Avoiding Commitment

by craziebabe45

  The Katy Perry song Hot and Cold started playing in her head as Lexi returned her fake smile. "That's my name."

  "Oh, of course. I didn't know. I thought perhaps it was a nickname of some sort. I've never met a Lexi before."

  "Well, I guess it's sort of a nickname. Birth certificate says Alexa. I never much felt like an Alexa though if you know what I mean," Lexi said trying to fall back into Bekah's more personable character.

  Something about her statement must have worked, because this time Bekah's smile was sincere. "Yes, I think I do. I've never felt much like a Rebekah. Now, please, tell me about yourself. Jack has not said a word about you besides that you went to college together and as soon as you were done you zipped right off to New York City. Of course I know some things," she said her eyes shining mischievously. "But as a whole, he has left you a complete mystery to me. And I do love solving mysteries," she commented folding her arms across one another at the table.

  Lexi didn't even know where to begin. She knew that Jack hadn't told Bekah about her in the beginning, but he hadn't told her that Bekah knew nothing about her. How awkward! It kind of hurt that he hadn't even bothered to prep her about the basics especially after letting Kate run her mouth. So, thus far, Bekah had only heard terrible things about her. Great! She was so excited for this.

  "Um...well what do you want to know?"

  "Just whatever you want. It's up to you. I can tell you a little about myself if you like." Lexi just stared at her. Bekah taking that as an affirmative said, "I graduated summa from Duke with degrees in business, marketing, and psychology. I couldn't pick just one and since I accrued a years worth of AP credit in high school, I was able to do all three. Let's see. What else? I currently work for my father. He wanted Ramsey to run the business, but well...Ramsey always has his own ideas about things. I'm sure there's more, but I'd really like to know about you."

  "Oh, well I'm at NYU Law about to enter into my third year. I've been working all summer at a criminal law firm handling important client's busy schedules and doing a ton of research. Anyway, that's really about it," she said hardly convincing herself.

  "I'll be the one to judge that," Bekah stated. Lexi smiled weakly. "Did you want to go into criminal law or did you have something else in mind?"

  "Oh, I'm really not sure," she told her honestly. "I've been doing a good deal of alternative dispute resolution cases in class. You know mediation, arbitration, and negotiations." Bekah nodded along even though Lexi wasn't sure she knew what she was talking about. "But a part of me wants to go into a big corporate firm working seventy hours a week making a ridiculous amount of money. I don't know why. It sounds awful, but once I do that, I really think I could do anything."

  "Hmm…interesting. I would have pinned you more as environmental law or public interest work."

  Lexi laughed heartily. "Um…no. It's not that I don't care about those things. I just couldn't see me concentrating in anything like that."

  "Well if that's what you're into," Bekah said ambiguously. "Oh…hold on. There he is." Bekah waved at a tall, lanky, disheveled looking man who immediately veered towards them.

  "Rebekah," he said as she hopped out of her chair. He gathered her up in a hug and bent down to give her a quick kiss on the forehead. "You look fantastic. You're not in here enough. You need more coffee for that stressful job of yours."

  "You know perfectly well that it's not stressful. And anyway I don't really drink coffee, Connor," she reminded him swatting at him playfully.

  Lexi couldn't help but stare between the two of them. Were they flirting? Was this dolled-up princess actually flirting with this guy? Whoever he was, he had to be over six-feet tall with wiry brown hair and dull brown eyes. He'd obviously had acne problems when he had been younger. His nose was a bit too large, but it kind of fit him in a strange sort of way. He wore brown corduroy pants with a faded green coffee-stained, deeply wrinkled button-up, and tweed vest. This was not someone that Lexi would have ever in a million years pictured Bekah knowing let alone hanging out with.

  "Oh I'm so rude," Bekah said tearing her eyes from Connor. "This is Jack's uh…friend, Lexi. Lexi this is Connor. He owns the coffee shop."

  Lexi was able to put the pieces together now. Bekah seemed to only know people who were important enough for her. If this guy owned the shop, then he must be rolling in money, even if his appearance didn't give that away. "Nice to meet you."

