Push the Envelope

by Rochelle Paige

  “And where is Drake now?” I asked.

  “Jackson said he’s still waiting at the dorm for you to come back. He hasn’t left since he got there, only about half an hour after I left to meet you.”

  “But that was two whole days ago!”

  “I know. Jackson tried talking him into going back to the frat house, but Drake told him he wasn’t leaving unless it was because he knew where you were so he could go get you. Jackson has been bringing him food, and Faith took pity on him and let him use our bathroom. She told Jackson that he’d stopped to check our room each time he came inside and just stared at your bed with a sad look on his face.”

  “And Jackson wouldn’t even give you a hint at why he thinks I should talk to Drake?” I asked, unsure what to think of this turn of events.

  “He just said that, while he didn’t agree with the way Drake handled the situation, he did understand why he flew off the handle after talking to him. Judging by the number of messages I had from Jackson, Faith, and Natalie, I’ve gotta admit that I’m really curious to know what he said because it had to have been pretty convincing for everyone to be so persistent in trying to find us. And that’s not including how many times Drake called me and sent text messages, practically begging me to have you call him. I can only imagine how many messages you have from him,” she said as she handed me my phone.

  I powered it up and opened up my text message notification message first. Holy shit, Drake had sent me nearly one hundred messages in two days. I had about a dozen from Jackson and a few from Natalie and Faith each. There were also several from my Dad, which I opened first. He had gotten my message on Friday and just wanted to let me know he was thinking of me. By the time I got to his last message, he was worried because Drake had called him to ask if he knew where I was. It was from last night, and he wanted me to call him ASAP.

  I looked up at Aubrey, who was watching me with concern in her pretty blue eyes. “My dad knows something’s up. Drake called him last night.”

  “Uh-oh. You better call him first so he knows you’re okay then.”

  I nodded in agreement and decided I’d better do it now before I freaked out from reading all of Drake’s messages. I dialed his number and waited for him to answer.

  “Alexa, honey, is everything okay?” he asked worriedly.

  “Hi, Daddy. I’m okay,” I answered.

  “What’s going on? Why doesn’t Drake know where you are?”

  “We had a fight, and I’ve been with Aubrey while I tried to figure things out. I’m sorry he bothered you with this,” I apologized.

  “That’s what dads are for, to be bothered with things like this. Why didn’t you tell me about the fight? I’ve been worried sick all night, wondering what was going on.”

  “I’m really sorry, Dad. I sent you a message right before I turned my phone off. I just needed some time to get my head straight before I figured out what to do.”

  “Alexa Marie, you can’t run away like that without me knowing where you are. It just isn’t safe,” he chastised.

  “I was with Aubrey the whole time, perfectly safe at a hotel. I didn’t even leave the room once. And I had no idea Drake would call you, making you worry about me. I absolutely would have told you more if I had known he’d do that.”

  “Just promise me you won’t ever do something like that again, not without telling me where you are, okay?” he asked.

  “I promise, Dad. I should have thought to let you know where Aubrey and I went, and I won’t ever make the same mistake again,” I swore to him.

  “Now, what’s going on with you and Drake? Do you need me to come home early? I can try to find someone to come up here and pilot for me,” he offered.

  “I really love you for that, Dad, but you don’t need to come back now. I haven’t talked to Drake yet, but I’m going to call him now. I just wanted to talk to you first to make sure you knew I was alright.”

  “Okay, honey. I don’t need any details, but I hope everything goes well when you talk. Between you hiding away all weekend and the way he sounded on the phone, I’m guessing the fight was a real doozy.”

  “It was, Dad, but Jackson has talked to Drake and told Aubrey that I should give him a chance to explain. That has to be a good sign, right?” I asked hopefully.

  He was silent for a moment before answering. “Yes, Alexa. If Jackson is urging you to talk to Drake, then that’s definitely a good sign. Will you send me a text to let me know how things go?”

  “Sure. I’m going to call Drake now. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Talk to you later,” he said before disconnecting the call. I looked down at the phone in my hands, scared to open the messages Drake had left me.

  “It will be okay, Lex,” Aubrey encouraged me. She came over, sat down next to me, and gripped my free hand.

  I started with the first message and slowly worked my way through the list. They began fairly angry, with him asking me where the hell I went and telling me that this wasn’t over yet. Around the time Jackson must have talked to him, the tone change abruptly to asking me to please call him back and apologizing for his behavior. Yesterday’s messages practically begged me to at least let him know that I was safe so he wouldn’t worry. He told me that he was going crazy not knowing where to find me and that he knew he’d hurt me. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized that the depth of his pain matched mine.

