Use Somebody

by Riley Jean

  “So what do you suggest I do? Date him, knowing full well it will hurt her? And then when we break up—”

  Gwen shook her head and cut me off. “Don’t even go there. You can’t use the possibility of a breakup as a reason to not date someone.”

  “Look at what happened with Nathan, Gwen. We broke up and the entire clique deteriorated.”

  She looked at me with as much sympathy as she was capable. “It would have happened anyhow. You know that, right? People grow up and move in different directions. It worked when we were kids, but it was never meant to last forever.”

  It stung that she could look at it so pragmatically. I had always believed it would last forever. And I was supposed to be the sensible one.

  “Exactly. Things like that never last. So what’s the point?”

  She tilted her head forward and eyed me over the rim of her glasses. “What happened to the girl who believed in the happily-ever-after kind of love?”

  Unable to meet her assessing gaze, I inspected a shiny black curl. “She’s dead.”

  Gwen was quiet for a moment, then spoke softly. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to let someone in.”

  “Fine,” I agreed, ready to point out her flawed logic. “That doesn’t mean I have to date Vance Holloway.”

  With a dramatic sigh, she pulled out a pen and paper. “Let’s look at this objectively. We’re going to make a list of pro’s and con’s.”

  Gwen could give Vance a run for his money when it came to persistence. Accepting defeat was not in their repertoire. Together they were exasperating.

  “Why can’t you just leave it alone?”

  She gave a wry look at my stubbornness. “You’re right about to find out.” She started scribbling on the page. “Point number one: he makes you smile.”

  “Sure he makes me smile, that’s what friends do.” I frowned at her, hoping she would take the hint.

  She shook her head. “You’re denying what’s going on by forcing into ‘friends.’ You’re not just friends and you know it. Now, either give me a con or admit defeat.”

  Rats. I could’ve refused to play her game, but I knew she’d just interpret that as a forfeit. Besides, I had good points, too, so I decided to play along.

  “For starters, how about the obvious… He just got out of a serious relationship. Jumping into anything now is a rebound.”

  “Doesn’t count. There are two kinds of people after a breakup: the rebound people, and those who want that connection, but are still looking for the right person. Vance and Evelyn were emotionally distant long before their official breakup. He was moving towards ending that relationship for months. He’s already over his ex, and seriously into you.” She didn’t write anything down on the con side of the page to show that my first point was moot.

  That just earned her another scowl. “Write it down, at least. It’s a valid concern.”

  “Irrelevant. He’s not rebounding.”

  “That’s your opinion!”

  “I’m not writing that down. My turn. Chivalry. You always said you wanted a chivalrous guy. Vance offered you rides home, treated you to pancakes, and protected you from your old boyfriends.”

  “He never actually stood up to Nathan.”

  “But he told you the truth about those rumors! That couldn’t have been easy for him!”

  I conceded in my silence. I wasn’t going to dispute Vance’s chivalry. He was a good guy, no argument here. He was never disrespectful to women, even his ex. And Gwen didn’t even know about the more personal things… like when Vance carried me home in the canyon, or shared with me the beauty of his mountains.

  I thought for a moment, then answered my next point. “Well… we work together. In fact, he’s technically my boss. It’s totally unethical.”

  “Please. Cole hooked up with Kiki when he worked here and it wasn’t a problem.”

  “Cole and Kiki? No way!” Geez, did I live under a rock or what?

  “Duh. This is an ice cream parlor. Nobody takes it seriously. My turn again. He listens to you. He hears everything you say and even things you don’t say. He wants to know everything about you.”

  Listens to me? Ha! Sure, the boy heard everything I said… except the word ‘no.’ I almost made the argument until I realized doing so would spill the beans. But as my mouth opened and closed wordlessly, she took advantage and moved on to her next point.

  “He’s patient. Need I remind you how big of a bitch you were to him when you first started working here? But he was determined to make you smile and he never gave up, even though you fought him every step of the way.”

  “Here’s a con… the boy has no shame! He’ll go through with any crazy idea that pops into his head!”

  She moved on without even responding. “He’s romantic, sweet and thoughtful. Like the journal he gave you for your birthday. The playlist he made of songs that remind him of you. And the rose he left on your car.”

  I was stunned. “The… How do you know about those things?”

  “Inconsequential. I’m not required to say.”

  “But no one else… Vance told you? Didn’t he? Ugh! What do you guys do, sit around and talk about me? Geez!”

  “I cannot confirm or deny.”

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway. Maybe he is all those things, but I’m…” I gestured towards myself, self-explanatory. “…emotionally challenged.”

  She gave a short guffaw, pen at the ready. “Is that your next point?”

  “No.” I gritted my teeth. It was the closest answer to the truth, but that was a whole different conversation I wasn’t willing to have with Gwen, especially after she just laughed at it. I noted her list now had an arsenal of seven points under the pro’s, and nothing written under con’s. We were both growing stubborn, our conversation getting touchy.

  “Alright. How about this one.” It was big—a point she couldn’t dispute. “We want different things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like, the first chance I get, I want to leave California and never look back.”

