I stand up to leave, choking back tears, but also feeling furious.
“Let’s just go,” I tell her. “You can finish your gelato on the way home, right?”
I start walking in the opposition direction of the bar and grill, before Wesley can see me.
“Sure,” she says, hurrying after me and holding onto her plastic bowl of gelato. I dump mine into the trash can, suddenly having lost my appetite.
I know that if I stay here, I’ll either cry and look like an idiot out of sadness, or I’ll go over there and confront Wesley out of anger. Both options would create a big scene, and I just want to go home.
Back to my life before Wesley Reynolds.
Before I thought I had finally found love.
Chapter 36 – Chelsea
“How was your day off from practice?” asks my dad, when I get home.
He’s freshly shaven and had been humming a little song to himself while he applied gel to his hair. He must be seeing Taylor’s mom tonight. It’s funny that he still acts like a teenager whenever he’s going on a date.
I try to look convincing as I fake smile and say, “It was great, Dad.”
In truth, I wish that there had been practice today so that I wouldn’t have had to run into Wesley. But at least I know the truth now. I know exactly what kind of guy he is.
I head right to my room because I can’t stand being around happy people when I’m in a bad mood. And I don’t want my dad to ask me any more questions or become suspicious of why I’m so upset.
Even though I hate Wesley Reynolds, I’m not out to ruin his football career. I just hope he has bad karma, and one day realizes what a catch I am and how he shouldn’t have just thrown me away like this.
I try to do some English homework but my mind isn’t in the right place to write a short story right now. So then I plod through some math. While it’s easier to think logically than creatively in my mental state, I really can’t concentrate on much at all.
Finally, I decide to go to bed. I get under the covers and hug the teddy bear I’ve had since I was a little girl. I know it’s ridiculous, but my mom gave it to me and it makes me feel closer to her to hold onto it when I’m having a particularly shitty day.
Tonight I squeeze it extra tight and say, “Well, Mom, I sure wish you were here to help me out of this mess I got myself into.”
Suddenly, my phone lights up with a text. Thinking that it’s Taylor trying to console me one more time before bed, I turn over and look at my phone.
It’s from Wesley, and he’s responding to my earlier text about meeting him at our spot at the pool since neither of us had practice today. What a pathetic, needy text, that I never should have sent.
Sorry I couldn’t make it today, his text says. Something came up. Didn’t have my phone and just saw your text. Let’s meet tomorrow maybe?
I sigh in disgust and forward it to Taylor with my own commentary:
How did I fall for such an arrogant player?
Something came up, all right. He’s probably still with that other girl right now, but trying to keep me on the back burner by texting me. What did I expect? I was so dumb to think it’d be different with me.
Taylor shoots back a quick: What a jackass. I’m sorry, hon. Let’s go out this weekend and forget about him.
I smile at her continued attempts to cheer me up. At least I have Taylor.
But as I sink back down into my pillow, I finally let myself cry. I hold onto the bear from my mom, which is no substitute for her, but it’s all I’ve got.
I think about Taylor’s “motherly role” in my life, which is the next best thing, but a very far second in terms of actually having my own mother to talk to the first time I fall in love, the first time I have sex, the first time I get my heart broken.
All of which I did with awful Wesley Reynolds, of all people.
I resolve to toughen up, and never let him know how much he got to me.
And to never give any other guy the chance to hurt me again.
Chapter 37 – Chelsea
I stare at the options offered by the campus cafeteria, but everything looks like dog doo. It’s been a week since I saw Wesley with the other girl, but I still haven’t gotten my appetite back.
I’m pondering whether the baked potato or chicken salad would be more palatable for the few bites I might manage to choke down, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Thinking that it’s Taylor, I turn around and come face to face with Wesley.
“Hey there,” he says, with a confident grin on his face.
I can’t believe the nerve of this guy.
I turn around and walk away from him, glad that I’m not actually hungry and don’t need the food I was about to order.
I still can’t believe I fell for such an arrogant player. And that he’s still not giving up.
I hadn’t answered his text. I hadn’t shown up at our spot at the pool. And I hadn’t so much as glanced in his direction during practices.
You’d think he’d take the hint. But I guess I’d just made him want to chase me that much harder, in pursuit of yet another cheap thrill. That’s how guys like him work, I’m sure.
“Chelsea?” he says, in a concerned tone of voice, as he follows after me. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say, keeping my tone completely calm. “I just don’t want to talk to you.”
I can’t afford to break down in front of everyone. I look around, wondering who will see my embarrassing display of tears if this asshole makes me cry again.
“I know this isn’t our approved spot,” he says, looking around and lowering his voice to a hushed whisper as he continues walking after me.
He follows me through the doors leading from the cafeteria to the student lounge.
“But I don’t care. I need to talk to you and see why you’ve been ignoring me. And I don’t give a fuck who sees us.”
“Well I do,” I shoot back, trying not to reveal my anger.
