18
Kristin
The sun was peeking through the blinds in the bedroom and it was just enough to rouse me from my sleep. I looked over and saw I was laying close to Wes, who was breathing lightly as he slept. A smile crept across my face as I realized how happy I was here.
I certainly wasn’t accustomed to sleeping with someone after knowing them for such a short time. In fact, I wasn’t much accustomed to having sex with anyone, let alone spending the night with them. There had been a couple of boyfriends in college that I had been with, but that was pretty much it for me. I was only out of school a short time before I moved to Chandler, and there had been no one else before Wes came along. He had come in and swept me off my feet, quite literally, in a short amount of time, and I was glad about it.
Since Wes was still sleeping soundly, I thought I would get up and make us some coffee and maybe breakfast as a nice surprise. I got out of bed without a stitch of clothing on. I saw my clothes tossed about the room and didn’t really feel like putting everything back on. I grabbed my panties off the floor and slid them up my legs. I then walked over to Wes’ closet and quietly opened the door. I was bowled over by the immense walk-in closet that was before me and saw it was filled with suits, pants, shirts, shoes and the like. I slowly walked through, touching different things, until I decided to grab one of his light blue dress shirts hanging there. I slid the shirt on, lifting the collar up to my face and getting the faint smell of him on it. Wes was much bigger than I was, so the shirt was easily like wearing a nightshirt for me, coming down pretty far on me to give me coverage. I rolled up the sleeves a bit and slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the door open just a crack.
I stepped out into the kitchen and saw the coffeemaker and poured some water into it. It took me a little bit to track down when the coffee and filters were, but I managed to find everything and got the coffee brewing. As the coffee brewed, I found some bagels in a bag on the counter and thought I would put them in the toaster for us. That was all easy enough to put together for me. As the bagels toasted, I went looking for a couple of coffee mugs.
I found the mugs on a shelf in one of the cabinets above the counter and was stretching to reach them. I could feel the shirt I was wearing riding up a bit in the back as I reached, standing on my tiptoes to grab a mug. I had just gotten the mug around one of my fingers and was pulling it down when I was startled.
“What are you doing here?” the voice said.
I felt the mug slip out of my hand and crash to the counter, shattering it into pieces as I gasped. I turned around and saw Isabelle standing there, obviously surprised to see me in the kitchen wearing her father’s shirt and not much else.
“Isabelle,” I answered, feeling startled as I tried to gather up the broken pieces of the ceramic mug carefully. “You scared me.”
Isabelle walked closer to me, looking confused, hurt, and a little bit upset.
“Why are you here in the morning, and wearing one of my dad’s shirts?” she asked in a raised voice.
“Isabelle, please, let me explain,” I said to her, trying to think of how I was going to phrase everything to her. I was sure she had a million thoughts running through her head, and none of them were likely very flattering towards me at the moment.
“I don’t think there’s too much to explain,” Isabelle said to me as she was standing in front of me now. She was taller than me under normal circumstances, but with her in her sneakers and me barefoot, it was even more pronounced. I could see that her face was getting a little red as she glared at me. “It’s pretty obvious what happened.”
I was feeling flustered and had trouble coming up with any way to defend myself right now.
“I know how this must look to you, and I’m sorry for that but…” I said to her.
“But what?” Isabelle shouted.
“What’s going on out here?” I looked behind Isabelle and saw Wes standing there in a white bathrobe he had thrown on. Isabelle turned around and saw her father standing there. “Izzy, what are you doing here? I thought I was picking you up at Amy’s this morning.”
“I guess you didn’t read the text I sent you late last night,” she said angrily. “I told you Amy’s mom was going to drop me off here this morning so we could… spend the day together…” her voice trailed off, sounding as though it had a mix of anger and tears in it, and she turned and looked back at me.
“Izzy,” Wes said as he walked towards her, “I’m sorry I didn’t see your text.”
“Why?” she yelled. “So you could sneak her out early before I got back here?”
“Hey,” Wes answered, “that’s not fair.”
“Really? That’s what you would have done, isn’t it? So I wouldn’t have to walk into the house in the morning to see her strutting around in your shirt?” Isabelle turned and looked at me again. “Are you happy now?” she yelled at me. “You got the chance to fuck a famous rich guy, and now you can brag to your friends about it.”
I felt about two inches tall and could feel my own tears welling up inside me. I wanted to fight back, but I thought that would make things worse.
“WHOA!” Wes yelled, coming up to Isabelle and spinning her around to face him. “Don’t talk to Kristin that way; don’t talk to anyone that way! I don’t know what has gotten into you, but I can tell you I don’t like it. Now apologize to Kristin and then we can sit down and talk about this.”
