Because of You

by Sam Mariano

  His earlier words ran through my head, his out-of-the-blue offer to send me to an out-of-state school if that was what I needed to rid myself of Derek.

  "I wasn't there when she needed me," he finally concluded once he had himself back in check. "The only time she ever asked me for help in all of the years we knew each other…"

  I shook my head. "It's not your fault, Dad. She was…in too deep."

  "I know," he agreed, nodding. "But for the first time, she wanted out. Every other time she would get in too deep with him, she would just allow it to happen. She asked for help that time. She was going to try to get better, but she just needed to get away from him to do it. She needed somebody to help her be strong." He shook his head. "I was drunk that night, but I'll never forget that phone call. It haunts me," he said, offering a mirthless smile.

  "Don't you think you've carried around that ghost long enough?" I suggested. "You know she wouldn't want you to blame yourself. It was her decision."

  "I know," he said. "But she asked me to save her, Nicole."

  Nodding, I said, "I know. Is that why you offered to take me away from Derek?"

  "Trying to get it right the second time around," he offered. "I don't know what kind of cruel joke Fate decided to play on me by making me go through this twice in 20 years, but…"

  "Don't worry," I said, feeling that I needed to be strong for him, if for no other reason. "We're going to win this time."

  Nodding, he just looked up at me, sighing as he said, "We have to get the hell out of this town, Nicole. It's haunted."

  I nodded in agreement. "We will. I promise, I'm not going to fall back in this time."

  "We could go as soon as next week, if you wanted to. You could just transfer to a school wherever we're heading."

  I shook my head. "I would prefer that we stay here until the end of the school year. If I have any moments of weakness—which I don't plan to, because I am going to avoid him as if my life depends on it—I promise I will come straight to you and you can…remind me. You can be my support system if there's any threat of relapse. We're going to be partners."

  He nodded. "I like that idea."

  "We'll save up our money, we'll discuss our relocation options, and when I graduate, we'll just move. We don't even have to tell anybody," I said, offering a smile.

  "They'll just wake up one day and we'll be gone. A dramatic exit. I like it."

  I smiled at him. "It's a plan then."

  "Don't tell Derek," he implored me. "If he knows he's really about to lose you…"

  I nodded, my smile waning. "I know. I read all her journals, remember? That's what Mike did when she would try to leave."

  "How the hell did you end up with Mike Jr.?" he asked, shaking his head at me.

  "I have no idea," I told him. "But wait, what about Katrina?" I asked, remembering he had a girlfriend.

  He rolled his eyes. "We're not telling her either. We're just getting the hell out of here."

  "You should probably break up with her before we leave," I suggested.

  Nodding, he said, "I probably should. Do you have any idea where we're going to be relocating to?"

  This topic sparked my excitement a little bit, and I told him a little enthusiastically, "Oh, I have several ideas, but I'm going to have to talk them over with you. There are things to consider—budget, cost of living, the increased price of housing in the places I want to go to school…you may not agree to them."

  "We can go anywhere you want, kid. Pick a spot of the map, I promise we'll figure out a way to get there."

  Biting my lip, I said, "Well, if you don't have anything better to do…I have all of the schools bookmarked, it would only take me a second to pull them up and show them to you online."

  Standing, Alex said, "Let's go find our next home."

  I smiled and assented, making my way happily down the hall, forgetting for a little while longer the sad circumstances of our relocation.

  Being strong for Alex was one thing.

  Being strong in school when Alex wasn't there and Derek spotted me and came walking in my direction was quite another.

  I managed to avoid him, ducking into the girls' bathroom when he tried to approach me, and I tried to figure out what I was going to say, how I was going to act. The fact that my throat closed up at the sight of him and my heart dropped to my little toe really didn't help me think quickly.

  After wasting as much time as I possibly could in the bathroom, I made my way to class and slipped in just as the bell was ringing, earning an unpleasant look from the teacher. I sheepishly averted my gaze, but I wasn't really sorry—Derek was in that class, so I decided it would be better to be late than early, that way Derek couldn't talk to me.

  However, I acknowledged as I sat down at my desk, after class would be a different story.

  I couldn't avoid him forever.

  Well, not yet.

  In the long run, avoiding him forever seemed to be the plan, but there was still some time before I would be able to do that. In the meantime, I would just have to be strong—something it turned out I wasn't so good at being around Derek.

  By the time that class I ended, I had myself so wound up that I felt physically ill. I knew Derek was going to approach me. For all that we had been fighting and he had remained stubborn, I could see it when he looked at me, feel the difference in his gaze.

  He knew something was different.

  Sure enough, as soon as class was over and I jumped up and tried to push my way through the other students, Derek grabbed his notebook and came traipsing after me.

  I needed him to not chase me.

  It was too hard when he did that.

  "Nikki," he said, and I could hear the frown in his voice even though I wasn't looking at him.

  I didn't turn around. I knew it was silly, because he would catch up to me anyway, but part of me wanted to give him some kind of advance notice for the bomb I was about to drop on him.

  "Nicole," he said, reaching up and grabbing me lightly by the arm, forcing me to stop.

  "Hi," I said lamely, not really looking at him.

