I hate boys. That is all.
Hate. Hate. Hate.
And especially Jaxson.
I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.
Like, hate him, hate him. I hate Jaxson Marshall.
About a week after surfing at Jaxson’s, I finally took my driving test and passed it. I’d flunked it a few times and then lost my nerve to take it again right away, so I was elated when I waved the slip in my hand. Mum was as excited as I was, if not more. She’d been teasing me that I’d be seventeen before I got it, at this rate. I’d been worried she was right.
“Let’s celebrate,” she said.
There was a line going out the door at The Taco Stand.
“Do you still want this?” she asked.
“Of course.” I could eat there every day and not get sick of it.
As we got out of the car, I heard something and looked over at the same moment Jaxson lifted Heather up, hands on her backside, her legs around his waist, kissing her the exact way he’d kissed me.
I put my hand to my mouth and Mum turned to see what I was looking at and gasped. They were oblivious, groping each other as if no one else existed. When he opened the door of his car and bent down, leaning over her across the back seat, Mum grabbed my arm and we practically ran back to our car.
My eyes blurred with tears and I shook all over.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Mum said again and again. “So sorry.”
Finally, I dried my face. “I told you he has a girlfriend.”
“Yes, you did, and the fact that he kissed you while having a girlfriend is reprehensible.”
She hadn’t minded so much before, knowing he’d kissed me. I hadn’t minded enough either. But for Mum, the fact that he’d kissed me and hadn’t changed his status with Heather was another story.
“I can’t believe he didn’t break up with her after realizing his feelings for you! Boys that age are all about sex, Mirabelle. It’s good you’re not with him right now when he can’t think with anything but his willy.”
“I’m not going to be with him ever!” I gasped. “He was going to have sex with her in the parking lot!”
“No, surely he wasn’t!”
I glared at her. “You saw them. They were about to have sex. You just got done saying boys are all about sex.”
“Well, I’d hope he’d have more sense than that. I don’t doubt that they are having sex, just not…oh, Anne is going to die of mortification.”
“You can’t tell her,” I yelled. “And if you say sex one more time, I’m going to die of mortification.”
“I have to tell her. I’d want to know if she saw you doing something like that.”
“Please, Mum. You can’t. Jaxson will be so mad.”
She patted my hand. “No, he won’t, and if he is, he’s not the person we thought he was, is he?”
I went to school on pins and needles and didn’t see Jaxson right away. When I did, he waved and said hello…acted normal. I felt like hitting him, but I managed to wave back.
It was the next day that things turned on me. I got to school and Jaxson was waiting for me at my locker.
“You and your mum saw me with Heather?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was more angry or embarrassed. Feeling feverish, I actually didn’t know which emotion I felt the most either. Definitely both.
“I tried to tell her not to say anything,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”
He dragged his hands through his hair and looked worried. “You met Heather’s stepdad. This is not good,” he said.
My brows creased together. “Why? What will he do?”
Just then, Heather came down the hall with a splotchy face. I had the thought that it wasn’t fair that she could still look so beautiful even after obviously crying for a long time. When she saw Jaxson talking to me, she looked livid.
“Hey,” Jaxson said, putting his arm around her.
She flung it off and got in my face. “You want to ruin my life?”
I immediately shook my head while she was still talking.
“Well, that’s what you’ve done.” She looked up at Jaxson and tears ran down her face. “My mom and Chase said I can’t go to Homecoming with you now. It’s three weeks away! I can’t go anywhere with you. We have to break up.”
“What?” Jaxson asked. He tugged her to the side and she leaned into him, crying harder.
Miles walked over while I got my books out of my locker. “What’s going on with them?” he asked.
“Long story. My mum and I kind of saw something and she told Jaxson’s mum about it.” I shook my head. “I feel bad.”
He looked confused, but I didn’t bother to enlighten him. The bell rang and Jaxson looked at me over Heather’s head.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
He nodded at me and rubbed Heather’s back. It felt wrong, seeing his hands on someone else. My brain flipped back to him leaning over Heather in the car and I felt the familiar anger surge up again.
By the end of the week, it was all over the school that Jaxson and Heather had broken up. Various rumors about her being pregnant and losing the baby, he’d been cheating, she had feelings for someone else…and then occasionally, I’d hear someone get it close to right. She was homebound for the month, grounded, and she couldn’t see Jaxson again because they’d been caught having sex in public…at school. So not perfectly right, but even I didn’t know all the details at this point. Jaxson had stayed away from me, and Heather shot daggers through me anytime we were near each other.
I felt bad. I didn’t like Heather, and I really didn’t like them together, but after meeting her mother and stepdad, I’d softened toward her somewhat.
Friday afternoon, during our last period, Miles leaned over and handed me a note, his expression hopeful.
Will you go out with me tonight? Just you and me, a legit date…
I paused—I didn’t know why. I bit my bottom lip and glanced up quickly to see if he was looking. He was. UGH. His hopeful expression was long gone.
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
“No, I…it’s just…I don’t know,” I finished lamely.
“We can talk after class,” he whispered.
I nodded and then all during class I tried to think of what I’d say to him. What is wrong with me? I argued with myself until the bell rang, not having any idea what I’d missed in class.
