No Turning Back - Chapter 39: Chapter 39

I've always hated the looming feeling of knowing that something bad was coming. I'd always get anxious as my stomach filled with raging butterflies as the bad event came getting closer and closer. When I was younger, usually I would feel this way about spelling bees and other stupid academic events that my parents had put me in. Hell, I'd even gotten the feeling during sports when I knew we were playing a team that was way better than we were. But somehow, those eerie butterflies in my stomach couldn't compare to the ones I was feeling now. The ones that resided in my stomach were much more deadly and thought consuming. All I could think about sometimes was the Sunday afternoon that was approaching me and what would happen when it finally came to be the present. That Thursday night as well as Friday night, I'd had terrible dreams of Jayden's and I's coming break up. Although I was trying so hard to rid myself of those thoughts and try to enjoy the time I had left with my emerald eyed boyfriend, I found it hard to. I just kept looking at his beautiful face and remembering that I may not ever see it again after Sunday. Sure, I had plenty of pictures of us together but it wouldn't be the same.
I wouldn't be able to physically touch his high cheekbones with my fingertips or tangle my hands into his silky curls or stare into his vibrant eyes or kiss his full lips. I could only stare at them in pictures and reminisce what they felt like. I hoped that I would never forget...if I did then I don't know what I'd do. I needed to hold on to whatever memories I had of him. I loved him too much to just let him fade away as the years went by.
It was Saturday morning now and I was lying in bed with Jayden, his strong arms wrapped tight around my waist. I was staring down at his peaceful, sleeping face, trying to mold the image into my brain. I wished that I could tell him that I didn't want us to break up but I knew that a breakup was inevitable. There was nothing either of us could do. We'd already established that a long time ago. Reluctantly, I got out of the bed and went downstairs. I had to make breakfast for him just as I had been doing for the past couple of days. Today, I decided to whip up some cinnamon pancakes along with some bacon, eggs, and toast. The smell must've woken Jayden up since he wandered into the kitchen a little after ten.
"Morning sleepy head," I told him as he walked towards me, rubbing at his eyes. A sleepy smile came upon his face as he grabbed my hips and pulled me against him.
"Morning," he said before kissing me softly. The kiss was a quick peck but the butterflies in my stomach still managed to go into frenzy at the slight touch of his soft lips. "This smells good," he told me.
"Thanks. It's all for you."
"Mmm, this is why I love you." I chuckled as he let me go and sat down at the table. We ate breakfast quietly before heading back upstairs to get cleaned up. We were going to go on another hike later to pass the time. First, we'd optioned to just stay home and lay around since we had been busy the entire time we'd been here. But, Jayden convinced me that we should do something for our last day and just lay around Sunday morning. So, we did go on our long hike through the woods. We didn't really see anything interesting. We just walked around aimlessly and talked about stupid stuff. Jayden somehow held in whatever he was feeling inside about our coming breakup and managed to keep the mood light between us. I was grateful for his optimism but it didn't help much since it wasn't going to change anything.
Later that night, as we were eating dinner, Jayden got a call on his cell phone. He seemed to be annoyed as he answered the phone and left the room so that he could have some privacy. I continued to sit there in my seat, bouncing my leg. I had something planned for him when we were done eating and I would admit that I was nervous about it. I'd spontaneously thought of it on Thursday night before I went to sleep. I had reasoned with myself about my affections for him and the way in which I wanted to show him how strong those affections were. I'd reasoned with myself before about it but I'd never gotten the courage to actually own up to it. Since tonight was more than likely our last night together, I figured that there was no better time to do what I needed to do. I wanted to make this night count. I wanted to this night to be good. I wanted this night to be special...
"Sorry about that," Jayden said as he came back to sit across from me at the table. "That was my new Lieutenant."
"What did he want?"
Jayden shrugged as he rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I have no idea. I think he was just reminding me of where I had to be on Tuesday and at what time. He seems nice...for the moment anyway."
"You're going to boot camp, right?"
Jayden held my gaze for a moment before he looked away. "No. I'm actually going to one of the military bases and then I'm going to get deployed off to the Middle East with my new team."
"You're going to be fighting already," I asked as my stomach took a flip in fear. "I thought you had to go through training first."
"I did go through training already. I went last summer when I turned eighteen. They wanted me to finish my high school education so they weren't going to deploy me until this fall."
"So, you knew all this time that you were going to be deployed all this time?" My stomach quivered in fear and worry as I thought about him being on the battlefield so early. Now, I was questioning our coming breakup. I didn't want him to be out fighting with nothing to fight for. He may not remember his crazy talks but I sure did. My mind went to his words about wanting to die out there and I felt my heart start to crack. I had promised him that he would have something to come home to and now...now he'll have almost no reason to come home.
