Now I was angry with him. “You know that is just as big of a chunk out of my life, that I miss every single day, but I don’t let that define me.”
“Well, I’m glad you were able to figure it all out! I’d appreciate it if you let me in on that secret at some point,” he answered sarcastically. “You know, I could really use it.”
I glowered at him and shook my head. “I can’t talk to you like this. I don’t know why I even bother!” I groaned with frustration before I broke completely free of his grasp and began to walk forward quickly.
I sensed that Zachary had stopped short, but was assured of it when I heard him groan from behind me. “Seriously? This is really how you want this to go?” He waited for me to respond, but I just kept my pace until I heard him shout, “Fine! See ya later, I guess…” His sigh was loud, but I didn’t turn around. I certainly didn’t need to deal with this right now.
I was having a crisis and if Zachary was going to be all super sensitive about the whole thing, then I certainly didn’t need his presence making everything in my life worse. I continued home and straight up to my room, without speaking another word to anyone.
Chapter Eight
Shawn
I moaned in protest at first, hoping that I was imagining things, but when the banging on the door came again, a little more impatient this time, I realized that not only did someone feel their existence here was urgent, but they probably also knew I was home.
“I’m coming!” I yelled as I put my soda can down and stood up. I certainly wasn’t in any hurry and as I made my way toward the door, I made a mental note of all the people I expected to be behind it.
The number one choice was a boyfriend of my mother, who would probably mistake me for another boyfriend and possibly try to knock me out.
That had actually happened before, which was a little awkward.
Granted, my mother didn’t exactly advertise that she has baggage that she herself tries to forget, so I supposed I should give the man the benefit of the doubt.
The second most likely person was going to be Valerie; I knew all too well that she hated confrontation. And with the way things ended earlier, it wouldn’t be too farfetched if she were to show up here and try to make amends, whether I wanted to or not.
Valerie had that effect on people. Well, she had that effect on me, specifically, but right now, even though I wasn’t looking for another fight, I was secretly hoping that she would give me a chance to explain.
Then again, after what I had said and what she had gotten from our argument earlier, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if she decided that she wanted to knock me out too.
After all, I did kind of deserve it and if she got her one good shot in, I was hopeful that it might lead to a speedier resolution, especially if she drew blood.
Valerie couldn’t hurt a fly and so, if her anger caused her to stray from her morals far enough so that when she hit me, it mattered, then she would instantly feel bad and would inevitably cause her to forgive me. That was just the way Valerie worked.
Finally, the third most likely option was, “Dalilah…Hi!” I said pleasantly as I opened the door, even though I was still really looking forward to the whole “being alone” objective.
Well, that ship has sailed, I thought as she pushed past me.
From the look on her face, I wasn’t quite sure if she was here to comfort me, or knock me out for some reason, just like options one and two.
“What happened to you today?” she demanded.
I knew that the confused look on my face didn’t help matters, especially when she was so volatile, but I couldn’t help the dumbfounded expression as I asked her, “What are you talking about?”
She growled loudly and began stomping back and forth. “We were supposed to meet up after school, you were supposed to bring me here, but you tore off just as soon as eighth period let out and you were gone!”
I smacked my head as I just now remembered our plans. “I am so sorry, Dalilah…I do remember now…” I groaned as I looked at her with an apology in my eyes.
“So, where did you go? What was so important that it made you forget your own girlfriend?” She demanded, now moving so close to my face that I felt the need to back up.
“Nowhere…Um…Here…” Then, feeling as though she wouldn’t stop killing me with her eyes until I told her the reason for my distress and stupidity, I added, “I’m sorry. I had a fight with my stepsister about my dad. It ruined the whole rest of my day and so anything after that kind of left me.” I shrugged as she moved closer, eyeing me with a careful, incriminating look. I stayed still and stared right back at her, unwaveringly.
After all, I had nothing to hide.
“I don’t believe you,” she announced suddenly, after a few long moments of contemplation, before she turned around and continued her stomping motion.
“What?” I declared in pure and genuine disbelief. “What do you mean, you don’t believe me? That’s what happened. That’s why I didn’t wait for you. I was distracted…” I sighed and allowed my shoulders to sag. The last thing I needed was this absurd interrogation.
“Is there another woman? Oh God…You are, you’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?” Her glower was somehow worse than Valerie’s but still didn’t hurt as bad, even though she was attacking my character.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. This wasn’t the first time that I had been down this road with Dalilah and I was sure, if she let it go any further, it would be another extremely long and aggravating ordeal. “No,” I answered her solidly. “There is no other woman…” I grasped her hands, pulling them just enough that she stopped and stared at me. When I finally had the full attention of her eyes, I assured in a voice that was both clear and stern, “There is no other woman, Dalilah.” I smiled, hoping that my honesty was proving itself. “I only have eyes for you.”
