The Love Plan

by Erica Marselas

  Seeing them together is killing me.

  That's what brings me to Meadow's work today. I’m surprising her for lunch, in hopes to talk to her out of dating him. Again.

  When I enter Meadow’s office, I find it empty with her computer closed. I pull out my phone to text her and find out where she is when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and I’m met by a woman with a bright, ruby-red smile and flowing brown hair.

  “You look a little lost. Can I help you?” she says sweetly, and inches in closer to my personal space.

  “I was looking for Meadow. Do you know where she is?”

  “You’re Dexter, right?” She points her long-manicured nail at me, giving me a flirty laugh.

  “That’s me.”

  “Oh my god. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Kayleigh.” She holds out her hand, “M, talks about you all the time.”

  M?

  I’ve given Meadow some crazy nicknames over the years but there’s no way in hell that she would let that one fly. I take her hand and shake it, giving her a nod. “Yeah? Well um...do you know where she is?”

  “She had a meeting with some guy this afternoon for lunch.”

  “A guy?” I clear my throat. “Was his name Julian, by chance?”

  “I think so.” She shrugs and smooths out the strands at the bottom of her hair.

  My blood boils because I should have known something was up when Jules ran out of the office suddenly claiming he needed to meet some ‘special client.’ Now I feel like an idiot thinking I could surprise my best friend for lunch when her boyfriend had already beat me to it.

  “Well, thanks. I should be going.” I point my thumb over my shoulder at the door and step back towards it.

  “Hey, if you want…” She reaches out and touches my arm, “maybe me and you could grab some lunch. I know this cute little diner down the road, not far from here. I mean, you did come all this way.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. I don’t bite.” She winks and runs her hand along my shoulder. “You still have to eat. What do you say?”

  I rub my neck and shift on my feet. This is trouble. It will be my head if I go, but I haven’t been thinking straight lately. Though it’s not like Meadow isn’t with him, not caring about my feelings. And it’s only lunch. I do have to eat. “Sure. Why not.”

  We head down to a little diner across the street and settle into the vinyl booth. I pick up a menu and flip through the couple of pages trying to pay more attention to it then the girl who is busy playing with her hair across from me. I have no idea what to say to this girl, considering all I know about her is how much Meadow despises her. It’s awkward. After the waitress comes by and takes our order, I drum my fingers on the table, playing a rendition of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher,” to kill the time till the food comes.

  This was a bad idea.

  “Hey,” Kayleigh covers my hand with hers stopping me mid-chorus and reminding me where I am, “so what is that you do? I don’t think M ever told me?”

  “I thought she talked about me a lot?”

  Her eyes widen, then she giggles uncomfortably. I’m unsure what she’s uncomfortable about, but I have a feeling it’s because all the conversations were overheard and not told to her. “She does. It’s just she never mentioned what you did. It was mainly other stuff. Like what you did on weekends and stuff.”

  “I'm an architect at SJD Designs.”

  “An architect. Wow, that’s amazing!” Her hazel eyes light up. “Is that what you always wanted to do?”

  “It is. I've always loved drawing and building since I was little. I designed my childhood treehouse for me, Meadow, and my cousin, Wes.” I chuckle at the memory. I was only seven, but I knew then I wanted to be a designer of houses more than the one to build them.

  “I think it’s crazy that you guys have known each other for so long and are still so close. I drifted apart from most everyone I grew up with. Even the ones from high school.” She picks up her water that the waitress brought us a few minutes ago and takes a sip.

  “I got lucky.” I grin. Even with everything happening between us now, there’s not a day that goes by that I couldn’t be more grateful that Meadow is in my life.

  “Meadow probably doesn’t think I like her, does she?”

  Her question catches me off guard and I clear my throat.

  “You don’t have to answer that.” She waves her hands, appearing anxious to backtrack. “I know you're her best friend. I want you to know that I do admire her and look up to her. My uncle thinks she’s the star at her job.” She sighs and her eyes drift to the large open window beside us. “I feel awful about what happened the other day.” Her hands play with the bottom of her hair, again, and she looks back over at me with a large pouty frown. “You see, the other day we had a misunderstanding with a DJ. I didn’t mean to upset her so much. I thought I was doing the right thing. A step out of her book.”

