Because of You

by Sam Mariano

  "You live in this trailer park with Alex, don't you?" he finally asked, putting his turn signal on.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "I used to live in this trailer park," he remarked.

  "I know you did."

  He half smiled. "Is there anything she didn't write in those journals?"

  "Yeah," I replied, not even trying to hide my bitterness. "Goodbye."

  His smile fell, and he didn't try to talk to me again until he asked which road I lived on. I told him he had brought me far enough, flatly thanked him again, and got out of the car, making my own way down my road.

  I heard his car not moving, and it made me unreasonably angry that he seemed to be just sitting there, watching me walk down the road.

  One lousy ride home didn't come close to making up for all the damage he had done. It didn't make up for breaking my mother's heart, for all the tears she cried, for marrying Sarah when he actually admitted he didn't love her. And it sure as hell didn't make up for me losing my mother.

  So I stomped down the road, but I finally got pissed that he was still just sitting there like some sort of stalker, so I whipped around, planning to give him a dirty look, but I saw that he wasn't watching me at all. He was just sitting in his car, staring blankly out the windshield, still not moving.

  I frowned a little, wondering about the state of his mental health, and continued on to my trailer.

  I ended up picking up another shift at work that night, so I didn't get to talk to Derek. When I finally got off, I had a voicemail from him saying he was sorry about earlier. I was too tired to call him back, so I just took a shower and went to bed, figuring I would see him the next morning at school.

  At one in the morning, my cell phone started ringing.

  I grimaced, rolling over and sleepily mumbling, "Hello?"

  "Hey. Sorry, did I wake you?" Derek asked.

  "Yes," I said, chuckling a bit.

  "Oh, sorry. I was finishing up some last minute homework, I didn't even think about the time," he admitted.

  "Mm, that's nice."

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Um... sleeping."

  "Right. Sorry about earlier, by the way. I don't know if you got my voice mail or not, but..."

  "It's okay, you were running late, I get it. But hey, I'm kind of half asleep, so can I talk to you tomorrow?"

  "Oh, yeah, of course. Hey, you want me to come over and give you a ride to school? Kind of make it up to you?"

  I accidentally yawned in his ear. "If you want to."

  "Okay, I'll pick you up then."

  "All right, but you better get some sleep," I advised.

  "I will," he replied, then we said our goodbyes and I yawned again, rolling over and doing just that.

  By the next morning, I wasn't sure about the idea of riding to school with Derek. When I tried to call to tell him not to bother, I could get a ride from Alex (who didn't notice that I didn't come home the night before, as he happened to be in the shower when I snuck in), he didn’t answer.

  I was just stuffing my books into my backpack when Derek pulled in, so I called out a goodbye to Alex and went out to Derek's car. I saw him turn down the radio, which I was thankful for, and then I opened the door, sliding into the passenger seat.

  "Hey," he greeted.

  "Hey," I replied, shoving my backpack in the floor. "I tried to call you."

  "You did? Sorry, I must've had the music too loud."

  "Well, I wasn't really thinking about this in the middle of the night when you called me, but maybe you should drop me off up the road from the school or something."

  He shot me a funny look. "Uh, why?"

  "Because people could see me getting out of your car. People will know we came to school together."

  "Oh no," he mocked. "I'm going to have to marry you for sure now; your reputation will never recover from getting a ride to school."

  I rolled my eyes, reluctantly smiling anyway. "I'm not talking about my reputation, I'm just saying people will notice, then people will talk..." I trailed off, thinking he would get it.

  "And it will be another normal day of high school? I'm not really seeing the big deal, Nikki."

  "People might think... something other than what's going on," I said.

  "Spell it out, 'cause I'm still not seeing the crisis situation," he stated.

  "People might think we're dating," I said in the same tone some might say, "People might think I have the plague."

  He merely lifted his eyebrows, remarking, "I'm sure stranger things have been thought."

  I could only stare at him. "Derek, you hate me, remember? Why in the world would you want anyone to think we're dating?"

  "I didn't say I wanted people to think that, Nikki, but... I mean, I'm single now, you're single now, and we are sleeping together, so..."

  "Yeah, but not like that," I argued.

  He shrugged. "I don't know, I wouldn't really worry about what people think."

  If he wasn’t worried about it, maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe I was being paranoid.

  “Here,” he said, lifting a Starbuck’s cup out of his cup holder.

  “What’s this?” I asked, taking the cup and frowning at it.

  “Hot cider. That’s what you like, right?”

  I blinked. “It’s for me?”

  Eyebrow rising, he nodded and lifted his own cup to take a drink. “It’s kinda cold out today. Figured it would be rude to drink one in front of you.”

  I cut him a suspicious sideways glance, but I wasn’t going to turn down hot cider.

  We arrived at the school soon after that, and since my locker was in the opposite direction of Derek's, we said we'd see each other in class and went our separate ways.

  Unfortunately, Kayla appeared out of nowhere, storming up to my locker and standing there with her hand on her hip.

  Not in the mood to deal with her drama, I merely peered around my locker, raised an eyebrow and asked, "May I help you with something?"

  "Did you come here with Derek?" she demanded.

