“Oh…okay. Great,” I answered, even though in the back of my mind all I could think of was, No, we most certainly are not. Until you stop brainwashing my friend into being with you, we are certainly not cool… Although, I figured that a ceasefire between me and Dalilah could only help the odd relationship that I was trying to have with Shawn, so I just smiled.
“I…um…I heard about your mother,” Dalilah answered, as though she was truly concerned.
I was thoroughly confused. “Well, I didn’t…” I said before I could stop myself, “What about her?”
Dalilah looked confused right back for a moment before she answered, “It’s okay. Shawn told me what happened. He told me that your mother is sick and that you were talking to him about it the other night.” She smiled. “You’re a good friend; keeping him in the loop, even though you aren’t talking to him.”
At this, I wasn’t sure if I was more outraged at her for bringing it up, or furious with Shawn for telling her that. “My mom is fine,” I answered, far ruder than even I intended. After all, if there was any truth to it, at least she was trying to be nice.
I had no doubt there was an ulterior motive, but still, until I knew what it was, I couldn’t fault her for asking about something like that; if there actually was something like that going on, which there wasn’t.
“It’s okay,” she answered carefully, “I completely understand. It’s really hard to have something like this happen. I totally get it and Shawn told me that you wanted it to be kept a secret…I will respect that. I promise.”
I narrowed my eyes and sputtered through my growing sense of rage. “Shawn told you that?”
“Yes.” She nodded carefully, as though she wasn’t quite sure whether she was able to get an accurate reading on my reaction. “But in all fairness, I kind of forced it out of him. We’re not going to focus on the details, but long story short, I saw you two meeting secretly in the park the other day and so, obviously, I had some questions.”
I shook my head in an effort to clear it before I glowered at her angrily. “Dalilah, I swear to you, there is nothing wrong with my mother.”
Still, she didn’t seem to understand. She narrowed her eyes at me and peered intently into my gaze. I decided to spell it out. “He lied to you.”
At this, she reared her head back and instantly grew nasty. “I was just trying to be nice. You don’t have to go on the offensive.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” I insisted, now too frustrated to stand here and argue with her when my blood was boiling over Shawn’s horrendous indiscretion.
She rolled her eyes at me and hissed, “Okay…Whatever…” before she turned quickly and stomped away from me.
However, now I didn’t care that she was gone. In fact, I was glad. After all, the only person I wanted to talk to at the moment was Shawn.
I quickly pulled out my phone, not wanting to completely freak out on him in public and sent him a text message. We need to talk. ASAP.
Before my next class, I received a text back. Okay. What’s wrong?
You are a deplorable human being, I answered. And you have a lot of explaining to do.
After class, I received his next message. What did Dalilah tell you?
Can you meet me after school?
Sure…
The rest of the day I was in a red-sighted haze. I couldn’t believe how angry I actually was at him. There was no reason for him to be acting like this. She’s your girlfriend for God’s sake. The very least you could do was make up a better lie.
Now, I understood why he would feel the need to lie to her. I really did understand. I saw firsthand how manipulative and crazy she could be, so I could see telling her almost anything to get her off of his case; but the opportune word there was almost.
After school, I stomped to the park, where we had met last time and thankfully, we were alone. The last thing I wanted to do was have some neighbor overhear me and get the wrong idea about my family. After all, the she-devil herself already had the same idea stuck in her head and apparently refused to yank it out and therefore, I didn’t want the same thing to start circulating between the neighbors.
The last thing I needed was for Shawn’s stupid lie to get back to my mother. It might not bother her, what was being said, but I knew who was saying it would probably bother her quite a bit.
Chapter Eighteen
Shawn
I had a slight pain in my stomach all day, wondering what could have happened. I knew that Dalilah was behind whatever it was, because that woman would not go down without a fight and she loved to concoct plans behind everyone else’s back, thinking that she was far smarter than everyone.
However, I couldn’t imagine what had gotten Valerie so upset.
Yet, when I saw her face, glowering at me from across the park, I had a pretty good idea that my inclinations about what Dalilah had shared with her were fairly spot on. For the entirety of the day, ever since I had received that first text message from Valerie, I had tried to convince myself that as rough as Dalilah was on me and as sneaky as she was, there was no way she would betray my trust.
However, now, I knew the truth and it made me extremely angry. I knew that I shouldn’t have trusted her, even with a lie, but now that I had, it hurt me that she would go behind my back, stab it and turn the knife so methodically.
As I walked up to Valerie, I figured that my best shot at a saving grace was telling her, “I am so sorry…”
“Yeah, you should be,” she spat without the slightest sense of empathy. She lay into me, heavily and angrily, but I knew that she was hurt, which made the scolding even worse. “How dare you! Why would you tell her anything about my personal life, whether it is true or not? You had no right to incorporate me or my mother into your lie…and to say what you said about her…That’s awful!”
“I had to say something,” I blurted, realizing what a lame defense that was, but not really caring all that much.
