by Claire Adams
I wasn’t making that mistake again. I pulled my phone out and called her. I remembered she was taking summer classes, so there was a chance she was actually on campus.
"Hello?"
"Babe? Hey, where are you right now?"
"Home. Why? Where are you?"
"Can I come over?" I could see her in her apartment, stretched out on her couch reading or at that dining table studying. What was she like as a roommate? I wondered idly. We had never lived together, but I was curious.
She said that I could, she wasn't busy. The drive to her place took no time. Her footsteps on the other side of the door at my knock were audible as she came up and unlocked it. A smile broke across her face when she saw me.
"Hey," she said. Her arms went around my neck and she kissed me. This was normal. This was us, close and familiar; it just hadn't been in a long time so having it again felt sort of like a novelty.
"Hi," I said, as she let me in. "What are you up to?"
"Cooking. I just got a slow cooker, and I wanted to try it out for dinner tonight. Where are you coming from?"
"School," I told her. "I had a meeting today."
"Meeting? Who with?" she asked, sitting on her couch. I followed and sat next to her.
"Coach Fitz." Her brows went up.
"What about?"
"Football. He wanted to know what my next move was, what I wanted."
"That's to go pro, right?"
"Right. I thought if anyone could help, he could. He would know better than anyone what my skill level was, I figured he'd be the best place to start so I could get back into playing."
"Are you going to be playing for the school? How would that work?" I shook my head.
"I'd have to re-enroll for that and get my degree. No, we talked about how I'd probably be drafted by now if I hadn't gone overseas."
"Can it still happen?"
"He actually said he had a contact that could get me into the combine next month."
"Next month? That's so soon. Can you do that?"
"He can," I said shrugging. "Depending on who sees me play, I might end up lucky enough to get scouted."
"That means you're going," she said, as a statement, not a question.
"I want to, yeah. I can't miss out on something like this. The longer I wait, the harder it'll be to get in the league early enough to have a long career."
"How long would you be gone?"
"About a week. What do you think?"
"You don't need my permission to do these things, Rome," she said lightly. Her voice was light, but she looked troubled.
"I still want to know what you think. It's a big decision. I wanted to talk to you first."
"Why? You need to go, of course; you have to."
"The last time I had to leave I didn't tell you," I said. She sighed and looked down, and I immediately felt bad for bringing it up. I just needed her to know that I wasn't keeping things from her anymore.
"This is your future, the one you've always wanted. You'll do great," she said, giving me a small smile. Again, she was encouraging me, but it felt strained.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said. She sounded distant and distracted – it wasn't nothing.
"Ronnie, tell me what's wrong," I urged.
"It's nothing, okay? I didn't expect you to get feedback this fast. I'm a little surprised, that's all. This is good news for you," she said.
Just for me? When we had been together a win for one of us was one for both of us. We were just getting back on track after not being with each other for a while, but I didn't want to feel good about it if Ron wasn't. She was my main focus besides football, and I cared that I was making her feel secure with what was happening.
"It is. I've wanted this for a long time."
"I know you have. This is good. I'm happy for you."
"We should talk about it," I said.
"What do we need to talk about?"
"Something's bothering you, babe."
"It's nothing," she said. She stood up suddenly, walking around the room. I stood and followed her.
"I know you, Ron, something's wrong. I want you to talk to me."
"Really, it's just... It's nothing to do with you. I'll get over it."
"If there's something wrong, I want us to talk about it together. I made this mistake last time, Ron. I won't do it again," I said, coming up to her.
"This is your big thing. I don't want to make it about me," she said, looking down. I cupped her face and tilted it gently up so she looked at me.
"It is about you, babe. If we're together, I'm thinking about both of us. Okay?" She sighed.
"Okay."
"Will you have dinner with me Wednesday? We can talk about it then." She nodded her head weakly. I kissed her, hoping she could feel how serious I was. She deserved more than that from me, and I wasn't chasing her away again.
"All I'm going to ask you for is a chance to prove myself, Ron. That's all I want." Her hands wrapped around me as she buried her face in my chest. I rubbed circles on her back, hoping she wasn't crying. I needed to make sure she wasn't crying because of me, that I didn't do that to her again.
"I'm trying, Rome, but I can't forget," she said. Her voice was muffled and small. I held her face so she would look at me again. She wasn't crying but her face...that look. Fear, uncertainty, hurt, I had done that to her. She was right to be cautious, what normal person wouldn't be?
"It was my fault. Let me make it right. I want to earn your trust back."
"I don't want to regret this," she said.
"You won't," I said firmly, then slowed down. "Please. Let me in."
"Okay," she said finally. I sighed, relieved. I pressed my lips to hers one more time.
"I'll never make you regret trusting me again, Ron. I swear."
"Okay," she repeated, weaker this time. I wished she sounded more confident, but really it was my job to make sure she could, and that was just what I was going to do.