  His scowl deepened. "Are you okay?"

  "Yep," I said, but my voice was just a touch too high-pitched to sound normal.

  Oh no, I thought as I felt the tears start burning prematurely behind my eyes.

  "Why are you running from me?" he asked.

  The irony of how perfect his words were for what he didn't know I was preparing to do made my heart ache.

  "Are you still mad at me about that shit with Kayla?" he asked.

  "I don't… want to talk about her," I said tiredly.

  "I don't either." He moved forward, hesitating just a second before he wrapped his arms around me, lightly hugging me. "Wanna just forget about that?"

  My whole body ached to melt against him, and the burning behind my eyes got worse. Finally the moisture broke through, and I felt the tears begin to form in my eyes.

  I just wanted to say yes and stay in his arms forever.

  "Hey," he said, frowning as he saw the tears. He placed his thumb below my chin and tilted it up so I was forced to look at him. "What's wrong?"

  "Oh, God, I can't do this," I said, pushing against his chest in an attempt to just get out of his tempting embrace. "Let me go, I have to get to class."

  He released me, but he didn't let me go. "Nikki…"

  I could feel desperation clawing its way up my insides, images of us together flooding my mind, thoughts about college—the future we were supposed to share together. Waking up next to him every morning, lazy afternoons as we studied for our classes, late nights as we ate Chinese food and bitched about work or classes. In that moment, I saw the life we would never live, the kids we would never have, the future that could never be.

  I wanted it so damn bad. In that moment, I wanted it more than anything, and that flood of desperation told me to just keep him, not to let him go. It would disappoint Alex, but in that moment I wanted to be back in Derek's
arms enough that I didn't want to care.

  "I love you," I whispered, trying not to let the tears flow out. "I love you so much."

  He smiled a little and a little of that twinkle returned to his blue eyes. "I love you, too."

  My heart constricted and I felt like something twisted violently in my chest. I knew my expression looked instantly broken, but I didn’t have enough control to stop the emotions from showing all over my face.

  "What is it?" he asked, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.

  "I'm so sorry," I said, the tears slipping down my cheeks. "I don't even know… if the easiest thing to do is tell you everything, tell you how I feel, or if less is more. I want to just tell you, and I want you to just make it go away, but you're not going to. I wish we could just go away. I might hate myself a little bit, but then I wouldn't have to miss you. I wouldn't feel like… I'm leaving a piece of myself behind forever," I said, my voice breaking as my tears started to fall harder.

  His face fell and his eyes immediately dulled. He looked shocked, and as I raised my hand to wipe my tears away his hand fell away from my shoulder.

  I missed the contact instantly.

  "Are you breaking up with me?" he finally asked.

  Since words were too difficult, I nodded, trying not to cry as hard as I needed to.

  All he could do was stare at me.

  "I can't do this," I whispered to him. "I can't… do what she did, Derek. I love you, I do, but it's not enough. I wish that it was, but it isn't."

  His jaw clenched and his eyes turned a little cold. "This isn't about your fucking mother, Nikki. This is about us."

  "Yeah, and we've just become Jamie and Mike, the second generation," I told him, seizing control over my emotions as I wiped away my last tear.

  "I want to be with you, not Kayla," he told me.

  "I know, and that's what I want too, Derek, but she's not going to let that happen. And… I want to believe—I wanted to believe that you wouldn't let her come between us, that you would love me and be with me no matter what, but you're proving that isn't true. You've already let her come between us, Derek, that's how I've had enough time to think about this. And… I can't live my life like that. I love you more than I was supposed to, and that scares me."

  "You're leaving me because you love me," he said, nodding as he looked off into the distance. "That makes perfect fucking sense, Nicole."

  "I never believed in love, Derek. Not until I fell in love with you. But I love you too much, just like she loved him, and you… you might love me, but you must not love me enough."

  "Yes, I do," he stated, looking at me with irritation.

  "Yeah?" I challenged. "Prove it. I'm all you want, right? The only one you need?"

  He must have sensed there was going to be a catch, because instead of verifying this he merely stared at me, waiting.

  "Run away with me."

  "What?" he asked.

  "You heard me. That's the only way we're going to be able to be together, so if you love me so much, prove it. Leave it all behind. Come away with me to college or to the poor house, I don't even care as long as I’m with you."

  I waited for his answer, even though it had been said completely without careful thought or planning—it was just word-vomit.

  "What do you say, Romeo? Will you run away with me?"

  He just looked at me, that same dullness in his eyes. "You know I can't do that."

  I smiled sadly and my eyes began to burn again. "I know you won't. That's not our book, is it?" I said to him, my lips curving up sadly. "You won't leave her for me, and unlike my mother I'm selfish enough to ask you to, because I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, but not enough to kill myself. I don't give a damn about Kayla. I wish she would have never been born, actually, because then this couldn't have happened and we could have been happy together. Isn't that terrible?"

  He said nothing, just stared at a spot past my shoulder with a sad expression on his face.

  "So, what do you think, Derek? Last chance. You want to turn your back on everything else and be with me?"

  "I can't," he whispered.

