Chapter Fourteen
Veronica
Fucking statistics. Just when I thought I wouldn't have to do math because I was studying a soft science. I could have waited to take it another semester, but it made sense that I took the class now since classes were so much smaller and help would be easier to find if I needed it. I was sitting at the dining table I had, which doubled as a work space. It was big enough to seat six, but I had gotten it at a flea market for close to nothing. The wood was beat up, but nothing so bad that sanding and staining it didn't fix.
I was perusing my textbooks, getting a start on my reading for class. I had a GPA to maintain. The little extra free time was going to make or break me this semester. It was much easier to maintain than raise a score, so I wasn't interested in failing. I had nothing else planned this Sunday, anyway. It was late afternoon and I was staying in tonight. That was why the sudden knock at the door was so unexpected.
I answered it, my entire body sagging when Sean walked in. How had he gotten to twenty-two years of age without knowing that it was common courtesy to call people before you came to their homes? I stiffened and turned my head slightly when he tried to kiss me. It didn’t stop him.
"I haven't really heard from you this week," he said. I walked back to the table, sitting in front of my books, hoping he got the picture that he was interrupting.
"I asked if I could come over on Friday. You said you were busy." I didn't bother offering him anything, not even a seat. He had a habit of taking things without permission, anyway, but I didn’t want to encourage him.
"You never told me what happened on that date last week," he said.
"Nothing happened," I said shrugging. "We ate dinner, and I left the restaurant alone."
"Do you like him?" he asked.
"I don't ask about the other people you see, Sean."
"Oh...so you fucked him," he said. I looked down at my book, ignoring that. "Does he know you're seeing other guys?"
"Do the girls you date know about me?"
"It's different when it's a girl," he said. "Girls don't mind a guy with experience, but most guys don't want a girl with mileage."
"Mileage?"
"Let's just say, when you're a girl, you can definitely tell if her body count is in the double digits," he said. I frowned, disgusted. Only he could encourage me to see other people, then basically indirectly call me a ho for doing it.
"Look, Sean, I'm busy. What do you want?"
"You always say that when I come over," he complained.
"Well, you always come over at a bad time. You never call; maybe if you did, we could arrange to meet up when we were both free."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said. "That's going to have to change."
"What? You're gonna start calling?"
"There was a reason I was busy Friday. I started dating someone," he announced.
"Okay. What do you want me to do about that?"
"I don't think it's working between us anymore. Being with this new girl... I don't know whether we can keep seeing each other."
"Yeah. I bet it's really hard to not commit," I sniped.
"I actually like you, Veronica, that's why I came here to talk to you. I'm willing to give it one more shot."
"Lucky me," I said sarcastically.
"If you can tell me why we should still date, we can stay together," he said.
"What? Like, give you a reason? If you're asking for that, it looks like you've already made your decision. You're going to see this other girl regardless. Do what you want," I said spitefully.
"What crawled up your ass and died?"
"Us being together has never stopped you before. I don't think anything has stopped you before. It doesn't matter what I feel – it's about you, isn't it? All about you. Just leave. You knew what you wanted before you came here. You're wasting my time and yours."
"You're always like this. What the fuck is your problem?" he demanded.
"Only when you're around Sean. I wouldn't call that a coincidence. I'm gonna tell you one more time – get out."
"Fine. You're always fucking uptight, anyway," he sneered, leaving. I locked the door behind him. This has to be the last time that I do this, I thought. It wasn't like he was being more overbearing than usual, it was just hitting me differently. I had had a lot less patience for him lately. That and a lot more on my mind.
It helped that he seemed to be making distancing myself easier. He had found someone new. In that case, best of luck to them. It should not have taken this long to get to this place. I didn't know whether you could break up with someone who you weren't actually with, but it felt that way. I sat down again, staring down at my textbook. Nope, it wasn't happening. Not tonight. I picked my phone up instead.
"Hello?" said Tiffany.
"Guess who just left my place," I said instead of hello.
"Who?"
"Sean."
"The guy you're wasting your good looks and time on?"
"You'll never guess what he came here to do."
"Eat your food? Have sex? Did he lock himself out of his place and knew you'd let him spend the night?"
"No," I said, rolling my eyes, though this was Sean we were talking about and all those were possibilities. "He came in saying he and I needed to talk. He just started dating someone new and told me he came over to give me a chance to defend why he should still see me or it's over."
"That fool walked into your house and gave you an ultimatum?" she asked.
"Can you believe it?"
"No. Just no. You can't anymore. Dump him, please. For me, so I don't have to hear this shit anymore. For yourself, so he isn't making you defend your title as his spare girlfriend."
"I think I'm done," I said, weighing the possibility in my head.
"Really done? Or just done till the next time he calls you?"
"He has a new girlfriend, he shouldn't miss me," I said, shrugging.
"I want to congratulate you for shaking 175 lbs of dead weight, but I'll believe it when I see it."
"Can I ask you something?" I asked.
"Anything. What is it?"
"I need you to tell it to me straight. Don't sugar coat it."
"Of course. What do you need to know?" she asked. I took a deep breath.
"Is Roman seeing anybody?"
"No," she said immediately, almost too fast.
"Tiff, I mean anybody at all, it doesn't have to be a girlfriend. Do you know if he's taking girls home? Dating?"
"No, Vee. He isn't."
"Are you sure?"
"I know he's been seeing his friend Donovan again and they go out to bars, but he isn't seeing anybody, not even casually."
"Great," I sighed.
"Why? I thought... I thought you were done with him."
"He left me this box at my door earlier this week. It had a note in it. He wants to meet up and talk. He basically said where to meet him and that he'd be waiting there every day at the same time till I showed up."
"Have you talked to him?"
"No. It's going to take more than just a letter to see him again."
"I can tell you for a fact that he isn't playing you," she told me. "If he wants to talk, maybe you should hear him out if nothing else. Then you can hear it from the horse's mouth."
"I'll think about it," I said.
"Guess that's all I can ask you to do," she conceded. I thanked her for telling me and hung up.
The boxes had started showing up on Tuesday; it was Sunday now, almost a week. How long would it be before he gave up and stopped going? Had he been going at all? Was I too late? If I was then it was my fault for thinking the offer didn't have an expiry on it.
But if Tiffany's facts were straight and he wasn't seeing anyone, that meant that he was serious about... About what? Something. Us getting back together? All he had said in the notes was he wanted to talk but, it made sense that maybe that was what he wanted. The only way to know for sure was to go talk to him.
Talk. Just talk. If he really wasn't seeing anyone else, that meant he was at least serious. A talk, I could give him that much.