Me: Well that's true, but I don't really want.
Dallas: :( But that's cool. We haven't talked in a while and maybe I have a dating dilemma of my own.
Me: Really?!
Dallas: Ha. No.
After half time, I once again find myself in Dawson't big athletic hoodie. It practically goes to my knees, and I'm a tall girl! He's sitting behind me in the bleachers, me leaning back between legs when his warm hand slides under the sweatshirt and under the side of my shirt. He's casually stroking my sides, my stomach and it's nice, I snuggle back closer to him. But then his hand finds its way down inside my shorts and pretty soon he's rubbing me, um, sorta like down there. Teasing me. He so wants me to come back to his room, well, I was going to say tonight, but I think it's feeling more like now. And I want to stop him, I know I should stop him, but what can I say, I like it. I close my eyes, miss a few plays. We don't stand up and cheer when Aiden scores. But I clapped and Dawson took that moment to uh, do a little scoring of his own. And then, I found myself cheering too, but for different reasons. OHHH, GOOOOO TEAM! (This is such a fun, naughty scene. But he is a Johnson brother. You had to figure sexiness was there.) "You're sooo naughty," I whispered to him after.
"You soooo liked it," he teases. "Can we please go back to my room? Like now."
"You have to wait til this weekend."
"But I don't wanna wait," he whines. "We'll just kiss, I swear." Then he starts kissing my neck, which is usually a sure fire way to get what he wants.
"This weekend. We won't just kiss, I swear."
Later when the game is over, Dallas hands me a Red Bull and says, "Drink up. Dress warm," and grins at me.
Dawson says, "What's that for? You going to meet him at the cave tonight?"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"What? You can come if you want. We just need to catch up."
"You once told me you and Dallas smoke and make out there."
"Yeah, would that bother you?"
"Hell yeah, it would bother me."
"Which part?"
"The kissing!"
"Oh, well you don't have to worry. Look." I let him read my texts from earlier, telling Dallas we weren't going to kiss.
"I'm sorry. I should trust you."
"Well even though we're both still officially single. I really don't have any desire to kiss anyone else, and I haven't lied to you yet."
He grabs my face in his hands, pulls me into a kiss then murmurs, "I will never lie to you. I love you, Keatie."
"Really? Like love love?"
"Yeah, really. I love you."
We kiss for a while, and I go inside feeling pretty amazing.
(He tells her he loves her way early in this version. Too early, in my opinion. But so much emotion and honesty between them. And really, the reason she and Aiden aren't together. They fight. She doesn't know where she stands with Brooklyn. But with Dawson, it is what it is, and they are both struggling with love. It's sweet.) "Oh, well, you don't have to worry. Look." I let him read my texts from earlier, telling Dallas we weren't going to kiss.
"I'm sorry. I should trust you."
"We're not in a relationship, Dawson. So, really, technically, I could kiss anyone I want to. So can you."
"I don't want to kiss anyone else, but I do have something I should probably show you," he says, as he hands me back my phone.
"What?"
He messes with his phone and hands it to me. "Whitney texted me today. Read it."
Whitney: Just because we aren't going out, doesn't mean I don't care about you.
Dawson: Okay?
Whitney: I know you're having fun with the new girl, but she's not good enough for you. Why don't I set you up with Rachel? She's always crushed on you and at least she comes from a decent family.
Dawson: I'm surprised you'd want to set me up.
Whitney: We're friends, Dawes, and you need someone worthy of your status. You're still one of the golden boys here, and I assume you want to stay one. Dating beneath you will not be good for you. It's practically social suicide.
Dawson: It's really nice of you to worry about me, but I like Keatyn.
Whitney: I know you're not over me, but parading around with a girl of her caliber isn't going to make me jealous. It's just pathetic.
I process all that she managed to say in a few sentences. Her texts sound similar to what Vanessa told me about Brooklyn.
Only now, I'm social suicide.
I find that kind of ironic, honestly.
And kind of funny.
But I'm not sure how Dawson feels about it.
"Look, Dawson. I know what it's like. The pressures of being and staying popular. I understand if you don't want to hang out with me anymore."
"Is that what you want? For Whitney to set me up with Rachel?"
"No, that's not at all what I want. But it's not my decision. It's something you have to decide."
He grabs my face in his hands, pulls me into a kiss, and murmurs, "I want you, Keatie. I don't care what anyone thinks."
And his sweetness kinda makes me cry.
Dawson feels my tears on his cheek and stops kissing me. "Why are you crying?"
"I was one of the most popular girl at my old school and here I'm social suicide," is what I say. But really I'm thinking about home. About how I was willing to give up everything. Every part of me for Brooklyn. But how he didn't really love me. Then I think about Cush. About my boots. About how they made me love him.
Dawson brushes my tears away and says, "Go out with me."
I shake my head. I can't go out with anyone. I'm an emotional wreck. Who starts crying when a boy is sweet to them?
"Not yet, Dawson. Neither one of us is ready for that. Can you honestly say you're ready for another relationship?"
