When Drew and I got back the next day, my dad lit into us both and banned Drew from seeing me for two weeks until he learned how to respect my father’s wishes. Drew agreed to the punishment and we just talked to each other on the phone, but the first week was hard. I couldn’t wait see him at school.
“Our project is due tomorrow so we need to finish it tonight,” I told Quincy.
“Okay, but I have to be home to help my mom out so maybe we can do it there.”
“I’ll have to ask my dad.”
“Or you can just come over. It shouldn’t take that long.”
If I called my dad, I ran the risk of him telling me no. Against my better judgment I agreed to meet him at his house and decided to tell my dad I had to stay after school for a project. It’s not entirely untrue.
“Fine, I’ll meet you at home after school.”
Now I need to figure out what to tell Drew. I decided to tell him the truth and he forbid me to go to Quincy’s. After assuring him I’d be on my best behavior he finally agreed.
“So when are we going to hangout?” Trisha asks.
“You’re already hanging out about six months worth,” I tease.
“I’m serious Sidney, ever since you and Drew hooked up I’ve been put on a back burner.”
“You’re not on a back burner it’s just that you’re pregnant and I don’t know what you can or can’t do. Can even see your feet?” I chuckle.
“I can…with a mirror,” She jokes, “help me do my registry and maybe we can have a girls night.”
“Yeah right, I can hear dad now…shut up in there and go to sleep.” I said, trying to mimic his voice.
“Your dad is actually not that bad Sid. At least he didn’t beat you up and kick you out,” She replies, sadly, “And you got to spend the night with Drew.”
“Don’t do the depressed thing on me, I get enough of that from Drew.”
“What could Mr. Perfect possibly be depressed about?”
“His parents might be getting a divorce.”
“No way!” She exclaimed loudly.
“Girl, keep your voice down.”
“Why? Is it supposed to be a secret?”
“No, but the last thing I need is someone throwing that up in Drew’s face because I said something about it. It’s a really sensitive subject for him and I don’t need him getting mad at me,” I explained.
“My lips are sealed,” she promised, “speaking of the devil.”
I followed Trisha’s gaze over to Drew who was walking towards me. He looked really upset.
“Drew?” I said, worried.
“My dad’s moving out as we speak,” he told me with tears forming in his eyes.
“Oh...Drew I’m so sorry.”
“I need to get out of here, but I don’t want to go alone.” In short, he needs an accomplice again.
“Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know, my Nana’s.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
“I can’t skip school my dad will kill me. Then we’d really be banned from seeing each other. Not to mention the fact that I have a class project to finish. I have to turn it in tomorrow.”
“I need to get out of here and I’m asking you to go with me. You’re the only good thing going for me right now and it would really mean a lot to me.”
Oh God…why did he have to say all pitiful with those puppy dog eyes of his…
“If I skip school I’ll be grounded and I’ll have my car taken away.”
Drew stared at me in disbelief. After a few moments, he sighed and left. I went into panic mode wondering what I should do and turned to Trisha for advice.
“He really needs you, just go,” Trisha waved me off, “I’ll take care of your classes. One of the secretaries owes me a favor. You just make sure and have your butt back here before school let’s out.”
“Thank you so much.” I hugged her.
“Go!”
“Drew!” I called after him.
He turned around and I ran to catch up to him. He smiled when he saw me. My being here meant so much to him. It made me feel important to him.
“I’m going to go but I’ll have to be back when practice let’s out.” I told him.
“Okay, you going to follow me up or leave your car here?”
“I’ll follow you, but you’ll have to fill up my tank.”
“I will, let’s go.”
It took us an hour and a half to get to his Nana’s and I didn’t realize until we got there that there was no one else there.
“Where are your grandparents?”
“I don’t know, but I left her a message.”
“So we’re here alone then?”
“Is that a problem? I’m sure she’ll be back as soon as she gets my message.”
“You and I alone is asking for trouble.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being the perfect daughter all the time?”
“That’s sort of a loaded question, don’t you think?”
“It was just a question,” He smirks.
“Fine, I’ll humor you. The answer is yes.”
“Yet you find a way to do it anyway,” Drew points out, “I admire that about you. I wish I had that quality.”
“The quality of being the perfect daughter? If you were the perfect daughter this relationship wouldn’t work,” I teased.
Drew laughs and pulls me into his arms.
“You know what I meant.”
He leaned in to kiss me and I backed away from him so he stopped. He cocked his head to the side with a confused look on his face.
“I’m not comfortable being here with you alone,” I explained.
