I lost my appetite the moment Jackson decided to ignore me as if I wasn’t even there. “No, I’m not hungry.”
I stay in my room all through dinnertime. I can’t hear what’s going on downstairs, but I wonder if they’ll miss me at the meal. Probably not, but I don't even care, nothing matters, not when Jackson hates me.
I lay on my back in my room with the lights off, staring at the ceiling in the dark. I find myself wondering about what will happen when I leave the house to go to college in the fall. Will Jackson totally forget about me? Will we become strangers? It makes me so sad. I hug my pillow and curl upon my side, closing my eyes tightly and trying my best not to cry. I’m still like that when the door opens, and the light comes on.
My heart soars when I see that it’s Jackson, but it comes back down with a jarring thump almost immediately. His face is impersonal and expressionless, almost bored.
“Aunt Constance wanted to check on you,” He says, without any inflection in his voice. He could be a stranger, not the Jackson I fell in love with. I wish I could be as uncaring as he obviously is. I wish I could suddenly not give a damn what he thinks of me. I wish the sight of him leaning on the door frame, looking so effortlessly perfect, and sexy didn’t make me want to beg him to forgive me, even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong.
I turn my gaze away from his perfection. “I’m fine.” I mumble.
“So why didn’t you come down for dinner.”
I can feel his eyes on my face, but I don’t look at him. “I wasn’t hungry.” I reply sullenly.
He enters the room and shuts the door behind him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t bother to come meet Jessica.” He states, “That was rude, don’t you think?”
I don’t care. I hate her already. I sit up on the bed and look at him. “Why did you bring her here?” I ask. Was it his way of telling me that it was over between us, and that he had moved on? “Is she your girlfriend now?”
He pauses for a long moment, his eyes on mine. “Maybe.”
I inhale sharply. “Then I don’t want to meet her.”
“I suppose if it were Carter, or some other cute boy you could fool around with, you’d have been downstairs in a flash, wouldn’t you?" His voice is cruel, “Tell me, was it just Carter you wanted or would any of the guys have done for your hungry little body? Cause it would be unfair for me to keep hating him if it could have been any one.”
I feel tears stinging my eyes, and I blink fiercely, trying to keep the moisture inside. For so long, I’d dreamed of the kind of love Jackson and I would have, something total and absolute that would survive anything, but I’d been dreaming, basing my future on the nonsense in the romance novels. Hopelessness set in, and I feel the tears start to fall, staining my cheeks.
I hear Jackson sigh. “Olivia.”
“Leave me alone,” I cry, angry at myself for letting him see me cry. I toss the pillow I’m holding away and get up from the bed, facing him angrily, even though my cheeks are wet with tears. “Just go back to your Jennifer or Jessica or whatever her name is, I don’t care.”
At first he doesn’t move, and then, so swiftly that I have no time to expect it, he’s walking up to me and pulling me into his arms, kissing me through my tears. I want to stay angry, but instead, I surrender myself to the heat of his mouth on mine.
“You make me so fucking crazy.” He mutters between kisses. He threads his finger through my hair, holding my head back, so I’m looking up at him. "What have you done to me?” His lips cover mine again and the next moment we’re tearing at each other’s clothes, hungrily devouring each other. I can’t wait to feel him inside me, and it seems he can’t either. He lays me back on the bed and kneels between my legs, pushing my skirt up around my waist while I undo his belt and zipper. I can hardly wait while he pulls out the small foil package from his wallet, puts it on, shoves my panties aside, and pushes into me with one firm thrust.
It’s hot and fast and so good that I have to bite on my lip to keep from screaming loud enough for the whole house to come running. He groans as he slams into me again and again, his eyes closed and his head thrown back. In no time, uncontrollable pleasure suffuses my body, and I cry out helplessly, coming apart in his arms.
“I think I’ve gone insane,” He says later, when we’re still trying to catch our breaths. “You’re like a siren, making me crazy.” He pulls away from me and sits on the edge of the bed. “Is that what you want, helpless guys, so crazy about you they can’t even think straight?”
“Jackson...” I start, “about Carter...”
“Just… stop.” He says, a short, humorless laugh escaping his lips. “I don’t want to know what you were playing at.”
“But I love you,” I blurt out, my hands at my neck fiddling with the platinum heart pendant he gave me. “I love you Jackson, so much."
He shakes his head and gets off the bed, “Not as much as I hate myself,” he says cruelly.
I freeze, the rejection stunning and hurting me so badly, I can’t even speak. I huddle in the bed while he puts on his clothes and leaves, turning off the light and closing the door behind him. I start to cry again, wondering if he really hates himself so much for being with me, or if he just said it to hurt me, and knowing that it makes no difference.
Book Two
Chapter Twelve
WE still haven’t gone in for dinner. Elaine is describing some interesting fact she’s discovered in her research on Halcyon, her smoky voice holding everyone's attention but mine. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Jackson is with Lindsay. They could very well be reigniting their adolescent relationship at the moment. I wonder how much, if anything, he knows of what she did. Did Blythe and Constance ever tell him that she had been behind everything that happened that night?