To Save You (7 page)

“No.” I smile.

We get back into my car and I drive to the small frozen yogurt place. Immediately, Presley goes for the pure chocolate. I go for Oreo.

“Don’t judge me.” Presley says as she goes to the topping bar.

“For what?”

“My topping choices.” I watch as she puts things on her yogurt that should never go together, I didn’t even recognize half of the toppings, and I chuckle.

“Does it taste good?” I ask her.

“Yes, very good.”

“Then add it to my cup as well.” She smiles at me and adds the same toppings to mine. I pay for our cups and we sit by the window.

“Try it.” She says when she sees that I haven’t even touched it. I take a scoop and put it in my mouth. I expected it to be an acquired taste, but it turns out to be one of the best frozen yogurt cups I’ve ever had.

“That’s really good. I’ll be damned.” She bites her lip to hold in her smile. I can’t stop staring at her lips now.

I was really falling for this girl fast.

The date was a success, and I dropped her off at her dorm. I walked her straight to her dorm.

“Is this the part where you bid me goodnight with a kiss?” Presley asks. She has a way of talking that it’s just so different from others. I loved the way she talked.

“It is, but I don’t think I want to say goodbye just yet.” I had her hand in mine, it fit perfectly and I didn’t want to let go of her.

“My roommate is out of town until Monday, we can hang out in my room.” Presley looked at me with those big blue eyes.

“Okay.” I almost stopped breathing.

She opened her dorm room and we stepped inside. Presley walked over to her bed, and sat down, crossing her legs. I sat next to her, trying not to look at her legs.

“Kiss me.” She says.

I brought her face to mine and I kissed her. I didn’t want to push her to do something she didn’t want to do, so I let her take control. She climbed onto my lap and I placed my hands on her legs. They were so damn soft.

I rubbed my thumb across her inner thigh and she squirmed against me. I was hard as a rock. I went higher, again doing what I did before and she moaned. I ran my finger across her heat to realize that she was already so wet.

“Mathew, touch me. Please.” She said in between kisses.

“My pleasure.” I slipped my hand into her wet panties.

Chapter Thirteen

Presley Masters

I could feel myself rising higher and higher than I ever have before. That was the only way to describe it.

Mathew pressed his fingers against me and I just kissed him harder. Then he slipped a finger inside my core and began pumping it in and out. That feeling and with him pressing my clit, I just couldn’t stop what was stirring inside of me.

I pulled away from him, and my insides felt like there was a million butterflies. It felt so good. I have lost control of myself, any other time that would have scared me, but this time, it was a good feeling that I let in.

“Are you okay?” Mathew asks while I take some time to recover. I nod, still unable to speak.

“Presley?” I hear Finn. “We need to talk.” He was outside my dorm room. Why the hell was he here? I needed my space from him, he needed to understand that I didn’t want more than a friendship from him.

“Why is he here?” Mathew whispers.

“The RA told me he saw you come in. I know you’re in there, Presley.” I got off Mathews lap and I walked over to the door. I opened it to find a distraught Finn.

“Finn, what are you doing here?”

“I thought you hurt yourself, that’s what! You haven’t been to any of your classes, and I know you promised you wouldn’t do it ag-“ I must’ve looked panic, cause he stopped looking at me and looked inside my dorm. “Oh.” He says when he realizes that I am not alone. Mathew is inside with me.

“We’ll talk later.” I say slowly.

“No, I want to hear what he was going to say.” Mathew says. Finn looks at me and then at him. I plead with my eyes for him not to say anything. My suicide attempt over a year ago was a mistake, something I knew I didn’t want to go through with. It was something I didn’t want Mathew knowing about me, yet.

“Not my business.” Finn says, talking to Mathew. I feel some relief. “It’s up to her to tell you her demons.” Finn leaves. I don’t want to turn around, I don’t want to see the hurt in Mathew’s face. I’m sure he could fill in the holes.

“I want to tell you.” I begin. “I’m just not ready.” I don’t know if I will ever be ready to tell him what haunts me.

