“What in the hell is going on?” she asks, crossing her arms tightly. “You told me he was a cheating scumbag!”
“I’m sure I didn’t say it like that, Harper.”
She flicks her hand, pushing my statement aside. “Well whatever. You were so depressed these past few weeks but I come home to this—to you getting dry humped on my counter. This is just weird, Nat.”
“It’s not weird!” I argue as I smooth my hair down. “I’ve agreed to let things be natural between Nolan and I. You should be happy about this. At least I wasn’t sucking his dick!”
Harper gasps as her blue eyes stretch. “What are getting at?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Max?” I ask. “Since when have you kept things from me?” Her face depresses only slightly as she looks away from me. But just in the same amount of time that her face saddened, she perks back up, her face full of life again.
“I’m afraid you’ll look down on me for the things I do now, Nat. Most shit that I do, I do it out of stupidity. Most times I’m drunk out of my mind and sometimes I don’t remember what in the hell happened during the night before. That’s kind of why I eased up on taking you out. Because I don’t want you following in my footsteps.” She reaches for my hand and leads me to her bed. We both sit at the same time but my eyes don’t drift from hers.
“Ever since Bobby and I split, I just feel the need to take control. I feel the need to suck-then-fuck every guy that I come across. I want each and every one of them to remember how great I am and then regret the way they are. Just like Max. Max has millions of whores in the office of his clubs. He tried to treat me like one of them but I refused. He liked my attitude and asked me to go on a date with him. I agreed to do it. That’s how I got the pass for you. It was a few weeks ago, actually.
“Max is a cool guy, but he takes women for granted. He thinks that if he snaps, they’ll come running . . . but not me. I fucked the shit out of Max and then left his house during the middle of the night. I show up at his club just to remind him that he’s a dick and that he will never have me. I want to be hard to resist and hard to let go of. So far, I feel like I’m doing a damn good job at it because they constantly call me. Guys love when you give them a good BJ and then jump on top of them. It’s like their fantasy or something. I read it in a magazine once.”
My head shakes as I stare at Harp with the widest eyes ever. “But why?” I never would have thought that she would turn into a one-night-stand kind of girl. I can’t imagine how many men she’s actually had sex with during the course of these two years.
“Bobby really fucked me over, Nat. I hate the idea of settling again. It terrifies me to even think about how hurt I was. I don’t want anyone to have control over my heart.”
“That’s completely insane, Harp. You give them your all for one night and then just leave them alone?” My face scrunches. I refuse to judge my best friend but this behavior is ridiculous. “You don’t find that kind of . . . odd?”
“It not odd. Think about it for a sec,” she says, standing from the bed to justify herself. “Men do it all of the time. I do it for the fun of it—but don’t think that I do it every weekend. The maximum number of men that I’ve slept with is seven since I’ve been here. All of them beg for a real date with me . . . including Dawson.”
“Ugh,” I groan. “I seriously need to meet this Dawson guy. Does he know that you do this?”
“Yeah,” she breathes. “This is what I wanted to keep from you. When I saw him again at that beach party, I wanted to ignore him so damn bad. I wanted him to remember what we’d shared and how great our sex was but Nat,” she says, reaching for my hands to grip them. “There is just something about him that is making me want to stop what I’m doing. I don’t get how he can do it to me, but now I regret sleeping with those guys. He had practically given me a lecture about my behavior. I was still drunk when he gave it to me but I remember every single thing that he said. He wants to change me. But I can’t change. I’m too accustomed to partying my ass of and being single. I’m too used to hurting them for hurting girls like us.”
As Harper says that, my mind circles back to Nolan. She and Nolan are exactly the same. They can’t help the way they are. They’re so used to their flaws that their flaws turn into bad habits. I can’t believe this. For two weeks, I’ve been living with someone that hurts others for no reason as well. There is no reason to hurt people that actually want more. But I guess I can understand why Harper is the way she is now. She’s broken, just like Nolan. Just like me. She’s torn and she refuses to be mended by anyone else. But unlike her, Nolan wants to change. He wants the help.
“I think you should give Dawson a chance,” I finally say.
Her forehead creases over as her nose scrunches. “Why? He’s too . . . mature,” she groans.
“Maybe maturity is what you need, Harp. You should do what Nolan and I are doing. Take things naturally, day-by-day.”
“Um, I’m sorry but humping and kissing on my shiny counters is not natural. That’s just plain disgusting. I’ll be sure not to make my food on that side of the kitchen again.”
I chuck a laugh as I stand. “I’m being serious, Harp. Nolan is going through something that I’m going to find out more about . . . just as you are. I’m willing to help him, just as Dawson is willing to help you.”
Groaning, she flops backwards and her blonde hair stretches along her white sheets. “Do I have to?” she whines.
“You don’t have to . . . but I’m sure that you’ll love it.” Because I love how things are going already.
She props herself up on her elbows to eye me. “Okay. But if he gets out of hand with his, I’m calling it quits. I don’t want him thinking that we’re getting serious anytime soon. This will take some getting used to. I know what I do is bad but it can’t be worse than having someone nag at me about the way I am all of the time.”
