Making Circles by Vanessa Gilbert (summer beach reads .txt) 📕

I felt blood rush to my face and burn my cheeks. Seriously, on my front porch, in the middle of the entry way of door, with my neighbors able to-the neighbors, Carter is one of my neighbors! I quickly pushed away from him and said, “I uh gotta go do something today so I’ll talk to you later.”

He starred at me dumbfounded as I quickly shut the door and pressed my back to it. Why do I have to like him so much? I heard a familiar bark and looked and there at my feet was my cute little puppy Cinnamon. I picked her up and touched my nose to hers as a kiss and then put her back down and made my way up stairs. I have to take a shower, change, go talk to Carter, and then come home and call my parents to tell them I’m home and fine. I walked into my room, over to my dresser, and began to pull out clothes that I were comfortable and looked good on me. I pulled out the essentials, bra and underwear, then I began to look for the other things like a shirt and pants. I pulled out my blue skinny jeans with holes up and down the legs, my white spaghetti strap shirt, and lastly my black and yellow plaid button down over shirt.

I grabbed my clothes, walked across the hall, into my bathroom, and started the shower. I sat the clothes down and began to strip. I still smelt of that apartment, of Kyle, of the satin sheets. I smelt of cheater, that’s the word, cheater.  Anybody could smell it on me, anybody and everybody knows, I smell like a cheater. You know a cheater is in the mists when you can smell another person on them. I smelt like…five people when only two people’s smells are stuck on me. I leaned in and placed my hand under the pitter patter of the water. The water was perfect, not to hot, not to cold. I gently jumped into the waterfall of water and began to wash off last night. I felt…dirty, even though we only kissed and cuddled…and maybe touched some places. Images of what I wanted and what happened rushed through my head and soon I didn’t feel the water…I only felt his hands. He’s warm big hands moving along and on my body.

I shook my head of the thoughts and focused my mind on the shower. I grabbed the shampoo and began to scrub it in my hair and it wasn’t long before the images raced back in. “No, no, no, no I can’t think about that,” I told myself out loud.

The thoughts stopped and I sighed in relief. Thank god, the thoughts are gone. I quickly rinsed the shampoo out of my hair then I began to rub in the conditioner. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift slowly. Images played behind my closed eye lids. It was Carter and me sitting on a bench at school. Our hands are locked in a tight unbreakable grip and both of us just starring into one another’s eyes and then the scene changes…and suddenly it’s not Carter I’m looking at…it’s Kyle. Kyle slowly leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. Soon the gentle sweet kiss became passionate as he twirled his fingers into my hair and pulled me closer to him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and held myself to him. The hot passionate kiss grew and grew until finally he laid me down and settled in between my legs and kept kissing me. I felt the cold tile of the shower against my back and remembered where I was and what I was doing. “God damn it! Why does he have to be so freaking hot,” I screamed out angrily into the quite bathroom and listened as it echoed. I covered my face with my hands and just let the water run down my forehead and hands then felt is it slowly raced down my arm and dripped off of my elbow and down it its watery grave below. I pushed off of the wall, finished up my shower, got out and dressed in the clothes I picked. My hair slowly began to drip down my neck and slowly down my back till a fabric wall from the clothes stopped the little raindrop of water. I grabbed my butterfly hair clip, wrapped my dripping wet hair up into a bun, and then let the claws of the butterfly clip in close on the helpless hair.

I starred at my reflection, I starred at the shine that my pale skin seemed to have, I starred at my blue eyes that seemed to be white, and watched as my face changed by the second and soon…it wasn’t me anymore…it was that depressed girl I saw a few days ago…only thing was…she changed. She looked still sad…but she had a quality…a quality that you only see on…cheaters…the wondering if people know…trying to hide the fact that she is having an affair. I touched my pale cheek and watched as she mimicked me and then I quickly let my hand drop. “No, you’re not me…I’m not you,” I said to the reflection.

