He guided her from the back of the motorcycle toward the park. He had always wondered how Hamilton swallowed the indignity of being relegated to the back seat so often, but sitting there with his arms around Jake's waist and his thighs clenched against her hips he realized that there were worse positions to be in.
She looked back at him from time to time, asking him to navigate her. They had gotten on the bike with no real destination, just a shared desire to go somewhere and quench the restlessness they had been feeling. Sean was given the responsibility of figuring out where they would continue the night, and by some sick masochistic logic, he opted for the baseball field.
Once they reached the field, she parked the bike and took off her helmet. Sean followed her off the motorcycle, and they stood on the sidewalk, side by side, staring at the darkened field.
"Bella told me you play baseball. Is this where your games are?"
He nodded but didn't know whether she could see the movement in the dark, or whether she had even been looking.
"Are you any good?"
He shrugged his shoulders, still staring straight ahead. "Sometimes. But even when I've played so badly that it's painful to think about it, I always come back here."
***
There was an old theatre in New York, where Jake's mother used to work a lot before acquiring a taste for the European stage. When Jake was a small child, Monica had asked her if she wanted to play an extra in one of her plays. Jake had said yes, figuring it could be something that would bring them closer. On opening night, there was a scene where Jake was on stage while her mother had to have an emotional encounter with the little girl who was playing her daughter. Jake had just burst into tears and ran off the stage sobbing, completely disrupting the play. Her mother, ever the professional, just kept on going. The theatre was abandoned not long after, and Jake used to go there often after school, to spend the afternoon by herself before going home to dine with the maid.
"I understand," she said softly.
He turned his head toward her after she finished speaking, and he nodded again before looking back and walking towards the centre of the field. She followed closely behind him.
***
He stopped once he reached the pitcher's mound, and as he sat himself down on the ground, she laid herself on her back.
"You don't get this in New York City," she said.
"What?"
"Stars. You can hardly see them in the city. But here..."
He looked up and then down to her face, which had a look of delight on it. All of his complaining about the spoilt kids at Rawley and his whole life he taken the night sky for granted.
"How is it New York?"
"Loud. Busy. There's constant movement. It's easy to lose yourself there."
"Sounds terrible."
"Not terrible, just different."
"Do you have friends there?"
She propped herself up on her elbow to give him a dirty look before falling back on the ground.
"Yes, I have friends. I'm not a social pariah like you are."
"I'm not a pariah. I'm choosing to avoid my friends."
"You're right, that's a lot better." And even though he wasn't looking, he knew she had rolled her eyes.
"So, speaking of avoiding..."
"What position do you play?"
He allowed himself a small grin at her adamant refusal to even broach the topic of Hamilton. He wondered if he should be feeling guilty, if they were even doing anything wrong, but he shook the thoughts out of his head and brought his focus back to her.
"I'm a pitcher."
"My mom dated a Yankee once. But I could never remember his name so don't bother asking."
The question had been on his lips but he swallowed it. "It's just as well; I'm a Red Sox fan. Does your mom date a lot?"
"I don't know what a lot is. Does yours?"
"My parents have been married for 19 years, and I'm pretty sure they've only ever dated each other."
"That's nice."
"You don't have to lie like that. I know that it seems horribly unsophisticated to you, marrying your high-school sweetheart like they did."
"I guess I was just brought up differently. I've never met my father, although I'll bet that he and my mother weren't exactly dating when I was conceived, let alone married. My mom's been engaged a bunch of times, though. I guess she doesn't really see the point of going all the way."
"Do you want to get married one day?"
"Sorry, McGrail, you're not my type." But before he could reprimand her, she continued. "I don't know. I'm 16. I can hardly decide what to wear in the morning."
"Do you think Hamilton would want to get married?"
"Yes."
She sounded so sure of herself, so certain in her answer. It bewildered him how clearly she understood Hamilton's wishes and yet could barely figure out her own.
"Did you two have a fight?"
"No."
"Then why are you here instead of in bed with Hamilton?"
"Who says I sleep with him at night?"
Bella had told him. The day after Jake and Hamilton had consummated their relationship Jake had run to town, eager to share the news with her only female friend. Once Jake had gone back to school, Bella had relayed the events to Sean, who had been uncomfortable hearing about it.
"I just assumed..." he fumbled. "And anyway, it doesn't matter if you're sleeping with him or not. The point is there's a reason you're here. We both know why I'm here, what's your excuse?"
