Torn

by A. M. Wallace

  I stood up and walked back inside, seeing the kitchen clean, but empty, so I walked into the living room. Amy was sitting alone on the couch, remote in her hand. She was sitting on her left foot with her right knee pulled up. She looked comfortable, at ease. I almost hated to ruin it, but she heard me come in.

  “Hey,” I said as she looked up at me.

  “Hey.” She let her right leg go back down and patted the seat next to her, so I went to sit down.

  I stared straight ahead, not sure where to start, or even if I wanted to just yet, but Amy deserved an explanation, especially if she thought there was something more going on with Hannah and me. But I was a coward, and just sat there for a while. Eventually, her hand wrapped around my bicep and she leaned toward me, resting her head on my shoulder.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly and I sighed.

  “Not really.” I pressed my lips to her hair and just lingered there for a moment. She snuggled a little closer. “But I probably should.” She looked up now.

  “You don’t have to, Marcus.” I leaned in to press my lips softly to hers before pulling away and turning on the couch so I could face her.

  “I know you heard.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t look away or anything, but it was hard to read her expression.

  “And you didn’t leave.” She looked confused now.

  “Why would I leave? You just had a fight with your best friend. I thought you could use the company.” She blinked as though she just realized something. “Unless you want me to leave. I can go.”

  “No!” I put my hand on her arm to stop her from getting up. “No, that’s not what I meant. I was just shocked you stayed. I must have sounded like a real ass.”

  “Well, kinda,” she grinned, but I was sure she meant that, “but it’ll take more than that to scare me off.”

  “That’s good. I think.” I chuckled lightly and looked down where she took my hand in hers.

  “Look, I know where you’re coming from. I’ve been where you think Hannah is right now.” As she talked, I felt myself getting angry again. This time, for Amy instead of Hannah. “It sucks. I wish I had someone looking after me like you are for her. But, not all guys are jerks.” She nudged me with a small grin. “And Justin seems really nice.” She said it all in a rush, almost as if she thought I would interrupt.

  I thought about what she said, what Chad said, and there seemed to be a pattern here. They both had a point, I had to admit. But I wasn’t wrong. There was something off about this guy; I could feel it. I was sure it wasn’t just me.

  “No, there’s something else to him.” She gave me a look, but I continued. “I know it sounds like I’m overreacting or jealous or something, but I’m serious. I was thinking it all night, so when I heard that, it all clicked.”

  “Marcus.” I looked at Amy to see her giving me a very sympathetic look. I didn’t like it. “Is there something…you know…going on with—” I cut her off before she could finish the thought.

  “No. Nothing like that. It’s just…” I sighed and hung my head slightly. “Look, it’s not what you think.”

  “You don’t have to explain, Marcus.” She started to pull away, but I stopped her.

  “Yeah, I do.” I took a deep breath as she turned to face me in her seat, keeping her hand in mine.

  “Okay.”

  “Hannah and I have known each other our whole lives. You know that. She’s always been in my life. It’s hard not to feel something for her…” Amy kept her eyes on me as I spoke, intimidating me a little. “I’m not going to deny my feelings for her to you. You deserve better than that.” She nodded slowly.

  “Does she know?” That wasn’t what I expected her to ask.

  “Not to my knowledge. Just Chad. And my parents, but they don’t count.” I smiled, trying to make light of the situation, but it was a lost cause.

  “So what am I, exactly?” She didn’t sound mad when she said it, so I took that as a good sign.

  “What do you want to be, Amy?” I looked directly into her eyes, letting her know I was taking this seriously.

  “I won’t be just some other girl, Marcus. I can’t.” Her lip was between her teeth now and without thinking, I lifted my hand to cup her face, pulling her lip from her teeth with my thumb.

  “You’re not just some other girl, Amy. I promise you that.” She leaned into my hand and kept her eyes on me.

  “And Hannah?” she asked and I took a deep breath before speaking.

  “Listen, I’m going to be completely honest with you right now, okay?” I gently caressed her face with my hand and she nodded, not moving away. “I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel the way you do. Yes, I’ve dated before, but it just never worked out.”

  “Because of Hannah?” I sighed at her question.

  “In a way, yes.” I cringed as I spoke. I knew how bad that sounded. “I would never lead any one on just to get over her. I had legitimate feelings for those girls; it just didn’t work out. Partially, yes, because I wanted to see if Hannah came around, but mostly, because we just weren’t as compatible as I’d hoped we would be.” I waited to see if Amy had anything to say, but she didn’t.

  I brought my other hand up to cup her cheek. Holding her face in my hands, I leaned in closer to her. I needed her to believe me, because I’d never been this honest with any other girl before. Not that I lied to any of them, but I never opened myself up the way I was about to with Amy.

  “I’ve never been with someone who made me forget Hannah, who gave me a sense of what I’ve been missing by putting her first. You do. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen Hannah in a week, and I can’t remember the last time we’ve gone that long without seeing each other.” Amy swallowed hard and I felt her head nod slightly in my hands.