“Why? Don’t you trust yourself?”
“Not with you, no.”
Knowing I was uncomfortable Drew walks over to me anyway and starts kissing me. I tried turning away a few times, but he wouldn’t let me. I gave in and kissed him back allowing my hormones to take over for a moment.
I want Drew more than I should at the moment. I keep reminding myself that I have one more year before I’m eighteen and can do whatever I want. I unbuttoned Drew’s shirt, wanting to get a look at his amazing body again but he stopped me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just don’t want to start something I can’t finish.”
“Being good is so hard.”
“At least one of us will have to be pure when we get married,” he laughs.
“Yes and since you gave your virtue away to that hoe bag Courtney I guess it will have to be me.”
“I didn’t care about her and if it’s any consolation I wish I would have waited. It was cheap and I never should have gone there.”
“It means a lot to me to hear you say that.”
“Well I mean it. We should both be virgins when we get married.”
“Why do you keep talking about us getting married and having children?”
“I don’t know, it just feels right when we’re together. You make me really happy when you’re not getting on my nerves,” he nudges me with his arm.
“Oh shut up!” I laugh, smacking him on the arm.
“Ouch, I’m going to tell Nana about how you keep abusing me.”
“I do not abuse you. Those are love taps.”
“I’ve got a love tap for you,” his eyes bore into mine.
“Either there are intruders in my house or Drew’s back with his guest,” Nana calls out from the front door.
Drew and I head into the front room to greet her and realize she has an armful of groceries, “Does your father know you’re here?” Nana asks.
“No ma’am.”
“Did you talk her into this?” Nana asked Drew.
“Yes,” he nods.
Nana smacks him upside the back of his head and Drew starts laughing. She points her finger at him and scolds him for dragging me down to her house again without my father’s permission.
“I didn’t want to be alone,” Drew explained.
“Then you should have stayed at school. I don’t like having to explain myself,” Nana replied, “Sidney, you should have stayed at school and just let him brood. He would’ve gotten over it.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“What happened this time?”
“Dad started moving out of the house this morning.”
“You do know this has nothing to do with you, don’t you Drew?”
“I know, but it still hurts. Dad’s going to move back to Louisiana and I don’t want to move to the other side of the United States. Why can’t he move here somewhere?”
“So you’re staying with your mother?”
“I don’t want to, but what choice do I have.”
“Why is that?”
“Because this is all her fault. She cheated on him.”
That was one shady detail that Drew hadn’t told me about and now a lot of things is starting to make sense.
“Your mother made a mistake and you should forgive her for it, she’s human.”
“She ruined everything,” Drew sulked.
“Still, that’s between her and your father. She’s still your mother.”
“Every time I look at her I just hate her so much for what she did to us.”
“Hatred will consume you Drew, don’t even open those floodgates.”
Sitting there with Drew opened my eyes to a lot I hadn’t taken into consideration. Like the fact that Drew’s two choices were to stay where he didn’t want to be for me or go with his father and leave me behind. Those were horrible choices that no one should be forced to make.
He decided to stay at his grandma’s overnight but I couldn’t. I left at one in the afternoon against his pleas and made it back to school by two-thirty. I waited for Quincy and then followed him to his house so we could work on our project.
I looked around as I followed Quincy inside and glanced at a photo of him when he was a baby. Big shocker…he was a cute kid.
“Afternoon Quincy,” his housekeeper Claudia greeted him.
“Claudia can we get some snacks out back?”
“Yes Quincy.”
I followed Quincy out into his backyard and he took me to a gazebo with a fan on the ceiling. A net to keep the bugs out surrounds it. Quincy and I began to work on our project, which was turning out better than I thought.
By the time Claudia came outside with something to eat Quincy and I were done with it. He said he wanted to show me something so I followed him and it wasn’t until I was standing in it looking around that I noticed we were in his room.
“What did you want t…”
“Sh,” Quincy placed his finger against my lips and shushed me.
I stood there wondering if he was actually thinking about kissing me or if I was hallucinating. I got my answer moments later when his lips touched mine. It stunned me for a moment then I gathered my senses and pushed him away.
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“Why’d you let me?”
I didn’t want to put my relationship with Drew in jeopardy so I gathered my things and left as fast as I could. The last thing I needed was for Drew to find out I shared a kiss with Quincy. He had enough to deal with.
After Quincy and I turned in our project I stopped talking to him. I put that kiss behind me and focused on the events to come.
Both Drew’s birthday and Valentines Day was coming up next week so mom and I went shopping for gifts. It took me a while to find something I thought Drew would like.
