Chapter 10 - Confessions

We stayed in the graveyard until the sky started to lighten a bit, and we finally realized that we needed to head back. Eric and I had made out and talked through the night, and it was probably the happiest, most perfect night of my life.

When we got back to the house Eric stopped me from going inside.

"What?" I asked.

"Let's sit out here and watch the sun come up," he said, and led me to the porch swing.

We sat down and he put his arm around me and pulled me close. I reached my hand over to grab his free one and lay my head on his shoulder. That's how we fell asleep, and that's how we woke up.

Apparently, when Gran woke up she couldn't find us in the house so she went outside to start looking and discovered us sleeping on the swing. She said it was the most adorable thing in the world so she got a camera and took a picture of us, which woke us up.

Gran insisted we stay awake and made breakfast, while Eric and I took turns showering and getting dressed. We all ate together, and then Gran put us to work in the yard since it was a warm day. I raked leaves while Eric cleaned the gutters, and then he mowed the lawn while I pulled weeds. By the time we finished it was time for lunch and Gran fixed us some sandwiches and lemonade.

I was getting a little annoyed because I wanted so desperately to just spend time with Eric, and even though we were, in fact, spending time together, it wasn't how I wanted to be spending it. What I wanted was to make out with him all day... maybe even more than that.

I almost felt like a hussy thinking about that and wanting to do it so soon, but I felt this strange need to claim him as mine, as well as a need to be claimed by him. I felt like it would be so amazing with him, and that he'd be the only other person I would ever do it with for the rest of my life. All I wanted was to experience it.

Gran found more cleaning for us to help her with after lunch, and I was beginning to wonder when she turned into such a cock blocker. By supper time I didn't think there was possibly anything else we could clean, and gratefully sat down to eat. Gran invited us to watch a movie with her after we cleaned up, and we were both too chicken shit to say no, so we did.

By the time the movie was over Eric and I were falling asleep from exhaustion, but we both thought we shouldn't risk him staying over with Gran there. We weren't sure if she'd be okay with him staying in my room since we were "together" now, and thought it best for him to go on home.

I walked him out to his car and kissed him hard before he left with a promise to be at church the next morning.

"Are you happy?" Gran asked me when I went back inside.

"More than ever before," I said honestly.

"Good. Come sit down, I want to talk," she said while patting the spot on the couch next to her.

"What is it?" I asked as I sat down.

"Sookie, I trust you, and I trust Eric. I'm so happy and relieved that the two of you are finally together."

"Thanks Gran, but what are you getting at?"

"Would you like to go on the pill, sweetie?" she asked bluntly, and I could feel my face burn bright red.

"Gran!"

"Don't play coy. I may be old, but I'm not dumb, and those advice columns are quite helpful. I know you did it already with Mr. Herveaux, and I'm disappointed that you gave your virtue to someone you didn't love."

As soon as I got over the shock of what she was saying, my eyes welled up. If there was one thing I never wanted to do, it was to disappoint Gran in any way.

"I know, and I'm disappointed in myself. He did love me though… if that counts for anything. I thought I could come to love him, but it just didn't happen."

She reached out and took my hand in hers.

"You know that, and that's exactly why I'm not upset with you," she reassured me. "Now, despite my age, I am no prude, and I know what you teenagers are capable of these days. I know you and Eric will probably want to get to know each other more intimately, and I want you to be safe. So please sweetheart, if you think you and Eric will be doing that sort of thing then tell me so we can get you some more protection."

I thought about it for a minute. I knew I was all for having sex with Eric as soon as possible, and I was sure he wouldn't be averse to it.

"I think it would be a wise thing to do," I finally said, and she smiled. "Thank you for understanding Gran."

She promised to make me an appointment with the gynecologist first thing Monday morning, and said we'd get me on the pill right away, but then she lectured me about still using other forms of protection, and being absolutely positive we wanted to take that step before we did it. It was incredibly embarrassing, but I was glad she was okay with talking to me about it.

By the time I got to bed I was exhausted, and barely had time to think about how Eric would react to the news before falling asleep.

