She shrugged. “I’ll take you over those bimbo bitches he goes out with any day. You know what I’m talking about: those expiration date hook ups he forgets the next day.”

“Does he take them here?” I suddenly felt grossed out being in his bed. Knowing Jaxon, he probably wouldn’t have cleaned up after himself.

“Don’t give me a heart attack,” she replied with a shudder. “His flings are strictly unwelcome under my roof.”

“That reminds me, you need to change your parental controls.”

“What… Again?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. Again.”

She sighed in annoyance. “That little bastard. Boys. I wanted a lovely little girl like you, but God gave me that.” She motioned to Jaxon’s sprawled out, unmoving body, sleeping like the dead face down in his pillow. Right on cue he let out a loud, unabashed snore. How could someone sleep so deep?

Because they have nothing to fear.

Four

Lucinda banned me from going back to my house. She said since I was a month shy of eighteen, I was going to be an adult soon and didn’t need my parents anymore for anything. Not that they ever gave me anything, anyway.

I tried to swap Jaxon’s sleeping arrangements so that I got the floor and he got the bed, but he refused. Lucinda did too. Then I began to see why; Jaxon went out almost every single night, and wouldn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. Sometimes he would crash on the couch, other times on the blanketed floor next to my bed. He told me to cover for him every time Lucinda asked him when he came home the next morning. He’d say eleven knowing full well that his Mom couldn’t keep her eyes open longer than ten, and I would have to nod in agreement at his answer every bloody time.

School was winding down, and prom was on the horizon. Every day I’d wait in anticipation to be approached by a boy. I got so many looks – looks that clearly screamed they were interested in me, but nobody asked me. I was so desperate I knew I’d say yes to anyone – even Garrett Abbott. But not even he approached me despite the fact it was so obviously apparent he had no date either.

What the hell was everyone’s problem? I felt like I was in a quarantine, and people were too in fear of catching some kind of zombie mutant disease from me. It wounded me deeply. After working hard on my appearance, it was a low blow to watch even the most unlikely girls get asked.

“Anyone ask you out to prom yet, Tiny?” Jaxon would probe me every single day I came home from school.

But one particular day, I’d had enough. “No, Jaxon, nobody!” I snapped, running up to the bedroom to get away from his annoying smirk.

“You okay?” he asked me sometime after.

I was crying in his bed with the covers over me. It was embarrassing – because really, why did Prom even matter so much to me all of a sudden? It wasn’t like I was the most popular girl in school.

Still. Nobody asked me. Why?

“I’m fine,” I lied. But he ripped the covers off before I had the chance to wipe away my tears.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Jaxon! Thank you for telling me I look like shit. Don’t you think I know that?” I barked back, fighting to grab the covers from his grip. “It’s the only reason I haven’t been asked to Prom, so don’t tell me what I already know!”

Silence. Then, “Are you on your period or something?”

“Ugh! Just go away, Jaxon!”

He didn’t. He sat down facing me instead and grinned from ear to ear like there was something so damn amusing to him. I glared daggers at him, hoping his eyes would explode and his mouth would disappear into that smartass face of his.

“If you’re so hard done by for not being asked to Prom, why don’t you just ask someone?” He crossed his arms, watching me with a face like he had some kind of secret.

“Ask someone to Prom?” I repeated his question in repugnance. “Are you stupid? Do you know how desperate and embarrassing it would be for me, a girl, having to ask a guy out to Prom?”

“It’s not that bad. You little feminists go on and on about equal opportunity, maybe these guys are waiting for you to put your hand up.”

“We’re talking about a high school prom, Jaxon, not political progressions beneficial to the female race.”

“So that weird lanky dude didn’t even ask you out either?”

“No.” I felt my cheeks heat up. I really thought Doug was a sure bet. How odd.

“Oh well, his loss. It’s not a big deal. Plus, you know what any guy would do to you if they took you out, right?”

I looked at him strangely. “What?”

“They would try and deflower you.” I expected him to laugh, but Jaxon looked dead serious at me. “That’s… assuming you haven’t been already?”

“Shut up, as if I’m telling you that.”

His eyes widened in horror. “Was it Jordan?”

“No! It was nobody. That’s none of your business, though.” I wouldn’t dare tell him how his mom had put me on birth control and gave me a rather out there sex talk (gory details and all) when Jordan and I were together. To that day, she made sure I kept taking my pill as a “just in case” precaution.

He actually looked relieved by that. Then he smiled again, this time to himself. What was he hiding that was so bloody funny because I sure as hell wasn’t doing anything!

“Believe me; all a guy thinks about on Prom night is screwing their girls, Sara. Is that what you’re looking forward to?” He was sarcastic, but I swear there was a hint of seriousness in there somewhere.

“Is that all you thought about?” I retorted, knowing I’d trapped him.

“Yep,” he nodded nonchalantly. “Tanya didn’t even try to play hard to get.”

“Ugh, you’re such a whore, Jaxon.” I shook my head at his blasé attitude, like there was nothing wrong at all with what he was saying.

“I don’t go looking for it,” he protested, and smiled larger. “They come to me, Sara.”

“And you don’t push them back either.”

“But I never go looking for it.”

“What’s the difference? You accept it, that’s what’s so wrong.”

He looked at me for a long moment before propping himself up beside me. It never ceased to amaze me how much taller he was to me, even when sitting.