  My old dreams of returning to Texas were starting to sound more and more appealing. There was nothing for me here, just a bunch of ghosts and memories and a life that I no longer fit into. This job was temporary. I wasn’t in school. I was a disappointment to my family. I had no roots, no solid reason to stay. Soon as I saved up enough money, I was out of here.

  Gwen leveled me with a look. “And what does he want?” she pressed.

  I lifted a shoulder. “Beyond pancakes and fishing? Beats me.”

  “Maybe you should ask him sometime,” she said. But she wrote down my point. Then she held it up to see, and pointed to the pro’s. “Do you recognize this side of the page?”

  “No,” I said, stubborn.

  “This is your old cookie-cutter checklist, the traits you always said would lead to the perfect love. And I could keep going through the whole list, because I guarantee Vance has them all. But frankly I’m getting bored with your denial. He’s right in front of you, Scarlett, and you’re going to miss out on something special if you don’t open your eyes. That stuff you said? They’re just excuses. None of it matters. What’s important is the way he makes you laugh, the way he figures out your favorite songs just by watching you listen to them, the way he lets you be independent and still does those little things to take care of you. Because he cares.

  “He’s the perfect guy for you,” she continued. “He could make you happy, Scarlett. Why are you still fighting it?”

  I gnawed furiously at my bottom lip, knowing that I was losing this battle, but not letting that change my overall decision. What did Gwen really know of my experiences? My fears? My nightmares? Nothing. So no matter what I said, without the whole story, she couldn’t comprehend my resistance.

  “Vance is the best friend I’ve ever had,” I admitted quietly. “So why on earth would I want to ruin everything and date him?”

  “What would it ruin?” she shouted and threw
her hands in the air, patience gone. Her pen hit the wall. “You had a couple unsuccessful relationships in high school! So what? It happens! Nathan was an asshole! Miles was an asshole! Third time’s the charm! You had two bad boyfriends, that doesn’t mean—”

  It was all too much. Vance’s expectations. Gwen’s incessant questions. The nightmare… I did what I always do under pressure—I cracked.

  “There was someone else!” I blurted out, then gasped and reeled backwards. The aftershock of ripping a tablecloth out from under its place settings… and failing.

  She looked at me, eyes widening slightly as the truth sunk in.

  “A third?” she whispered.

  I nodded. She knew about Nathan and Miles, and she was aware of my wild summer in college. But I had never told her anything about him… about Gabriel.

  She blew out a heavy gust of air, processing this new information. A thousand different thoughts crossed her face as she measured me with those shrewd eyes. “Did you love him?”

  Tears pooled in my eyes, and I nodded again.

  “Okay,” she said. “And it was a bad breakup?”

  Trying my damnedest not to lose myself to the emotion, I choked out a laugh as a single tear escaped. “The worst one.”

  She released a long-winded sigh, then scooted closer and put her arm around my shoulders as I tried to gather myself. “Okay,” she said again, rubbing my arms. And she just held me.

  This exchange was definitely unusual for us, deeper than the surface-y friendship we’d always had. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. I’d never actually cried on someone’s shoulder before. No more than a few tears slipped out. Still, it felt good knowing someone was there to catch them.

  Things were changing—my life, my relationships—and as hard as I tried to fight it, deep down something inside me still wanted to be understood, to find acceptance. Even though holding on to my secrets made that ultimately impossible.

  Nevertheless, I’d reached my limit for tonight, and I was grateful that Gwen seemed to realize that and didn’t continue to push.

  * * *

  After the way Vance had stormed out of Mooshi, I knew he wasn’t going to drop it easily. I just needed to figure out what to tell him, some reason why last night couldn’t happen again and why we were better off as friends. But it couldn’t be the whole truth. And I couldn’t hurt him.

  I sighed. It was impossible. There was no way in hell that after everything leading up to last night, he would just let this go without some real answers. He was a tenacious little goober, that’d been obvious since the very beginning.

  As soon as I got home from work that evening, I saw the familiar charcoal truck parked along our curb.

  I had to try. My only hope was that once I gave him the bottom line—that I couldn’t give him what he wanted—he would accept it.

  I climbed in through the passenger side and shut the door, trapping us in the small space together. Inhaling the spicy peppermint scent, I surveyed the inside warily. It no longer offered the comfortable solace that I had grown accustomed to. Instead, the air was charged with energy, filling me with different thoughts and new feelings… all of which I’d rather avoid.

  Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Could I really make him accept my excuses so soon after last night’s tryst? Could we be alone together and not let it happen all over again? I glanced at my house through the window, trying to determine if this conversation would go well, or if it would only make everything worse.

  Just last night he had walked me to my door and waited on the porch until I was safely inside. He then breathed on the glass between us and used his finger to draw a heart. I had smiled softly back. Then and there, something in me had fluttered to life…

  “Well?” he said expectantly, breaking the silence. “Tell me what you want.”

  I shook off the errant memory. I had to be brave. And the sooner we talked this out, the better. If he was really giving me the opportunity to ask for what I wanted, I was going to be honest.

  Taking a deep breath, I gave him the response that I’d rehearsed all evening. “I want things to go back to the way they were before Smudgepot. I just want us to be friends.”

