After Loving You

by Ashelyn Drake

  “And some girl stopped by earlier when you were in the shower.”

  Faith? “Who?”

  “I don’t know. She was kind of short with brown hair.”

  Mia? No, that’s impossible. I haven’t talked to Mia since I left home. She wouldn’t drive all the way here without calling me first. “What did she say?”

  “Something about a class project.”

  Must have been Shelly, that girl from my political science class. I told her we didn’t need to do the project together. We could each do our part and then put the two reports together before we turned them in. “Right,” I say, because Justin is still staring at me.

  “You’re weird, man. Really weird.”

  Me? He’s the one who lives in the same sweats and wife beater. I don’t care what he says about them being lucky and the reason he’s on a winning streak. It’s disgusting.

  “You had that hot piece of ass coming over here all the time throwing herself at you and—”

  “Don’t call her that!” I grab Justin by his wife beater, and a tearing sound makes his face turn bright red.

  “Let. Go. Now,” he says with a clenched jaw.

  Shit. I’m about to get my ass beat by my roommate. I let go and see the tear down the side of his shirt. “Sorry, but you know not washing that thing has taken its toll on it.”

  “I’m going to take a toll on you if you don’t find me a needle and some thread.” He’s clenching his beefy fists and I can’t picture him sewing anything. Still, I know Mom packed a sewing kit, as if I’d ever use it.

  “Hang on.” I disappear inside my room and grab the travel sewing kit from my bottom dresser drawer. “Here,” I say, bringing it back out to Justin.

  Someone knocks on the door as Justin snatches the sewing kit out of my hand. He pulls his shirt over his head and sits on the couch. I answer the door, silently praying it’s Faith but knowing it’s not.

  It’s Shelly. God, why can’t she get it?

  “Hi!” She smiles at me. “I’m glad I finally caught you.” She steps inside, wearing practically nothing even though it’s getting chillier outside every day. “We really need to work on this paper. I thought I could run a few ideas by you.”

  Justin tosses the sewing kit against the wall and screams, making Shelly jump. “Why do they have to make the stupid needles so damn small?”

  “I can sew that for you if you’d like,” Shelly offers.

  Justin looks up. “For real?”

  Shelly nods and picks up the sewing kit. She cringes when she sees the shirt Justin wants sewn. “Maybe we should wash this first.”

  “I can’t. It’s my lucky shirt. I’ve won every match since I started wearing it.”

  “He’s a wrestler,” I offer when Shelly cocks her head.

  Her eyes light up. “You’re on the wrestling team?”

  Justin smiles and nods.

  “That’s so…” Shelly searches for the right word. I have a few I’d like to offer, but I keep my mouth shut, grateful that Justin isn’t looking to pound my face in anymore. “Hot,” she finally says.

  Wow. Shelly’s one of those girls. The kind who thinks all athletes are gods. I grab my jacket and head out, leaving them to themselves. I have a feeling I know where this is leading. Good for Justin.

  I walk to the cafeteria because I’m starving. It’s an in-between mealtime, so I’m pretty sure the place will be virtually empty, which is fine by me. I’m not up for socializing. I open the doors and hand my student ID to the girl sitting at the desk. She swipes it without saying a word. I enter the double doors and head to the main line. They’re serving meatloaf and mashed potatoes with baby carrots. The meatloaf here is decent, so I grab a tray and get in line. As soon as the cafeteria lady serves my food I grab a cup and fill it with Coke. I need a jolt to get me going today. I take my tray to an empty table, but before I sit I see Faith eating alone at a corner table. I march over and sit down in the seat across from her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asks, her expression and tone not the least bit friendly.

  “I miss you.” No point beating around the bush. “I’ve looked for you all over campus.”

  “All over, huh? Ever think to try my room, dumbass?” She stabs her fork at a carrot.

  “I figured you’d just slam the door in my face if I showed up at your dorm room.”

