The Only One

by Magan Vernon

  Short Stack smiled. “Hey, Deuce, me and Melanie just want to go upstairs and look for John Boy, have you seen him?”

  Deuce smirked. “You all planning on a threesome?”

  Short Stack snorted. “No! Definitely not! Melanie is looking for him, so I thought I’d help her out.”

  Deuce shook his head, moving the coffee table for us to get past. “Yeah, a lot of girls go looking for John Boy.”

  I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but I tried to put it in the back of my mind and followed Short Stack up the stairs. The second floor was basically empty. A guy and a girl were in one corner whispering with his hands trailing everywhere on her body. I turned away, trying not to stare.

  Short Stack turned and pounded on John’s door. “Hey John Boy! Open up!”

  No answer.

  He pounded again.

  “Maybe he’s not in there,” I said, getting more uncomfortable the louder I heard the couple moaning behind me.

  Short Stack put his ear up to the door. “No, he has to be. I hear music coming from inside.” He moved his head back and pounded his fist on the door. “If you don’t open up, I’m coming in.”

  No answer, again.

  “Looks like we’re going in, Red.”

  Short Stack pushed open the door and I gasped when I saw what was inside. John was sitting on his desk chair, his legs spread open as a leggy brunette in a green dress moved her lithe body up and down between his legs, tossing her hair back and forth to the music. At first I thought they were going at it, then I saw that John’s clothes were still on and she was dancing. John was getting a freaking lap dance.

  “What the hell, John Boy?” Short Stack yelled.

  The girl didn’t even stop her grinding, but John pushed her to the side, peering over her to look at Short Stack. “Knock much?” Then his blue eyes widened when he saw me standing next to him. “Melanie?”

  I could feel the tears begin to well up in my eyes. I had to get out of there. I turned and bolted for the door.

  “Melanie, wait!” John yelled after me, but I couldn’t look back at him. I didn’t want to know what excuse he had. He never referred to me as his girlfriend or even his date, but I thought we had something. Maybe I was wrong.

  I ran down the stairs and pushed past the coffee table, but got stuck by a group of girls waiting in line for the bathroom.

  “Gawd, can you believe that coffee chick is going after John Boy?” One girl wearing a bright green halter top said to her friend.

  “Yeah, I heard she stayed here the other night. Is she a charity case or something? I saw the way she was dressed. Maybe it’s part of their philanthropy,” the friend said and they both giggled.

  That was it. Enough was enough. I cleared my throat and the two girls turned toward me, the smiles disappearing from their faces, replaced with looks of disgust. I wanted to say something. To set them straight, but instead I just pushed through them and made my way to the door.

  The November night air was a welcome greeting and I took in a deep breath before I pulled my phone out of my pocket, typing in the first number I could think of.

  “Hey Monica, are you busy?”

  * * *

  Monica had practically moved into Trey’s apartment, so I knew she would be there, even before she told me that’s where she was. It was a few blocks from the Alpha Mu house, but it felt like the longest walk of my life.

  Monica and Trey lived in The Pines luxury apartments. They were supposed to be luxury, but I always saw peeling paint in their rooms and the hallways were cement that made it easier to hear loud, drunken people running down the halls. Which was what a guy was doing at that moment. Luckily he didn’t bother me and was too busy running and singing some random Madonna song. College. All the weirdoes came out.

  I finally got to Trey’s door and only had to knock once before Monica answered, wearing an over sized t-shirt and a pair of shorts. “Melanie! What the hell happened?”

  My eyes grazed over her outfit. “Am I interrupting something? I can come back.”

  She shook her head and pulled me into the apartment, closing the door behind us. “No, me and Trey were just catching up on the DVR.”

  I’d only been in Trey’s apartment once and it was the same layout as everyone else’s in the building, but his was professionally decorated. The old couch and chair were replaced by a plush, leather sofa on the back wall with a large picture of the Chicago skyline hanging over it. A matching love seat sat adjacent to it, and instead of the bulky big screen TV, a flat screen was mounted on the wall with small speakers on either side. Maroon curtains were drawn over the patio doors, and the room was lit by a few lamps on some dark wood end tables on each side of the couch.

  I didn’t see Trey anywhere. I guessed he was probably in his bedroom, giving us some privacy or something.

  Monica sat on the couch. “Okay, sit and spill. You don’t just call a girl at eleven o’clock and say you need someone to talk to without it being something big.”

  I sat down, the leather sofa molding around my body like butter. It was way more comfortable than the thing Monica had to sit on in her apartment. Even more comfortable than my Craigslist couch. I should have gotten the name of Trey’s decorator.

  “Okay, so I was stupid and went to a party at the Alpha Mu house, because John invited me.”

  Monica rolled her eyes. “Ugh, the stoplight party?”

  “Yeah. That one.”

  She raised an eyebrow. And did he wear green?

  “No.” I sighed. “He said he was going to wear black, so I made this stupid comment that I would wear white, but that’s not the point of the story.”

  “Okay, sorry. I’ll stop interrupting.” She blinked hard and stared at me.

