I don't own the TiMER or anything about it. Most of the story is mine though. So enjoy!
Ch 13 re-write done! 5/22/22
Andy and I hadn't made plans after school. We hadn't had the time to discuss that before I had to hide. Though, maybe that was a good thing. I really did need to spend time with Spencer, or he would feel like I was neglecting him. Just because I had a soul mate did not mean I could dump my best friend. I would have to text Andy and tell him so he wouldn't make any plans.
When I told Spencer his face lit up. "Yes," he exclaimed. "We can work on soccer drills to keep you in top shape for Monday." I nodded with a smile. It was good to have a best friend who knew how to keep me focused. A twinge of guilt ran through my mind. I promised Spencer no one would know about our kiss... but now Andy knew. Sure, Andy didn't think it was a big deal, in fact he seemed very okay with it, but I knew Spencer would feel betrayed about it. Not to mention we hadn't really talked about it since it happened, I wasn't sure how he felt about it at all. Maybe I could slip that conversation in while we practiced soccer. What was the worst that could happen?
"You told him?!" Spencer yelled, kicking the ball excessively hard at me. I reflected it and killed the ball with my foot.
"Yes," I said deadpanned. "He asked, 'what's up with you and Spencer' and I'm not going to lie to him, just like I'm not going to lie to you."
"Well, you already have. We said we weren't going to tell people," Spencer defended. He was angrier than I expected.
"Sorry," I pleaded. "I didn't know what else to do."
"Wait," he started. "What did he even mean by that? Why does he even think something is up between us? We're best friends. Have I been acting differently?"
I stopped before speaking. He didn't know about the outburst I had and I didn't know how to tell him. I didn't even mean the outburst, at least I didn't think so. And I didn't want Spencer to feel weird around me. The kiss had been weird enough, and I hadn't forgotten that he said he'd wanted to do that for a long time. I just wanted it to blow over. So why did my stomach feel in knots?
"Kaylee," Spencer said slowly. "What are you not telling me?"
I walked over to the patio stairs and sat down. Then I motioned Spencer to sit next to me. He hesitated, but came over and sat on the stairs, away from me and with his arms crossed. This wasn't going to go over well. Hopefully I could retreat to see Andy after this. That would make me feel better... I hoped.
"Well, I- In a heated moment I told Andy I wished you were my soul mate. That this would be easier if you were," I mumbled, staring at anything but Spencer.
He laughed. "Seriously, that's it? I thought you were going to tell me he was jealous of us or something a lot more tragic. But, that's not too bad."
I sat in silence and looked at my hands. To me that was bad. I had told my soul mate I wished someone else was my soul mate. It made my stomach feel weird. I wasn't sure why.
"Unless," he started. "Unless you really meant that, and you were afraid to tell me."
Again, I remained silent. I wasn't sure if that was it. Did I feel that way about Spencer? He had been my next-door neighbor all my life. We had known each other since birth. We attended the same preschool. I knew things about him that I probably would never know about other people. I had always thought we were just best friends, but what if I was wrong? What if the TiMER was wrong?
I felt Spencer sit next to me and his arm draped around my shoulders. "Kaylee, I really do understand how you feel. After all, my TiMER is still blinking, and there have been many nights where I wish when you got yours mine would have come to life. Everything feels natural near you. I don't even care that we bathed together when we were toddlers. It sucks that we weren't meant to be. And that probably makes me want you even more. I don't know what to do about it as much as you do. It would be wrong of me to take you from your soul mate. So, I've got to chalk up the feelings as being lonely and wait patiently for my soul mate."
My eyes met Spencer's and I saw how torn he was about this and I realized in that moment that he was my best friend, and nothing more. I shouldn't have kissed him that night. My gut feeling had to be guilt, nothing else. Sure, I hadn't met Andy yet, but the confusion and anxiousness of meeting my soul mate got the best of me. That was it. I didn't really want to kiss him. But then again, Andy had done a lot more than kiss people before me. I wasn't sure why I felt so guilty. Other than because people kept telling me everyone should wait for their soul mate. But if Andy didn't care about that, why should I? What was important was that I had Andy now and he was all I needed to worry about.