Em had no reason to celebrate Valentines Day so she elected to stay home that day. Josh and Trisha decided to do their own thing and dad went shopping on his own for mom.
“What does Andrew like?” Asked Mom.
“Basketball.”
“That’s it? Just basketball?”
“That’s it,” I nod.
“No wonder you two like each other,” she laughs, “Maybe you should get him this.”
She was pointed to a teddy bear holding a basketball. “That’s actually pretty cute.” I smile.
“Tie some balloons to it and add a rose, it’ll be perfect.”
“Thanks mom. How much is this Teddy Bear?”
“Who cares, just get it and I’ll pay for it.”
I did as she said and then we went shopping for clothes. It was mom’s favorite pass time. She could have all day to shop and would still be the last person out of the building.
“Why don’t you pick out a dress for Valentines Day,” she suggests.
“I don’t really do dresses Mom.”
“Sidney, you have a nice figure but no one would ever know it with the clothes you wear. Even your hair says tomboy,” she complains, “You have a head full of pretty hair and you do absolutely nothing with it. If you won’t do it for yourself do it for Drew.”
“Fine.” I caved, seeing how much it meant to her.
“What are you getting Drew for his birthday?” She asked.
“I don’t know, but his party is in less than four hours.”
Mom helped me buy an outfit for tonight and a dress for Valentines Day. I got Drew’s Valentines Day gift and settled on a silver chain similar to mine with a basketball pendant as a birthday gift with a cute card. I thought it would be funny to take a revealing photo of myself and put it inside his birthday card. But just my luck he’d probably open it up in front of everyone and I would be on display for everyone to see.
When we got back from the mall Mom helped me get ready for Drew’s party and curled my hair. When I looked in the mirror I was amazed at how beautiful she made me look.
I hugged her as tight as I could, thanking her, and headed over to Drew’s house with his gift. Em came with me and apparently mom had gotten a hold of her too…because she looked hot.
I was so excited that I was walking pretty fast making it hard for Em to keep up. I looked all over for Drew and found him out back talking to some of our classmates. He stopped talking when he saw me and gave me the once over. The smile on his face let me know that he approved and I made my way over to him with Em in tow.
“Happy Birthday.” I handed him his birthday gift.
“Wow!” Drew smiles, “It is now.”
“Mom gave me a makeover.”
“Make sure and thank your mom for me. I was getting sick of looking at that ponytail.”
I kissed him on the lips, only when I tried to pull away he wouldn’t let me. We kissed for at least a minute before finally coming up for air.
“You thirsty?” Drew asked.
“Um, yes.”
Drew headed off to get me something to drink and Emily stood there laughing at me. She was always ragging on me about my ponytail, but it was quick and efficient since I waited for the last possible minute to get dressed for school.
“Hi Sidney,” Quincy’s voice caused me to turn around. What was he doing here?
“Quincy, hi.”
Cell phone after cell phone started to go off at the party and when mine did I realized it was a text.
“Sidney I hope you enjoy the show,” says Quincy.
“What show?”
I clicked on the download and it was a short video clip of Quincy kissing me, only the video clip didn’t show me pushing him away. People started to look over at me and I knew I had to find Drew to explain before he saw it too. I pushed through the crowds of people as quickly as I could and saw Drew setting one of the drinks he had down to look at his cell phone. I tried to reach him before he downloaded it, but it was too late.
I watched in horror as his smile faded and hurt spread across his face. I had to shove people to get to him and when he looked at me he was furious.
“Drew, let me explain.”
“It looks pretty self-explanatory to me,” he replies, calmly.
“He kissed me, I didn’t kiss him.”
“I didn’t see you pushing him away.”
“I did. Whoever sent that video didn’t show the whole thing.”
“It showed enough,” he sighs.
Drew could hear and see other people watching the same clip. Not only is he hurt he’s embarrassed. How could Quincy do this to me?
“Drew,” I reached out to touch him. He backed out of my grasp, “It’s not what it looks like. I swear.”
“So your lips didn’t touch Quincy’s?”
“What I mean is he caught me off guard,” I tried to explain.
“Right.”
“I was setup.”
“Yeah, and you fell for it didn’t you?”
Quincy’s trying to sabotage my relationship with Drew and he’s doing a pretty good job of it. I’m at Drew’s mercy and he’s not exactly the forgiving type. Granted-I shouldn’t even need forgiving because technically I didn’t do anything, but Quincy has gone out of his way to make it look like I did and I needed to clear my name.