Gran woke me bright and early the next morning and I got ready for church, anxious to see Eric again. He was waiting for us when we got there, and as usual, helped Gran up the church steps and escorted her to the pew. When the service started Eric reached over and took my hand in his. I smiled as I threaded our fingers together, and we held hands through the whole service. As soon it was over, and after we said goodbye to Gran, I dragged him out of the church so we could do what I was becoming desperate for.

"Where do you want to go for lunch?" he asked when we got in the car.

"Let's just go back to the house," I said.

"Why? We always go out," he said, but I silenced him with my hand on his knee.

"I'd really like to just go back to the house, okay?"

I saw him swallow and grinned. I couldn't wait to get back and spend some alone time with him. The drive seemed to take forever, but we both hopped out of the car and ran to my room when we got there.

I pulled Eric down on the bed so that he was on top of me and kissed him. He kissed me back hard as his hands roamed over my body. I moaned into his mouth when he palmed one of my breasts over my shirt, and arched my back. Eventually, his hands found their way under my shirt and tried to unhook my bra. He fumbled with the clasp, so I sat up a bit to undo it and pull the bra off. After tossing it on the floor, I resumed my place under him and his hand was under my shirt again. A very sexy groan came from deep in his chest when he finally touched my bare breasts, and I made a very pleasurable noise in response.

I shifted my hips a little and brought my leg up around his waist. He stiffened a little at first, but got right back into it. His lips went down to my neck and he began kissing, sucking, and nipping at the sensitive flesh causing me to moan and hitch my other leg around his waist. He stilled again, and I wondered what his problem was.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine," he said, but it wasn't very convincing.

Before I could question him further he covered my mouth with his again. He wrapped his arms around me and in one swift move he was on his back with me straddling him. I laughed in excitement, and he smiled warmly at me. His hands tucked my hair behind my ears and then lingered by my face before slowly bringing me down to kiss him. My hands were on his chest and as the kiss deepened, I slid them down to his belt buckle. As soon as I started to undo it he broke away and stilled my hands with his.

"It's okay. I want this," I told him.

"You have no idea how happy that makes me, but we just can't yet," he said.

"Really, it's okay. Not to be a mood killer or anything, but Gran had a talk with me after you left last night. She knows that we'll be having sex, and she's going to get me on the pill."

"She is?" He asked, looking surprised.

"Yeah, it shocked me too, but she said she's relieved that we're together, and that she's not a prude so she knows what we'll be doing. She'd just rather us be safe."

"Sookie… I really am glad you want to take this step with me, and so soon, but I think we should wait a while."

"Why wait? We love each other, and we have for a long time. We're finally together, and… I've dreamed of this," I said, not believing that I was negotiating having sex with a teenager.

He still looked unsure.

"Are you worried about disease? I'm clean, I swear. He was a virgin too, and we always used protection," I said uncomfortably, especially when I saw him flinch. "We should be more worried about you in that respect. Pam's not exactly the most chaste girl," I tried to joke, but was surprised when Eric gently pushed me off of him and got off the bed.

"Eric?" I questioned. "You don't really have something, do you? Is that why you're acting like this?"

He stopped pacing and knelt in front of me, taking my hands in his.

"I haven't been completely honest with you," he began and my heart sunk. Had Pam not been the only one?

"What do you mean?"

"I don't have a disease," he started, and then paused to take a deep breath, "because I haven't been in a situation to get one."

I was confused, and didn't understand what he was getting at.

"Sookie… I didn't have sex with Pam," he said.

My jaw dropped, but I couldn't seem to find the air to say anything.

"Honestly, I was going to after I found out about you and Alcide, and that was why I followed her that day. I couldn't go through with it. Nothing happened. I wanted you to be my first, and I was positive that it could still happen."

My eyes welled up and my heart ached. Eric hadn't slept with Pam… While that made me happy in one respect, I also wondered why he'd lied to me about it. He seemed to have read my thoughts and answered my question.

"Pam said she could help me get you and started a rumor that we'd been together. She said that the only way to get you was to make you jealous, but obviously it didn't work."

"Why on earth would Pam want to help you get me? And why would you let her?"

