Chapter Sixteen-
Since there was only so much I could do to try to help Derek control his life, I decided –with all the free time I still seemed to have—to continue getting my own together.
After a particularly bad day at work, I left Wendy's and went directly to the bookstore—my happy place. As soon as I got there the first thing I noticed was the "Now Hiring" sign they had up—and not as a barista, but an actual employee.
I asked the lady at the register about it and she said it was a part-time position but she didn't know much else. She gave me an application, which I wasted no time in filling out and giving back.
After applying for my dream job, I found myself wandering down the aisles, my fingers perusing the spines of the books as my thoughts drifted back to a nicer time in my life, a time when Derek and I were first "official," Kayla wasn't pregnant, and we were free to spend time together and play our own little game of hide-and-seek in the aisles.
I missed that simple time. As much as Derek told me that we would work through the complications, part of me didn't really believe him and the other part thought, "But what if I don't want to deal with the complications?"
It had been a given before; Derek screwed up so I would learn to deal.
But why? As my hand dropped to my side and I sighed, I wondered how many other almost-18-year-olds had to factor their emotionally elusive boyfriend's child support situation into their college plans. I had already spent some time picking out which classes I wanted to take in the fall semester after I graduated—did Derek? I didn't even know, I realized as I picked up a new romance novel with some easy, saccharine relationship.
I scoffed a little, making a face at the book even though it really hadn't done anything to offend me.
It was more fun to come to the bookstore with Derek, I thought. It didn't matter that he didn't read, that he would follow me around waiting for me to be done with that little twinkle in his playful blue eyes.
But now he had to work a million hours a week, and he didn't have time to come to bookstores with me or discuss future plans. Most guys could always be counted on to find time for sex, but just a couple nights before I had tried to lure Derek out with just such an idea, and to my surprise he told me he couldn't, that he had to help his dad with something. I stopped listening after that, a little bit offended. How could he not have time for a quickie? He was a man; that was one thing they were always reliable about.
Nobody said it would be easy, I reasoned, putting the book back into its place on the shelf and heading over to the book I had actually come to get, vowing not to think about my Derek drama anymore…at least until I was back in my car.
Just when I thought I finally had life under control, Fate saw fit to throw yet another wrench in the gears.
It occurred to me once or twice that maybe I was inappropriately placing too much of the blame for the situation on Kayla and not enough on Derek, but each time I shoved the thought to the back of my mind.
I had an interview at the bookstore later the very same week that I put in the application, and I was extremely excited. Landing an interview was the hard part, I figured, and once I got an interview I was –hopefully—as good as hired.
The manager who interviewed me was this radical looking woman named Susannah with really short brown and pink hair and really pretty brown eyes. She seemed intelligent to me, and she seemed to like me almost immediately. She was totally down-to-earth and the interview began as an interview and ended up in a discussion about how we coincidentally liked many of the same books and movies. She told me about a couple that I had never heard of and never read, so she jotted them down on a piece of paper for me.
At the end of our interview/discussion, when she said she would be making the calls in the next couple days, she stopped, smiled at me and said, "Why waste time on formalities? I'm going to call you."
Thrilled at landing my current dream job, I got in my car and drove straight to Derek's house. I knew he was off, and while I was on the way it crossed my mind to call and tell him I was going to come over, but I rejected the idea. We had talked earlier and he knew I had the interview, so if I called him on the way he would ask how it went and it would completely ruin the surprise.
I was giddy and excited as I turned onto Derek's street, already imagining throwing my arms around him and giving him a great big hug and kiss, so I wasn't really paying attention until I turned my turn signal on and started to cut the wheel into Derek's driveway.
Seeing Kayla's car already parked there, I sharply jerked the wheel straight and swerved back onto the road, frowning as I looked back to make sure I hadn't been hallucinating.
Nope.
Kayla's piece of shit little car was still in my boyfriend's driveway.
Lovely.
So instead of happily greeting my boyfriend at his door to tell him about my new job I could: A.) go to his house anyway and find out why the hell Kayla was there, or B.) go home.