He looks up at the sky. "Probably not. But I want you to know where you stand. I want you to know that I really like you."
I smile at him. "I already know that. And I really like you too."
You look ridiculous.
11 pm But I am still not sure of a few things. First, I'm not sure he is in actual love with me. I think he likes me a lot, but I'm not sure about the rest. And I didn't say I love you too because I don't know if it's love. Like I thought I was in love with Brooklyn, well I was. I guess it would be better to say I thought he loved me, but then poof that changed. And then I thought I was in love with Aiden, and well, honestly, like if I am truly honest with myself, I think I maybe still am a bit in love with Aiden.
But when you know it won't work, then you put that love like away, on the back burner, like Mom said, and you look at what's in front of you, what's good. And I think I love Dawson, actually, I do love Dawson, I just don't know if I am in like seriously love with him. Yet. (All of the above also got cut. She explains her thoughts here, but ugh. We get it. So I just made it a fun scene with her and Dallas and Riley.) I drink the redbull that Dallas gave me, then have another one, and then I was still tired, so I had a third. And by the time midnight rolls around, I'm bouncing off the walls.
When I get to the Cave, Dallas is waiting for me.
"I'm soooo hyper!!! Let's dance! I feel like dancing. Come on, dance with me!"
I grab my headphones out of my jacket pocket, put one in each one of our ears, hang on to Dallas, and then turn on some wild dancing music. Bass Hunter, electronic music, great dance beat. We jump, and dance, and laugh, and dance. I haven't had so much fun in a long time, doing something so really stupid.
We're jumping around dancing like maniacs, when someone grabs me from behind.
I scream. "Ahh!"
It's Riley, I discover after screaming and practically having a caffeine and adrenaline induced heart attack.
He pops the headphone out of my ear. "What are you two doing? You look ridiculous!"
"Yeah, you can look ridiculous with us."
Friday, September 9th Kill, Kick Ass, Destroy.
7:14 am I'm up way early for this social club meeting. Yeah, I want to be on it, but no one remembered to mention that they meet at 7am on Friday mornings. And I knew I had to get up early, but during our red bull dance off last night, which I didn't come in from until 3am, this didn't seem important. I drug my butt out of bed at 5:45, got in my game day dance outfit, which consists of skin tight black boot cut yoga pants with red and gold glittery stripes down the side, a sleeveless glittery gold v neck t-shirt, and gold dance shoes. My hair is in big bouncy curls.
I look like an Oscar award going to the gym. (Can't remember if I mentioned this, but I was not a dancer or a cheerleader in high school, but my son's girlfriend was. I asked her a ton of questions about dance, different songs, and watched some of her performances and shows so I would get it all right. I also created fourteen different dance and spirit day outfits in the book and on the clothing boards, along with a school logo, mascot, school colors, and cheers.) I walk in and see there are only about eight people on this committee.
And yeah, I maybe am a couple minutes late, but my hair looks good, so whatever.
Peyton says, "What are you doing here?"
"Um, I guess I'm on this committee."
Some guy I have seen, but do not know says, "Hey, I'm Brad," to me and then turns and introduces me to the group. "Everyone, this is Keatyn Monroe."
I smile and give a little wave.
They are discussing normal school things, like homecoming and other events.
I was like, "Uh, so I thought this committee was supposed to do like cool stuff?"
They all look at me.
Like I was an alien that just landed his spaceship in front of them, but I keep going.
"Like most kids are here on the weekends, and there isn't much to do. Why don't you have like mixer type things every weekend?"
I guess we never thought of it.
"You could have like different themes, make it fun."
"That would cool. Like what kinds of themes?"
"I don't know. Like in LA, all the parties have some kind of theme, so there's tons to choose from. Mexican, Moroccan, Roman, French, Eighties. You can have people like dress in the theme, you could ask the cafe to like cook stuff that night that fit the theme, maybe music and stuff."
"Like how would we get the money to do stuff like that?" Peyton says, making fun of me.
"Do a fund raiser? Make people to pay to get in?"
"I don't think people would come, they would think it's lame," some idiot pipes in.
"Hmm, well I think I misunderstood this committee, so I should probably go." I get up out of my chair to leave.
"What do you mean?" Brad says.
"I was under the impression that y'all were the most influential kids at the school. But hey, you can't pull it off, I understand." (I love how she challenges them here.) And pretty soon, they decided they could do it. Because I'm pretty sure I'm in a room full of competitors.
"Well Newbie, we'll appoint you liaison between the committee and the staff on this little project. You get it approved, we'll do it."
They think I'm gonna balk at this, but I don't. If there is one thing I have learned growing up in LA, it's how to throw a good party.
After the meeting, Peyton pulls me aside.
"What'd you do? Buy your way on here? They never nominate freshman."
"Well, actually, it was offered to me by a teacher. Someone needs my help on something, and this is sorta my reward."
"That's bullshit. The rest of us had to work for it."
"You had to work to get nominated by a teacher?"
"Uh, well you know, by being a leader in class and that sort of thing. I really can't imagine what a teacher would need your help for."
"I'm fluent in French."
"So?"