Angela

I own nothing...I've been playing around with this story for a little while. I've had a lot of fun writing the flashbacks for "How did we get here?" so I decided to start this one. I think I'm going to take a break for HDWGH and write this one for a while. If you've read the other story, you kind of know where it ends up and you may recognize some of the scenes...Let me know what you think.

June 1995

Do you ever really know someone? I mean, like really know someone? Because I've got to tell you, I'm not sure that it's possible. Take Jordan Catalano, for example. I thought I knew him. I thought I was finally starting to understand him, like how he is. I was finally starting to get him. And then he does something like this, something so totally not like Jordan Catalano.

Jordan takes Angela's hand, moving it away from the front of his pants, just as she's about to unbutton them. Laying his forehead against hers, he takes a deep breath. He softly kisses her lips before shifting his weight from her to the mattress.

"Jordan, what are you doing? I thought this is what you wanted." Angela says, looking up at Jordan as he pulls away.

As he moves to lay beside her on his bed, he sighs. "It is." He pulls her shirt back down over her body. Stretching over her, he grabs his shirt and pulls it back over his head. Laying back beside her, he closes his eyes, trying to gain control of his body. "I want this, like more than anything."

Confused, she asks, "Then why did you stop?" She bites her lip, a frown forming on her face. When he doesn't move back to her, she looks at him questioningly. He just continues to lay there with his eyes closed, breathing hard.

Laying there beside him, she looks like she may cry. Her bottom lip starts to tremble and she turns her face away. After a few minutes, Jordan opens his eyes. Seeing her pained expression, he rolls back to her, only to kiss her on the cheek.

Getting up from the bed, Jordan holds his hand out to help her up. "Come on." Looking back at him, she blinks back tears and then slowly shifts to the edge of the bed, putting her hand in his. Pulling her up beside him, he wraps his arms around her. "I stopped because, you know," he seems to struggle with the words, "Well, because, it's not like the right time or whatever."

It's not the right time? That's seriously the last thing I expected him to say. We're alone, like in his house, in his bedroom. We've been making out forever, almost since we got through the door, and it's not the right time? When I'm finally ready. When I feel like I have to be with him or die, he says it's not the right time.

In the few months they'd been back together, this wasn't the first time they'd been alone. It wasn't the first time they had been in his house, or in his bedroom. They had been alone in his car, in her house, in the boiler room, at the loft. They had made out many times.

In all of their many make out sessions, Jordan never pressured her. He let her set the pace and the rules. She was the one who dictated what they did or how far they would go. Each time, she would get bolder and bolder. Today, she had tried to let him know that she wanted more and he had stopped and pulled away.

She closes her eyes and rests her forehead against his chin. Twisting his shirt in her hands, she fights back the tears still threatening to fall. In a small voice, barely above a whisper, she says, "How do you know it's not the right time? It kinda felt like the right time to me." Feeling more than a little rejected, she lets her hands drop and tries to pull away.

Jordan, tightening his arms around her, refuses to let her go. "Ang, don't get upset." Hearing her sniffle, he lets her go, only to cup her face in his hands. Lifting her eyes to meet his. "We'll get to that. It doesn't have to be today." Using his thumbs, he wipes the tears from her face.

"But you told me to tell you when I was ready. I am. I'm ready to like be with you." She watches as Jordan starts to grin. Rolling her eyes, she playfully slaps his chest. "Why are you grinning like that?"

"I dunno, maybe because my girlfriend just told me she was like ready to do it."He chuckles.

"It's not funny, Jordan." She starts to pout, her bottom lip poking out.

Jordan just smiles down at her and pulls her face up to his for a slow, tender kiss. "I'm not laughing at you. I'm like, laughing at the situation or whatever."

"Well, I'm glad you find it amusing," she says, a little huffily. "Here I am, practically throwing myself at you and you don't want me."