Why is he so intent on making such a big deal out of the fact that we can’t be seen together, now that we’re over anyway? He must just like to rub it in my face that his latest conquest was the coach’s forbidden daughter.
But I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to feel embarrassed, or upset, or anything at all in front of other people and especially not in front of him.
I just want him gone.
I quicken my pace until I’m walking through the doors of the student lounge and outside where there aren’t as many people around. He’s still following me, but at least there’s no one around to witness me falling apart if I let him do that to me yet again.
But I won’t let him do that to me.
I’ve resolved to turn myself into steel when it comes to him. I imagine myself putting on a superwoman outfit, one that’s resistant to the weapons of arrogant players like Wesley Reynolds.
“How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone?” I demand, spinning around to face him finally, now that the only emotion shown on my face is annoyance— I hope.
“Fine, I’ll leave,” he says, shaking his head at me. “It’s not like I want to be some creepy stalker. I was just trying to fucking talk to you.”
And then, softer and with less defiance, he adds, “I didn’t think you were like this.”
Like what? I wonder, but I don’t ask him out loud. Because I’m sure I don’t want to hear the answer.
Clearly he didn’t think I had enough self-respect to cut him off once it became obvious that he isn’t that into me. He’s used to girls agreeing— explicitly or tacitly— to be his booty call.
They probably wait around for him to call them up after he’s gone on a date with another girl. They’re probably eager for him to fit them in at his beck and call.
Not me.
“Well, you were wrong,” I tell him. “Because I’m exactly like this. Just like you are exactly like you. Which I already knew, because I heard all about it. How you were such a player. H
ow you got into trouble at your old school…”
“Who told you that?” he asks, without denying it.
“Taylor,” I say, and then wish I hadn’t. I don’t owe him any information.
“Oh, of course,” he says sarcastically. “The ever- knowledgeable Taylor.”
“Just leave her out of this…” I start to say, but at the same time, he says, “Look, I don’t mean anything against Taylor. I just don’t know what good it does to bring up allegations from the past that are based on hearsay. I’m sure both of us have been different in the past but let’s focus on the here and now.”
I look at him, trying to figure out what any of this means. He obviously sees a ray of hope and decides to keep trying.
“I thought we had something going on that was new and different.”
He squares his jaw, as if he really means it, but I want to explode at how low he’ll stoop.
“Now you’re playing the ‘it’s different with us’ card?” I glare at him. “I can’t believe what a walking cliché you are.”
“What are you talking about?” he says, feigning innocence.
“Oh please. Like you didn’t try to feed that same line of bullshit to the girl you went on a date with last week.”
“What?” He blinks, his face a big fake question mark. “Last week?”
“Oh yeah, I guess you go on so many dates you can’t keep track, so I’ll spell it out for you.”
I didn’t mean to let it slip that I had seen him with the other woman. It shows how vulnerable I am and that it bothers me.
But now that it’s out there, I’m done with any pretenses. I just want to let him know that I know so he’ll finally leave me alone and I can start having some peace.
“Last Monday at Moon Howl Grill.”
I watch with quiet satisfaction as the recognition sets in. He can’t deny or squirm out of anything now.
“Chelsea, that wasn’t a date,” he says, with a sigh.
But he doesn’t say what it was. He’s clearly holding something back.
I bet next he’s going to tell me that he was trying to break it off with her, or she’s “just a friend” or something. I don’t want to give him the chance.
“And even if it was—” he continues, making me want to say “A ha! Caught you!”, but I don’t— “What’s it to you? You say we can’t get serious because of your father, so we have to sneak around and barely even talk to each other, and then you get mad at me because you think I was on a date with someone else? What do you expect from me? To wait around on the pool bleachers for you forever?”
I can’t believe his attempts to turn everything back around on me.
“Well what about you?” I start to say, ready to fire back with ammunition of my own.
He was the one feeling jealous and possessive about my past when we were at the amusement park. Yet he thinks I’m stupid for not wanting him to date anyone else in the here and now?
“What about me?” He asks. “Come on. Let’s have it out. I’m so sick of this back and forth…”
But it’s not worth it.
I don’t want him to know how much I care.
Cared.
“Nothing about you. Never mind. It was nice knowing you, Wesley.” I start to walk away from him yet again. “Good luck with the rest of the season and all of that.”
“You really don’t believe anything I say, do you?” he asks, but he doesn’t follow me this time.
Of course he’s trying to blame everything on me. It must be in some sort of player’s handbook. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of arguing.
I just say, “No, I don’t,” and keep walking.
Away from him, and from the disaster that was my apparent attempt to tie down a player.
What the hell was I thinking?
Chapter 38 – Chelsea
“What the hell was I thinking?” I ask Taylor, later that night.
She’s come to my house for a sleepover, so that I’m not left alone with my stuffed teddy bear yet again.
“Look, Chelsea, you didn’t know this would happen,” she says. “You liked someone. You followed your heart. That’s nothing to regret.”
