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Remembering Sunday

Fourteen: When It Rains, It Pours

Sometime later on that same day, I'd found myself having drifted farther and farther from the group I'd been in. The longer we'd all lingered around, the more and more our numbers dwindled down. Sooner or later, the sun had begun to sink behind that great big screen, and now as I sat alone on the hill side, only small fleeting rays peaked out in its cracks.

I'd sat up there for some time, left alone to my thoughts. Just collecting all the faces and names I’d learned and sliding them into their appropriate slots in my slow filling brain. But it wasn't long before the last of the ice turned to lukewarm water, and the last sip of beer was slugged back. And it was around the time that the Jeep playing music's gas started to drain that Alex began to find his way up on that hill beside me.

"You alright?" He asked me once he'd drawn close enough to hear. Eyes bright against the sunset as they stared up at me. "You had me and Juubie a little nervous when you'd wandered off."

"I'm fine." I whispered. Feeling a shift in the air as Alex lowered himself down onto the dead grass. His thigh brushing up against mine.

"It wasn’t too much for you, was it?" He wondered aloud. Concern evident in his tone as he turned to look at me from the side.

"No, not at all." I smiled, dropping my head down. Eyes grazing my crooked-up knees, the tanned skin scuffed in spots with dirt and sneaker prints. "It was honestly kind of nice to feel normal for a bit."

I saw him nod from the edges of my eyes. Then he turned his head back to where I'd been looking before. Watching in silence as the last few specks climbed into the last few cars. And once the dust cloud settled, only Alex's rusted pick-up was left all alone in that big wide field.

"You remembered something earlier, when Jack came up to you, didn't you?" Alex asked after a while. His voice as soft as the summer breeze that had my short hair tickling the back of my neck.

I turned my head slowly in his direction, thin brows raised. "How did you know that?" I asked him.

"I know everything about you Kennedy," He shrugged, searching my eyes for something even I couldn't quite identify. "Even the stuff you're learning about yourself every day."

I felt a blush creep up onto my cheeks at the way he said that. It was soft, and it was sincere, but it ran just inches deeper than that. I turned my head away, praying to God my stumpy blonde strands would be just long enough to hid the color change on my skin. But to whether they were or not, Alex never let on.

Instead he inched closer, his thigh pressing flush against mine. "So, what was it?" He asked, breath moving my hair he was so close to me now.

I smiled softly to myself at the thought of Jack I'd remembered. Standing on Alex's truck, at the brink of being hammered, trying his best to give his friends a speech to remember. And being grateful I did. I swallowed hard, rubbing the sweat from my palms on my knees.

"I remembered the first time we celebrated your album." I muttered. My soft-spoken words hard to make out, but I knew that he'd heard them.

He shifted in his seat, and I could practically feel his smile shift the atmosphere. "I remember that day," He stuttered back, "You had a lot of fun from what I recall."

I nodded, regardless of not being the star of my all too brief flashback. Every time I got one, while I was consumed in it I could feel everything I'd felt the first time around. And watching Jack drunkenly rant as I sat under Alex's arm all those years ago, still filled me with joy. Even just to think about it now, with the feelings faded and far out of reach. I felt happy.

"What do you remember about that day?" I asked Alex. Expecting to fill in more and more blanks. Or at the very least have words to form make shift memories to hold my own's place in line for the time being. But instead I was answered with a brief passing silence, followed by one, single, heavily spoken word.

"You"

I snapped my head away from my knees and over to Alex, only to find his eyes already watching me. Golden orbs played with the light the same way honey teased a bee. Shiny, smooth and inviting. They sparkled at me. They were large and doe-like as they investigated mine. Innocent and all knowing, all at the same time.

"What do you mean?" I questioned. Hardly able to get the words out as I staggered through the maze in his mahogany stare.

Pupils never moving as they sunk through my skull. "That was the day I realized without a doubt you were the greatest friend I'd ever have in life."

It was so simple, yet so complex in the same construct. His words both amazed and confused me. And I had to fight my head to turn and my gaze to tear away. Looking back down on my knees, a frown formed on my face. "I wish I could remember."

