Let Me Be the One

by Lily Foster

  Let Me Be the One

  By Lily Foster

  __________

  Let Me Series

  Book One

  Shorefront Books

  Let Me Be the One

  By Lily Foster

  Copyright © 2014 Lily Foster

  ISBN: 978-0-9905941-1-6

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any other manner without the express written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living and dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Book Cover Typography:

  Scarlett Rugers Design

  www.scarlettrugers.com

  Other Titles by Lily Foster

  Let Me Love You

  Book Two: Rene and Caleb’s story

  Let Me Go

  Book Three: Kasia and Dylan’s story

  Let Me Heal Your Heart

  Book Four: Anna and Declan’s story

  Table of Contents

  Other Titles by Lily Foster

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  About the Author

  Let Me Be the One

  _______________

  Chapter One

  Tom

  I could hear myself choking out that nasty combination of stomach lurching, wheezing, and coughing that you make when you get the wind knocked out of you—hard. I was doubled over after being hit, square in the gut with a soccer ball. “Shit,” Dan laughed as he jogged towards me, “I didn’t mean to nail you that hard.”

  After what seemed like a fairly long time I managed to sputter, “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  He leaned down and offered a hand to help me up. “I needed to knock that dazed look off your face.” He looked at me evenly and then laughed. “You’re drooling, Tom.”

  I’d been waiting the better half of a year to see her again and now, there she was, walking towards the other girls on the edge of the field. I guess I’d been staring like a lovesick middle-schooler but I couldn’t help it. I’d been waiting so long for her.

  I noticed Nick looking my way as I hauled my ass back up and continued trying to regain my breath. Nick would never let up on the idea that Darcy was his. No matter that she broke up with him over a year ago and never mind that the drunken, pounding-on-her-door-in-the-middle-of-the-night hissy fits he threw afterward are what drove her to leave school for a year. Didn’t even matter that he had a new girlfriend; he still made it known she was off-limits to everyone. Nick caught my eye and said evenly, “Look who’s back.” His face was a mixture of pain and scorn. “My life would be a lot easier if the bitch just stayed away.”

  I was his friend, a good friend at one time, but I’d become sick of his act. And this wasn’t going to end well because I had no plans on staying away from Darcy.

  It’s not that I didn’t notice Darcy freshman year—you’d have to be blind not to. Morgan though, a girl I’d met the first week of school freshman year, was it for me at the time. We lived in the same dorm, met the first night on campus and we were pretty much inseparable—until she broke it off and got back together with her high school boyfriend over that first summer break.

  I’d had girlfriends in high school but no one really serious; Morgan was the first. Maybe that’s why I felt so gutted by the experience.

  I came back to school that fall of my sophomore year with a vengeance. I pretty much banged any girl who looked my way. I’d never had someone dump me and I admit, fucking around took my mind off how rejected I’d felt. And there were always girls waiting and willing. I had no respect for them—they gave it up so fast. All I had to do was remember their name and say some sweet bullshit to them; it was too easy and they meant nothing. If I made the mistake of passing out in their bed afterwards, I was out the door at the first light of day. There were a few I hung out with a second or third time but with most it was one-and-done.

  Day by day, though, this nagging sense of self-loathing started to take up residence in my gut. I didn’t stop what I was doing but I was becoming acutely aware of how obnoxious—and obscene—I’d become. Even though I got nothing but admiring slaps on the back from the other guys, I wasn’t proud of myself.

  Something shifted in me the day I met Darcy; I felt it. To be clear, I’d met her before and we’d seen each other in passing but this was the first time I truly met her—had a conversation with her, observed her, listened to her voice, wondered how I hadn’t really seen her before.

  I was sitting having lunch with Nick and a few other guys in the Commons when Darcy plopped down next to Nick, kissed his cheek and then flashed me a smile that made me catch my breath and made my chest hurt. The three of us fell into easy conversation. She was funny and smart. I felt like I could sit there and talk to her for hours. Nick made sure to touch her whenever he had a chance and I can’t say that I blamed him. I found myself wanting to tuck stray strands of her hair behind her ear just so I could trace my fingers along her cheek—that was not like me.

  She had blue eyes with flecks of gold in them and long, dark lashes. She looked like she wore no make-up but had naturally rosy cheeks and lips. I found myself thinking that, unlike some of the girls who woke up looking like a scary version of what they were the night before, with caked on, day-old mascara, Darcy would wake up looking fresh-faced with some sexy, tousled, just-got-out-of-bed-hair. I was lost in that exact thought when Morgan walked by. I didn’t even notice her but because I must have been acting spacey, Nick and Darcy thought I was reacting to seeing my ex. Darcy looked at me with concern and said, “You ok?”

  Nick chimed in, “Fuck that bitch.”

  Darcy spun towards Nick with a look of disgust and shook her head. “Why would you say that?”

