by Jamie Knight
Brent nods.
“That sounds vaguely familiar,” he says. “Lindsay has told me about it and mentioned that it was a tough time for your family- when he was laid off from one plant and had to wait quite a while without work until a new plant opened up.”
“Yeah, exactly. Well, one day, when I was about seven, my dad forgot his lunch – which he would so sometimes – and since it was summer break, my mom had me run it over to him. I decided to explore the grounds of the plant. No one was really paying any attention to me, so I was able to get almost anywhere. I ran into Savannah while I was looking around and the two of us started talking.”
Now Brent’s raising his eyebrows at me in curiosity, but I ignore him and go on with my story.
“She was someone new and different. She told me her dad was there for a meeting and, at that point, I didn’t know who her father was, so I didn’t really dig any deeper. We played together, had fun and she let me know that she’d be there every day for the rest of the week since her dad would be bringing her. So, I went back each day and we had fun together and it was great.”
The look on Brent’s face has gotten even weirder, the more I’ve gotten into the story, but I ignore it for now. He’s become rather interested with my relationship with Savannah. It’s probably my fault, since I’m constantly talking about how much she annoys me. That would raise a couple of red flags for sure.
“I really liked her and, when it was her last day there, I guess I got curious enough and I asked her why her father was having so many meetings at the plant,” I continue. “By that time, I’d learned she was his daughter of course. Clearly, she wasn’t from around town, so I knew something was different with her. She didn’t seem like the typical auto parts worker’s kid.
He nods.
“She told me that her dad had just bought the plant and that he was closing it next month,” I say. “He was going to tear it down and build a resort and golf course. I was surprised and wanted to know what was going to happen to my dad’s job, so I asked her, but she just shrugged like it hadn’t even crossed her mind. Before I could ask any more questions, her dad called here away. I guess his whole job is to buy up failing factories and close them and turn them into something more profitable. Can you fucking believe that?”
“That’s pretty crazy,” Brent agrees.
“I know it isn’t her fault that everything had gone to shit back then, but her blasé attitude about it spoke to the golden cloud she lived on. How could she not even fathom that if her dad completely tore down the plant, everyone there would lose their job? It was such a lazy shrug. At seven, I knew the ramifications, so she could have figured it out, too.”
“I think if she was living in a completely different kind of world than you were – different lifestyle, pretty much as if she was on a different planet, with all that wealth and privilege – then she probably couldn’t understand what it was like for you,” Brent says.
I scoff, a bit annoyed that he seems to be taking Savannah’s side. I get what he’s saying, but I don’t buy it. She could have had more empathy.
“Well, even if I could forgive seven-year-old Savannah for that, now Savannah hasn’t seemed to have grown out of that same attitude,” I explain, in an attempt to get him to see why what happened long ago still matters now. “She didn’t care about the fact that I also got expelled or else she would have confessed, sparing me all of this struggle.”
“Does she remember you? Savannah, does she remember you from back then?” Brent asks me.
I shake my head.
“She has no idea. I could tell when we first met that she had forgotten.”
Once again, that was unsurprising. Given how stuck up she is, I was barely a blip on her radar back then as well as now. When she said ‘hi’ to me that day – the day we saw one another at the university – I had thought she might have remembered and that that was why she had approached me, but no. I was like a whole new person to her. I’m not even sure if she had any memory of me.
Maybe that week back when we were kids affected me a lot more than it did her. It was when my dad lost his job. I guess it was just another week in the summer for her, and life went on as usual. Her dad got to keep doing his useless, if not downright cruel, job, while mine was out of his.
There’s just so many things about her that make me so mad. I wish I could get over them, but she keeps managing to do something new to annoy me more and more. Not to mention the latest fiasco of cheating off of me and then getting me kicked out for it. Ideally, she’d just be out of my life.
“Do you want her to remember?”
I’m surprised by Brent’s follow-up question. When I first saw her, I did want Savannah to remember that little boy from years ago. I think a part of me wanted to be friends with her again.
That week was one of the most fun in my life. Going to see her at the plant was something I had looked forward to every day. I had been rather shy as a kid and didn’t have many friends, so I was delighted that the pretty new girl had taken an interest in me and liked playing together.
But it’s all shattered now. I’m not that little boy any more, and she isn’t that little girl. Even that little girl was linked with all things cold and heartless in my mind.
It’s been hard to divorce her memory from all those bad feelings – and, now, I don’t think it would be possible. Not after she was the cause of everything I’d worked for being thrown out the window. At this point, trying to forget about the past would be an unwelcome distraction from my mess of a current life.
“What I need to worry about is getting into another med school and how I’m going to pay for it,” I say, as I try to shift the conversation.
Thinking about Savannah isn’t going to solve my problems. All it will do is take me away from what I should be doing, which is focusing on coming up with actual solutions.