Before I could speak and tell Spencer anything, he leaned in and kissed me. His arm tightened around me and pulled me closer to him. I wasn't kissing him back and tried to pull away but his grip was keeping me close to him. He wasn't giving up on this. I could feel the desperation in his kiss and I wanted nothing to do with it.
A thud broke Spencer away from me and we both turned to see what it was. I was home alone, so I had no idea what that was. Standing by the gate to the back yard was Andy. One of his hands was on the fence, balled into a fist. His face was red and he had dropped a drawstring bag that had cones and other soccer equipment in it.
"What the hell?" he spit out, coming closer to us.
I slapped Spencer. "Why did you do that? Get out! Out of my yard, now!"
Spencer backed up, looking shocked, but didn't leave the yard.
"Didn't you hear her?" Andy growled and closed the distance between Spencer and him. I had never heard Andy sound like that. I was a little scary. He grabbed Spencer by the collar and pulled him to him. "If you were 18 I would punch the living daylights out of you. However, I don't want to go to jail today. Get the hell away from my girlfriend before I rethink this. Next time I catch you sniffing around her, I won't be so nice. Go!"
He dropped Spencer and Spencer faltered and fell to the ground. I was almost afraid Andy was going to do or say something, but he merely picked him back up and pushed him toward the gate. Spencer broke into a run and was gone in a second.
I remained silent. I didn't know what to do or what to say. He had also called me his girlfriend. We hadn't talked about that yet. It felt weird, hearing someone call me their girlfriend. That was the next step in this whole soul mate thing, I'm sure, but was I ready for that?
"Get up," Andy growled, barely looking at me. I raised my eyebrows and remained seated. "Please," he whispered and closed his eyes.
"I didn't-" I started.
"No," he interrupted. "I don't want to hear whatever you have to say right now. I'm doing everything in my power not to chase him down an pummel him. I know he's your best friend. I know you kissed him before we met. I know you are confused about your feelings, but I don't want to hear any excuses. I just want you to come here."
He was shaking slightly and I tried not to look scared as I walked over to him. Truthfully, I was a little scared. I didn't know what he was going to do. I didn't think he'd hurt me, but I didn't know what to expect.
He pulled me into a hug and rested his chin on top of my head. I could hear his heart beating fast. I could feel him trembling. I could hear his uneven breaths. He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. We stayed like that for a while. This was new. This didn't seem normal. But slowly his heart slowed down, as did his breathing. He let go of me and looked at me with eyes that were filled with sadness.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. He was still shaking slightly.
Instead of replying, I took his hand and led him into my house. We turned the corner to my bedroom and I closed the door behind us. His face didn't change as I threw back my covers and climbed into bed, pulling him in with me. My bed wasn't the biggest and our noses were touching laying there, but neither of us minded. He stared into my eyes and didn't say anything. I held his hands in mine and managed a smile. I had no idea what I was doing, but my gut told me this would calm him down.
"Did you want him?" Andy whispered after a while.
"No," I responded. "I was about to tell him that he didn't actually have feelings for me, that he was just lonely and was jealous I wasn't. I was about to tell him to stop dreaming about me or he'd lose his best friend. But I didn't get the chance. He kissed me. And I couldn't pull away."
His face turned from calm to angry. "You couldn't-" he started and sat up. I reached out and pulled him back to me gently, gripping his shirt.
"Stop, please," I pleaded, looking him in the eyes. He sighed and closed his eyes.
"I can't be angry when you look at me like that," he claimed. "And I want to be angry."
"Why?" I asked quietly. His anger was a strong emotion.
"He has kissed you twice now, and I haven't even kissed you once," he admitted.
I laughed. "You're jealous."
