Chapter Five: I Think I Love YouA Chapter by Nikki When Monday rolls around, and Cole and Briar proudly show off their new relationship, rumors begin to fly through the high school. Will Cole's love for Briar prove to her that words will never hurt?
Monday, I made sure to get to school extra early. Josh and Keagen were in the lobby, copying each other’s chemistry homework. I called to them. “Hey guys.”
Josh waved to me. “Hey , what’s up?” He looked around. “Briar’s not here yet, at least I don’t think.”
“That’s okay.” I smiled.
Keagen looked through the double doors. He was smiling too. A cute sandy blonde haired girl came prancing through the doors. She beamed when she saw Keagen, and jogged over to him.
He jumped down and opened his arms. She jumped into them. He swung her around, kissing her neck.
My eyes widened. I looked to Josh. “Since when?” I mouthed to him.
Josh shrugged.
Keagen set the girl down, and gave her a peck on the lips. “You miss me?”
“Of course I missed you,” she said, giggling.
Keagen turned to face us. “Guys, this is my girlfriend, Molly.”
Molly turned to us. She stuck her arm out. “Hi guys!”
“Hi,” Josh responded.
“Hello.” I grinned, and then sat back down. I didn’t remember Keagen getting a girlfriend. I don’t remember seeing Molly in school before. Maybe she was new.
Briar came in seconds later. She searched the lobby for me, looking around.
“Bri!” I called, standing up. “I’m over here.”
She smiled when she hear my voice and walked over to me. She set her bag down. She looked up at me.
“Come here,” I muttered, my arms wrapping around her.
She nuzzled her head on my chest. “You have a nice day yesterday?”
“Yes,” I said into her head.
Josh came over to me. He raised his brows suspiciously. I hadn’t told him we were dating.
I just gave him a smile, and squeezed her tighter.
“Ugh, Cole, you’re choking me,” she laughed.
I pulled away. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She ran her fingers through my hair. She turned to face Josh. “Hi Josh.”
“Hey, Briar, how are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Josh smiled to her. “You’ve got yourself a great guy.”
Briar giggled, and turned to face me. Her blue eyes twinkled. “Yeah, I do.”
I cleared my throat. “Okay… yeah… Josh, me and Briar are dating.”
“Really? I couldn’t figure that one out… huh…” He grinned and I smacked him.
“So, who’s Keagen’s girl?”
Josh shrugged. He turned to face Molly and Keagen. They were swaying back and forth. “Some girl from out of town. I believe she’s moving here.”
I nodded. “Yeah, makes sense.”
Briar yawned. She leaned against my chest. “God I’m tired,” she murmured.
“Not get enough sleep last night?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine Cole.” She leaned up and kissed my lips gently.
My heart faltered a beat or two. I kissed her back. She pulled away, chuckling. “Not here.”
I dropped my head, pouting. “Aww…”
She hit me. “Save it, I’m coming over after school.”
I hugged her tightly against my chest. “I can’t wait that long,” I whispered in her ear.
She shivered, “You’re gunna have to,” she whispered back.
That was a horribly long day.
The music was blaring in the background. It was the October now. Two weeks away from Halloween. It was a Wednesday. Briar and I had been dating for a little over three weeks.
I gasped for air. She removed her lips from mine. I smiled. She knocked me down. Her hands were tangled in my hair. Mine were on her lower back. She brought her lips down my neckline, kissing my throat. I groaned.
“Damn it, Briar…”
She took her lips from my skin, and stared at me. The room was dark, hardly lit. It was about six at night. “What’s the matter?”
I shook my head. I brushed my fingers over her cheek. Every time I looked at her, I could hardly believe she was mine. “Nothing.”
She took a steady breath, lowering herself against me. “You don’t regret anything, do you?”
“Of course not.” I picked up her head, looking into her eyes. “Never, impossible.”
“We didn’t rush anything, did we?”
I laughed gently, pecking her cheeks. “No.”
She sighed, and her face crinkled into thought. “Our first kiss…”
“What about it?”
“You don’t think we should have waited?”
I thought for a moment. “No, no. I don’t think so.”
Briar’s worried expression faded. She kissed my forehead. “Okay, well, I just…”
“Why, do you think we’ve rushed it?” “No! No!” she said, shaking her head. “No, I just didn’t know if I was doing everything right.”
“You’re doing everything right,” I told her quietly. I squeezed her tightly. “There’s no way we could ever mess up.”
Briar giggled. “You’re choking me. I can’t… breathe.”
I released. “Sorry.”
She smiled down to me. That smile never got old. “Cole?”
