Tears of love

9. The proposal.

Chapter 9: The proposal.

I'm running late.

Jeremy's car horn honks for the third time as I leave the house and as I close the front door, I glance over my shoulder at him to send him a dirty look.

If I'm running late and he honks at me multiple times, it doesn't make me move any faster. On the contrary, it makes me more nervous.

Once I'm in the car, I growl at him: "I heard the horn the first time.”

He lets out a chuckle, grabs the car's crowbar and pulls us out of the neighborhood.

“I thought you didn't hear it, since you didn't get out.”

“Jer...” I look at him, shaking my head.

He flashes me a little smile, glancing sideways at me. It's that strange smile, the one he rarely shows. There's a bit of mischief and fun there, but it's the playful twinkle in his eyes that always gets me.

“You're freaking me out on purpose, aren't you?”

“I like to annoy you when you're stressed, I can almost see you turning into a monster blowing smoke out of your ears.”

“Funny” I carefully throw my backpack back, also my camera. “The alarm didn't go off and I didn't sleep well last night.”

“Me neither” he says with a bit more seriousness.

I sigh, being aware that we're both kept awake by the same things. Well, pretty much the same, I'm sure Sabrina is another big reason he can't sleep.

“Jer, what are we doing?” I ask, looking up at him as he pulls into the campus parking lot.

“Come here," he asks.

“What?” I look at him, not knowing what he means.

Surprisingly, he unbuckles his belt, unbuckles mine and then lunges for my hips, grabbing them in a firm affair to pull me up onto his lap. My back presses slightly against his steering wheel and he strokes up and down my thighs pressed to either side of his. His caress is not suggestive, just a caress that seeks nothing more than to feel me.

I look up at him.

“They will see us, Jer.”

“No, the windows are too dark.”

“I'm already late.”

“It's your first week, Rora, the first week you can't miss much.”

I close my eyes, looking for more excuses, but I can't find any, so I ask him what haunts me day and night.

“Why now, Jer?”

Why not before?

Why right after he broke up with Sabrina?

Why couldn't he see me with those eyes before?

Things would be so different, my heart wouldn't want to run off in the opposite direction, scared of being broken.

If he had only seen me before...

“I don't know” he agrees on a sigh, leaning his head back on the seat, looking at me the whole time.

“I don't want to be your rebound, Jeremy, much less have you thinking about her while you're...”

“Rora, for God's sake, that doesn't happen," he growls, furrowing his eyebrows. “When I'm with you, there's only you on my mind... you, no one else.”

“I don't know...”

“I want you, Aurora” saying my name only adds more seriousness and honesty to his words, “I want you so damn much it drives me crazy.”

“Jeremy...”

“But me wanting you doesn't change anything between us, it doesn't change anything in our relationship or lack thereof.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That it's a purely physical thing, Rora, you don't love me and I don't love you. Surely we won't develop romantic feelings for each other, not after knowing each other for so long. Let's just... give vent to this desire and that's it. Nothing else matters, no one has to know, it's our intimate life. And we'll still be the same, just with added benefits.”

I feel a deep scratch in my heart and it hurts so much that all the air rushes out of me in a loud gasp. My eyes fill with tears, but before he can see them, I lean into him and rest my forehead on his shoulder, keeping him from looking at me.

Jer's hand sinks into my hair, grabs the back of my neck from behind and strokes my sensitive skin with his thumb.

“Do you want to be friends with benefits?” I ask, needing clarity.

“I want to own this” he reaches between us and cradles my p***y with his hand, but I don't feel anything, no desire, no lust, just a cold numbness. “I want to be able to sink into you whenever I want, I want you to seek me out whenever you want. I want to lose myself in your body and never leave, not on an upcoming date.”

“Jeremy, what you're asking of me is...”

“Is to satiate the desire we feel for each other.”

“And what happens next?” I take his hand from me and look at him. “What will happen when the desire is satiated? What will become of us?”

“We will still be us” he looks at me. “Rora, you are a constant in my life, that won't change, even if we fuck.”

I shudder at the crude way he says it. And I'm not hurt by the word, I'm hurt by his intonation, by the way he says it, I'm hurt by the careless way he refers to something that would be special to me.

“What scares you?” He asks, cupping my cheek so I look up at him.

At this rate, I can no longer hide the tears that bathe my eyes.

“I don't know, Jeremy” I laugh sourly, “that everything goes wrong, for example. That my brother finds out, that everything goes to s**t, that our friendship is ruined, that...”

That you tear me to pieces.

“It's just s*x, Rora," he says fervently, emphasizing each word as he holds my face vehemently. “It's just s*x, nothing's going to change and no one has to know.”

“How could we hide something like that? Your family is my family, I live in your house as much as you live in mine and...”

“I bought an apartment, I'm moving out.”

I look at him.

Oh, f**k.

This can't be true.

“You've got it all coldly calculated?”

“I f*****g want you," he growls almost desperately, "I want you in a way I've never wanted anyone before, I just want...”

“Satisfy your desire?”

"And yours, because believe me, if you didn't respond to my caresses the way you do, if part of me thought you didn't want me, I wouldn't be doing that. But you do, you do desire me and don't deny it, Rora."

I don't, how could I?

But even if he's right, he's also wrong, because not only do I love him, I love him too.

But what good would it do to say so now?

A tear rolls down my cheek and he catches it with his thumb, brushing it away, almost dismissing it.

“You're not going to lose me over this, you won't ruin my friendship with Tyler either, he doesn't have to find out, no one has to.”

Fuck, how come the more he tries to calm me down, the more he breaks me?

“No, Jeremy” I deny, get off his lap, grab my backpack and camera and open the door. “I can't.”

“Aurora...”

And I turn away, keeping him from seeing the tears that keep falling, not when he doesn't seem to care.

The truth is, I can't.

I can't be what he's asking me to be.

How could I survive something like this?

Give him my body while avoiding showing him that I gave him my heart too?

I won't.

I can't.