The more I think about it, the more I lean toward him not being a cheater. It just goes against everything I know about him. He’s even said it himself, that no one knows him better than I do, and I just can’t imagine him turning to someone else for any kind of physical contact when he really does seem to be happy with me.
And then there’s the impossible-to-ignore fact that he makes me happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I could be lame and quote some cheesy-ass chick flick saying that he completes me, but that’s a load of crap. He doesn’t make me whole; he doesn’t erase the pain I’ve felt for most of my life. Being with him isn’t some cure-all to everything I’ve ever dealt with, but when I’m with him, I’m me. I’m the person I have always wanted to be—fun, lighthearted, playful, flirty, sexy, seductive, and loving. He’s opened me up to the possibility of a completely different future than I ever envisioned for myself—a future that I just can’t imagine him not being a part of.
If I’m being completely honest with myself, I know in my heart that he isn’t cheating. I think I’m just using the idea of him being a cheater to protect my heart from the pain of whatever secret it is that he’s hiding from me. I’m bracing myself for the unknown.
Before I drift off to sleep, my last visions are of Reid and me making love, and I remember the vows I made to myself back when the semester started, and ironically all three apply here.
I will choose to be happy and not let this—whatever it is—get in the way of here and now. There’s no sense in getting all upset over something that could be nothing.
I will appreciate the beauty in everything that Reid and I are together—in everything that we bring out in each other.
I’ve already let love in. He’s not only in my heart; he owns it. Now I just have to keep him there and never let him go.
Chapter 14
It’s the Monday of finals week—my last finals week—and I’m anxiously waiting at a table in the student café, waiting for my weekly lunch date with Melanie. Hanging out with Mel makes me fall even more in love with Maddy, if that’s possible. Melanie is like the little sister I never had, and I can’t help but smile and laugh when I’m around her. Mel’s happiness is that infectious.
Rather than getting straight to business—a.k.a. pulling one over on Maddy—I try for some normal conversation first.
“So how do you feel about your finals?”
She gives me the side-eye. She knows me too well at this point. “Oh, cut the crap, Reid. I see it in your eyes. What are you up to now?”
I fake a wounded look, but again she sees through it, so I just come clean. “Well, I’m graduating, and I thought what better way to celebrate that than with a vacation. It’s too damn cold up here in the winter, so I was thinking of taking Maddy away somewhere. You know, to celebrate me being done with this place and all. Well, done until my internship starts, but in my head I’m done.”
It has nothing to do with me wanting to see Maddy in a bikini for a week.
Or out of a bikini, for that matter.
Nope, not that at all.
“Eww! You are so thinking about her naked right now. You’ve got that far off-look in your eyes.” She throws a French fry at me.
I don’t admit that she’s right. I can daydream about my girlfriend—my hot, naked girlfriend—all I want.
“ Okay. Okay. I’ll help. You know I always do. So what do you need from me?” she asks.
“Well, has she ever wanted to go anywhere specific? I’d like to do something tropical, far away from this frigid wasteland. We’ve both had a really rough semester, and I’d like to just have her all to myself for a week.”
Melanie seems lost in thought. I can see her raking through her Maddy-files to try to dig up some useful tidbit for me. Then the light bulb goes off over her head.
“Well, it’s not tropical, but it’s still a beach, so I’m not sure if you’ll be interested. When we were in high school, I remember her mentioning something about wanting to go to Montauk Point out on Long Island. After her parents died and she moved in with her Aunt Maggie, she never had the chance to go back home again. I never asked her why going to Montauk was special—if it was a family vacation spot or something like that. She didn’t seem like she really wanted to talk about it, and she never mentioned it again. I remember her being very lost in thought while we were talking about it.”
“That’s perfect, Mel. Thanks.” The wheels are definitely turning in my head.
“Sure, no problem. So much for seeing her in a bathing suit for the week, huh? I mean, it’s not much warmer down there than it is up here.” She thinks she’s pulled one over on me. She thinks she’s so funny.
I lean in across the table and almost whisper, “There’s always the hot tub, Mel.”
It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m walking across campus to meet Bryan at the computer lab. He said he’s found out some information for me, and since Mel is busy at her economics final this morning, now is the perfect time for us to meet without anyone else finding out. I wonder if this is how Mel and Reid felt when they had lunch together that first time, like they were sneaking around, doing something they knew they weren’t supposed to be doing. There’s a big difference here, though; their intentions were always good. I have to admit that I feel like I’m sneaking around behind Reid’s back.
Absolutely nothing is going on with Bryan and me, but it just feels wrong. Whoever is attached to this number is a part of Reid’s life and not mine. And I went and just took it from him.
Bryan greets me warmly from behind his desk. It’s funny; I’ve seen him hundreds of times since Mel started dating him, and even though I know he is one, he’s never struck me as the geeky type. Yet seeing him here sitting high atop his desk like he’s King of the Computerland or something like that that makes me chuckle.
“Hey, Maddy. How are you? How did your psych final go yesterday?”
