Chapter Seventeen. 

            The next morning was extremely awkward because my brother and sister had school since their Christmas vacation hadn’t started yet and my parents went out Christmas shopping for me so I obviously couldn’t go along. It was just Reina and I in the house and I didn’t want to leave my room because after last night so much has changed between us and so much was left unspoken I just didn’t even want to face her and have the conversation I’ve been dreading to have for months now.

            “Hey!” Reina shrieked, jumping on top of the bed. “Get up!”

            I was in shock because for one, she just scared the shit out of me and two, she was overly happy and nothing like she was last night. Why does she always have to confuse me?

            “You aren’t mad…” I trailed off tiredly, letting out a yawn. “Really?”

            “Why would I be mad?”

            “What do you mean why? After we had sex… you left and you were pissed at me.”

            She rolled completely on top of me and rolled her eyes, as her body was in-between my legs and she trailed her fingertips up and down my chest.

            “I think someone had a wet dream cause in no way shape or form did we sleep together last night.”

            “C’mon Reina, don’t try and mess with me. Check the pocket of my suitcase.”

            Rolling off of me, she bent down and checked the pocket of my suitcase, to my surprise retrieving a condom that was still in the wrapper and she gave me a look that probably wasn’t the best one.

            “You little freak.” She laughed. “It’s like you were expecting to get laid or something.”

            “You never know… it could happen. Always come prepared, right?”

            I tried to make sense of what happened last night but I couldn’t. None of it was true and now it just made my head hurt that much more because she didn’t think things were changing. She was still clueless to my feelings and she didn’t say the things she did. She called me baby at the mall, yes, but she didn’t call me baby in bed and she didn’t moan my name like that and we weren’t gentle like that. We were still here in the same situation with no progress at all. I felt crushed.

            “So tell me about this dream. I’m intrigued.”

            “Do you have that t-shirt of mine?” I asked. “The one you wore a couple weeks ago?”

            “What? No. I left it in your basket.”

            Well that answers that one too. God. This really sucks and I mean really sucks. I can’t believe it was all just a dream but it was and now I just can’t even accept the fact that we’re right back to where we started. It’s almost like playing a video game until the last level and then you forgot to save the game so then you start over again on level one. That’s how I felt right now.

            “Was I wearing that in the dream?” She teased. “Did you fuck me in that?”

            “Reina.” I warned. “Just never mind.”

            “Geez. Somebody’s awful grumpy today.”

            Then she got off of the bed and stood on the floor to wait for me to get up and for a moment I just wanted her to give me some privacy because I looked horrible when I woke up but she obviously wasn’t going to so I let out a frustrated sigh, pushing the blankets off of me so I could get up.

            My suitcase opened in the matter of seconds and I began to rummage through it, feeling her eyes travel to every section of my body possible. I was only in briefs with no shirt on but she always sees me in this so she should be used to that by now but then again, we’re both hornier in the morning.

            “Damn.” She smirked. “Look at you.”

            “Reina…Seriously you know how I get in the morning. We can’t.”

            “And why not?”

            Finally bringing my gaze away from the suitcase, I looked at her and my mouth dropped open when I realized what she was wearing. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before but she was in the shortest pajama shorts I’ve ever seen with the world’s tightest tank top with no bra on underneath. Oh my god.

            “Reina what the hell are you wearing?” I groaned.

            “I could wear something different…” She trailed off, stripping herself of the tank top and walking over to me. “Hm?”

            She straddled me with no shirt on right here on the carpet and I didn’t know what to do right now. This is how we usually were and when she’s throwing herself on me it didn’t feel like last night and that disappointed me for whatever reason. I wanted what happened last night to happen again and this wasn’t it. This wasn’t giving me that feeling.

            “Reina I just don’t feel like having sex right now, okay? I’m stressed.”

            “Oh.” She responded, immediately reaching across the floor for her tank top. “Okay.”

            She looked hurt and I felt like a complete ass because it’s not her fault it was a dream of mine. It’s not her fault that I imagined something that wasn’t even real.

            “Reina.” I sighed, pulling her into my lap. “I’m sorry. It’s not you it’s just that stupid dream I had.”

            “Okay then tell me…” She soothed, running her fingers through my hair. “Was it about me?”

            God, her hands felt so good running through my hair.