With that, her posture eased a little and she stared at me intently, as though once again trying to figure out whether or not I was telling the truth. Her lie detector wasn’t very good, since I had never lied to her a day in my life, but she seemed to think it was and tried to convince me that it was almost every time we fought.
It was at that moment I was left to her whim. This was the difficult part to Dalilah, but I supposed like with every relationship, you had to take the good with the bad.
“Okay…”
“And I’m sorry,” I said again. “I promise I will make it up to you.”
“Take me to the movies,” she demanded with just enough sweetness to sugarcoat the fact that this wasn’t a question. “There is a new movie coming out on Friday and I want to be one of the first to see it.”
I shrugged, just happy that I dodged a bullet that would have made for a very unpleasant evening. “That sounds like a plan.”
Chapter Nine
Valerie
Distraught, I didn’t come out of my room all afternoon. I wasn’t quite sure how I was feeling about my boyfriend. I knew that I would probably, eventually feel guilty for being so hard on him and that would require a nice apology, but no one insulted my friend and got away with it.
More like an older sister, I supposed, than a friend, I could say anything I wanted about Shawn; but no one could say anything against him, or I would fight them tooth and nail, even if they were right.
I didn’t think that Zachary was right. After all, he didn’t know the ins and outs of Shawn’s strange family dynamics. Not like I did. I had grown up with them. I had watched his mother destroy his spirit, again and again, while also witnessing his father crash down on him and then turn around and say something nice to me, as though nothing had happened.
In a way, I wished I did know why his father did those things, but I hadn’t the faintest clue. Shawn’s father was a mystery to me. He was nice and he was always good to my mother, but there were certain aspects of his relationship with Shawn that I had never understood.
When we were little, he seemed to be a doubting, supportive
father. Shawn and his father were almost friends, even though he always had respect for him. Shawn’s father, Paul, always treated me nicely and had concern for me, when no other male figure did, which was always great.
Every time Paul and Shawn went anywhere, Paul would always offer to take me and he would teach me, right along with Shawn; but it did seem as though the moment he married my mother, his perspective on how he treated his son changed.
They instantly seemed to grow apart, but neither me nor my mother could figure out why. It seemed that Paul refocused himself from his son to his new family, all but cutting Shawn out of the frame.
He had always been strict about grades, but Shawn had never done well; yet it never seemed to be much of a problem until we all became a family. Then, it seemed that the hammer came crashing down on literally anything that Shawn tried to do. Where his father was once encouraging, he was now even more strict and constantly borderline of being mean about it.
I had hated when he said anything about Shawn in relation to Zachary, because while I was happy about my parents liking my boyfriend, obviously, I knew that, just like Shawn, there were issues that Zachary had that they had no idea about.
Zachary wasn’t a bad guy, but just as I wouldn’t be so quick to judge Shawn’s reactions, I also wouldn’t be so quick to assume that Zachary’s excellence in virtually everything he did was completely genuine.
Zachary always had to be the best. He put that pressure on himself and that bothered me quite a bit. I tried to help, but after dating him for as long as I had, I realized that there was no way to get him to ease up on himself.
He felt as though he had something to prove to everyone, since he didn’t have a father figure to prove it to. Personally, I thought he should seek council, since I was afraid that one bad failure would send him reeling into insanity, but that was just me apparently. Everyone else seemed to think he was absolutely wonderful and that failure wouldn’t even grace his life, no matter what he tried to do.
For Zachary’s sake, I hoped they were right.
“Valerie!” my mother called as she knocked on the door to my room. I thought I had heard her talking to someone.
I took a deep breath, trying to decide if I really wanted to answer her or not, considering the sense that I received from her voice. I knew that I had to say something, since she knew that I was in here, but I had really just hoped to be alone.
“Yes?” I tried not to sound so upset over literally everything.
“Zachary is here. The sweet boy brought flowers.” She laughed, but then turned serious. “He said you had a fight. What would you like for me to do?”
I rolled my eyes, suddenly realizing that his effort to make up with me first was the trigger that made me feel intensely guilty. “Please tell him I’ll be right out. Thanks Mom!”
“Can I come in? Just quickly…”
I slapped my hands against my face, trying to relieve it from the rush of tears that were previously flowing down it. “Sure…” I sniffled up my last bit of sadness, at least for the time being.
My mother opened the door with a concerned look on her face. “Are you all right?”
I nodded.
“You’ve been crying. Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” I insisted and then sighed. “I’ve just had a long day…”
“Zachary?” She asked in a careful tone, turning her head sympathetically. As I shrugged, trying to be more convincing then I was, she sighed and added, “Shawn?”
I nodded.
“Both…in one day?” She asked, almost as though shocked.
“It’s a new record,” I answered, trying to lighten the mood. “But, it’s okay. It’s not my fault with Shawn…I know that.”
“I was afraid something like this would happen…” She sighed and dropped on my bed.
I shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. No real harm done.” I smiled sadly at her. “I don’t know.” I stopped and looked up at her before I answered as her comment clicked, “Wait…What do you mean?”