  I hadn't expected him to, but I think there was a small part of me locked away deep inside that wished against all reason that he would say yes, that he would tell me to go put as much in my car as I could fit and we would just run away together.

  Completely unrealistic.

  Most dreams seemed to be.

  I nodded. "I didn't think so."

  I wanted to give him one last kiss goodbye, just one more memory to hold onto, but I sensed that it would leave me feeling even more despair if I did, so instead I took one last look, squared my shoulders, and turned away, hoping he wouldn't come after me—and at the same time wishing he would.

  He didn't.

  Chapter Eighteen -

  As the months went by, it got easier.

  Not letting go of Derek. There was a part of me—the part that had witnessed my mother's pain, probably—that expected it would never really get easier to let him go.

  Covering it up got easier.

  Derek tried to call me once after we broke up, but I was with Alex and I didn't answer. Derek left no message, and I never found out why he called.

  Derek and I didn't speak. I avoided even looking at him when he could see me, although when I was out of his line of sight I would drink in as many glimpses of him as I could. I had already memorized every curve of his face and lock of his hair, every muscle in his body and even the way he wore his clothes. But I wanted to lock it all away somewhere in my memory where I would never lose it.

  Secretly, I feared I would always love Derek.

  But nobody needed to know that but me.

  I knew I would never love like that again. It had been by accident that I stumbled into it with him, but losing my mother and my own heart to Love’s vicious grasp was enough.

  As Kayla began to show, I was newly aware of the pain. It was like someone was painfully branding my insides every single time that I saw her, smiling and apparently happy as she let people touch her belly and she tugged on Derek's arm to tell him something or other. Imagining their child growing inside of her hurt so badly that the first time I really noticed the bump, it literally took my breath from me.

  Once Kayla was showing, I stopped going to lunch. I couldn't eat in the lunchroom anyway, because the sight of them made my stomach physically sick. When possible, I would take the long way to my classes to avoid even passing her, and before long I had managed to eliminate most of the Kayla-sightings from my life.

  When I did happen across her though, I forced myself to look regardless of the pain. Even though it hurt like hell, I felt that I needed those reminders. Months had gone by and I would still find myself crying as I tried to sleep on those nights when I would give in to a moment of weakness. On those nights, I would miss him. I would think about what it used to feel like to have Derek's arms around me, and I would lie in bed for hours replaying the good memories.

  It probably wasn’t a good idea, but it was what I did anyway. I was only hurting myself, and nobody else knew. Besides, I didn't do it very often.

  When I did, I thought of my mother, of those times when I was little and I would hear the same noise coming from the next room over.

  As a child, it scared me.

  As a young adult, it still scared me.

  I got my college acceptance letter in the spring, so Alex and I began officially planning out our new life. Alex was an adventurous type anyway, and he swore that he had no problem scrapping the life he had made and starting fresh somewhere new. I didn't know if it was true, but I figured he must not mind too much because he was pretty enthusiastic about it.

  We were going east, and Alex didn't seem the least bit concerned that we didn't know anyone there. Honestly, even though I was excited, I was also really nervous. I wondered what would happen to me.

  As graduation drew closer, I tried to imagine myself actually leaving my hometown�
�going somewhere nobody knew my story, no one knew about my mother, nobody had slept with my father at any point in their life, and there was no Derek Noble.

  If the last part hurt to think about, I never admitted it, even to my journals.

  Somehow a world where I would never see that twinkle in Derek's blue eyes just seemed wrong. It seemed like something amazing would have to be missing from that world, like there would be a palpable emptiness that I would feel every day.

  But I never spent time thinking about that. Even though getting Derek out of my life was the mission, I always avoided thinking about it, because it made me get a tight feeling in my chest that didn't seem healthy.

  Instead, I focused on the "new beginning" aspect. A new state, a new town, a new school, and endless possibilities in my future. I was going to make it out of that small town, and I was going to do something in the world. I didn't know what yet, but the details weren't important. What was important was that I was not going to turn into my mother. I loved her despite her many flaws, but I wasn't going to waste my life the way that she did.

  I deserved better, that's what Alex told me.

  Sometimes when he was feeling brave he would even give me a little smile and tell me that I would love again, and someday I would get past Derek.

  I didn't tell him that he was wrong.

  Maybe he wasn't.

  But I thought he was. Love was no longer a goal in my life. I had been there, I had done that, and it had been a bad idea.

  Plus, as of the week of graduation I still hadn't gotten my heart back, so I didn't see how Alex expected me to give it to someone else.

  Nobody knew that either, naturally. I had decided to keep up appearances and let everyone think I was okay. While most people noticed I was a little sad—I wasn't that talented of an actress, but I figured with practice there would be hope for me in my new life—I never let anyone see the depth of my pain. Even I tried not to acknowledge it, but after putting on the show for Alex and everyone at school, sometimes I was too tired to keep it up when I was alone.

  Stephanie and I drifted apart. It sucked, because she was really my only friend since Andy and I broke up, but it simply wasn't possible. The stress of being torn between me and Kayla had been really hard on her, and she was just one more person to try to convince I was okay anyway. Besides, once I went off to college I knew I would never see her or talk to her, so why cause a rift between her and Kayla when I would be leaving anyway?