Chapter 60

His words halted me. Hearing him call me baby pulled on my heart. The pain and sadness in his voice was intoxicating. It lured me back. I wanted more than anything for him to just say he loved me and scoop me up in his arms. But I couldn’t allow that. Not now.

“Why Keegan? So you can lie to me more about how much you love me?” I said with air quotes.

“Brees, that has never been a lie. I do love you. Everything was just so confusing and complicated with our families and with us,” he said, reaching for me.

I did not allow him to grab me, as I stepped backwards. Rain hit my bare back, but I didn’t budge.

“Keegan, I thought we were going to give our virginity to each other. What happened to that? I thought we made love that night for the first time together. But you just fucked me like some slut and acted like it never happened,” I screamed, through the pounding rain.

I was bawling at this point. His face dripped with rain. Water droplets hung from the edge of his nose as if they were ready to dive into the puddles below. His furrowed eyebrows drew closer together as if confusion had sparked their reunion. He shook his head fervently.

“Brees, I was a virgin when we first… you know. I saved myself for you. I love you. I would never treat you like a… like that. You are the love of my life!” he said, defending himself.

“Isadora told Kimber that you and her… well she said she slept with you and you kissed after I ran off from her house!” I exclaimed.

It sounded so awful coming from my mouth. The thought of him doing with her what we did, really hurt my heart.

“What? That never happened! I swear Brees. I have only ever been with you. I only ever want to be with you. You’re all I think about. It’s breaking my heart not having you in my arms right now,” he said.

He motioned towards the garage. We ran over to take shelter. Puddles sloshed as we kissed them with our shoes. My legs were soaked from the rain. As I saw his face in the light, it wasn’t just wet from rain, he had been crying.

“Brees, please hear me when I say that I am so sorry for how I treated you the day after we shared our love physically. That was never my intention. I was so afraid to be around you with our families in the room. I’m so drawn to you babe. No way I could control myself from kissing you or touching you during Christmas morning. Our moms can sense things a mile away and I felt like I disrespected you and your mom’s home when I allowed my emotions to take over in that way. My mom figured everything out however and begged me to stay away from you so I didn’t ruin our family holiday together. She is the one that made me bring Isadora today. I am so sorry,” he said.

“Do you regret what we did?” I asked.

“Oh god no! I have been thinking about how I felt that night almost every moment I am awake and sleeping. Baby, I am so in love with you. You have to understand how complicated this is. Next year, you will be my stepsister and I am trying my hardest to respect my mom’s wishes,” he said, grabbing my hands.

I didn’t know how to react. He hadn’t wanted to be with me publicly. He kept trying to explain why, but there is truly no explanation for how he has treated me. Me being his “sister” on paper was no excuse, especially because we fell for one another long before our moms started dating. Our moms also didn’t have a problem with us seeing one another. So him saying Ms. Kyren had an issue with it doesn’t make sense.

“I can’t Keegan. I’ve been so torn up this last week. You really hurt me. Don’t you understand that? Did you kiss Isadora after I left or not?” I said, pulling my hands away.

“She did kiss me after you left, but it didn’t mean anything,” he said.

My stomach dropped. Why would he kiss her? I held back tears as my face started to get warm.

“ I can’t believe you kissed her after what we shared,” I said.

“But that’s just it. I didn’t kiss her Brees. She kissed me. I didn’t push her away and I should have. But you had just left and told me you never wanted to speak to me again. You have to know where my head space was,” he said.

I needed him to prove his love for me. He had yet to do that. I did believe that he didn’t have sex with Isadora, but it didn’t change the fact that she was flaunting her relationship with him in my face.

“I’m not so sure there is anything that can be done at this point, Kee. We have hurt one another way too many times and it seems like it will never end,” I said, squeezing water from my hair.