I selected option B, and an hour later as I buried my problems in my new copy of Howl and Other Poems, Derek called me, and I let him go straight to voicemail.
When my phone alerted me of a new message, I felt a little snag of hope that when I checked it, I would find a message from Derek being completely honest with me, complaining about Kayla showing up unexpectedly at his house two seconds before I happened to drive by and him, naturally, kicking her out because he had to call his girlfriend, whom he loved.
Instead, I got: "Hey, it's Derek. I just got off work a little bit ago and …I thought I'd see if you wanted to hang out or something. Give me a call, okay? Later."
Wow, an endlessly disappointing message in which Kayla wasn't even mentioned, let alone complained about.
And it wasn't just his words, but his tone. His tone seemed normal, just like any casual conversation that we had on a day-to-day basis. If Kayla had shown up at his house for some reason, shouldn't there be some sign of distress?
It was what he didn't say that bothered me.
He didn't say anything out of the ordinary, and Kayla being at his house was –to my knowledge, at least—anything but ordinary.
And he implied that he had just gotten off work.
Why didn't he tell me? Would he tell me? I wanted to call him to give him a chance to explain, but a larger part of me could only concentrate on what he hadn't said in the message.
If he didn't intend to tell me and I would have never known if I didn't serendipitously drive by, did I even want to know?
Scolding myself for seeming to favor ignorance again, I closed my book and picked up my phone, dialing Derek's number.
"Hey," he greeted.
Nothing suspect about his tone so far.
"Hey," I returned, trying to mimic his good mood.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Reading," I replied.
He chuckled. "Of course you are—why did I even ask? Did you buy a new book?"
"No, I decided to wait until my first day so I get a discount."
"Aw shit, that interview was today, wasn't it? You got it? That's awesome," he said. "The discount should save you enough for your college tuition, right?"
"You didn't remember?" I asked lightly, not wanting to make too much of it, but kind of offended that he had forgotten such an important detail.
But he was teasing me. Was I delusional, or was Derek teasing me as if he would any other day when Kayla wasn't at his house?
Maybe he hadn't been home, I realized. Maybe, for some strange reason, while Derek was at work Kayla went to his house for…something. To talk to Mike about…something...baby-related.
Yes, that must be it. Derek had been at work.
But Derek hadn't been scheduled, which was why I had been on my way over….
Maybe he got called in!
"No, I did," he said. "It just…I don't know, my head—I just forgot when you called."
"Oh. No big deal. So, how was work for you?" I asked casually.
"Same old, same old," he replied.
"Yeah?" I asked, not encouraged. "What time did you work until?"
"Two," he replied.
Two o'clock. My interview had been at two o'clock, and he should have been home by the time I was finished with the interview and had time to drive to his house.
"Oh yeah? I thought that's what you said. So…did you do anything exciting after work?"
"Not really," he responded. "I was going to call you earlier," he began, and I felt a weight begin to lift off my shoulder. "I thought you could come over after your interview, let me know how it went."
The interview he hadn't remembered until I told him I got the job?
"Oh yeah?" I said hopefully. "Why didn't you?"
In my mind, I heard him say, "Because Kayla's a dumb bitch and she showed up at my house…"
But on the other end of the phone I heard, "Ah, one of my buddies stopped over and…you know how it is. But hey, if you're not doing anything, you should come over now, tell me about your interview and….maybe we can pretend to study," he said teasingly.
I felt like I had swallowed my heart, and it was made of a big block of ice. I could feel it slide slowly down my stomach, landing with a sickening thud somewhere in the vicinity of my foot.
I felt like vomiting.
"Which buddy?" I managed.
"What?" he asked.
"Your buddy that stopped over, which one was it?"
"Just a neighbor, you don't know him. I tried to kick him out so you could come over, but..." he trailed off.
"I can't hang out," I heard myself say, feeling my stomach turn over. "I have…a lot of homework."