Nodding, I turn for the door. I know if she feels that way, so will I. I’m still getting used to this idea. I’m practically setting myself up for something to fail. But I’ll go through with it. I’ll do whatever I can to keep Nolan in my grasp. I refuse to let him slip because if he slips, I slip. And if I fall again, I may not get back up. If my heart is ripped out of my chest by Nolan—someone that I want to get to know—I’m not sure what I will do.
Chapter Fourteen
Bryson started to drift away from me about three weeks before he had officially cheated on me. Those three weeks dragged by and made me doubt how strong our love really was every single day. Bryson would pick me up from home to take me to school. We would ride together in his mud-green Jeep Wrangler. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. Especially on the night that we were supposed to go out for dinner together.
“I have something to do for my mom tonight. We might have to reschedule dinner,” he said as he parked in front of my driveway. We were coming from Mark’s house where we would lie to our parents and say that we were having a study session but in all reality, we would be fooling around. But that night at Mark’s, Bryson barely touched me. He barely looked at me. That entire night he played XBOX with Mark until he was ready to drop me off. I nodded and swallowed the bulge in my throat as I reached to unbuckle my seatbelt. The fact that he wasn’t even looking at me bothered me deeply.
“What does she want you to do?” I asked. Bryson’s mom is a lawyer. She’s hardly ever home so I should have known that he was lying to me. I was just too blind to see it. I loved him. Bryson’s dad was a complete asshole so his mom kicked him to the curb immediately. Bryson lives with a single parent—a parent that barely spends time with him. On graduation day, she’d told him that she was going to be showing up late. After the ceremony was over, we came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to show up at all.
“She wants me to babysit some kids of a friend of hers while they go out. I don’t know. It’s kind of stupid,” he muttered with a careless shrug but he still wasn’t looking at me.
�
�Bryson.” I reached for his hand and gripped it. “Are you okay?”
He finally turned to look at me. His emerald green eyes pierced through mine as he examined every aspect of my face. It was as if he was debating on whether he should have gone through with the devious plan that he had started.
I guess he decided to go through with it because he pulled his hand away to place it on the steering wheel. I’m sure he thought it was an unnoticeable gesture but I noticed everything that was wrong with it. Usually when I felt that something was wrong with him, he would cup my face, kiss me, and then tell me that he’s more than alright when we’re together. But not that night. Facing forward, he looked through the windshield again. “I’m alright, Nat. Go ahead and spend time with your dad. I’ll call you tonight when the kids are gone.”
I nodded as my hand recoiled. He was making small excuses for me just to make his escape. But now that I think on it, he was only trying to get rid of me to most likely spend his night with Sara. It puzzles me now to think that he may have cheated on me more than once with her. He had to. I hopped out of the car but hesitated on shutting the door behind me. He was still facing forward, still glaring out of the windshield.
“Goodnight, Bryson.” As I’d said it, my chest tightened and I fought to keep my tears back. I shut the door behind me and he pulled off quickly. It was unusual for him to leave that fast. When he would drop me off, he would usually wait in front of the driveway until I was safe inside the house. But not that time. That time he was out of sight within a second. I watched his Jeep trail down the road until his rear lights grew distant and then disappeared. I turned to make my way up the driveway. I knew my father was waiting for me inside so I took a deep breath, shook it off, and headed in.
I was hoping that maybe he wasn’t feeling well or that he really did have to hurry off to babysit but that wasn’t the case. Bryson was going to see Sara behind my back. Back then, I didn’t even realize it. I made excuses for his stand-offish behavior. I made sure that every excuse was a good one and sometimes I would believe them. But it was getting out of hand. It was only a matter of time before I was to learn the truth.
****
Tapping my pen against my chin, I stare down at the blank sheet of paper before me. I’ve been debating all morning on whether to write or not. I decided that since I was home alone and didn’t have anywhere to go for hours, it was best to get something down. I’ve had all of these memories, all of these confusing thoughts running through my mind. It’s all so jumbled up that I feel like writing them down on paper is the best option.
I cross my legs and press the ball of my pen against the paper. Sitting at the coffee table of the living room on top of one of Harper’s throw pillows, P!nk, Ed Sheeran, and Gavin Degraw play through the speakers gently. I used to write like this at home when my parents weren’t there. I’d grab a stack of papers, place them on the coffee table, grab a beanbag chair, and scoot my legs under the table as jams filled the room. I would then get right down to work.
I compare you to him
Because you’re almost the same
Your chances are extremely slim
And you should take full blame
I’m learning that it’s not about you
With every waking moment
I torture myself with memories of you
But you couldn’t even hold onto it
He’s the same in some ways
But he’s helping me cope
I blame you on the days
That I catch myself sitting around with a mope
I can’t blame you for not being interested
But you could have spared me the grief
My vulnerability was manifested
And I’m glad that he provides me with some sort of relief
I honestly just want to say screw you
I honestly just want to stab you in the back
I seriously just want to yell “fuck you!”