            “Yes.”

            “Did we have sex?”

            “Yes Reina but it wasn’t like… this. It was different.”

            “Different how? Like roleplay? I can do that if you want.”

            She had a smile on her face when she looked at me and it just bothered me that she didn’t realize how serious I was being. This wasn’t a joke to me and I wish she could just read my mind so I didn’t have to say this but it needed to happen sometime. It was now or never because it was the perfect opportunity. We were alone, nobody was around, and I’m going to tell her.

            “No not- well I’ll remember that for future reference but no, not that.”

            “Then how was it different?”

            That same exact feeling in my stomach kept churning and I didn’t know what to do. The way she was looking at me was almost like last night. Like she was concerned about me or something but I felt like I was getting choked up and breathless like I always get.

            “Different as in we uh, we weren’t just fucking.”

            “Oh…”

            Her cheeks flushed and then she looked away for a brief second before she looked at me again. The facial expression was changed and the happy go lucky girl from a couple of moments ago faded into more of a depressed and upset one. The one I didn’t want to see when we had this conversation.

            “Did you like it more?”

            This was the moment I’ve been dreading and I didn’t think it’d happen so soon or right now but it was happening and she just looked at me intently as she waited for me to answer but I think she knew it because she moved her gaze down to the floor and started to play with her fingers.  

            “Yeah Reina, I did.” I admitted, letting out a loud sigh.  “I liked it more.”

            The opposite of what I ever thought would happen did and instead of her trying to comfort me or for us to work through it she stood up from the ground and cleared her throat, my heart completely breaking into little tiny pieces that no one could feel except for me.

            “I’m gonna go change but I’ll uh, I’ll just-“

            “Reina don’t leave me hanging like this… please.”

            I couldn’t even make eye contact with her but when I finally did and my eyes locked with hers she was crying and that’s when I had my answer. We didn’t feel the same and it was me who was heartbroken. Something that has never happened to me before but it’s happened twice by the same person and I don’t know how the hell that happens.

            “Why?” Was all she could manage to say through the tears.

            “What do you mean why?” I replied in disbelief. “You act like it’s my fucking choice Reina.”

            “Things were going so good Justin! We were in such a good place and just like I knew would happen, one of us caught feelings.”

            I was completely in shock at how completely insensitive she was being right now to my feelings and granted, I haven’t always been the most sensitive to her feelings but over the past couple of days things have been completely different for us or for me at least.

            “One of us.” I scoffed. “Unbelievable.”

            “Justin I’m sorry but I can’t change my feelings and if I had known that you felt this way then I wouldn’t have-“

            “You wouldn’t have what? You wouldn’t have stayed with me that night and worn my t-shirt? You wouldn’t have kissed me like you did? You wouldn’t have come here with me? You wouldn’t have kissed me like that in the snow and acted like you were in love with me? You wouldn’t have done that shit? Is that what you wouldn’t have done Reina?”

            “Justin, please.” She said, almost breaking down into a sob. “I’m sorry!”

            “Do you even understand how many mixed signals you gave me? How many times you sat there and ran your hands through my hair and you looked at me like no one else has before and you cuddled with me and you stayed the whole damn night with me Reina! How could you not have known? How could you not tell that I am completely in love with you?”

            When it was all out in the open, when the sentence left my lips, I was so embarrassed because I’ve never done this before and she didn’t feel the same so to tell someone you’re in love with them when they don’t have the same feeling towards you hurts beyond belief. I never cry, ever, and when I tried to blink my tears away she started to sob, covering her mouth with her sleeve because we both knew it was over between us. Whatever the hell we were, friends with benefits or something more, it was done because there was no reconciling it.

            That’s the thing with friends with benefits. At first your friends warn you and they tell you that you’re gonna catch feelings but you refuse to believe them. Instead, you end up doing it and then you end up like I am. I’m the one that ended up catching feelings and I’m so in love with her it’s not even funny and she could give two shits about me. That’s the worst part about it all. I have to realize that I’m not important to her like she is to me.

            “I’m just gonna go.” She sobbed, trying to take some deep breaths. “I-I’m so sorry Justin. I feel like complete shit right now.”