“And that was the first thing that popped into your mind?” she demanded. “That’s terrible! Next time you have to lie and you feel that it needs to be so absurd, tell her that your own mother is sick and leave my mother out of it…at least then, you wouldn’t actually be too far from telling her the truth.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but then was struck with a sense of anger and hurt. Now, it was I who could not believe what Valerie was saying. I felt my eyes narrow as I glared at her. My breath became slightly heavier, before I answered in a cold, hurt fashion, reflecting all of the terrible thoughts that were rumbling around inside of my mind at the moment, “You know what really sucks? The fact that if I tried to be so concerned for my own mother, she wouldn’t have believed me. I care about you and I care about your mother. I used to think that you both cared about me far more than either of my own parents did, but the more this…whatever this is that keeps going on between us lasts, the more I am starting to realize that this has nothing to do with you wanting me to come home, or even…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but I was sure that the look in my eyes gave it away. I peered at her intently, willing her to see me the way that I saw her, but the look that I received back confirmed that I was not that person to her and I probably never would be. “But lately, she is the only one who is there for me. Like her or not, she is the only constant in my life.”
At this, Valerie stepped back, as though I had slapped her, and scoffed at me before saying, “You’re the one who left…and if you remember, you’re the one who called it off the first time, so don’t try to turn this all around on me and make me out to be this terrible person. I was right…” She hissed, looking me up and down with a sense of disdain in her eyes. “You are despicable.”
With that, she turned around and began to walk away. But after a moment and a sigh, through which I released all of my aggravation and anger, I couldn’t bear to let her walk away from me like that again. “Valerie, wait!” I ran after her. She turned around and stared at me, as though she was trying to pi
erce me with laser vision and turn me to dust. Still, I took solace in the fact that she had stopped.
I knew then that I had a chance.
“Wait…” I exclaimed again as I caught up with her, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry.”
“For what, exactly? It’s a pretty long list.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me, as though to increase her concentration so that I would inevitably fall into a pile of ash on the ground.
Since I was still standing there, however, I figured it hadn’t worked. “For everything. I know why you are upset about what I said…and I am sorry that I hurt you. I was angry then. I didn’t realize that I had hurt you…”
“You didn’t care, either,” Valerie replied earnestly, now making her eyes wide as she spoke.
I nodded and after careful contemplation, I replied, “You’re right. I didn’t care. That’s on me. When our parents announced they were getting married, almost to the day, I was going to ask you to go out with me. I knew that it was strange, being that our parents were dating, but they had dated for years, so I figured that we had a shot of it not actually being strange. By that point, I figured they were content in their relationship and would never take the next step into making it official. I had never thought that their status would change. They were always just…dating. So, when they said that they were getting married and that we were going to be living together as brother and sister, I was angry. Everything changed and then, to make matters worse, even my relationship with my father changed and that screwed up the whole dynamic.”
She nodded, showing that she was listening to me intently.
“Therefore, I never told you how I felt and when you came to me that day with your suggestion, I was scared. Everything was happening so fast…and I didn’t want to have to worry about losing you too. I thought if we could stay friends, without the complications of a relationship, especially of our relationship, given our new parental status, that I would have a better shot of things never coming undone between the two of us.”
“But you hurt me,” she said again and as I looked in her eyes, I saw that she was remembering the words that I had said to her.
Reluctantly, my mind flashed back to that as well and I heard my own, panicked voice ringing in my ears; “Eww…We’re about to be step-siblings. We can’t date now…Besides, I never felt that way about you anyway. We’re friends, Val…That’s all we can ever be.” I then remembered her heartbroken expression, which was a lot like the one she was wearing right now. When my mind came back to the present, I grasped her hand and pulled it toward me. The familiar feel of her skin was comforting, even though in my mind, I was a barrel of nerves. “Look…When I said what I said, I wasn’t telling you the truth. I only said that so that you would stop making me hope for an us, but at the time, I did mean that I thought all we could ever be was friends.”
“But we’re not even that now…”
I nodded solemnly. “I know and I want that to change.” I grasped her other hand and brought it toward me. I rested her touch against my chest and looked deeply into her eyes before I told her honestly, “I know I have made a lot of mistakes and I probably will make a lot more, but I still want a chance. I want to be what I told you we could never be…Forget what everyone has to say. I want to give it a shot.” I smiled at her, but my heart began to ache when she did not smile back.
I could tell that she was thinking about it though, which gave me hope, until she lightly pulled her hand away and began a justification of her own. “That explanation is great. I completely understand,” Valerie answered finally and I was once again hopeful that I had just read her initial reaction wrong when she paused; but then her voice dropped in that pause. “But, unfortunately, as always, the truth and the explanation for your actions came about two years too late.” She backed up from me, ignoring the blatant sense of hurt that was clear on my face. “I’m sorry, Shawn.” Then, she turned and walked away from me…again.
Chapter Nineteen
Valerie
I didn’t know what to do. I was so distraught and angry, now feeling even worse than I did originally, but for more internal reasons.