  Connor quickly took their orders exclaiming about the drinks being on the house. Bekah got right back to business. "So, I don't really know where to begin with you, to be honest."

  Lexi didn't know what that meant.

  "I had a plan when I talked to Danielle and Kate."

  Lexi rolled her eyes and then let them wander around the shop. She had completely tuned out what Bekah was saying. It's not like she really wanted to talk about this. She just wanted to get things out of the way.

  "Did you hear me?" Bekah asked, touching Lexi's arm lightly.

  "Oh I'm sorry I spaced out."

  "I just asked how many serious boyfriends have you had?"

  Lexi blushed slightly. "Well two since high school." Hearing the words out loud really made Lexi want to crawl into a hole. She hadn't really thought about the fact that she hadn't had a serious boyfriend in so long. Sure, she had dated, and she had been in strictly uh…sexual relationships, but she didn't count those. So her measly number still stood at two. Two guys in six years. Pathetic.

  "So one other than Jack," Bekah asked lacing her fingers together.

  Lexi swiftly glanced up trying to read Bekah's expression. Was this girl clueless? "Um…no. Jack and I were never together."

  Bekah narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

  "Well you already met the two serious girlfriends Jack had: Danielle and Kate."

  "Right," she said leaning forward in her chair, "But you guys were together. I mean I talked to Kate."

  Lexi sighed. "I wouldn't believe everything Kate told you."

  Bekah twirled her earring contemplating what Lexi had just told her. "I realize Kate is probably biased to a degree. But she said that you guys were together so I just took her word for that. I'm sorry."

  "I'm not sure why you're sorry. You claim to know nothing about me. And anyway, it's an easy thing to misconstrue. You heard the conversation I had with Krista. I haven't seen her in years, and she thought Jack and I were together if not now then at some point. But it simply isn't the case."

  Connor appeared with their drinks. After another round of flirtation, they continued their conversation. "Okay. So you and Jack weren't together."

  "Nope."

  "Okay well I guess that clears up why he didn't tell me about you," she said under her breath. Lexi decided to just pretend like she was deaf. "So how did ya'll meet?"

  Lexi desperately shoved her hair behind her ears. She hadn't thought that a simple question could seem so difficult...so terrifying. All along she had the notion that talking about her relationship with Jack would be easy. But so much of what they had gone through had been covered up and hidden for so long, the thought of peeling back the layers and revealing it to somehow else all of a sudden constricted her. She gasped and reached out for her coffee, realizing for the umpteenth time that morning that she was desperate for the stuff. Even worse was that she was just as desperate for something stronger...eh...much stronger.

  "Sorry," Lexi said smiling weakly. "I haven't really talked about Jack to anyone in a long time. Our uh...situation wasn't exactly healthy, to put it politely."

  "What do you mean by that?" Bekah asked sipping on her chai tea.

  "The reason we were never together was because every time we tried, things or uh...people," she said averting her eyes, "just kept getting in our way. For the longest time, I thought that Jack and I really were going to end up together." She could feel her skin warming with embarrassment at the statement. "But some shit went down between us, and we just stopped talking. Pretty much end of story
. I'm not sure what else you want to know," Lexi stated bitterly.

  Lexi could feel Bekah's piercing gaze evaluating her. It wasn't a comfortable look, and the silence that followed was even worse. "Okay well I get that you guys aren't together and haven't been for quite some time. I mean, I'd at least surmised that much," she said giggling. "Jack and I have been together for a year and a half, and he's never mentioned you before.""Not that he would," Lexi said under her breath.

  If Lexi had thought the last look she had received from Bekah was uncomfortable, it had nothing on the look she was giving her after that comment. "Excuse me?"

