Thanks for the comments, lovelies. Here's some more to keep you occupied. Someone also messaged me to ask if this was getting close to the end, and the answer is not even close. We've still got so much ground to cover that I couldn't end it soon if I wanted to. Enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think, maybe even who you think Lily should end up with:P
It stayed like that, us exchanging an innocent variety of kisses, but ended up with me crying a little during the course of it. Jay didn't seem to mind, though I couldn't control it. He paused in our kisses for a moment.
"So…does this mean you're choosing me?" he asked in a little voice that matched his smile. I couldn't help but look him in the eyes and nod my head.
"I'm choosing you," I said it almost without thinking. It wouldn't register for quite sometime what I'd done, as we shortly after we returned to kissing. I couldn't promise Jay the rest of my life, but I could promise that looking into his eyes and trusting what he was saying at that moment, I was choosing him. Only time would tell how well his word held up. At that moment, I was too punch drunk to care.
I noticed things about him that perhaps I'd never been privy to before; the softness of his full lips and how that contrasted with the roughness of his hands, more like a man's callous with use, in his case from skating, rather than the unused hands of a seventeen year old boy. He ran those hands through my hair and finally settled them on either side of my face.
When we stopped kissing, we more or less sat in awe of one another. It was a strange sensation to be looking at him, openly admiring the way he looked.
"You're so beautiful, Lily, just like the flower," he said, goofily. It was foreign to suddenly see everything he did in this new light, without much reason for it. Moments and words surely could not have already swayed how I was seeing him, could they?
"Jay," I laughed, rolling my eyes. "You're stupid."
"No," he said, solemnly, "I mean it. You're fucking gorgeous." I doubted very little about his words and if he meant them. He seemed so truly behind them. I leaned in for another quick kiss and then realized that we didn't have to barricade ourselves in the bathroom anymore.
"We could go sit in the living room, you know," I reminded him, gently. He looked confused, as though that was a whole new option in his mind. We went there, though, and sat on the couch.
"So this means no you and Stacy, then?" He clarified for himself.
It was the first time I'd really thought of it in that way. I suppose that, in making my choice with Jay, I'd unthinkingly given up my chances with Stacy. That I was immediately fine with, but hurting him, I was not. Was it not just the day before that I was telling him that I wanted to give more of my Jay Time to him? That was going to look great as far as trust went. One day I'm saying that I want to see less of a person, the next day, I'm dating them.
"Oh, God, Lily, please don't tell me you still haven't made up your mind…" He pushed, a bit irritated with my silence.
"No, no," I reassured him, lacing my fingers with his, "I have. I guess I just didn't think about it that way. He's going to be hurt…" That last part was more my musing out loud rather than something directed towards Jay.
"And I love him, you know, but that's not your fault," Jay said, trying to comfort my conscience. I wondered if he even had one.
"I kind of told him yesterday that I wanted to spend more time together," I said, blushing a little. Jay looked angry for a millisecond.
"You made the right choice," he said, resting his head on my shoulder. I breathed in and smelled his hair; he really had showered. The scent of sea water and sweat, something I'd grown accustomed to with him, was temporarily gone.
"Why did you shower?" I asked, curiously.
"I needed something to do while I waited on you to get up," he said, tightening his grip on my middle.
It felt strange to have jumped straight to being so comfortable with one another. I suppose I really wasn't all that comfortable to have Jay wrapped around me, but it was new and exciting, so foolishly, I said nothing. There was nothing I knew to say, after kissing him so easily, that would sound right.
"You've got the show today," I reminded him, sleepily. In other words, I was telling him to put his ass in gear.
"Yeah, I know. I have to be at the shop in a half hour," he sighed, laying back on the couch and relinquishing his hold on me. I was grateful for that.
"You should get ready," I told him, squishing a bit further from him. He looked at me, puzzled.
"You're not going to watch me?" He asked, giving me this utterly shocked expression, as though he couldn't believe that I wouldn't show for such a momentous occasion. I just thought it would be better if I stayed home, just this once. I came to as many shows as possible, which had been nearly every one so far, and I thought it would be beneficial if I just took a little time to be alone.
"I'd love to, Jay," I said, half truthfully, "but I really need some down time, you know? I've been going solid since Friday… Mom'll be back Tuesday, I assume, but I just want to chill a while."
He folded him arms across his chest and gave me the annoyed look a bratty little girl might throw someone telling her what to do. Little Veruca Salt.
"You're my girl now, Lily, plus, you're my best friend…" He whined. I'd almost forgotten how painful his whining was to listen to. I wanted to hand him a pacifier on many occasions.
"No, listen, I just really need to take today off. You watch, I'll be the official Zephyr cheerleader again next show," I stood my ground. It was just really something I needed to do. I guess that the seriousness of my actions was starting to settle in, scaring me a bit.
He was angry, but eventually saw that, regardless of his level of persistence, I was not going. He
changed into his Zephyr tee-shirt and a pair of jeans, ready to head out the door. I stopped him, though, creating a barrier between him and leaving by stepping between him and the door.
"Bye, Lily," he said, smiling and giving me a quick kiss on the lips.
"Wait, I gotta ask you something," I said, nervously. I knew that the thing I intended to ask Jay was a highly sensitive thing to ask anyone, let alone a temper time bomb like him.
"I don't want to see unfair to you, but can we keep us quiet, at least for a while?" I knew that I was asking him something that I, myself, would have taken offence at. It's not that I was ashamed of him or that I was with him, I just knew that Stacy was going to need to have his feelings handled a little more delicately than I trusted Jay to know how to deal with.
He didn't look overly concerned with my humble request, though. In fact, he greeted it with
another smile.
"No problem, yeah. Wish me luck, okay?" It was that innocent, naive side of Jay that I knew I was in love with. Whether romantically or platonically in love, I could not say. It was just this overwhelming sense of protectiveness that came over me when looking at that Jay.
"Good luck, Jayboy," I said, moving out of his way. He just smiled at me and disappeared down the street. I felt vaguely guilty.
I spent the rest of night pondering the possible ramifications of what I'd done. I wasn't talking about having asked him to keep mum about us, but rather there being an 'us' at all. I'd said yes to dating my best friend, a relationship change that many couples did not survive, leaving behind a broken friendship. I could have possibly torn down something I'd spent five years building up.
The thought of losing him completely made me sick at my stomach, as did the thought of hurting Stacy. I hoped, in some way, that he didn't honestly like me too much to begin with. Not because I didn't return that like, though. It was more because I didn't want to have him let down too much. I was already going to look like a liar or a cheater of some variety.
It occurred to me that I had never fully seen the way I was treating them; I was still looking at them as options. I'd allowed Jay to think he was in love with me and that I, at least in part, returned the sentiment. I hadn't weighed the positives and negatives before deciding that I wanted to be with Jay. I'd only allowed myself to be wooed by his sweet words and actions, rather than keep my normally level head. I'd royally fucked up by not thinking out how I felt before pulling his feelings into it.
I could never hurt him, but I was sure that someone was going to end up seriously hurt in the messy situation I knew I should never have introduced. My head ached and I briefly decided that I deserved that, though I quickly changed my mind as it became a migraine. No one deserved that kind of pain.
The path I settled on was sailing until the river ran dry; I would try and cultivate a good thing with Jay and foster whatever feelings I had for him until I just couldn't try anymore. The part that worried me was my patience with Jay, which would be likened to that of Job. I made a promise to myself not to put up with the things I normally would, to be a bit stricter with my standards of how he was to treat me.
For now, I was going to have to push thoughts of Stacy Peralta and I being an item far, far out of my mind. I had made a choice, and I was going to try and do what I could with it.