Ten:

I quickly pulled from his grasp and took a few steps back into my bedroom. “I-I… uh, thought you were Patrick…” I said while I slowly took a few more steps back, stumbling over my own two feet. He then took hold of my waist to keep me from falling. “Let go of me,” I whisper-shouted.

He held a finger to my lips, “shh, don’t wake Patrick up.” Still holding on to my waist, he guided us further into my bedroom and shut the door quietly behind him. I shook out of his grasp, walked over to my bed, and sat down. “What do you want from me?”

“The truth, Cole. I want the truth,” he said while positioning himself next to me.

“About what?”

“You know damn well what,” he replied.

“I already told you everything…” I reminded him quietly.

“I want to know what you want, not what Marie wants, or Patrick.”

“As much as I would love to do that, I cant.”

“Why?” he asked, frustration evident in his tone.

“You know how my brother feels about us, and Marie… I don’t even know what she would do if you broke up with her…” I trailed off.

“Forget them for a second, Cole.” He paused, “you can’t live your whole life trying to please people.”

I sat there for a minute thousands of thoughts rushing through my mind, “why do you want to be with me so badly, Jon?” I asked, irritation building up in my system.

He focused his attention to the floor… shaking his head slightly. “Are you really that naïve?”

“…I guess so.”

He stared at me in disbelief, “because… as cliché as this may sound, you honestly make me happy, you’re absolutely sexy, and God, don’t even get me started about the sex we have…” he trailed off smiling to himself. I opened my mouth to say something, but he quickly stopped me, “let me finish, and then you can say whatever you want…” he paused for another few moments, “and that must be saying a lot… because I’m going against my best friend to want to be with you,” he finished, nodding for me to respond with whatever I wanted.

“Jon…” I began, “that’s, that’s really sweet and all…”

“But you still don’t want to be with me,” he finished for me.

Swallowing loudly, I averted my gaze to the floor. “You know how I feel about you, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon, it’s just that things are complicated right now…” I then looked over in his direction and noticed that he had stood up from my bed and began making his way to the door.

“I’m sorry Jonathan, I really am…”

“Yep. I’m sure you are,” he replied sarcastically before opening my bedroom door, stepping into the hallway, and shutting it behind him.

I released a sigh and placed my head in my pillows. Guilt and regret flooding through my body. I pulled the covers up over my body and attempted to close my eyes and fall asleep, but the conversation I just encountered kept flashing through my mind. I quickly became restless, tossing and turning for a large number of hours; I gave up on the idea of sleep and turned on the TV. Shooting a glance out the window, I noticed that the sun had began to rise, I looked over at my alarm clock for the time… 6:55 AM. I then focused my attention back to the unimportant show that was displayed on the TV. As time ticked on, the conversation still remained fresh in my mind. I struggled to hold back the tears that were threatening their way out of the backs of my eyes. But kept the promise to myself of being done crying over Jon.

A few more hours went by before I headed downstairs, I headed straight into the direction of the kitchen where I heard a commotion going on. Peeking my head around the corner, I saw that Jon and Pat were in the middle of a heated conversation with their backs to me, so they didn’t notice that I was standing there.

“Why would you do that?!” Patrick whisper-shouted, placing a gallon of milk on the counter angrily.

“I just didn’t want to be with her anymore Patrick…” he replied innocently.

Patrick stood there for a minute, “…is it because of my sister?”

Jon was taken aback, “what? I, uh, no…”

“Don’t lie to me Toews,” he snapped.

I decided now was the best time to interrupt their conversation before it headed into an awkward direction. “Good morning Pat,” I greeted him, keeping my gaze away from Jon. I made my way over to the fridge and opened it, looking for a small breakfast.

“Morning,” he replied while walking over to me and wrapping me in a hug, “I’ve missed you. Did you have fun?”

“I missed you too, and yeah I did. I caught up with a lot of my old friends, which was nice.” I replied.

“Well that’s good,” he replied while handing me the gallon of milk to put in the refrigerator.
I placed it on the top shelf while I grabbed a yogurt and shut the refrigerator door, grabbed a spoon out of one of the drawers, and headed into the living room to watch some TV.

“Well, I guess I’m going to get going…” I heard Jon tell Patrick loudly from the kitchen.

I heard Patrick tell him that he would see him later before heading into the living room to join me on the couch. Once the front door shut and Jon’s car pulled out of the driveway, my phone vibrated in my lap signaling that I had a text message.

‘I’m gonna do whatever it takes to be with you’ it read. I didn’t even need to check whom it was from to know it was from Jon. I sighed, shut my phone, placed it in my lap, and focused my attention back to the TV.