“I would never cheat on you,” I assured him.
“Letting someone kiss you is the same as kissing him yourself.”
“I didn’t let him do anything.”
“Just tell me the truth and everything will be fine.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I’m telling him the truth and he doesn’t believe me. What was I supposed to do now? The evidence is stacked against me and Drew’s birthday party is ruined.
“Drew...”
“I told you that you were the only good thing I had left in my life. Why would you take that away from me?”
“Please believe me, I...”
Before I could say anything Drew slammed his phone up against the fence beside my head, smashing it into pieces. I gasped and my heart practically jumped out of my chest. I’ve never seen him this angry before.
“Maybe there’s more to the story,” Mrs. Taylor came to my defense. “If she’s saying there is then you should trust her.”
Drew’s mom coming to my defense was the worse thing that could happen right now. He started laughing as he turned to face her.
“You would stick up for her wouldn’t you? I mean you cheated on dad and screwed up over ten years of marriage. You didn’t even take a second to think about what that would do to the rest of us you just opened your legs for some guy and single handedly destroyed everything.”
“This isn’t the time or the place Drew. Everyone doesn’t need to hear you air our dirty laundry.”
“It’s a little too late for that now, don’t you think Ma? For everyone who doesn’t already know, my dear old mom screwed her co-worker and now her and dad are getting a divorce… therefore ruining my life,” Drew announced to everyone.
“Drew your mom is right, don’t do this.”
“You… damn Sid…I left my heart wide open for you and I told myself that you would never do something like that to me. I guess the joke was on me, huh?”
“Drew…”
Drew grabbed me by the neck, slammed me back up against the fence and raised his fist like he was going to hit me before I could even finish my sentence. I could see him fighting with the idea in his head and turned away from him, covering my face with my arms.
“Drew no!” Mr. Stansfield shouted, grabbing him and pinning his arms to his sides.
O...M…G…what in the world just happened? Did Drew really put his hands on me?
“I’m telling you the truth,” I repeated.
“Of course you are.”
His dad came over and had to practically drag him in the house. Drew fought him the entire way, yelling at both his mom and me.
“Are you okay?” Asked Emily.
No. Not by a long shot and there was only one person to blame for it. “Quincy kissed me, I didn’t kiss him Em and I didn’t even kiss him back.”
“Sidney, you should probably go home,” Mrs. Stansfield told me.
“No, I need to talk to him.”
“It really wouldn’t matter because he needs to calm down first, just go home.”
I scanned the area for Quincy and found him leaving the house. I hurried to cut him off and he backed up when he saw me. I’m going to kill him.
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he played dumb.
“Why would you send that to everyone knowing it’s a lie Quincy? Why would you do that to me?”
“I didn’t do anything. I have to go.”
“No.” I blocked his way, “You’re going to go in there and tell Drew what really happened.”
Drew who must have heard Quincy’s voice because he came storming out of the house and decked him in the face. The two of them began fighting until his dad pulled them apart. He made Quincy go home.
“Drew, I love you I didn’t...”
“Just go home Sid,” Drew cut me off.
I swallowed hard and Emily had to drag me home against my will. I wasn’t hungry or in the mood for company, but my Mom came up to my room anyway after Emily told her what happened.
“Sidney, I want to talk about what happened tonight.”
“Quincy just ruined my relationship with Drew and I don’t even know why,” I sulked, “ He kissed me when I went over to his house to do our project and I pushed him away as soon as I felt his lips but someone videotaped it and cut that part out. Now everyone knows we kissed and Drew…I can only imagine what’s going through his head right now mom.”
My relationship with Drew was probably up in flames and I was slowly coming apart on the inside. The amount of damage Quincy did to my relationship with Drew was to a point that I didn’t know if we could recover from it.
“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry.”
“Drew’s probably going to break up with me over this and there’s nothing I can do. It’s my word against that video. And Drew already said he doesn’t believe me.”
“Drew is just as in love with you as you are with him. I would talk to him tomorrow or when he’s had a chance to calm down and try to explain things to him. In the mean time I would take a hot bath and get some rest if I were you.”
Mom kissed me on the forehead and left the room. I went over to my bedroom window and looked out just in time to see Drew drive off in his car. I figured he was probably going to visit the one woman in his life that hadn’t let him down so I called Nana and told her everything that happened.
Nana promised to talk to Drew when he got there and told me to get some sleep. I took a hot bath like mom suggested and couldn’t stop worrying. When I started to prune from being in the bathtub too long I got out and went to bed.
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