After our day and night together on Saturday, I’ve only seen Baylor twice. We had lunch on Monday, and I saw her during our Film Studies final. It’s Thursday and that’s all we’ve seen of each other—it’s all she’s given me.
I understand the demands of her job at the paper, especially as they wrap things up this week. And I know she won’t skip her volunteering time, since she’s already sad about not seeing those kids all summer. But dammit, between those and school, I can’t help but think, quite selfishly, that I’m pretty far down on the proverbial totem pole.
She even missed both our runs this week. That’s always been our time. Hell, we even did it over winter break. We plan to do it all summer. Now it’s become one more thing on her plate that gets pushed aside.
Fuck.
I need to get my head out of my ass. Last Saturday was amazing and I need to remind myself of that. It’s not too hard to do right now as I watch Baylor walk towards me with a sweet smile that shows off her beautiful dimple. She throws her arms around me and says, “Miss me?”
“No,” I say.
“Liar,” she responds.
“Like you wouldn’t fuckin’ believe,” I say.
She laughs and I give her a kiss. Then I pull her behind me into the classroom so we can go take our philosophy exam.
Two hours and one headache later, we’re done with the final and we head over to the student union for lunch.
“They shouldn’t be allowed to schedule finals at night,” she says. “But at least I’ve only got one more and then I’m done with freshman year.” Her eyes brighten.
I try not to think of how after lunch, Bay will be meeting Chris for a last-minute study session before the final they have tonight.
She seems distracted while we eat. I know it’s probably the upcoming test stressing her out. Econ is her hardest class and she’s worked her ass off to do well in it. She’s got a borderline A, so the final will determine her grade. Lucky for me, Asswipe has been all too eager to help her with her studies.
She leaves most of her food untouched as she silently picks at an invisible spot on the table. A lock of hair falls onto her face and I’m not even sure she’s aware of it. It’s physically painful for me to see her stressing out this much, but even the crinkle in her brow and the frown on her face can’t keep her from looking beautiful. I’m just not sure if it’s school or our impending separation that’s got her so depressed.
“You know you’ll do great and that everything will work out,” I say.
She stares at her finger that is working back and forth on the table.
“You know I love you, right Bay?” I ask.
She’s lost to the world and again doesn’t reply. I reach over and push her hair back behind her ear. “Darlin’?” I run my hand down her cheek. “Did you hear me?”
“Huh?” She finally snaps her eyes to mine as if she’d forgotten I was even here. I can’t help the wave of sadness that courses through me. “Sorry. You were saying something?” she asks.
“Only that I love you, and that everything will be okay.”
“Oh.” She smiles up at me.
“Now you say it,” I say.
“What?”
“You say you love me,” I tell her. “That’s how it works. I say I love you and you say it back.”
“Sorry.” She shakes her head. “Of course I love you, Gavin. I’m just distracted by . . . well, everything.”
“Hey. Cheer up,” I say. “One last final for each of us and then we’ll be done. Don’t forget to meet me at my house at noon tomorrow. Don’t be late, and make sure all your packing is done before you come. I only get you for five hours and I plan to make the most of every minute.” I squeeze her hand for emphasis.
She giggles. And blushes. There’s my girl.
Tomorrow at noon. That’s when I get my Baylor back—well, for five hours anyway.
A couple walks by our table as we get up to leave and I laugh at their ‘Thing 1’ and ‘Thing 2’ shirts. I ask Baylor, “Who’s ‘Thing 1’?”
“What?” She piles her barely-eaten sandwich onto my tray.
“You know, ‘Thing 1’,” I say, pointing at the couple walking away. “You have a ‘Thing 2’ shirt. Who’s ‘Thing 1’?”
“Oh.” She smiles and thinks on it for a beat. “Nobody, actually,” she says. “I got it by myself during one of my rebellious high school phases. It was a reminder that I didn’t need anyone else. It’s stupid, I know.”
I shake my head and laugh at my independent girl. Then I kiss her goodbye.