"What?" Jordan, a little confused, scrunches his forehead in a frown. "Is that what you think? Babe, I don't want to rush it. We've got plenty of time. Besides, I have to be at work in a little while, so I need to get you home." He slips his arms around her again and pulls her body against his. "I do want you." When she closes her eyes, he says, "I do."

"But now that I'm ready, you like want to wait?" She opens her eyes and looks at the frayed collar of his t shirt instead of meeting his eyes.

"Only because we don't have a lot of time. I don't want our first time to be hurried." Bending to nuzzle her cheek, he whispers in her ear. "I want to take my time, you know, make it special for you."

Sighing loudly, Angela hugs him. "So you only stopped because you have to go to work?"

"Well, yeah. That and because," he pauses, giving her a shy smile, "well, I care too much about you to let your first time be rushed, like it doesn't mean anything or whatever."

"Really? Do you mean that?" Angela mumbles against his shirt.

"Of course I mean it. I love you, Angela." He gives her one last squeeze before releasing her. He steps back from her, only to cup her cheek in his hand. "I promise you it will be worth the wait."

Watching the smile return to her face, the smile that he loves so much, the one that lights up the room, he smiles back at her. "Now, come on. I'm gonna be late." Taking her by the hand, he leads her out of the room and down the stairs.

After kissing Jordan goodbye, Angela stands on the sidewalk in front of her house watching him pull away.

Isn't it funny how sometimes the totally unexpected happens and it's not really a bad thing, just weird because it's not how you expected it to be? Like you think something is going to be a certain way, then when it isn't, you're confused, but not unhappy. I mean, I never ever thought Jordan Catalano would be the one to stop me, like tell me that he wanted to wait. Am I dreaming? Did I even get out of bed this morning?

Laughing to herself, Angela starts to turn to walk to her house when, out of the corner of her eye, she spots Brian Krakow sitting on his bike in his driveway. She had been so caught up in Jordan and thinking about what had happened, that she hadn't noticed Brian watching them.

Since the day in the hallway at school when Jordan had tried to talk to Brian, the day Angela was forced to tell Brian in front of practically the whole school that she loved Jordan, not him, they hadn't spoken.

At first, things were too awkward for her to even acknowledge him. After a while, she had started to smile at him when he passed in the hall, or when she caught him watching her she would give him a wave. He always pretended like he didn't notice.

She lifted her hand in a small wave, and said, "Hey, Brian. How are you enjoying summer vacation so far?"

Angela stands looking at him. He looks like he isn't going to answer. As she turns to go into the house, she hears him say, "So, you're like, going to talk to me now or something? Just like that? After months of not speaking to me at all, you just say "Hey, Brian, how's your summer?"

Turning back to him, she says, "What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, Chase. How about, 'I'm sorry for ripping your heart out and stomping on it in front of the whole school?' That would be a good place to start." Brian, his face red, eyes flashing. Gets off his bike and walks across the street toward her. "Or how about, 'Thank you for helping my no account boyfriend apologize to me for sleeping with my best friend?' That would work."

"God, Brian! Just shut up. I don't know why I even bothered to speak to you. It's obvious that you have issues or something." Angela frowns at Brian. Pulling at the hem of her t shirt, she says, "Brian, I am sorry that you were hurt by all this. I can't help it that I don't feel that way about you. It's not like I can turn my feelings on and off like a switch. I was just trying to be nice. Next time I won't bother."

Turning on her heel, she stomps up the path to the front door. Pulling it open, she walks inside. Noticing Danielle laying on the sofa watching TV, she completely ignores her and walks by the room. Heading into the kitchen, she sees her dad standing at the sink washing his hands.

"Hey, honey. Did you have a good time with Jordan? I know you haven't seen him that much since school got out." Her dad gives her a smile as he dries his hands on the towel laying on the counter.

Not answering his question, she says, "Dad, why are guys such jerks?" She walks to the refrigerator and pulls out a can of soda.