"Do you love Bella?"
He covered his face with his hands in frustration. He should have known that she wouldn't open up so easily. He let his hands fall and then threw himself onto the ground next to her. If she wasn't going to tell him anything, then he might as well humour her.
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, as he aligned his body alongside hers and turned his head toward her.
"Hmm," she responded, as though he answered exactly as she expected him to even though the answer was completely wrong.
"Oh, and you think I don't?" It had started to grate on him how she was beginning to act as though she had figured him out. When she had looked at him in front of the dinner as though seeing him for the first time, he felt a welcome sense of vindication. Someone had figured out that he was more than the boy next door. But now that feeling was gone, and it was as though he was again a two-dimensional puzzle that she had put together for her own amusement.
"I think you love the idea of her."
"And what makes you the Patron Saint of Teenage Love? Why are you lying here with me while your boyfriend is probably worried sick looking for you?"
He said it out of curiosity, but also from a desire to hurt her. He couldn't let her lay there next him, casting judgment when her life was hardly simple.
"Are you trying to make him jealous? 'Cause I've got better things to do then be a pawn in some sick Rawley dating ritual."
"Oh do you? Don't let me get in the way of your busy social calendar."
"Fuck it. I'm not going around in circles anymore. Did he do something?"
"No, he's perfect. As always."
"So then stop acting like this and go back to him."
"He's perfect. He's perfect... and I'm not. And it's torture."
"Have you screwed up then? Did you cheat on him?"
"What? No!"
"Well, he seems pretty possessive of you. Maybe you've given him a reason to not trust you. I'm just going by what I see."
"Do you make it a habit of watching us?"
He hadn't. It was only now that he had Jake next to him that he looked back and realized that whenever she and Hamilton were in the same room as him, Hamilton was always keeping some sort of physical contact with her.
"It's the touching," he said, both to himself and to her. He turned his body onto his side, and found her already in the same position facing him. "That's it, isn't it? He's too suffocating, isn't he?"
***
Hearing him say it out loud made it all sound so childish. It was one thing to feel like she couldn't breathe around Hamilton, as though the love they had for each other was too much for her young mind to even compute. But to hear Sean say it made her feel acutely ashamed of herself, running off into the night because the boy she loved wanted her more than anything.
"Stupid, right?" She felt hot tears building in her eyes, from the humiliation and regret, but she didn't reach up to wipe them in the hope that they would go unnoticed. Luck wasn't with her though, and Sean reached his hand across the inches between their faces and wiped a tear away with his thumb.
"You're a lot of things, Pratt. But you're not stupid. Besides, we can't control what we feel. Trust me."
"I love him, I do." Now that Sean had gotten her talking, and hadn't called her ungrateful or undeserving like she had assumed he would, she felt herself letting everything spill out.
"I love him but sometimes it's too much. He's too much. He's always around and I feel like I'm losing myself. And I can't say anything because he's so fragile and he'll get the wrong idea. I can't just tell him that he's suffocating me. Hamilton's too easily hurt."
***
The first time Sean met Hamilton they were 8 years old and it ended in bloodshed and tears. Will had gone back to Capeside for the summer that year, and Bella had begun seeking him out an alarming amount so he avoided her in turn. He knew he faced a miserable summer vacation ahead of him, missing his best friend and hiding from a girl who had always been one of the boys until she decided to change her mind for a reason that eluded him. So Sean simply immersed himself in the game he and Will had developed the previous summer, and tried his best to finally infiltrate the Rawley Boys' campus.
It was a thrill to play without Will's hours of planning. His strategy lacked finesse but he made up for that in sheer nerve. He had always been impatient during Will's strategy sessions, itching to run at the school and charge in without knowing how it would all play out.
On his third attempt of the summer, he ran into the dark-haired boy. Shy, with his hand constantly clutching at the hem of his t-shirt and unwillingly to look Sean in the eye, the boy introduced himself as Hamilton, the new Dean's son. Sean had been running on adrenaline, and with blood still pumping in his ears, barely heard the hope in the other boy's voice. As Hamilton stuttered on about being new in town, Sean felt himself come to his senses and realized he was speaking to someone who could very easily have gotten him in a lot of trouble. In a panic, he swung his fist and caught Hamilton on the mouth. The smaller boy clutched his face and cried in pain, tears appearing instantly. He pulled his hand away from his mouth and stared at the blood on his palm. Hamilton then looked up at Sean with a look of complete hurt and betrayal, and as much as he regretted having hit him, Sean hated that look on his face. He hadn't asked this Rawley boy to be his new friend. He had a best friend already, one that was worth all the boys in that school. Without an apology or parting look, Sean took off through the woods toward town. He saw Hamilton randomly in the following years, but only spoke to him again their freshman summer. Neither of them ever brought up the incident, and Sean wondered from time to time if Hamilton even remembered it.
