On His Knees by Tabatha Kiss

Chapter 22

Seth

Go inside.

Can I even go inside?

Part of our deal was that I’d be out today. We’d throw a party, fake a good time, then I’d leave with Corey and Wilder, but… that didn’t happen.

Jenna let me stay. But for how long?

Only one way to find out.

I shove open the door of my truck and hop out. The sky is a blissful orange, only a few minutes away from sunset. As I approach the porch, I half expect to find my stuff stacked on the doorstep, but it’s not there.

So… I guess I can go in, right?

I pull open the patio door and turn the knob on the front door. It opens, already unlocked. Jenna was expecting me to come back. Or she left it unlocked, like she always does.

Either way, I’m going in.

The house is quiet. The living room is empty. The only light comes from the kitchen to the right. I follow it, briefly pausing in the doorway as I spot Jenna sitting at the table alone with a thick textbook open in front of her.

She peeks up from her notebook as I appear, her little eyes hidden behind a wave of reddish-blonde hair dangling down from a messy bun on top of her head.

“Hey,” she says, quickly sitting back.

I clear my throat. “Hey. Sorry, just passing through…”

“No, it’s fine.” She points over her shoulder at a box on the stove. “There’s pizza, if you’re hungry.”

My stomach hops. “I could go for a slice.”

“Please,” she says with a chuckle. “Stops me from eating it all.”

Friendly. Hospitable.

Proceed with caution.

I nod. “All right.”

Jenna looks down at her notebook again, absently tapping her pencil against paper to look busy as I wander around the kitchen table toward the pizza box. I lift the lid and choose a large slice from the five remaining. Pepperoni and mushrooms. I’ll take it.

I plant my back against the counter while I eat. Jenna sits still, her shoulders stiff and tight as I hover behind her. Tap, tap, tap goes her pencil. Does she want to say something? Does she want me to say something?

“Are you studying?” I ask.

“Uh…” She shifts her textbook an inch. “Yeah.”

“Classes don’t start until next week.”

“One of my professors sent the syllabus out early, so I figured I’d get a head start.”

“For what class?”

She lifts the cover so I can read it myself.

“Molecular Biology?” I read, surprised.

“If it’s gonna be anything like last semester, I’m in for a metric shit-ton of reading,” she says with a light groan.

“Yeah, but… Molecular Biology?”

She glances at me over her shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because… it’s my major.”

I pique a brow. “It is?”

“Yeah.”

“Since when?”

“Since tenth grade when I decided I wanted to go a medical school.”

Um.

What?

“You’re pre-med?” I ask, still very surprised.

“Yeah,” she says as if this were common knowledge.

Though, I guess it is to most people who know her well.

How did I not know that?

“How did I not know that?” I ask aloud.

Jenna shrugs a shoulder. “Who knows?”

I step around the table, taking the empty chair across from her. “I thought you were into all that art stuff like Heidi,” I say.

She stiffens as I sit, but quickly relaxes. “As a minor, yeah,” she answers. “It’s good for hand dexterity.”

Whoa.

“Whoa.”

Her lips twitch. “What?”

“I just…” I pause. “I just learned something brand new about you. Pre-med. That’s… cool.”

She looks down. “Well, I’m a pretty cool person.”

My first instinct is to rebuff it. Just a few short days ago, there’s no way I’d ever describe Jenna Abrams as cool, but recent events make me pause.

“Have you thought about what school you want to go to?” I ask, curious.

“I’m gonna stay here,” she answers. “Or I hope to.”

“Why here? You can go anywhere.”

She says nothing at first. Then she looks up from her book and targets her little eyes at mine. “Why did you stay here?” she asks.

I think of where I’ve been. Where we’ve been; the big little town we both came from. The Seth I left behind there, stays there. I’d never go back, personally. Something tells me she wouldn’t either.

“It’s home,” I answer.

Jenna nods with a quick smile.

And just like that, I realize we’re not as different as I thought. We fled the same boring Iowa town in favor of a life in a big city. We walked away from broken families in search of chosen ones. I joined a fraternity. She joined the sorority across the street. Our paths constantly cross thanks to proximity and mutual friends and Heidi, of course. I don’t question it at all when I think of how much I’ve changed, and yet I can’t stop seeing Jenna Abrams as the spoiled brat my sister tags along with.

Isn’t it time I actually try?

“Hey, Jenna,”I say as she says, “Seth, I—”

We both smile and lean back.

“You first,” I say.

Jenna shakes her head once. “No, you go.”

“I insist.”

“Please,” she says, firm and defiant.

“Okay.” I clear my throat. “I was just gonna say… thanks for not busting my balls about that stuff I said last night. I was…”

“Totally wasted,” she says, keeping it light. “No worries.”

“Well, yeah. That. But also…”

“It’s all right. No harm done.”

“I was in a bad place. I guess I have been for a while. It just hit me all at once and you…”

“Just happened to be there.” She nods. “Really. It’s okay.”

“No, you…” I pause, unsure how to say it. “You helped me when I didn’t deserve it. You let me stay, so… thank you.”

Jenna’s eyes stray, refusing to lock with mine again. “You’re… welcome,” she drawls.

I exhale, the weight of it sliding off my shoulders. “I’ll still pack up my stuff tonight if you want me to.”

“No.” She raises her head. “No, it’s okay. You can stay here.”

“I can?”

“That’s actually what I was going to say before. You’re obviously going through some stuff and if it makes you feel safe to be here, then… you should be here.”

I swallow, taken back. “I appreciate that,” I say.

We go quiet again. Jenna’s eyes retreat to her textbook, but she’s clearly not reading anything. She’s stalling, same as me, wondering if I’m about to say something else — something that’ll make this moment even stranger than it already is.