Brent softly throws up his hands.
“No problem. I’m here to help. All talk of she who we will not name shall cease right now.”
Good, I think, even as I find myself unable to forget about Savannah, since she is the cause of everything bad that is happening for me, right after everything was going so well. I hate her so much and yet I can’t get her out of my fucking head, and for entirely different reasons than before this whole incident happened.
I can’t believe I went from dreaming about fucking her on the desk in the classroom to a real-life nightmare in which I was accused of cheating off of her in there, and she helped me get kicked out of my dream school – if not my dream career –for good.
If I can manage to forget about her, my life will just have to get at least a little bit better, I think.
But somehow, I’m finding that a lot more easily said – and desired – than actually done.
Chapter Thirteen - Robert
Right after Brent makes his little joke about my sudden decision to stop talking about Savannah, there’s a knock at the door. I look over at my friend, wondering if he invited Lindsay over. She’s usually pretty good in a crisis and would have been my next stop for problem solving. I just didn’t want her to see me in my initial pity party.
I know she wouldn’t make fun of me given the circumstances, but – I don’t know. I’m her big brother and I don’t like the idea of her seeing my life just falling apart so viscerally.
Brent sees me look and says, “It isn’t Lindsay,” as if immediately catching my drift.
“At least, I didn’t ask her to come over, so I don’t think it’s her,” he add.
But there’s no one else I can think of who would just randomly visit me.
I get off the couch and go to answer my door. When I open it, I find Savannah standing there.
“What the hell?”
It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself. She’s clearly upset, but I doubt it’s with me.
“I’m sorry for just dropping in, but I wanted to talk to you.”
No apology, no trying to explain why she’s just at
my apartment or why she has my address. Honestly, I don’t care what her reasoning is. I’d just like her to leave.
“Well, I’d rather not talk to you, so if you could leave, I’d appreciate it,” I say, as politely as possible.
For some reason, I feel bad for yelling at her earlier. I know that she brought it on herself and it’s her fault, but I may have let some prior personal feelings get in the way and I very much lost my cool.
I try to close the door, but she moves herself between the frame, so I can’t.
“Please just talk to me. I know we’re… at odds, but I’m sure I can make it worth your while.”
She looks up at me from under her lashes and, for a second, I want to help her, but that’s gone really fast. I don’t like that I had that feeling in the first place, but I’ll just shake it off.
I don’t know that there’s anything that she could say that would pique my interests. I don’t try to close the door in her face, but I roll my eyes. Whatever she has to offer – maybe I can make myself feel better by throwing it back in her face.
“I don’t know if I care, Savannah,” I say, deciding to tell her the truth.
The one good things about being expelled from the university was that I wouldn’t have to see her again. But now it’s like I can’t escape.
“I promise I won’t waste your time.”
I’m this close to groaning out loud, but I hear footsteps behind me. I turn around and see Brent walking up with his stuff.
“I couldn’t help but overhear and I thought that maybe I should go since it seems you two have some stuff to work through.”
I hear insinuations in his voice that I don’t like hearing. I don’t want Brent to leave and I don’t want Savannah to stay.
“How about, Brent, you stay, Savannah, you leave, and everyone else can go back to their regularly scheduled evening,” I suggest, rather forcefully.
I was finally starting to calm down a little, but, now, I’m going to be all worked up again. I really hate this day.
Brent looks between Savannah and me and I know this motherfucker is thinking about leaving me alone with this woman. If he does, I am going to have to give him hell about this later.
“You can go,” Savannah adds. “I won’t hurt him.”
There’s an edge to her voice that doesn’t make me fully trust her. Not that I ever did, though, of course.
Brent looks at me one last time and he sighs. I already know what he’s about to do, but I wait for him to tell me.
“I’m going to head out. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
That last part is said more to himself than to me. I’m sure everything will not be fine. But I don’t want to keep having this fight because it’s already two against one.
To my complete annoyance, Brent leaves and it’s just Savannah and me. Once Brent is good and gone, I motion for Savannah to step inside. I may as well hear what she has to say, since she’s so insistent and asking her to leave isn’t working.
We’re just standing around my living room and she hasn’t said a damn thing yet. She’s looking around my apartment, probably judging how small and low-rent it looks. The simple fact that she is here is making me uncomfortable, but the additional fact that she isn’t explaining her presence or reason for being here is adding to that discomfort. I’m about to ask her what she’s doing here, but she finally starts talking.
“So, I wanted to tell you that I forgive you for cheating off my test.”
I’m sorry, what?
“I thought we should start there and have the air clear before we move forward.”
“You want to clear the air?” I ask her.
I don’t want a response, so I keep going.
“We both know I didn’t cheat off your test. I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with continuing the lie. We’ve both already been expelled. Get off your high horse or whatever the fuck you’re on and drop the façade.”