"Extremely."
I shifted and placed my head in the crook of his neck. "That's just silly," I said in a sigh.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Because I have a lifetime to kiss you and do this," I said and kissed his neck slowly.
I felt him tense up. There was that reaction again. I wasn't quite sure what that was about.
"Yeah, um, you should be careful," he mumbled in a tense voice.
"Why's that?" I asked, and kissed him again. He didn't respond and I felt his heartbeat quicken under my hand. I pulled back and looked up at him. His eyes were closed and his face was calm. When he felt me pull away he opened one eye.
"Um, do you really not know why?" he asked carefully. I raised my eyebrows. He cleared his throat. "Here's the moment where I forget how young you are and how I shouldn't be reacting like this. I, um, get excited when you kiss me there." He looked down quickly and then back up at me.
My face immediately felt hot. I knew I was blushing. "I... Oh, oh my. I'm sorry. That's, oh," I stuttered out.
He laughed. "Yeah."
I closed my eyes in embarrassment. "If you want to leave now, I would understand."
"Why on earth would I want to do that?" He asked with a chuckle.
"Because I'm thoroughly embarrassed and don't know what to say or do now," I admitted.
He laughed again. "No, no. Don't be embarrassed. You don't need to do anything. I'm fine. Really. I wouldn't trade this for the world." I raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, I'll admit, I am a guy and sure there's something I'd trade that for, but that's not going to happen right now. Not because of anything you've done or said, but because it isn't the time. I'm not going to pressure you or put you up to that any time soon, okay? Please don't feel embarrassed because of this. If anything, feel pleased with yourself that you have that effect on me."
I snorted. "You are something else."
He shrugged and grinned. He didn't need to say anything else. He pulled me back into his chest and took a deep breath. I was careful not to... excite him further and just breathed him in as I listened to his heart.
After a couple of moments I spoke, "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"When you got really angry at Spencer, I felt as if this wasn't the first time you had encountered that. Am I right?"
Andy was silent for a moment. "How could you tell?"
"I just felt it."
"I don't know if I should tell you," He admitted with a sigh.
"Don't censor it, I can handle it," I demanded and pulled away from him. I sat up and crossed my arms. This only made him smile and roll onto his back.
"Fine, but be prepared," he started. After a second of silence, he took a deep breath and started talking. "My freshman year of college, like I've said before, was like entering a whole new world. Sure, I had admirers and girlfriends in high school, but these girls knew when a guy without a TiMER showed up. Being a soccer player made that easier to find out, but they probably would have known anyway. There was this girl, Jen, who came to every soccer game and waited after I would come out. Every time, without fail. She was a junior, the guys on the team gave me high fives and treated me like I had won the lottery just because she gave me attention. She was using my status to boost hers, I knew that from day one. But she was older, she was nice looking, and I was 18 years old. She bought us alcohol, we had sex more than we talked to each other, and she sported my practice soccer jersey around campus. Some people only knew her as 'Jackson's girl,' something she loved. Why did I continue to see her when I knew she had no romantic feelings for me? I was in this new place and I wanted desperately to fit in. She was my ticket to being praised by my teammates. It was wrong. It was very wrong, but I liked it better than the alternative. Anyway, sorry for so much detail, about two months after we started hooking up one of my teammates started avoiding me. I didn't pay him any attention at first, but then I started catching Jen staring at him when we were all together. I couldn't prove anything, but it set of red flags in my head. I asked around, but no one wanted to say anything. So I figured the best way to approach it would be to just ask her about it. She wouldn't lie to me. I walked to her apartment after class one day and her roommate let me in. She said she had just gotten home herself and Jen's car and bike were here, so she was probably in her room. When I got to her room I thought I heard noise so I opened the door and there was my teammate, naked, on top of Jen and she was clearly enjoying it. I pulled him off her and punched him. And punched him. And punched him. I saw red. I was so angry. Jen was screaming at me. He wasn't even fighting back. He knew. He knew he deserved it. I spit on him and kicked him as I stood up. I told him to get out and I basically dragged him out of the room and closed the door. I don't know if he walked back to his place naked or what, and I didn't care. I turned to look at Jen and she had a mixture of anger and fear written across her face. In that moment I wanted nothing more to do with her. I called her things I will never repeat again and I left her apartment. I had blood on my hands that had dried by the time I got back to my dorm. My roommate thought it was my blood and freaked out and called our RA. It felt like my ears were clogged because I could barely hear anything my roommate or the RA said. I know they asked if I needed medical assistance. I remember telling them it wasn't my blood as I left the room to go to the bathroom to wash off the blood. My teammate never talked to me again, nor did Jen. Yeah, it was personal. I saw red today, but I controlled myself. At least I tried."