"Oh. Okay,"' he said, sounding a little bit confused, maybe even a little offended. "Well, I guess if you have so much homework I should let you go."
"Yeah, I guess so," I responded succinctly. "Bye."
I ended the call and threw the phone down on my bed like it was a snake, staring at it as I tried to rationalize why he had lied to me.
Any reason but the obvious one.
He could not possibly be cheating on me. He couldn't. It wasn't even denial, it just wouldn't make any sense. He had spent so much energy getting me back and he had complicated everything to be with me, he could not possibly be cheating on me. There had to be some other explanation, something that I wasn't thinking of in the vaguely frantic state that I was in.
Even if he wasn't cheating on me though, I was forced to acknowledge that he was lying to me.
My Derek. Lying to me.
I couldn't deal with it, I decided. I picked up my book and tried to find where I had been before Derek called, hoping to lose myself in the written word like I had done so many times before in my life.
But as with my life, I couldn't quite find the spot I had been in before Derek.
So I closed the book in frustration and hopped off my bed, locating my backpack and rummaging through it to find some homework to take my mind off things.
I really should have known better than to vent my frustrations to Alex.
Normally I wouldn't have said anything about my problems to him, I would have masked any possible distress until he was safely out of the house and dealt with it on my own.
But Alex would have to decide to spend his first Saturday night in years at home, and it would have to be the day after my interview.
I still hadn't talked to Derek since that phone call. He hadn't called me, which pissed me off, and I had refused to call him on principle.
Unfortunately, a mere 25 hours after seeing Kayla's car in his driveway, I was already beginning to wonder if I was overreacting.
Not because Kayla's car had any business being in his driveway, but because if Derek had been in the wrong, wouldn't he have felt guilty and called me already?
Maybe there really was some other explanation. Maybe…his neighbor was Kayla's brother or something, and she had come to pick him up.
I realized when that thought crossed my mind that I was getting truly desperate, and I felt thoroughly disgusted with myself. What had happened to my brain? Where was it, and would it ever come back?
Was love supposed to be so damn depressing?
That was the thought in my mind—and the look on my face—when Alex took one look at me and said, "'Who died?"
I gave him a moody glance and shook my head. "No one yet."
"Is someone going to?" he asked, flopping down next to me. "Do you need an alibi? Should I get a lawyer now? I'm sure if you give me enough notice Johnnie Cochran could get you out of it. Make sure you wear gloves though. And…it would help if you could establish some kind of fame first, pro football player, rapper, freakish plastic surgery project—some sort of deal like that."
"I'll get right on that," I stated dryly.
He sighed. "Okay, I'll be serious. What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Liar. What's wrong?" he asked again.
I sighed. "When I say nothing, it means I don't want to talk about it. Don't you know anything about women?"
"I know a lot about women, and I know that when you ask a woman what's wrong and she says nothing, you better keep asking, or she's going to be pissed."
I cracked a tiny smile. "I'm not dating you and it's not your fault, so that's really not the situation at this point in time."
"Thank God, we are above incest. But I still want to know what's wrong."
"Nothing," I said slowly.
"The demon spawn?" he guessed. "What did the dumbass do now?"
"Nothing," I said again, although even to me it sounded like more of a growl.
He sat there patiently, not asking again, not breaking the eye contact he was making with my ear.
A minute passed before I finally said, "Don't you have to go out?"
"Actually, I'm staying in tonight. I think my body needs to detox or something. I've decided not to drink at all this weekend."
"I'm so proud," I said dryly.
"So, what did he do? Tell me, maybe I can help. I am, after all, a man."
"Yes, I know exactly what you are," I said a bit derisively, slanting him a sideways look.
"I think that was an insult, but I'll overlook it. Want me to beat him up for you?" he offered.
"I don't want to talk about it," I whined, feeling a bit like a four-year-old as I scowled and squeezed the pillow closer, slinking down into the couch cushion.
"Baby," he stated, but didn't persist. Instead, he grabbed the remote and changed the channel.
"I was watching that," I stated.
