by J. R. Rogue
20
Cheap
Connor
Deciding to date Gwen again wasn’t a lie. It was what I wanted. But I couldn’t get over the way she wanted other men. She told me she wanted me, but I worried even she had no clue what she wanted.
I pulled away after her drunken confession to Avery. And now, she wanted me and it all felt cheap. I felt like something on a check list. Would she have even desired me if I hadn’t shown her I was tired of the drama?
And my god, the girl was drama. She was the kind that complained about everyone else who had drama in their lives and said she wasn’t into it. But she was. And we all knew it.
Despite everything inside of me telling me she was bad news, to just cut ties, I was making some regretful commitment to her. There was something in the pit of my stomach, some hopeful hanging on. Hopeful that she would change now that we were trying again, but I wondered how committed she would be to a relationship with a guy who clearly did not forgive her.
You can’t help how you feel. None of us could. It was her actions that bit, her lack of words. She wanted me to know she was changed; I saw it in her eyes, but that’s all I got. Hopeful looks. Can you survive on that? Doubtful.
I was humiliated at the twin’s birthday party. I could bury a lot, but this nagging regret kept surfacing. I felt like I spent half of my time with Gwen holding her hand and the other half holding a shovel for all the shit I wanted to say.
I wanted to try again, but my heart wasn't letting me.
21
To Be Chosen
At first, everything was great. I had a great past few weeks with Connor. But now he seems distracted, strange. It wasn't a sudden drop in behavior. It has been a quiet drift, now that I think about it. Now that I look back at his actions. He has been pulling away slowly. I think he regrets his decision to forgive me. Maybe he isn't as strong as he thought. Maybe people are giving him shit for letting me back into his life. No one wants to be that guy. He said he wouldn't let his pride get in the way. But I think it's winning. And then there is the thing I don't want to think about. Blane told me that Penny girl has been visiting Connor at work. They've been friends since high school. And she has a boyfriend. But that doesn't put me at ease. If she has a boyfriend, why isn't she visiting her boyfriend at work? Why is she visiting Connor? They've been together a long time. I'm sure she is feeling that boredom. She wants to indulge a crush. One of the guys works with Connor and he says Penny will sometimes be there for an hour, chatting it up with Connor, laughing with him. I'm too scared to bring it up to Connor. What can I say? I can’t bring up the reason I hate her to begin with. Avery is a name I will never bring up again. The wound is too fresh. This feeling in my gut, I wish it would go away. I wish she would go the fuck away, too.
Penny, like a bad penny, always turned up. Avery lost his virginity to her. Then, lovely plot twist, Connor had sex with her in high school, too. I really needed to expand my circle beyond these boys who all graduated together. It was becoming an issue.
I don’t know why women hate other women who are different from them so much. Maybe it was due to the fact that society was always training us to be carbon copies of one another. Girl-on-girl hate was ingrained in us when really, we needed to stick together.
Penny was a tiny thing. Lean, slender. She didn't have the curves I did, the ones I had been self-conscious of since I was twelve years old. She had red hair down to the middle of her back, and she wouldn’t be the first redhead to catch Connor's eye. He loved them, and I, in turn, learned to loathe them. I tried to push thoughts of her away.
I didn't go to high school in the city. I was a small-town girl and I moved to the metro area after graduating. I loved my small-town upbringing, but it wasn't where I wanted to spend my life. At times, I craved a return to the quiet of it all. I missed the stars; they spoke to you when no one else would.
I had been invited to a party with some old classmates on Saturday night. Connor agreed to go with me. I felt a thrill, knowing it would be our first time hanging out with other people since he decided to forgive me for the party. I didn’t deserve it. I had humiliated him, and I was too drunk to see it.
I thought of my stepfather. It had been months, maybe a year, since I last heard from him.
The party was close to where I grew up, where he lived from time to time. His work kept him in Kansas City most of the time. I never knew how his family life was going. He always boasted of his wife, his stepchildren. The replacements.