We walked to our lockers, neither of us saying anything.
“I’m an idiot,” I said finally. “You are so cute and so sweet…I have so much fun with you.”
“And I’m so not who you’re interested in,” he finished.
I looked at him, alarmed. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I’m not saying I could never,” I told him. “I’m just not there right now.”
“Understood.” He cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Is something going on between you and Jax?”
I swallowed and shut my locker door, facing him fully. I took long enough to answer that he nodded.
“Enough said,” he said.
“No, it’s not like that—nothing’s going on with him, not really.”
“But you want there to be,” he said.
I looked at him and my eyes welled up.
His face softened and he looked like he felt sorry for me.
“Well, if you change your mind about me, I’ll be right here,” he said.
He walked across the hall to his locker and turned around one more time.
“Thanks, Miles,” I said. “You’re as near perfect as anyone I’ve met. You deserve the very best.”
He gave me a close-lipped smile, and I walked away.
I went home and Mum came in from work not long afterward.
“We’re going to the Marshalls’ for dinner,” she said.
“What? No, I think I’ll just stay home and do homework,” I told her.
“I already told Anne you’d come and you will,” she said. “No arguments tonight about it,” she said. “Wear something pretty.”
I sulked the entire time I dressed, wanting to look a mess to spite her but too vain to go through with it. I came out with my hair and makeup spot on, an extremely short skirt, and on anyone else, a top with a modest neckline, but on my body type, it showed a good amount of cleavage. A jean jacket tempered the whole look. Liesl was with me when I tried on this outfit and she’d screamed that I looked like a movie star. Of course, I had to buy it.
I carried my boots and sat on the couch to put them on.
Mum winced when she saw me. “At least put some tights on.”
“The boots cover a lot of my leg.” I stood up and she eyed the boots that came well over my knees.
“I can’t tell if you look like a slag or quite stylish,” she said, brows furrowed.
“Let’s go with quite stylish.”
We were about to sit down at the dining table when Jaxson came in, apologizing to his mother for being late. He halted when he saw me, grinning as he looked me over.
“Hello, Bells,” he said, moving to sit next to me. “Every time I see you, you’re knocking me arse over tit.”
I giggled. When we were kids, we’d laugh hysterically any time we heard anyone else say that.
“Jaxson!” Anne admonished him.
“Like the two of you haven’t said it plenty—am I right, Bells?” he said, pointing to our mums.
Their shoulders started shaking and Anne tsked a bit more, but all was forgiven.
Conversation was light the rest of the meal. We mostly laughed at our mums—they were endless entertainment when they got together.
“Are you still liking your job, Mira?” Charles asked.
“I love it,” I said, smiling at him.
“You hoping to own your own salon one day?”
“That’s a possibility. I’ll probably focus more on being a freelance makeup artist.” I looked down, shy now that all the attention was on me. “It’d be fun to work on films, or I might just stick with weddings. They pay well. And I could be a lot busier than I am with that.”
“Just make sure you go to college—a business degree will help you, no matter what you decide,” he said.
Jaxson rolled his eyes. “Here we go,” he whispered. Then louder, “Want to go to my room, hang out for a while? Or we could go out by the pool…”
“Sure.”
We took our dishes to the kitchen and went to his room.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in here. Looks a lot different,” I said.
“We redid it two years ago,” he said, picking up his laptop. “We could watch a movie…”
“Okay.” I didn’t know where to sit exactly, and it was weird being alone with him…I hadn’t been alone with him since we’d kissed.
“I don’t really have chairs, sorry.” He sat on his bed and leaned against the headboard. “Is this okay?”
I nodded and sat beside him. I didn’t want to put my boots on his bed, so I unzipped them and pulled them off.
“Those boots are the sexiest things I’ve ever seen,” he said.
I flushed. “Badass,” I corrected.
“That too,” he agreed.
He turned on a show and we looked at the screen. I couldn’t focus on anything but how close Jaxson and I were sitting, the air popping with awareness between the two of us.
“Are you and Heather really broken up or are you just acting like it to make her parents happy?” I asked, my skin getting hotter with every word.
“We’re broken up,” he said. “It’s…complicated. She has a hard time at home. We’ve always looked out for each other.”
I wondered if she ever still “looked out” for Derek in the same way. It took everything in me not to tell him she wasn’t as innocent as he thought she was, but I actually felt bad for her at times too. Maybe I had made her out to be worse than she really was.
“Who knew you’d turn out to be such a slut?” I said.
His mouth fell open and he busted out laughing. “I haven’t…not that many people…only two.”
“Two! What the hell! Who else?”
“There was a stretch when Heather and I weren’t…doing anything…and I slept with Danielle.”
“I am so disgusted with you right now.”
“I know,” he groaned. “It’s not like I’m proud of it,” he added. He was quiet for a moment. “Bells?”
“Yeah?” I turned to look at him and our faces were close to each other.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” he whispered.
“Me too,” I whispered back. “But you stay on your side of the bed, you filthy manwhore.”
“Yeah.” He laughed, his hand drawing a line down the barely there space between us. “Whatever you say, Bells.”