"Before I came in, yeah, but I am older and I overrule you."
Rolling my eyes, I complained, "That isn't fair, you'll always be older than me."
"Sucks to be you," he said, smirking.
Reluctantly smiling, I shook my head. "You are such a child."
"Says the girl clutching her pillow like a teddy bear and pouting in the corner," he retorted.
Ceding his point, I let up a little on the pillow and sighed, glancing over at him cautiously. "I don't like Derek very much today," I finally admitted.
Instead of gloating, he merely nodded, which must have been the right response. "What did he do?" he asked evenly.
I hesitated, thinking I probably shouldn't tell him because I would probably regret it later. "I don't know, probably nothing."
He nodded again, looking over at me with those green eyes we shared, nothing but patience visible in them.
"You know…the situation with Kayla?" I said after a few more seconds of hesitant silence.
"The skank?" he asked, nodding.
I cracked a smile, loving him just a little in that moment. "Yes, the skank. Well, after my interview at the bookstore—"
"What interview?" he interrupted.
"Oh," I said, realizing I hadn't even told him about that. "I had an interview at the bookstore yesterday, and I got the job."
"Congratulations," he said. "Continue."
"Thank you. Anyway, after I found out I got the job I was really excited, so I thought I would just stop over at Derek's house and share my news with him."
"Naturally," he said, nodding his head once.
I nodded back. "Yeah, I thought it would be nice. Only…I didn't call first, because it was a surprise." I paused, debating whether or not I should keep going, then deciding I may as well. "And when I got there…Kayla's car was in his driveway."
Watching me, he asked, "What did you do?"
"Nothing," I said. "I kept driving and then I…turned around and came home. He called me a little while later and I figured he would mention it, you know? Tell me what happened. But when we talked he didn't say anything about it. He acted like everything was normal; he even said he was going to invite me over earlier, but he didn't because a buddy stopped over unexpectedly."
"A buddy," he said, cracking a smile. "That's an interesting term."
"I thought so," I said, nodding.
"Did you say anything?"
"No," I said, shaking my head and resting my chin on the pillow. "I wanted him to tell me. I didn't want it to seem like I…caught him."
"But you did catch him," he stated.
"I didn't catch him," I said defensively. "I didn't even see him. And…I don't know."
"Dump him," Alex said simply.
Rolling my eyes, I sighed.
"I know, that wasn't what you wanted to hear. It wasn't the right thing to say and it wasn't the right way to say it, but rather than waste 15 minutes putting it into softer words, I'm just going to get to the point. Dump his sorry ass."
"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you," I said.
"Because you knew that I would give you good advice? Excellent reason, Einstein."
"You don't understand," I said, feeling even more frustrated than I had with my own thoughts.
"I do understand, Nicole. I understand better than anyone else that you know right now. The only person who could possibly understand more than I do is your mom—no, Mike would understand too, but your mom's dead and Mike's a bastard, so I'm afraid I'm all you've got, kid."
"I'm not doing this," I said, standing up.
"Go ahead, avoid it," he said, not standing up.
"There's probably nothing to avoid," I shot back, turning to face him with agitation all over my face. "I'm sure it's nothing, Alex. I'm probably just overreacting," I said with forced lightness. "You know what they say about making something out of nothing."
"Yeah, you go ahead and pretend that it's nothing. Pretend that the truth isn't staring you in the face. Pretend that you guys are going to be a happy little family and live a perfect little life once you get over this hump in the road. Pretend that love is supposed to be this hard, that nothing worth having is ever easy. You can find a million little clichés, Nicole, and if it makes you feel better, you can cling to them while you lie to yourself. Have fun with that," he said, standing up, the vein in his forehead suddenly very visible. "But you know what? When you let him use you and play you and you find yourself going out of your fucking mind, don't come crying to me about it then. I'm warning you now. I'm telling you that you need to get the fuck away from the kid—I don't care how, just do it. I'll send you to school out of state if that's what you need to get away from him, but please…don't make me go through this again."