***
"Have you thought of breaking up with him?"
"I can't. He'd hate me. And I don't want to break up with him," she added.
Jake traced lines in the dirt in front of her with her finger. She and Sean were still facing each other on the ground, close enough by now that her knuckles would brush against his stomach while her hand followed patterns she herself could not decipher.
"You're obviously not happy."
"That's the thing. I think I have the potential to be happy, I just don't know how to let myself. I mean, he's great really. And he means well, it's just that I think I'm too fucked up to appreciate it."
She sighed and brushed the lines in the dirt away with an open palm. Her actions sent dirt flying onto Sean's shirt, and distractedly she went to wipe it off. She pressed her hand to his stomach and only realized the intimacy of the gesture when she heard Sean's harsh intake of breath. Her face quickly suffused with color, but she left her hand where it was because she was finally reaching out to someone without having them reach out first. Her hand stayed on Sean's stomach and she realized how it felt to feel anchored to the world through physical contact with another person. Hamilton's touches almost made her feel as though she was a balloon straining in the wind. But the heat from Sean's body to her palm made her feel grounded in a way she had forgotten at Rawley.
She kept her hand on him and licked her bottom lip just to be doing something instead of laying there motionless.
***
Sean stared at her, waiting for her to look up from his torso. When her eyes finally met his, he found himself unable to blink. It was an odd feeling, to be laying there listening to her talk about another boy with her hand on his body.
When he saw her tongue wet her lip, he felt the whole empty expanse of the baseball field crowd around the two of them until he felt as though there was no direction to move his head but forward.
It was insane, and unplanned and completely inappropriate. They had barely spoken to each other before tonight, and were actively and admittedly in love with other people. Images of Bella smiling at him from across the rowboat flooded his mind, followed by one of an eight year old Hamilton with a bloody face. But Sean put his lips on Jake's despite having an infinite amount of reasons not to and kissed her. And she kissed him back.
She pulled away after only a few seconds, and he realized that there was no way this could end well for either of them, so he began babbling his apologies.
"I didn't mean to do that. I mean I meant to do that but that's not why I brought you here. I'm so sorry..."
He forced himself to stop talking and watched her, waiting for her reaction. She nudged his shoulder and he held his breath, waiting for the tirade.
"You're on my arm."
The comment was not at all what he had been expecting, so he was too shocked to stop her as she pushed him off the arm he had trapped between them and rolled him onto his back. As shocked as he already was, nothing could have prepared him to watch her, to feel her, crawl over on top of him and keep herself there.
She lowered her face and Sean still hadn't regained his ability to move so he lay there as she put her mouth on his throat and kissed her way up to his mouth.
***
It was an almost forgotten sensation for Jake, to be kissing Sean, having her whole body weighing down along the length of his. It felt the way it did before Hamilton, when she would kiss boys she liked and have them kiss her back. There was no overwrought emotion, no declarations of love and forever.
She didn't love Hamilton any less, and the emotional turmoil that was constantly wrecking havoc on her mind about their relationship had not waned in the slightest. As she felt Sean's tongue part her lips, she worried about how easily she distinguished loving Hamilton and kissing Sean in her mind, as though they were oil and water and wouldn't mix anyway. Compartmentalizing, a word a therapist had once thrown at her when she was too young to understand it.
She ran her hands down Sean's torso between them, and felt his as he slowly, hesitantly ran them up the back of her thighs. He didn't need her. He obviously wanted her, she could feel that clearly. But he didn't need her. He wasn't placing any sort of demands on her, or expectations. She knew that she could leave whenever she wanted and the thought just made her want to stay.
