By the look on his face, he didn’t believe it. He brought me closer to him and tugged me tight against his chest, breathing deeply into my hair. I could feel his heart beating faster through his chest. He kissed the top of my head and whispered, “No one’s ever going to touch you again.” I remember thinking I’d never felt so warm and protected in all my life than in his embrace.

*****

I slept in his bed while he sorted out some layers of blankets on the floor for himself. I idly thought that sharing a room with the opposite sex might have been uncomfortable for other people, but not for Jaxon and me. We’d grown up together, and I’d been at his house almost every single day since we became friends. There was nothing awkward about this.

He kept asking me if I was alright throughout the night. Every time I shifted and groaned in pain, he was by my side, overly worried. Eventually, exhaustion won him over and he fell asleep through most of my groans in the early hours of the morning.

The door creaked, and I opened my eyes to it. Lucinda stared at me, wide eyed, and then down at Jaxon. There was a nanosecond of shock on her face before it washed away into a broad smile. “Saw your suitcase,” she whispered to me as she walked into the room. “Jaxon told me yesterday afternoon you would be coming to stay…” She paused and eyed the wet rag on his dresser, the thawed ice pack, and the painkillers. Her cheeriness deteriorated into awareness. “What happened, Sara?”

“A tiny altercation with my father,” I muttered, forcing myself to sit up. I stiffened against the headboard. My head felt like a ticking time bomb ready to explode, and my shoulder was too painful to move.

Lucinda walked over Jaxon’s passed out body on the floor and took a seat on the bed next to me. “Are you alright?” Her eyes misted as she took me in with a long contemplative look.

“I’m fine,” I nodded. I reached out and stroked her arm to reassure her. “It would have been bad if Jaxon didn’t make it in time.”

“Did he hurt your father?”

“My father hurt me first.” There was no way I would allow her to get angry at Jaxon for this. By the softening of her expression, she agreed.

“I’m glad Jaxon’s past experience in fights actually helped for a good cause,” she mumbled, eyeing her son. “There’s a first for everything, I guess.”

She sighed. “Now, I have to ask this, so don’t be angry with me, but should I be worried that you’re sleeping in my son’s room?”

We attempted to make serious eye contact, but I burst into laughter soon after, and she followed. The lunacy of her statement was too much to stifle down.

“I’m sorry,” she said, touching my good shoulder, “I know nothing did, but it’s my responsibility to ask, right?” I nodded at her, wiping away the tears of laughter on my face. “I wish something would have, though.”

My eyes widened, and I raised my brows at her. “What?”

She shrugged. “I’ll take you over those bimbo bitches he goes out with any day. You know what I’m talking about: those expiration date hook ups he forgets the next day.”

“Does he take them here?” I suddenly felt grossed out being in his bed. Knowing Jaxon, he probably wouldn’t have cleaned up after himself.

“Don’t give me a heart attack,” she replied with a shudder. “His flings are strictly unwelcome under my roof.”

“That reminds me, you need to change your parental controls.”

“What… Again?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. Again.”

She sighed in annoyance. “That little bastard. Boys. I wanted a lovely little girl like you, but God gave me that.” She motioned to Jaxon’s sprawled out, unmoving body, sleeping like the dead face down in his pillow. Right on cue he let out a loud, unabashed snore. How could someone sleep so deep?

Because they have nothing to fear.

Four

Lucinda banned me from going back to my house. She said since I was a month shy of eighteen, I was going to be an adult soon and didn’t need my parents anymore for anything. Not that they ever gave me anything, anyway.

I tried to swap Jaxon’s sleeping arrangements so that I got the floor and he got the bed, but he refused. Lucinda did too. Then I began to see why; Jaxon went out almost every single night, and wouldn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. Sometimes he would crash on the couch, other times on the blanketed floor next to my bed. He told me to cover for him every time Lucinda asked him when he came home the next morning. He’d say eleven knowing full well that his Mom couldn’t keep her eyes open longer than ten, and I would have to nod in agreement at his answer every bloody time.

School was winding down, and prom was on the horizon. Every day I’d wait in anticipation to be approached by a boy. I got so many looks – looks that clearly screamed they were interested in me, but nobody asked me. I was so desperate I knew I’d say yes to anyone – even Garrett Abbott. But not even he approached me despite the fact it was so obviously apparent he had no date either.

What the hell was everyone’s problem? I felt like I was in a quarantine, and people were too in fear of catching some kind of zombie mutant disease from me. It wounded me deeply. After working hard on my appearance, it was a low blow to watch even the most unlikely girls get asked.

“Anyone ask you out to prom yet, Tiny?” Jaxon would probe me every single day I came home from school.

But one particular day, I’d had enough. “No, Jaxon, nobody!” I snapped, running up to the bedroom to get away from his annoying smirk.

“You okay?” he asked me sometime after.

I was crying in his bed with the covers over me. It was embarrassing – because really, why did Prom even matter so much to me all of a sudden? It wasn’t like I was the most popular girl in school.

Still. Nobody asked me. Why?

“I’m fine,” I lied. But he ripped the covers off before I had the chance to wipe away my tears.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Jaxon! Thank you for telling me I look like shit. Don’t you think I know that?” I barked back, fighting to grab the covers from his grip. “It’s the only reason I haven’t been asked to Prom, so don’t tell me what I already know!”

Silence. Then, “Are you on your period or something?”

“Ugh! Just go away, Jaxon!”

He didn’t. He sat down facing me instead and grinned from ear to ear like there was something so damn amusing to him. I glared daggers at him, hoping his eyes would explode and his mouth would disappear into that smartass face of his.

“If you’re so hard done by for not being asked to Prom, why don’t you just ask someone?” He crossed his arms, watching me with a face like he had some kind of secret.

