by Harper Sloan
“Why on earth would he think that’s how you’re paying for school? He knows you fly with your dad.”
“He said something about my dad’s finances. By then I wasn’t really listening. I couldn’t really focus on what he was saying.”
“We’ll figure this out, Lex. I’m sure it was just all one big misunderstanding.”
I shook my head. “No, there’s nothing to figure out. I broke up with him and left. Drake chased after me and Jackson stopped him so I could leave. It’s over. I’m done.”
Aubrey wrapped her arms around me. “Don’t say that. You love him. Are you ready to walk away completely, not even knowing what made him say what he did?”
“Aubrey! How could I ever trust him again after he made an accusation like that?”
“I’m not saying you need to forgive him, but maybe you should at least hear him out once you’ve calmed down. Maybe you’re right and it’s better that you end it. But what if you’re wrong? What if there’s an explanation of some kind? Can you handle ending things with him and seeing him on campus? Seeing him with other girls?”
The thought of him with someone else made me want to vomit. “I…I don’t know. I can’t imagine any explanation that would be good enough for me to forgive this. I told him he was only my second lover. That means he thinks that I’m a liar, too.”
“Take some time for yourself. Think about what you want to do. If you decide to walk away, you have my support. And if you want to talk to him to get to the bottom of all this, I’ll respect that, too. You’re the only one who knows what the right decision is here. No matter what, you’ve got me in your corner. Pinky swear.” She held her pinky out for me to shake. Even at the height of my despair, the gesture made me smile, remembering all of the promises from our childhood.
“Love you, Aubrey. Thanks for coming to my rescue.”
“Shut up, Lex. You gave me the lecture last night when I thanked you for being there for me. You know that’s what best friends are for. Now, I rented the room for the whole weekend. The jerk at check-in even made me pay for last night so I could get into the room now instead of waiting until this afternoon.”
“Asshole,” I muttered, mad at men in general right now.
“How about we hang out, eat junk food, and watch movies all weekend?”
“Don’t forget about our plans involving vodka,” I reminder her.
“Yes, and vodka. Why don’t you send your dad a text letting him know you and I are having a girls’ weekend? I’ll let my ‘rents and Jackson know, too. We’ll turn the phones off and pretend that the outside world doesn’t exist for a couple days. No pressure to make a decision until you’re ready. It will be good for me too after how freaked out I’ve been this past week.”
“Yes! That sounds like exactly what I need to do.” I opened my phone and noticed that I had several missed calls from Drake and Jackson, along with a dozen text messages. I resisted the temptation to open any of them and typed out a quick message to my dad. He was out of town on a charter, so he wouldn’t expect to hear from me that much anyway. “Can you let your brother know I’m okay when you send your message? He’s already tried calling me.”
“Already done. Didn’t give a lot of details to Mom and Dad, but I did let Jackson know that you were safe with me and that I had everything under control. Now, off with the phones!”
We powered down our phones and Aubrey tossed them into the bag she brought with us. “What did you pack?”
She pulled my favorite pair of pajamas out and handed them to me. “Figured we’d need comfy clothes. So I brought jammies and yoga outfits. It sounded like an emergency, so I didn’t bother with much else. And we’ll have to order in food ‘cause I’m only going out once for supplies since I skipped packing my makeup.”
“Wow! You left home without makeup knowing that you might not come back tonight? You really do love me!” I joked, distracted by the idea of my fashion-plate bestie hanging out all weekend with me in casual clothes and no makeup, especially since her eyes were still puffy from crying last night.
“I do, Alexa. And I don’t know what happened with Drake, but I would have sworn that he loves you too,” she said in a gentle tone. “We don’t have to talk about it now. We can cuddle in bed and watch chick flicks and cry all weekend. Nobody knows where we are right now, so you don’t need to think about it yet. Now go change into your jammies and wash your face. I’ll pull up the movies and make the first pick, okay?”
I nodded, trying to stem back more tears. I flipped on the light in the bathroom and shut the door behind me. As I turned towards the sink, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I was a total mess with my hair all over the place, pale skin, and dark smudges under red-rimmed eyes. How I felt inside was even worse. My hands were shaking and my stomach was turning. My mouth felt like I had swallowed a bunch of cotton, so I poured myself a glass of water. I gulped a little down and my stomach rolled in protest.
I sank to my knees and crawled to the toilet, glad that I hadn’t eaten any breakfast this morning. I spat the water into the bowl and prayed that I wouldn’t start to dry heave. I sat there on the floor, trembling for a few minutes until Aubrey knocked on the door.
“Did you fall in or something?” she asked.
“Or something,” I answered weakly. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
After flushing the toilet, I stood on shaky legs and changed into the pajamas Aubrey had brought for me. I opened the door and found her sitting cross-legged right outside waiting for me.
She jumped up and pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry I can’t make it all better for you, Lex. I really wish I could fix this.”
I gave her a quick squeeze before pulling away. “You’re helping, Aubrey. I don’t know what I would’ve done today without you. I don’t know that anyone can fix this mess, but you being here for me makes a difference. Don’t think for a second that it doesn’t.”
