Intertwined Read online

  I pulled back from him. “What do you mean not here?”

  He stared back at me. “That’s the only bargain I can give you. Not here. Not in front of you.”

  “Travis, I don’t want you to get in trouble, too,” I said in a desperate voice.

  He laughed humorlessly. “Your ex-boyfriend bruised you up and you’re worried about me? I can take care of myself, Brianne,” he said. “And don’t worry. I’ll make sure he lives to learn the lesson.”

  “Travis…” I started.

  He shook his head. “Don’t change my mind, Brianne,” he said. “I promised your brother I would take care of you.”

  “And you are!” I argued.

  He looked at my bruised forearm. “Not good enough.”

  “You can’t look after me twenty-four seven.”

  “Maybe I should do that from now on,” he said.

  “You can’t!”

  “Sure I can…if only to make sure you’re safe.”

  “I’m safe. A little bruise will not kill me.”

  “Nevertheless…he should have left you spotless,” he said in a sober voice.

  I smiled at him ruefully. I placed my hand on his cheek. “Travis…two years ago, you didn’t even care about whether or not I tripped and fell on the stairs.”

  “Just because I didn’t show it doesn’t mean I didn’t care at all,” he said. “And your brother gave me a new reason to live for now.”

  “I can’t be the only thing you care about in this life.”

  He sighed. “You are now,” he said. “And I mean it. Not here. That’s the only promise I can make you.”

  I gave up. “Travis…whatever you do, just please don’t end up in a hospital bed, in jail, or worse, in the same place where Tom is! I still haven’t recovered from his death. I would go mad if I were to lose you, too.”

  “That’s touching. Two years ago you wouldn’t even have cared if I got run over by a train.”

  “Well, Tom’s given me a reason to live, too!” I muttered.

  He finally laughed. “Touché.” He pulled me into his arms again and we continued dancing.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I’m starving,” I said to him.

  He pulled away from me. “Come. Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Before I end up breaking my promise not to beat up your ex-boyfriend before your eyes.”

  The following Monday, Cindy came and met me in the hallway with some news.

  “Ben told me that Liam got cornered by your guy yesterday after playing basketball with some of the guys. Travis Cross got out of his Bentley and went for Liam. He pushed him against the wall and told him that he had no right to hurt a hair on your body. Liam actually got scared. He went blank for a long while. Then Travis punched him and told him to never to come near you again.” Cindy stared at me dreamily. “Wow! Travis Cross! Seeing you together sent shivers down my spine! You can’t be that affectionate and just purely platonic.”

  “But we are,” I sighed, remembering Liam again. “Dating is not a piece of cake, huh?”

  “You can go through a chain of boyfriends and still find yourself marrying your safety guy at age forty.” She looked at me. “Well, in your case, thirty. But the problem is, you don’t have a safety guy.”

  “A what?” I echoed.

  “Safety guy. You know, that guy who promises to marry you when you reach a certain age and you’re nowhere close to getting married at all.”

  An idea played in my head. What if, just in case I didn’t find my true love by the time I was thirty, I married somebody who was willing to marry me? A good friend, even a gay friend. We would be married only on paper.

  I might or might not find the guy I would spend my ‘forever’ with by the time I was thirty, I realized. But it helped to know that whatever happened, I’d be married…I wouldn’t be cursed for the rest of my life.

  The next day, I asked Travis to meet me in front of my house. I’d given this a lot of thought the night before. It was the only thing that actually made sense. It was my insurance to take the pressure off and not chase guys or be desperate to fall in love all the time.

  I stared up at Travis nervously after asking him the most difficult favor I would ever have to ask anybody.

  “You said you’d look out for me,” I told him. “Please?” I almost begged.

  “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” he said in a frustrated tone. He usually didn’t show emotion. But now, he made no effort to hide any of it. “Are you crazy?”

  I sighed. “Maybe. But I’m desperate.”

  He looked at me with narrowed eyes. I thought he was mad at me, but what I saw in his eyes was actually…frustration. “You’re a silly little girl!”