"She's not as bad as you think. Yes, she had a thing for me, and that's why it was so easy to get her to agree to have sex with me, but when I couldn't go through with it she guessed why. She said it was nice to know a guy who'd turn down no-strings-attached sex because he was in love with someone else, so she said she'd help me get you. She said she hoped that someone would help the man who fell for her in that way, and she wanted to see you and I happy. I know it sounds nuts, but I believed her. I didn't actually want to go with her plan, but she swore it would work. As you well know, it backfired, but I couldn't just take the lie back so I lived with it."

"Jesus, Eric. I was going to break up with him before you said you slept with her," I said as the tears finally spilled and ran down my cheeks.

His hands came up to my face and his thumbs brushed my tears away.

"I was going to tell you how I felt the day he asked you out," he confessed.

"Really? I knew you wanted to talk to me, but I had no idea…" I trailed off as I cried more.

"I should have kissed you last Halloween. If I had just done it…"

"No," I cut him off. "No, I think it would have happened if it weren't for the kids interrupting us."

"If it had, would you have still let Alcide take you home?"

"No. I know I wouldn't have, but we have to stop thinking like this. Everything happens for a reason, remember?"

He nodded.

"That includes all this. All that matters is that we're together now. We know how we feel now. It's not like we discovered all this when we're forty or something," I smiled.

He smiled warmly back at me, and then his expression turned serious.

"Why did you break up with him? You never told me, and it happened so quickly."

"I broke up with him because I fantasized about you," I said, not wanting to lie about it.

"What?"

"It felt wrong… after that first time," I began, and from the look on his face I knew that he understood what I was talking about. "At the time I was kind of in denial and it didn't seem wrong, but it was. When I decided to stay with Alcide I asked him if he was okay with waiting to do it again, because I knew I had to try to get over you before sleeping with him again. My heartbreak over thinking you had been with Pam dulled a bit with time, and I thought I could do it, so we did. It didn't really dull though, I had just become used to it. The night of that party was the last time because I found myself thinking about you. I imagined he was you, and it was the best time I'd ever had with him. It was all so very wrong, and I knew then that I couldn't continue to be with him, so I broke it off."

He kept his serious expression through my whole confession, and looked a little pained. I knew it must have hurt him to hear me talk about having sex with Alcide. Slowly, his lips curved into a grin that could only be described as cocky.

"You fantasized about me? And it was the best?"

I frowned. "Yes, yes, and it was wrong, Eric."

"Why was it wrong? I don't think it's wrong."

"Okay, imagine that you and I are sexually active, and we end up having the best sex we've ever had… then afterward you find out that I was imagining I was with Alcide instead of you. How can that possibly not be wrong?"

His head hung a little. "Alright, I get it. I can't help but feel a little happy about it though."

I reached out and ran my fingers through his hair, causing him to look at me. "I understand. If you were to tell me that you fantasized about me I would probably be pretty pleased as well."

He smiled, and I instantly felt better. His smile always did that to me. He got up off the floor and sat next to me on the bed, taking my hand in his as he did.

"Do you still want to wait?" I asked gently.

"Yes," he said. "And it's not because of your history or because I'm still a virgin. It's because I want it to be special, not a quick thing that we do while Gran's out. This is also a stressful time in our lives. We've got school to think about, college applications, scholarship applications… what happens after we graduate…" he trailed off and I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. He was right, we had a lot to think about and a lot of stressful things that would be happening, and the last thing we needed was to be stressed about sex and all that comes with it.

His words finally sunk in… what happens after we graduate. It wasn't a question.

"What do you mean by that? What do you think is going to happen after we graduate?" I asked as I gripped his hand tighter.

"I don't know. I really don't. It's something we need to discuss."

"Then let's discuss it right now, because it sounds like we're giving up before anything has even started," I said quickly, unable to hide the emotion in my voice.

He turned to me and took my face in his hands. "We're not giving up. I'll never give up on you. We just need to figure out how things are going to happen now before it sneaks up on us."

"What do you want to see happen?" I asked, taking his hands from my face, and holding them in my lap.

"We both have the grades to get in anywhere, and I've got the extra padding of a possible football scholarship. I want to go wherever you go. We could get an apartment together and not have to deal with living in the dorms."

"Exactly how much have you thought about this?" I asked.

He smiled timidly. "Let's just say that when it was my original plan we would have been staying in separate rooms in the hypothetical apartment because we were just friends, although in that plan I was going to tell you how I felt and get us in one room eventually."

