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Author Note:
I hope the age revelation doesn't shock anyone too much. Just to clarify, this is not going to be a romance between an underage boy and a woman. Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts.
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Jamie didn't answer for a moment until his head dropped, and he uttered a low, "Fifteen."
"Come on," I said, forcing a smile and hoping it was Jay's idea of a silly prank. "Jay," I said, looking back to him and Brian, whose faces both told the answer before the question was asked. "Is this a joke?"
Simultaneously, they both shook their heads, and time slowed to a standstill.
"What?" I whispered, more from disbelief than needing an affirmation.
"Veronica, let me explain," he said, taking my hand in his again and sending an instant recoil through me.
"Don't touch me," I said, pulling my hand away.
"Veronica, please."
I let out a deep breath, trying to expel the words I wanted to scream.
"How could you lie about something like that?" was the best I could get out as I struggled to untangle my thoughts and feelings.
I turned to the exit, faltered by the bright blur of the dancefloor lights and tears that had filled my eyes, yet still I ran forward, bumping into random bodies as I made my way out.
The next moments of my life were the longest I had experienced ever, with each second dragging as I relived every sweet memory of the boy I thought I knew as my Jamie.
His smile, his eyes, his sweet laugh, and the way he made me laugh. And, ultimately, the way he made me want to spend more time with him than anyone ever before.
Fifteen? I muttered, and my stomach churned as I remembered the sweetness of his lips as we kissed the night before. Instinctively, I threw my hand up against my mouth. What the hell did I do?
I stopped and leaned down against the car in front of me, not knowing whether it was mine or not, as my head spun almost out of control fighting for dominance in a war with my heart that cried out for that explanation that Jamie had offered.
"V?" Jay's voice came from behind as his hands gripped my shoulders and turned me back to him. "You can't go home alone like this," he said guiding me away from the car that I guessed wasn't mine after all.
"I'm fine Jay, you go back to your …," friends I had wanted to say, but the image of that one friend stopped me.
"Veronica," Jamie said, approaching from behind Jay. "I swear this isn't what you think. I wanted to tell you. I …"
"Shut up," I screamed, my mind winning that particular battle and drowning out any excuse he tried to offer. "How could you lie about something like that? What were you trying to do? Get me written down as some kind of child offender?"
"No. Of course not," he offered. "We've never done anything for that to happen."
"We've done enough," I screamed, disgusted with the words I was about to say. "I invited you to stay over at my house. What did you think was going to happen?"
"Not that. I swear I wouldn't have let that happen."
He was probably telling the truth; his innocent kisses testified to the fact that he wasn't exactly a bed hopper, and somehow only hurt more as it nailed the painful truth deeper into my heart. That truth being, that I had fallen into the most toxic kind of love that could exist.
"Well, thanks for your consideration," I replied, my tone laced with bitter sarcasm.
"Two weeks," Jamie said. "I'll be sixteen in two weeks, and you won't have to worry about things like that."
"Oh my God," I muttered. "Are you crazy?"
Jamie's eyebrows dipped in question.
"I never want to see you again," I say.
"You have to let me explain," Jamie continued before Jay cut in, coming to stand in between it.
"Back off, Leon," he said, an affirmation that the Jamie I knew wasn't even Jamie.
"Come on, Jay. You know I didn't do this to hurt her."
"Do I?" Jay questioned. "I never took you as stupid, so I don't know how you thought lying about your name and age wasn't going to end up hurting her."
Lying? The word echoed in my mind until it finally reverberated through my heart. It was all a lie. And the tears that had blinded my vision began to flow out.
"You know it wasn't like that," Jamie continued to plead.
Jay turned his back to Jamie without answering and took the car keys that I had taken from my bag out of my hand. "I'll get an Uber for us, you can't drive like this," he said.
"No. I'm fine," was the best I could reply as I tried to grab at the keys that he was holding. "Go back to your party."
"I'm not letting you drive like that." Jay's voice took on a nervous edge as he tried to keep it controlled, and despite not being able to see his face, I knew what expression he was making.
It was the same expression he'd made whenever I drove too fast due to being in a rush, or that one time I had two glasses of wine at a party before attempting to drive home. Cars had always made Jay nervous, and any inconsistency in the driver, weather or simply the time of day filled him with anxiety.
"V!" he said as I made one last attempt to grab the keys.
"Fine," I said, my voice a whisper, but my mind clearer for a moment as the one person that I knew would never let me down called out to me. "Get me an Uber, but you stay. I just want to be alone."
Jay eventually agreed to stay behind, then, after warning Jamie, Leon, or whoever he was to back off, he ordered an Uber and let me go home.
I didn't look back once I got into the car, rather I slumped forward over my lap with my hands on my head struggling to contain the many emotions that I felt. I wanted to scream, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to hate Jamie so much, yet I wanted to believe that I had somehow gotten something wrong. I wanted to turn back the entire day and not go to meet him so we could have had our talk, maybe it would have been different if he had told me and I hadn't found out the way I had. Maybe, if I hadn't asked that fateful question the day we first met, he would never have felt the need to lie, and I would never have opened a doorway through which I could fall for him.
Whatever the case, and no matter how it had played out, the reality was that we were now in a place where what we had could never be a thing, and all I could do was go to my room and cry myself to sleep.