"You do," He told me, reaching a hand up and placing it on my arm. "It's just tucked away in a place you can't get at yet." I nodded once again, defeat rolling off my shoulders and down to Alex's hand. Its grip stiffened. "Close your eyes."

"What, why?" I questioned, scowling still at the grass between my knees.

"Just shut your eyes, and listen to me, okay?" He whispered. I sighed but complied anyways and slowly let my lids hang shut. "Now just picture this, you're seventeen. It's the summer time, still the start of July. You're finally cutting loose, starting to drink a little more each time we all gather together. It's the most exciting day we'd had all summer. And Jack is on the tailgate of my truck rambling on and on with some nonsense spiel, when suddenly rain starts to fall from the sky."

The more Alex talked, the harder I concentrated on each word he said. And it wasn’t long before I was drifting back in time to a day I'd briefly began to remember already.

"Holy Hell!" I practically yelled as I threw myself into the cab of the truck, slamming to door behind me as fast as I could to get out of the rain. But it was already too late. Droplets ran down my legs and soaked my socks, my shirt drenched to the bone as it clung to my skin.

I groaned, scrunching my face when the driver's side door swung open, slamming shut just as fast as mine had. But instead of letting out agreeing whines to accompany my own, the boy began to laugh; loudly. I turned my head to look at Alex, eyes so wide he could practically read the words, 'you're insane' in the depths of my pupils.

"Well that was certainly unexpected!" The elder chuckled, shaking his hair that looked almost black with the water soaking through it. Locks lumped together dripped small droplets from their ends and onto his thin button nose.

"You're telling me!" I scoffed, rolling my eyes and turning away. I pulled the visor down and sighed, seeing the only hint of makeup I'd even bothered to put on smeared down my face. Long streaks and little lumps of mascara littered my perfect tan all under my eyes.

I heard Alex laugh, but chose not to listen. Instead I rubbed my fingers along my thighs, collecting remains of the rain before scrubbing at my cheeks. The skin was rubbed red in a matter of seconds, but still the stubborn smears didn’t budge. Not even an inch. I huffed another groan and slapped the visor back up to its original position.

I sat there in a silent pout for a second, arms crossed over my chest so tight, water was beginning to ring out of my shirt and onto the beige seat cover. I only moved to snap my head at the sound of more laughter leaving my friend. My eyes instantly found his to already be staring back at me.

He was just as soaked as I'd been, if not worse. His bright yellow t-shirt now looked orange as it stuck to parts of his skin and bubbled up in others. Once fluffy locks were pounded flat by the force of the falling water outside which was still pounding down on the roof of his truck. The sound being the only admirable thing the rain had done that afternoon. That is, aside from deflecting the still shining sunlight outside off the droplets pooled on the windshield. Small microscopic rays bounced into the car and through Alex's amber eyes. Igniting a fire in their golden flecks.

"What?" I bitterly asked when Alex didn’t cease staring at me. His stare growing deeper and evolving into something indescribable.

"What do you mean, what?" He asked, eyes never budging. The only thing moving on him aside from his heaving chest were his lips as they twisted into an almost less than playful smirk. "Can I not look at you?"

I huffed, turning my head back forward. Staring now at the wall of rain crashing down on our once clear day. I wasn’t planning on feeding into his foolish antics. He was drunk, or at least mildly buzzed, and I was already too annoyed at the weather to play. But soon enough, the holes he'd been burning in the side of my head drilled a little too deep, and I looked over at him again. Finding his stare right where I'd left it.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I snapped at him. Deflecting my annoyance, but he didn't seem to care.

"I'm not looking at you in any particular way..." He shrugged, scooching an inch or so closer to me on the truck's bench. My eyes jumped down to glare at the space between us he'd just lessened. As though in warning. "This is just how I've always looked at you."

I rolled my eyes before staring blankly at him again. My expression not radiating even an ounce of amusement. "If you're going to make a joke about my makeup just do it." I muttered. And Alex clicked his tongue, eye brows scrunching as he scooted even closer, his knees now brushing my thigh.

