by Amy Marie
I pick up the phone and check our voicemails not daring to make any return calls until Noelle and Trent have finished their rendezvous in the conference room. I’ve made that mistake once and will never do it again. Luckily no one else is coming in today and we have no appointments in the office.
Twenty minutes later, I hear the door open and the fornicators come down the hallway finding me.
“Oh shit!” Noelle yells, jumping back like I scared her.
Trent kisses her on the cheek and gives me a big cheesy smile. “What’s up, Hadley?” he asks just before making it to the door. He looks disheveled and sexy. His Decker Construction polo shirt squeezes the muscles all that manual labor gave him.
I continue typing away at an email. “Obviously you were.”
A boisterous laugh leaves his lips, and I look up finding a proud look on his face.
“Well,” Noelle says walking towards him, running her fingers over his biceps. “I took care of that for you didn’t I, Trent?”
He grabs her face with one hand and pulls her in for a long kiss. “That you did, Sunshine. That you did.”
After he steps out Noe walks down the hallway, probably to sanitize the table in the conference room. When she returns, I inform her about the Christmas party for Braden’s work and how since he pitched a fit about even going last night that he won’t be happy about us planning it.
“Why is he being such a douche?” she asks sipping away at her fresh cup of coffee.
I slump into the back of my chair. “I don’t know. He’s wanted to go every year! Plus, my car broke down last night and I couldn’t get a hold of him. Ryder had to take me to replace the battery this morning.”
“Ryder had to take you?” Her voice raises an octave and I almost have to cover my ears.
“It’s not a big deal.” I wave a hand at her knowing full well she will. “Don’t make it a big deal, Noelle.” One girl’s night I had too much to drink and told her all the sordid details. How I was infatuated with him in high school. How he went full force after me once the summer before our senior year started and how he ripped my heart out there underneath the bleachers of the football stadium. Not to mention how just weeks after I left he was nailing down any girl he could hammer. I found out after I confided in Emie.
“I have to call him.” I think to myself, glancing down onto the black and white tile floor of my aunt’s guest bathroom as I chip away the polish on my fingernails.
I take a deep breath and dial the ten numbers to talk to Ryder for the first time in three weeks. Just as I’m about to hit the send button I see Emie’s name pop up onto the screen.
“Hey, Em,” I answer sounding as torn down as I feel. I’ve never felt so alone in my life as I do right now. Sure, I’ve made some friends at the arts school and I talk to Emie on a daily basis but right now, well, I know things are about to change in a major way.
“I miss your face, Hadley. Come back to school,” she replies making me smile for the first time since this morning. When I don’t respond she asks, “What are you doing?”
I look at what sits beside me where I sit on the floor and my stomach drops, again. “I was about to call Ryder.”
“Ugh.” She groans. “Why would you want to do that? If he isn’t even asking about you why should you care?”
After I left I broke down and told her everything, and she has been keeping me in the loop of all things Ryder, even if I don’t want to hear them. Most of them I don’t want to hear.
“He still hasn’t even asked about me?” I ask dejectedly into the phone.
I can hear her blow out a breath into the receiver. “Nope. Not once, and he knows we’re best friends. But he’s too busy with half the cheerleading squad to bother seeking me out to find you. I wouldn’t hold your breath, Hads. Do NOT call him.”
My head falls into my hands as tears threaten to spill. “He’s onto cheerleaders now?”
I hear tapping in the background, most likely on her computer. “Well, he’s really into Bridgette Tate lately.” She giggles to herself before she twists the knife in my chest more. “Mentally and physically if you know what I mean?”
I can see it even through the phone. The wink Emie gives when she turns something innocent into something sexual. But her words strike me like lightning. Bridgette Tate. I hate that girl and now here I sit, my future literally in my hands, and he probably has Bridgette in his. I’m mad. Pissed. At Ryder. At Bridgette. At Emie for acting like what she’s saying isn’t crushing me.
“I have to go.” I lift my finger up to hit end waiting for her to say bye.
“You’re not going to call him, are you?” she asks frantically acting as though she didn’t just rip my heart out all over again.
“No but I’ll talk to you later, Em. Love you.” I hit end and lay down letting the cold tile soothe my heated body.
He’s out there screwing around while I’m here dealing the consequences of our supposed “love.”
I pick up the long white plastic test that lies next to me, gaping at it. The plus sign staring me dead in the face.
Pregnant.
“Someone looks deep in thought,” Noe comments, interrupting my miserable trek down memory lane, while she reads the messages I left on her desk.
Getting myself together I look over and smile at her.
“Kinda,” I start. “I have to go meet Janie this afternoon to talk to her about what she wants to do this year for the annual Christmas party. I have so many great ideas. Do you want to come with me?”
A chuckle escapes from her belly. “I’m good. I just came with Trent but you go ahead. Let me know how it goes.”
I shake my head at her. “I should be shocked by the things that come out of your mouth.”
Her shoulders rise in a shrug. “Usually come goes in my mouth.” She winks and goes back to her messages.
