CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: CALIFORNIA KING BED

Adam's POV

It felt like the weight of the entire galaxy was weighing down on me right now. It was a feeling I'd never even thought of dealing with before.. Fiona had just left for New York last Sunday and was supposed to come back tomorrow for the weekend. And it was time for me to start thinking long term. I loved Fiona. I loved her more than anything else in the world. She was sweet, beautiful, and made me happy. But as much as I wanted to deny it, there was something making me cling to Bianca that reminded me of how I'd clung to Fiona early in our relationship. Bianca was sexy, powerful, and dark. If there was ever a moment where I had to choose between them…I honestly didn't know who I'd choose.

"Turn that frown upside down." Bianca dropped her bag on the lunch table and did her best to try to move my lips into a smile with her fingers. She wasn't very successful. I rested my chin in my left hand and looked at her with lifeless eyes.

She noticed the distant look in my face and slowly took her hands away from my face. She rested a hand on my thigh and placed the other one over my hand. "What is it? Are you still sick?"

"No," I croaked. I slipped my hand out from under hers and ran it through my hair. I'd never been this stressed out in my life.. I didn't understand this. Why had I even cheated on Fiona in the first place? Because you know she's cheating on you. I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my lunch seat. Bianca still hadn't retracted her hand from my thigh. Suddenly she began to see what I was thinking in my head right now. Bianca swallowed hard before pulling her hand away and looking at the floor. "You want to-"

"No," I interrupted her, "I don't want to do anything. But I have to do something." I turned in my chair to face her and held both of her hands. "I just…I just don't see this going anywhere. Fiona and I have this connection."

"Adam, don't preach to me about how great Fiona is. I don't care." I looked down, but I didn't let go of her shaking hands. She already knew what was coming. I knew that she knew. I could feel it. I could see how waiting for me to say it was killing her. Her puppy dog brown eyes looked so lost, so…broken. You're not the first person who's done this to her. Don't feel bad.

Without warning she took a tighter grip on my hands and pulled her chair closer to mine. I didn't care that we'd caught quite a few eyes in the lunchroom. Most of the people watching realized that nothing crazy was going to happen and went back to eating or talking to their friends. Bianca leaned in closer, and I quickly looked down. But her hand tilted my chin up so that our eyes were battling for dominance now. I wanted to win this staring contest but I knew that I couldn't. Bianca had won the game a long time ago.

"Just come to my party tonight, okay?" she pleaded. She looked so desperate. This was probably the most desperate she'd ever been of my time for her. I'd never seen her like this. Seeing her pleading brown eyes reminded me of the time when she'd asked to stay over at my house after being jumped by some of Ron-Ron's wasted goons. I'd wanted to run after the drunken idiots and teach them a lesson, but Bianca had stopped me from doing anything stupid. She knew all of the right buttons to push. She knew how to calm me down and how to make me so incredibly angry. Her power over me was incredible really. Her hands were shaking again, so I tightened my grip again to try to still them.

"After tonight I'll leave you alone. I promise. I just need one last night with you before…" Bianca swallowed another pill in her throat before taking her eyes off of mine. I nodded and watched the expressions play out on her face with interest. I shouldn't have ever gotten myself into this because now I was starting to grow feelings for this girl…

"I will," I promised. "I'll come to your party, and I'll stay with you for as long as you want. But when the night's over…so are we. We can't see each other again after tonight. It's eating me out from the inside."

"I know," she croaked. Were those tears I saw in her brown eyes? She looked down as if she'd known I was looking at the tears forming in her sad eyes. But she didn't allow the tears to spill out on her cheeks. She quickly choked them back and wiped any remainder of them from her eyes. Now she just looked broken again.

"Come here," I ushered softly before pulling her into a tight embrace. Her arms found their way around my neck and she clung to me with ease. I held her with my arms around her waist and rested my forehead on her shoulder. She loosened the embrace a bit so that she was copying my movement. We just sat there with each other while trying to enjoy the time that we still had left with each other. "I'm sorry, Adam."

I lifted my forehead off of her shoulder and glanced at her curiously. She still had her forehead rested on my shoulder, and it didn't look like she planned on moving away from it anytime soon. "For what?" I asked.

"For everything. I'm sorry I called you a freak last year. I'm sorry I called you a tranny. I didn't mean any of that stuff. I've never hated you, Adam. I didn't know how to react when I pulled your shirt open that day in the hallway. I was mad, disappointed, and really confused. I wasn't mad at you though. I was mad that you tricked me like that. You flirted with me that day, and I actually liked you. You were different from all of the other guys who hit on me. Then I saw who you really were, and I got really scared. So I did what I do best; I pushed you away."

I was shocked by what she'd just announced to me in a hushed voice. She looked so ashamed of herself. And I could feel how sorry she was in the words she was telling me. But I couldn't quite find the words to say, so instead I decided to just let her talk some more.

"Then I found Drew who just happened to be your brother. I liked him a lot. He was cute and funny. But more than anything…he was your brother. And I knew that if I dated him it would get your attention. But you didn't even budge when Drew started dating me. You just shrugged your shoulders and walked away without a care in the world. I hated that you could do that. I felt ignored for once in my life when you did that. So I became angry when I'd seen your reaction when Drew had told you at school. That night I found one of Ron-Ron's friends in the alley next to The Dot and got intimate with him for closure."

I cast my eyes downwards, seeing where this was going already. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore what she said next.

"I've never hated you, Adam… I've always loved you," she whispered with her breath hitting my neck. I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut. I was hurting this girl. She was in love with me, and I was leaving her for a girl I'd barely spent more than thirty days with since early September of last year. But my strong feeling for Fiona couldn't be denied right now.

I couldn't find the right thing to say to her. I felt like Bianca was like a fragile piece of glass that would crack at the very sound of my raspy voice responding to what she'd just confessed to me. But when I glanced back at Bianca's frozen face, she didn't look like she was waiting for an answer. She looked peaceful. What she'd just said to me must've been weighing down on her shoulders for a long time. Bianca actually seemed pretty happy to have finally come clean to me after all this time.

Bianca spoke before I could. "I just need you to know that you have other options besides Fiona. I would wait for you, Adam. I wouldn't zoom off to a college thousands of miles away. I would stay here with you and try my best to make you happy. I know that I'm not a reasonable choice to you. I just want you to know that Fiona's not the only one who loves you."

Adam felt like screaming. But he couldn't really do that seeing as how they were still in the lunchroom and all. He knew though. He knew that behind his strong feeling for Fiona were feelings for Bianca that were just as strong if not stronger.

Adam inhaled the sent of Bianca before whispering two words that only she could hear. Two words that only she knew the true meaning to.

"I know."

A/N: Now who will he choose? Muahahaha! I feel really evil for some reason just knowing the things Bianca has planned for him in the next chapter. But she does love him. This scene between them was a look at her sincere feelings towards Adam.
If you're confused by the title of this chapter…I'm not surprised. Turn on "California King Bed" by Rihanna and read that last scene between Adam and Bianca when she confesses her true feelings for him.
You'll get it