“We don’t have to talk about this today.” My bubbly mood was once again gone. I looked at Mathew. “But we will have to talk about it eventually.” I nod and he kisses me softly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He says and then he walks out of my dorm. I close the door and I plop myself on my bed. I didn’t want to mess this up. I really did like Mathew.

For the next two weeks everything is great. I don’t have a bad day, and I haven’t hurt myself in that long as well. Mathew is kind and caring. I honestly do not deserve him. If I live a hundred lifetimes, I wouldn’t deserve him in any of them.

We still haven’t told James, so we’re still sneaking around like teenagers in high school. So far James doesn’t seem suspicious about us. It helps that lately he seems to be a little distracted.

I’m worried about James. Not being able to play soccer has really gotten to him. According to Mathew, he’s out more, drinking like there’s no tomorrow, sleeping with girls and using them like tissues.

Dessie has even noticed. When I slept over her apartment, she told me how every day at one in the morning, or around that time, James would walk into his apartment building with a new girl. The said girl would then do the walk of shame around eight in the morning.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to talk to him, but I talk myself out of it every time. I don’t know how to approach him with that subject. I’m afraid of him lashing out, to be honest. I’ve seen it before, and I don’t want it done unto me.

“You look worried.” Mathew’s voice brings me out of my thoughts. I look at him and smile. Him and his green eyes always make me smile.

“I’m fine.” He frowns. I’ve noticed that Mathew doesn’t like it when I say that I’m fine, I think it’s because he knows that I’m not. “Really, I’m okay.” I lie and kiss him to make him forget about it.

“Presley!” I hear Dessie whisper/scream in the library. We’re so far back that I know the librarian won’t care if we talk with our normal voices.

I pull away and see Dessie. She’s in my oversized sweater, I let her borrow it, and she’s wearing jeans and boots. She can pull off any outfit together and she would look gorgeous in it, I swear she should be a model.

“What’s up?” I ask.

She pushes makes Mathew scoot over and she sits in between us. There was a reason behind why Dessie did that. Mathew and I had trouble keeping our hands off each other, making it harder for me to concentrate.

“I got us tickets to Afterlife.” My eyes widened. Afterlife was an up and coming Indie band. I randomly came across them one time while I was book shopping, the book store was playing their music and a lyric made me stop. I’ve loved them ever since.

“Who is Afterlife?” Mathew asks, peering over to ask me. I smile at him.

“A band who speaks from our hearts and makes us cry and feel.” Dessie says for us very dramatically. She was in love with them ever since I showed her them, and very determined to go see them live on their current tour.

I look at Mathew. “What she said.”

“When are you two going to go see them?”

“Tomorrow night.” Twenty four hours from now we would be there. I would be bringing my photo camera to hopefully get some good pictures. I wanted to remember that night.

“I talked to my parents, they said it was fine to stay at the house.” They weren’t going to be home, and it would be empty without the staff, so they couldn’t care less if we stayed there as long as we didn’t make a mess.

I could see the worry in Mathew’s face again. He was afraid, and I had no idea why. I haven’t hurt myself, or had suicidal ideations. For the first time in my life I felt…stable. Maybe I was getting better.

I looked down and I listened to Dessie talk about our plans. She seemed to be oblivious to some tension. Mathew’s tension.

I didn’t want him to worry, but I knew he had something to worry about. I still hadn’t talked to him about what haunted me, but he wasn’t pushing me to tell him. Did I want to tell him? Of course! I just wasn’t mentally ready to let him into that part of my very dark mind. Will I ever be ready to hand him
my burden?

Chapter Fourteen

Mathew Pennington

I ran into the elevator before it could close. Finn Riley muttered something and looked away. He knew. Before I could even get the words out of my mouth, he looked at me and began to speak.

“You should really let Presley tell you this.”

“And she will tell me when she’s ready, but I need to know now.” He shakes his head. “Please.”

“You could have any girl on this campus. And you chose her. Why?” Finn asked. “You could have picked a girl who didn’t come with as much baggage as she does. We both know that she’s not okay, and most likely never will be.”

I pushed him against the wall. “Don’t talk like she has no chance at being happy. If anyone deserves to be happy and whole is her. It may take some work to get her there, but I’m willing to be patient and help her out.”