There had been a Sadie Hawkins Dance at Rawley the previous semester, before Hamilton's public gesture. It had barely registered on Jake's radar until the weeks before the dance when a contingent from Rawley Girls had descended onto the freshman floor en masse to ask Jake to escort one of them. She had, up until that moment, been blissfully unaware of the effect she had on the female population of Rawley during co-ed classes and mealtimes. She had unwittingly developed a reputation across the lake as the shy, sensitive, achingly pretty boy who was quickly becoming quite the elusive catch.
Jake was both embarrassed and flattered by the attention "he" was getting. Love notes under the door, offers to walk him to class and, a moment that Scout was never going to let her forget, a proposition to meet one of Rawley Girls' more promiscuous students in the boathouse after dinner. It was as though the dance afforded the girls of the school the sudden liberty to go after what they wanted, regardless of the fact that no one had been stopping them to begin with. She respected their tenacity but scoffed at their impressionability. Her unwanted harem attracted the attention of the boys in her grade and further cemented her status as unlikely stud. Will, who had yet to be asked to the dance, watched on in envy while Scout advised Jake to just take them all to the dance and videotape whatever happened, during or after, for posterity. He'd even be as helpful as to tape it all for her.
She thought Hamilton would all find it as amusing as she did. She'd read the notes she found planted in her backpack out loud to him and they laughed together, but his expression would turn sour once he thought she was no longer looking. She brushed it all off until one day he finally blurted out that she should just all tell them not to bother, because she planned on going solo. His insistence and assumptions caused her to turn on her heel and simply walk off without a word. She made a point to accept the invitation of one of the most popular girls at Rawley, a socialite who she had worked on a project with and knew she could stand for a few hours. They danced to a few songs on the big night, and Jake was ever the gentleman as her date paraded her around like a prized trophy. Hamilton spent the dance glowering in the corner, until he grabbed her when no one was looking, and pulled her into the shadows with him, kissing her and telling her he missed her and he was sorry that he got upset but it was over now and they should blow the dance off for the rest of the night.
And while she and Hamilton raced up to her room and began shedding clothes as they closed the door behind them, she couldn't help but feel as though as she had lost the argument entirely.
Jake drew her face back from Sean's, breaking off an insistent kiss and looked at him from above. She slowly inched her body off him, always making sure to keep her hands on his chest, lest he assume she had finally regained her senses and was going to bolt. She found herself flat on her back again, and fisted her hands around his shirt, pulling him forward and on top of her.
***
He cradled himself between her legs and any assumptions that this was going to end as quickly as it begun flew from his head as she slowly and insistently ground her pelvis into his. His hands had been on either side of her head, but now he brought them the waistband of her jeans. He looked into her eyes for confirmation or refutation, and finding neither decided to just do whatever felt right.
It was alright if his first time wasn't with a girl he loved. It did not bother him to think that he and Jake had been passing acquaintances before this night and would probably never speak of this in the future. There was no impassioned exchange, no room full of candles and rose petals that spoke of anticipation and planning. His knees dug into the cold, hard earth and he realized at the back of his mind that Jake must have been uncomfortable between him and the dirt but she didn't say anything, so neither did he. He fumbled with her pants and hoped she wouldn't comment on his inadequacy but she had a look of detached speculation on her face, as though she was tallying up the ramifications of fucking him out in the night and decided she didn't particularly care. He was surprised at how unbothered he was by this, and he supposed he'd rather have Jake looking at him as though she could not care less than have Bella look up at him with all the love in the world as he made love to her. He knew Jake wasn't faking one damn emotion for the simple fact that she wasn't showing any.
***
As he pulled her jeans of her legs and ran his hands back up to her waist, her thoughts settled on an image of Hamilton, curled up in sleep after sex in her too small bed with his arm thrown over her protectively, suffocating her but too heavy to move without waking him. Sean put his hand between her legs and she wondered at how many times Hamilton had touched her there in reverence and she had asked him to do it harder, faster, don't worry about hurting me! There was no consideration for her comfort now and she basked in the feeling. Something had stirred inside of her recently, sending her falling off of Hamilton's pedestal and landing in the mud. Would he still want to touch her if she got dirty, she wondered. The clink of Sean's belt buckle brought her back to the baseball field, and a cold feeling of vindication swept over her: this was the longest time she had spent with another boy without Hamilton at her side.
She had never been good at keeping quiet during sex, and tonight she could only hope that her voice wasn't being carried across New Rawley on the wind. When she came, she bit her bottom lip but couldn't help the moan that escaped. Hearing that noise coming from her sent Sean toppling over the edge and he collapsed on top of her with an undignified grunt. They had spent almost the entire night talking and now he lay on top of her in silence.