  “Bullshit.”

  It was the first time Vance had ever cursed in front of me. My eyes rounded in shock, right before they narrowed. Maybe it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, but he had no proof that it was bullshit. And I didn’t like that he was assuming otherwise.

  He continued on, ignoring my glare. “If it was too fast, we can take things slower. But we can’t pretend it never happened.”

  Oh yes we could. “You can if you still want to be my friend,” I threatened.

  “Friends generally don’t do what we did last night,” he argued. “Summer is my friend. Kiki is my friend. Heck, even Gwen is my friend. I know the difference. And this?” He gestured between us. “I’ve never had this with a friend.”

  Trying a new strategy, I shrugged and looked out the window. “You’ve never been friends with someone like me before,” I said airily. I only hoped Vance remembered my past well enough to know this wasn’t my first rodeo. He was just one boy in a long line of others that I had only wanted for one night of comfort. I felt bad for suggesting it, but he wasn’t giving me much of a choice in the matter. It was either this, or admit that what we had together was indeed something special.

  “It was just a kiss, Vance. Don’t make this a big deal.”

  It was unfair to insinuate that last night didn’t mean anything to me, because it did; it just didn’t mean the same thing to both of us. I had too much baggage, dulled emotions, and nothing left of my heart to give back. How could I expect him to understand that, much less accept it?

  He mirrored my body language and spoke calmly, unaffected by my faked indifference. “I may have only kissed two women in my life, but I think I can tell whether or not a girl is into me when I kiss her.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said defensively. It was one thing to argue my point, it’s another to call me out on a lie.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  I paused, knowing we’d gotten sidetracked. The kiss itself wasn’t the point.

  “You asked what I wanted. Well… this is what I want. Just friends. If that doesn’t work for you… maybe we shouldn’t be anything at all.” I crossed my arms and lifted my chin stubbornly, silently cursing myself for such a cruel ultimatum. But I was running out of alternatives, and I was hoping he’d spring for the compromise.

  He frowned at me. “That’s not an option.”

  “Neither is us dating, so quit pushing me!”

  “I’m not!” I scoffed at this, which he ignored. “I’m just trying to get you to talk to me. You know there’s something here, tell me why you’re fighting it?”

  I glared at him and didn’t move. He couldn’t prove that there was anything to admit any more than he could force me to be his girlfriend. If I could just stonewall for the rest of this conversation, I could win.

  Ever so slowly, he scooted closer, until there were only inches between us. “Talk to me,” he pleaded, his gaze intent and beseeching. But he was careful not to touch.

  I held my ground, silently meeting his stubborn green eyes… eyes that had held the heat of the sun and the coldness of death all within the last twenty-four hours. Eyes that had looked at me with affection for longer than I dared to acknowledge. Eyes that were now imploring me to give in… to save him from this pain and confusion.

  But I couldn’t save anybody. I couldn’t even save myself.

  “Please,” he said, his voice softer. And I couldn’t help it—it called to me. Vance deserved everything in the world, and here I was refusing him one thing that he ever asked of me—a reason. I struggled between my plan to remain silent and my desire to comfort him.

  “Talk to me,” he repeated, his voice almost a whisper this time, and it broke me. My stubbornness slowly crumpled as I prepared to tell him something.

  “Have you ever just,” I s
wallowed thickly, “felt lonely? Needed comfort, and reached out, wherever you could get it?”

  The second those words were out, I felt stupid. Of course Vance had never felt this before. The idea of “rebounds” had been a foreign concept to him, even though I’d accused him of this very thing. In his entire life he’d only kissed two girls. He never hooked up with someone he had only known for an hour, then forgotten their name. He never got drunk and made out with a friend, only to laugh about it later. He never kissed someone and had it not mean anything. And he had never, in the last four years, ever been alone.

  “Forget it,” I said, shaking my head and pulling away.

  “No, wait,” recognition lit his eyes. “Is that what you want? To be—what—friends with benefits or something?”

  “No!”

  Unconvinced, he waited for me to elaborate. I contemplated my words before I spoke.

  “Maybe that’s what I wanted last night. That doesn’t mean it’ll happen again… I mean, it won’t happen again. I can’t get attached to you, Vance. I can’t feel what you feel.”

  “Yes, you can. You opened up last night. You felt something, I know you did.”

  Why couldn’t he just listen to what I said, not what I did?

  “I’m not saying I felt nothing… There were a lot of factors… I was in the moment…” I shrugged.

  “Okay,” he nodded hopefully. “There’s nothing wrong with living in the moment. But doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “Like what?” I exhaled.

  “Well,” he smirked. “Did you… enjoy the moment?”

  I blinked. What a ridiculous question. Of course I enjoyed the moment. Last night was the first time I had ever been truly, deeply, desperately kissed. It was the first time in eight months I was able to put down my baggage, forget about the past and just feel. And oh the things I felt…

  For a moment I forgot where I was. We were no longer in his truck, we were lying in a grassy field under the stars. We were huddled together on a blanket, clutching one another like we couldn’t get close enough. His arms around me, my fingers in his hair, those full, perfect lips harmonizing with mine…