My mother encouraged me to reach out to him more often than I would have liked. If you’re not reaching out, then you’re not setting yourself up for the freeze-out. I didn’t know how often my brother talked to him. My stepfather, my brother’s biological father, was a stale topic to bring up. It left a bad taste in our mouths. Abandonment and something I couldn’t put a finger on. It was best not to try. I didn’t know yet.
On the way out to the party, Connor was still off, still drifting away from me. He told me about his day, his week. He reached for my hand twice, but let it go quickly. It felt like a reflex, then a burn. A touch he desired but was stung by. It was expected. Maybe he wasn’t as good with forgiveness as I hoped, maybe he was more like me than I could handle.
The house was in the woods, down a long driveway. I drove, hoping Connor could have a few beers, relax. I wanted him to have fun, and just being in his presence again, after what I did, that was enough for me.
I thought being in the presence of people I grew up with would put me at ease. I was always with the same guys, this group of friends who had known each other since kindergarten. I wanted to be with my people, even though I could hardly call them that. I hadn't kept in touch with anyone from my adolescence, but I had a history with them. Maybe they could paint me in a better light than I was painting myself in.
We were only at the party for an hour before I wanted to leave. Connor smiled as I introduced him to people. He shook hands and laughed. But to me, he was gone, cold and aloof. He was constantly looking at his phone. And when he would look at his phone, he would smile. The corner of his mouth would turn up. He hadn't smiled at me like that since before. I wanted to hate him. And part of me did. But the bigger part hated myself. I did this. I sabotaged this.
“Are you having fun?” I would ask.
“Yes. You asked me that twenty minutes ago. The answer hasn’t changed.”
I didn’t like this version of him, tight and cold.
Before long, I told Connor I wanted to leave, not wanting to subject myself to any more of our pathetic act. We drove back to the city in silence. He had the decency to put his phone away. I could hear it buzzing in his pocket. The red in me bubbled up, threatening to spill over. I wanted to jerk the car to the side of the road, walk into the black, and scream. But I didn’t. I let my white knuckles speak for me. I let the heavy sound of my breathing, my blind anger, speak.
When we got back to my trailer, I put my car in park and jumped out, walking for my door. I heard the passenger door close as I made it up my steps. I stopped, my key in the door, when Connor spoke.
"I’m sorry. It was a mistake to ask you back. That's on me. You're not wrong there. And I know when you and I started back up again you had great intentions. I’m the asshole here. I thought I would let it go, but I can’t. I want to be chosen. I don’t want to be someone's second choice. The consolation prize. That's all I really am. If Avery left his wife and wanted you back, you would go, I know you would and I don’t even want you to respond to that comment. We both know it’s true. I deserve better and you, you deserve better, too. I’m not giving you all of me. I wanted to, I swear I did. But I can't stop thinking about that night. About the way everyone felt sorry for me and the way they looked at me."
I pulled the key out, turned, staring at my shoes. I heard a car alarm go off in the distance, followed by yelling.
"So you're letting your pride win?" I looked at him. He was leaning against the side of his car, his arms crossed
at his broad chest.
"I guess I am. But at least I’m admitting it now, and not dragging it on. Three weeks was too long."
"Long enough to get my hopes up." To get me to bed. To fake it enough that I changed my view. That I wanted him. Long enough to break my heart over that red-headed tramp. Neither of us were saying her name, but I knew she was the reason for this. She was showing interest and he was being pulled in. He didn't want to be with a girl who was still a little in love with her ex, but he wanted to give his time to a girl who was in an actual relationship with another guy? Fuck him. Fuck this shit. Again, I saw red. Not red like that bitch’s hair, red like the rage thundering up again. I looked down at the keys in my hands. Imagined throwing them across the driveway. "Go home,” I said, flatly.
He didn't argue, just said “okay” and had the audacity to sound a little sad. His phone went off in his pocket again and I wanted to run down the steps, lunge for it, pull it up, and see her name. Show it to him.
I wanted to stop dancing around the reason. The real one for this bullshit.
