I'm home for the holidays, and this puppy just slipped out of my fingers. Tell me if I should keep it as only a short story or extend it some.

The game had longed ended for him. Every thought he swore to be true had lost it's footing in her. He ached and hated the way he felt. And so in place of all these strange feelings he ecstatically possessed, he hid in the arrogant smiles and overbearing words he could so easily spew to her.

And she refused him in his arrogance. In this way he had won, she refused his fake manners, although she hardly knew it. Or fake more in the sense that the feelings he put forth were a front. But if she was refusing him…in some strange way she was still playing his game. Hate and love so closely related, for it takes much energy to hate someone and the hate could be found often in our envy of what we shouldn't enjoy about someone but we do.

She was attracted to him: lust, yes, lust was a factor. And it angered her, he knew. In his darker thoughts he languished over this small power that he may posses, is his softer ones he longed for the feeling to be something dearer than lust.

And yet the beauty of it all was fate.

She was walking home from the beach, although not directly on the asphalt of the street. The summer day had warmed it unbearably, so she settled for the path next to the road: the long, green summer grass. Her long, wet hair from her leisure swim was slowly making water paths across her back as she slowly hummed a tune to herself. The warm California weather brought her an unexplainable peace.

All at once a red car squealed around the corner of the road, making her hair fly into her face as it passed her by. A great amount of feet away from her, the car screeched to a stop and the driver turned around and stared at her. She was frozen: her wet hair, no makeup. He was frozen: she was not what he expected. Not that he had expected more than a Sunday's race around the small city's curving roads. There was something so intimate seeing her hair free and tangled, her lips pursed and her eyes wary of him.

She continued her walk, moving her beach bag further up her shoulder in an attempt to avoid the startling blue eyes that made her…aware. Aware of what she wasn't sure, but he did not make her comfortable.

"I'd offer you a ride, but I know you wouldn't accept it. We've been through this routine too many times. Old dance partners in a tango." His voice was strained as if he was amused by her rejection of him.

How appropriate, for after her mom had taken a lot of Latino dancing lessons she told Suze of how the tango was her favorite. It was all about feeling so passionately angry with someone, yet at the same time you couldn't let go. She hadn't let go of him. In fact there was one dried rose petal in her journal. A journal she had gotten for her birthday that she had never written in. A petal from the flowers he had sent her long ago when it was a chase to him.

She walked pass his car fingering through her hair. Primping. And she hated herself all the more for doing it, but was helpless to stop herself. He was wearing dark sunglasses and his hair was the longest and wildest she had ever seen it, probably from driving so fast in his convertible with the top down. The curls were going every different direction and she at once wanted to run her fingers through them and laugh at him. He had the most open look on his face, a genuine smile.

She heard the car door open and close and then he was walking beside her as she began to quicken her pace. Her heart beat quicker now; she was no longer humming.

"So this is your newest way of making me feel like dirt? Not talking to me?" His voice was a caress so soft and low that she was tempted to gaze upon his face and figure him out.

"You cannot ruin my beautiful summer day." She hissed at him as he continued to match her strides. He was silent—the only sound was him swinging his keys around his index finger. His silence made her curious. She gave in the tug of war of resisting looking at him. It could only cause trouble. But look she did. He was biting his lip, which seemed quite the signal of nervousness. All a sudden this endeared him more to her.

"What a pity you do not favor swimming in the nude." And then she remembered the reason she hated him. She flashed him an annoyed stare. He grinned then pulled his sunglasses off and settled them on the part where his collared polo shirt unbuttoned a little. She saw the skin of his chest and it was a radiant tan but she was close enough to distinguish freckles. And found herself letting out a gust of air.

They walked a long while in silence; she was counting the number of times her flip-flops made a squeak. She had reached forty-seven. And she couldn't take it any longer.

"Isn't your car going to get towed?"…And apparently neither could he. "I went to New York this summer."

"No," he responded easily. "No one ever drives down that old road."

Forty-eight, forty-nine. "I miss New York." And that became the new reason she hated him. He brought up New York, which suddenly the state upon his lips made her terribly sad. She hadn't been sad for her old home before. Or longed violently for it as she did now.

(AN- duh, she's dealing with hot feelings for a certain man who's walking with her and she's longing for her childhood because then she didn't have to deal with lust! Tehe. I'm right, stop denying it. Ok, believe what you want.)

"You should have come with me," he smiled down at her and it turned slowly into a smirk. "I would've shown you everything there is to see." A blush grew upon her checks and she hated him even more for it.

"In New York that is."

All at once she wanted to confide in someone. "I feel like a different person when I am there and then when I return here I slip back into my "Suze California costume", as it were." And then she felt as if she had carved her heart out for Paul and her to both gaze upon in astonishment. She hated him! He didn't care about her feelings, he probably would tell his new fling about the 'funny thing this girl I used to lust after told me one day'. Why was it necessary to even continue this conversation with him? She could never read him, or his feelings. She never had been able to.

Fifty-six, fifty-nine. And then as if she had been in a trance during the walk all of a sudden they were in front of her house, both facing each other, yet each staring at the house.

"Want to hear a secret?" His eyebrows were lifted. She nodded dazedly. "I drove by here one day a year ago. It was early in the morning. You were sitting on your window sill, staring out in thought."

He still had more to say…there was a pause in his speech but he returned to speaking quickly. He leaned closer to her ear so his lips were almost brushing it. "I thought of you in New York," he whispered. He jerked away from her ear, gave her a long stare with troubled blue eyes before backing away and walking to his deserted car.

The D.J. put a slow song on, and everyone in the club began to pair off. Jesse immediately took her in his arms and she was embraced by the warmth and cologne of her boyfriend. Her heart was warmed and there was no other place she could imagine being. She smiled over towards her two best friends and how content each of them looked as they slowly moved together.

You got someone else
Maybe it's for the best
Since I took the cure
For happiness

She looked near the door where he and his date were practically molding together. He whispered something in his date's ear and she immediately laughed into his chest. His hands were making circles on his date's back and Suze watched the motion, following the soft pattern they made.

"Susannah," Jesse cooed into her ear and loved washed over her. She must have tensed up, because she could feel her shoulders relaxing and smiled into Jesse's shoulder. All she could find herself thinking was, I hate him.