  “Listen, Kayleigh,” I fall back in the booth and loosen my tie that suddenly feels very tight around my neck, “this isn’t any of my business. You should take it up with Meadow. She’s probably one of the most understanding people I know.”

  “I did try. At the ball. She avoided me big time. She got the DJ back and thank goodness everything worked out the way it was supposed to. I'd hoped maybe you had some advice on how to approach her. It’s why I asked you to lunch when I saw you. I was hoping to get some information out of you on how to talk to her.”

  So, I’m just a pawn. Great.

  “Just give her time. That’s all I can say. I’m sure by your next event everything will work itself out.”

  “You’re right. Thanks, Dex.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles.

  We finish up our lunch and I walk her back to her office. I figure maybe I can still catch Meadow before I head back to work, though I have no idea what I will say to her. Or what she will say if she knows I was out with Kayleigh.

  Unless I lie.

  Who am I kidding? Meadow can see me lying a mile away.

  “Thanks for joining me,” Kayleigh says as I open the large glass door for her to the office building.

  “You're welcome, Kayleigh. Thanks for the invite.”

  “We should totally do it again.” She grabs my hand and pulls me into a hug. Over her shoulder I spot Meadow, talking to Ariel, the receptionist, holding a pile of papers.

  “Yeah, possibly,” I mumble and pull away, but it’s not quick enough and Meadow makes eye contact with me. She continues to talk to Ariel who is typing on the computer in front of her, but her green eyes darken angrily. I instantly know I'm a dead man when she gets a hold of me.

  “Sounds great. I should get back.” Kayleigh gives me a little wave that I catch out of the corner of my eye since I haven’t unlocked my sights from Meadow. Seeing the hurt and anger flare in her eyes, I feel like shit, but at the same time, the asshole in me feels satisfied I got to her. Perhaps now she'll know how I've been feeling about her and Julian.

  I step towards her, but she shakes her head, and I stop. Her jaw is tense, and she points to the front door silently asking me to leave.

  Rather than ask to be killed now, I turn around and make my escape.

  The front door slams and I'm off the couch, ready for the fight I've been preparing for all day. I turn to see Meadow throw her purse to the ground and I give her a cheeky smile. In return she snarls at me, I mean legit snarls, like a tiger seconds from clawing my eyes out.

  “What the fuck were you doing with Kayleigh this afternoon?”

  “We had lunch,” I say calmly, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her face turn red so fast. I worry she might explode.

  “You had lunch with Kayleigh? Are you fucking serious?” Meadow bellows, throwing her clunky bracelet to the counter, making a loud thud. Next, her high heels come flying off and they whiz past my face, nearly hitting me. I'm pretty sure the intent was to make direct contact.

  “Yeah, so what
?” I shrug, acting like I don't care that she didn't just try to take my eye out with her heel. “You were out with Julian and I was hungry.”

  “What are you talking about? I wasn’t out with Julian. I had lunch with a client.”

  “That’s not what Kayleigh said.”

  “Excuse me?” she scoffs. “Kayleigh doesn’t know shit.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me, M.” Fire ignites in her eyes and her fists clench at her sides. Yeah, I've pissed her off more, but I don't care at this moment. I'm already on a roll and there's no stopping me now. “Julian went out with a surprise client this afternoon too. I get it, you two don’t want to rub it in my face anymore or whatever. You don’t have to lie about it though. It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine, Dexter. You went out with Kayleigh. Someone who I consider right now as my mortal enemy. Haven’t you been listening to anything I say?”

  “She isn’t all that bad.” I flick a piece of invisible lint off my pants.

  “She’s a fucking bitch!” Meadow screeches, loud enough it makes my ears ring. Her face reddens further as she moves in closer to me. “I’ve told you how much I hate her. And you have the nerve to take her out to lunch?”

