15. Kenna

15

KENNA

"She's madder than a snake who married a garden hose." ~ Archie "Witty" Whitlock

Thoughts whirled in my head like sugar in a cotton candy maker while nerves popped in my belly like kernels of corn in hot oil as I wrapped a section of hair around my curling wand. Tonight would be my third date with Jonah. We were going to meet at the annual Christmas festival. It was very public, which was what I was telling myself I was feeling out of sorts about. But I knew the truth. The truth was that my anxiety was due to the fact that my time was running out. My birthday was three weeks away; if I was going to do this, it was most likely going to be with Jonah.

I should be happy that I had a good candidate. So why did I feel like I couldn't breathe, like the walls were closing in on me?

After finishing my hair, I retouched my lipstick and mascara before heading into my bedroom for a fit check in my full-length mirror. I'd chosen a form-fitting olive-green turtleneck that matched my eyes, my ‘good butt' jeans, and my Steve Madden black, square-toed, stiletto calf boots. As I stared at my reflection, I was surprised that I looked…normal. Good even. There were no outward signs of the fight or flight status I was currently functioning at.

I checked the time and saw I had about thirty minutes before I was supposed to meet Jonah at the tree-lighting ceremony. Technically, he was on duty tonight, but all the guys on the crew were going to be at the tree-lighting, and then Jonah suggested we hang out after for a little bit.

Even though our second date had been at the Movies in the Park, this felt more…official. Maybe it was because, growing up in Wishing Well, if you hung out with someone during Movies in the Park, it was casual. Going to the tree lighting with someone was pretty much the equivalent of declaring your undying love for that person.

Obviously, since he didn't grow up in Wishing Well, Jonah hadn't known the significance of his request to meet him there. And as a rational adult, I knew it didn't actually mean anything. But that didn't stop me from having a mini-panic attack.

I needed to get my thoughts out. A quick journal session would help me to clear my mind and restore balance to my world, that felt like it was spinning out of control. If I word vomited, then the hope was I wouldn't actually vomit.

Good plan.

I opened my nightstand, where I kept my journal, but it wasn't there. That's strange , I thought. I glanced down to see if it might have fallen between the nightstand and the bed, which it had a tendency to do if I left it on top of the nightstand instead of putting it away in the drawer, but it wasn't there either. I lowered down onto my knees and checked under my bed, but there was no sign of my journal.

"Where is it?" I asked myself out loud as I stood and tried to remember when the last time was that I'd written it.

On average, I wrote in it once a week, but the last couple of weeks had been a little hectic with Sam staying here, which reminded me that he wouldn't be staying here any longer. At his PT appointment this morning, they removed his brace and cleared him to drive and climb stairs.

As I continued looking for my journal, my chest tightened painfully, and my stomach churned as tears began to fill my eyes. It hit me then that my emotional state might not have anything to do with Jonah, our date, or my deadline; it was more likely due to the fact that Sam was going home. He was no longer going to be on my couch. As the realization sank in, I was even more convinced that was what was upsetting me.

Over the past two weeks, I'd still been able to see him every day without the restrictions of the boundaries I needed to put in place. That was over now. I was anxious and on the verge of a meltdown because I didn't know what the future looked like with less Sam in it.

Crap . This was not good. Not good at all.

The more I looked for the journal and didn't find it, the more anxious I got. It was like a snowball picking up mass and speeding down in an avalanche of emotions.

"Okay. New plan," I told myself as I headed out to the front room.

I would clean up the blankets and pillows from Sam's bed on the couch so that I wasn't reminded of them not being used tonight when I got home from the festival.

Would it work? I had no clue. But it was better than hyperventilating before I even left the house.

My chest was even tighter than it had been moments before as I gathered up the pillows and bedding. As I pulled them into my arms, the sheet got stuck in the crevice, so I tugged harder. When I did, the cushion came up and tumbled onto the floor. I picked it up and was putting it back in place when something caught my attention. My journal was leaning up against the armrest; it must have been in the crevice.

"What the…" I picked it up and read the page it was open to.

It was my last entry. The one I'd written right before I'd gone out with the guy in Dallas.

Why is it out here?

As soon as I asked myself the question, a flashback of me coming home the night before played in my mind's eye. Sam with his back to me. His deer-in-the-headlights expression when he turned around. Him being out of breath, and when I questioned him about it, him blaming it on a bad dream.

He hadn't had a bad dream, but I was having one. This was my living nightmare.

I'd always heard the phrase getting the rug pulled out from under you, but I'd never actually experienced it before. Sam had violated my privacy. He read my journal. He knew I was a virgin.