“Well, it isn’t like I haven’t noticed that you and Shawn have been on the outs with one another and then had a miraculous, slightly random rekindling of your friendship over the weekend.” She sighed. “But that kid is so angry, I don’t think he can actually forgive himself, or anyone else for how he is feeling. I was hopeful that you two would start to actually be friends again, like you were before, but I was afraid that once the medicine wore off and you got back to our daily routine that you would just go back to being…whatever it was that you two have started to be.”
“Yeah…I know. It sucks.”
She nodded. “It does, but if Shawn wants space, it is best just to give it to him. I know it’s hard, but sometimes, that’s just what we have to do for those that we care about.”
I thought about this before I smiled, genuinely enlightened this time. “Thank you, Mom. Maybe you’re right.”
She smiled as she patted my shoulder. “I know I’m right. If nothing else, I know you two kids. Come on! Get going! You don’t want Zachary’s apology flowers to wilt out there.”
At that, I got up and walked out onto the porch. Zachary stared at me for a moment while I closed the door, but did not speak until we had the assurance that we were actually alone.
“So…” he said carefully, “um…These are for you…” He extended his hand out with the flowers.
“Thank you,” I answered easily and took them. “They’re beautiful.”
“Thanks,” he smiled, before he started to say something else, but I interrupted him.
“Hang on,” I put my hand up in the air. “Before you say anything, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. It was completely wrong of me to say anything like that. I was out of place and I was upset, so I just said things that I shouldn’t have.”
“But, not that you don’t mean?” He asked, staring at me suddenly with a hard expression.
Now I was caught off guard. “I…Well, it wasn’t my place.”
“No,” he replied, “You’re right. I understand where you were coming from and I also completely get that what I said, how I said it especially, was not right and I am sorry for that. I know that you two are close, or were close…but I just don’t like to see him hurting you, especially when his reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with you.”
I smiled at him and kissed him. “You are forgiven.”
He beamed at me. “I was never really mad at you. I’m sorry that I overreacted, about everything. You know I could never really be angry with you.”
At that I stopped and even though my lips were smiling, the last thing I felt was happiness.
In fact, I felt just a little bit guilty. Still, I ignored the feeling and moved forward. “Thank you.”
“Hey listen…I was thinking…Maybe I could make it up to you? Get your mind off of this whole Shawn fiasco.”
“Okay,” I sneered in a teasing manner. “I’m all for being made up to.”
He chuckled. “Well, I know that new movie that you wanted to see is coming out and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?”
“You want to go see that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and looking at him suspiciously. “You really must feel the need to make something up to me. Are you sure that all you are repenting for is our argument this afternoon?”
He shrugged and easily replied, “I don’t know…I’m a glutton for punishment?” His smile was cute and reminded me exactly why I liked him so much.
“Must be,” I answered, still eyeing him with mock suspicion. “But before you come to your senses, sure! I would love to go!”
Chapter Ten
Shawn
Throughout the course of the next week, Dalilah came over a lot, but I rarely saw my mother.
I supposed I was happy with that, but even if I wasn’t, there wasn’t much that I could do about it. So I might as well just be happy with what I had.
Now that Dalilah had me alone though, I couldn’t help but notice her will
ingness to assure me that she was the only one for me; that she was the only person on the planet that I could really trust.
In a way, I felt that she was right, especially in light of what had happened with my stepmom, my dad and Valerie. But in another way, it really bothered me.
So, after one comment too many, I finally asked, “Why do you say that, Dalilah?”
She seemed confused at first. “Because…it’s true? I would think that you, of all people would realize that.”
Usually, I liked the fact that Dalilah was so direct, but today, not so much. “What are you talking about? I’m the one who ended things with them…”
Dalilah gave me a slight attitude before she answered, “I would think that you’d be able to understand that…” She glowered at me. “Seriously, I have been here almost every day since you moved out and I have yet to even meet your mother.” She tilted her head to the side, almost as though she was mocking me and demanded, “And have you ever even heard from your stepmom, who you seem to think you are so close to?”
I went to refute her claims but stopped short, not exactly being able to defend either one of my mother-figures, my stepsister, or my father, even though he hadn’t even come up.
“Well…” I said carefully,, “no, but that’s just because I pushed them away. I wouldn’t contact me either after treating Valerie the way I did.” I did have to admit that I was beginning to feel a little bit guilty for saying what I did to her. The more time that passed, the more I felt that perhaps I really had taken it out on her too harshly.
Dalilah barked a laugh. “What? Are you serious? She deserved every word you said. She is horrible to you. She can’t even stick up for you with your father and she reaps all of the rewards…” She raised her eyebrows as though she was wondering why this was even an argument. “They’re only dragging you down. You’re an adult. This is your life. It shouldn’t be dictated by people who don’t even care about you.”
Dirty Stepbrother - A Firefighter Romance (The Maxwell Family) Page 72