  “I know! But I don’t know what I’m going to do when that time comes.”

  “It’s fourteen years down the line, Brianne!” he said. “You’re crazy to think that you can’t find a man by then!”

  “I’m not saying I won’t be able to. I’m saying…I need a reassurance that I will be married even if I don’t find someone else.”

  He raised his chin to the sky and closed his eyes. “Of all the things to ask me, bro, why this?” he whispered more to himself, and I realized that he meant that for my brother.

  Travis stared at me again. He didn’t say a word. And then with an icy expression on his face, he stormed away.

  I stood there alone and felt embarrassed. I knew I shouldn’t have asked him that. When we first met each other, I didn’t like him one bit. And now, I’d asked him to marry me!

  I didn’t see Travis for the next two days, and I was thankful. I was too embarrassed about the favor I had asked him. I couldn’t believe that I was as brazen as that.

  I was on my balcony one afternoon and I decided to draw. Whenever I felt bad, I channeled all those feelings onto my canvas. This time, I drew something dark, evil...and handsome. It was too late when I realized that the image that I drew of the demon clad in a leather jacket looked like Travis. His face was the same…but I’d given him fangs and fire eyeballs.

  “You couldn’t be that mad at me,” I heard a familiar voice say behind me.

  My heart skipped a beat as I realized that I’d been caught red-handed. I spun around and found Travis looking down at me.

  I was surprised because this was probably the first time Travis had come inside my house again after my brother had died.

  “I…forgot you used to come here.” I knew I was blushing violently.

  Immediately, I flipped over the canvas to remove the spitting image in front of him. He didn’t say anything.

  “What do you want?” I asked him.

  “The last time I checked, it was you who wanted something from me,” he replied.

  I raised a brow. “Well, you could just forget I ever said anything to you!” I turned away from him to pick up my brushes and my pencils.

  “I’ll do it,” he said quietly.

  I turned to face him again. “What?”

  “I said I’ll do it,” he repeated. “I’ll be your safety guy.” I was dumbfounded. He stepped closer to me. “In fourteen years, if you aren’t married yet, or nowhere close to marching down the aisle, I’ll marry you.”

  “Travis…you probably won’t have to do it anyway,” I said. “I mean…fourteen years is a lot of time, right?”

  “Yes. But you can be a handful,” he said evenly.

  I sighed. “If it makes you feel better, I only meant that we’re going to marry on paper. You can still go ahead, screw as many girls as you want. We’ll only appear married in front of my relatives and then we’ll divorce after two to five years. No pressure.”

  He stared at me for a while, studying me and absorbing what I had just said to him. “I didn’t intend to marry at all, Brianne,” he said quietly. “I don’t have faith in marriage. You have to remember that my parents haven’t been seeing each other for almost half of my life, and yet they remain married on paper…for money…for power, for political reason
s. I’ll marry you…but I’ll just be a guy who will meet you at the altar. You cannot expect anything more from me.”

  I smiled. “Yes. That’s all I wanted.”

  He nodded.

  I felt relieved, quite thankful that he was willing to play this game with me. In truth, I knew it might not happen anyway. I could fall in love and marry right after college. Or I could find him at the last minute…on my thirtieth birthday.

  But still, I was quite thankful that Travis had given in to my little request…if only just to give me peace of mind. I didn’t really know how to thank him. So I leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  “Thank you, Travis,” I said to him. “You’re not such a bad guy.”

  He almost scowled and looked like I had just offended him.

  I turned to fix my brushes and my pencils again. “You know…when I told you about this…you could have said no right away. Or you…could have said yes to me anyway. Who knows what could happen in fourteen years? Why did you have to wait two days to give me your answer?”

  No answer. For a while, I thought he’d left without another word, but when I turned around, he was still there, standing in the same spot.

  “I had to think about it,” he said. “It’s my life you’re asking from me.”

