't really grief, all I could do was hide I my kitchen and prepare all kinds of stuff. As a consequence of that, I'd also ate all of it.

"I was an emotional eater, causing me to have major binges and gain a lot of weight in a couple of months. On top of that I stopped playing football so it didn't take long till I was at the edge of obesity. "

I had been listening attentively all this time as he was about to break. "How were you able to change your lifestyle?"

"Let's just say something happened." I nodded, respecting his privacy. I was already so glad that he told me all this stuff. "And that thing changed something in the way I thought and expressed my feelings and sadness."

"How did you?"

"By fighting and working out insanely."

"The working out is great, but make sure it stays healthy okay, don't want you to ruin your body or become a body builder or something."

"You don't think that's sexy?" He wiggled his eyebrow.

I shook my head. "Nah not really." I laughed

"What?" He smiled as I kept on staring a bit too obviously.

"I just admire how strong you are. You managed to turn your life around all by yourself at such a young age."

"Well, I ruined it myself, so I guess it's normal that I'd have to fix it."

"Yeah but still, I wouldnt-"

The doorbell, great.

"That's probably Dwayne," he said, getting up from his chair. "Could you take this upstairs? Don't really want him to see it." He pointed at the book.

"Sure." I took it to my room, running over every page again and again and again, till he came upstairs two hours later to collect it.

I snap back out of my memory as I ask in disguise. "She rejected you because she thought you were too fat? What is wrong with that girl?"

"She was actually pretty amazing when I met her. Her name was René and she was a beautiful, beautiful girl. She was the typical quiet girl, always at the first row in class, answering all the questions that were asked. She'd help me when I had difficulties in class and when my mom died she supported me. But then this other girl came into our class, Tiffany. Hell, she was a real bitch. She changed René, and not for the better.

"One day, I had gathered all my courage and kissed her. She pulled back immediately, laughing in my face, telling me I should try that again when I lost 50 pounds and gained some muscle.

"The next morning everyone already knew about it and boys started laughing at me as well and that's when I started my first fight. I got suspended and changed schools.

"That summer I made a change, I started working out, eating clean and when I was sixteen I participated in a cooking workshop. It sounds really stupid, but I took one like 50 km outside the city I was living in, didn't want anyone to recognize me, since I had built myself a reputation I'd now like to get rid of.

"Long story short that's how I went from being a normal kid to a total fat guy to a trained muscular teen who superficial girls seem to fall for."

"Whoa," was all I could say, "you've been through a lot."

"You could say that." He laughs.

Silence filled the room, I move a bit closer towards him, desperately wanting to show him that he can count on me if he ever needed me.

"You're special, Loren."

"I am?" My breaths get stuck into my throat as I hear those words, he thinks I'm special? At the same moment our sides brush against each other, making me go nuts.

"Yeah, I mean, you're different."

"Good different?" I ask.

"Nah, not really." He earns an elbow in the stomach for that.

"And what do you even mean by that?" I ask, not taking his comment too personally.

"That I don't have to hide who I really am from you." The sun starts to peek through the curtains as I continue to listen to his words.

It is true, he doesn't have to hide who he is, in contrary to what he does most of the time. Like when he told his friends he made it to the football team.

Okay, he didn't tell them, I did.

I just had enough of him hiding things for his friends. It's no shame that you like football, in fact, it's something he should be proud of.

So one day when I was in a pretty crappy mood, I entered the living room, finding three weird dudes there (Wes wasn't there), playing some violent game on the PlayStation. So I thought, why not help him out? I opened my big mouth and said, "Hey, Geoffrey, when is the next football training?"

Then I walked through the room, enjoying the weird looks his two friends were giving him. Before I exited I turned around and winked at him. "You're welcome."

He didn't really like that, but yeah, I didn't really care.

"Why were you such an asshole in the beginning?"

"Because I'm an asshole to everyone," he replies in all honesty.

"But why? I mean I got to know you and you seem like a nice guy most of the time."

"I just wanted to keep you away from me, that's why I was even meaner to you than to others."

"I don't get why, do I look like such a bitch?"

"No, on the contrary actually, you seem like a pretty stereotypical girl, and I guess I didn't want you to fall for my looks."

"Stereotypical? Me?"

"Are you serious? Dean Collier? That's pretty much as superficial as it can get."

"How do you know that?" I ask, open mouthed. This guy is starting to creep me out!

"I read your diary."

"What!" I gasp again, oh no this is not good!

"Just kidding," he laughs, "but see, you're like the definition of a superficial girl, fall for the most popular guy in school, write about him in your diary-"

"Used to write," I correct him.

"You used to write about him in your diary and when you have some spare time left, you go nuts about Zac Efron."

"There's nothing wrong with that!" He let out a small laugh.

"You know what I like about you?"

"I've got a feeling you're about to tell me."

"I like how like, when I am shirtless for example," heat rises at my cheeks by only the thought of that, I've been living with him for 5 months and I still can't get used to it, "Loren?"

"What?"

"Oh, okay, nothing, I thought you had fallen asleep or something."

"No, no, please continue," I say, dying to know what he's about to say.

"Like, when I walk into a room, shirtless, first you look at my body with this I don't know, lust or something in your eyes, like the typical superficial, stereotypical girl," well that's not awkward to hear that, "but then you look up at me, at my face and your expression changes like, I don't know but it's such a warm look, something filled with, I don't know, like admiration and I just feel like you like me for me, and that means a lot to me."

"Uhum." I gulp. God he notices me staring, how awkward is that?

The room goes silent for a while, giving me the time to gather all of my courage to ask a question, although I was pretty sure I didn't want to know the answer.

"Did I manage to put on my pajama by myself?" My heartbeat quickens.

"No," he says calmly, "no, you didn't."

I swallow, nodding. His thumb starts to caress the top of my hand.

"But I swear, I didn't see anything."

"Yeah sure," I blurt out, enjoying the contact of our skin nonetheless.

"I'm serious, I only saw your underwear, but that's no big deal."

"And m-my bra?"

"I unclasped it but didn't look." I bit my nails, hoping he's telling the truth. "Look, I'm really not that desperate to see breasts, I just took care of you, I would never take advantage of you that way."

He lifts my hand up to his face, where he gives it a small kiss.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"Anytime," he replies.

"I'm sorry I ruined your night with Latoya," I hated to say that, I really did.

"That's okay, you've done so much for me this was the least I could do."

I sigh, still not happy with the fact I lost control and am now stuck with a hole in my memory and a major headache.

"I mean it, Loren, it was no problem," our eyes connect for a brief moment. "You're an awesome friend to me."

Then he positions himself onto his side and slips into unconsciousness, leaving me stunned.

Did this really happen? Did he just say that?

Realizing he really said that I let out a deep breath.

Yup, I just got friend-zoned.

~*~

I really had to hold back the urge to write the things that happened that night between Loren and Geoffrey in Geoffrey's POV, since I've got it all worked out in my head :D But I remained strong! :D

Hope you liked it!