  “Then you figured right.” She drops her fork on her tray and stands up, but I grab her arm.

  “Please don’t leave. Hear me out. Then you can call me an ass and slap me across the face if you want to.”

  “Ass is too good a word for you, and it’s not your face I’d like to damage.” She tears her arm from my hand.

  “I deserve that, but you also deserve to hear what really happened.”

  “I know what happened. You slept with your ex while you were dating me.”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t sleep with her. I tried to, but I didn’t.” I’m done lying. Even if she hates me, I’m telling her the whole truth. “I’m glad I didn’t.”

  She sits down and scoffs. “Right, because guys love to be left hanging like that.”

  “No, it totally sucked because I’ve never slept with her. Not once, and I could never figure out why she wouldn’t have sex with me if she supposedly loved me so much.”

  Her eyes narrow. “So I’m supposed to feel bad for you because you’re questioning if she ever loved you?”

  “No. You should hate me. You should hate me for trying to get with Mia. I hate myself, and Mia hates me, too. So, join the club, Faith. In fact, you should hate me most of all, so you can be the president.”

  She leans across the table toward me with her hand raised, and for a moment I think she’s going to slap me. Instead, she wags her finger in my face. “Okay, first, I do hate you for that. I hate you because you made me fall for you and then you stomped all over my heart.”

  “Fair enough, but I want you to know it’s over between Mia and me.”

  “I’m not finished, so stop interrupting me.” Her eyes burn into mine, and she waits for me to show I’m willing to listen. “I know what it’s like to lose your first love. Do you want to know why I’ve been throwing myself at you? I’m sure you don’t really think I’m that rare girl who love sex so much she’s a nympho, right?”

  Actually, that’s exactly what I thought, but I don’t say that. “Go on.”

  “I dated a guy all through high school, but I never had sex with him. I was scared of the idea of sex. It had nothing to do with him, though. I loved him. Only it turns out he loved his dick more than me. He cheated on me. Had sex with some girl who worked at his dad’s law firm. She was an intern.”

  I reach across the table and place my hand on hers, but she pulls away. “Don’t. I don’t want your pity. That’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because I want to thank you for what you did.”

  Thank me? For what?

  “After that dickhead cheated on me, I thought the way to keep a guy was with sex.” She shakes her head. “I never wanted to keep a guy as much as I wanted to keep you. So I did what I thought would make you love me.”

  Dear God, someone kill me now, because this is agonizing to hear. Basically that guy and I turned Faith into a slut. “Faith, I never—”

  She holds her hand up to stop me. “Yeah, I see that now. I wish you would’ve told me about Mia sooner though. You could have saved us both from a lot of heartache.”

  “I’m sorry. After you saw me chatting with Mia on Facebook, I thought you’d get upset.”

  “And that I’d stop sleeping with you,” she adds with a disgusted smirk. “You guys are all the same.”

  “No. That wasn’t it. God, Faith, if sex was all I was after then why didn’t I sleep with you when I came back here last weekend? Think about that for a second. This is so fucking hard on me—losing Mia and having feelings for you at the same time. But I realized something that night. I don’t just want sex. I want what I
had with Mia.” Faith starts to stand, misunderstanding my words, so I stand up with her. “Only, I want that with you.”

  She looks at me, and it’s obvious she doesn’t believe me but wants to. “You’re such an ass, you know that?” Tears fill her eyes and spill over the rims. “I was fine hating you and thinking you were a douche. Why did you have to come here today and tell me this? Why did you have to pull me back in when I could have moved on and been perfectly happy hating you?”

  “Are you saying you don’t hate me?” I’d been hoping Faith would be the one person to understand my screwed-up mind, but I never really thought it would happen. “Faith, please. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Right now I hate myself.”

  “You shouldn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She shakes her head and sits down again. “Here’s what I want.” She motions for me to sit as well. I do. I’m willing to give her whatever she wants to make this right. “No sex unless I initiate it.”