She watched his face change from satisfied to confused to anxious in rapid succession, and felt an unexpected fondness for him. Jake could tell that if she didn't do something soon, he'd spend the rest of the night on top of her, figuring out how to deal with what just happened. Gently, she pushed him off her and he rolled back next to her. They both reached down to pull up their pants without bothering to get up.
***
"You should get some sleep. It's a school day tomorrow... or today, whatever," she said as she curled herself into an impossibly small ball next to him.
"Sleep? Out here?" It was ludicrous and yet considering what they had just done, strangely fitting.
"Don't worry; I'll still respect you in the morning." And with that she closed her eyes and started dozing off. Jake had to have mastered the art of repression in order to sleep so soundly after having cheated on her boyfriend. Sean knew she'd feel guilty in the morning. No matter what she'd done with him, she loved Hamilton. He wondered if she would tell him, if he should be worried about Fleming coming after him. He wondered if she would tell Bella, and if she'd even care.
When he woke up alone a few hours later, his first thought was how utterly unchanged everything was. He did not feel different, and he was glad that he had never taken stock in the notion that his first time would be a life-altering event. Bella was still with Scout, Will was still at Rawley and Sean was still left to wonder why everyone left him. The world carried on despite what had happened the night before and it was just as well. It was as though what happened between he and Jake was outside of New Rawley, somewhere that had no affect on the lives they would go on living.
Jake had left no sign of her presence and he had almost convinced himself it hadn't really happened until the noticed the scratch marks on his arms and the soreness in his legs. He rose slowly, checking to make sure that her bike was indeed missing from where they had parked it last night.
He wandered from the park towards the direction of his house. School would not be starting for another hour or so, so he had time to get home and shower before revisiting his life again. As he walked past the gas station, he noticed Bella, already dressed and bright-eyed despite the time, pulling up the tarp that covered the front window. He still felt a pang in his heart when he saw her, still felt a jolt of anger when he remembered she wasn't his. But when she saw him in the reflection of the window, and turned to him stammering a hello, doing her best to be nice and accommodating, he did not ignore her. He nodded his head and raised his hand in a brisk wave.
"Good morning, Bella."
***
Walking from the out of the Rawley woods, Jake squinted into the sunlight. Her bike was safely stored in its hiding place and now she had nothing to do but go to her room and face Hamilton. She had left Sean sleeping on the field. He knew his way around better than she did and could find his way home without her help. She figured she'd do them both a favour and leave before he woke up, avoiding the morning after awkwardness altogether.
The dorms were still dark and quiet, too early for any of the boys to be up and about. Passing by the washroom, she decided to go in for a quick rinse, both to get rid of the evidence and put off the inevitable.
She stood under the water, boiling hot and hitting her sore back with painful force. She knew that her night with Sean had left marks. Physical marks, the only kind Hamilton seemed to notice on her. When the water finally started running cold, she knew she had to get back to her room. Classes would be starting in a couple of hours and she desperately needed a change of clothes.
She crept into her room and was unsurprised to find Hamilton awake and waiting for her on the bed. He looked as though he had not slept since he had woken up the evening before and found himself in bed alone. He gazed up at her, and for the first time ever she had trouble figuring out what he was thinking. His jaw was clenched, but instead of anger Jake detected a desperate attempt to keep himself from asking her anything. There were no questions, no yelling, and no demands to tell him everything. Instead he remained seated, looking at her with intensity, waiting for her to start speaking first even though it was killing him.
She stepped forward and sat next to him, taking his hand in her lap.
"Good morning, Hamilton."
Fin
A/N: After writing that line about Jake and mud, I felt as though it was inspired by something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Luckily, I was rereading Nicky's YA continuations this weekend and found the line "Something far less complicated, something that could set her free, not tethered to this earth, rolling in the hot mud of somebody else's perpetual disappointment." So I mostly likely got it from there. No infringement intended.
I thought about doing a continuation, but there are really only three possible outcomes after this conclusion:
1) Hamilton never finds out & things go on as before
2) Hamilton finds out & kills Sean
3) Hamilton finds out & starts listening to a lot of Dashboard Confessional
If I ever find out a way to make one of those scenarios an interesting read, I'll consider a sequel. But as it stands, it's a one-shot.