  “You just asked me out on Friday.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.

  “Exactly. Just being at work with you all week made it go by for me. I’d been debating all week whether I should ask you out or not, afraid it would end like the others. Being away from Hannah put it in perspective for me.”

  A few minutes passed without either of us saying anything, but our eyes never broke contact with each other. I wondered what was going through her head and wanted to ask, but I knew it was better to give her time to tell me herself. I just poured my heart out to a girl I’d only been technically dating for three days. That was already the biggest change in me of all.

  “So, what now?” Her voice was quiet as she asked, like she was scared of the answer. Instead of using my words, I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers.

  I kept her face in my hands as I kissed her, mentally letting out a breath of relief when I felt her kiss me back. I felt a hundred times better than that when her hands came to rest on my shoulders for a moment before wrapping around my neck. One of my arms went around her waist while I kept the other cupping her face, deepening the kiss just slightly. She pulled away first, and as much as I didn’t want to, I followed her lead and let her. I pulled my head back to look at her, trying to read her expression.

  “I don’t want to stop this, Amy, but I had to be honest with you.” I moved my hand from her face, resting it on her arm over my shoulder from underneath.

  “I’m glad you were.” She bit her lip again. “I don’t want to stop this either.”

  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t realize how scared I was that she was going to want to end things after I told her about Hannah. I leaned in again to kiss her, and this time, she met me halfway. I smiled against her lips, pulling her closer to me.

  “Stay with me tonight,” I whispered against her lips, holding my breath as I waited for her answer.

  “Okay,” she whispered back before pushing me back on the couch and lying on top of me. I chuckled lightly and she cut me off with another kiss.

  “What would you like to do?” I asked against her lips and felt her smirk.

  “Absolutely nothi
ng.” She pulled back and moved to straddle me on the couch.

  “Are you sure about that?” I tried to raise myself up to kiss her again, but she stopped me with her palm on my chest.

  “Not really.” She kept smirking as she got off me, despite my protesting hands around her waist. “I’ll tell you,” she backed away as I sat up, watching her, “but you have to catch me first.” And she took off.

  Those may have just become my favorite words.

  a week had passed, and I still hadn’t spoken to Marcus. I had honestly thought about it a time or two, but talked myself out of it. I was still hurt and angry at him for the things he said.

  Justin had no idea what went on that day, and I didn’t plan on telling him. It was irrelevant. As far as he knew, Marcus and I didn’t hang out much anyway, and he never asked me about whether we talked or not, so I didn’t volunteer that information.

  I hadn’t seen Justin as much as I would have liked to either, but when we did get together, it was always special. He’d been really busy with school, but promised we’d see each other more over our break next month. Just a few weeks until we got out for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t really that far away. I’d manage.

  To make up for not being able to see me but every couple of days or so, Justin had been going all out. He took me out to eat a couple of nights and came to spend the night with me a couple more. I didn’t see him at all during the day, except for the times he came into the café. Those meetings were always short, but sweet.

  It was Monday night and I was sitting at my desk, staring at a blank document on my computer screen. It was supposed to be a Biology paper for extra credit. I had flunked that test last week, and had to do something to try and catch up; otherwise, I’d fail the class.

  My mind was like a game of pong. Justin – Marcus –– Justin – Marcus. It was exhausting. I’d picked up my phone I don’t know how many times to call Marcus to fix things, but each time, I talked myself out of it. I still felt justified in my feelings about the situation, and quite frankly, it hurt me a little more that he hadn’t tried to contact me to apologize.

  I felt guilty thinking about him so much. I had hoped this fight would help me get over him, but I guess that was wrong. As happy as I was with Justin right now, I missed Marcus terribly. I wasn’t so sure it was romantically as well, but I definitely missed his friendship. How could I not? Almost twenty years of friendship down the drain. It was heartbreaking.

  Justin was starting to notice my lack of energy lately, but he didn’t know why. I just played it off that I’d been studying hard and not sleeping so well. Neither were lies, so I didn’t feel as bad telling him that. One night in particular, I almost broke down and told him everything. He was being so understanding.

  We had just left Los Muchachos, the Mexican place in town, and got in his car to go to the movies to see the new scary movie that had just come out. Needless to say, afterward, I made Justin stay with me.

  We were in the car and I was staring out the window when he ran his finger down my cheek.

  “Babe, are you sure you’re all right? You didn’t say much during dinner.” I sighed and looked over at him, his face full of concern.

  “I’m fine. I just have a lot on my mind.” I smiled and then looked back outside.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I shook my head and he put the car in gear and took off.

  The drive to the theater was silent, and when we got there, I went to get right out of the car and go inside, not really wanting to linger, but Justin’s hand on my arm stopped me.

  “You know you can tell me if something is bothering you, right?” I nodded and smiled.

  “Marcus and I just got in a fight. It’s not a big deal.” He frowned.

  “Seems like a big enough deal.” I sighed and laid my head back on the seat.