  I glanced down at my fingers, unsure if I could actually look at her when I told her what happened. She warned me that he was a manwhore. I should have listened to her. Even when she said it was fine to date him, she probably didn’t mean it. She wasn’t being a bitch. She knew this would happen. “So, I went to the party, like I said and his little brother—“

  “Short Stack?” Monica interrupted.

  I looked up at her and she held up her hands. “Sorry, I know interrupting.”

  “Yes. Short Stack. He took me upstairs to find John.” I let out a deep breath and recounted the rest of it very quickly, everything from hearing the music, to the brunette, and running out of the house with John yelling after me.

  When I was done Monica stared at me with her eyes wide. “That little prick. I can’t believe he would do that to you.”

  “Obviously some people didn’t believe he should be with me.”

  Monica shook her head. “Look, what I said about you and him before, it was because I didn’t want you to get hurt. Not because I didn’t think you were good enough for him.”

  “No, not you.” I picked at the skin under my fingernails for something to do with my hands. “Some girls at the party didn’t know I was there and were talking about me. Saying that they didn’t know what a guy like John was doing with me and making fun of the way I dress and such.”

  Monica furrowed her eyebrows. “Who were these girls?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just some random party girls that were waiting in line for the bathroom.”

  Monica put her hands on mine, stopping my fingers from moving. “Then why does it matter what they think? They’re nobody.”

  She was right, of course. It shouldn’t matter what some random girls that I didn’t know thought of me. Yet I did care and I cared even more that some random girl was giving John a lap dance.

  “It’s just...I thought we had something.”

  Monica rubbed her arms up and down her legs. “Seriously, every time I’ve seen John Boy he has been with a different girl. He’s not the settling down type. You don’t need someone like that in your life if he’s just going to bring you down.”

  “But I do need him.”

  She raised an
eyebrow. “Why? Why would you need a guy? Unless you went to Student Health Services and you already know that you’re carrying a little John Boy bun in your oven.”

  I felt the tears prick my eyes. It was now or never that I had to be honest with Monica. “No, that’s the problem. I did go to Student Health Services to get an exam.” I looked her right in the eye, my vision blurring with tears. “They found cancer cells on my cervix. I was at John’s when I got the call.”

  Monica gasped, putting her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! When did you find out?” She put her hands down.

  “Student Health Services called and told me on Wednesday. I had to go to a doctor here in town yesterday to get a biopsy done and John took me. Then afterwards we watched Harry Potter and he made me cheesecake.”

  Monica shook her head. “I don’t know what part of that statement confuses me more. That he took you to the doctor or that he baked for you.”

  I sniffled. “Yeah, that’s what confused me too. I thought we had something. But now I’m afraid he just did all of that because he felt sorry for me. Not because he wanted to be with me.”

  “Come here.” Monica held out her arms and I let my body collapse into them. I was tired of crying, but I buried my head in her shoulder and hugged her back. I needed the comfort. I needed to finally let all of the feelings inside of me come to the surface.

  Chapter 11

  It felt good to finally tell Monica what was going on. She said that she would take me to my follow up appointment, so I wouldn’t have to walk there in the cold, November weather. Or beg John.

  Since I wasn’t working until later the next day and I didn’t want to look through my texts or get online just to have John message me, I finally decided to look through the pamphlet that the nurse gave me.

  “Human Papilomavirus,” I said out loud. The pamphlet was maroon with pictures of women of different ages and races, all smiling. Like it was something to be happy about. I flipped open the first page. “What is HPV, got that. How do people get it? Passed through sex. Anal, vaginal, oral, or any genital contact. Early on, cervical cancer may not cause signs and symptoms. A person can still have HPV even if it’s been years since they have had sexual contact.”

  Huh. I’d only had sex with exactly one person in my life and gotten past the rest of the bases a few times. Could I have gotten it from my high school boyfriend? He did cheat on me when he went to college, but I wondered if there were other girls. I didn’t think that would give me a disease. I didn’t always use condoms with Robby. Especially not with oral. I shuddered at the thought. I was so upset about John being a manwhore and I was the one with the disease. I felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world.

  My phone was sitting next to me on the couch. There were a few missed text messages from Monica and one from John that I didn’t have the heart to open. But there was something else on my phone. Robby, my high school boyfriend’s, number was still in it. I didn’t know why I kept it. We broke up over a year ago. We weren’t even Facebook friends anymore. But for some reason, I felt the strongest urge to talk to him. Before I could chicken out, I dialed his number.

  “Hey, this is Rob. What up?”

  Rob? No one ever called him Rob. He had been Robby since kindergarten.

  “Um, hey, ROBBY, this is Melanie. Melanie Wilder.”

  “Mells Bells? Haven’t heard from you in awhile. What’s going on?” He said it casually as if it was just a normal day. Like the last time I saw him wasn’t when a pretty redhead was going down on him in his dorm room. Would I head down the same path if I stayed with John? Tears threatened my eyes as I thought about how mortified I was to see the guy I was with forever cheating on me. It felt just as bad to see John with another girl. Not saying I was in love with John, but it hurt to think someone was willing to give up his manwhorish ways, be there for me, and then he wasn’t.