"Why would I do that?" He questioned, and I looked to him with my own brows furrowed. I could feel his breath against the chilled trails on my face as he breathed heavily. Hesitantly almost, and slowly lifted a hand to cradle the questioning expression I was shooting at him. "I don't see anything to joke about."

"And what is that supposed to mean exactly?" I challenged. Trying my absolute hardest to appear composed under his close proximity and weighing gaze. But it was hard to do anything but focus on the way his calloused thumb rubbed the agitated skin on my cheek so gently.

"Just that I think you're beautiful." He whispered, my eyes not even being able to help the way they softened. He didn't dare to move again, keeping his face inches from mine which he held in his hand. "I've always thought that, Dee."

"Since when?" I tried to ask, but it came out in a breathless hush. Leaving me to bite my lip as I stared into Alex's eyes. Orbs so close to mine I could have gone cross-eyed.

"Since the first day of freshman year, when you walked into me in the hallway." He said, my eyes lowering to watch his lips change shape while he mumbled his quiet words to me. "I thought it was so cute, how nervous you were, how you refused to meet my eyes, just like you are right now..."

I could feel the lump in my throat form, but I fought myself to rebel against his words and look up. Regretting it instantly when I immediately got sucked back into his big doe-eyes. It was getting increasingly harder to breath with each passing second. But my breath nearly stopped all together when I suddenly began to notice his eyes growing bigger, slowly shutting with each millimeter closer they drew to me.

All the same anxiety began to fill me from the night he'd drunkenly kissed me in my kitchen. A night we had never once discussed or even as much as acknowledged. But here I was again, too late to stop it as I felt Alex's lips brush mine. And instinctively my eyes fell shut, reciprocating it no matter how wrong the little reasoning voice in my head was telling me it was.

It started out so innocent, his hand on my jaw, his lips on mine. A pure peck waiting to be released. And just when I thought he would with his hand leaving my jaw, I started to pull away. Only to be tugged right back in as his hand knotted in my rain-soaked hair. Something took over inside me then. I don't know what it was or where it came from, but I certainly had no control over it.

Because the next thing I knew, I was tangling my own boney digits in the back of his head, deepening the kiss in my own wrong doing. Soaking in how perfect his lips felt pressed flush against mine.

And just like the first time, when I felt Alex's tongue brush against mine. It all faded away. Just as fast as it came.

"Dee... Dee... Kennedy!" Alex shook me from my thoughts, literally shook me with his hands on my shoulders. But he really didn’t need to with the way I felt my bones trembling on their own. "Are you okay?" He quickly asked me when I started to blink myself back into reality. "Kennedy, you're crying."

I attempted to catch my breath for a moment. My chest heaving, my head spinning, and my nose running as I felt the tears in mention as they dripped down my face. Haunting me of the way the rain had felt on my flesh in the flashback. Slowly, and hesitantly I turned my head.

Meeting the eyes, I'd just looked at so closely. Only now they stared back at me completely absent of hidden desire, and instead full of worry and concern. I chocked on the words in my throat for a while. Scattered mumbles and misplaced words fumbled from my mouth till I finally gathered up the strength to spill the one question that had been left to linger on my mind.

"Why are you lying to me?" I tried to ask, but it came out more as a strangled sob than an actual question. Confusion beginning to build up, drowning me slowly from the inside out.

"What?" He coughed, confusion of his own soon replacing his concern, but not entirely. "Kennedy, what would I have lied about?"

"Being my friend!" I sobbed, my hands instinctively moving upward to cradle my throbbing head. "You said you knew I was your best friend that day, but it was a lie! You didn't want to be my best friend anymore."

He hung his head at my words, buried his face in his hands and sighed. Leaving me there, sitting next to him in silence, sobbing and confused.

I knew in Heinz sight, kissing your best friend wasn’t something to hysterically cry about right in front of them. Especially after they were the one who helped you remember it happening in the first place. But I really don't think those tears were coming from a place of sadness. Above everything else flooding my brain, the most prominent emotion of all was confusion. I was confused, and hurt, and scared.

