Use Somebody

by Riley Jean

  “It’s not his fault,” Summer added. “That girl is playing so many games with him. Almost makes me miss Evelyn.”

  “At least she’s leaving,” Gwen offered. “Texas can have her back. She’s their problem now.”

  The girls snickered in agreement, the sound of it churning my gut. I couldn’t stand to hear any more. Not that any of this was news to me, but apparently there was a difference between knowing it and hearing it spoken in gossip behind my back by people who were supposed to be my friends.

  THWACK.

  That was the sound of the ice slipping from my fingers and falling to the hardwood floor. I watched the little broken pieces scatter and slip in different directions at my feet, my vision hazing, too pissed to care that I’d just inadvertently and dramatically revealed myself.

  I looked up to the sounds of gasps and expressions of guilt. As I looked into the faces of the girls who were supposed to be my friends, I realized it wasn’t anger I felt. It was resolve. I didn’t belong here. In this place. With these people. I was an anomaly. Unwanted. Good thing I never really fooled myself into thinking otherwise.

  They wanted me gone? Well good-fucking-riddance.

  I turned and walked away from them, away from that room, away from this house. Resigned to walk all the way home on this cold, January night.

  An errant piece of hay stuck out in my path and I ripped out the straw and threw to the ground.

  Thanks Summer, this was one hell of a farewell party.

  I just wished I didn’t have to wait another thirty-six hours to get on that plane.

  My name shouted.

  Hurried footfalls.

  Damn him for always chasing after me.

  He grabbed my arm. My reaction was instantaneous. I whirled around and shoved him square in the chest, pushing him away from me, preventing him from coming any closer.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, studying my face with concern, obviously seeing the unshed emotion burning in my eyes. “What happened?”

  Hot rage burned up my resolve. When I could only scowl back, he reached out for me.

  I pushed him away again, channeling my anger just like Ricky had taught me. It was surprisingly easy considering I had a lot to draw from at the moment. I was angry at the girls for gossiping. Angry at myself because there was truth to what they said. And angry at Vance for refusing to let me go. He was to blame for setting this whole thing in motion.

  As promised, my anger was stronger than everything else. The guilt, the hurt and even the indifference fell away. Fury took total control over me.

  “Are you happy now?” I shoved at him again. And again. I was right all along—the more you let people in, the more it hurts. “This is your fault! I never wanted any of this! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone!”

  He finally got hold of my wrists and pinned them down at my sides. “Calm down!” he shouted at my face as I continued to struggle. “Calm the heck down and tell me what happened!”

  “Your friends hate me,” I snorted like I didn’t care. “They hate me for what I’ve done to you.”

  “That’s enough.” He lightly shook me as if that alone could make me believe the lie. “You haven’t done anything to me, Rosie, you got that?”

  I shook my head. He was wrong, and they were right. They said everything I already knew to be true and turned against me exactly as I predicted. I projected my anger on him again and snapped, “This is why I didn’t want them to find out.”

  “You have five seconds to tell me what they said to you.”

  I smiled cruelly. Did he really want to know what his best friends thought? Did he know what it felt like to be stabbed in the back? Maybe, for his own good, it was time for him to learn.

  “They said you follow me around like a pathetic puppy. That I manipulate you worse than your ex. And that you’ll all be better off when I’m gone.”

  With each sentence, his expression morphed from concern into increasing fury that nearly matched my own. It was a side of Vance I’d never actually seen before. With this revelation, I watched a little more of the carefree, innocent boy inside disappear. He had become almost unrecognizable.

  And for a split second, his hurt and anger were enough to make me feel validated.

  He used to tell me it didn’t matter what people thought. That was before he ever felt the burn of betrayal, before he watched me open up—even a tiny bit—only to regret it. Again.

  In one swift motion he turned and pulled us back towards the Elliott’s house.

  “No Vance! Stop!” I dug my heels in, not wanting to face those girls again. But he never relented, never slowed, and ended up dragging me back into the house. He marched us through each room and all the way into the kitchen where the three girls still stood, wearing varying expressions of guilt and contempt.

  We stopped in front of them with my hand still trapped in his. It took every ounce of willpower to keep my chin up. I stood and faced my jury, on trial for negligence with this man’s heart. Maybe those girls thought pretty poorly of me (I certainly never claimed to be my own biggest fan). But at the moment I wasn’t too fond of them, either.

  “Well?” he said, his command so loud that all three of them startled. “Somebody better start talking. Obviously you all have something to say.”

  Summer started, “I don’t know what you’re talk—”

  “Stop lying,” he shot back.

  Gwen sniffed. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you two.”

  “Gwen?” His hurt was audible. Gwen had been on our side this whole time, wanting us to be together, rooting for our relationship. I knew what he was thinking: When had she turned against us?

  She folded her arms. “Wake up, Vance! She didn’t choose you! She chose to keep her secrets. She chose to leave all of us in the dust for Texas.”

  Summer smiled unkindly and folded her arms like Gwen, obviously backing her up.

  Vance’s hand tightened around mine. As much as he wanted to contradict her, he couldn’t. She was right and everyone knew it.

