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Please note this is a Rashomon-style tale and initial readers are getting a unique reading order selected via poll. I encourage readers to pick their own favorite narrator and continue the story from there!
Erin — One | Two | Three | Six | Seven | Ten | Thirteen | Fifteen | Sixteen
Annaleigh — Four | Eight | Eleven | Fourteen
Annaleigh’s Warning: When you’re a living legend, some chapters of your life get a bit… carried away. Romantic obsession led to some adult themes and poor decisions. Reader caution is advised for this portion of my story.
IV
Annaleigh’s Night
I love Nathan Richards.
It’s not a secret to anyone, including Nate. I’ve written to him about it in at least seven very nicely worded emails and four AIM away messages. Of course, I didn’t say it overtly. Just in so many words. Sometimes even in song lyrics.
I’d say it out loud, if the occasion ever seemed right. But I often feel him silently urging me not to. Like it will make things harder if do.
He lives in Boston, you see. And I don’t. This is a complication for us.
Sometimes we talk on the phone for hours, and it’s like he’s just on the other side of town, where he ought to be.
Other times we don’t speak for weeks, and I try not to stare at my computer, willing him to sign into AIM.
I fill my time with other amusements.
Sometimes other guys.
But no one is Nate.
I wasn’t sure he’d be in town tonight. I was standing at my window, hoping he would come, and there he was, walking up to my house.
Maybe when you wish for something hard enough, it comes true. I hope so, anyway.
It was going to be a lovely party. A “let them eat cake” party. And when I stole off with Nate, I left plenty of cake for them to eat!
I’m a little surprised he came so willingly. Sometimes he likes to tease me. To make me wait for my entourage to leave. To show he’s bested all my suitors — as if that was necessary.
Other times he decides not to stay. He leaves early with one of our friends, and I wonder why I bothered to throw a party.
The parties are for him, of course, though I’ll never confess it.
Our smarter friends, like Tom, probably know. They will have worked out the timing; analyzed my theatrics.
I don’t care so much, when Nate’s not in town. But I have to throw them anyway, to keep up appearances. To maintain the mystique of Annaleigh.
Little Hannah Jones was nobody. But Annaleigh, she’s an enigmatic millionaire; the Jay Gatsby, everyone wants to know. She doesn’t just throw a party; she is the party.
If I don’t maintain my allure — even spread the odd rumor here or there — it will all come crashing down around me. And I’ll be alone. Again.
But let’s not think about that now. Nate is here and I am whole.
——
In the elevator, Nate leaned into my side and whispered in my ear, as if his words were too scandalous for the walls to hear.
“Your outfit is slaying,” he said, his lips brushing my earlobe.
A shiver went up my spine and I was certain that he wanted me, desperately.
I slid my hand gently over the front of his pants, to prove it to myself, and he flinched.
Nate’s shyness was part of his appeal, to be honest.
“Let’s wait until we’re in your bedroom,” he choked out.
“But we’ve never done it in the elevator,” I teased, flexing my fingers.
Nate moved my hand back to my side. “Your elevator has a camera.”
“Spoilsport,” I grumbled. But I pushed the down button anyway, and we began our descent.
Nate tried to straighten himself out and took a few deep breaths, but it wasn’t helping.
I grinned from ear to ear. “You want me too badly,” I observed.
I was awfully cheeky when I was feeling confident.
Nate leaned forward and bit my neck.
I gasped as my body came alive with want.
“Don’t tempt a wild animal,” he said, as he pulled back.
I knew he was right about the camera, of course. And I didn’t need one of the night guards blabbing to my parents about a pornographic elevator ride. It just sounded fun.
My bedroom was only four floors down, but it felt like an eternity was ticking by. Finally the elevator dinged and the doors opened.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Nate’s hand. I twined my fingers into his, ensuring he couldn’t slip from my grasp, and tugged him down the hallway.
__ __
I don’t need Nate.
I know it, in my core. But, when he’s around, it does sometimes feel like he’s my lifeblood. Like he enhances whatever is best about me. And whatever is worst.