I try calling Braden three more times before I head over there, hoping he has listened to his messages. I’d hate to blindside him just showing up to his work.
~~
My car gave me no issues when I started it up and now I’m sitting in front of Braden’s job, trying again to call him and looking at his car wondering how this is all going to play out. I still don’t understand what went wrong. Why he doesn’t want to go. Why he walked out of the house and hasn’t returned my phone calls. Why it seems like we’re back on our downward slope. Why I’m nervous to walk in those doors knowing that he is in there. Somewhere.
I step out and just as I slam the door shut my phone rings in my hand. Looking down I see Braden’s name and reluctantly pick up. “Hello,” I answer making sure to sound as annoyed as I feel.
“Hadley!” He practically yells causing me to pull the phone away from my ears. “Where the hell are you?”
Taken aback I stop midway through the parking lot. “Excuse me? I don’t hear from you for twenty-four hours and that’s how you greet me?”
I can hear him hiss and know that he is seriously mad. “Where. Are. You?”
My feet finally start moving again, and I open the door to the building. “I’m walking into your building. I’m meeting Janie in five minutes. I saw your car in the lot but...”
I’m pulled into one of the unoccupied offices halfway through my sentence. I don’t have to look to know who it is. “What the HELL, Braden?” I ask using force to pull out of his grasp.
He looks over my shoulder towards the door and puts his phone into his pocket. “Shh.”
“Don’t shush me!” I push off him trying to distance myself but his grip is strong. “Braden, can you please release me?”
Voices fill the hallways, and I turn around to see who it is but in an instant his lips are on mine. Pushing, pulling, prying but I don’t relent. I’m pissed that he would ignore me for a day and then try to kiss me without so much as an apology.
“Get off me!” I yell between tongue thrashings. He pulls back, his chest bobbing up and down with heavy breaths. “What the hell has gotten into
you?” I ask.
His eyes stray towards the door again as more voices fill the hallway before returning to mine. The hair on the back of my neck stands up with suspicion.
“Did you get your car fixed?” he asks in an ominous tone.
Throwing my hands in the air I adjust the strap on my bag. “Yes, no thanks to you!”
He doesn’t flinch. “Did your cousin help you?”
Hesitating, I search my brain for some way to tell him about Ryder without him flying off the handle and making our tense situation even worse. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong yesterday before he left...but after, well I can’t help but feel like I shouldn’t have let Ryder into my apartment.
But he left me no choice.
He asks again, growing impatient, stressing every word. “Did your cousin help you?”
“Yea, he did.” I lie not caring about the consequences if Braden should ever find out though I make a mental note to call my cousin Chris later and fill him in.
Braden’s eyes search the ceiling for something but when he doesn’t find it he looks back to me. “Let’s go home.” He reaches for me but I step back.
“What part of ‘I’m meeting Janie’ didn’t you understand? I’m planning your party and whether or not you go, I am.”
I turn around, walking out of the door and towards Janie’s office.
Before I get there Braden turns me around and pulls my face within inches of his. “I love you, Hadley,” he tells me, his voice laced with desperation.
I search his eyes and it feels like hours before I respond. “I love you too,” I tell him.
I swallow hard as the words leave my lips. For the first time in a long time I feel like we might be falling apart without a chance of being put back together. I don’t know what changed from Saturday until today but something has shifted and our world is off its axis. I think he is hiding something and I know for a fact I am. Even if Ryder and my interactions so far have been innocent, a lie is a lie.
It’s been a rough week. Between my run in with Ryder on both Sunday and Monday, and barely seeing Braden for the past five days my strength is deteriorating and fast. After my meeting with Janie, I tried to call him and see what his plans were for the week so we could talk with yet again no answer. I’ve heard more from Ryder texting me than Braden and it’s starting to wear on me.
A million thoughts run through my head as to why Braden would be acting this way and all I can come up with is that he is cheating on me. Either that or he wants to break up. What other explanations can there be? He has successfully avoided me, and as I sit here tapping my fingernails on my desk, I wonder what the hell I’m going to do.
“Ugh,” Noelle groans. “Can you please stop doing that with your nails? It’s driving me crazy!”
I turn one hundred eighty degrees in my chair to face her. “I can’t. This thing with Braden is making me sick to my stomach, Noe,” I tell her as nausea settles over me. “I don’t know what’s going on with him!”
Sure, things between us are far from perfect but I’ll be devastated if he is running around with someone else. I think the blow of a break up would hurt much less than finding out he is cheating.
“Ask,” she states simply.
Like it could be that easy.
My head falls back into the chair and I look up at the ceiling wondering if it is truly in fact that easy. I’ve done everything but ask him what the hell his problem is. I’ve called him, texted him, invited him over for dinner...anything I could think of and he just isn’t taking the bait. I don’t know what else to do...except maybe to back him up into a corner with no place for him to go and fucking ask.
Turning my chair back around, I grab my phone and shoot off a text to him before I chicken out.
Me: We need to talk. Meet me tonight or I’ll assume we’re over. I can’t live like how I have the past week.