  “She’s really not.” Kayleigh was a little annoying, but overall, she wasn’t that bad. “Maybe you haven’t given her a chance. I get she’s pissed you off, but I believe she wants to try to get to know you. She said she admires you and says she was sorry.”

  “Oh my god, Dex. You can’t actually believe that.”

  “I do. She said at the ball you avoided her when she tried to apologize.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” she utters in disbelief, looking around the room at anywhere but me. “She didn't try to apologize! What she did was once again tried to get my DJ to leave when he arrived. Then fucked with my servers so they were confused and late.”

  “Come on. I doubt that.”

  “You’re siding with her?” she sneers, inching closer to my face. The heat radiating off her is enough to melt me and everything around us, but I don’t back down.

  “I didn't say that!”

  “You know what? This is all beside the point, Dex. I can’t believe all this. So, what are you two, dating now?”

  “For one, it was just lunch. And I might have asked her to dinner,” I lie and I'm not even sure where that came from, but I go with it. At this point, it's too late to wipe away the shell-shocked jaw drop on Meadow's face. “Plus, why does it matter? It’s not like you stopped dating Julian after I asked you not to.”

  “Oh my god. Julian is nothing like Kayleigh. Also, I don’t remember you ever asking me not to date him.” Meadow grips the top of her hair and yanks at it. “Julian is at least your friend. He’s never backstabbed you.”

  “He did when he went out with you,” I yell, stabbing my finger at her. She stares at me for a second and shakes her head. That’s when I see the tears welling in the corners of her eyes. The anger that was once there is replaced by a trembling chin of defeat.

  “You know what? I’m done. You can talk to me when you get your head out of your ass. For now, stay the hell away from me.”

  The air in the house has shifted this last week. Meadow’s cold shoulder has turned our once warm house into the freakin’ arctic. Not even those days where she was acting like a demon would compare to how she’s acting now. In fact, I would take those days back in a heartbeat.

  It was a mistake going to lunch with Kayleigh and then lying about asking her for dinner. Now I’m paying for it. Never in the twenty-four years we've known each other have we had a fight like this, where neither one of us is willing to be the first to back down or just get over it. I do regret some of the things I said to her. Then again, she hasn’t listened to me once about how I felt about Julian.

  And she told me she loved me, and she still proceeds to go out with him.

  Do I even matter to her?

  I only wanted her to feel for a second what I was going to through. Maybe Kayleigh wasn’t the right choice, but it’s not like I could ask Mel or Steph. Who else is going to get under Meadow’s skin?

  I twirl my keys on my finger waiting for my little ice-princess to come downstairs so we can drive to meet my parents to finish setting up everything for Wes’ parents' anniversary party. It’s only going to take thirty seconds for one of our mothers to pick up on the tension between us so it’s going to make for an interesting lunch.

  “Are you coming?” I yell up the stairs getting annoyed now. I want to get this over with.

  Finally, I hear her bedroom door slam and she’s coming down the stairs in a pink flowery sundress. She looks amazing, besides the angry scowl on her face.

  “I told you I would meet you there.” She charges past me and picks up her purse off the counter. She digs through it and pulls out her keys.

  “It's just as easy to go together.”

  “It is, but I prefer to drive myself. I might meet up with Mel and Steph afterward.”

  “Not Julian?” I hiss his name and her hands ball into fists so tight at her sides I worry the keys might bruise her hands.

  “You know if you would get your head out of your ass and maybe look around you for once, you could see what's really going on. But for whatever reason, you'd rather be an asshole and hurt me.”

  “Me? I think that's where you have it all wrong, sister.”

  Her green eyes darken and her jaw ticks before she turns on her heel charging for the front door. She flings it open and slams it right behind her.

  Great.

  Taking a deep breath, I go to catch up with her, but the second I’m out the door she’s already peeling out of the driveway. I’m in my truck and screeching out of my spot to follow after her. When she turns at the off ramp of the highway, she picks up speed and my anger boils when I realize she’s now going twenty over the speed limit. Does she not give a shit about her safety? Does she not remember how Wes died?

