"Keith!" I cover Jay behind me, knowing it won't be of much use anyway because he's already seen her and lean on my hands. Shit!
"I should have known," he mutters. For the first time he looks at me, a fire burns in his eyes with anger. "You!" He shakes his head furiously and turns around.
"Keith, wait!" I jump out of bed, almost fall when I put on pants and a shirt. When I see Jay getting dressed, I turn to her. "Stay here, please Jay, let me talk to him." I look at her pleadingly. As soon as she nods I'm out the door and run after Keith.
At the bottom of the stairs I grab his arm and turn him around. "Keith!"
"Do not fucking touch me!" He looks at me with such disgust that I swallow. He hates me.
"It's not what you think it is."
"So you just didn't have sex? You weren't just naked?" He yells that right in my face. "Why her too, Char? Are all the others not enough?"
Tears start to burn in my eyes. "It's different now."
"Bullshit. Like all other times you wanted to show me that you could have her too, didn't you? You wanted to rub it in my face. Fuck you!"
"No that's not true, Keith, listen to me." I gasp when he hits me. I slowly turn my head back, my cheek burns from the slap. I have to bite back my own anger. He knows damn well that I don't take it when someone puts his hands on me. So he's surprised when I keep my cool. But that's just for a few seconds, before he starts yelling again.
"I'm not doing anything!" He clenches his hands into fists next to his body. 'I'm so done with you and everything that belongs to you. You knew I liked her, fucking everyone knew that and you -"
"I love her Keith." I say it so quickly that it's almost impossible to hear, but he hears it. "I love her, it's different from the previous times, that was numb but this is -"
"Stop it!" He interrupts me screaming. "Are you really that cowardly and filthy to lie? To justify it, when you know as well as I that this is nothing." I feel a hard stab in my chest that makes me step back. "It just comes back in circles and every time it's the same. You use them, feeling absolutely nothing."
"I'm sorry that you can't see that I really love her."
Now he is smiling, it sounds just like Dad and that makes me sick. "You can't love anyone, Charlie, those were the words of your therapist. Everyone knows!" He barks it in my face. "You don't do feelings, you don't fall in love, you don't love!" He huffs. "I tried so hard, but you keep pushing everyone away, you don't even know what love is."
"That's enough." Jay comes up next to me. "How dare you talk about her like that, she's your fucking twin sister."
"Jay," I say softly. I don't want her interfering with this.
Keith laughs again. "Do you want to know something, Jay?" He scoffs at her and I almost want to throw my fist in his face. I calm down when I feel Jay's hand in mine.
"You can't say anything to make me doubt her, Keith." I smile faintly when she looks at me. "I know that you're angry but please listen."
"Oh but then this is going to be fun." His eyes land on mine. "You do everything to win, don't you? Or was this a big joke." He's not going to... "Or do the other boys not know about Jay? Are you no longer at the top with the points?"
"What is he on about?"
"Are you telling it or am I doing it?" A tear runs down my cheek as he stares at me in silence. I shake my head at him. Why doesn't he see it?
"Keith please, don't, I'm begging you." More tears force their way out of my eyes and I let go of Jay's hand to grab him. "Don't break this." I plead. "Look me in the fucking eye, I love her with everything I have, don't do this to me." I grab his face and force him to look at me. "Look at me, Keith." My lip is trembling.
"We have a list." A sob rolls over my lips when he starts and I push him away from me. Put my hand over my mouth to muffle more sobs. "Every girl from our school is on that list, they have a ranking."
"Charlie..." She wants to hear it from me, but I can't, I can't tell her. She takes my arm, it's not blaming or accusatory, at least not yet. No now it is supportive, loving.
"New ones are ranked much higher and after that it's all about appearance. Charlie has been in first place for years, I'm in second place and the rest doesn't matter."
"What are you saying?" She asks.
"It's a points list, Jay. All actions have points, a kiss on the mouth, French kissing, making out, pussy eating, getting a blowjob and the high score, what everyone goes for is sex." I can feel her eyes on me, but I'm to scared to look and see the hurt in her eyes. "If you have had sex with the person in question, you claim someone, then there are no more points to be won for another, and you land 15 points."
"And I was on that list." I can feel her getting closer to me.
"Jay," I say with a torn sob.
"What?" She asks, almost afraid of the answer.
"You were at the top of the list."
"Keith stop." I look at him through my tears and clench my free hand into a fist. "You're no better than this."
"Are you going to tell her? Are you going to tell what you said?"
I close my eyes. "Keith please."
"What did you say, Charlie?" She pulls on my arm.
I open my eyes and look at her. "You have to believe me when I say I didn't know you yet. I didn't know who you were, god I didn't even know you were on the baseball team."
"What Charlie?" Now it gets more compelling.
"I'm the first to sleep with her and I won't stop until I can." Keith says it for me. "She falls in love with me and then poof, I'm gone." Jay's look chances and what I feared most happened. She lets go of me and takes a few steps back.