Our relationship seems like a roller coaster. One minute we’re up and the next we’re plummeting down to the ground only to be saved yet again by the incline. Right now it seems like we are falling with no steep hill in sight...and Ryder coming back into the picture is not making it easy on me.
My emotions are running wild trying to figure out how I can hate what Ryder did to me. Hate that he wasn’t there when I desperately needed him the most but feel my body come alive whenever he is around me or how my heart flutters when I get a text from him. All I can do is attribute it to him being my first love, and you never forget your first, but maybe that is just a lie I tell myself so I can feel better about hating to love him.
All week he’s been checking up on me, on the car, asking to go out for coffee or just to talk. As much as I want to I just can’t. I need to figure things out with Braden and sort through the feelings of letting Ryder back in my life–if that is something I choose to do.
When Ryder isn’t around it’s easy for me to think clearly. Just to let it all sink in that he hurt me, scarred me but anytime he is near all that goes out the window and I can’t think straight. I let him in my apartment. I let him help me. I let him back in just a little and now he’s pushing for more knowing very well that I’m taken. Not that our relationship is stable at this point, but Ryder doesn’t know I haven’t spoken to Braden in a week.
My text pings and I quickly pick it up.
Braden: Just tell me when and where.
~~
I feel nervous as I get ready for my meeting with Braden. It seems weird to call it a meeting since he is my boyfriend. I throw some liner on to make my eyes look smoky and a tint of pink gloss over my lips. I leave my hair down the way Braden likes it. The red highlights have been dyed back to match the rest of my hair color so that I stop looking “like a teenager” as he so delicately tells me.
I pull the towel off of me and slip into a pair of skinny jeans and a purple sweater adding the small diamond stud earrings he gifted me last Christmas. It makes me think of the upcoming holiday. A week ago I thought maybe it would be when he would propose. Now, I’m just wondering if we will even be together.
My cell pings with a text and I throw some deodorant on and a spritz of body spray before picking it up.
Ryder: Drinks tonight?
He’s relentless. It’s two innocent words but they hit me right in my core. How sad is it that I would rather go get drinks with Ryder than deal with the possibility of ending my relationship with Braden. At this point I’m torn between wanting that and wanting to fight for what we’ve worked hard on the past two and a half years. I have to do the right thing. I respond to him for the first time since Sunday.
Me: Sorry. I have plans.
Ryder: She answers, finally!
Me: Haha. I’ve been busy.
Ryder: Not even one drink. Just one. I’ll buy.
Me: I can’t. Meeting Braden.
That should deter him. When I don’t get an immediate response I put my socks on and head to the door, slipping my boots, coat and gloves on. Once my door is locked, I run through the crisp December air to my car, turning it on and blasting the heat, waiting for it to warm up. Curious, I glance back to my phone and find another text.
Ryder: I’d be much more fun ;)
I smile down at the phone but don’t let it distract me from tonight’s mission to find out what is going on with Braden and me, even if going out with Ryder does seem like more fun.
~~
The bar is almost completely empty with the exception of a few patrons. I sit down in a quiet corner booth at promptly six o’clock and order rum and Coke from the waitress noting how completely bored she looks. I used to be a server. I know how much it sucks to work on a Friday night and have it be completely dead. My parents didn’t have much money so I worked my way through college based on the tips of other poor college students. I barely made enough and I am still working through my student loan debt. The job at Events Unlimited saved me from not only being up to my ears in bills but also kept me from the lifestyle of a starving artist. I started off as a recepti
onist there but have slowly been trained to take on some events. The Christmas party being my first official one I plan from minute one.
I had tried to sell the paintings I made but no one is interested in them unless it’s from a famous artist. Sure, I could go work at a school as an art teacher but unfortunately those classes seem to be the first to go during budget cuts. Even though I would love to spend my days painting in overalls outside on a beach somewhere I still like my job at EU and have fun letting out my creative side when I have free time–which isn’t much.
Halfway through my drink I look at my cell finding it’s already twenty after six. Swiping the screen to the side, I dial Braden’s number, immediately getting his voicemail. I wait another minute in case he is trying to call me and when my phone doesn’t ring I try him again.
Voicemail.
A sinking feeling takes over in my chest when I think that he might not show up. This could be the end of us. If he doesn’t get here soon I know it’s over. Even if we have tough times it always sucks when something you worked so hard at is over.
Without asking the waitress takes my drink off the table and returns with a new one. I must look like I need it. I make a mental note to tip her well.
An hour later, after five calls to voicemail, ten texts remain unanswered and three more rum and Cokes, I’m sad, angry, happy and downright confused. I could be worried that something happened but right now all I can think about is how much Braden doesn’t care about this relationship.
Crossing my arms on top of the table, I lay my head down wondering who I should call to come pick me up. I’m in no shape to drive. When I finally decide that I should just call Emie the sound of heavy footsteps getting closer to my table fills my ears.
“Oh, now you decide to show up?” I say, my voice muffled into my sleeve.