“See you tomorrow at noon, McBride,” she says.
“Not if I see you first, Mitchell.” I wink. She smiles. We part.
Finally!
I close my blue book to my last exam and get up to place it on the table at the front. The TA gives me a nod and I give him a half-smile. I’ve been preoccupied the entire morning after that cryptic text from Baylor earlier. She sent it to me at ten o’clock, right before my test.
Baylor: We need to talk. Can you swing by my dorm right after your test?
Me: What about just meeting at my house like we planned? And I plan on doing a hell of a lot more than talking
Baylor: I thought we could talk first and I didn’t want to be interrupted by your roommates.
I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Me: What’s wrong, Bay?
Baylor: I’ll tell you when we are alone. We need to talk in person. Please, just come here as soon as you are done with your exam.
Me: Of course, darlin’. I’ll do my best to hurry.
Baylor: No! Don’t do that. Give your test proper attention and I’ll see you right after.
As I leave the building, I re-read the texts and realize that none of them have her usual abbreviations or smiley faces. Shit. What’s going on with her?
On my way to her dorm, I spot Karen running over to me with a sad smile on her face. “Gavin, we need to talk,” she says, hooking an arm around my elbow.
What is it with women and their need to talk today? “Karen, we have the next six weeks to talk. Right now, Baylor needs me and I only have five more hours with her.”
“Gavin, this is about Baylor,” she says, stopping me in my tracks. I look at her with questioning eyes. “Just give me five minutes. That’s all I ask. Remember when we said we’d always be there for each other? Well, this is one of those times.” She pulls on my elbow. “Let’s sit down over there. Please, Gavin?”
I blow out a breath. “Five minutes,” I say, reluctantly letting her pull me over to the side of the building.
We sit on a bench where she pulls out her phone and sighs deeply. “You know about this new Internet thing called Facebook, right?”
“Yeah. Jonesy showed it to me last month. Seems pretty stupid if you ask me. It didn’t look all that different from what I can do with texting, so I didn’t see the point.” I shake my head at her. “What’s all this about, Karen?”
“Well, it’s a lot more than texting, Gav. I need to show you something and I need you to know that I’m here for you.” She scoots closer to me and taps around on her phone. “We can leave now, this minute for Brazil if you want.”
“Why the hell would I want to do that?” I ask, incredulously.
“Just look.” She holds up her phone. “See here, this is Baylor’s Facebook page.” I take the phone from her and let my eyes wander over the picture of Baylor. I recognize the picture. I took it on my phone and sent it to her phone because I thought it was a really good one.
“Okay,” I say to Karen. “I still don’t see the point of this conversation.” I’m getting impatient and want to get to Baylor.
“Look closely,” she says. She leans over and taps on the screen and more photos of Bay come up. Photos of not only Bay, but Bay and Asswipe. In fact, he’s in almost every one. I scroll through them as my heart rate increases and my gaze hardens. There are pictures of them eating together, one has them holding hands, and there’s even one of them kissing. My blood starts to boil as I realize there’s none of me. Not one picture.
Then it dawns on me and a wave of relief surges through my body. Duh, I think to myself. They were all from last semester when they were dating. She probably stopped using Facebook when we got together.
“Karen, why are you dredging this shit up? All of these pictures of her and Chris are obviously from last fall. They used to date. You know that.”
I try to hand the phone to her but she pushes it back at me. “No, Gavin. Look.” She taps on it. “This is called her ‘wall’ and it shows any status updates that she writes. Anyone can see them, but only Baylor can write things. You can even see the dates that she did it.”
I’m only somewhat familiar with the program. Jonesy will sometimes show me updates from a few friends of his that post ridiculous pictures and messages on their ‘walls.’
Karen puts a comforting hand on my leg. “Scroll down through the messages, Gav. I’m so sorry, sweetie, but it seems like Baylor’s not been honest with you.”
My heart beats into my chest wall as I do what she says and scroll through the status messages that Baylor wrote on her wall. There are a lot of pictures along with the messages. Mostly of her and Chris, but some of only her. I recognize a few of the pictures of her as recent.