  Lexi sighed heavily. Should she tell her? Of course, she had come down to Atlanta to talk to this girl, might as well start from the beginning and with the truth for once. Slowly, pulling back the first layer of their relationship, Lexi began, "Well you asked first how we met. We met at a coffee shop, similar to this actually, where he worked for some time in college. I didn't find out for nearly two months that he had a girlfriend. And Danielle never found out about me," Lexi said bluntly. Bekah's jaw dropped slightly. Whatever she had been expecting, that wasn't it. Not even close. "So when you say that you had never heard about me, I wouldn't take it for granted that was because we hadn't spoken that whole time."

  Lexi hated admitting all of that stuff, but the girl had asked for the truth. She might as well be frank with her. Some people were good at sports. Some people were good at school. Some people were good at working. While some people were good at commitment, Jack was good at avoiding commitment. Honestly, Jack had always best at lying.

  "So, you're saying that you guys have spoken or...done more than speak since we've been together?" Bekah asked suddenly, getting choked up at the thought.

  "Uh...no," Lexi said awkwardly. She hadn't really meant to imply that. "I honestly haven't spoken with Jack since he left New York. Well, up until he called me about you."

  "Well then, what kind of point were you making?" Bekah asked angrily.

  Lexi shook her head a couple times, and then pushed her hair behind her ears before continuing. "I wasn't making a point about your relationship. You wanted to know about the type of relationship I had with Jack. So, I was telling you. It was one filled with lies."

  "Lies?" Bekah's blue eyes were glittering with wonder. Lexi was pretty certain that her interviews with Danielle and Kate had been exceedingly dull compared to the dirt Lexi was sending her way. Then again, Danielle and Kate had had perfectly normal...ish...relationships with Jack. They had flirted, dated, and broken up like normal couples. They had had normal emotional responses to situations, and had gone through relatively normal cycles of development. Nothing about Jack and Lexi had ever been normal.

  "He lied to me about Danielle. Then, swore he would never lie to me again. And to this day, I don't think he ever has," Lexi said wistfully.

  "But I thought you said your relationship was full of lies."

  This time Lexi did look Bekah directly into her naively, innocent eyes to answer her, "It was. We just lied to everyone else."

  Lexi was pretty sure that after that last statement, she would never meet the personable Bekah again. The two stared stonily at each other for a few moments before breaking eye contact and uneasily sipping on their beverages.

  Finally, Bekah broke the silence. "So what happened next?"

  "Uh…when?" Lexi asked surprised that the girl was even still talking to her.

  "After he lied to you about Danielle."

  "I refused to talk to him again for some time. But after he broke up with Danielle, he came looking for me hoping that I would forgive him. And I didn't at first."

  Bekah nodded. "He'd lied to you. That must have been hard. He's never done that to me."

  Lexi blushed not really wanting to correct the girl. She had been in town less than a day and already Jack had lied to Bekah because of her. Wow, things weren't that different. "Well…yeah. It's just this time around I had a boyfriend. When I told Jack about him, he didn't care. He pretty much persuaded me to come to his house and seduced me." Lexi heard the faint gasp that escaped Bekah's mouth, but she continued on. "I broke up with my boyfriend shortly after that. Mostly out of guilt."

  "But you said you and Jack weren't together?" Bekah asked her stony gaze still not wavering. Lexi could tell she was getting more and more reserved and withdrawn. She wasn't sure how much she should actually reveal to this girl, and Bekah looked to be having the same idea.

  "No. We weren't. I just couldn't talk to him after that. I had really strong feelings for Jack, and they scared me. Made me do things that I normally wouldn't. Made me act in ways that I…couldn't control." Lexi glanced up at Bekah to see her nodding along.

  "I know what you mean," Bekah whispered.

  Lexi hardly believed her. Bekah was another Danielle…another Kate. Everything they had was normal and expected. There was no way that she could have even a semblance of understanding as to what she had gone through. "The lying really got to me. I was terrible at it. Jack wasn't." Lexi knew she was reminding her about the lying just to be cruel. She wanted Bekah to ask Jack questions about it. She wanted to make her uncomfortable. She just couldn't stand the idea of sharing a feeling with this girl. It just felt wrong. Left her idea of Jack tainted and she wouldn't stand for it. "He didn't understand why I wasn't okay with lying to my boyfriend, when he thought we were so perfect for each other. When he thought that there would never be another girl as amazing as me," Lexi added spitefully.