I watched his car drive away from my trailer, then stood frozen on my steps. Eventually, I went inside and texted Blane. He was at the bar. I didn't even have to ask. Before we got off the phone, he told me a cab was coming to get me.
The drive there was static with my wrath. I was plotting my revenge. A dozen scenarios played out in my head. Fuck Connor. I wanted out of this game. No, I was going to win this game.
Part II
22
Nothing More Than My Skin
"When you're living your life aimlessly you avoid it, the truth of it all. I did that for a very long time. I also avoided the fact that I let the men in my life determine where I was going."
"What do you mean?"
"After high school, I skipped college to hang around my boyfriend so he wouldn't cheat on me. I didn't trust him. He cheated on me five days after I lost my virginity to him. And I stayed. It doesn't get much dumber than that. I stayed at my shitty job to be close to Avery. I was stuck in a career that I didn't want to be in. And a trailer I didn't want to be in. Because my home had been ripped from me. It was easy to pine for the white picket fence life when your childhood wasn't safe, secure. More than anything, I just wanted to be taken care of in those days. Later, I would reject it. And then I fell into the phase where I didn't want to give up my freedom, I'm still not sure I'll ever leave that phase. It was hard to find a balance. I wanted to give things up and I wanted to hold things close. I was settling into a routine of solitude. I lived alone for five years. I started to like coming home to an empty house. Just my cat and my dog. I went for walks. I went to the gym. I did it all alone and I loved that. I wanted to go to Walmart alone. I wanted to go to the mall alone. I wanted to do everything alone and it didn't feel lonely as long as I had someone temporary to warm my bed. After Connor and I ended our brief romance, I found so many replacements. It would be a messy two years. And Connor and I would see each other again. So many times. I would learn, over and over again, that he was exactly the kind of man I craved. The kind I had wished he was in the beginning, because it was something I could understand. Something I was used to."
"And what were you used to?"
"Being used for nothing more than my skin."
23
Such A Downer
I’ve been avoiding everyone. Finding solace in words, in reading. In movies on repeat. I watched The Shawshank Redemption twice today while I was off work. I can’t afford cable, so this is what I’m stuck doing. A girl at work begged me to buddy read Twilight with her. So I did. I can see why people thought it was fun. I like random obsessions. So now I am reading every vampire novel I can get my hands on. I’ve been avoiding the bar, my friends. My phone keeps lighting up and sometimes I turn it off. I want everyone to leave me alone but I know as soon as they do, as soon as my phone stops beeping, I’ll miss everyone. I’ll come out of hiding then. It’s nice to be wanted. To know I am missed. That wing night isn’t the same without me. But I need a reset.
I'm not sure what to do with myself most days. I bounce between cowering and crawling out of my hole. I'm no longer hiding in my trailer every day. I’ve been spending Sundays on the water with the guys. Connor doesn't come around. I've stolen friends from another guy. I want to feel bad, but they both ended it with me, so I have a hard time finding the pity. I tried to find comfort in Blane, but it was no longer fun. We even tried to go on a date last week but it was obvious from the moment he picked me up that we were nothing more than friends.
My thin friendship with Lesley has been bouncing and wobbling. At first, she seemed thrilled that Connor was done with me, then she flipped, realized I was on the loose again. Free to fuck every guy she had a crush on that wasn’t her boyfriend. At times, it’s tempting to just date Blane to get under her skin. I heard the story of the time she stripped to her underwear in front of him while her boyfriend was passed out, begging Blane to touch her. I loved the guy, his morals lacked in a lot of areas, and then in others, he showed surprising restraint. He said he didn’t touch her.
No one brings Connor up in my presence. Which is a relief. My grief, to them, is strange. They walked me out of the pit Avery had left me in. But it was expected, with all we shared. Connor and I had barely dated so I think it was all confusing to them. It was confusing to me.
“Dude, I didn’t expect you to be this sad,” Blane said one night in his car, after wing night, in my driveway.
“I know,” I groaned, leaning back in the passenger seat. “I don’t even know why I still care. We barely dated, right?”
