Kiss the Sky

[ 40 ] CONNOR COBALT

1 month and 20 days – Mom

I read the text on Rose’s phone after it buzzes on the desk. She’s downstairs cleaning the kitchen with Daisy. It was taco night, which meant the entire place exploded in cheese and chips, only adding to Rose’s neurotic hysteria.

I’d be helping if it wasn’t for this damn term paper. I can almost see the finish line for the first semester, but papers and finals stand in my way. I doubled my Adderall dosage last week just to concentrate.

The door swings open, and I swivel my chair to watch Rose walk into the bedroom. She glares at Brett who stands in the hallway. “I’m in the no film zone. Run along, now,” she waves him off and then shuts the door. She’d never be as rude to Ben or Savannah, but Brett and Rose get along about as well as her and Lo.

When she turns to face me, I notice a…bulge where her breasts are. No wonder Brett followed her up here.

Curiosity compels me to my feet, and I cross the room to Rose. “Something’s a little off about you,” I say and my eyes drift up to her hair as if I’m focusing on her nonexistent bangs.

I reach towards her breasts, and she slaps my hand away.

“I’m a lady,” she chides. “I don’t let boys touch me there.”

Fuck. My cock stirs at her words. I grab her waist and pull her body against mine in one swift motion. She sucks in a sharp breath when her hips knock into me. She’s still in her five-inch-fucking-heels. Almost the same height as me, a few inches off.

“What about men? Do you let them touch you?” I ask, holding her tight.

“Definitely not.” Her eyes drift to my mouth.

I lick my bottom lip, moving my tongue slowly, as I watch her chest inflate with the motion. I slide my hand up her leg, her thigh, between them—her lace fabric already wet to my touch.

“And here?” I ask.

“Never,” she says in a whisper.

When she’s sufficiently distracted with my hand, I take the opportunity and reach down the top of her dress, grabbing whatever’s hidden in her bra.

“Hey!”

I already have the baggy in my possession, and I hold it above her head.

She doesn’t make a pass to retrieve it, just pushes me in the chest for tricking her. I’m too fixated on her contraband to respond.

“Why do you have a bag of marijuana?” And where did she get it? Four messily rolled joints fill the plastic. The papers don’t have neat creases, which means that Rose didn’t roll them. It takes her two hours just to meticulously fold her panties and place them in her drawer.

My eyes fall to her with interest.

She stays quiet, twisting her diamond necklace in her fingers.

“Care to explain?”

“I thought we could do something different tonight…” she says. “I usually don’t try new things, and with you…” she trails off, lost for words. This must annoy her because she rolls her eyes.

“I accept,” I say instantly.

Her eyes brighten in surprise. “Really?”

I nod, willing to try anything with her. I want her to experience as many firsts with me as she possibly can. I’ve smoked only once—my first and only foray into illegal drugs. It was strategic. Boarding school. Trying to gain a connection I needed for Student Council.

“On one condition,” I reply. “You tell me who gave these to you.”

“Daisy.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “If I have the drugs, then she doesn’t have them. They’re much safer in my position.” She grins.

Devious and intelligent. I like this side of her.

My face suddenly falls as I remember something important.

I’m on Adderall.

And I’m not a hundred percent positive it’s safe to smoke pot on the stimulant. The small percentage of doubt is not something I’m willing to live with. I’ll never forgive myself for impairing my brain or my body over something so stupid.

“What’s wrong?” She touches my arm in concern.

The one question makes me frown even deeper. I’m getting worse at hiding my emotions from her. Or maybe…maybe I just don’t care if she’s sees this part of me anymore.

For the first time, I really want to be honest with her.

Not just my half-assed attempt at honesty. I want her to know me as well as I know myself. So I prepare to admit the one thing that could cause her to storm out, pack her bags, sleep in Daisy’s room and maybe even sling my clothes out the window.

“I’m on Adderall,” I let it go. One sentence. One breath.

She drops her hand from my arm, and her I’m-going-to-rip-your-dick-off glare heats her eyes. “Bullshit,” she says. “You would never take Adderall.”

“I wouldn’t,” I agree. “But I was losing sleep, and I wasn’t putting a hundred percent into Wharton or Cobalt Inc., so I decided to start taking it.”

“For how long?” Her collarbones sharpen as she holds in a breath. I remember what Frederick once told me when I was only eighteen and I thought I was finished discovering who I was and what I wanted to be. He said, “Lies tear at relationships until they’re nothing but unwound threads.”