She smiled and steered me over to the closest bed and pulled the covers down. “In you go, get comfortable ‘cause there a ton of Spankovision movies we can watch.”
I surprised myself by giggling in response. We’d called the movie rentals at hotels Spankovision ever since we’d discovered that they had porn during a road trip with her parents in middle school. Of course we’d rented one and were stunned by what we’d seen. We were even more surprised the next morning when we were asked about the movie we’d watched the night before. Our blushes must have given us away, and her brothers had teased us mercilessly the rest of the trip about the whole thing. The easiest way to stop the guys when they were on a roll was to join in and make fun of ourselves too. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Or something like that.
Aubrey beamed at me, enjoying my reaction to the memory. “Since I get first pick, we’re doing a girlie movie. I’m sure I’ll end up watching enough of your action flicks later to make up for it. Maybe we’ll get lucky and my movie will even put you to sleep.”
I nodded tiredly and hugged one of the pillows to my body as the movie started. I tried my best to stop thinking about what had happened with Drake and enjoy the movie, but it was so hard to do. A love story was a really bad idea. As I watched the couple on screen fall in love, I couldn’t stop myself from wishing life were as easy as it seemed in the movie. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Would our story have a happy ending too? I just didn’t see how it was possible without any trust. And thinking that those awful lies about me were true showed that Drake didn’t really trust me, let alone really know me at all.
Thoughts swirling round and round in my head, I closed my eyes in an effort to block everything out. It must have worked better than I’d planned since I woke up several hours later when the hotel door slammed shut, pulling me from a deep sleep. The sound startled me and I jumped out of bed.
“Oops, sorry!” Aubrey apologized. She was standing there with her hands full of grocery store bags and a drink carrier from Dairy Queen. “I thought I c
ould catch the door with my foot, but I missed.”
I pulled the drinks from her hands. “You brought me my favorite?” I asked.
“Yeah. I figured you wouldn’t really be hungry, and Dairy Queen banana milkshakes always worked for your dad when you were sick.”
“You are so sweet. Thank you!” I exclaimed while unwrapping a straw. There was something comforting about drinking it, and I needed all the comfort I could get right about now.
“I got enough supplies to last us a couple days,” she said, pulling a bunch of my favorite junk food from the bags along with a big bottle of Three Olives vodka. “And if you get your appetite back, we can always order pizza, too.”
I glanced at the dresser and realized she’d left her phone here while she was out. “You didn’t bring your phone with you? That’s not safe, Aubrey! What if you’d had car trouble?”
“Oh please. I know everyone in town. If I’d had any problems, someone was bound to find me, or I could have walked to the closest house and called for help. It’s no biggie. Besides, I was only gone for like thirty minutes.”
I looked at the bags and back at Aubrey. “Thirty minutes? The store is only a couple blocks away, and Dairy Queen is right next door.”
She looked at me sheepishly. “Well, I wanted to run back to the dorm to grab a couple things, but I changed my mind when I got there.”
“Why?” I asked, confused by her answer. “What could have possibly made you decide not to run inside after driving back to campus?”
“I saw Drake’s car sitting outside the dorm, so I didn’t pull into the parking lot. I didn’t want to run into him, and I certainly didn’t want him to see me because then he’d want to know where you were.”
“Drake was there?” I shrieked, stunned. Just hearing his name hurt.
“Yes. Parked right at the curb with the engine running.”
I sat back down on the bed and glanced at my phone. “That means he wants to talk to me.”
Aubrey picked up my phone, tossed it into her purse, and zipped it shut. “It won’t hurt him to wait for you. Maybe it will give him time to understand how badly he hurt you. And you need some time to decide what you want to say to him. I’m not giving you this back until Sunday morning. So don’t even try to convince me otherwise. I see that look on your face. No caving yet. If you guys stay together, you need to make sure he understands that you won’t put up with crap like this. You’ve heard my mom’s advice on relationships almost as often as I have.”
“Start as you mean to go on,” we said in unison, wagging our fingers at each other just like her mom did whenever she said the same thing.
“You’re right. I don’t even know what he could say that would make his accusations forgivable, but I can’t talk to him until I figure out what I want to do. God, Aubrey… He made me fall in love with him and then he crushed me. Shattered my heart into a million pieces. How are we ever going to move on from this?”
“I’m not sure, sweetie. Let’s just take it one day at a time, I guess. Tonight, don’t even think about it. Let’s just hang out, watch movies, and eat junk food. I even grabbed swimsuits so we can hang out in the hot tub. Don’t make any decisions you’ll regret until you’ve had time to process what happened. Okay?”
I nodded my head in agreement. “But make sure you hide that phone better because it’s killing me right now not to call him, knowing that he’s trying to find me.”
“Girl, please. You know you aren’t getting it away from me until Sunday. So don’t even bother trying. And none of your puppy-dog eyes later either. A day and a half isn’t going to kill you, especially after storming out the way you did. You’re too much of a softie, so leave it to me to be your backbone this time around.”