I lean forward. “This is weird, isn’t it?”

“Super weird,” she says, relieved that I said it first.

We chuckle. “Feels good to get it all out, though,” I say.

“It does, yeah.”

I look over my shoulder into the hallway. “I noticed you pulled the duct tape up.”

“Oh…” She pauses. “It seemed like the right thing to do, I guess.”

“One step closer to braiding each other’s hair, huh?”

Jenna doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even smile. “Seth…”

“What are you up to tonight?”

“Tonight?”

I gesture at her books. “Once you’re done studying, I mean. You want to watch a movie or something? We’ve already got pizza.”

She bristles with confusion. “No.”

“No?”

“No, Seth. We’re not…” She swallows hard. “I’ll do what I have to do to keep the peace between us, but… that’s it. I don’t really want to be friends with you. Ever.”

My chest tightens with an angry hold. “Why not?”

Jenna closes her textbook. “Look, let’s just—“

“No, why not?” I ask. “I wanna know.”

She glares at me, clearly annoyed. “Excuse me?”

“I want to know,” I say again. “What did I do to you that’s so unforgivable? Because, honestly, I’m drawing a blank here.”

She reaches for her textbook. I place a hand on it.

“Seth—”

“What did I do, Jenna?”

She sits back. “Someone needs to remember how much of an asshole you really are.”

“Why? Heidi’s over it. Drew and I reconciled. What bug could you possibly still have lodged in your ass after all this time?”

She moves to stand. “I’m not doing this right now.”

I rise from my chair. “Did I say your shoes were ugly?”

“Seth,” she warns.

“Did I roll my eyes too hard when you showed up at school in yet another new car? What?” I take a step closer, and she recoils. “What did I do?”

“Get away from me.”

“Jenna, what did I do?”

“You broke up my family!”

I shift back an inch. “I…”

Wait.

What?

“What?” I ask.

“Freshman year,” she says, holding her breath in tightly. “You and the Harrison brothers skipped class and went to the mall during school hours. While you were there, you saw my father having an innocent business lunch with his secretary. You came back, and it spread like wildfire. Dirty Dr. Abrams and his sidechick. Half his age. Way to go, Doc! Naturally, word made it to the teachers, then the secretaries, the administrators, and then my mother.” She pauses to breathe. “After a few months of daily fights and screaming matches, my father moved out. That innocent business lunch wasn’t so innocent after all.”

And there it is.

That’s it.

All the years of spits and spats. Of hateful glances, bitter retorts, and avoiding each other. All because of a rumor I… don’t even remember spreading.

Wait, that’s it?

That’sit?

“That’s it?” I ask aloud.

Jenna flexes her jaw. “Yeah. That’s it. My family broke up because you didn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.”

“No,” I say. “Your family broke up because your daddy couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.”

She steps back. “Screw you.”

“No.” I point at her, raising my arm to stop her from leaving. “No, you don’t get to pin that on me. That wasn’t my fault.”

Her eyes blaze with fire. “Get out of my face, Seth.”

“That wasn’t my fault.”I repeat it so she hears it. “Your dad had an affair. He got caught. Shooting the messenger won’t change that, so get over it.”

“Get over it?!”

“Yeah, get over it. Take your daddy issues, stick them in a box, and shove them up your ass.” I lean closer. “You want a punching bag? Try him because it ain’t gonna be me from now on. I’m through taking your shit.”

Her chest heaves, stiff and angry, but she closes her mouth. Pain bleeds from her eyes, but I turn away, so very done with this conversation.

I walk away. Hopefully, Corey or Devin are up for something because there’s no way in hell I’m staying here tonight.

I march straight for the front door.

Fuck this.

Fuck Dr. Abrams and his sidechick.

And fuck Jenna, too.

I take one step out onto the porch and pause, my ears twitching at a surprising — but not all that surprising — sound.

A sniffle. A light sob.

Jenna’s crying.

Just leave.

I step forward, but I run right into an invisible wall. I want to leave. I would very much like to put myself as far away from this moment as possible, but that’s not as easy now as it was when I was a fifteen-year-old loser with no empathy.

I step forward again, making one last attempt to abandon her, but I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t cause pain and walk away like I used to. I can’t look at Jenna Abrams in tears and not care. Not anymore.

Especially not when I understand it.

My parents split up, too. I blamed everyone else for it, too. It took me years to make peace with it; the same peace that Jenna struggles with… because of me. In her mind, anyway.

Dammit.

I step back into the house and close the door. Each sniff feels like a stab to the gut as I follow the sound back to the kitchen.

Jenna holds her head in her hands. She turns up as I reach the doorway, quickly sneering and jerking her body away. Tears flow down her cheeks, staining her hands as she refuses to look at me.

“What do you want now?” she asks, her voice cracking.

She looks weak. Broken.

I don’t like it.

I don’t like it.

If I had to describe Jenna Abrams in a word, it wouldn’t be weak. She’d never be broken. Frustrating, sure. Annoying, another decent option. Strong. Confident. Defiant. Other good and accurate choices.

But not this. Not this tragic girl crumbling before me over little more than a skinned knee.

I move toward her with a few soft steps. Jenna shifts back, even more annoyed at my intrusion, but I ignore it.

I kneel beside her chair. She glares at me with confusion and hatred as I reach out to push the hair back from her wet and glistening eyes. I run my thumb along her cheek, banishing a few wet lines, and she recoils an inch.

“What are you doing?” she asks, holding her breath.

I clear her other cheek. I cup her face with both hands, her eyes locked on mine as I drift a little closer.

“Kissing your ouchie,” I say.