  The two fuming faces squared off as she prepared to pound the final nail into the coffin.

  “She’s just using you, Vance,” she said with a smug smile. “There’s always going to be another Ricky. She’s never going to love you back.”

  My stomach dropped.

  Vance didn’t even flinch.

  “No offense, Gwen, but do not preach to me about one-sided love. I’ll let her go right now… if you can name one thing that your boyfriend has ever sacrificed for you.”

  Shock registered on her face. I’d never seen her look as insulted as she did at that moment.

  After everything that went down, Gwen was still loyal to Hunter above all else. As a self-appointed advocate for soul mates and sacrificial love, to Gwen, questioning their relationship was like committing friendship suicide.

  He had a point though, the same position I’d had all along. She’d sacrificed everything for her boyfriend, yet he treated her like an option. So who was she to talk?

  “Anything?” he taunted her. I lifted a probing eyebrow as well. Would she be able to come up with even one example? Highly doubtful.

  I didn’t even care that she looked like she was about to rip me apart with her bare hands. I did not defend her. And I did not look away. I kept my eyes open as I severed the very last thread to my past.

  “Here you are,” Cole said, wandering into the kitchen and going straight for Kiki. He kissed her on the forehead then looked around, suddenly feeling the tension in the room. “What’s going on in here?”

  “An intervention, apparently,” Vance answered. “If you have something to say about me and Scarlett, now’s the time to say it.”

  Quickly assessing the situation, Cole glanced at me, then back to his friend. “Dude… I don’t have a problem with you or Scar… but you do know she’s leaving, right?”

  “That doesn’t call for the shit you said to her,” Vance frowned at the girls.

  “We
shouldn’t have said those things,” Kiki lamented. “I’m sorry. It’s none of our business.” That was a shock, coming from the gossip queen herself.

  “That’s just it though,” Cole said to her, then looked to Vance. “Maybe it should be. Look dude. I get what you’re going through. Scar’s a cool girl. Alls I’m sayin’ is, you’re starting to lose it, man. That’s not what we want for ya.”

  “Then you don’t get what I’m going through.”

  “So that’s it? You choose her over listening to your best friends?”

  “No. I choose her over everything.”

  I gazed at him, transfixed by his loyalty. No one had ever stood up for me like this. My desire to kiss him for his sweetness tangled with my urge to slap him for his stupidity.

  “If you cared about him at all, you wouldn’t be putting him through this,” Summer snipped at me. “You manipulative bitch.”

  Vance scowled at her. “Stop saying that!”

  “I will not! Don’t you see what she’s doing to you, Vance? This girl torments you. She has single-handedly led you astray. Look at yourself. Cussing. Fighting. This isn’t you.” Her voice softened. “This isn’t the Vance that I know.”

  He sighed and lifted his face to the ceiling. “Not now, Summer.”

  “Yes, Vance. Listen to me. Because I’m the one who’s always been there. I’ve known you since we were six years old. Now you’re selling yourself short and I can’t keep quiet anymore.” She took a step closer, her voice growing gentle. “Wouldn’t you rather be with someone kind? And stable? Someone who won’t leave you or play games? Someone who makes you happy? Because that’s what you deserve. You deserve to be with someone who loves you back.” Another step. “Just give me a chance and you’ll see. It would be so easy…”

  “Damn it, Summer! How many times do I need to say it!”

  She gasped, taken aback.

  “You know nothing about this girl,” he said, addressing everyone in the room. “Nothing. If you did, you’d see someone worth fighting for. Do you have any idea what she’s been through this year? Have any of you even asked? Or were you all too busy judging her?”

  “Listen to your friends, Vance,” I whispered. “They just want what’s best for you.”

  “Contrary to what you all seem to think, I’m not blind. There’s nothing you’ve said tonight she hasn’t already said before. I don’t care what you think of me, but you have her all wrong. Who do you think manipulated whom here? Because I’m not the victim. She is.”

  No one in the room dared to look him in the face.

  No one except me.

  I’d suspected Vance had been manipulating me. I’d experienced it enough to recognize the signs. And after all, he had learned from the best.

  But to hear him admit it publically and unapologetically gave me a strange mixture of feelings. Maybe I hadn’t always done right by Vance. But he was right—he wasn’t a victim. I had given him full disclosure about my boundaries and emotional deficiencies from the very beginning. He was the one who pushed. He was the one who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was the one who learned my weaknesses and then used them against me.

  All I did was compromise.

  Should I have been angry? Offended? Maybe. But I didn’t feel like I deserved that. I’d been using him just as much as he’d been using me. So instead of feeling guilt or anger, I stopped looking at him like my casualty, and saw him clearly for what he was—a man. A man who willingly entered into this destructive relationship. A man who was equally culpable.

  He might’ve said he wanted to see me happy, but he was still just a man willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted from a woman. This is what men did. This is what we all did. We were nothing but rooks and pawns, just looking for somebody to use.

  At last, I tied my guilt to that helium balloon, and watched it drift away.

  “All you need to know is I care about her more than anything. So just be a friend, alright? Just support me. Because I’m not giving up.”

  * * *

  We were on our way back to his place when I finally spoke up.