"What guy? Jordan? What did he do?" Her dad walks over to put his arm around her.

Rolling her eyes, she moves out of her dad's embrace. "No. God. Why does it have to be Jordan? He's been great to me. I wish you wouldn't just assume that he's gonna screw up."

Holding his hands up, Graham says, "Hey, wait a minute. You just came from spending time with this wonderful boyfriend of yours and the first thing you say is 'why are guys jerks?' Who else am I supposed to think you mean?"

"Just don't be so quick to judge him, ok?" She takes a drink of her soda and says, "I was talking about Brian."

"Brian?" Her dad looks at her strangely. "What did Brian do?"

Angela looks back at him, shaking her head. "Well, since that whole thing with the letter, we haven't talked or whatever. I just tried to say hi to him and he freaked out."

"What thing with the letter? What letter?" Graham asks.

"Dad. The whole thing where he helped Jordan write a letter to me, but was really like professing his undying love for me." When her dad stares at her, blank expression firmly in place, she huffs in frustration. "How do you not know about this? You live here, right?"

"Well, excuse me for not being all up to date on what's happening with your love life!" Graham, now irritated, says, "So you mean to tell me your boyfriend had someone else right a love letter to you and said it was from him."

"Dad! That happened like over 3 months ago. It's not a big deal. Jordan told me the truth the day after he gave me the letter. Brian is the problem here, not Jordan." Rolling her eyes, she starts to walk out of the kitchen. Stopping suddenly, she turns to look at her dad. "You know, if you actually spent a little more time around here instead of spending all your time at your precious restaurant, maybe you would have known about all this."

Running from the room, straight up the stairs, she slams her bedroom door. Throwing herself on the bed, she stares at the ceiling.

How is it that someone can be so oblivious to things that are going on around them? Is it that easy to tune everything else out? Can you be so consumed with something that everything else just passes you by? How is that even possible?

As she's laying there thinking about what happened with Brian and how uncomfortable it was, Danielle yells up to her from the bottom of the stairs. "Angela! Brian Krakow is here. He wants to talk to you."

Slowly getting up from the bed, she opens her door and walks to the top of the stairs. Looking down, she sees that Brian is standing in the open doorway. She slowly walks down the stairs and pushes past him to the front porch. He follows her out and she pulls the door closed behind them.

"What do you want, Krakow? Didn't you say what you needed to say?" She crosses her arms over her chest.

"Look, Chase, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have went off like that. It's just that you used to be my friend or whatever. And then all of a sudden, I became invisible to you and all you could see was Jordan Catalano." He shifts from one foot to the other.

"Brian, even if Jordan wasn't in the picture, there could never be anything between us. I just don't feel that way about you." Biting her lip, she watches as Brian stands up a little straighter.

"Yeah, ok. I get that. So how about we try to put this stuff behind us? I do have to like live across the street from you. We go to the same school and all." Sticking his hands in his pockets, he looks down at his feet.

"I can do that if you can. I mean, I don't have a problem with it. But Brian, Jordan and I are together now. You can't act all weird every time you see us together." She gives him a tentative smile. "And you can't like stare at us or whatever. That's kinda creepy." Watching him blush, she touches his shoulder.

"Ok. Well, I'm going home now. I just wanted to clear the air." Turning, he starts down the front path. When he gets to the street, he turns and waves before heading home.

Wow. I think I'm living in an alternate universe. First Jordan does the completely unexpected, then Brian. Maybe I do need to go lay down for a while.

Heading back up to her room, she closes the door behind her and lays across her bed. This time, Jordan takes over her mind. All she can think about is what happened between them. How Jordan told her that he cared enough about her to make their first time special. Brian Krakow is the furthest thing from her mind.

Closing her eyes, all she sees is Jordan's beautiful blue eyes. She drifts off to sleep with a smile on her face.

So should I continue? Or should I stick with HDWGH? BTW... I still plan to continue "This is who I really am." ~gagirl29