I know he’s genuinely interested because he helped me study the other night when he was over. “Ehh—I’ve been so distracted with everything that I’ll just be happy if I pass.” I’m really quite conscientious about my grades. Failing for me is getting anything less than an A, so for me to say that I’d be happy to get a D means some serious shit is going on upstairs.
Anxious to get this over with, I ask, “So what did you find, Bryan?”
He looks at me intently before saying, “Well, you’ll be glad to know that it wasn’t Mike who was calling you.” He’s searching my face for a relieved look, but it’s not there. When he doesn’t see it, he continues. “Which, by the look on your face, isn’t a surprise. What is this really about, Maddy?” His tone has changed; he’s all stern and serious now. He’s got me figured out already, and we’re only a few sentences into this conversation.
Shit.
Time to come clean, Maddy.
He stares me down for a few long moments, and I have no choice but to own up to the truth. If I don’t, he’ll just withhold the information I’m waiting on.
“You’re right, Bryan. This was never about Mike.” I take a deep breath, searching for the words. “It’s Reid. He keeps getting calls from this number, and he’s always on his phone. One night while he was in the shower, I looked through his call history and copied down the number. I figured you were my best bet at finding anything out. So did you find anything?”
He looks disappointed in me. Hell, I’m disappointed in me.
“What did you think I would find, Maddy? You know Reid loves you, right? Why didn’t you just go to him with this?”
His questions make me feel so incredibly guilty. Right now I wish I had just gone to Reid. It would have saved me so much restlessness this week.
“I don’t know. I mean, I have issues with letting people get too close. Reid has obviously worked past those issues, but when I saw the calls, my first thought was that he was cheating on me. I knew I just had to protect myself in case he actually was. It’s foolish, really, because if I find out he’s cheating, whether he
tells me on his own or I find out through you, it will break my heart just the same.”
Bryan sees that this conversation is getting a bit too deep for the main room of the computer lab, so he pulls me off to a smaller section that no one is using. He powers up a computer and sits down in front of the screen.
“The area code is from a small town not too far from here—Denning.”
When I hear the name of the town, my face pales and my stomach drops. That’s where Reid grew up. The feeling that I was betraying him before is nothing compared to what I’m feeling now. I know how much he hates his past; he’s got more than enough reason to do so.
Bryan notices my reaction. “Are you okay, Maddy? You don’t look so hot.”
I try to keep my composure, knowing that it will falter more as he tells me what else he’s learned. “Yeah, Bryan I’m fine. I’m just going to get some water.”
I just need a minute to process all of this, so I walk across the room to the small water cooler by the door. I could stop this whole thing now. I don’t need to hear what Bryan has to say. I could just leave it alone and let Reid deal with it. And then an idea takes root in my mind. What if it’s Alex? There’s no way I can let this go now that she’s in my head. She’s a horrible human being—the worst kind there is—and she’s calling Reid after all these years. Suddenly, this deep-seated need to protect Reid is born, and I know I have to get to the bottom of this. Walking back to Bryan, I feel stronger—ready to face the truth.
“ Okay, I’m ready now. Sorry about that,” I apologize, but Bryan just looks at me with that “don’t be ridiculous” face.
“All right, figuring out the person attached to the number was a bit difficult since it was a cell phone, but with the new online reverse look-up interfaces out there, it wasn’t too difficult.”
I’m lost. If it’s more than checking my email or reading up on some of the gossip sites, I don’t understand it.
Since he doesn’t want to make me feel like an idiot, he just laughs a little at the glazed-over look that must be on my face and continues, “So anyway, I found out that the number belongs to Katelyn Donovan.”
I hadn’t realized it, but my heart stopped beating, waiting for him to say a name. When he didn’t say Alex, or any kind of variation of the name, it started beating again. I let out a huge breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.
I can only imagine the emotions that Bryan sees fleeting across my face, but, honestly, at this point, I just don’t care. It’s not her; it’s not Alex. Thank God.
“After I found out her name,” he pauses here to shoot me a wry look, “and that she wasn’t Mike, I figured I might as well go ahead and find out a little bit more about her.”
“You mean you knew this whole time that it wasn’t about me and Mike, and you didn’t say anything?”
He doesn’t respond; he just smiles a small, cute smile. God, he’s so much like Mel it’s not even funny.
“Yes, I knew, Maddy. But I also knew that if you came to me and didn’t want anyone else to know, then this must be pretty important to you. I didn’t want you to have to worry about any of it, so I did what I promised I would, and I looked into her for you.”
“Thank you, Bryan, so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. So what did you find?”
He clicks away on the computer and pulls up some files, a few pictures, and her Facebook page.
“Even though the number is from Denning, it doesn’t look like she lives there anymore. She’s actually a college freshman at SUNY New Paltz. She was raised by her father, Joseph. Her parents divorced when she was in middle school, and her mom skipped out. From what I could find, it looks like her mom never came back into the picture.”
I look at the screen where he’s got her picture open, and she’s beautiful. She kind of reminds me that blonde bitch who was hanging all over Reid back when we first met. But she’s different somehow. There’s a sweet innocence to her face; she looks like she has some class and self-respect. Hell, that’ll make any girl look more beautiful than that tramp.