  I giggled humorlessly. “Come on, Trav. You take things seriously. All I wanted was some peace of mind. Do you really think nobody’s going to propose to me in fourteen years?”

  He took a deep breath. “A lot of guys will fall at your feet and hope to be your husband,” he said. “But nevertheless…I don’t make promises I do not intend to keep.” Then he turned on his heel and left.

  Chapter Five

  It took a while after Liam before I dated seriously again. Senior year, I was in love with Trip Jacobs. He was the captain of the basketball team and one of the most popular guys on campus. He was cute with blond hair and hazel eyes. For months, my world revolved around basketball leagues. I never missed a game. I especially loved it when he shot three points, looked at the crowd at the bleachers where he knew I would be sitting, tapped his heart and then gave a thumbs-up sign. I knew that was meant for me.

  After Liam, I dated another guy before Trip. David was head of the debate team. He was smart and funny as well as cute. I thought we had a connection. We went out for the whole year. Then he went to a ski trip with his family. I saw less of him after that. And then one night, he had a glum look on his face and told me that he hadn’t been honest with me. He’d been seeing someone else behind my back. He ended it with her, but he wanted to be honest with me. He said that it was just all sex and nothing else, and it was over. But I couldn’t take him back after that. I could not bring myself to kiss him knowing that he might have been kissing someone else or doing worse things with her.

  “Now I’m dating the hottest guy in school.”

  “No offense, sweetie, but I do not think he’s the hottest guy on campus,” Cindy said. “He’s hot, yes. But not really the hottest.”

  “He’s the hottest of all my boyfriends,” I said.

  “I don’t know. You have a thing for blond guys. I find them…a little meek.” She giggled.

  “Okay, if Trip is not the hottest guy in campus, then who is? I mean…he’s the captain of the basketball team, he has a Porsche, he’s a straight-A student, and he looks like Barbie’s Ken with hazel eyes.”

  “Well, you know me. We’ve always had different tastes. I wonder why we’re best friends.”

  I laughed. “All right. I wonder who you find worthy of being called the ‘hottest’ guy in campus, then?”

  She stared at the ceiling thoughtfully and then said, “Travis Cross.”

  “Amen!” Amanda Jones, who had her locker beside Cindy’s, said. She beamed at us. “No offense, either, Brianne. Trip is hot. But Travis Cross? Out-of-this-world hot!” Then she walked away.

  Well, I guess even I couldn’t refute that. Travis was easily the hottest guy I’d met, but growing up with him and hating him from the beginning, and now thinking of him as a sort of replacement brother and guardian to me, made it difficult for me to look at him in a sexual way.

  “If Travis Cross was my safety guy, honey, I’d do whatever it took to stay single until the deadline so he’d be honor-bound to marry me!” Cindy teased.

  “Then I’ll die a virgin!” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “You’re still a virgin?” Mich Jackson, who had her locker beside mine, asked.

  I stared at her and then at Cindy. “Is it eavesdropping day today?”

  Mich laughed. “It’s eavesdropping day every day, sweetie.” She laughed and then looked at me again. “So are you?”

  “With all due respect, it’s none of your business.”

  “Well, I hope nothing’s wrong with you. No wonder David and Liam screwed around. Word of advice, honey: Don’t stay a virgin for too long. Men these days prefer a vixen in bed, not a little girl at slumber parties.” Then she strode off.

  I looked at Cindy and she was eyeing me wearily. “What?” I asked.

  “I hate to admit it, but she has a point. I lost mine two years ago. My brother’s best friend was so hot and my parents’ bed seemed so tempting.”

  “Cindy!”

  She laughed. “It’s no big deal, Brianne. Nowadays, if you haven’t gone to bed with a guy, it may mean that there’s something wrong with you. Either you don’t have the capability of being aroused or you cannot seduce a guy to…do things to you.”

  “I didn’t want to just give myself to a guy who would cheat on me the next day.”

  “I gave mine to someone who wasn’t my boyfriend, so he couldn’t really cheat on me.”