  “Come on. Surely you see the irony in this.”

  “Don’t go there, Rosie.”

  Yes. He saw.

  Summer was him, and he was me.

  I couldn’t help myself—I laughed. It was classic! Two best friends. One falls, the other does not. It didn’t get any more complicated than that.

  Now he didn’t even have a leg to stand on. Every argument he could possibly form would be one I’d already made.

  ‘I can’t change my feelings,’ he’d say. ‘I’ve been honest with her all along.’

  Sound familiar?

  Classic.

  I wanted to drop it. Honest I did. But there was one more question I couldn’t resist.

  “Do you think you could grow to love her?”

  That was the paradox. How could he answer? Were we talking about him, or me?

  He pulled the truck over sharply and exited with a loud slam, leaving me alone in the cab. I twisted in my seat and watched as he walked past the truck bed. He took a seat on the sidewalk, knees up, dropped his forehead into his hands, and just stayed like that.

  I crossed the line. I knew. Comparing my feelings for Vance to his for Summer wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t accurate. I cared for him more than I was brave enough to admit. We both knew it.

  The truth was, I didn’t even know why I asked it. Was I taunting him, or genuinely curious? To be perfectly honest, it was a little of both.

  The entire time Summer was confessing her feelings and asking him to choose her, Vance was staring at the ceiling. I saw remorse there, like he felt bad for her, but not an ounce of conflict. And I knew this, because I was watching him the entire time.

  How does it feel? I had thought.

  Not so fun when someone doesn’t take no for an answer. Is it?

  And not so fun to break someone else’s heart.

  I scoffed at what a hypocrite he was, dismissing Summer as if it were so easy to hurt a friend. Perusing me relentlessly as if together we made a lick of sense. Pretending all night as if any of this would matter two days from now.

  And then it dawned on me… Our situations were completely different. We weren’t the same at all.

  Because Vance never would have used her.

  As the anger bled out, guilt trickled back in. It was always there, ready and waiting, prevalent in my mind. Aware that nothing about this was quite right. Not this damn farewell party, or Vance’s denial, or the fight and Ricky’s brute violence, or the hole in the wall, or Summer’s unrequited love, or Vance’s unrequited love, or the struggle for this tight knit group to support their friend while disagreeing with his choices.

  Better yet, my secrets. My cowardice. My mistakes galore. And my running away.

  Chapter 39

  Tempted

  “A Drop in the Ocean” by Ron Pope

  “Did you keep it?”

  “Keep what?” he asked.

  “The drawing of the rose?”

  Vance’s bedroom was simple. The walls were gray, the furniture black, the accents green. And yet, just like him, it was full of warmth and life, with personal touches that told me a little more of his story.

  An old fashioned phone hung on his wall—the kind with a rotary dial and the voice piece attached to the unit. A wooden chest sat at the foot of his bed with the initials V.H. carved into its side. The laptop on his desk, whose screensaver flipped through images from I Can Has Cheezburger. The bottom ledge of his bookshelf dedicated fully to comic books. The custom fishing lure I gave him for Christmas dangled from the chain on his ceiling fan. His Eagle medal and badge displayed proudly in a shadow box. And the picture of us asleep in his cabin sat in a frame on his nightstand.

  “Cole told you, huh?” he chuckled, folding his arms and leaning on a dresser. “I’m not sure what happened to that. Guess I wasn’t always the hopeless romantic I am today.”

  A hop
eless romantic… I couldn’t argue with that. It was sadly fitting.

  I turned to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I gave you hints every day… Rosie.” He smiled, though it didn’t touch his eyes. “Guess I hoped maybe you’d remember someday.”

  “I remember now,” I said softly.

  He stayed put and just watched while I studied every corner of his private space. For so long I kept a wall between us and resisted fully entwining our lives. Now that our time was coming to an end, I wanted to soak up as much as possible. I wanted to know everything I could about his humor and his hobbies and his dreams.

  But perhaps I hadn’t shut him out as much as I thought. Because although this bedroom was brand new to me, so much of it felt familiar.

  It dawned on me how very final this was. Our last night together, our last time pretending. Still, as the seconds and minutes and hours ticked away, I couldn’t yet find the courage to say goodbye.

  “Would you…” I drifted off, looking down and suddenly feeling shy. I was about to leave. I was going to be all alone. And as the weight of that sank in, an irrational neediness took over.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Would you…” I tried again, then let my eyes flicker to the bed.

  He trained his attention on that bed as he processed the weight of what I was asking, his thoughts warring visibly within.

  “With you?” he asked, his green eyes not wavering from the bed. We had never laid down in here together. He had never invited me any further than the couch.

  I nodded, though he wasn’t looking at me. Slowly I walked over to the bed—Vance’s bed—and folded the covers down, sliding over to make space for him. The king size left plenty of room for both of us, though something told me we wouldn’t need this much space to spread out.

  It took a minute for him to move. He started slowly, first removing one shoe, then the other. Next peeling off each sock. His fingers moved to undo each button on his dress shirt, shrugging out of it, leaving only his Spill Canvas concert tee and jeans. All the while he never took his eyes off his bed.