I can’t help but think that while Bryan did find out a ton of information, the most important being that it’s not Alex calling him and that he’s not cheating—well, that can’t be eliminated completely, but the fact that she lives three hours away from here makes it highly unlikely—I still feel lost. I mean, what do I have? All I’ve got is her name and what college she goes to. That’s not much to work with.
Bryan starts shutting down the computer he was using. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find out more, Maddy, but honestly it doesn’t look like there’s much to find. What are you going to do about it all?”
“I’m not sure, Bryan. I honestly haven’t thought about that part. I can’t exactly confront Reid. What would I say? ‘I was snooping around your phone because I thought you were cheating on me, even though you’ve professed your love to me time and time again. Oh, and you’ve also told me things about you that you’ve never told anyone else’—wouldn’t want to leave that out. I really got myself in a mess here, didn’t I?”
I can see him mentally taking stock of the whole thing. “It doesn’t look pretty, Maddy.” He runs his hand through his ink-black hair and then strokes his thumb and forefinger along his jaw as he’s trying to come up with some kind of solution. “Do you want my honest opinion, Maddy?”
I hate it when someone asks if you want to know their “honest” opinion. It means they’re just going to tell you something that you already know but you just don’t want to admit to yourself.
I nod at him, cuing him to go on with what he thinks I should do.
“Talk to Reid. You’re in the wrong here, but if this girl is trying to call him, something must be going on. And you’re not going to feel any better about all of this until you tell him. You can’t build a relationship on lies. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t think what you did is a deal-breaker, but he deserves to know. More importantly, you need to deal with the fact that your mind and your heart immediately went to the assumption that Reid was cheating. You have to figure out a way to work all of this out, and you need to do that with Reid, not with me digging up information on some girl he might not even know.”
So apparently Bryan is an expert in relationships in addition to being one in computers.
I hate to admit that he’s right, but, well, he is. “I know you’re right, but I’m scared. Scared of how he’ll react, of who this girl is, of what will happen to us. But I know I have to talk to him—it’s the only way to get to the bottom of it. Thanks again, Bry. I owe you one.”
Walking back to my suite, I still feel like crap over everything. I’m not in any way closer to figuring out what the hell I’m going to. I just know that I want to crawl into bed and sleep. Finals are kicking my ass, and I still have this huge poetry paper that isn’t going to write itself. I just don’t want to do any of it. What I want is to bury my head in the sand and forget about the world around me. I want to go back to last weekend and not pick up Reid’s phone.
How on earth can I bring up Reid’s past to him and make him confront it even more than he already has? What right do I even have to do that to him? He trusted me, and I broke that trust. I know more than anyone what it meant for him to open up to me like that. Thinking about Reid and what I’ve done to him, all without him even knowing, makes me want to be with him. It makes me want to curl up in his arms and let the world fall away. I’m pretty sure he’s got his last final tomorrow morning, but I take a chance of interrupting him and give him a call.
Of course he picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, baby.” His voice instantly calms my aching soul, and I have a renewed sense that maybe everything will work out. “How’s your paper going?” The man remembers everything. Okay, fine, not everything. What is it with guys and remembering to put the toilet seat down? I think it’s in their DNA or something.
“Ugh, I haven’t even started yet, but I know what I want to write. Once I sit down and actually foc
us on it, I’ll be fine. How’s studying going?” This kind of mundane conversation soothes me.
“Great, actually. I’m just about wrapping up. What are you up to?”
Of course he would drop everything to spend time with me. He’s awesome like that.
“Nothing, really.”
“Is everything all right, Maddy? You sound off.” His voice is laced with concern, and it crushes my heart.
“Yeah, I’m fine, babe. I promise.” All of a sudden my desire to see him, to just be in the same room with him, is overwhelming. “I guess I just miss you. It’s so lame, I know, but I haven’t seen you since Sunday and it’s Wednesday night, and well, since we started dating, that’s the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other. Texts only go so far. I miss you.” My emotions are on the surface, and despite everything I’ve done wrong, I just want him to make it better.
I know I don’t deserve his comfort, but right now I need it, and I’m going to take it while I still can.
“So can I come over, then? I don’t want to keep you from your paper, so I won’t stay long, but I’d love nothing more than to see you.”
If he were any sweeter, he’d give me a cavity, for crying out loud.
“That would be perfect, Reid. The paper isn’t due until tomorrow afternoon anyway, and my morning is completely free, so you’re not keeping me from anything.” I know that if I don’t reassure him that he’s not keeping me from my paper, he’ll be worrying about it all night. He’s beyond sweet, but he’s also neurotic as hell.
“Perfect. I’ll grab some takeout and a movie, and I’ll be there in like an hour. Love you.” He sounds so happy and I just can’t help but feel lighter knowing that he’ll be here soon.
“I love you, too, baby. See you in a bit.”
As I end our call, I clear my brain of everything that’s happened over the last few days. Right now, none of that exists. Right now, it’s just me and Reid. Everything else can fade away, because no matter what happens, I will always love him, and I have to believe that he will always love me.
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