Up until that point, all anyone had lead me on to believe was that Alex was my best friend and nothing more, including him! But now, among everything else that didn’t make sense to me, even that I couldn’t count on as being the truth. It was hard enough as is to try and piece back a life I didn't remember living. But to have to navigate conflicting stories with memories and information I'm given made it all that more troublesome of a feat.

"You remembered our fight, didn't you?" He quietly muttered into his hands. So quite in fact, I almost hadn't heard it over my own hiccups and sniffles.

"What, no Alex!" I all but snapped, propping myself up on my knees and turning towards him as tears continued to rapidly spill down my cheeks. Completely disregarding his words. "I remembered what happened once it started to rain!"

Alex's head slowly lifted at the sound of the sudden anger flowing into my tone. Confusion taking over his once defeated expression. Looking at me now as I stared back at him, pinch lipped and teary eyed.

"Best friends don’t just do that!" I hissed once he finally met my stare head on.

"What do you mean?" He hurriedly asked, "What are you talking about?"

"You kissed me, Alex!" I wailed. My head pounding even harder now with all the emotions building up inside it. Conflicting and confusing me. "Just like you did in my kitchen, you kissed me. Friends don’t kiss friends!"

His face suddenly softened once again, resorting back to that confused and worried daze as he gazed back at me. "You remembered that?" He asked, voice dropping dramatically in volume.

"Yes!" I hissed, "So, I don't know why you keep lying to me if I knew all along we weren't just friends."

"Kennedy, we were just friends." Alex stressed, "We kissed yes, but we never became anything more."

My head was spinning faster and faster with each conflicting sentence he threw at me. I couldn't keep it all in a straight line. Everything I'd gathered about myself was now scattered across the floor. A pile of messy confusion I once again couldn't even begin to comprehend. I looked at him, hurt and anger filling my soul to see nothing but disappointment and something I couldn’t identify clouding his eyes.

"I have to go." I suddenly muttered.

Not giving him a chance to stop me, I clambered to my feet and took off running back down the hill. Not a clue of which direction to go or how to even get home. I could hear him calling after me, his voice growing softer and softer the further I ran. and I continued to run till his screams faded away and all I could hear was my own conflicted sobs, and my heart beating away.

I guess it's true what they say.

When it rains, it pours.



Notes

Wahoo I'm back! finally back in state for a longer stretch of time now and will be able to start writing again and keeping up with it and uploading more so get pumped!!

If you're enjoying the story so far be sure to leave me some comments with your thoughts!! And make sure you're subscribed to the story to know when i update!

-Sarah <3

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Comments

Omg... Alex.. This had me in tears.

hopeless1313 hopeless1313
9/13/18

@sarahbeth
I feel that

Daydreamers Daydreamers
6/27/18

@Daydreamers
Thank you very much! I feel like my writing kind of changed as I grew up but I kind of prefer it now it just feels more orderly and less all over the place but i try and stay in touch with all the creative dramatics my old writing have in them ;)

sarahbeth sarahbeth
6/26/18

@Newyork_xo
Thank you!!
I actually hadn't gotten around to listening to that song before you said that but I just did and it was so cute i can totally see how it relates to Kennedy and Alex!
and yes it still is! It was on an account that I lost access to bc this site changes the google log in so i never got to finish it.. but its called No Pads.. No Helmets.. Just Memories! Its been over 3 years since I've updated it but theres a ridiculous amount of chapters to kill time on

ps can't say its my best work it was my first ever fan fiction but if you search Jasey its down on the first page of results!

sarahbeth sarahbeth
6/26/18

I love what great friendships she seems to have had with all the guys while it still being very clear how different hers with Alex is.

Have you heard the new Shawn Mendes album? There’s a song on there called When You’re Ready that reading this story makes me think of... It’s cute.

One last thing - Your other No Pads story I see you and other readers mentioning- is that still on this site? I’d like to read it if it’s available, lol.

Newyork_xo Newyork_xo
6/26/18