  The second-to-last was a message from about thirty minutes ago, telling me that if he didn’t hear from me this morning he was going to call the police to file a missing persons report. He’d already asked and they’d told them he had to wait forty-eight hours. The last message came through as I was reading the rest, and I was bawling by the time I finished reading them all.

  Drake: Baby, please come home. Jackson told me he finally talked to Aubrey & you’re safe. I get that you’re mad and hurt, but please come back so I can see you. I know I fucked up big time, and you don’t owe me anything. If you don’t want to talk to me yet, I promise to leave. I just need to see you with my own eyes.

  It was the longest text he’d ever written me. I had several voicemail messages from him as well, and I played them all in succession, their tone echoing the texts I’d already read. My box was full by Saturday afternoon, which must be why he’d sent so many messages. Once I was done, I looked at Aubrey and realized she was crying too.

  “You ready for this?” she asked.

  “Not really, but it’s not like I can feel any worse after talking to him than I do right now,” I said as I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear.

  “Alexa,” he breathed into the phone after picking up before the first ring was even done. He didn’t say anything else. He just waited for me to pull myself together so I could speak.

  “Drake, I need to see you, too,” I choked out in a raspy voice, my throat sore from all the crying I had done.

  I heard him heave a big sigh on the other end of the phone. “Where are you? I’ll come to you right now.”

  “I’m at the Holiday Inn, but I can have Aubrey bring me back,” I protested.

  I could hear tires squealing in the background. “No, I’m already on the way. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll text you the room number.”

  When the call ended and I’d sent him the text, I turned to Aubrey. “Drake is on his way so we can talk.”

  “Do you want me to stay? If I leave, you won’t have a car here in case your talk with him doesn’t go well,” she warned.

  “Go ahead. I can always call you if I need a ride.”

  “Are you sure? I can hang out downstairs just in case,” she offered.

  “I’m not sure about anything right now, Aubrey,” I admitted. “The only thing I know for certain is that I need to find out what happened. Why Drake would believe that about me.”

  “I don’t feel right leaving you alone yet. I’ll pack up the car, make sure Drake shows up like he s
aid he would, and then I’ll wait until you text me that it’s okay for me to leave. Okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s probably for the best. If you don’t want to be here when he gets here, then you better move fast because he didn’t give me a chance to say much before he was already on his way. You’ve only got a couple minutes left.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I packed light,” she said as she threw our stuff back into her bag. “Don’t forget to let me know if you need me to come up or if you want me to go. If I don’t hear from you in thirty minutes, I’m coming back up.”

  I gave her a quick hug and ran into the bathroom to make sure I looked decent. I didn’t really. Two days spent agonizing over what I thought was the end of our relationship, crying, and having nightmares that kept waking me up didn’t leave me looking my best. The shower helped a lot, but nothing was going to get rid of the red-rimmed eyes and dark circles. My hands trembled as I played with my hair. I was so nervous about what would happen next.

  After a couple minutes, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer, and there he was. He looked as tired as I felt. He had a black eye and a puffy, bruised lip from his fight with Jackson. I wanted to reach out and hug him close, but I stood there with my arms wrapped around myself instead. I was unsure of how to act because everything seemed so awkward. I took a step backwards to let him inside the room. He grabbed one of my hands as he walked past and pulled me along with him. We sat down on the edge of the bed and just looked at each other for a couple minutes. Drake hadn’t let go of my hand and couldn’t seem to look away from me.

  “Why, Drake? What could I possibly have done to deserve your accusation?” I finally asked.

  He looked down at our hands and shook his head. “Fuck, Alexa. This wasn’t your fault. I never should have yelled at you the way I did. Don’t talk like that.”

  I pulled my hands away and folded them in my lap. “If that’s true, then what the hell happened?”

  He clenched the hand I’d let go of into a fist and stared me in the eyes, like he was willing me to listen to him. “I woke up Friday morning to a phone call from my dad. He had some questions for me. Questions about you. Concerns about how you were paying for school based on a rumor my mom had heard.”

  “What?” I gasped. “Your parents think that I’m prostituting myself to pay for school? Where in the world would they get an idea like that?”

  “I promise that I’ll get to that part in a minute, but I want you to understand why I listened to the story at all. If it had been anyone but my dad, I swear to you that I wouldn’t have considered for a second that it could be true. But he’d asked the security consultant at his company to run a quick check on your dad’s finances before he called me. And the guy told him there were some red flags, money coming in more quickly than ever before starting this past summer. My dad should have waited for more information before calling me, but he was concerned. Hell, I should have asked more questions, but I was crushed by the idea that it could be true.”

  “Your dad had mine investigated?” I asked. “What the hell?”