He wasn't looking at me during the whole story. He was looking off into space, as if he was reliving the memory. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to react to that. How did this happy-go-lucky guy have it in him to repeatedly punch someone and not feel remorse for it? Did I really know this man laying in my bed?
I got up and went over to sit in the chair by my desk. I didn't feel like I could sit there next to him. I didn't know what I felt. That was a lot to take in. He seemed ashamed by it now, and the fact that he didn't punch Spencer or tell me off had to mean something, but I just didn't know what to do or say. That was violent. That was borderline abusive.
He opened his eyes and turned towards me. His brown eyes had tears in them and he was slightly shaking again. But he didn't say anything to me. Maybe he also didn't know what to say. Maybe he was also in shock that he had told me that. That was understandable.
"Thank you," I finally said.
"For what?" he asked.
"For being honest with me, even if it is scary to do so," I replied.
"I will always be honest with you, I promise," Andy stated. "And I hope you can say the same."
I nodded. I didn't know what else to say. I had run out of words. This situation did not have any more words.
Slowly I crossed back over to my bed and laid back down. Andy smiley and opened his arms for me to curl into. I snuggled into him and closed my eyes. Collin may be right that there is another side to Andy that I don't know, but perhaps I got an insight into that and I could eventually understand him. I didn't feel as if I was in any danger.
Something was nudging me awake. I hadn't even realized I had fallen asleep. When I opened my eyes I saw Andy sitting up, nudging me.
"I originally wanted to come over and get to know Spencer a little, run some soccer drills with the two of you. That didn't go as planned, but would you like to go out tonight? A real date? We could go to dinner in a town over and walk around that downtown," he said once I was awake.
"I'd love to," I answered and stretched.
"Do you need to change or anything?" He questioned. I shook my head and sat up.
"I'm fine," I responded and leaned in to kiss his neck. He sighed and smiled at me.
Wait," I started, remembering the girlfriend comment from earlier. "You told Spencer I was your girlfriend."
His eyes went wide. "Is that not okay? I'm sorry, I probably should have talked with you before saying that. I just assumed- I'm sorry."
I shrugged. "It's just a new thing for me. I know you've had girlfriends, probably even when you were my age, so it's no big deal for you. But, here usually people have their first girlfriend or boyfriend whenever their TiMER goes off. So I'm just not used to it."
His face softened and he laughed a little. There was a promise that the laugh wasn't at me, that he was laughing at the "cult-like" following of the TiMER and how unusual it is to not have teenagers dating a new person every other week. It was something he would have to get used to. To me it was weird that people would date someone they know isn't the one for them. That seemed like a waste of time and energy. If you could know that your soul mate is out there, dating other people seems pointless. He insisted that where he was from people thought it was weird to trust a machine that was implanted in your body. I tried to argue that the machine didn't create the idea of the soul mate, it was just the channel through which the soul mate would be located. He shrugged at that and told me he wouldn't argue with it, he was happy with it.
We ate dinner at an Italian place where everything on the menu is in Italian, with some translation below. I only knew the basics of Spanish, so this menu wasn't really helping me figure out what to eat.