I hate that my own has begun to unravel.

I hate that, in this moment, I am ordinary.

“The end of January.”

“Almost four months,” she says, dumbfounded. But she doesn’t attack me, doesn’t throw up her hands and call it quits. Her eyes are on the ground as she thinks it over.

“You would’ve given up something if you didn’t, right?” she asks, her eyes flitting to mine, so many questions swimming in them.

“Not you,” I tell her. “I would have never given up you.”

“Wharton?”

I nod, and she shakes her head in dismay. “I don’t want you to choose me over your dream,” she says. “But I can’t stand here and be okay with you choosing me over your health.”

It’s not fair for me to put her in a position, to trap her into giving me an ultimatum. I know what I have to do. Even if the semester is almost over, I still have a year and a half left. I’m not even close to graduating and earning this final degree.

I notice the space between us. Five feet away. Five feet too much. I imagine that space so much further if I make the wrong decision right now.

Frederick is right.

My mother is right.

I can’t have everything. So I’m going to have to fucking choose.

“I’m withdrawing from Wharton,” I deliver the lines with finality. It hardly topples me backwards. It doesn’t even make me sway. In fact, a weight rises off my shoulders—a heaviness that I didn’t even know was there before. Dragging me down.

It’s not as earth-shattering as I once believed it would be. Sometimes the dreams you construct for yourself at ten, twelve-years-old aren’t the same ones you thought they would be at twenty-four. And it just takes a while to finally make peace with that.

I think I just have.

“Connor—”

“I’m going to quit taking Adderall.” I step towards her and place my hands on her shoulders.

“Your MBA—”

“I don’t need it.”

“You never needed it,” she reminds me. “That’s not why you were trying to get one.” I see the guilt in her eyes. I’ve chosen her over my dream, and I told her never to do that for me.

I cup her face with my hand, skimming her bottom lip with my thumb, her lipstick a dark red that makes her look as fierce as she is. I want to be with her every day of my life. I want to be here, not in class. And I have the means to do so.

“My dreams have changed,” I say. The future I once imagined is gone. Where I proudly accept my diploma, where I prove to myself that I’m the best because I can be. The longer I’ve been with this girl, the faster it’s flitted away.

I kiss her deeply, and she reciprocates in reply, silently telling me that she’s accepting my decision.

“That was easy,” I say as we part, holding her around the waist while I stare down at her smooth skin, her cheeks reddened with blush and heat from the kiss. “I thought you would fight me harder.”

She shakes her head. “You should see the look in your eyes.”

I frown.

And she smiles. “You’re wearing your emotions, Richard.” She runs her hands over my chest, smoothing down my navy-blue shirt. “I can tell you don’t care about Wharton as much as you used to, and I want you, my sisters, their boyfriends and Lo’s brother to do whatever makes them happy. Isn’t that the goal?”

It is for me now, but I’m not so sure it’s always been that way. “Your sisters’ boyfriends?”

Rose’s nose scrunches in disgust. “Daisy is still with Julian.”

“And I’m not happy about that,” I tell her. “What were we saying about happiness?” I feign forgetfulness. “We…do what makes us happy.” I keep her in my arms, one hand lowering to her ass, glad that five feet no longer separates us. “I’d happily like to remove him from your sister’s life.” I see the gangbanging text he sent Ryke, which worries me the most. I don’t want him with her for longer than he has to be.

Rose says, “I’d happily cut off his dick and toss it into a tank of flesh-eating piranhas.” She flashes a cold smile that would shrivel his balls too.

“Creative,” I grin.

Rose saw the text like the entire nation did. On television. Production aired my conversation with Julian in the hallway. I thought people disliked me, but I learned it’s more of a love-hate after the intense backlash Julian has received.

No one has started an online petition to have me thrown in jail.

He definitely beat me on that account.

Julian should be fired from the Marco Jeans campaign that he booked with Daisy. But the designer won’t let him go. He likes the media attention, even if it’s negative. So Daisy has to work with him.

I try to not think about Rose’s little sister whose life is more complicated than any seventeen-year-old’s should be. And I glance down at the joints in the plastic baggy, still in my hand. I step back from Rose and pull my phone out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling?” she asks curiously.

“Frederick. I need to know if I can mix Adderall and marijuana.” I put the phone to my ear.

Her face fills with surprise. “You still want to do that?”

“Yes, darling.” I rub her bottom lip and kiss her once more, right before the line clicks.