“Well I certainly regret it. In fact, I’m still caught up wondering, ‘What if?’ What if he really wasn’t on a date? I didn’t even give him a chance to explain…”
“Okay, yeah, I have to stop you right there,” she says, shaking her head at me. “Because I do think we can be reasonably sure he was on a date. And even if he wasn’t, there were a bunch of other red flags before that. He ditched the Frisbee game he’d invited you to, without any explanation. He ignored your text and chose to go out with some girl— whoever she was—instead of meeting you in your spot.”
“Yeah, but he seemed to be really offended by the fact that we had to only meet in that spot,” I tell her, thinking back to what Wesley had said during our fight. “It’s like he was mad that we couldn’t see each other or be a real couple, but it was his idea to keep it all a big secret. Wait. Wasn’t it?”
Nothing's making sense to me anymore.
“Chelsea, I know you’re second guessing everything right now. You can’t trust yourself because you’ve been hugely let down by someone you thought cared about you. But now is not the time to re-write history. Give it a few days and you’ll be back to feeling great about yourself for nipping this in the bud before you were in too deep.”
“But that’s the problem,” I tell her. “I already got in so deep. And I truly thought he had too. I know, I know… that’s the point of the game he was playing. That’s how they all do it. But I just wish I had a way to know for sure, so that I had some sense of closure.”
“I understand,” Taylor says. “I wish life would give us a big sign about these kinds of things. But it doesn’t. So let’s go have some ice cream and forget about our worries for a while, shall we?”
“Good idea,” I tell her. “I’m sorry I’m such a bad sleepover host. All I do is moan and bitch, and I don’t even give you any ice cream as a reward for putting up with me. You have to ask for it in between listening to my sad sob stories.”
“Don’t be silly,” she says. “That’s what I’m here for. And for the ice cream in your freezer, of course.”
I laugh. But before we make it out of my room, I get another text from Mandy’s mom.
It’s a suspected drug overdose. She’s in a coma. Please keep this information confidential.
“Oh my god,” I say, upset all over again.
“Mandy? Really?”
Taylor looks just as upset as I feel.
We hug each other.
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t understand why Mandy would take drugs,” I tell her.
“Well, she was kind of a partier…” she says, and I reluctantly nod, thinking about all the houses she’s trashed when she drank too much and a couple times that she got kicked out of bars for being too drunk.
“But still,” I say.
“Yeah, I know. It’s insane. And Chelsea?”
Taylor looks hesitant.
“Yeah?”
I’m just as hesitant.
“I don’t know how I can tell you this, but I really think you should know.”
I have a sinking feeling in my stomach and I already know what she’s going to say.
“I wasn’t going to tell you at first,” she continues. “Because I didn’t think it was completely relevant to the, um, situation. But when I was talking to Christian about Wesley, he told me that, well…”
“Let me help you out,” I tell her, surprised by how sarcastic my voice sounds. “He told you that Wesley got in trouble for selling drugs at Huningdale.”
“Wow,” she says, reacting with a similar tone to the one I was just using without really meaning to. “You knew that?”
The question implies another one. And you’re still entertaining thoughts of the two of you being together?
“Look Taylor, it’s complicated. I didn’t really know
what to believe. Just like you said, the source is sketchy, we have no proof of anything…”
“Yeah but that’s really suspending a lot of judgment for a guy you barely know,” Taylor scolds.
I nearly break down crying.
“I know,” I almost blubber. “But I did think I knew him. How could he be so nice to me? So good to me, when really…”
“…when really it’s all just a sham?” Taylor asks.
I nod, feeling pathetic.
“Because that’s how players are. That’s why you should never get your heart involved.”
“I tried not to, Taylor,” I tell her. “I tried to be like you, and just let loose and have some fun. I guess I let him trick me. And he really got me good. I really am so pathetic.”
“Now, now,” Taylor says, putting her arms around me again. She pats me on the back. “It’s okay. You can’t help how you feel. He’s the pathetic one, not you.
I sigh, knowing she’s right but not completely feeling it.
“Don’t you think some ice cream could help this situation?” Taylor asks.
I laugh, glad she always knows how to lighten the moment.
“Yes. No matter how bad things get, ice cream always helps,” I tell her.
As we enter the kitchen, we see my dad sitting at the table, his mouth agape as he reads a piece of paper in his hand. I quickly wipe my eyes, hoping he doesn’t notice I was crying.
But I needn’t have worried. He’s completely caught up in something obviously upsetting to him. He certainly looks distraught.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask him.
“I’ve been better,” he says, and then he shrugs. “Say, do either of you know of any good math tutors?”
“Why?” I ask.
“It appears my star player needs some tutoring. Hopefully that’s all he needs.”
I accidentally sigh far too loudly.
“Oh my god,” I exclaim. “That figures. He can’t even pass his classes, either. He’s too busy…”
As my dad looks at me curiously, I catch myself and say, “…playing football all the time. All your players are more jocks than scholars. That’s why I’d never want to date any of them. Their brain is the one muscle they never exercise.”
Out of Line: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance Page 27