  Well, so much for being paranoid.

  "Why, are you my babysitter?" I replied.

  "I heard you rode to school with Derek, is it true?" she asked again.

  "Yeah, he gave me a ride. Is that a problem?"

  "Actually, yes," she stated.

  "Oh. Well, sorry about that," I said with no interest, peering back into my locker to get my books.

  "You know, I'm not stupid," Kayla said.

  That was a matter of opinion, I thought, but I didn't say so. Instead I merely said, "Okay..."

  "I know what's going on between you two," she said in a slightly threatening tone, as if that affected me in some way.

  "Okay," I said again, thinking she was incredibly melodramatic.

  "And you better back off," she said, seeming newly angered that I wasn't shaking with fear.

  "Last I checked, Derek was a free agent," I informed her. "Honestly, even if he wasn't, I do what I damn well please, and I'd like to see you try to stop me."

  She narrowed her eyes, glaring at me. "You might want to be careful whose man you're screwing with," she threatened. "It sure would be a shame to see anything like that happen to your car again."

  So it was her. That bitch.

  I decided with that sly little admission that the gloves were coming off, so I slammed my locker shut and gave her the coldest look I was capable of. "You might want to be careful who the fuck you're threatening," I responded, my tone much more threatening than hers. Mocking her innocent tone, I added, "It sure would be a shame if you were driving down the road one day and realized your brake lines had been cut."

  Her smug look faltered a little there, and she said, "Did you just threaten me?"

  "Did you just threaten me?" I retorted, my face carefully blank, my eyes as cold as ice.

  I could tell she was still angry, but she was also remembering the story of what my mother had done, and wondering if homicidal tendencies
might run in our family.

  She didn't need to know that I didn't even know where brake lines were on a car, and even if I did, I would be disinclined to dirty my hands by touching hers.

  "You better watch your back," she said, although I saw that she was backing down, just trying not to show it.

  "And you better hope nothing mysteriously happens to my car. Or Derek's," I added on a whim, thinking she might get a stupid idea to retaliate against him, and since he had helped me, I wouldn't appreciate that either.

  "Or what?" she asked, giving me a cocky little look.

  I merely smiled coldly at her. "I never repeat myself, Kayla."

  With that, I navigated my way around her and headed for my first class.

  But I heard her call behind me, "You'll see!"

  I simply rolled my eyes and kept walking.

  Chapter Eight-

  Derek and I continued our little arrangement, and other than Kayla and Andy, nobody really seemed to notice anything going on between us.

  I didn't know how. Derek wasn’t very discreet, and he had taken to sitting on my desk daily and chatting with me about something or other (but I suspected this was his way of convincing me to do most of his work in that class). I didn't care though. I never met anyone who would actually let me babble on about school assignments the way Derek did, and I thought it was pretty great.

  I gathered that Derek must have enjoyed my company in bed as much as I enjoyed his, because it seemed like he was trying to invite himself over all the time, but since he had never again denied me my cuddling when we were done, I hardly minded.

  One day he even shocked me, because he was giving me a ride home from school, and instead of turning right out of the school parking lot, he turned left. When I informed him that he had taken me the wrong way, he told me he hadn't, that he was taking me somewhere. I asked where, but he wouldn't tell me. Twenty minutes later we pulled into my favorite bookstore, and for that moment at least, he was one of my favorite people in the universe. I had just been telling him a couple days prior how I wanted to go to the bookstore, but Alex wasn't letting me take the car.

  When Derek would do nice things for me, it still made me fairly suspicious. I think that annoyed him, because one day after he randomly took me to a movie –and I badgered him, trying to figure out his motive—he snapped that he couldn't even do anything nice for me without getting tortured about it. I told him it wasn't my fault, that he normally wasn't nice to me, so when he was, I automatically wondered why. He was grumpy for the rest of that ride home, and only got grumpier when I mumbled, "You're moodier than any woman I've ever met."

  I was vaguely aware that I had been spending a lot of time with Derek, but I didn't acknowledge it until Stephanie stopped me in the hall one day and asked why I kept blowing her off. She actually thought I was mad at her, which of course I wasn't, I was just so busy with Derek –between his sexual appetite, day trips, and sometimes helping him study or doing a little bit of his homework—not to mention my own school assignments and job, that I really didn't have much time anymore. Of course she didn't really know I was spending so much time with Derek, so I didn't say that to her.

  We decided we were going to go out to dinner Friday night for some girl time, which made me happy.

  Friday rolled around, and I picked out a pretty outfit, did my hair, and left to meet Steph. She was already there when I got to the restaurant, and she immediately started chattering as we went to our seats. Steph was telling me all about the drama at work, how this one guy wouldn't stop calling her, and how this girl on the volleyball team was dating Steph's ex-boyfriend. I missed her endless chatter.

  When she finally got done, she said, "So, what have you been up to? Between our schedules I've barely had a chance to talk to you. I haven't seen you at lunch, either. Is everything okay?"

  Derek and I had made a habit of skipping lunch every day that week, as I still didn't want Andy to see us together, and there just so happened to be a Subway down the road, so we had been running down there and grabbing lunch.