Part of me wanted to know what the big deal was. So, he has a crazy girlfriend and so to get her off of his back, he told her a lie. Why does that bother you so much? That thought was especially brought home when I thought, after all, the alternative of him telling her the truth was far more detrimental. Especially since nothing happened.
I needed something to take my mind off things so I called Zachary. He didn’t answer his phone though so I decided I would walk around the mall.
It wasn’t any fun by myself and I knew that from the start, but besides Shawn, the old Shawn and Zachary, I really didn’t feel like being with anyone else.
Even though I couldn’t pour my heart out to Zachary about what was going on, for obvious reasons, I still wanted to be with him. He brought me back to reality and calmed my frantic nerves. It was comforting to be with him. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yet, by the time I had taken the bus to the mall, he still hadn’t called or texted back and so, I figured I wasn’t going to hear from him today.
I had noticed lately that Zachary was acting strange, but then again, I also wasn’t acting quite myself. So I knew that I shouldn’t really be trying to find an explanation or accusation toward him when he could easily turn around and say the same thing about me, with more accuracy and proof of my odd behavior.
Therefore, I refused to let his silence bother me. Instead, I made it a point to have a good time, even if I was slightly lonely. That was okay. I would make do; I always did.
I grabbed a large cup of my favorite coffee and wandered around a couple of my favorite stores, trying to convince myself it was better to be able to window shop at my own pace, without a boy telling me how they were done looking five minutes ago literally six minutes after we walked into a store. I was never one to be overly girly or have many friends that were girls. In fact, I had always preferred to hang out with the boys; but right now, I kind of wished I had a girl that I could trust to talk about my predicament with…and to shop, because I just wasn’t into it.
I was lonely and that only caused me to be sadder and more depressed. I tried to sort out my situation in my head, but every time I tried to figure out what the best course of action would be, every suggestion or idea I came up with fell short.
However, the solution, at least to the seemingly menial problem of having a boyfriend, but wondering if I was still pining over Shawn, was solved for me in a way that I would have never expected.
I was walking by the bathrooms when I saw a familiar figure leaning against the wall, as though he was waiting for someone. I stared at him for a long moment, almost in disbelief.
Zachary was standing there, alone for the time being, with his phone in his hand, looking as though he was about to be busy but hadn’t quite gotten there yet.
Still, I just figured that maybe there was a good reason for him not returning my call. I started to make my way over to him, but stopped short when I saw another girl from our school come out of the bathroom.
Zachary lifted his head and smiled at her when she walked out, but to make matters worse, he left with her and easily slid his hand into hers as they began to walk. He even laced his fingers between hers.
I didn’t mean to keep watching them and in fact, I wished that I wasn’t, but my eyes were glued to the telltale scene unfolding before my very eyes. I tried my best to fight back tears, but they insisted on filling up my eyes. I blinked, but was unable to relieve myself of them. They just started to roll down my cheeks as I looked at the two of them together.
Then, when they reached a corner, Zachary turned, pulled the girl into his arms and kissed her passionately.
My jaw dropped and all I wanted to do was scream. I blinked as more tears rolled down my cheeks, but to my horror, when I opened my eyes, they were still standing there, making out as though there was nothing wrong with it. And
from the looks of it this wasn’t the awkward encounter of a first kiss. It was abundantly clear that they had done this all before, and that likely wasn’t the only thing they had done.
As soon as I was able, I turned around and ran the other way. I couldn’t get out of that mall fast enough. Looking back, I probably looked like a crazy person. I was sure my makeup was running, in addition to the gush of tears that were falling from my eyes and the hysterical nature of my bolt toward the doors, but none of that mattered.
All I wanted was to get to a place where I could be left in peace. I wanted my own space, to freak out, scream, cry or mourn the relationship before severing the bonds that had tied us, for two long years, completely and forever.
While I sat on the bus and sobbed, thankful that no one cared to notice me, I thought about how this seemed to be happening to me lately and I had no idea why.
What did I do, that my whole life got turned upside-down like this? I thought angrily, before I shrugged my shoulders and continued to cry.
When I finally returned home after what was probably the longest and most grueling, painful bus ride of my life, I ran up to my room, thankful that no one else was home and collapsed on my bed. I screamed and yelled ferociously into my pillow, before I took everything that reminded me of Zachary and threw it into a garbage bag. I was finished with having anything of his anywhere near me. I didn’t want to even look at the garbage bag by the time I was done, because it reminded me of the malice that I held for him.
I couldn’t believe he did this to me. Even though I had thought about being with Shawn on more than one occasion throughout our dating, I certainly hadn’t done anything with him! I realized that a part of the reason why I was so upset was because he had found someone else.
I had always thought that I would be the one to move on. I was shocked to realize that the reason behind our breakup was that he cheated on me. It wasn’t that I had expected to cheat on him, but I did think, naively, apparently, that if we were to break up, the reason would be because I had moved on. I had never thought that he would ever have…
Dirty Stepbrother - A Firefighter Romance (The Maxwell Family) Page 76
