I Said No

Chapter four

I haven't gotten out of bed in days. I haven't eaten. I haven't spoken to anyone besides my boss when I call out sick. I work at the Duck Shop. It's a sportswear store for our college team here in town. All I can do right now is pretend to be sick. It doesn't feel like I'm pretending though. I feel sick. It feels like I have the flu. My body is sore, I can't eat, I want to lay in bed and sleep my life away, and the nausea comes in waves.

My tears have finally subdued. I have finally run out of tears—Finally. But I can't get up. I can only lay here and stare up at my ceiling to my little studio's bedroom. I live alone and don't have anyone here to bother me or to talk to me. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

I tried going to class a couple of days ago, but had to come home. I couldn't act like life was normal. I wasn't normal. I was stuck in this lackadaisical haze. Stuck here in my thoughts. As usual. Overthinking everything. Analyzing every misstep I have ever taken.

I just want someone to hold me. Someone to tell me it was all a dream and that nothing bad happened. That I wasn't a slut. That I hadn't been forced to do something I said I didn't want to do. I said no. I did, I said no. I just want Kyle. He's such an imperative part of me. But I can't have Kyle. He has a girlfriend. He made it clear he was choosing her. Coincidentally he forgot to mention that he chose her before we had sex.

Typical Kyle I guess. Maybe I should have listened to Andrea. Maybe then I'd have someone to talk to right now.

He was my first real boyfriend. The first boy I had ever fallen for. It all started with a social media message over MySpace. I can't help but laugh out loud to that. Who uses MySpace anymore?

But I've loved him since I was a sophomore in high school. Since our volleyball PE class together. It was all flirting, giggles, and long stares to each other. One day he grabbed my hand as I was walking away. He held it and just looked me in the eyes. Like he knew me, or wanted to know me, all of me. Locking eye contact and throwing away the key with no reason to ever stop.

He was older than I. He was a senior and I was a sophomore. But in that moment, it felt as if we were one. His dark brown eyes and encapsulating smile. He was the king of the school. Star athlete, colleges looking at him. He had the perfect body; tall, muscular, and the perfect shade of light brown. He was that guy. And all of that perfection was holding my hand and looking into my soul like no one ever had.

I was not ready for such a look of passion. I broke eye contact and said I had to go. He smiled coolly, told me goodbye and walked back to the other side of campus. I ran over to Layla to tell her about what just happened. We each had our crushes in that volleyball class. She understood my excitement and just how huge that moment was for me.

Then, the semester ended and I moved away. My whole family moved from Oregon to Washington. Life went on. Kyle was just a crush.

Until one day after a Wednesday youth group service, I got a message from him on MySpace saying, 'long time no talk.'

I felt my entire body clench. My heart started racing, racing as if I was in a marathon I had not prepared for. I couldn't catch my breath. Perfect Kyle was writing me? All I could say was. 'Yes it has.' He asked for my number and we started to text each other.

Texting continued on for the rest of the night. Asking silly questions about each other like, 'how many brothers and sisters we had' and 'what we wanted to be when we grew up' and 'how many people we had had sex with.' It went on all night long. And then he called me, right before we fell asleep because he wanted to say goodnight to me. I knew I was right to have loved him that night. It was truly love at first sight and that night exemplified everything I had ever wished and dreamed about him. He was perfect.

We continued to text and talk over the next few days, at every second there was time to breathe, I was talking to him. I would take my phone into the shower with me, take it into class. We fell asleep to each other on the phone. Anywhere I went, I was talking to Kyle. He asked if he could come visit me.

He brought me flowers and my family loved him. He slept on my couch. We made out all night, but he never pressured me into have sex. He understood that I didn't want to just have sex. I wanted to wait until marriage. I wanted it to mean something. I wanted it to be making love not just having sex. He understood that.

He asked me to be his girlfriend.

I said yes.

***Author's note***

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