  "Yeah, everything's fine," I said, trying to figure out how I was going to explain the Derek situation.

  "I was talking to Kayla the other day," Steph began, frowning a little. "Did you know she pretty much hates you?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, I kind of got that impression when she vandalized my car."

  Steph gasped. "That wasn't Kayla! She wouldn't do something like that."

  "She did. She admitted it to me," I told her.

  "That's crazy! Why would she do that?"

  Well, there was my opening. I sighed, glancing down at my hands. "Okay, this is going to sound a little... out there."

  "Oh my gosh, you really are dating him, aren't you?" Stephanie said, wide-eyed.

  I grimaced. "You've heard?"

  "Oh my gosh, Nicole! How could you not tell me that?"

  "Well, we aren't actually dating," I defended. "We're just kind of... hanging out."

  "I thought you two hated each other," she said, shaking her head in confusion.

  "We did... I guess... I don't really know how to explain it, Steph," I said honestly.

  "So that's why you broke up with Andy? And that's why Derek broke it off with Kayla?"

  "I guess so," I said uncertainly.

  "Wow... that's crazy."

  "Agreed," I said.

  "So... what's that like? According to Kayla he didn't really treat her very well. He was kind of an ass."

  That caused me to smile. "He's definitely an ass," I agreed.

  "Okay... so of course, knowing this, you just had to date him. Makes perfect sense," she said sarcastically.

  "We aren't dating," I insisted.

  "Well... you know you guys don't have to hide, right? I mean, Kayla will be pissed, but she'll get over it, she always does. You two should sit with me at lunch one day or something. Maybe Derek won't dislike me so much now."

  I nodded, opting not to tell Steph that for some reason Derek just didn't really like her, and it wasn't because of me. When I would bring Steph up he would usually roll his eyes and make some remark about how dumb she was—which of course she wasn't, and I always told him so. But he also considered Kayla incredibly dumb, so I decided maybe it was their entire group he thought had no brains.

  Stephanie and I had a nice dinner after that, and we didn't bring it up again. I did start to talk to her excitedly about one of our assignments, and I saw her interest fade, a tolerant but disinterested smile on her face, so I decided to just wait until later and tell Derek about it.

  That was one of my favorite things about spending time with Derek. I enjoyed his company even when I was pretty much ignoring him. It was not uncommon for Derek to come over to my house just so I could curl up on my bed and start reading a book. He would try to steal my attention, but I would always tell him, "Derek, I'm reading."

  "Of course you're reading, what else would you be doing?" he would reply.

  He would go on to ask what I was reading and why it was so important that I read it right then instead of later when he would be at home. Of course I would respond with a campaign about whatever book I happened to be reading, and more often than not (especially with my "The Bell Jar has been compared to Catcher in the Rye, Derek!") I would end up curled beside him with his arm around me, and he would give in, reading along with me.

  I still didn't like to be around Mike, so I seldom went to Derek's house. The only time I would go over was when Derek absolutely promised me that Mike would be at work, so I wouldn't have to see him. I don't know if it bothered him that I disliked his father so much, because we tried not to talk about our parents very much.

  Anytime our families came up Derek got really weird on me, and usually he would start being kind of mean to me again after what I could only assume was a reminder of what had happened so many years earlier. So we pretty much avoided that topic altogether.

  Once in a while we’d talk about things that I would have never expected us to t
alk about, but it just came up.

  For instance, Friday night after my dinner with Steph, Derek and I were in his room doing homework, and I was jotting down a couple books from the "Further reading" suggestions in our textbook. Out of the blue, Derek asked, "Where are you going to college?"

  I was lying on my stomach on his bed, so I glanced up at him. "Oh, I don't know if I'm going to college."

  He frowned as if I had said something incredibly stupid. "Are you kidding? How could you –of all people—even think about skipping college? You love to learn more than anyone— everyone I've ever known."

  I sighed, shrugging it off. "I can't really afford it. The most I could do would be community college, and there's nothing I want to do that I can do with a two year degree."

  "So do what I'm doing," he said. "Go to community college for two years, then transfer to a bigger university to get your bachelor's degree."

  "That would still be expensive, Derek. I don't even have any more time to save up money, just this year."

  He shook his head. "I just can't believe you would skip college. It seems insane to me."

  "Well, if college didn't cost thousands of dollars, I would go, but... I don't have parents to pay for my education and I don’t want to take out a bunch of loans, so..." I shrugged again, going back to my assignment.

  "So pay for it yourself," he suggested.

  I raised my eyebrows, looking up at him again. "With what? My good looks?"

  He smiled. "You can try that, but if it doesn't work you can get a different job. Wendy's probably isn't going to cut it, but as much as you love books, why don't you get a job at a bookstore or something? Just the employee discount would probably be worth it for you," he half joked.

  "I would love to work at a bookstore," I said, smiling at the thought.

  "So do it," he said simply.

  "I can't, Derek. The closest bookstore is 20 minutes away from here, Alex hardly lets me borrow his car as it is. It's a nice thought and everything, but it's not that simple."

  He shook his head. "You are one confusing person, I hope you know that."

  I smiled jauntily. "I'm a walking anomaly, but I like that about me."