I stood there staring at Alex, and I remember it being the first time that I felt like he loved me.
I swallowed uneasily. "I'm not making you go through…. It's nothing, just forget—"
"It is not nothing," he said a bit loudly. "You are not nothing. You…deserve so much out of life. You deserve to live. She deserved to live, Nicole. Do you understand that? She left behind a child and her whole life because she did what you're doing. She threw everything away for him, and now you're doing it! Do you understand that your mother is rolling over in her grave right now? She left you those journals for a reason, didn't she? What the hell is wrong with you people?" he asked, making a gesture in frustration. "There is no man on this planet worth that, Nicole. Don't you understand? They are—we are all pieces of shit," he amended. "Even if we love you, we will still hurt you. But you know what we won't do? Die for you. Jamie drove herself into Mike's wife, and you know what? He got his freedom; they just died. He's the only person who got anything out of it. He went from being a loser who couldn't pay his trailer payment because he was buying too much weed, to a widower with a brand new house, brand new car—don't think it took him long to find a brand new girlfriend, either, because it didn't. She bought his freedom with her soul. She died for him, and do you think he gives a shit? He may keep that fucking book she gave him somewhere, I don't even know, maybe not. He probably sold it in a garage sale or something, because the symbolism of Jamie giving Wuthering Heights to Mike would be completely lost on his dumb ass. I would bet my life that he still has never read that book."
Frowning, I realized, "I didn't tell you that."
"What?" he said, forgetting his rant long enough to give me a confused frown right back.
"The book…that I found in his bookshelf…I didn't tell you about that," I said, my first thought being that I did write it in my journal, but Alex wasn't the kind of parent to go rummaging through my things.
There was a little glimmer in his eyes, and he smiled without joy. "He did keep it then? I wondered."
"How did you…?"
"How do you think I knew, Nicole?" he asked, shaking his head.
"She told you?" I asked, not quite believing it.
"Of course she told me," he said. "She told me everything."
With this new piece of information, I felt that everything I had always known about my mother's relationship with Alex was somehow uprooted, and I felt so confused that I had to sit down. "But…"
But in her journals, my mother never seemed at all fond of Alex. She complained about him more than anything. Why would she confide in him?
When I looked up at Alex, he was gazing at me appraisingly. "You still don't get it," he finally decided.
No, I didn't.
Honestly, at that point, I didn't feel like I was "getting" anything.
I didn't get why my boyfriend had lied to me. I didn't get why Kayla had been at his house in the first place. I didn't get why I hadn't just said something to him about it and avoided all the needless drama I was going through. I definitely didn't get Alex, I realized for the first time.
I felt completely confused about everything, and I didn't even know why.
"It just…didn't seem like you guys had that kind of relationship," I said carefully, not wanting to offend him.
An ironic smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he said with a trace of mocking, "You know what they say, Nikki; don't judge a book by its cover."
I was intrigued, there was no denying that, but I also sensed that I wasn't ready to deal with whatever Alex was trying to teach me. I wanted to know what he knew, whatever that might be, but something told me I wasn't ready for it just then.
Or maybe it really was just foolish denial.
All I knew was that it felt urgent to go to Derek and get our situation straightened out.
"I have to get out of here," I said quietly. "I need some air."
Alex nodded, his shoulders seeming to slump a little, and I tried to avoid looking at him before disappearing down the hallway to my room to find my purse and keys. But just before I slipped outside, shutting the door behind me, I thought I caught a glimpse of Alex at the refrigerator grabbing a bottle of beer.
When I showed up on Derek's doorstep unannounced, he looked a little confused to see me.
"Nikki?" he said, frowning slightly. "What are you doing here?"
"I needed to talk to you," I said uncertainly.
"Come on inside," he said, stepping back so I could walk in. "Is something wrong?"
"You tell me," I said with forced lightness, a shadow of a half-smile on my face.
He merely frowned.
"Why did you lie to me?" I asked, not with anger, but with sadness.
His frown deepened. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"A buddy came over?" I asked. "Kayla's your buddy now?"