I read the first thing I see on her page. It says, ‘Have to do something very hard today, but it’s for the best. I’m done playing, I’ve made my choice. I have to follow my heart, ya know?’ I see that the status is dated today, and the time stamp is about an hour after she texted me that we needed to talk.
I read the next post. It’s from last night. There’s a picture of her with Chris. It says, ‘Study time over. Time to play!’
My hands are sweating and I wipe one on my jeans before scrolling down to read more. One from last week reads, ‘Why should only guys be allowed to play the field? How come when a guy does it, he’s cool, but girls are called sluts?’
I see one dated the day of our fight. It simply says, ‘Guys are dicks.’
One from the week of spring break reads, ‘A girl’s gotta have something to do while the cat’s away – back in Maple Creek.’
I read message after message that she’s written about college being all about sewing oats and playing around. I read everything, back to the day we started dating. On January 24th, the day I asked her to be my girlfriend, her status reads, ‘Score! Love it when they play right into my hands.’
But the one that really guts me, the one that cuts me the deepest, is the one that reads, ‘Two guys in one day. The beast has been unleashed. Why did I never do this before?’
I can’t read anymore. I shove the phone at Karen. None of this makes any sense. This is some kind of practical joke. I know Baylor, she’s not like that at all. I get up and start walking towards her dorm. I have to see her.
Karen grabs my arm, holding me back. “Where are you going?”
“I have to find her,” I say. “I don’t know how she could have written shit like that. It’s not her.”
“Really?” she says. “You’re going over there so she can shit on you to your face? Why give her the satisfaction? Let’s just go. We can pack the rest of your things and leave early.”
“Karen, you must be crazy if you think I’m going to believe what I see on some stupid web site.” I walk away but she follows, trying to get me to go back to my house with her the entire time.
When we near Baylor’s dorm, I see her sitting on the front steps. She looks sad. Why is she so sad? I’m getting ready to run over to her when she looks up, but not in my direction. She’s looking the other way and a small smile flashes across her face. I look to see what’s caught her eye. It’s Chris. He’s running over to her as she stands up. He nears and she all but jumps into his outstretched arms.
What. The. Fuck.
My fists ball up as I watch the scene play out in front of me. Chris kisses her on the temple, just as I’ve done a hundred times. Then he kisses her cheek, all while running his hands up and down her arms. She looks up at him and I swear there are tears running down her face. Then my fucking heart breaks in two when he picks her up and carries her into the building—like how one would carry a bride across the threshold.
Pain lashes out at me, stealing my breath as shards of glass slice through my soul. But what nails my goddamn coffin shut, is when it dawns on me that he was wearing a bright-red t-shirt. One that read ‘Thing 1.’
So much is going through my head all at once. My mind flashes back through our last few months together. I think about how after our fight she started to pull away, making excuses to not run, making excuses for not seeing me, all the while never failing to find time for him, under the guise of studying.
Last week when I said I’d marry her one day, she all but freaked.
The last time we had sex, she said she’d love me ‘no matter what happens.’ Is this the ‘no matter what?’ Does she think she loves both of us or something? Was she stringing us both along until she made a decision? Or was she really just so insecure about Karen and my summer trip that she went back to what was familiar?
Has she really been fucking us both all this time?
I look down at my phone and read that cryptic message from this morning. She had to tell me something. She needed to talk face-to-face. On her turf.
I have my answer.
Fuck this.
I turn to Karen to see that she is still looking at the dorm, her mouth hanging open in utter surprise. Then I think I see the smallest hint of a smirk.
“Come on.” I turn to leave. “Let’s go pack.”
Back at my house I tell Karen I want to be alone. I throw all my crap into two suitcases while she calls to arrange an earlier flight. As I pack, I think of the future that will never happen. I think of the girl I’ll never again hold. I think of the life I will never have.
Then I sit on the edge of my bed and put my elbows on my knees and do what I’ve never done before. I fucking cry.