Chapter Twenty
Veronica
I pulled into Tiffany's driveway, parking behind her car. I sucked down what remained of my iced tea, making the ice rattle against the sides of the wet cup. I had passed on grabbing something to eat on the way here because Tiff and I were getting lunch a little later. The iced tea sloshing in my stomach would hold me over till then. Wasn't that how digestion worked?
I got out and knocked at the door. She answered quickly since she had been expecting me.
"Ready to leave?" I asked immediately.
"What? No, you just got here. Sit," she invited me in. She walked to the living room while I took a detour to the kitchen. I tossed my to-go cup and reflexively opened the fridge.
"I'm starving, what's the holdup?" I shouted. She walked into the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe.
"You think you can have a date with my brother and then not tell me everything?" she asked, smirking.
"What's there to tell? I already said it was good," I said lightly. "Can I have this applesauce?"
"Go ahead," she said. I gratefully ripped the lid off the container and started looking for a spoon to eat it with.
"So?" she said. I shoveled cold applesauce into my mouth innocently.
"So what?" I played dumb. "The date was good. The kind of good I don't think you want to hear about as his sister. I told you already."
"You guys don't talk outside of dates? You haven't called him? He hasn't called you?" she asked. I shrugged.
"We're just starting up again. Besides, we used to go out; this isn't a new relationship where we can't stand to be apart for longer than a night."
"It could be, though. Don't you want that?"
"Tiff, I say this with love," I started, eating some more applesauce, "but have you ever thought that maybe being this interested in your brother's love life might not be all the way normal?"
"You're my best friend, and it's your love life, too. Why? Did something happen?"
"No, nothing hap
pened... At least it... I hope it's nothing."
"I knew something was up. What happened?"
"Can we still sit?" I asked. We made our way back to the living room. She had been leafing through one of the left books we had gotten together at the store the other day, and she moved it to make room for me on the couch.
"Okay, spill."
"Like I said, I don’t think it's a thing."
"But?"
"But last night, he showed up at my apartment. I was happy to see him, of course, after that amazing date we had had. He came because he wanted to talk to me. I was scared. Like, what was it he couldn't say over the phone?"
"What was it?"
"You know that he's trying to play football again, right?"
"Yeah, and?"
"And, he talked to his old coach about it. He said he could get him into a combine next month."
"That's great news. What's wrong with that? How long will he even be gone?"
"It'll last a week, but that’s not what I'm afraid of, Tiff."
"Then what?"
"We both know how good he is. That place will be crawling with scouts; it's practically a guarantee that he catches someone's eye. Fast forward to when he finds out they want to offer him a contract, but he and I are together." I paused.
"You can't think-"
"It happened once before. He was protecting me, remember? What if the team that wants him is based in California, and he for some reason feels like he would rather dump me again than just tell me that?"
"He learned his lesson the last time he did that, Vee."
"It hasn't been long enough for me to believe that's true," I admitted.
"Doesn’t he get any credit for trying to fix things?" she asked. I shot her a dirty look, eating more applesauce. "I'm just saying. He's back and trying to make up for what he did. I think that counts for something."
"That trust took almost three years to build and he broke it in one afternoon. Has it even been a month that we've been talking again? I can't afford to feel safe doing it with him again so soon."
"Have you told him how it felt?" she asked.
"Sort of, here and there."
"Then he knows he hurt you, and honestly, Vee, that's the last thing he wants to do again."
"How do you know?" The applesauce was all gone and now felt like it was bubbling in the bit of my stomach
"Because of everything he's been doing since he got here. He's done nothing but try to fix things. That looks and sounds like he's serious to me."
Once again, I was confused about whose side Tiffany was on. I wanted it to be mine. Did the fact that I didn't want him to dump me again because of some shitty reason mean she actually was on my side? I just couldn't have the faith in him that she had. It wasn't her fault that she had it; it was sort of expected. I envied her for it, but I knew better than her.
"I don't want to regret letting him back in," I grumbled, licking the already clean spoon that I had been eating my applesauce with. A laugh suddenly fought its way up out through my chest.
"What's funny?" Tiff asked.
"I never used to feel this way, isn't that weird? Since we met, Roman has always had football and the army – two things that could have taken him away at any second from me. I never felt insecure about it. I always knew that they were there and that in two seconds flat, outta nowhere, he might have to leave, but I was never scared."
"Not even a little?"
I thought back. It wasn't even the football that had been the problem, it had been the army. I had always thought that when the time came, we'd talk about football. We had been in the same graduating class, which meant that if he did have to travel for a team, I was in a position where I could go with him and that was a step we could see taking together.
We had met and built our relationship on campus grounds, but I never felt like that was what defined it. I never felt like graduation day would be the day we said goodbye and went our separate ways. Call me stupid for believing that what we had would be able to last and mean something in the real world. It had been that big, that serious, and that real…to me anyway.