  Bekah's blue eyes met Lexi's, and the understanding that had been there only seconds before was replaced by the deep loathing Lexi had seen the last time lying had been brought up.

  "Well if isn't my two favorite girls," Jack said coming up to them seemingly out of nowhere. He could tell that in his absence things hadn't exactly gone over so well. Bekah looked more pissed than he had ever seen her. Actually, this might be the first time he had ever really seen Bekah angry. He knew Lexi had a strange effect on people, but he hadn't considered what kind of toll that would take on Bekah. Lexi looked like she would rather be anywhere else right then. The tension in the atmosphere could be cut with a dull butter knife. He wasn't sure what he had just walked into, but it couldn't be good.

  Bekah glared up at him as the last words left his tongue. Lexi just smiled weakly not entirely sure how to take that statement.

  "Uh…I brought your suitcase," he told Lexi off-hand, attempting to make conversation. "I thought we could just go to Bekah's before the party tonight, and you could change there. Her place is just right around the corner."

  Lexi arched one-eyebrow in disbelief. He actually believed that she was going to go to this party? After the disastrous conversation with Bekah and the embarrassing confrontation with Ramsey, there was no way she ever wanted to hang out with these two again. "Oh, well I'm not going."

  Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Bekah got there first. "What do you mean you're not going? You already said that you would go."

  "Well no, I never actually said that. Everything was just kind of decided for me," she reminded him. The events of that afternoon had transpired so quickly that Lexi hadn't even had time to decline the party invitation.

  "But he assumes you'll be there," Bekah told her.

  Lexi wasn't sure why Bekah was trying to get her to go to this thing. She obviously didn't like her, and that was just fine with Lexi. All Lexi really wanted right then was an extra-large New York style pizza, sweatpants, and endless hours of super sappy chick flicks. "Well, he'll just have to get over it. I can't make it."

  "What do you have to do?" Jack asked.

  "Family."

  "Aren't you spending the rest of the week with them?" he continued to probe her.

  "Well…yeah."

  "Then you can come out for just one night with us," Bekah told her, standing and possessively entwining her fingers with Jack's.

  Lexi thought she might vomit at the sight. Her stomach was rolling and she didn't like it. She just needed to
get away. She needed to get away right then.

  Something was up with Bekah, and Lexi knew it. This girl couldn't be everything she acted like she was. Her emotions were all over the charts. She took every statement as if it were a personal blow against her. And Lexi was just trying to be honest! Well, so maybe she was telling the truth a little too blunt, because this girl got under her skin. But who cares? As soon as she had met Bekah, Lexi knew that this couldn't be the girl that Jack was going to marry. He just could not be with her. The sweet and innocent act that her looks conveyed only went skin deep and Jack could do better. He had dated her after all.

  With all these thoughts rolling around in her head, Lexi knew that the best thing for her would be to get away as soon as possible. She didn't want to do anything to sabotage their relationship. If Jack had wanted Lexi, then he would have called her sometime in the past year and a half. But he hadn't. And Lexi had to deal with that fact. She had to deal with knowing that he hadn't chosen her. He didn't want her.

  It hurt. Damn, did it hurt! But she wouldn't do anything to change it.

  But the other side – the less logical side – kept wondering why, if Jack did want Bekah, did he almost kiss Lexi last night? Why did he come home a day early from his trip to see her, and not tell Bekah about it?

  That was the side that agreed to go to Ramsey's party. The side that wanted to know if Jack still cared about her, the way that she cared about him. If perhaps, Bekah was just the next best alternative as he had described her to be.

  * * *

  K.A. Linde

  Ebb and Flow

  This love has taken its toll on me

  She said goodbye too many times before

  And her heart is breaking in front of me

  I have no choice cause I won't say goodbye anymore

  -Maroon 5 "This Love"

  * * *

  Chapter 8: May Three Years Earlier