If I thought I'd been close to a breakdown before, that was nothing compared to what I was experiencing now. So many emotions overwhelmed me, but the main one was embarrassment. No one—not Taylor, not Delilah, not Kelsi, not my mom— no one knew that I was still a virgin. But I'd rather the entire town know my status than Sam. He'd slept with hundreds of women. He already looked at me like a kid sister or something, and now, now what would he think of me?

The longer I stood in my front room holding my journal, the more my humiliation morphed into anger. I'd opened up my home to him. For two weeks, I'd waited on him hand and foot. I cooked for him. I took him to PT. I did his fucking laundry. And how does he repay me? He snoops through my things and reads my innermost thoughts.

My innermost thoughts.

"Oh shit." I flipped through more pages, making sure I hadn't written his name anywhere. The only thing worse than Sam knowing I was a virgin was if he knew about my feelings for him. I scanned every page, but thankfully, his name was never mentioned.

I'd kept a diary since I was eight, and since I had two brothers, I'd never actually used anyone's name when I journaled for fear the twins would find it, read it, and expose me. Even as an adult, I'd kept that same level of security out of habit, and thank God I had.

I checked the time and saw that I had about twenty minutes until I was due to meet Jonah. The right thing to do would be to put this discovery on the backburner and go have a lovely evening.

The problem with that plan was that there was no way I could enjoy myself. I had to speak to Sam. I grabbed my phone and messaged him.

Me: Where are you?

I waited for his reply, flipping through the pages. All of my deepest insecurities, worries, and dreams were in this book. The pages not only revealed my virginal status but also revealed how insecure I was about my writing, my past, my present, and my future—everything.

My phone buzzed, and I looked down to see Sam's response.

Sam: At Xmas fest.

Perfect. That was perfect. Two birds. One stone.

I grabbed my purse, threw on my coat, said a quick goodbye to Winnie, then hopped in my car and made it downtown in less than two minutes; it usually took me five. Unfortunately, it did take me five minutes to find parking. By the time I pulled into a spot, my anger levels had spiked off the charts.

The more I thought about what Sam had done, the more violated I felt about it. And embarrassed.Yeah, I was definitely still embarrassed.

I got out of the car and slammed the door. I started to walk away but was jerked back. The motion caused my neck to snap.

"Ahh!" I cried out as I looked over my shoulder and saw that my coat was in the door.

Seriously. Only me.

My righteous indignation deflated slightly as I pressed the fob to unlock the door and pulled my jacket out. Once I was freed, I began searching the festival. Sam was nowhere to be found. I texted him asking exactly where he was—but got no response.

He'd been out of commission for two weeks, so where would Sam Whitlock go on his first night back in the wild? I asked myself, and an answer instantly materialized. A dark corner to do dark deeds.

There was an out-cove where kids used to make out away from prying eyes. As I rounded the corner, I heard the sounds of two people and expected to find Sam and his flavor of the week, but instead, I found Taylor and Remi. They were making out like teenagers under the bleachers at a Friday night football game.

When they noticed me, a wide smile spread on my cousin's face.

"Hey, guess what—" Taylor started to say, but I spoke over her.

I wasn't in the mood to hear about how in love they were.

"I'm looking for Sam. Have you seen him?"

"No, I haven't." My cousin shook her head and looked up at Remi before turning back to me. "What's wrong?"

I ignored her question and directed my inquiry to Remi; "Have you seen him?"

"He's at the Santa Kissing Booth?—"

The kissing booth. Right. Of course, he was.

The second he got the words out, I spun on my heels and beelined it to the booth. It was sort of poetic that he was there. Ever since he joined the force and began to volunteer at the freaking kissing booth, he'd teased me about never visiting him. The truth was I wanted to. I'd always been tempted. But my pride, or maybe self-protection, had stopped me from patronizing it and kissing him because I felt like that would be a can of worms I wasn't prepared to open. Even before I consciously acknowledged my feelings, my subconscious was looking out for me.

I made it across the park to the booth in record time. People moved to the sides for me like parting of the Red Sea. When Sam saw me coming, his first reaction was to smile. But with each step I took closer to him, that smile diminished until he was staring at me with concern.

"We need to talk. Now," I stated calmly, but without any room for discussion.

He glanced at Brady Calhoun beside him. "Can you hold things down?"

"Sure can." Brady nodded.

Without waiting for him, I turned and walked as fast as my feet would carry me towards the civic building. Around the back was the only place I could think of where there was privacy, and I did not want an audience for this conversation.