  He shrugged. “She’s a bitch. She strung him along and then fucked him over.”

  Darcy looked pissed, “I broke up with someone when I started dating you. I would hate for him to think I didn’t care about him. That I was just a bitch that strung him along.”

  That shut Nick up for a minute. Darcy then looked back to me, her expression softer, and said, “I’m sure she’s not a bitch because it looks like you cared about her, so she has to have some redeeming qualities.”

  Nick shattered my bewildered silence, “Don’t feel too bad for him, Darcy. Tom hasn’t been lonely—he’s been keeping real busy. I’m surprised he remembers Morgan’s name after the year he’s had.”

  Darcy cocked her head to the side and looked at me as if she was confused for a moment before realization set in and then she looked down at the table. I had to hold myself back from reaching across the table to choke Nick. After a minute she got up, muttered something about getting to class, and left. She didn’t look my way again.

  I felt disgusted with myself. I’d become a person who wasn’t worthy of any girl, let alone someone like Darcy.

  That day I took a big step back from everything. I still hung out but no longer wanted to drink myself into a stupor. The regular, senseless hook-ups were also over—for the most part. I knew there were on
e or two times that I’d been so fucked up and when I woke up, I had the sick feeling that I hadn’t worn a condom. The experience of being tested was a scared-straight moment that I didn’t want to repeat.

  I didn’t see as much of Nick because he was taking the drinking to another level. And since I seemed to be daydreaming about Darcy pretty much every day, I didn’t want to ruin my ridiculous fantasy by seeing the two of them together.

  The few times I did run into them at a party I would find myself staring at her. Her body, the way she smiled, the sound of her laugh—it all drew me in. It wasn’t just the obvious things about her, though. Part of what I liked about her was the way she was with other people. Darcy was definitely front-and-center with the “in” crowd and some of those girls didn’t give anyone else the time of day. When you saw Darcy around campus, though, you could see she was just as likely to talk to a plain-looking girl or a reserved and quiet guy as she was to socialize with the more popular and outgoing people. She treated everyone the same.

  I was also making an effort to stay away because I was still friends with Nick at the time so being anywhere near Darcy just wasn’t a good idea; I was clearly being disloyal. I still saw Nick in class and out at night here and there, but I was definitely distancing myself from the hard-partying crowd. I was spending more time with Ben, who I’d grown up with, and Dan, one of my closest friends on the rugby team. They both knew how to have fun but balanced their lives better with at least some studying and working out.

  As that spring semester was winding down, Nick seemed to be spiraling out of control. One night he confided in me that he thought Darcy wasn’t into him anymore. He didn’t take anyone’s advice, including mine, to tone his act down and when she broke it off, he lost it. By day he was moody and by night he would drink himself into a either a sad funk or a drunken rage. He would alternate between calling her repeatedly, bawling into the phone, and then trying to break her dorm room door down while screaming nasty insults at her. I only knew the details because Dan dated Jenna, Darcy’s closest friend. Dan said the whole ordeal was making Darcy just about lose it. She stopped going out socially and avoided anywhere else that Nick might be. Against Darcy’s wishes, Jenna and the other girls in the suite had called campus security on Nick a few nights because he was out of control. Everyone tried to talk sense into Nick. When he was sober, he seemed resigned to it but when he was drinking, he was belligerent and there was no reasoning with him. Dan wound up fighting Nick on two occasions when he tried to push his way into Darcy’s room. Everyone was tired of his act.

  Right before we left for summer break, Jenna was over and mentioned that she might need a new roommate for the fall semester because Darcy wasn’t coming back. I literally felt panic surge though me for a second as I blurted out, “Seriously, because of that douchebag?”

  Jenna shrugged, “She says that’s not it but I know she wasn’t planning on studying abroad until all of this went down.”

  I shook my head in disbelief and said, probably a little louder and angrier than I’d intended, “I can’t believe she’s leaving because of him.”

  Jenna scrunched up her face, looking confused for a second before leveling her gaze at me and smiling. “Take it easy, Tom. She’ll be back in January.”

  That summer I commuted into Manhattan for my internship and then spent weekends hanging out with Ben, Dylan and my other high school friends. I’m not going to say I was a saint. There were a few road trips, a few crazy nights; old habits die hard. But for the most part, my thoughts were laser-focused on Darcy, which was kind of ridiculous being that I had never even kissed the girl.

  As fate would have it, I did get to see her once that summer. It was late August and my dad and uncle were taking me out to celebrate me becoming a “working man” as my summer internship came to an end. I really loved the excitement of Wall Street and I know my father was proud that he had gotten a lot of positive feedback from his colleagues about me.

  We had drinks and then headed uptown to meet my mother and aunt for dinner before jumping back on the Metro North. As we got out of the cab, I literally walked right into Darcy, her arms laden with shopping bags. Sounds cheesy, but I could literally feel my heart beat and I was filled with this overwhelming feeling of happiness. I must have been sporting the biggest, dumbest grin but I didn’t care.