  “We’ve fought before, but this was different. Bigger. It’s just hard to not think about it.” I looked over and smiled again. “It’s fine, really. We’ll either work it out or we won’t. I don’t want to worry about it now.”

  “I understand. Just talk to me, okay? I’ve been worried about you lately.”

  I was so touched that he had been worried about me that I almost opened up and told him what the fight was about. But that would open a huge can of worms I might not survive. I needed to handle this on my own.

  I laid my forehead down on my keyboard, not caring that it was typing a random letter continuously. I couldn’t see where Marcus had been coming from. Erica had tried to help me see, but it wasn’t happening. At first, I calmed down a little and thought I could, but the more time I spent with Justin, getting to know him better, I just didn’t anymore.

  He treated me well and I was really starting to fall for him. I knew that sounded stupid, it had only been a few weeks, but it was true. I hadn’t planned on getting into a serious relationship when we started dating, but I could feel it getting more serious every day. We were both really busy with school, him more so than me, so it was hard to spend the time together that we wanted to, but still, I knew he cared about me.

  I could hear Erica yelling for me, pulling me from my thoughts. She must have just gotten home from the library. I decided to call it quits on this paper for now and go see what she wanted. It wasn’t due for another week anyway.

  “Yeah?” I called out to her as I walked out of my room and into the kitchen where she was setting grocery bags down on the floor and had a pizza on the counter.

  “Hey, I got pizza and some groceries.” I laughed and went to help her start putting things away.

  “I see that. I would have come with you and helped with the shopping.” I opened a bag and got out a couple of things of cake mix and furrowed my brows in confusion.

  “I know, but it was a spur of the moment thing. No big deal.” She looked up from her bag and saw the look on my face. “What?”

  “Since when do we need all this cake mix?” She laughed and shrugged.

  “Since I felt like baking a few cakes. Or cupcakes. I can’t decide now.” I raised a brow at her and continued to take the groceries out of the bags.

  “Icing. Sprinkles. Food coloring? Okay, seriously. What’s going on?”

  “I may have volunteered to make some goodies for Halloween for the next couple of weeks for the student union.” I laughed. “What? I like to bake.”

  “Not this much.” She grinned then and I shook my head. “No, I’m not helping with this.”

  “Oh, come on,” she whined. “You need something to do in your free time too, like tonight. We could have some made tonight and give them out this week.”

  “You have to give them out, too?” She shrugged. “You’re on your own there, but I guess I will help you make them.”

  “Yay! Thank you!” She squealed and I shook my head. Like I would have said no.

  Erica got everything we needed out of the refrigerator to mix the cake mix and I went to get a couple of cupcake pans we had. I grabbed the cupcake liners out of a bag and lined the pans with them and set them off to the side.

  “So what made you want to do this? And don’t say because you like to bake.” I got down a couple of bowls for mixing as I spoke and she sighed loudly.

  “Like I told you, I thought we could do it together. And so maybe you’d stop moping.”

  “I’m not moping!” I stopped what I was doing to turn and stare at her.

  “Yes, you are.” She snorted and kept up with her task at hand.

  “No, I’m not. I’m going about my life just fine.” She laughed this time.

  “Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?” I sighed and leaned against the counter.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe I had been moping a little bit, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I thought again about how Justin had even asked me what had been going on and realized how right she was. I hated being wrong.

  “Okay, fine. So I’m moping a little. Sue me.”

  “It’s fine to be upset about it, you know.
I mean, you and Mark have never really fought before and this is pretty big. But you need to either call him and work it out or get over it.” I opened my mouth in shock at her harshness, but she kept going before I could say anything. “Look, I love you. You’re my best friend. And because you’re my best friend, I can tell you things you don’t want to hear. So here it is. Work things out with Mark, or get over it and move on. I’ve dealt with your moping because I feel like you deserved some time to grieve about this. But Justin isn’t going to deal with it forever. You need to think about that.”

  I just stared at her in awe. I couldn’t believe she’d just said all of that to me. Okay, I could, but I couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to say it. Erica didn’t put up with my crap, and that’s why we got along so well. I needed someone to tell me how it was and she was the girl to do it.

  “He’s been calling occasionally to ask about you, you know,” Erica said as she opened a box of cake mix and started adding the ingredients. If I was shocked before, I had no idea how to describe my feelings now.

  “He what? Why didn’t you tell me?” She shrugged like it was no big deal.

  “He was calling to check on you because you kept ignoring his calls. That’s all.” She started mixing the cake mix, not even looking up at me. “Can you hand me the orange food coloring?” I didn’t.

  I felt slightly betrayed even though I knew that was a bit of an overreaction. He’d been calling to ask about me, to check up on me, and I had no idea. I hadn’t once tried to call him. And here I’d been even more mad and upset about the fact that he hadn’t tried to call me when he’d been calling Erica. I felt worse than I did before she told me. I kind of wish she hadn’t.

  I seriously hated myself sometimes. I spent all week thinking about how angry I was with Marcus and now I was worried about how horrible I’d been acting about it all. I should have called already to work things out. I groaned at the thought.