“You and I are just alike. We want what we can’t have. You’re such a guy.”
I punched him in the arm. “It’s why we could never date. We are too alike, I agree. And maybe you’re too much of a girl?”
“Same difference.” He drummed the steering wheel. “Snap out of it, buddy. I miss the old Gwen. She’s much more fun than this.”
“Sorry my broken heart is such a downer.” I wasn’t mad, I liked this teasing. I felt more normal.
Was he right? Was it because he didn’t want me anymore? Was that the reason for this want I had for Connor? Did it grow from rejection? I was a magician, I guess. Turning simple wants into star-crossed despair.
This felt different, though. In the end, I saw some light, it shined on a simple future.
One I knew we could share together. If I hadn't gotten in our way.
His decision was so final. I saw a little bit of the warning I had been fed by strangers. That he wasn't a nice guy. I knew they were wrong, but he wasn't as innocent as I feared. He could break hearts just like the rest.
24
Words Choked In Throats
“When did you see Connor again?”
I laugh. It would be so simple if anything we did made sense. “He didn't give me a chance to move on from our short thing. He texted me, asking to come by. It got my hopes up. But it turned out to just be sex. And it was great sex, better than anything that happened between us when we were dating. It felt like we were no longer concerned with impressing each other. There was no pressure. Our chemistry when we were skin-to-skin was thrilling. And it pulled me. I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t have sex with someone without at least one of you falling.”
“And it was you?”
"Yes. I was finally falling for him. Because I knew then, with certainty, that I could no longer have him. We carried on that way for the rest of the summer. When September rolled around, we were still meeting up every week. Still fucking desperately. I thought maybe I could turn it into more. So I worked overtime for weeks to save up some extra cash. I bought us Cardinals baseball tickets and set up a nice weekend at a hotel. I didn't want to stay in my trailer or his sister’s house, where he was living.”
“So it was a gesture, of sorts.”
“Yes. Looking back at it now, I know I knew he didn't want to be with me. I led us here, to this falsehood and words choked in
throats. Once, he couldn’t get enough of me. He blushed when he brought up his hope for our future. Now, we met in the night, after everyone else was asleep. When he could be sure no one knew my car was pulling into his driveway. He lied and I lied and I let myself believe it was what I wanted. It was my punishment for breaking his heart. I thought if I did my time he would change his mind about me, about us. It was silly to think that one day he would wake up and magically decide to make a girlfriend out of the girl who was giving her body to him freely. He was showing me what he wanted from me, and what he didn’t need anymore. I was showing him how desperate I was, how little pride I had left. And now I thought, somehow, if I bought him a birthday present, something a girlfriend would get a guy, he would turn me into what I wanted to be. Just, his.”
“And he didn’t.”
“No, he didn’t. He turned someone else into his.”
25
Forced Suffering
I can’t stand the sight of her face. It’s round like a pumpkin. In the picture I saw on Facebook, Connor had his arm draped over her shoulder. They were both smiling. Her teeth looked like little chiclets. Candy corn asses. She tans too much. Her brown hair fades into her fake brown face. Her shoulders are boxy and I fucking hate her. I have no pictures with Connor like the one I am staring at now. We never made it to a holiday. We started hanging out after Valentine's Day, we were done, officially, before summer started. Now here she was...five years younger than me, sharing pictures of their first Thanksgiving together. I was spending Thanksgiving alone. The same as last year. I found some pictures of Connor and I. Lesley took them at the bar. They are candid. We didn’t pose. In one I am whispering something in his ear, and the look on his face makes me ache. He really cared about me. I can see it there, in that moment, captured forever. I didn't know what I was telling him in the picture. Some secret about one of our friends maybe. I wish I had appreciated him. I think my heart is going to burst out of my chest sometimes. When I saw pictures of Avery and his new wife, the woman he left me for, it didn’t hurt like this. I was with him for two years and I am more numb, more desolate over a guy I was never officially in a relationship with. Time really is irrelevant. The rules are bendy and bullshit. I just want the image of their faces to go away. I want all this hurt to go away.