  She always initiates it. “Done.”

  “You’re going to hold my hand whenever we’re out.”

  I nod.

  “And you’re going to take me on actual dates, like a real couple.”

  I nod again.

  “And call me your girlfriend whenever you talk about me or introduce me to someone.”

  “No problem.”

  She leans toward me. “And finally, and this is the biggest one, the deal breaker…” She pauses, which isn’t necessary because we both know what she’s going to demand next. “You don’t talk to your ex anymore, and I want you to change your Facebook status to say you’re in a relationship.”

  I’m thinking of giving up my Facebook profile all together. “Done,” I say, knowing I can’t refuse.

  Faith leans back in her chair. “Good.”

  I’m tempted to ask what happens now, how we start to move forward from here, but I’m afraid to.

  “Well, eat.” She motions to my meatloaf, which is probably cold. She looks at her empty coffee cup.

  “I’ll get it.” I take the cup and refill it for her. It’s not a grand gesture and nowhere near the amount of sucking up I’m going to have to do to make things right, but it’s a start.

  ***

  After we eat, I walk Faith back to her room. I don’t ask when I’ll see her again. I plan to call her later and ask her out on a real date. It’s what she wants. So I kiss her cheek, while still holding her hand, and say, “Talk to you later?”

  “You know where to find me.” There’s a teasing tone in her voice, and I realize how much I missed that. How much I missed her.

  I smile, but before I can let go of her hand she sighs and says, “Damn it. Do you want to come in?”

  “Are you sure?” I don’t think this is an invitation into her bed. I’m pretty sure she only wants to hang out, and I’m totally fine with that, but I want to make sure I’m not pushing her into this, into forgiving me.

  She shrugs. “It’s Sunday. What the hell else am I going to do?”

  I smile. “Well, how can I turn down an offer like that? You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

  She smacks my chest playfully. “You’re special all right.” She opens the door and walks inside her room. It’s only been a week, but I feel like I haven’t been here in a really long time. Faith is probably the messiest girl I’ve ever met, but I get why. With her parents, everything is about appearances. She has to be perfect. Here, she’s free. I’d be the same way.

  She flops down on the couch and turns on the TV. I sit next her as she flips through the guide. Then she turns off the TV and says, “Well, nothing on as usual. You’re going to have to entertain me some other way.”

  Before I went back home, I would have taken that comment to mean “strip down and let’s get freaky,” but right now I’m going to assume it’s a test. One I don’t want to fail. “I can do card tricks. I don’t suppose you have a deck of cards laying around though.”

  She laughs. “Card tricks?”

  “Yeah, I learned at my tenth birthday party. Mom hired a clown. Imagine my embarrassment. She always treated me like I was five. Even now. She irons my underwear when I go home.”

  “Aw, that’s kind of sweet.” Faith smiles, but it’s a sad smile.

  “Not really. She spends more time with my dirty laundry than with me.”

  “Oh. Overcompensating for not being a loving mother.” She rolls her eyes. “Parents are so screwed up, and they don’t even seem to notice that it screws us up in return. That, or they don’t care.”

  I take her hand in mine. “I care about you, Faith.”

  She squeezes my hand. “Keep this up and I may actually start to believe that.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mia

  “Oh, well that’s just…” Taneesha shakes her head at Mark and me in our green and red M&M costumes. “Yeah, there are no words for that.”

  I laugh because the costumes were totally my idea. “You inspired this, Tee. You’re the one who is always telling us we are sickeningly sweet and calling us M and M.”

  Mark pulls me toward him and our costumes actually bump off each other, which prompts me to giggle again. “Mark and Mia,” he says. “M&M.”

  “You’re both lucky I love you.” Tee’s really jumped on the Mark bandwagon over the past month. I know part of it is that she’s happy I’m finally moving on from Jared. There haven’t been any texts, phone calls, packages, or online messages—even after Tee reset my Facebook password back to what I had it and unblocked Jared from my phone. I haven’t wanted to talk to him because I’m really happy with Mark.