I smiled at him as my wheels began turning. Could we really do that? Would he really follow me?

"I could pay for the apartment," he continued. "My aunt and uncle started a college fund for me when they got me, but I think they believe college is much more expensive than it really is. If I get a scholarship then I'll have enough there to buy a house, and that's not including the money I'll get from my parents' insurance policy when I turn twenty-one."

I smiled. "You shouldn't have to pay for our apartment, Eric. I'll get a job and help pay for things."

"Our apartment?" he asked with a huge grin. "You really want to do this?"

"Yes. I want to be with you, but I only want you to follow me if you can study what you want at the college I go to, okay? Please don't make any sacrifices like that on my behalf."

"That's something we can consider later because I still don't know what I want to do," he said and hugged me close.

"Me either. I guess we should both figure that out soon, shouldn't we?"

He chuckled and pulled back with another serious expression.

"Oh goodness, what now? Enough with the serious face! What else could we possibly need to discuss?"

"It's not that bad, I promise," he laughed.

My expression didn't change.

"Alright… I want to wait until we go to college to have sex."

"What?" I asked, not believing what I was hearing.

"Don't get me wrong… I want to have sex with you very much. I fantasize about it all the time. But, like I said before, I want it to be special. It won't be that way at my house because it doesn't feel like home. It won't be that way here while we're worrying about Gran coming back, and to be honest it just wouldn't feel right doing it here. It won't be special in my car, or in a hotel after prom… but it will be special at our own place, in our bedroom, on our bed."

I had tears threatening to spill… again.

"I don't deserve you," I whispered and hung my head.

"Why would you say that?" he asked as his hand lifted my chin.

"You should be angry, furious even. I didn't have enough strength to believe that you could love me, and I had sex with someone else. You wanted to be my first, and now I can't ever give you that. Yet you still sit here and tell me that you want to follow me to college and live with me. You want us to make love for the first time in a place that's our own."

"Sookie, stop. I'm going to tell you the absolute truth right now, okay?"

I slowly nodded as his eyes stared into mine, and I'll admit I was afraid of whatever he was going to say.

"When I first found out I was angry. I was very, very angry. I was angry, and hurt, and I wanted to give up, but then I realized something. I never gave you any reason not to do that with him. I had nobody to blame but myself. Hell, I even encouraged you to be with him when I could have been sabotaging the whole thing. It took me a while, but I finally understood that while Alcide may have been your first, I will be the first that you love, and hopefully I'll be the last as well."

I took a deep breath, and started crying again.

"Are you serious?" I asked in-between sobs, and he knew exactly what I was talking about.

"It may seem crazy to say considering how old we are… I mean, who finds their soul mate when they're eight? You're it for me Sookie. You are all I will ever want or need. I'm gonna marry you someday."

I couldn't respond, and kept sobbing while smiling like a lunatic. Eric got up for a minute and came back with tissues, which I gratefully took and used. He rubbed my back, soothing me until I calmed down enough to talk.

"You want to marry me?" I blurted out, and then laughed.

"Yes," he replied, not missing a beat. "I'm not saying that I'm going to buy you a ring or anything right now, but one day I will ask you to marry me."

"I don't think I would be averse to that," I said as I took his hand in mine.

He leaned forward and kissed me softly for a few long seconds, and then he pulled away slightly. His forehead rested against mine as he whispered, "I love you, Sookie."

"I love you too," I whispered back.

Dawww... aren't they cute?!

I want to thank everyone for their patience and for not all jumping me for the last chapter being so short. I certainly hope this one made up for it. I apologize for not getting back to all the reviews for the last chapter. I've been very busy with work and this time of year is very hard for me personally, but I hope to get with it again.

Huge sincere thank you's to my beta FarDareisMai2. Poor woman has sick kids and a sick self and she still found time to beta for me, and I appreciate it so, so much. *hugs*

To all of you who actually liked Alcide and Sookie, I got bit by a writing bug the other day and wrote a Sookie/Alcide one-shot! It is not related to GoGI, and stands on it's own. It'll probably be up tomorrow, so keep an eye out for it!

P.S. I have Chapter 11 ready to go too, so yeah... please let me know what you thought of this one :)