  “Nothing too big. You know, working, classes, cancer.” I said the whole thing as if it were nothing. Like I would just tell my former boyfriend about cancer any day. I didn’t know why it came out like that, but it did. Like word vomit.

  “What the hell, Mel? Did you just say cancer?” His voice slightly squeaked, like it used to do when he was nervous.

  “Yeah. Cervical Cancer. HPV to be exact. Have you heard of it?”

  “Aw, shit you have AIDS? Who the hell did you get with after me?” His voice now took on an accusatory tone.

  I groaned. “No, idiot. Not AIDS. It’s human papilomavirus. It’s a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cancer in women. And I’ve only been with you. I’m wondering if you can actually say the same thing.”

  He let out a nervous laugh. “I haven’t been with any dudes.”

  “I’m serious, Robby. Look, I’m over you. I’m not worried who you’re with now. I just want to know, how many other girls were you with when you were supposed to be with me?”

  “Geez, Mel, do we need to talk about this right now?”

  “Yes, Robby or Rob or whatever the hell you want to be called now. We do need to talk about this. Just tell me the truth. For once.”

  He sighed. I knew he was probably running his hands over his face like he used to always do whenever he had to get something off of his chest. “I don’t know. A few.”

  “How many is a few?”

  “I don’t know. There was the time you caught me. Um, some girl at orientation. Another girl I met in the laundry room. Oh, and that girl from my Physics class.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. I don’t want to hear anymore.”

  Turns out the guy got around more than I thought. The guy who I gave my heart to my sophomore year of high school and my virginity in the back of his truck. Now that all ended with me going to see a doctor. This was not what I had in mind for my future or what I thought would happen because of his cheating.

  “Well, you did ask.”

  I groaned. “Yes. I know. I should have known that was the answer.”

  “Hey.” His voice took on a tone of actual concern. “Are you all right? Like are you dying?”

  “No, Robby, you don’t have to worry about that. As far as I know everything is okay. I go back to the doctor on Wednesday to get my results of a biopsy.”

  “Let me know what happens, Mells, okay? We may not be together anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

  Sure he still cared about me. Cared enough to cheat and not talk to me for over a year. But I wasn’t about to say that to him. I just wanted to get him off of the phone. This was starting to get all too familiar. First Robby, now John. Both guys who said they cared about me and both guys who let me down. “Okay, Robby. Talk to you later.”

  “Later, Mells. Keep in touch.”

  I hung up the phone and tossed it on the couch. I was half tempted to actually read my missed text message from John, but I didn’t want to feel worse than I already did. I felt completely broken. Like everything about my life was shattering into a million little pieces. The supposed love of my high school life had cheated on me multiple times and was probably the reason I had cancer. And the other guy, the one who I thought could be my future, was getting lap dances from random girls at parties.

  Just as I was ready to get out the ice cream I had stashed in my freezer for my own pity party, a knock came at my door. I got up from the couch and walked to it, looking out the peep hole. Staring back at me was John’s smiling face. He had some nerve.

  “What do you want?” I yelled.

  “I came here to talk to you. You won’t answer my calls, texts, or messages, so I thought maybe showing up here would be the better option.”

  “Are you sure you want to come in?” I smirked, even though I knew he couldn’t see it. “I may be giving a lap dance to some random guy.”

  He groaned. “Come on, Red. Just let me in so I can explain.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’m going to sing Rhianna songs really loudly until your neighbors
call the cops for a noise complaint.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Would he? Would my neighbors call?

  “I want you to stayyyyyyyyy,” he yelled in a very off key tone.

  “I’m not impressed.”

  But that didn’t stop him. He kept singing and surprisingly knew all of the words. By the time he got around to the chorus again, I threw the door open. Better to deal with him face-to-face than possibly have the cops show up.

  “What do you want?” I stared at him, hard. I was furious, but of course I had to hold back my smile because he was looking pitiful and gorgeous. His mouth still open as he stopped singing. Instead of wearing a hat, his hair was gelled in choppy spikes and he was clean shaven. Like he went out of his way to look good for me. He looked mouth watering in a gray, fleece coat and faded jeans with his Pumas.

  No. I couldn’t think about how good he looked. That’s how I fell for him in the first place. I just kept the scowl on my face.

  “I came here to see you, and to apologize.” He walked in, even though I didn’t ask him to. I shut the door behind him anyway and stood with my hands folded across my chest.

  I wished I would’ve dressed up. Maybe showed him what he was missing. Instead I was still in my pajamas and no makeup.

  “Go on.”

  He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t know that you would just show up like that.”

  “So that makes it okay that some random chick was giving you a lap dance in your bedroom?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “No. No. I didn’t say that. It’s just, ugh.” He ran his hands down the length of his face and then shook his head. “I don’t know what to say, Red. I didn’t ask Missy to do that. I was in my room with a couple of the other guys and she just showed up. Then she turned on some music and started dancing. Before I knew it, the other guys left and it was just her grinding up on me.”

  “Yeah, nice excuse, but that doesn’t mean you told her to stop.” I held up my hands. “Whatever. It’s not like we’re together or anything. I don’t even know what the hell we are.”