I know he has a female friend in Boston. Maybe several.
I try not to be jealous. After all, I have a menagerie here as well.
But I secretly hate their guts.
Maybe not secretly.
One time I was so consumed by the idea that he was comparing me to her, that I just lay still and let him plunder me.
Corpses aren’t sexy. I know this.
I know it was a turn off.
But my brain wouldn’t stop, that time. It beat me down and turned me into a piece of meat.
Tonight I was going to win. Nate’s every x-rated dream would come true.
I would undo him.
And then he’d leave Boston and move back home.
He’d come back to me.
Only me.
— —
We were laying side-by-side, both ravaged. Nate was stroking my hip bone and then suddenly looked puzzled.
“Leigh, you don’t even like cake,” he said.
“I know,” I smirked. “But if I served pie, you might not have come with me.”
“I do love pie,” Nate stated earnestly.
I wanted to ask if he loved pie more than he loved me. But I was afraid of the reply. And that’s exactly why I hadn’t served any.
— —
Post-coital doubt always floods my brain, no matter how confident I’m feeling about Nate beforehand.
My other boys are nothings. I leave them in bed, after.
I shower and I wonder about Nate and if he’s thinking of me.
The boys leave. Or try to talk me back into bed.
I never go back.
With Nate, I am too bare. And I am stuck, bed-locked next to him, hoping he’ll whisper those three tiny words that I never quite trust. Because we never say them out loud.
— —
I sighed, happily, and sank into the booth at our favorite pie shop. I was always glad when Nate wanted to hang out longer.
Nate sat next to me. “Looks like the Rocky Horror crowd is here tonight,” he said.
The glittery, sequined, rowdy group of cross-dressed teens and twenty-somethings took over an entire corner of the restaurant. Some of them looked familiar, but I only really cared about Nate.
I turned to ask if he wanted to share three slices of pie, and was interrupted.
Joan Hartley stopped at our booth, hand-in-hand with Tom Bradley. “Hi guys,” she said.
Tom ushered Joan into the booth, across from Nate and I, then sat down himself.
Apparently I had to share Nate too.
“Hi,” I said, shortly.
“I used to love coming here with my dad,” Joan said, looking around fondly. “We’d play Jeopardy. And if we answered correctly, we got a bite of pie.”
“Only you would force someone to take a quiz to earn dessert,” Tom chuckled.
Joan swatted at him. “It was my dad’s idea!”
“And I’m sure he’s skinny as a rail because you stumped him every time,” Tom teased.
Joan looked self-satisfied. “He is on the thin side,” she admitted.
Tom burst out laughing.
I grimaced. They were cute. But they were derailing my night with Nate. And I hadn’t seen Joan Hartley since sixth grade, when I was still Hannah. They needed to go.
I opened my mouth to say something just as Nate slid a hand onto my knee under the table and began to rub soothingly.
Fine. I kept my mouth shut.
“So, I read fall term was pretty rough,” Nate said to Tom.
“Yeah, they’re definitely trying to separate the wheat from the chaff,” Tom grimaced.
Chaff sounded like shaft, and I was still feeling hungry. Nate’s hand on my knee wasn’t helping. Maybe we could forget about the pie and go back to my house….
I moved my hand over to his crotch and began rubbing him the way he was rubbing my knee.
For a moment he stilled like a deer in headlights. Then he cleared his throat and took his hand off my knee.
I knew he didn’t like this. He preferred private affection. But, like I said, his shyness was part of what I loved about him. And besides, no one could see anything under the table.
Joan was saying something to Tom, but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about how Nate was getting hard under my hand.
Nate closed his eyes and let the tiniest sound out of his mouth, then grabbed my hand and shoved it back into my lap.
I knew I had pushed things too far.
Tonight he was bringing out the worst part of me.
The conversation shifted to Boston. The wedge between Nate and I.
I hated Boston.
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Erin — One | Two | Three | Six | Seven | Ten | Thirteen | Fifteen | Sixteen