Page 41 of Neo
“That’s only half the story!” I protest. “The truth is that we are not friends and we never will be. You’re like a pesky tick that is leeching onto me and invading my family, sucking the blood out of us!”
“Kennedy!” my father protests.
“You definitely should be in the theater department and not the business school.” Shane crosses his arms, a hint of annoyance flickering in his eyes. “I’m not invading anything. Our parents are getting married, not us. Get over it.”
“Shane Sullivan, watch your tone. And I told you to look out for Kennedy and get to know her, not harass her.”
“Look out for me?” I scoff. “Do you really think I want to go on campus every day and chat it up with the one person who is a constant reminder of bullshit going on in here?”
“Sit down, Kennedy,” my father orders in a voice I haven’t heard him use with me since I was nine-years-old so I take my seat. “What’s going on in here is that two people have made an adult decision to share our lives together,” he continues. “I understand you don’t care much for change, and I knew this would be difficult for you to hear, but I never imagined you’d be this emotional about it.”
“Dad–”
He raises a hand to quiet me.
“It is Christmas. Kate is a guest in this house, and she will soon be a member of this family. Our family. So I warn you, please don’t say anything else tonight that you’ll regret because I promise that it won’t play out the way that you expect.”
My father’s harsh words slice at my heart like shards of glass. He just made it clear, in front of everyone, that if he has to make a choice, it will be Shane’s mother.
If I sit at this table any longer, I’m afraid that I’m going to cry and embarrass myself more than I already have, but if I leave, I may enrage my father even more than he already is. Thankfully, I get a pardon.
“You may be excused,” he tells me. “I think you need some time to reflect on your attitude.”
There are tears in Shane’s mother’s eyes, practically mirroring what my own must look like, and the weight of how I’ve reacted tonight is becoming much clearer. Maybe I’m not as mature as I like to think I am but dammit, this all really hurts.
I close the door to my room and think about calling my mom because she’s the only voice I want to hear, but that would be selfish. Why should I ruin her holiday by telling her about this? While I understand my parents’ divorce was “amicable,” I’m pretty sure that it would still hurt my mom to know how my father has moved on with his life.
Suddenly, there’s a heavy knock at my door. I’d know the sound of those Fred-Flinstone-sized knuckles anywhere.
“What, Shane?” I say through the door.
“Open up.”
“I don’t want to talk right now.”
Of course, he opens the door anyway, and once he sees my tear-stained face, his expression softens slightly. “Look, Kennedy, I get it. We haven’t exactly been best friends, but maybe, for our parents’ sake, can we at least try to make this work?”
I take a deep breath, trying to calm the storm inside me. This whole situation feels like a nightmare. Like somebody else’s life. Yet the realization I have zero control over the choices that my father has been made abundantly clear to me tonight. I have to make some sort of peace with it, even if that means that Shane is now a fixture in my life.
Shane waits for my response, his usual arrogance replaced by something resembling genuine concern.
Reluctantly, I nod. “Fine. For our parents.”
My shoulders relax slightly, but the tension between us remains as he advances towards me carefully, like he’s walking on eggshells. The closer he gets, the more I have to tilt my head to watch his approach.
Shane is tall.
Ridiculously tall.
He stands in between my legs as I sit on the edge of my bed and uses his thumb and pointer finger to tilt my chin up higher to face him.
The unexplainable part is I let him.
He bends down slowly, probably anticipating that I’ll stop him at any moment, but I don’t. I know what he’s about to do. I’m almost daring him to do it. To get it over with. This explosive energy between us has been building for months. We both know it. I’ve just been too afraid of it to do anything about it.
It’s not the brutal clash of lips and teeth that I expected between us. Actually, it’s a soft, tentative, careful kiss that feels different from any kiss I’ve ever had before.
Shockingly, my body enjoys this.