Until my emotions can surpass the slack
What I feel is hurt
What I’ve gone through was unbearable
You shoved my face into the dirt
But somehow that dirt has become valuable
I cherish the moments that I’m away from you now
You miss what you had; you crave what you’ve lost
I seriously should just take a bow
Because I took this pain like a woman . . . like a conqueror.
Like a boss.
Smiling, I read over the lines of my paper over a million times. The last two lines are what catch me. I love them. The fact that I actually do continue to breathe and go on with my life is proof enough that I’m getting through it. It’s like taking baby steps. They’re gradual but they will become strides as the days move forward. I was being suffocated with a plastic bag that Bryson had put over my head. But now I feel like I can snatch it off and toss it in the garbage. I feel like I can inhale and take a huge breath of relief. This poem proves how much I’ve been through with him.
I won’t pretend that he means nothing to me, though. The feelings that I have for him will take a while to fade and that’s only because he’s my first love. But it’s happening. I can feel it happening. A pound of all of the weight has been lifted from my shoulders. There’s still some massive weight lingering around but with time, I know it will all be gone.
My phone buzzes on the table and I reach for it quickly, spotting the unfamiliar number.
“Hello?” I answer with my eyebrows slightly pulled together.
“Hi! Is this Natalie Carmichael?”
“Yes it is. May I ask whose calling?”
“Oh, it’s Brittany from Miami-Dade!”
“Oh, yeah! Hi, how are you?” I pull my legs from beneath the table to stand.
“I’m wonderful,” she says as I place my pen on top of my paper. “I was just calling, as promised. I want to give you the directions early. My mom knows the manager and she says that a lot of people are going to be there tonight. Do you still plan on going?”
“Of course.” I smile. “I actually just wrote something that I may share one night.”
“Really?!” Brittany squeals. “That is fantastic. I hope to be able to read them soon.”
“You can read them today, if you’d like. We can meet up for some smoothies or something and I can bring a few of my best ones with me.”
“Oh, no. I seriously don’t want to take up all of your time,” she says as her voice lowers.
Giggling, I make my way towards my bedroom. “Brittany, you’re fine. I’m free today—well practically every day until school starts. I don’t mind it at all.”
“Are you sure?” she asks nervously. “I feel like I’ve already interrupted your writing. I know how it is for someone to interrupt something important—”
Brittany continues to babble but I only laugh. She’s adorable, really. She’s a nervous wreck with a new friend that she knows nothing about. I can tell that she isn’t trying to screw anything up. But I’m not like that. I accept people for the way they are. I guess that’s my problem. “It’s fine. I swear. What do you say we meet up at Smoothie King?”
“Sure,” she breathes, almost out of relief. “What time?”
I pull my cell away from my ear to check the time. “How about three? Open Mic doesn’t start until eight tonight, right?”
“Right,” she says. “Well, gather those poems and I’ll meet you there—at the one on the beach, right?”
“Yup,” I say while toying with a hairclip on my nightstand.
“Kay. See ya there!”
“See ya!” I call before ending the line. I place the hair clip down then sigh. I rake my fingers through my hair as I stare at the carpet. If I want to be honest with myself, I’m nervous about the fact that Brittany will think I’m a lunatic for writing such depressing and heart wrenching poems. My best poems are the ones that I had written out of pain or the ones that I had scribbled down through blurry eyes. I want to share my dreams with som
eone. I can’t continue to bottle all that I have up. My only hope is that she actually likes them and doesn’t run away from me full speed.
Chapter Fifteen
“So what do you think?” I ask nervously as I grip my cup that is full of a creamy strawberry-banana smoothie. By the creases in Brittany’s forehead, I’m not sure what she’s thinking. Her eyes are glued to the paper and are scanning each word over and over again. It isn’t too long before she stops reading to look at me. Her green eyes are wide and crystal-like as she stares into mine. She seriously looks like she’s just seen Freddie or Jason. “Was it that bad?” I ask with a slight wince.
“Bad?” she asks before her mouth gapes. “Natalie, please excuse me for my language, but that poem was fucking amazing! Who are you talking about in it?”
“An ex of mine.”
“Wow,” she breathes as she reaches for her cup of yogurt. “I could feel your pain. There are seriously no words that can describe what I felt while reading it.” She picks her spoon up and slides it into her mouth. “Have you shared these with anyone besides me?”
“Yeah. I have a friend back in South Carolina that loved to read my poems. Her name is Grace. She’s the reason that I started writing, actually.”
“Oh really?” Brittany raises an intrigued eyebrow as she swallows her yogurt down. “How so?”
“Well, she knew that I loved to write. She would tell me to just put it all down on paper. I’m kind of glad that I did now.” I sit back and place my hands between my thighs. “You’re sure you loved it?—I mean there wasn’t anything on it that makes you want to run away from me while screaming your head off?”
“Hell no,” she says quickly as she sits forward. “Seriously, you should think about getting these copyrighted and put out in the world. I think lots of girls would understand this kind of pain. I’m one of them.” Brittany’s features fall as she reaches for her cup of Greek yogurt again.
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