"I didn't know who you were, I didn't know I was going to have feelings for you." I raise my hand to Keith who wants to interrupt me. "I didn't know it was possible either, but I love you, Jay. I love you with everything... with everything I have in me. I'm fucking in love with you." At this point, there is nothing I can do against my tears. "Please say something." I try to put my hand on her cheek, but she steps back.
"Everyone Charlie, and then you do this." She looks at me with so much pain in her eyes that it stings.
"I quit right away, I scratched my own name the very first moment I saw you." I look at her pleadingly. "Don't leave me, after all I've told you."
"What? The pathetic my father is gone story."
I growl and stare at Keith furiously. "You don't know anything about me, Keith, you don't know what happened before, you don't know what's going on inside me, you don't even know how I feel about her, so shut up for once in your life. '
"I... just leave me alone for a while." She keeps walking backwards.
"Jay, please believe me."
"You know Charlie, I don't know what I believe anymore. But I know I have to get out of here." With that she walks up the stairs and I hear how she slams my room door. Crying I sink down against the couch.
"I hate you!" I swing to Keith's head and come up, pushing my finger into his chest. "She was the best thing that ever happened to me and you have to screw it up again, you have to take it away from me again." I push him back hard. "Never have to see or speak to you again, if this is broken, if she hates me forever now it's your fault."
"Charlie..."
"No! I really love her, I love her with my soul, I've given all of myself to her, but you're so blind in hate and selfishness, you can't see that, you can't see I'm a different person because of her." I let him see me so broken. "She made me smile after a long time, she healed me. You fucked up everything I worked so hard for!" I shake my head and walk away from him. I hate him, I hate him so much!
I run up the stairs, making my way towards my room. I hear her cry from the other side of the door and it breaks my heart even more.
My forehead rests against the wood and I suck in a deep breath. "Jay, baby, please open the door." I can't muffle my sob. "Please." My voice is getting smaller and smaller. "I beg you, please open the door."
She doesn't answer me, not after 2 minutes pass. I'm about to slide down my door, but then I hear how she unlocks it. "Thank you." I softly say before stepping in the room.
She's getting al her stuff together. Walking back and forth through my room. "Please look at me."
She shakes her head. "I can't." She cries. "I can't even look at you."
"You have to belief me how much regret I have. I was someone else back then, I was a fucking dick." I take a deep breath. "But I changed, I changed for you."
She holds up her hand. "Please stop."
"I never lied to you."
"Charlie, please."
"I love you."
She turns towards me, hurt and pain flicker in her eyes, it makes my heart ache. "I can't do this anymore. The lying, the betraying."
"I never -"
"Just stop." She holds up her hands defensively, as if she's scared I'm going to hit her and that hurts me so damn much the air is knocked out of me. "I need time to think, I need to be alone." She grabs her bag. "I trusted you, I fucking gave myself to you and you just used me like everyone else."
"That's not true." I look at her. "Look in my eyes and you see the truth, you know everything, I've told you everything."
"I don't know what to believe anymore, you were a manipulating asshole when I first got to Hillside." I close my eyes when she says that.
"Baby ple-"
"Don't call me that." She passes me. "Don't call me, don't text me, don't come to my house." She waits in the doorway. "We are over."
I break down. "Please, don't go." She keeps waiting. "Please don't leave me alone, I need you and I know you feel it too, you know I didn't lie to you."
"It doesn't matter what I feel anymore." She has still her back turned to me but she looks at me. "You broke my heart and I promised myself that I would protect myself and I have failed, so please leave me alone." When she takes her final steps I fall to my knees, feeling empty.
I'm swallowed right into that dark hole again and there is nothing that can stop it. Jay is gone and with that she took every barrier with her. Everything that held me up. She took my heart with her.
I'm left on the floor of my room. Screaming my lungs out of my chest because of the hurt and the pain. And after a while. There is nothing more than pain and emptiness, everything turns black and that familiar numb feeling comes back.
Just as a light switch I'm at the bottom, I'm the old Charlie and I don't know if anything can fix me now.
-----
I've lost every sense of time. I can't stop crying because I just don't feel anything anymore. I hoped that I would run out of fluid but I keep crying.
At some point my mom must have come home and heard what happened because I felt her bend down next to me. I haven't moved since I fell on the floor. I'm laying on my side, pulled my legs up to my stomach and I hoped I would die.
But my mom, hushed me, her fingers glided through my hair. She told me everything was going to be alright. Just as me she knows it wouldn't. She knows how bad this is. It's been months since it was this bad, I think it's been years.
And I guess Keith knew he really fucked up when he saw me like this on the floor of my room. He told me that he was sorry. But I acted like I didn't hear him and after a while I just filtered his voice away.
Mom got me with some help in my bed and sat next to me until I would fall asleep. But I didn't. I just laid in my bed for hours, daring the sleep to get me, but it didn't and I knew exactly why. The demons would tears me apart when I would sleep and that's the last thing I need right now.
I did make me feel a bit better when mom laid beside me, her arm wrapped around me. But that worked for just a few minutes.
The heavy feeling on my chest increased with every passing minute and I didn't knew heartbreak could be so painful, I kept wishing I would die until I finally fell asleep and that's when the terror begon. That's when my head began the long fight with every demon that I have.
I hope I die.