Free With Me by Gabbie S. Duran Page B

immediately seeing Mark next to the window. He’s looking at me with his eyebrows raised, analyzing me. I’m familiar with the view from the window. He probably saw everything, being that Kasey had parked across the street. Our bodies were facing the house, giving Mark a clear view.
    He’s casually standing there with his hands in his pockets, a smirk on his face as he declares, “So, I take it you have a dilemma on your hands now?”
    Scowling when I look at him, I ask, “What dilemma would that be?”
    He steps away from the window, as he walks back into the kitchen area without a response, leaving me to follow. I know he’s right. I do have a dilemma on my hands. My mind has a habit of wandering back to the memories I have with Kasey. Even knowing I was soon going to be marrying someone else, I can’t stop thinking of her and Josephina now. I am determined to be a part of their future, but I needed to figure out a way to get Kasey from my mind before I get myself into trouble.
    When I enter the kitchen area, I see Ashley loading the last of the dishes into the dishwasher and closing it up. Mark goes to open up the fridge and retrieves two beers, handing one to me. I take it without hesitation, opening it to take a sip, hoping the cold liquid with help calm my heated blood that I was left with from just moments ago.
    Leaning my body against the kitchen counter, I already see Mark ready to state his case. “From what I saw a minute ago, I’m pretty sure you still have feelings for her. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out by the way you were looking at her either,” he says, before taking a sip of his beer, his eyes challenging me to differ.
    I stay silent, unable to deny his words.
    His eyebrows go up in confirmation when I don’t say anything. “Just how serious was it before you left? I know from the stories you told me there was nothing much going on, but when you came back after boot camp you looked like shit. Did she have you wrapped around her little finger even back then?” he jokily asks, his cocky smile mocking me.
    Groaning, I ignore his remark and walk over to the living area, taking a seat on the couch. Mark and I are close, but the last thing I want to do is lay my feelings that I had for Kasey out on the table for him to mock me about. She's my past; Elizabeth is my future now, and it is something I am going to have to learn to live with.
    Ashley and Mark follow me, taking a seat on the other couch, and by Ashley’s impatient expression, she wants an answer as well. Looking over to Mark I respond, “Not as wrapped as Ashley has you,” I tell him with the same cockiness he’d given me. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure she has you by the balls, too,” I add, before taking another swig of my beer.
    Ashley laughs, but Marks only scowls as he asks, “How serious was it?”
    “Kasey and I never dated because of her parents. She wasn’t allowed to at all,” I say, raking my hand over my head desperately trying to clear the irritation from my mind.
    “So she was the prize you couldn’t touch?” Mark’s jokes, making me scowl at him.
    “She was more than that,” I mumble, wanting to punch him as well.
    I hate the way it sounds, but it’s true. Of course I’ve heard the saying, you want what you can’t have, but Kasey was always more than just a prize I couldn’t have. She was different. She always listened without hesitation when I had a problem, never judging me for my faults. She was the one who always helped me with my schoolwork when I couldn’t get it through my thick head and my grades started to take a plunge, to the point of failing. She never gave up on me. That’s when I started noticing her as more than just the girl next door, but the girl I wanted to date. The girl I wanted to fall in love with. Or maybe I already had.
    “It still doesn’t explain how you ended up getting her pregnant,” Ashley says, breaking my trance of the memory and