  I hold my arms out to her. “Give me a hug. You know you want to.”

  She laughs and rushes over to me, tackling me to the floor. It doesn’t hurt at all thanks to the padding in my costume. We roll around in a hysterical heap, and Mark jumps on top of us.

  “Oh, that was my uterus, buddy,” Tee says. It’s almost that time of month again for her, which totally prompted a costume change thanks to being “bloated like a whale,” her words not mine. She ditched the slutty mermaid costume for a slutty nurse costume. Instead of exposing her stomach, the nurse costume exposes most of her butt and chest.

  “Sorry,” Mark says, waddling back to a standing position and reaching for both our hands. He pulls us to our feet. “Shall we, ladies?”

  I loop my arm through his. “We shall.”

  He awkwardly leans down and kisses my lips, lingering enough for me to wish Tee wasn’t watching us. I can’t get enough of his lips.

  “Okay, let’s go before my dinner makes another appearance all over your M&M costumes.” She pretends to gag and walks out in front of us.

  The party we’re attending is at a frat just off campus. It’s the only frat within walking distance that isn’t totally skeezy, mostly because it’s the only frat that cards people. No underage coeds allowed. Thankfully, Tee and I both have September birthdays so we’re already twenty-one. Mark, being a year older than us, has nothing to worry about either.

  Most of the people we pass give Mark and me strange looks. Okay, so we aren’t wearing the typical college student costumes, but these things are hysterical and I love them. Tee ditches us the second she sees Brandon, a guy she met last week at the library of all places. I think he might be good for her, but I’m not going to hold my breath that he sticks around for any length of time since Tee doesn’t seem like she wants a serious relationship right now.

  Mark gets us each an orange plastic cup with pumpkin beer. It’s a nice touch that they went all out with the beer. I’m used to cheap stuff that tastes more like water than beer, but this is actually good.

  “So, I know the green M&M is supposed to be kind of bitchy,” I say, “with her ‘I melt for no one’ slogan”—according to the mug Mark bought me two weeks ago when the nickname really took off—“but I’m definitely melting for you, Mark Newberry.”

  He tips my cup toward him and peeks inside. “
Are you drunk already?”

  “No, I’m not drunk. I’m really happy to be here with you.”

  He takes my hand and leads me to a secluded corner by the back door. “This past month has been one of the best months of my life, Mia. You can melt for me all you want because I’m seriously falling for you.” He leans forward and kisses me, long and passionately.

  I’m definitely moving in the direction of love, but it’s still too soon to say it. Especially since Mark said he’s falling for me, not he’s in love with me. “I know what you mean,” I say, my voice a breathy whisper in his mouth.

  “Do you want to come back to my place after the party? We can walk Tee home first, make sure she gets in bed safely.” He holds both my hands up to his mouth and kisses my fingertips. “My sister and brother-in-law are out of town for the weekend. We’d have the place to ourselves.”

  I totally surprise myself by saying yes without hesitation. He leans in for another kiss, and this time his lips trail across my jaw and to my ear. “I’m ready when you are,” he whispers and then kisses my earlobe again.

  When he pulls away my cheeks warm. Part of me is so ready to be with Mark, but part of me still feels like this is a first that should be had with my first love. Aren’t love and sex supposed to go together? But if they are, then why didn’t it ever happen for Jared and me? What was it that stopped me?

  “You okay?” Mark dips his head down and looks into my eyes. “Hey.” He cups my cheek. “I said when you’re ready.” He shakes his head. “You’re not yet, and that’s okay.”

  “I want to be,” I say. God, do I want to be ready.

  He smiles and kisses me again. “I know you do, but I won’t let you until you’re sure. I have no complaints about our relationship.”

  Neither do I. Mark is the epitome of perfect. I smile back at him and pull him as close as our costumes will allow. “I think tonight, I might try to make you scream.”