  My hand slams into the dashboard as the memory of that night seeps into my mind. The night that could have been prevented if it wasn't for me.

  The three of us are piled in the front of Wes’ pickup truck. Meadow is passed out with her head on my shoulder. Wes picked Meadow and me up from a party up in the Valley, a party he didn’t want me to take his girlfriend to because we would be drinking—and it was ‘irresponsible’ or some bullshit since he had to work and couldn’t be with us. It was the first huge party of the summer and I wanted to hang out with Meadow. I don’t need his permission to do so! It’s like Wes had turned some power play on my friendship just because they're dating. I get it, he loves her. But she's still my best friend and I wanted to drink and party with her. So, I took her.

  The only problem was when the party ended, we were left without a ride. No cab was willing to come and get us that far and none of our friends were sober enough to drive us home. So I called Wes, and now I’m getting the lecture of a lifetime.

  I should’ve called my mother instead and dealt with being grounded.

  “I told you not to go to that party. Not to take her.” Wes growls, slamming his hand on the steering wheel.

  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not our father.”

  “You know, Dex, you can be such a fucking asshole. I’m leaving for Washington in a month. I won’t be able to pick you up all the fucking time. I won’t be able to be with you guys to make sure you stay out of trouble. I’m not going to be able to make sure she’s safe and that you're safe…”

  “I can take care of Meadow!” I cut him off, pissed. I hate that he doesn’t think I can take care of her. I’d been doing it long before him. Meadow always came to me first when she has a problem or a shoulder to cry on before they started dating. He knows better than anyone I would do anything for her, and I resent he would ever think otherwise.

  “Like you did tonight?”

  “We’re fine, aren’t we?” I spit back.

  “Only because I was able to pick you up. What if
I couldn’t? What would you have done—walked? She’s wasted and under your watch. When you told me that you fucking wouldn’t go.” He slams his hand on the steering wheel again, and even in the darkness of the car I can tell his face is blood red from his fury.

  “Sorry that I wanted to hang out with my best friend for once without her damn boyfriend slobbering all over her,” I yell back, and Meadow whimpers making us both stop. She doesn’t wake and nuzzles her face back on my shoulder. The both of us sigh in relief knowing we didn’t rouse her, and it seems to give Wes a chance to cool.

  “You could’ve hung out at your house. Instead, you had to go out to some house party thirty miles out,” Wes whispers.

  “Oh my god. When did you turn into Mr. Stick up your ass? It was only months ago you would have been right with us at this party living it up. I get it, Mr. College boy. You got a job, you’re doing better things. Next thing you’ll do is marry Meadow and leave me behind.”

  “Is that what you think?” He turns to me, wide-eyed, and his jaw slack.

  I don’t answer him and look out the window. It’s true. They have each other. Soon enough they won’t need me. Meadow won’t need me. She’s already talking about following Wes to Washington. Then what? I’m left without my best friends.

  “For what it’s worth I am glad you called me, Dex. I want what’s best for her. For you. If I can’t be there, I guess I don’t know.”

  “Don’t get all fucking sappy on me now…” I turn back to him and laugh.

  “Shut up—”

  BAM!

  The shriek of metal crushes and my body slams into the passenger side. My head hits the window with a loud whack making my ears ring. Glass shards fly pass my face and the car is spun around. It all happens so fast. I feel a heaviness on me, and I think it might be my friends on top of me. There’s a loud horn making the throb of my head hurt more and making it even harder to think straight.

  I need to check on Wes and Meadow.

  I force myself to open my eyes…my vision is blurry, and I notice it is Meadow still pressed into my side. Her head is now along my chest, her one arm curled out along my leg and her other twisted back in the worst way, like a pretzel and it makes me cringe. She’s bleeding—a lot, but I’m not sure where from. I say her name, but I’m not getting an answer. I touch her neck, checking for a pulse and I thank god when I feel a faint one.