  “I know it sounds bad, and I’ve already had it out with my dad after I talked to Jackson. He feels horrible about the trouble he caused, and he wants to apologize to both you and your dad. We both handled this badly, in part because neither of us knew that the source of the bad information was Sasha.”

  “Sasha? You’re going to sit there and blame this on her?” I asked in a disbelieving tone of voice.

  “That’s not what I’m saying. Most of this was my doing. If I had just waited instead of flying off the handle, things wouldn’t have gone down the way they did. That’s on me, and I learned my lesson when I couldn’t reach you to apologize and explain for two fucking days. Trust me, it’s not a mistake I’m gonna repeat ever again.”

  “I still don’t understand. What happened exactly and how was Sasha involved?”

  “I haven’t talked to her about it, but Jackson and I think we figured out what happened after talking to my mom. She got a call a few days ago from Sasha’s mom, who told her that she was worried about how quickly our relationship moved and if I knew what I was getting into with you. They may be best friends, but my mom wasn’t going to listen to her bad-mouth you without cause. And that’s when she dropped the bombshell that started the ball rolling on this mess. She told my mom that there was a rumor going around the school that you were selling sex to pay for college. She didn’t have any details, but she thought my mom should know because where there’s smoke there’s usually a fire. Sasha had approached her mom and supposedly asked for advice on whether or not to ask me if I’d heard the rumor yet or not.”

  “Yeah, right. Like she needs advice to figure out a way to try to tear me down with you,” I scoffed, finding the idea ridiculous.

  “I think Sasha knew exactly what she was doing. She had to know that her mom would come to mine with her concerns and eventually it would filter down to me. This way, it wasn’t coming from her and I would be more likely to listen. Of course my mom mentioned the conversation to my dad, and he thought it was too risky not to check into the story. She played all of us perfectly, and it almost worked.”

  “Not almost. It did work. You believed the rumor,” I said accusingly.

  “Baby, no. I didn’t, not really. If I had waited at all before confronting you, I never would have handled it the way I did. I know that’s not the type of person you are. There isn’t a chance in hell that you would ever do that, but I let my jealousy at the thought of anyone else getting close to you fuck with my head. I swear to God that I would have realized what the hell I was saying if you had just stayed a little longer and talked to me.”

  “No way! Why would I stay and listen to that bullshit? You would never put up with that kind of crap from me, but you expect me to do it?” I argued.

  He shook his head and raised his hands in the air in a gesture of mock surrender. “That’s not what I’m saying. I get why you left. I don’t blame you for it, but we have to figure out this talking thing. I refuse to lose you over some stupid story that I shouldn’t have listened to in the first place.”

  “Then why did you listen?”

  “Because it was my dad. How could I not listen to him, even just a little? I didn’t know about the flights you offered. What the hell was I supposed to think?” he asked, frustrated, as he stood and started to pace the floor. “I wasn’t even thinking, not really. It wasn’t until you were gone and Jackson nailed me with a punch that I started to think clearly. He knocked some sense back into me, and I tried to find you to explain even though I was still a little pissed off. We needed to talk, but you were gone. Disappeared into thin air. You wouldn’t answer my calls or texts—nothing. I still couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on, and then Jackson found me outside your dorm. He calmed down and wanted to know what happened. So I told him, and his reaction was to laugh his ass off. I swear to God, I almost killed him right then and there. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was so funny until he told me about your Mile High Club flights.”

  “That’s what this was about? My tours?”

  “Yeah, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Jackson told me that Aubrey likes to tease you about them sometimes. We figure Sasha overheard something and that’s what she told her mom about. Some stupid inside joke she didn’t understand that got all twisted up by the time my dad called me.” He knelt down on the floor in front of me. “Please try to understand why I freaked out. You know how I am about you. I don’t even like other guys looking at you. The idea of someone touching what’s mine… I lost it.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to brush his hair from his forehead. As soon as my fingers touched him, he leaned forward to wrap his arms around me and rested his head in my lap. It felt so good to have him close to me again. My phone beeped, and I realized that it was Aubrey checking to make sure I was okay. “Will you take me back to campus when we’re done talking?” I asked.

  He squee
zed me even tighter. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Just don’t leave yet.”

  I tapped out a quick reply to Aubrey, letting her know she could leave. “Okay.”

  He sat back down on the floor and looked up at me with so much love in his eyes that tears started to leak from my eyes again. I hated the distance between us right now.

  “After Jackson and I talked, I called my dad back to explain, but he had already figured it out. He pulled up your dad’s website and saw the link for the Mile High Club. He had tried calling me to tell me what he’d found, but I wasn’t picking up because we had already fought. I was focused on finding you and getting you to talk to me.”

  I was horrified by the idea of his parents knowing about the flights. “Your parents must think I’m horrible,” I cried out.