“I don’t think so,” Isabelle said to him, wrestling her arm free from Wes. She stormed off, running down the hall.
“Izzy!” Wes yelled at her and followed her, but I heard the front door slam. It opened again quickly, and I could hear Wes yelling again.
I went into the bedroom to quickly gather my things. I grabbed my jeans off the floor and pulled them on quickly. I searched the room for my bra and tank top and tracked them down. I took off Wes’ shirt and threw it on the floor as I put my bra on and then pulled the tank top over my head. I sat on the bed, putting my sneakers on as Wes walked in and came over to me.
“Kristin, I am so sorry,” he said to me, putting his arms out to me.
“I should go, Wes,” I said through my tears. “Maybe this was a mistake.” I slipped my other sneaker on and began to look frantically for my jacket. I tried to control my tears, but I was not doing a very good job.
“Kristin, hold on,” Wes said to me, trying to stop me. By then I had found my jacket and my purse and was walking out the door. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do. The walk back to my apartment wasn’t all that far, and I figured I could make it on my own.
“Wait!” Wes yelled as he got a hold of my arm. I started sobbing harder as he brought me close to him.
“Wes, you need to go talk to Isabelle,” I said to him, trying to be rational about everything. “She… she obviously is not ready for you to start seeing someone; certainly not me at least.”
“She barely knows you, Kristin,” Wes said as he looked down at me. “It’s just her gut reaction. She doesn’t understand things like this.”
“I’m beginning to think I don’t either,” I said to Wes. I turned and began my walk down the road, away from the house and Wes. I cried with each step, trying to figure out what I did wrong. Wes kept calling out to me, but I picked up my pace and moved faster until I had gone past his parent’s house and towards the end of the road.
I raced over onto Route 5 and began my trek back towards Main Street. A moment later I saw a blue pickup truck go by me and then stop about ten feet in front of me. The passenger side door bounced open, and as I slowly walked up to it, I peered inside. There was Wes’ father, Wyatt, sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Hop in,” he said to me gently. “I’ll give you a ride home if that’s what you want.”
I got into the truck and closed the passenger door. Wyatt merged back onto the road and headed into town. We didn’t say anything to each other at first, and within moments I found myself crying into my hands. I cried until Wyatt pulled into the parking lot at my apartment.
“Kristin,” Wyatt said to me, “Wes was at my house trying to talk to Izzy when I left to find you. You have to know you didn’t do anything wrong. I think the whole thing just caught Izzy off guard. She’s used to being the only one in Wes’ life. I think seeing you at the house just put her on the defensive.”
I sniffled a bit from the tears before Wyatt handed me a white handkerchief. I took it wiped my face with it.
“Thank you, Wyatt,” I said to him. “I appreciate the hanky, and the ride, and your words. Perhaps things were just moving too fast anyway. We barely know each other, really; I can see why she would be upset. The last thing I want is to come between the two of them.”
“Let the two of them hash this out with each other,” Wyatt said to me calmly. “They both need time to understand a little more about each other, especially if they are going to be around each other more. Don’t jump to any conclusions.”
“I’ll try not to, but given the circumstances, it’s a little difficult,” I told Wyatt.
“I know it looks that way,” Wyatt said, “but I can tell you one thing for certain. Even though you two have only known each other for a few days, I have never seen Wes like this with anyone. I know you are special to him, and that’s not an easy thing to be with him. He doesn’t let people in like that. Goodness knows, he needs someone like you in his life.”
I tried to crack a small smile at Wyatt as he attempted to make me feel better. I went to hand back the hanky to Wyatt.
“You keep it,” he said to me, holding his hand up. “You can give it back to me the next time you see me.”
I climbed out of the truck and closed the door, and made my way slowly up the stairs to my apartment door. Wyatt stayed in the parking lot until he saw me open my door and then he pulled away. I got inside the apartment and closed the door, breaking out into tears again. I felt my purse vibrate and opened it and pulled my phone out. There were two missed calls from Wes and then a text message from him:
I’m worried about you. I hope you’re okay. Just let me know you’re okay.
I sent him a text message back:
I’m home. Your father gave me a ride. I’m okay.
Wes replied immediately:
Okay. Can I call you? Can we talk about this?
I thought about it for a moment and then sent him a reply:
Not now. Talk to Isabelle. She needs you before you can talk to me.
I then turned my phone off so I wouldn’t have to deal with more messages. I walked into my bedroom, tossed my purse and phone onto my nightstand, and crawled into my bed, wishing I could roll things back a few hours, or even a day, and do things differently.