            I was crying too and that’s another thing about getting heartbroken. As much as she hurts me and as angry as I am at her, I don’t want her to leave. I don’t want her to be anywhere else but there’s nothing I can do to make her stay because I’ve finally told her my feelings and when she stood there and realized I wasn’t going to say anything she just walked down the hallway. I wasn’t going to let her get away that easy because I know Reina and I know how she feels despite what she’s saying right now. There’s no way in hell there isn’t a connection and when she was sobbing in the guest room almost to her suitcase I grabbed onto her arm and kissed her so forcefully she gasped and didn’t know what to do.

            All I could feel was her tears on my cheeks and her hands grasped onto my face as she pulled me closer but when she pulled away and we both continued to cry I looked at her and said the last thing I could think of to get her to feel the same.

            “Tell me you don’t feel something!” I yelled, trying desperately to not sob like a lunatic. “Tell me when we kiss you don’t feel anything Reina! You can’t tell me you don’t.”

            “Justin I don’t!” She yelled back. “I don’t feel anything and I’m sorry but I have to go. I’m sorry and I don’t know what else to say but that. Please don’t make me feel like more shit than I already do.”

            She was flinging things into her suitcase left and right and my eyes were stinging from all of the tears and my head hurt like hell from trying to comprehend everything that just happened in the matter of minutes but I couldn’t even begin to.

            “Reina it’s five days before Christmas!” I said as she dragged her suitcase down the hallway. “Are you seriously going to spend Christmas by yourself?”

            “I just can’t be here right now Justin! Please. I’m just going to take a bus back to the dorms and stay there, okay? Tell your parents I said thank you for the amazing time here and tell your brother and sister I said goodbye. I just need to be alone right now.”

            The front door slammed shut and she didn’t even know where she was going. She had no idea where the bus station was but when she pulled out her phone I figured she’d find her way from that and I just stood there in complete shock because I just lost the one good thing that’s ever happened to me all because I told her I loved her.

            I was mad, I was fuming, I was heartbroken. I was everything you’d think a lunatic would be and all I could do was go back into my room and pace back and forth, slamming my fist onto my bed for doing this damn thing in the first place. I never should have told her how I felt and when I remembered the shitty gift I had gotten her for Christmas I opened the drawer on my nightstand and chucked the stupid bracelet box at the wall, sinking to my knees and slamming my fist against the carpet of the floor.

            “Fuck!” I screamed, pounding it against the floor once more. “Why is it always fucking me!?”

            My lungs felt like they were closing, like no air was being able to flow through them and some might think I’m being over dramatic but when I’ve never lost someone before and when I’ve never fallen for someone before and they suddenly just leave without hardly saying anything I couldn’t do anything except feel the pain in my heart and what my heart was telling me to do to somehow try and fix that pain was cry.

            The bracelet had fallen out of the box and I picked it up to hold it in my hands, analyzing it to make sure it wasn’t broken. I don’t know why I’d do that in the first place but I had spent money on it. The plan originally was to tell her how I felt on Christmas and depending on what she’d say, I’d give her the bracelet if she felt the same. It took me so damn long to pick out and when we were in the jewelry store the other day she told me how she loved this one with the little silver chain to it and I had even went so far as to get it engraved. “Reina & Justin. 12. 25. 15” Stared back at me and I just started to cry harder, setting the bracelet down onto the carpet because her and I aren’t anything. We never will be and the fact that I had fallen so hard for her and I had purchased my first gift for a girl ever for Christmas all for nothing hurt like hell. This stupid bracelet was a dumb idea in the first place and getting all sappy was a stupid idea in the first place and letting someone in for the first time was a stupid idea in the first place. Everything was such a stupid idea and as I sit here on the carpet of my bedroom I wasn’t angry and I wasn’t pissed. All I could feel was the pain in my heart as all of the memories came flooding back into my head all at once.

A/N:

oh..my..god..

Now I know what you all are thinking. Maybe some of you think this happened too quickly but honestly Reina can't be that naive for too long and i'm sorry but whenever i read fanfics I get pissed af when they wait until the last chapter to 'reveal their feelings' for each other. It's predictable and I have a lot more planned for this story. I don't know if you saw this coming but it can't always be rainbows and butterflies.

Then again, if you read my stories i'm sure you know that LOL.

Comment and let me know what you thought. Hope y'all didn't cry too hard.

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