The army on the other hand... That one had scared me. I knew that when and if the time came, then I'd have to watch him go. I hadn't had a real plan for what I would do, besides write him and try to talk to him as much as I could. All I had known was that it made me nervous and would be miserable, but I knew I would have found a way around that.
So many people had their loved ones deployed and for so many of those people, they managed to make the army and its demands part of their lives. I thought that I could do it, too, if it came down to me needing to. For Roman? I had been willing to do just about anything. I hadn’t cared about needing to make changes and adjustments because that was what being with him meant and I wanted to be with him more than I could even express.
Too bad I was wrong for believing that even if we weren't together physically, I could have relied on the fact that my love and support was being received and reciprocated from wherever he would be.
"I thought that I had no reason to worry. I could be scared of the danger, or the distance, or the loneliness, but I never had to be scared that we would stop being us once we were no longer in the same place," I said, shrugging.
"Could you wrangle up some of that trust right now?"
I could try. I didn't say it out loud.
"That needs to be earned."
"He can't try to earn anything back if you're not giving him a chance," she said. "I was with you when it happened last year, so I'm not insensitive to that. I just want you to remember this hasn't been a fun ride for him, either. He wanted to keep you last time, but made a mistake. Let him talk to you. Once you're both over what happened, then you can stop being so scared."
I didn't know why Tiffany caring for her brother made me so upset. She was in an awkward position, but the girl code trumped the genetic one, didn't it? Maybe it was because it made me jealous that she and I weren't in the same position. She could speak so confidently about Roman, all this great stuff that she knew he would never do. I used to be in that place, too, and I didn't know when I would ever be able to go back.
We headed out to lunch. Tiff wanted Italian, and I could already feel that big plate of pasta sitting in my stomach like a rock. The applesauce snack had taken the edge off my hunger, but now my gut felt like it was burning. I felt anxious and a little sick. I was grateful that I had Tiffany who was always ready to talk, but I wasn't that happy about what we tended to talk about most of the time, especially lately.
Was this making Roman as nervous? What was I thinking, of course not. It was just like last time. It was still his life that was taking him away from me somehow, and it was still just me who had to find a way to deal. He was, once again, the one who would make the decision about what would happen whether he talked to me about it first or not.
"Didn't you have Beckett for Western Civilization?" Tiffany asked me from across the table. She was slicing her fork through an unctuous, cheesy slice of lasagna. I had thought about getting the same, but I didn't get away with food like that the same way she could. It was a lot more of a balancing act for me. I'd have to move up a dress size if I ate the way she did for a week.
"Yeah. Why?" I asked, eating a soft, drenched crouton. Soup was all I could imagine stomaching with the way I had been feeling since leaving Tiff's place.
"He was the one you said you got weird vibes from?" she continued. I froze with my spoon halfway to my mouth.
"What did he do?"
"It's just these comments he makes sometimes," she said lightly. "He's a good teacher, and he doesn't seem like the predatory type, but I don't know how he gets away with being that flirty with his female students."
I laughed a little. College wasn't high school; everyone there was an adult, students and faculty. Sometimes wires crossed. Professor Beckett was in at least his fifties and looked like he had lived every minute of those fifty plus years. He wore a wedding ring,
so there was that; with the tweed jackets and thick glasses he wore, too, he came off goofier than anything else. He’d make the comments so flippantly, like this one time I had been in an admittedly lower cut top than usual and when he had greeted me when I came into the classroom, he asked whether all that was for him.
"Has he said anything to you?"
"He pointed out how nice it was to see my beautiful smile this beautiful morning when I went to his office today," she said. That didn't sound that bad, if maybe he was her dad and she was eight years old instead of twenty-one. He was so geeky, maybe that was why he hadn’t gotten hit with any sexual harassment complaints.
She asked me for tips on how I reviewed the course content when I took his class. For me, it had helped to study with a friend. Since we had had the class together, that friend at the time had happened to be Roman. He was so good at popping up right when I least wanted him to.
Not bringing him up was a challenge, but I didn't want him to be the subject of all the conversations the two of us had together. I never even used to think about him as often as this when we were together. It was embarrassing. Tiffany was asking me whether I had any of my old notes from that class, and I was wondering what would happen if Roman did so well at the combine that someone recruited him into a team.
He was a good player, I had watched him. He was the reason I knew anything at all about football – enough to know it wasn't a secret that he was on his way to the pros before his football career was interrupted by his deployment.
Because there was part of me that had never stopped loving him or being his friend, I wanted that for him, so much – but what would it mean for us? I could support his ambition. I remembered that being one of the things that I admired most about him, it still was, but how the hell was I supposed to support something that would take him away from me again?
Did he know he was doing two opposite things at the same time? Why was he trying to be with me and get into a team that would force him to leave me all at once? Did he even realize that was what he was doing? If he did, what was his next move? He had said yesterday that he wanted to talk about it, but now I didn't know I really wanted to hear it.