The reflection smiled slightly and shook her head. It’s official…I’ve gone crazy. I turned my back to the mirror, walked out of the bathroom, and then to my bedroom to get on my computer. I walked over, picked up my flower designed laptop, carried it to my bed, and then sat down and turned it on. I watched as the computer turned on and as my desktop pulled up. I smiled at the picture. It was a picture of Carter and I on our first date…just the two of us. We were sitting at a fancy restaurant table, leaning in close, hands intertwined, and a smiled on both of our faces. I starred at it and smiled…the smile didn’t last long though…images of last night and the images I played in my head played through and soon tears fell down my face. “Cheater, cheater, cheater pumpkin pie eater! Never ever could see what she had before she lost it,” the voice in my head sang.

I quickly shut my laptop and just starred at the top of it, waiting for the guilt, the tears, the stupid voice in my head to all go away. I closed my eyes and said, “Fine you win, I’m a cheater, I’m a cheater and a pumpkin pie eater.”

The voice in my head laughed and images poured in my brain. I let the images play and waited for the voice to stop mocking me and for it to realize that I wasn’t happy with myself either and all it was doing was making it harder for me to forget and move on. Maybe that was the point of the voice, maybe it isn’t there to help me forget about this…maybe it is here to help me focus on it. Help me focus on the fact that I’m cheating, not physically but mentally, on Carter with Kyle. The voice suddenly was gone as well where the images. Finally peace and quiet, I thought as I slowly opened up the laptop again and watched as it lit up.

I glared at the image then right clicked it and clicked on personalize. Carter, we’re over! Kyle, I think I’m falling for you!

The weekend past slow as ever and of course weeks passed and Kyle said nothing about that night. We talked now and then but it seemed that the more we thought about that night the more we drifted. Of course as soon as I saw him after the weekend the thoughts came rushing back with the stupid singing voice tagging alone and singing the whole way back in my head, “Cheater, cheater pumpkin pie eater!”

Of course, Carter was more than happy that Kyle and I weren’t on talking grounds at the moment (or looking grounds). Carter doesn’t have any idea what happened…he thinks we got in a fight on our “Bet Date” as I have come known to call it. Carter now ignores the stares Kyle gives him and just hugs me and gives me the sweet, loving touch he used to give me. Of course that was good but at the same time bad, it wasn’t Carter’s sweet loving touch I craved. It wasn’t Carter’s lips that I wanted pressed against my lips. It wasn’t Carter that held me in his arms after a long night of kissing.  

It’s Kyle I see, it’s Kyle I want. I slowly walked up the hall, one foot after the other, my mind buried deep in my thoughts, and Maria ranting on and on as I walked back and forth. I crossed my arms as I kept walking and thinking and barely listening to Maria ranting. “Am I stupid for liking him!? Did I actually believe he was gonna leave his girlfriend for me!? Ugh, I feel so stupid,” she said throwing her hands up in the air in anger and finally bringing them down to grab the top of her head.

I brought one of my arms up and let my hand grab my chin and my pointer finger rest on my lips. As soon as my finger touched my lips my thoughts pulled me to that night once again, and again I felt myself crave his touch. My finger began to gentle caress the surface of my lips and I could feel every crack…every small scab. I closed my eyes and let my mind wonder. I could see that night clear as day…I could feel his arms around me…smell the scent of him and the sheets…I could still feel the burning need. “Arien, are you okay,” a small voice asked.

I opened my eyes and looked at the direction of the small voice, Maria, and asked, “Yea why?”

“You stopped walking and it sounded like you…moaned,” she said shyly.

My eyes widened in shock and then I thought over what I imagined. Okay there is a small possibility I actually moaned and it wasn’t just in my head. I rubbed the top of my nose and closed my eyes as I shook my head and kicked myself for letting my mind drift there once again. “Sorry I was just sighing,” I said hoping she bought it.

“I’ve heard you sigh and that was no sigh,” she said crossing her arms and giving me her usual I don’t believe you glare.

 “Just drop it, please Maria,” I said beginning my walk again.

“No, I’m not going to drop it. What the hell was that,” she asked in a demanding voice.

I sighed and shook my head, why can’t people just drop stuff like that. “See that was a sigh, what you did just a second ago that was…I don’t exactly know what that was.”

I began to walk faster and soon I had a place to go…soon I wasn’t just pacing back and forth up and down the dark hallways. I quickly shuffled up the hallway, turning a corner, and heading outside…with Maria close on my heels. “Where are we going? Why are you walking so fast,” Maria asked