“Yes?”
“Do you still like Sophie?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah… I just… love her.”
She chewed at her lip. “Well it’s just…”
“What?”
“I heard her talking… and… I don’t know. I don’t believe her, but I’m just worried I guess…”
I shook my head, my hands balling into fists. “No… you’re fine… I’ll uh… talk with her.”
Briar looked at me, eyes soft. “You sure you’re not mad?”
“No, I’m not mad, don’t worry.” I held her face in my hands, and kissed her on the lips. “Not at all.”
“Okay…” She looked away, and slowly slid next to me, cuddling against my chest. “Cole?”
“Yeah?” I asked gently, my eyes slowly shutting.
“I think I love you…”
I smiled gently. My heart flipped a few times. “I’ve always loved you.”
I felt her grin. “Really?”
“Of course.” I cuddled her next to me. Our bodies were close to each other, warmth radiating through us, and within seconds I started to drift off to sleep…
The gentle rapping on the door woke me up. “Cole?”
Jeanne’s soft voice awoke me. I groaned. “Yeah?”
“Briar’s mom’s here, hunny.”
“Yup.” I opened my eyes, and looked to Briar. She was knocked out cold. “Briar?” I shook her gently. “Bri… wake up, your mom’s here.”
She groaned, and turned away from me.
I chuckled. “Briar, you gotta wake up.” I kissed her cheek a couple times.
She grumbled again. “Hmm?”
“Your mom’s here.”
She sighed. “Okay…” Rolling over, she faced me. “I wish I didn’t have to leave,” she mumbled.
I kissed her cheek. “I know.”
She stood up. “I love you, I’ll see ya tomorrow.” We kissed, not wanting to let go, and Briar left, waving as she walked out of my room. As for me, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next day in Algebra, I stood outside of the room, waiting for Sophie. When she spotted me a few feet down the hall, she waved. Jogging up to me, she smiled. “Hey, why are you waiting out here for me?”
“What are you telling Briar?” I demanded.
Sophie snickered, rolling her eyes. “Cole, please, I have much better things to do than run my mouth to your little girlfriend.”
I huffed. “Yeah, I’m sure you do.”
She widened her eyes, staring at me. “What? You don’t believe me? Huh, shocker.” She smiled once more and then spun around, walking hastily into the class. I forced myself to go into the class. I took my usual seat next to Briar. I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I love you,” I said aloud.
The talking in the classroom stopped, everyone swung their heads in our direction.
Briar blushed, her cheeks turning a deep pink. “Love you too,” she mumbled.
“Awww,” a couple girls said, and then everyone turned back to what they were doing. Over Briar’s shoulder, I could see that Sophie was glaring at me, appalled, and I was happy.
“Did you talk with her?”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I did.” I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “If it happens again, come get me.”
“Okay, I will.” She gave me one last kiss, and then the bell rang. I hated this class.
Once algebra was out, Briar and I walked to our second class, French. When we settled into our seats, and as Briar excused herself to the bathroom, a couple kids, kids who rarely talked to us came up to me, looking cautious. “Hey… Cole?”
I looked up. “Yes?”
“Hey we heard a few things going around.”
I laughed. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Is your girlfriend pregnant?”
I laughed harder. “Yeah, she is actually, a couple months along.”
They stared at me. They looked shocked and confused.
“No she’s not pregnant.” I rolled my eyes.
They cleared their throats. “Sorry.” And I didn’t say anything to them, so they just walked away.
Briar came back in as they were leaving. “Who were they?”
I shrugged. “I think their names are Sam and Everett. I don’t know, I don’t talk to them much. They asked me a pretty funny question.”
Briar giggled. “Yeah, what would that be?”
“They asked me if you were pregnant.”
Briar stared at me. The smiled fell from her face. “That’s not funny Cole…”
I looked at her, completely taken a back. “Oh… Briar I’m sorry, you want me to go say something to them?”
She looked away. Then she looked down at her stomach. “I don’t even look pregnant…”
“Briar, they’re a******s, okay? Obviously you’re not pregnant, they just don’t have anything better to do or say, alright?” I gave her a hug. “Stop worrying.”
But that whole class was weird, people acted different towards us. And Briar didn’t like it. And I was starting to lose my patience too.
“Hey Cole, hi Briar! How was school?” Jeanne greeted us as we walked through the door, smiling.
I shrugged my backpack onto the floor. “It was fine,” I grumbled.
She cocked her head to the side. “Everything okay?”
“Mom, it was fine, really.” I stared her down. I gave her my, ‘We’ll talk about later,’ look.