I hated the desperate, pleading sound of my voice, but not more than I hated the expressions that crossed his face next: confusion, shock, realization, and then anger.
"What?" was all he said.
"Why did you say a buddy came over when it was—"
He interrupted me, "What makes you think Kayla was here?"
"I saw her car in your driveway!"
Stony anger was his only response, and I felt like I was drowning in confusion. He lied to me and he got to be mad?
"How did you see her car, Nikki?" he asked quietly.
"I—I drove by," I managed, but he looked so angry that I felt like I had done something wrong.
"You were checking up on me?" he asked, a slight sneer on his face.
"No!" I said. "No, I wasn't—I had gone for the interview, and I thought I'd surprise you… Why are you angry?" I asked slowly.
"No reason," he said angrily, shaking his head.
"You…seem very angry," I observed. "There must be a reason…"
"No fucking reason, Nicole. I'm angry for no fucking reason."
"You're being—"
I stopped myself, realizing anything I said would only make the situation worse, and he was already turning to walk away from me.
He just shook his head as he walked away, and I followed after him, frowning. "Derek, stop."
"No," he said.
I felt sick to my stomach again. There was a gnawing feeling eating away at my insides, and everything felt all jumbled. I was sure that at any moment I was going to throw up if he didn't immediately stop being mad at me.
"I wasn't checking up on you," I said, still following him, trying to figure out what I did to piss him off. "I—I was coming to see you. Why are you so mad at me? I didn't do anything."
"Whatever," he said.
That infuriated me out of my desperation. "Whatever? Are you serious? Are we 12?"
"Apparently," he said succinctly.
"Whatever?" I repeated again, stopping right there in the middle of the hallway, staring at his back in disbelief. "That's really all you have to say to me?"
He stopped and turned, still with that cold anger in his eyes. "What do you want me to say, Nikki?"
I could only stare at him in disbelief. He was being such an asshole, and I was the one who caught his conniving ex-girlfriend's car in his driveway when he claimed his "buddy" was over.
I let out a little scoff. "Wow. Well, if 'whatever' is all you have to say about Kayla being at your house and you lying to me about it, then…."
"You want to know why Kayla's car was here?" he asked, looking at me with a passionate kind of anger that gave me pause. "I had to take her to the fucking hospital. I'm sorry that I forgot about your interview, but I was a little preoccupied."
"What?" I asked, sobering, my heart dropping again. "Why did you have to take her to the hospital?"
"Because she was bleeding and she was afraid she was losing the baby."
Later, I would never admit to the rush of relief that I shamefully felt in that brief moment when I wondered if all of the obstacles between us could really be gone just like that.
"Is—is she okay?" I asked, unsure of how to word it.
"Yeah," he said shortly.
"The baby…is okay?"
"Seems to be," he said sharply. "I heard the heartbeat myself."
For some reason, hearing him say that physically hurt.
"Not that you care," he said. "In fact, I'm probably lying to you. I'm probably making all of it up, because I'm probably cheating on you, even though that would make no fucking sense. Isn't that what you usually think?"
If his mission was to make me feel like a complete asshole, he had done a good job. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.
And I had no idea what to say.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I felt a lump rise in my throat and tears burning behind my eyes.
Instead of crying in front of him, especially when he was so angry at me, I held back the tears and closed my mouth, spinning on my heel and making a quick exit, practically running to my car, jamming the key in the ignition.
As the tears began to well up in my eyes, I hesitated, thinking maybe Derek would come out after me if I waited another second. Maybe he wouldn't want to leave things like that between us, and he would come walking out the front door. I would get out of my car and start walking toward him, and he would meet me halfway. We would hug, I would bury my face in his shoulder, and all would be forgiven.
But he never came.
I sat there for two minutes, and the door never opened.
Derek never came outside.
Nothing was forgiven.
And for some inexplicable reason, as I swallowed the lump in my throat and finally put my car in reverse, I had the feeling that nothing would ever be the same.