“Wake up.” I thought ignoring him would make him leave, but Justin only started to poke the shit out of my shoulder and shake me to get my attention.

“What do you want?” I turned over and looked at him hovering over me.

“What if I told you it meant a lot more than I’m making it out to be?”

“You woke me up to tell me this shit Jay? I thought the conversation was dropped once I started to get daggers shot at me. Get off of me so I can back to sleep.”

“I’m serious La.”

“What would you like me to do about that? You have a girlfriend that I know you wouldn’t break up with for me, so let it go.” This boy wasn’t lying; he really did like to kiss. I didn’t even know it was coming, but his lips crashed onto mine hungrily and immediately I let his tongue roam inside my mouth. I started to feel added weight on me when he propped himself up onto one arm. I felt his hands roam down over my breasts that were covered by only a tank top and then stop when he got to the area right below my belly button. I broke apart from kissing him and just looked at him to ask what he was doing, but I couldn’t get out anything because he started to kiss me sporadically in between answering the question I was going to ask.

“Let… me… do… this. Please.” Justin moved his hand from my stomach and brought it to the drawstring of my PINK sweatpants. The last time I had been as nervous as I was that night was the time I lost my virginity back when I was 15; I didn’t know what to do or how to react to Justin’s sudden change in attitude towards me.

“Do what?” I really didn’t have to ask, because his hand was slowly untying my pants and easing them down my past waist. “Oh hell no Justin, Jessica is right upstairs and Trace is in the next room. No, we can’t do this.” But he didn’t listen to my protests, and I didn’t even really want him to stop. I’m sure he knew that I wanted him to go further. I don’t doubt that he wanted to either; I had hope in the back of my head at that moment that things would be different in the morning, that we would have realized by having sex that our feelings for each other were more serious than we thought. I was very naïve to think that Jessica would be out of the picture after we had gone through with it.

But when I woke up the next morning he was gone. As bad as my relationship was with Tommy he never left me in the morning after sex; even if he made me feel worthless he never made me feel cheap like I was just meant for him to get a release and left me in bed alone. Jessica or no Jessica I would have at least expected Justin to stay, it’s not like she didn’t know we slept in the same bed on occasion.

I got out of bed and put on my tank top, which was the only article of clothing I hadn’t put back on after the night before, and walked out into the kitchen to only find my favorite midget eating a bowl of cereal and watching the small TV that was on the counter.

“Morning Trace.” I walked over to him and kissed his forehead before opening the fridge to see what Rachel had picked up at the grocery store when she went grocery shopping.

“Hey, you went to bed kinda early last night. I didn’t see you up when I got home.” I thought he would have been in bed asleep when everything had gone down.

“I was tired from traveling from Jersey to Memphis to here. And Justin and Jessica were in the living room making me sick so I needed to get away from that.”

“Right.” I told you I can’t lie to Trace, my mother and everyone else maybe, but lying to Trace and Justin and getting away with it would be a cold day in hell. He knew something was wrong with me, I could tell by the way his eyes danced up and down my face.

“What?”

“First of all LaLa, you suck at lying. Second of all, I came back super fucking late last night and heard some heavy ass panting coming from your room. Now I thought maybe you were working out or something, you know trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but then I heard Justin let out some what of a laugh. Oh then I heard someone whisper when moaning started to accompany that heavy panting. Now by then I was just like, ‘well maybe their watching porn together or something’ because I know you guys are nasty like that sometimes and think that type of shit is funny. But then I heard you moan his name through my walls when I had closed the door to my room. So are you going to look me in the face again and tell me that you had in fact gone to be early? Or are you going to cut the bull with me and tell me why.” I knew that it was a bad idea for us to have sex. God damn you Trace. I didn’t speak; all I could do was sit down across from him and put my head down in shame.

“He came into your room? Or was he invited there by you?”

“I really did go to sleep. When I went to bed him and Jess were watching TV.”

“So he just woke you up and asked you for sex? And you just let him?” Why does Trace have to act like my father? My own father doesn’t speak to me in the tone that he was using? He really knows how to make someone feel stupid for their actions.

“When you put it that way it sounds so bad. Before Jessica came back to the house we were talking about us kissing, and I told him that it meant a lot more to me than he thought but he didn’t say that it meant anything to him. When he came in my room he was just like ‘what if it meant a lot more than I make it seem’ and we started to kiss. One thing lead to another and BAM before I knew it we had sex and I hate to admit it Tee, but it was fucking spectacular...” He made a disgusted face through chewing his food and shook his head.

“Spare me the details, I’m eating. But I have to say La, I’m surprised at you. I didn’t think you’d ever let things go that far with him.”

“I didn’t think so either, I wasn’t thinking straight. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sure it won’t happen again. If it does you can…have my car, I promise.” I guess he wasn’t up for joking about it like we usually did when we would talk about Justin and I kissing. He didn’t say anything to me in response. We sat there in silence for a few minutes before Trace got up and put his bowl in the sink and started to head towards the door with keys in his hand.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Do you want company?”

“No.” Ouch.

“Oh, wow. Okay.”

“I’ll be back in a while. Jessica and them went shopping, and Rach went to the doctors. Justin left and didn’t say where he was going.” I just nodded my head and continued to devour the cereal I was eating, thinking about what I was going to do during the day all by my lonesome.

After mind blowing sex you’re supposed to feel great, aren’t you? I was feeling anything but great. I couldn’t tell if Trace was upset with me; usually if he was going somewhere he would ask me to go but he was anything but receptive of me after I was called out on my sexual escapade with Justin. Here I was, supposed to be enjoying myself in Aspen and instead I was sitting miserably in the kitchen of a beautiful house, alone. Holidays aren’t supposed to be like that; Christmas is supposed to be a happy time of year, not a time of year when your life gets fucked up to a point of no return. Shit, if I would have known things were going to get that way on the second day of being in Colorado, I would have stayed home and listened to my mom either bitch and complain or gush over Isaac and Jim the whole fucking week.