She held up her hands. “Alright, fine.” She turned to Briar. “How was your day, honey?”
Briar smiled, nodding her head. “It was fine.”
“Good. Well I’m glad you had a nice day.” She turned to me once more. “Dinner will be ready in a couple hours.”
I smiled, and then we took off into my room. I jumped on my bed. I slapped the extra space next to me. “Come join me.”
Briar walked over slowly, and crawled up on the bed with me. She sighed heavily. “Cole?”
“Yeah?” I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close.
“Why were people saying that stuff about me today?”
I shrugged. “Because people are a******s and have nothing else better to do.” I kissed her head. “Don’t let them get to you.”
Briar sighed, pouting. “Well, it wasn’t very nice.”
“Yeah I know.” I thought for a minute. “It’s probably just Sophie running her mouth, okay? And it just, must have got around to the whole school, I’m sorry, Briar.” I hugged her, rocking her slowly.
She shook her head. “Don’t be.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
She smiled into my shoulder. “I love you, too.”
“You don’t think you love me?”
She stared up at me. “No, I know I love you.”
“Will get through this,” I promised. “It’s high school.”
Briar lay there silently. I didn’t really have anything else to say. We talked quietly within the next hour, and every so often she’d lean up and kiss me gently.
The last time she did, she wrapped her arms around my neck, deepening the kiss and sitting over my legs, pressing herself close against me.
I locked my arms around her waist. I dug my fingers into her skin. I kissed back.
She slowly took her lips from mine and kissed down my neck, fingers sliding down my waist and over my thighs.
I groaned gently, tossing my head to the side.
Briar looked up to me, eyes soft. “You alright?”
“Yes,” I muttered.
She continued to kiss down my chest and on my stomach. I gritted my teeth. “Briar?” It came out as a pant.
“Yes?”
“Can we… stop?”
She stopped, immediately, and then looked up to my, confusion spread evenly across her face.
I bit my lip. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” I reassured her. I gave a feeble smile.
She stared at me for a few minutes and crept back up next to me, positioning her head in between my chest and arm. “Why?”
I shrugged gently. “I… I don’t know I just...” I looked away, out my window, and shut my eyes. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was ready to make the next step in our relationship. Maybe it’s because Sophie had hurt me so bad, I don’t know, I couldn’t give her a straight answer. But something was telling me to stop, that it wasn’t right.
“Okay,” she whispered.
We laid there for a while. After about thirty minutes, I leaned my head down and gave her a gentle kiss. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said slowly, turning to face me. She looked frustrated.
I grinned lightly. “You sure?”
She looked away, chuckling. “Yeah, I guess so. I just… never met a guy like you….”
I laughed, throwing my head back. “Yeah well, ha, I’m not your average guy, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Well… I don’t know.” I pursed my lips. I knew. But did I really want to say? “Believe it or not, I never use to be such a deep thinker.”
Briar huffed. “Oh yeah?”
“Yup. But umm, my last girlfriend actually hurt me so…”
“Hurt you? Like, she beat you up?”
“Well, she mine as well have, I guess you could say she was… abusive if that’s what you want to call it.”
Briar cocked her head to the side. “Can you just tell me?” I sighed, thinking. “Umm, you know Sophie, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Okay well, we dated and everything for about a year and just this past summer she cheated on me. So….”
Briar fell silent. “Oh… I’m sorry, that must have been really hard…”
“Mm-hmm. But I’m fine now, obviously. She just made me look at things in a different perspective. I found a part of me that I never knew before.” Briar cleared her throat. “Other than Jeremy, I never had any real boyfriends. I ‘dated’ guys when I was younger, but you know how that is. You try and hold hands under the lunch tables so you won’t get caught.” She giggled. “Those were the days.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Who, Jeremy?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I’d say about three months, four maybe. Not very long. My parents hated him anyways, so, it was no great loss or shock when he pulled the s**t he did.”
“Well, my parents liked Sophie, they couldn’t believe what happened, and I’m not even sure if they do to this day.” I shook my head. “But anyways, so yeah, that’s my story.”
“It’s awfully short.”
I laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty boring when it comes to telling stories.” I grabbed Briar up in my arms, kissing her cheeks. “I love you.”
“I love you… too Cole I can’t breathe!”
I loosened my grip. “Sorry babe.” I smiled up to her.
She stroked my face with the tips of her fingers. “I’m so happy I have you.”
“I’m so thankful that I have you.”
She grabbed my hair pressing her body over mine, smiling.
I kissed her.
© 2009 NikkiAuthor's Note
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