She looks completely shocked, which makes me even angrier. What does she have to be surprised about? She had to have known that her ridiculous ‘offer of forgiveness’ wouldn’t go over well.
“You can’t say that to me. I’m not – why do you keep saying stuff like that?”
She sounds genuinely confused. I don’t get it.
“I’m saying it because you’re lying, and you keep lying, and you won’t stop lying! Just tell the truth! It can’t be that hard. For once in your life, think about someone other than yourself! God dammit, Savannah–”
“I need you to marry me!” Savannah just suddenly yells.
I have to take a second to process. I almost feel like I must not have heard her correctly, but I also know I did because I don’t want her to repeat it.
I don’t know how to respond. But I can’t help but remark to myself that I was wrong to think that she couldn’t say anything to surprise me at this point. Her proposing marriage is the most random thing she could have said.
I never would have predicted this change in events. I’m shocked enough to let her explain.
“Why?” I ask her.
She brings her hands together and plays with her fingers. Her nerves are starting to show. I feel like I can’t get a handle on her actual personality.
“Well, um… I went to go see my dad after we left the dean’s office and he thinks the fact that I got kicked out of med school is some kind of sign that it wasn’t meant to be or whatever.”
She takes a pause and bites her lips. She does it so hard, I think she’s going to draw blood.
There’s a lot of tension in her body. I can tell that she’s not giving me the whole story, but she doesn’t owe me the whole story when it comes to this obviously personal issue between her and her father, so I don’t push it.
“My dad wants me to marry some guy I don’t want to marry,” she says after a minute, apparently deciding to explain it to me even though I didn’t ask her to. “They do a lot of business together, but I kind of hate the guy.”
She rolls her eyes, and despite myself, I have to bite back a smile. Damn, I hate how cute her expressions can be when she’s mad or annoyed.
If she hadn’t just fucking ruined my entire life, I might want to get up and hug her just to make her feel better. But since she did, I can at least imagine taking her over my knees and spanking her for being so bad.
“I’ve tried telling my dad a thousand times that I don’t want anything to do with this guy, but – I don’t know, he isn’t very receptive to caring about what I might have to say about the matter,” she continues. “I just thought that if I’m married to someone else, then there’s nothing my dad can do about it.”
Well, her family life sounds crazy— crazier than I could have predicted. That doesn’t make me want to marry her, though. I don’t owe her a single thing. In fact, Savannah owes me – not that I’m going to mention that debt. She would just deny it yet again.
“I get that you’re in a bad spot, but why in the world would I marry you?” I demand.
I can barely stand being in the same room as her, except for when I have those damn fantasies about her – or maybe especially when I do. I would very much like her to leave, but I’ve been entertaining her so far because this conversation has been interesting. I decide that the moment I lose interest, I’ll have her leave.
“Well, for starters, I’d pay for your med school. Any one you want to go to,” she says in response.
Hmm… Well, that’s a game changer.
She must have enormous wealth if she’d be able to pay for her own schooling and mine on top of that. I don’t want to think about one person having that much money at their disposal or its ramifications, but what I am thinking about is the fact that this would solve my problem. It would solve all my problems, like a giant pile of money often does.
The only real issue is that I would have to be married to Savannah. It would be a fake marriage, but I’m sure she would want to go for something legally binding, so that she could prove her ineligibil
ity to her father.
That would be how she could avoid having to marry another person – someone who doesn’t sound like such a great character, either. If he’s willing to marry someone who doesn’t want to marry him, he can’t be that great of a person, but that’s another thought I can scrape from my mind at the moment.
The big question is: How long could I commit myself to something like this? I recall how, just this morning, I was sad about that fact that I had no ‘special person’ in my life, and now it appears that the universe has found a fun way to poke at me. Looks like I’m about to get a marriage with none of the romance included.
“How long would this thing last?” I ask her.
That is my main concern. If she wanted this façade to go on for years, then I don’t know how willing I’d be to go along with this plan.
Savannah tilts her head and takes some time to think.
“Maybe a few months,” she suggests. “It would have to be until I got into a new med school. That way I can be sure that nothing will get in the way.”
She seems to have really thought this through. A few months wouldn’t be so bad, and I’d get exactly what I want.
I could live with that, yeah?
The whole idea is a bit iffy, but not something that totally goes against my moral code.
If I was to be honest with myself, I’d have to admit that Savannah is really sexy. I haven’t been thinking sexual thoughts about her for nothing.
Being around someone sexy like her – potentially sharing a marriage bed – it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.
It could be fun, right?
It isn’t just the romance department that’s been lacking in my life. I haven’t been doing much of anything with anyone.
Long story short, I’m a bit horny. I have a very sudden urge to touch her. And not just touch her a little— I want to feel every inch of her body. I want to know how responsive she would be to my touch, if she’d actually want me to touch her.