  “I don’t want to give it to a random guy, either.”

  “Ouch!” Cindy feigned an offended look. “He’s not some random guy! He’s…a good friend. He won’t disappear from my life overnight, and since we’re not dating, he’s not gonna cheat on me. Brilliant, isn’t it?”

  I rolled my eyes. Then Trip’s handsome grin appeared in my mind, and suddenly I became excited. “Well, prom is just around the corner.”

  “You want your first time to be magical?”

  “I want it to be special. I want to remember it someday, have a smile on my face and think…‘Wow! That was good!’ Even if I don’t end up marrying the guy, at least I won’t have regrets.”

  ***

  “Oh my God, Brianne, I think you’re the talk of the town!” Cindy called me that evening. “I got a broadcast message in my mail. And I think it’s about you.”

  I went to my laptop and checked my mail. True enough, our Campus Bulletin showed this broadcast message: Virgin Mary. Guess whose virtue has no takers? Clue: Bubble Gum girl who sports a boy’s nickname.

  “This bulletin is supposed to be for important stuff. Like dances, fairs, and competition schedules. Who the hell posts gossip like this?” I asked angrily.

  “But this section is a hit! That’s why they didn’t abolish it. Kids at school probably only subscribe to the bulletin because of the gossip.”

  “Okay, so who cares if I’m still a virgin?” I turned off my laptop, not letting this further affect me.

  “About a hundred other people,” Cindy replied weakly.

  “What?”

  “Let’s see. Three hundred hits and a hundred comments.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “They’re justifying why David and Liam cheated on you. And some others are betting on how long it will take for Trip to…slam dunk.”

  “Holy shit!”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. “Kids can be so mean!” Cindy said sympathetically. “There’s really nothing wrong with being a virgin at eighteen. So you’re inexperienced. So what? That doesn’t mean you’re frigid or unwanted.”

  I was on the verge of crying. For a while, I had been proud that I remained untouched. But now I wished I’d given in to David’s advances or even Trip’s subtle hints at going to bed. Why was t
here so much pressure on this in the first place?

  I could not believe I was the subject of such mean gossip. The whole campus could be a bunch of sluts and whores for all I care. Why did they have to curse me for trying to be different?

  I didn’t want my first time to be meaningless. I was curious about sex, but I wanted it to be with someone who had respect for me. Who would not use my body as just a means of pleasure and nothing more. I wanted it to mean something to him, too. And I wanted to share it with some guy who would always be dear to me whenever I thought of him.

  Was I the only one on campus who was a virgin? Why did kids have to make so much of an issue out of this? Why did they care? And why did gossip have to be in print nowadays?

  I felt like everybody had been talking about me in every conversation at the moment. And my lack of sex life was the center of attention. Whoever said that there was no pressure to lose their virginity nowadays could kiss my ass! It was happening now. Sure, they didn’t tell you to do it. They just judged you or gossiped about you if you didn’t. What’s the freaking difference?

  I got hold of my brush and painted a roomful of flowers and candles in perfect romantic hues. I didn’t know why, but suddenly, inspiration came over me and I imagined a marbled room, a king-sized bed, flowers, and candles. I guess lovemaking was also on my mind. I was imagining how I wanted it to be. As I looked at it, I couldn’t imagine how kids could bear to lose theirs in an attic or in the back of a car.

  As I thought about it, I got angrier. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, and I wasn’t even aware of it. The last thing I wanted was to be the talk of the town…especially when it came to being unwanted. My family had a lame tradition of marrying young and being wanted before the age of thirty-one. I just wanted to be invisible. I didn’t want to be the center of attention or unwanted talk at all. But with my dating history, I’d provided everybody at school some juicy things to talk about.

  I felt an arm around my shoulder, giving me a squeeze. I was startled to realize that I was no longer alone. I looked up and found Travis looking down at me wearily.

  “I was staring at your painting and I don’t get it. I don’t get how you can cry over a…bed,” he said.