Finn didn’t look happy, and he pushed me back. I took a step back and took a breath. I wanted to hurt him.

“Okay, now that I know you’re serious about her, I’m going to tell you.” He made me angry just to see if I was serious about Presley? “She tried to kill herself a few months before she went off to Europe.”

My heart dropped. “What?”

“You heard me. Presley calls it her one bad day. I think she’s in denial about what she has. I’ve known her for five years and I’ve noticed things about her. Her self-harm, how she goes through times of serious depression and too much happiness.” I guess my expression gives it all away. “You’ve noticed it, too. I believe she has some type of mood disorder. Maybe Bipolar, or maybe it’s Borderline Personality Disorder. Presley refuses to go to a doctor, her parents and brother are clueless about what she’s going through.”

“What happened when she tried to kill herself?” I ask, afraid of the answer.

“She took a few pills, called me, threw them up. I sat with her all night to make sure she hadn’t overdosed, my dad is a doctor so I had his number on speed dial. Now, she refuses to ever talk about her bad day. Presley thinks unloading on someone is selfish, and she would never hand out her burdens onto someone else.” Meaning, she’ll be reluctant to open up to me. “Anyway, afterward, she planned her trip to Europe. I didn’t see her until that day in the library. For a moment, I let myself believe that maybe she was doing better.”

Every time I look at Presley, all I can think about is the time she once thought she wasn’t worth anything. Maybe she still thinks that, and every time I see her getting lost in herself, I try and bring her back. I fear the one day that I can’t.

It was hard not to convince her to not go to the concert, I had this horrible feeling. I sucked it up, though, and I pretended that I was happy.

“Now you look upset.” Presley says when we’re lying down in her bed after an intense make out session. That’s all we’ve been doing, making out, and then I’ll finger her. I’m only going at the speed she wants me to go at, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

“I’m just thinking about the last soccer game.” It was on Friday and it was against our biggest rivals, Northwestern.

“You’re going to be great, you always are.” Presley starts kissing my neck. “Do I need to take your mind off that?” She says in this low sexy voice, my cock immediately hardens.

“How do you plan on doing that?” I ask her.

I’ve noticed that Presley likes to be in control, she likes to be on top when we make out, she likes to initiate things first. I watch as Presley takes off her sweater, once again to reveal to me that she does not wear shirts underneath. Then I watch her take off her bra to reveal her beautiful breasts.

I was never a boob guy before Presley, but now, I definitely am. Hers are just so perfect and round.

“Does this help?” She asks, and I answer her by slipping my mouth over her breast, and grabbing the other one with my hand.

I hear her little soft breaths and moans. I rub my thumb over her nipple and she whimpers from how sensitive they are.

“More. I want more, Mathew.”

“What do you want me to do?” I ask her, teasing her lower stomach with soft lingering kisses.

“I want you inside me.” I looked at her. Her eyes were full of sureness.

“What?”

“I know we haven’t really talked about this, but I am sure.” I hesitated. “Wait. Are you not sure?” She reached for her sweater and slipped it on and got off my lap.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t sure.” What if she did have Bipolar disorder? What if she was having a manic episode, I would be taking advantage of her. I thought about this every time I touched her.

“Then what’s wrong?” I could see she was close to tears. “Do I not turn you on? It’s the scars isn’t it.”

“That’s not it!”

She shakes her head. “You need to go.” Presley opens her dorm door and I just stare at her. “Please leave!”

I knew what would happen if I left. She could possibly hurt herself. I needed Dessie or even Finn to come over and calm her down, I needed someone there with her if I couldn’t be. I stood up.

“Promise you’re not going to hurt yourself.”

“I’m not going to hurt myself, now please go.” I nod and I leave. She slams the door and I stop walking.

I know I should be in there, helping her deal with this, but I don’t know how. Does anyone know how?

I wake up around two in the morning to my phone ringing, but by the time I find it, the ringing stopped. Dessie was calling me. Why was she calling me so late? I had so many missed calls from her.

There was a knock on my door and James came in, hopping on one leg. I was surprised he was even home, lately he’s been at so many parties just screwing anything that walked. James threw the phone at me.