“Ask someone to Prom?” I repeated his question in repugnance. “Are you stupid? Do you know how desperate and embarrassing it would be for me, a girl, having to ask a guy out to Prom?”

“It’s not that bad. You little feminists go on and on about equal opportunity, maybe these guys are waiting for you to put your hand up.”

“We’re talking about a high school prom, Jaxon, not political progressions beneficial to the female race.”

“So that weird lanky dude didn’t even ask you out either?”

“No.” I felt my cheeks heat up. I really thought Doug was a sure bet. How odd.

“Oh well, his loss. It’s not a big deal. Plus, you know what any guy would do to you if they took you out, right?”

I looked at him strangely. “What?”

“They would try and deflower you.” I expected him to laugh, but Jaxon looked dead serious at me. “That’s… assuming you haven’t been already?”

“Shut up, as if I’m telling you that.”

His eyes widened in horror. “Was it Jordan?”

“No! It was nobody. That’s none of your business, though.” I wouldn’t dare tell him how his mom had put me on birth control and gave me a rather out there sex talk (gory details and all) when Jordan and I were together. To that day, she made sure I kept taking my pill as a “just in case” precaution.

He actually looked relieved by that. Then he smiled again, this time to himself. What was he hiding that was so bloody funny because I sure as hell wasn’t doing anything!

“Believe me; all a guy thinks about on Prom night is screwing their girls, Sara. Is that what you’re looking forward to?” He was sarcastic, but I swear there was a hint of seriousness in there somewhere.

“Is that all you thought about?” I retorted, knowing I’d trapped him.

“Yep,” he nodded nonchalantly. “Tanya didn’t even try to play hard to get.”

“Ugh, you’re such a whore, Jaxon.” I shook my head at his blasé attitude, like there was nothing wrong at all with what he was saying.

“I don’t go looking for it,” he protested, and smiled larger. “They come to me, Sara.”

“And you don’t push them back either.”

“But I never go looking for it.”

“What’s the difference? You accept it, that’s what’s so wrong.”

He looked at me for a long moment before propping himself up beside me. It never ceased to amaze me how much taller he was to me, even when sitting.

“Do you want me to stop?” The question threw me off. He looked down at me, blue eyes glowing with sincerity. Oh my God, he’s being serious.

“No,” I said slowly. “What you do is your own business.”

Looking thoughtful once again, he eventually nodded and looked away. I didn’t know why he was acting so weird. It was so unlike him. “I can take you out to Prom if you want,” he quietly said after some time.

My eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because no one’s asked you, and you’ve run out of time.”

I scoffed. “Oh, so it’s just a pity offer–”

“No,” he interrupted sternly. He leaned in so that his face was mere inches from mine and seriously said, “It’s not pity, Sara. I want you to have a fun night. Plus, I’d be a good date for you. I can drive you there, dance with you, give you a good time and there won’t be that underlying expectation to deflower you.” There’s that word again. Deflower? Really, where did this guy pick his words from?

I wanted to be happy by his offer, but I was disappointed. I didn’t care how he looked at it; it was still a pity date.

“Come on, stop wallowing,” he said, nudging his shoulder into mine. “Let me take you.”

“Because you feel bad.”

“No, because I want to.”

I studied his face. He looked genuine. Then he did a pout, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Jaxon, in all his annoying, thieving, man-whore ways could be so damn adorable. He smiled, showing me those dimples and straight teeth; he knew he won me over.

“Okay, Jaxon. I’ll let you take me.”

“Let me? You act like I’m dragging you…” He looked wounded.

“No, it’s not that at all.” I shook my head at myself; I shouldn’t have picked those words! I grabbed his hand and looked him square in the eye and said, “Thank you for asking me out to Prom, and I would love to go with you. Especially if it means you won’t deflower me – that’ll take a load off my shoulders.” To emphasize my point, I gave him a light kiss on the cheek, and his eyes brightened.

Lightly laughing, he arched a brow. “Gratitude. That emotion suits you, Sara. I promise you’ll have a great night.”

“Yeah, fine, just never use the word ‘deflower’ again when you’re around me or my friends.”

“I’d never bring that up around people you know.” He was so sincere saying that, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was up with this serious shift in mood. I wasn’t accustomed to him being so… genuine and caring.

We stared at each other for a long while as he softly drew circles around my palm with his forefinger. All the while I kept trying to decode the face he was giving me; it was an expression he’d only started giving me lately, filled with an admiration that ran deep in a way that fluttered my heart uneasily. Every time it snuck on by, I squashed it like a bug; prolonging the denial was the only way I could get out of the truth of what was unravelling between us.

Five

You would have thought Christ returned in the flesh to proclaim saviour to all his followers the way Lucinda reacted to the news. She was over the moon – no, over the Milky Way would be more accurate – at learning that Jaxon would be my date. It was like Christmas every day leading up to Prom.

I eventually felt better at having him as my date. If it was up to me, I would have preferred someone ask me out of true romantic interest, but I’d gotten over that disappointment.

I’d picked out a pink coral heart shaped bodice dress encrusted with jewels (fake of course) with a flowing A-line chiffon skirt. I left my dark hair down in long curls, decorated myself with stud earrings and a fake pearl necklace that Lucinda had picked up the day before. She gave me a French manicure that morning, and due to last minute timing, picked up my pink jewel encrusted high heels to match my dress. Then she came home, did my make-up, fed me nothing but an orange and water so that I wouldn’t get “bloated” and told me to wait in the bedroom until Jaxon was done dressing in her room.

When she finally let us see each other, my eyes bulged out of my head. He was wearing a black tuxedo, hair so completely slicked back it almost looked like he had short hair; he looked polished, and even his cologne smelled fresh when it wafted into my nostrils. The suit made him look extra masculine the way it framed his broad shoulders and chiselled body.