Free Falling

12|Confession

Our heavy breathing mingled together, steaming the air, as he sent me over the edge with a final jerk of his hips. My limbs twisted, toes curled, and nails scraped his back as I arched off the bed. My eyes rolled back and legs quivered uncontrollably. A loud gurgling sound came from the back of my throat as I threw my head back into the pillows. Finally, the wave of euphoria passed, and I dropped onto the covers like a sack of potatoes, all energy drained from my body.

Caden rolled off and laid beside me. Sweat glistened both of our bodies like we had just run a mile. In a way, we did.

"That was..."

"Intense." Caden turned to look at me with squinted eyes. "You were more rough than usual."

"I'm always rough," I breathed with a wave of my hand.

"It was different. Like you were trying to forget about something."

I laughed and pushed aside the covers.

"Where are you going?" Caden asked, watching me curiously with a frown on his face.

"Home." Finding my jeans thrown in the corner of his room, I shoved them on and ran my eyes over the floor for my hoodie.

The fabric of my jeans brushed against me as I moved, making me wince with each step. I had been so sexually frustrated that I'd pulled on the first set of clothes I saw without putting on underwear. It didn't bother me at first; it sped up the process of having to get undressed, but now I was regretting it.

"Why don't you stay for a while? Tell me what's on your mind?"

I looked at Caden who was sitting up on his elbows, watching me dance around the room like a madwoman. "When have either of us spent the night with one another after having s*x?"

He shrugged. "I can be more than just a booty call."

"I said that once, and remember what you said?"

"That was a long time ago when this was new to both of us. Things have changed."

I hoorayed inwardly as I spotted my grey hoodie mixed in with a bunch of other discarded clothes and pulled it over my head. Snatching my skateboard leaning against the nightstand, I went to leave, but paused, my hand on the doorknob.

"Are you catching feelings for me?" I asked, pivoting on my spot to face him so I could read his expression. He stalled, so I repeated the question slowly.

His eye twitched, then he ran a hand down his face and breathed a heavy sigh.

"You like me," I answered for him.

Caden stared at me in shock. "You can't tell me that you didn't know. I made myself as clear as I could. Holding you a little longer than I should've, texting you in the middle of the night just to talk. Did it really not occur to you?"

My eyes flared with anger as I jabbed my finger at him. "We both strictly agreed upon the no strings attached part. Specifically, you were the one who insinuated more on that than I did."

He fully sat up in the bed, body pointed towards me, and his eyes drooped and head nodded, recalling the moments when he delicately explained to me that it was important that we kept what we had under wraps. And more importantly, we could not develop feelings for one another.

I remembered it like it was yesterday.

But now Caden was confessing his feelings right after we had heated s*x in which my motives towards it had been to forget about f*****g someone else.

"I know, but the more I got to spend time with you, the more I developed these feelings. It came out of nowhere, and I was going to tell you a few days ago in the kitchen before Kenny interrupted us."

I couldn't tell which situation would've been better to break his heart in when we were in the kitchen or right now. They were both pretty shitty. Caden was staring at me with a hopeful gleam in his eyes, assuming that my hesitation was to tell him that I felt the same. I rolled my tongue around in my mouth, pondering for a bit, before finding the words that would ultimately break his heart.

"We can't be together."

His face fell, and before he could speak, I threw opened the door and left.

His confession knocked me out of the loop. It suffocated me, tugged on the chords around my heart until my chest constricted. I dashed out of the house and took a gulp of fresh air. Out of everyone, I never expected him to like me. He couldn't like me. It was unjust. It wasn't fair to him because I f****d everything up. I would break him before we even began. Hell, I just broke him and we weren't even in a real relationship.

There was nothing wrong with Caden. He was attractive, kind, intelligent, and wasn't emotionally disconnected like other guys his age. He was the whole nine. But I felt nothing for him. I couldn't feel anything for him. Outside of our rebellious hook-ups, he went back to being Kenny's best friend and me his little sister. How would we look if we suddenly dated without any evidence of us sharing any romantic feelings in public? That would raise questions that I could not afford to answer.

Besides, Caden and I were polar opposites. While he wore his heart on his sleeve, I wore a facade of masks to cover whatever demons haunted me. While he bit his tongue to spare someone's feelings, I spoke whatever came to my mind. Opposites might be drawn to one another, but my heart didn't beat for Caden and I wasn't going to pretend it did, either.

As I skated down the road in the direction of my house, I wondered when his feelings for me bloomed outside the bedroom. What day? What time? Where was I? Could I have stopped it?

I probably couldn't have. I was an expert at knowing that when an attraction towards someone morphed into raw feelings, it couldn't be stopped. Even after I rejected him, it would take a while before he stopped carrying this sudden attraction towards me.

I frowned. Now I had to end our beneficial relationship. Call me inconsiderate, but I had been using Caden for his body just as he'd been using mine. Granted he grew feelings, but the facts still remained. I wasn't going to continue hooking up with him, giving him false hope that I reciprocated his affection. It was cruel, and even I didn't steep that low.

Sighing in exhaustion, I entered my house and dragged my feet to the bathroom. Afterward, I crossed the hall to my room and changed into shorts and a sports bra. My skin was still sticky with perspiration, but my sore muscles caused me to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.