"Yea," he murmured. "But look, I don't want you to be upset over it. I didn't tell you because I was afraid that you wouldn't want to be with me anymore. Or that you'd be all on edge or something. Things don't exactly go smoothly when other people know that they only have a certain amount of time with someone."
"I'm not upset," I told him. "I'm just...surprised, that's all. Are you...are you sure that you want to do this tomorrow?"
Jayden raised an eyebrow at me. "Do what," he asked absentmindedly. I held his gaze for a moment before I looked down. I couldn't bring the words to come out of my mouth so I just sat there, waiting patiently for him to remember. "Oh," he murmured after a moment. "I'm sure."
"It's okay if you don't want to go through with separating. I mean, I can...we can work things out. I can write you and you can write me and everything will be okay. Right?"
"Daniel, I don't want to hold you back from living your life to the fullest. You're not going to enjoy yourself at college if you're too busy worrying about me all the time. You barely enjoyed yourself in high school by just worrying about yourself. It'll be better if we just...go our separate ways tomorrow. We're leaving it at good terms, shouldn't that be enough?"
"I guess it has to be." Jayden nodded, looking down at his empty plate. "Do you want some more? Or are you finished?"
"I'm finished," he murmured. I nodded and got up to take our plates and throw them in the trash. I didn't hear him move but I did feel his strong arms as they wrapped around my waist and his lips went to my ear. "Stop thinking about it. Please. Just enjoy this last night with me. Can you do that," he whispered, his hot breath tickling my sensitive skin. I nodded.
"Do you want some ice cream for dessert or anything?" I asked as I turned around in his arms to face him. He was staring at me, his vibrant eyes trailing over my body slowly as a playful gleam arose in them. I felt my cheeks burn as I figured out that he was mentally undressing me.
"That depends," he purred. "Are you on the menu?" I blushed deeper as I nodded slowly. Jayden raised an eyebrow, pulling my body against his as he took a step forward. He pinned me against the counter, his emerald eyes burning into my ocean blue ones. "Oh really," he murmured.
"I...I thought that we could...ya know...since it's our last night... I wanted...I wanted to make it special."
"Are you sure this is what you want," he asked, his hands skimming softly over my arms. "We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with, Daniel."
"I want to do this...with you," I whispered. "I want you to make me yours...only yours."
"¿Sólo mío?," he whispered back. I nodded as he leaned down to kiss me. Our kisses started out slow at first. Slow, sweet, gentle. After a while, however, they formed into rough, passionate, sloppy kisses. His hands gripped my hips tightly as mine traveled up his shirt, tracing the outline of the muscles on his back. "You...me...upstairs," he whispered against my lips. I nodded in response to that before kissing him softly again. He smiled when I pulled away before leading me towards the stairwell. I practically dragged him down to my room where I pushed him up against the wall and kissed him for all he was worth. He moaned against my kisses, his hands going to busy themselves with the buttons on my shirt. Before long, we were both shirtless. His caramel colored skin glowed with a bronze light as he pushed me down onto the bed and the light from the moon hit him. The silver light accented the sharp features of his jaw, the dominant lust in his emerald eyes, his perfectly sculpted muscles... Damn, he looked beautiful.
I grabbed his waist and flipped down onto the bed with me. He seemed surprised at my sudden aggressiveness but he didn't have time to comment before I crawled back on top of him and crushed my lips back onto his. His hands explored my body without shame, going to the most sacred of places. I hesitated but let my hands do the same to him. Eventually, I even managed to get his pants off of him and made him groan my name as I worked his body. Once I was done with him, he flipped us over and unbuttoned my pants. As he slid them off, he looked me dead in the eyes, his eyes posing the question if I was sure. I nodded in response and he continued on.
Note that I've had sex before with girls but none of them made me feel the way that Jayden did. He was so attentive, so aggressive yet gentle, and so careful. He made sure not to hurt me as he did what he wanted and he was constantly murmuring and groaning about how much he loved me. Just as he had promised on Christmas, he did all of the work while I just lay back and made scratch marks into his back or bit into the pillow to cover my moans. I was sure that when we were finished, though, that my neck was filled with hickeys and bite marks and my wrists probably had an imprint of Jayden's strong grip on them. I didn't mind any of that though. All I could focus on was the pleasure that Jayden was giving me – a pleasure that I had never experienced before. He gave me that blissful feeling plenty of times before we were too tired to move anymore.
At the end of the night, we were both laying on our backs, panting heavily. "Damn white boy," Jayden murmured. "You can take more than I thought you could."
"Still underestimating me, huh," I teased.
"Guess I should stop that, shouldn't I?"
I smiled. "Just a little bit."