"If you like cod, I suggest the Baccala Alla Pizzaiola," Andy said, clearly seeing my struggle. "It's molto delizioso e soddisfacente,"
"You know Italian?" I asked, shocked how smooth that sounded.
He nodded. "I went to a private school, don't look at me like that, it was because they had really good soccer and I wanted to go pro. Anyway, they made us take two languages, so I chose Spanish and Italian. I dropped the Spanish when I got to high school, but Italian was always fun so I took three courses in college. I don't think I have any Italian ties, but it's a neat culture and language, so I kept up with it."
Before I could respond, our waitress came to the table and got our orders. Both her and Andy laughed at my attempt to order what Andy suggested, but the waitress told me good job for even trying, that most people just point and say 'that one.' It even turned out that the waitress knew Italian, so Andy said a few things to her, which made her laugh. Part of me felt a little jealous, something that I hadn't felt before, but I knew I should trust him and didn't say anything about it. I didn't want to seem rude.
After dinner, we ended up walking through this garden downtown that played soft music and had string lights hanging above us. The entrance stated that the community kept it up, something our town would never have. I found myself in my own thoughts and didn't even pull away when reached out and held my hand. Here I didn't have to pull away from it. Here I could feel the warmth of his hand and not think too much about his age or my mom or what was going to happen to us.
We didn't say much while we walked around the garden. He seemed to understand my need for silence and respected that. Every so often, I would catch him glancing at me and smiling, which made my stomach turn flips. I would point out a certain flower and we would simply talk about what it made us think of or feel. I learned that he grew up around a Sunflower field and they always made him think about his sister because she would take them and put them all around her room. Even though he had stated he wasn't close to his sister, he could recall good memories from when he was little before she left for college. I pointed that out to him, asking him if he had ever told Collin the story of the sunflowers. He stiffened and looked away.
"No, I haven't," he grimaced.
"And why not," I pushed, not letting him back out of it. This clearly caused him distress and I didn't like it.
"He won't listen to me, I don't want to waste my breath," he said quickly.
"Maybe he'll see that you did care for his sister and that you care for him if you would talk about her," I insisted.
"He can't care about anyone," he blurted and then hit himself. "I didn't- I didn't tell you that."
I paused for a minute. Couldn't care about anyone? I didn't even know what that meant. It clearly wasn't an angsty thing or Andy wouldn't have reacted the way he did. He wouldn't look at me and his hand dropped from mine.
"You did tell me that, what do you mean?" I pressed.
"I can't tell you," he replied and crossed his arms. There was something more to their relationship than they both led on.
"And why not?" I asked.
"It- it isn't my place to say anything and you don't need to worry," he stated.
"I do need to worry, it affects me and you've already started to say something, so just say it," I demanded, getting a little frustrated.
"How does it affect you?" he retorted.
"Because I see Collin at school every day. And if I ever come over to your house I'll see him there too. We interact with each other. And if there is something I need to know about him I would be grateful if you would tell me."
"Would you stop trying to reason with me? It's making it hard not to tell you."
"So tell me then!"
He shook his head and walked away. I had to jog to catch up with him.
"It can't be that bad," I reasoned. "It's not like he's a sociopath or something."
"He might as well be," Andy blurted out.
I stopped. As much as I didn't want to admit it, that would make a little bit of sense. He did give me a little bit of the creeps.
"Just drop it okay?" Andy pleaded, walking back to me. I shrugged at him and crossed my arms. I didn't like that he was keeping something from me. I understood that whatever it was, it was personal, but we were personal now. If there was something I should know about Collin, I wish he would tell me. It was unlikely that Collin was going to, that was for sure. But it didn't seem like Andy wanted to. Whether he was ashamed or what, I wasn't sure. But I couldn't "just drop it" like he wanted me to. This was something that would affect me, and I was going to find out.
A/N: Alright, so this was the last chapter re-write. Next chapter will be brand new content!