Chapter 19: Flashback

“Hey, Mom? It’s me. Yeah, I’m fine. Uhm…No, I am…Yes. Yes, but the reason why I’m calling…No, Mom. Mom!”

As usual, she kept on rambling about insignificant things like they were problems like world peace and hunger, and as usual, she barely listened whenever I tried to say something.

The fact that I was nervous didn’t help.

It was actually a relief to listen to her talking about the delicious dinner they had at her friend’s house, who was taking cooking lessons with a young hunk of a chef.

And that Dad was so full that he was about to slip into a food coma on their couch. However, I needed to get my message through so they wouldn’t expect me to come home tonight, but without making them suspicious.

Why? Because I never told them I was going on a date. I didn’t because I knew they would ask a ton of questions that I probably wouldn’t be able to answer. Not yet anyway.

“All right, so…yes. What I was saying was…Mom! No. Listen! I’m with Keesha.”

Finally! Now I just had to say goodbye, and I could return to Kemar, who impatiently kept checking his wristwatch while he leaned up against his car with his ankles crossed.

He looked like a model with a gray suit that matched his eyes perfectly, and his hair was combed back, leaving only one sleek strand dancing on his forehead.

“You saw her at the mall?” I exclaimed. Then I frantically tried to come up with an excuse.

“Oh…Yes, we were…Uhm…I was trying on a new dress, that’s probably why you didn’t see me. No, I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t…Yes, her boyfriend, too.”

My palms felt sweaty, and I tried my best to hide the nervousness in my voice. I never used to lie to my parents.

“Yes, but Mom? I’ll sleep over at Keesha’s tonight. Yes. No, not her boyfriend. It’s a project in geography we have to prepare for next week, and…

“Well, no. We don’t have geography together, but…Uhm…This is a big project for the entire school and all classes are going to…Yes, Mom.

“Of course, Mom. No, but I…I’m staying at Keesha’s, and we’ll talk more tomorrow. Okay! Yes. Love you. Bye.”

I ended our conversation before she was done talking and hoped she didn’t get mad.

Then I took a deep breath and walked over to Kemar, who immediately opened the door for me. And as soon as I was seated and buckled, he hurried over to the other side and got behind the wheel.

“Everything good?” Kemar asked and smirked.

“Yeah. She’s just a worrywart. She literally worries about everything, always thinking that I’ll be attacked on the street and get kidnapped by some rapist and murdered or something.”

I giggled until I saw a strange look on Kemar’s face. Then my laughter turned awkward, and I started studying my nails intensely and wished I had put on some nail polish.

I didn’t normally use it because I liked the natural look better, but if Kemar preferred that, I’d be more than happy to upgrade a bit. I just needed to know what color he liked the most.

“Yeah, you never know what kind of people you might meet,” he said and seemed a bit absentminded. I didn’t think much of it though.

I was still embarrassed that I laughed at something he didn’t find funny and pretended to be overly busy texting Keesha.

That wasn’t really pretending, either, because I had to tell her that she was my cover for the night, for which I got a lot of naughty faces and thumbs-up in return.

The rest of the day went by watching the traffic and counting streetlights until I almost dozed off.

Then I was wide awake when the car pulled up in front of a four-unit apartment complex, where Kemar’s was the one furthest to the right. And…it looked completely empty.

Kemar’s apartment was nothing like what I’d expected it to be. Come to think about it, I’d never really given it a thought at all, until now. But to find it like an empty shell was rather surprising.

It was like he just moved in there and forgot to bring half of his stuff.

And the rest was only partially unwrapped and put in completely random places, like a stack of dinner plates on the windowsill in the hall and a toilet paper dispenser in the hallway.

Brand new, but still. He hadn’t even bothered to put paper in it.

There was a large couch with a round coffee table stacked with books, a TV, and a kitchen table with three chairs. No curtains. No pictures on the walls. Nothing to make it look like a nice home.

I smiled. Maybe he would allow me to decorate it for him? I was pretty good at that, and my aunt always told me that I should become an interior designer.

I always laughed and changed the topic, though. But Kemar’s apartment was almost screaming for me to get started.

“So…Why three chairs?” I asked curiously, simply because I found it strange to have only three of them when the table was for four people, maybe even six or eight if you extended it.

“The fourth broke,” he replied, uninterested.

“Oh,” I nodded slowly and watched him take off his jacket and hung it over one of them. Then he turned on the TV and sat down on the couch without even looking at me.

And since I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, I reluctantly followed and sat down next to him. Luckily, he was quick to wrap his arm around me and pull me to his chest, but I didn’t sit especially comfortably.

And after about twenty minutes staring at some random sitcom on the TV in complete silence, I was about to lose my mind.

Even my cat, Taffy, was more talkative than Kemar right now. I decided to try and start a conversation.