  Darcy lived nearby. She said she’d finished her lifeguarding stint a week early and left the family’s beach house for a few days so that she could get some shopping and packing done before she left for Spain. I introduced my dad and uncle and they insisted she join us for dinner. She laughed, looking down at her flip-flops and yoga get-up which, by the way, she looked fucking delicious in, and referred to the restaurant we were standing in front of when she said, “I don’t think this would fly at Jean-Georges.”

  I know my dad was aware of my reaction to her and kept at it, “Your parents aren’t in town? If you’re in the big city alone, as a fellow parent I have to insist we look after you and take you to dinner.”

  She seemed happy to play along, “Ok, if you insist then give me a few minutes, I live just a few blocks away.”

  Dad looked to me with a satisfied grin, “Tom, escort Darcy. We’ll hold dinner for you.”

  I really didn’t care that my dad was pushing it. I was thrilled to be near her.

  She let me into a brownstone on her tree-lined street. I don’t know much about real estate but even I knew that her family had to be swimming in it to live on this block. The brownstone looked stately and formal on the outside but on the inside, it was more casual and homey. As she took the stairs two at a time she looked over her shoulder and said playfully, “You can pass the time looking at my baby pictures.”

  I actually did. I really couldn’t get enough of looking at her. No surprise, she was a really cute baby. There was a large portrait of her as a toddler with a woman who must be her mother, equally as pretty. I found myself looking for her in every picture. I wanted to know what sports she played as a kid and what she looked like at every stage of her life. I just wanted to know her. There were several pictures of her with her older brothers. She was usually perched on one of their shoulders. In every picture they were looking on at her like she was the family princess, well-loved and protected.

  I’d never met her brothers but knew one of them came up to school a few days before finals this past year. Chris, one the housemates, apparently directed him straight to Nick’s room; even his closest friends thought he deserved whatever was coming to him. I don’t know exactly what went down but Nick was quiet as a mouse for that last week of school. Darcy broke into my thoughts, “Hey don’t look at those ones where I’m still in braces.”

  I turned to see her coming down the stairs in a fitted, beige sleeveless dress that came a ways above the knee with a pair of gold, strappy sandals. She always dressed in clothes that showed off her curves but in a way that was stylish; in a way that didn’t cheapen her. Her hair is this beautiful, honey-colored blond and tonight she was wearing it up in a loose knot with some strands out, framing her face. As usual, she wore little make-up, just some around the eyes and lip gloss. Darcy really was naturally gorgeous. She just kind-of glowed.

  The conversation flowed easily at dinner. Darcy fit so easily with my mom and Aunt Mary and I could tell my dad and Uncle Rob were impressed with her. At some point they all got up and moved to the lounge, leaving the two of us alone.

  She was so easy to be with, so easy to talk to. She wanted to know about my job and what I had planned for after graduation. We talked about her plans for the year in Spain and all the side trips she planned to take around Europe. I found myself wishing that I’d signed up for a year abroad too, imagining myself traveling through those beautiful cities with Darcy. When Darcy said that leaving was the best thing for her, I couldn’t help but ask about Nick. “Are you really leaving because of him?”

  She looked uncomfortable for a moment and took another small sip of her wine before she an
swered, “I’d be lying if I said he had nothing to do with this,” then she smiled as she went on, “but I am really excited about it. I mean, when am I ever going to get a chance to travel like this again?”

  “No, Darcy, it’s a great opportunity. I’m actually really jealous right now. It’s just that,” I let out a deep breath knowing I was probably going to say something that was too much, “I’m friends with him but I feel like I want to fuck him up. I hate that he’s made you scared.”

  She shook her head just barely. “I can’t say he’s made me scared. It’s more like I’m cautious, more cautious than I was before. I’ve just never had the experience of someone becoming out of control the way he did. I know if I went back it would just start right up again.” She sighed, “I could get my family involved, get the police involved, whatever. It may be foolish on my part but I don’t want him to get in trouble. He’s never laid a hand on me and even though he’s in the wrong, I wouldn’t feel good about him getting suspended or kicked out of school. I think putting a little distance between us will help him work it out.”

  “I don’t think I’d be as good about this as you are. You don’t owe him anything.”

  She smiled but her eyes expressed a sense of the damage that had been done. “I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. If he can’t respect me by keeping his distance when I come back, then I won’t be as understanding.”

  With that, she changed the subject to something lighter and I got the hint. We chatted easily for another half-hour before I walked her back home.

  I didn’t want the night to end. I wanted to kiss her, really kiss her, when we stood on her stoop but I didn’t want to push it. Instead I just told her I was lucky to have crashed into her on the sidewalk tonight as I hugged her. I was happy when Darcy hugged me back, squeezing me tight, and then smiled up at me as she stepped back. “I’ll see you next semester, Tom.”