And she really was. We spent the rest of the night and all of the next day doing anything but talking about my relationship problems. We managed to polish off the bottle of vodka and then passed out to sleep it off. I tried a couple times to talk her into just checking my phone to see if he left any more messages, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be able to resist calling him. Even while drunk, she insisted that a total communications blackout was the way to go, and she wouldn’t budge an inch.
Sunday morning finally rolled around, and I just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for a while after I woke up. My stomach cramped when I realized that I was going to have to face everything today. I was glad that Aubrey had made me wait since I was a lot calmer than I had been on Friday. And stronger, too.
I rolled over to find Aubrey watching me from the other bed. She’d spent the whole weekend showing me exactly why we were best friends, dropping everything to help me through this mess. I was so lucky to have her in my life.
“Thank you, Aubrey,” I whispered in a heartfelt tone.
“Dude, save the gratitude. You know you’re going to repay the favor someday,” she teased, lightening the mood. “Hell, the way I go through guys, I’m due for someone to stomp on my heart soon as payback. Karma’s a bitch.”
I chuckled as I looked at the clock before locking my eyes onto hers. “It’s time,” I said, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. I held out my hand, knowing she’d understand what I meant.
She shook her head at me as she got out of bed and went to grab the phones. “Nope, let me check mine first. I want to make sure that there isn’t some horrible news waiting for you before I hand your phone over to you. Go hop in the shower and get dressed. If we’re going to leave our little hideaway, you might as well get ready first.”
“I don’t know if I can wait,” I protested.
“Well, that’s just too damn bad. You need to be ready for anything, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you’re showered and dressed before you check all the messages I am sure are waiting for you on this,” she said, waving my phone at me. “Now run along and make yourself presentable or I’m not giving it back.”
“Argh! Fine,” I grumbled as I stomped into the bathroom. It pained me to admit that she did have a point. If there was bad news, then I would be more prepared to face it after I’d gotten ready for the day. The last thing I wanted to do was confront Drake looking like crap. If things were going to end between us, I wanted to at least look good enough that he’d regret losing me for being such an ass.
I took the quickest shower in history, ready to just get this over with. I could hear Aubrey’s voice through the bathroom door and threw on a robe so I could find out who she was talking to. I found her sitting on the bed, phone pressed to her ear with her hand over her mouth, looking stunned.
“Jackson, she just finished her shower. Can I call you back?” she asked. After listening to him for a couple minutes, she replied by saying, “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and I’ll let her know.”
“What?” I asked as she ended the call.
“Sit down,” she instructed. She must have seen the fear in my eyes because she moved quickly to reassure me. “No, it’s not bad. I’m pretty sure you’re going to be relieved to hear what Jackson had to tell me.”
I flopped down onto the bed and waited for her to continue.
“First with the not-so-great news. Jackson and Drake were in a fight. Neither of them is really hurt, but things got physical between them after you left on Friday. Drake tried to get past Jackson to get to you, and Jackson stopped him long enough for you to get away.”
“And they’re both okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, just some cuts and bruises. Jackson said Drake wasn’t really fighting back. He just kept trying to get to the door. My brother was really pissed, so Drake got most of the damage.”
“What else did Jackson have to say?”
“Well, that’s where the good news comes in. You know that my brother would do just about anything to protect you from being hurt, right?” she asked.
“Yes, he proved that after everything happened with Brad.”
“Exactly. He wouldn’t let Brad anywhere close
to you after that douche fucked things up. But he told me that he thinks you need to hear Drake out.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “How did they go from fighting to Jackson being on Drake’s side?”
“You know he’s on your side, just like I am. He didn’t give me a whole lot of details because he said it would be best if you talked to Drake to hear it from him instead of one of us. But the fact that he thinks you should see Drake at all says a lot to me.”
“And where is Drake now?” I asked.
“Jackson said he’s still waiting at the dorm for you to come back. He hasn’t left since he got there, only about half an hour after I left to meet you.”
“But that was two whole days ago!”
“I know. Jackson tried talking him into going back to the frat house, but Drake told him he wasn’t leaving unless it was because he knew where you were so he could go get you. Jackson has been bringing him food, and Faith took pity on him and let him use our bathroom. She told Jackson that he’d stopped to check our room each time he came inside and just stared at your bed with a sad look on his face.”
“And Jackson wouldn’t even give you a hint at why he thinks I should talk to Drake?” I asked, unsure what to think of this turn of events.
“He just said that, while he didn’t agree with the way Drake handled the situation, he did understand why he flew off the handle after talking to him. Judging by the number of messages I had from Jackson, Faith, and Natalie, I’ve gotta admit that I’m really curious to know what he said because it had to have been pretty convincing for everyone to be so persistent in trying to find us. And that’s not including how many times Drake called me and sent text messages, practically begging me to have you call him. I can only imagine how many messages you have from him,” she said as she handed me my phone.
I powered it up and opened up my text message notification message first. Holy shit, Drake had sent me nearly one hundred messages in two days. I had about a dozen from Jackson and a few from Natalie and Faith each. There were also several from my Dad, which I opened first. He had gotten my message on Friday and just wanted to let me know he was thinking of me. By the time I got to his last message, he was worried because Drake had called him to ask if he knew where I was. It was from last night, and he wanted me to call him ASAP.