“Do you have any family?”

“My parents are dead, and my sister moved to Finland,” he answered, without taking his eyes away from the TV screen.

“Finland, huh? Isn’t that in Europe somewhere?”

“Yep.”

Then there was nothing. No follow-up. No asking questions to find out more about me. We simply sat there and did nothing.

“How long have you been living here?” I asked in another attempt to start a conversation. This was just stupid!

“Three and a half years or so.”

Oh. That was surprising. That would have given him plenty of time to furnish his apartment properly, and maybe even decorate it a bit. Living like this for over three years was quite strange.

Clearly, he didn’t care about material things the way I did, and that made me feel a bit self-conscious. Perhaps he found me shallow if I told him how I felt about it, and I didn’t want that.

Besides, he probably had a legit reason I didn’t know of. And I’d probably never know since he barely talked to me. Why did he even invite me here?

He finally turned away from the TV screen, but what he did next came so out of the blue that I moaned in surprise. He kissed me. Then he kissed me again, and I cursed inwardly.

I didn’t want him to think I was a girl he could wrap around his little finger with a simple kiss. I wasn’t like that.

But when he did it a third time and deepened it, and I turned to mush and kissed him back equally passionately.

“You’re so beautiful, sweetheart,” he whispered, and it felt like my face was lit on fire. I wasn’t used to people telling me that, and I was definitely not used to the way he touched my body.

He knew exactly what to do to make me feel good about myself. But it went by too fast, because he soon took control and started unbuttoning my shirt, to which I hummed an objection.

Unfortunately, he reacted by turning us around, so he was lying more or less on top of me, which made it harder to stop him.

“No, Kemar. We don’t know each other yet.”

I grabbed his hands that were now on their way to my breasts. Only a thin layer of lace was what kept me from having my entire torso exposed to him, and I didn’t like it.

And in a strange way that made me feel bad since he was my boyfriend, meaning that I should have wanted it just as much as he did. But when he continued, it felt wrong in more ways than one.

“Kemar…please. We don’t know each other well enough.”

He stopped kissing and sucking on my neck and just stared at me. Then he grabbed my hand and placed it on his bulge, and I inhaled sharply.

“Do you feel this? This is what you’re doing to me. I’m fully sprung because of you, and you should take that as a compliment,” he said hoarsely, and I felt like I had to explain myself better.

“It’s just that I want us to get to know each other…”

“This ~is~ getting to know each other!” he snapped, and I froze and stared at him like he’d just slapped me.

I felt horrible about the whole situation and sorry for unintentionally leading him on, even though I’d given him plenty of clues ever since we met. I was even sure he knew I was a virgin.

Nevertheless, clues or not, it was wrong of me to have come here in the first place, and to feel his erection pressed into my palm made me uncomfortable instead of turned on.

I wasn’t ready, and I was disappointed because I thought he understood that.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered and looked away.

And when his grip around my wrist loosened, I pulled my hand away and suppressed the urge to rub my palm against my thigh or the couch to get rid of the imprint that seemed stuck there.

Kemar cursed and sat back. His eyes were fixed on the TV screen again, and his cheeks were hectic red. You’d have to be blind not to see that he was angry. If this wasn’t my cue to leave, then nothing was.

“I…I have to go home,” I stuttered and got up, and I half expected him to get up and follow me to the door. Maybe even offer me a ride home.

However, he didn’t, and I buttoned up my shirt while disappointment flushed over me like a tidal wave.

And the humiliation was total when I grabbed my purse and said goodbye with tears stinging in my eyes and not getting any reply.

Then I shut the door behind me, ran down the stairs, and headed for the nearest bus stop.

“Fuck him!” I mumbled angrily to myself. I wiped my moist cheeks while I waited for the bus to arrive, and I tried my best to look unaffected when I entered and passed the driver.

But as soon as I sat in one of the seats furthest in the back, I wept silently into my sleeve all the way to Keesha’s house.

“Skylar?” she exclaimed when she opened the door and saw me standing at their porch with swollen eyes. “Okay, where is he? Should I bring a knife or a gun?”

I laughed a bit, but it was short-lived. Only Keesha was able to make me laugh in a moment like this, and only Keesha could hug me exactly the way I needed.

I barely registered Brad standing behind her, looking like a question mark. I just sobbed against her shoulder while she stroked my back and pulled me farther inside so she could close the door.

Then she led the way into the living room and waved at her boyfriend.

“Brad? Can you please get me the box of lemon ice cream in the bottom drawer, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” he answered, and I could hear the concern in his voice.

Not even a minute later, I sat on the couch with a spoon in one hand and my favorite ice cream in the other while Keesha kissed her boyfriend goodbye.

Then she came over and sat right next to me so I could lean my head against her shoulder in a half-embrace.

“Okay, Sky. Let’s take this from the top.”