He chuckled as he rolled onto his side to wrap me up into his arms. He buried his face into my chest, his warm breaths hitting my skin softly. I wrapped my arms around him as well, my hands playing in his silky hair. "I love you, you know that don't you," I told him. I felt Jayden's lips pull up into a smile against my skin.
"Now I do. I love you too, white boy."
X
I never thought an atmosphere could change so fast. One moment, Jayden and I were laughing and playing around as we packed up our clothes. The next, we were silent and avoiding each other's eyes as we drove down the road. Our once playful, lighthearted aura had suddenly turned into a tense, gloomy one. I tried to wait for a good song to come on the radio to sing but there was never the right one. I also waited for Jayden to comment on the country music that was playing but he didn't seem to care. He was staring out the window most of the ride, the sunglasses he was wearing covering his eyes so that I couldn't look into what he was thinking. I wished that he would talk to me. He always knew how to lighten the mood. Or was that me? If it was me then we were shit out of luck because I didn't know what to say. If anything, I was about ready to just break down and cry. I knew what was coming the second that we reached Jayden's uncle's apartment complex. He knew it too. That's why we were both so quiet. We had ended on a good memory. I guess we both wanted to keep it that way.
I tried to drive slow as we went down the road but I knew that there was no avoiding what was going to happen. It was better to get it over with than to sit here and stall. That would only make it harder to let go – not that it wasn't already hard. A part of me was still hoping that the car would break down as we glided back into the city. But I knew that wasn't going to happen. We were too close for that to stall anything. I decided to just give up hoping that something would happen and just accept the fate of our relationship. It was about to be over...I had to accept that.
"Do you...do you need help carrying your stuff in," I asked as I pulled into the parking lot of his uncle's apartment complex.
"No," Jayden murmured as he pulled his sunglasses up over his head. "Thanks though."
I nodded. "Anything for you." His lips tugged upwards at the ends although I could see the sadness in his eyes. He threw his head back against the seat.
"I'm going to miss the hell out of you," he told me. "I don't think I'll ever meet another guy who can push my buttons like you do." I chuckled, trying to fight back the tears that wanted to brim behind my eyes.
"I'm going to miss you too. I don't think there is another guy whose buttons I can have so much fun pushing." He smiled, holding my gaze for a moment before he reached into his pocket and pulled out something.
"Here," he said as he pushed a silver ring that was hooked on a chain into my hand. "I know that this is supposed to be permanent but just in case things aren't over between us... Just in case we do ever...meet again or love again or even just become friends. ...I wanted you to have this. It's...it's a promise ring. My father gave it to my mother when we were their age and now I'm giving it to you. I'm not asking you to wait for me or any of that other mushy bullshit. I just want you to have something to remember me by...in case anything happens to me or something. I want you to remember that I loved you and that I will always love you."
"Jayden," I murmured as tears pricked at my eyes. "I can't accept this."
"That's too damn bad. Come here; let me put it on for you." I leaned across the seats so that he could slip the chain onto my neck. Once he was done, I turned around to face him. He was staring down at the ring that now dangled from my neck, his eyes gaining moisture.
"I love you," I told him causing his emerald eyes to look back up into my blue ones one last time.
"I love you too," he replied. I leaned in to kiss him for the last time. His lips were soft and sweet – just as they've always been. They moved efficiently with mine, his hands coming up on my face to hold the kiss longer. His tongue flicked at my lips to open them and our hot tongues collided once more. He kissed me the way he did the first time. He teased me with his tongue and kissed me with a forcefulness that he knew I loved. The thought that I would never get to kiss him like this again made tears come to my eyes. Why did something so good have to end?
When we finally pulled away after what felt like a good hour, we stared into each other's eyes. Neither of us wanted to be the first to say goodbye...neither of us wanted to be the first to break the hold we had on each other. Jayden opened his mouth to speak just as a lone tear rolled down his face. "I love you, Daniel," he whispered. "Don't ever forget that."
"I love you too, Jayden. I love you so much." Jayden's lips pulled up into a smile as he leaned forward to kiss my forehead. His lips lingered there for a moment before he quickly pulled away and hopped out of the car. He shut the door behind him and I popped the trunk for him. I watched as he got his duffel bag out of the trunk and closed it. He shot me one last longing look before smiling sadly and disappearing around the corner. The moment he was out of my sight, I felt my heart break into a billion tiny pieces. Unlike last time, there was no hope for us anymore. I was leaving for Stanford tomorrow and he was heading off to the Middle East. It would never work. It was never going to work. But God knows that we did try. God knows that we had fun. God knows that he put us together for a reason. What that reason was, I still wasn't sure. But I know that part of the reason gave me the strength to put my car back into gear, to drive away from the apartment, and let go of the only true love I'd ever had.