by Portia Moore
“You talked to my dad about this?” I ask her, looking up. She’s standing across from me, hands on her hips. She doesn’t look sympathetic or worried. She looks angry. I can’t blame her, really.
“I came over this morning before I drove out to school. I couldn’t even sleep. I was so angry that it didn’t resonate with me until after you left that it was probably him. I was just so shocked,” she says tensely. I can imagine. Then it clicks. That’s why my dad and Lauren were looking at me like I had horns growing out of my head this morning. My dad must have talked to Lauren. I let out a groan. I can’t imagine how hard it was for her to think I was Cal and then realize I wasn’t.
“I didn’t have a blackout. I wouldn’t call it that because I don’t remember what happens when I black out. I remember being here yesterday, talking to you and going home, it’s just…everything is hazy,” I admit to her. She comes and sits beside me.
“You’ve got to get some help, Chris. No more putting this off. I know that you have a condition and that this other life happened, but it’s different when it’s right in your face. That guys a fucking asshole. If I'd known it was him, I would have kneed him the in groin,” she says, and I laugh. Only I’m not sure if it was him. It’s likely it was, but yesterday was different than what’s happened before.
“I’m going to set up an appointment tomorrow. I promise,” I tell her, sensing her anger starting to slowly subside.
“You have to. This is just too stressful for us to deal with without professional help. You have to learn how to control him and keep him away. Screw integrating or whatever the experts say you’re supposed to do. He needs to go,” she says adamantly.
I nod. It’s not anything I haven’t heard from my dad a thousand times.
“Thanks for not kicking me in the groin,” I joke, taking her hand in mine. She squeezes it back. She doesn’t smile but her frown is gone. I suddenly remember the reason I came here in the first place.
“Let’s do something fun tonight,” I say excitedly. All that’s been happening between us is arguing, fighting, and stress or a combination of all three in the past month. We haven’t had fun in forever.
“Like what?” she asks curiously.
“Skating. When’s the last time you’ve been?” I ask, and she shrugs, a small smile on her face.
“Probably since I was fourteen,” she chuckles.
“Go get dressed. Let’s go,” I say enthusiastically.
“Now? It’s almost nine,” she says hesitantly.
“Come on Jenna. It doesn’t have to be long. An hour, hour and a half tops,” I urge.
She’s thinking.
“As long as we’re back before eleven.” She laughs, getting up and heading to her room.
“Give me ten minutes to change,” she says with a grin. As she changes, I try to forget the fact that Cal told my fiancé to go fuck herself.
If it was Cal.
Chapter 42
Lauren
I thought it was him. I swear to God I did.
He seemed different. I really did think it was him. When he winked at me I nearly passed out, but then it was gone. He’s lucky he was gone because the moment he mentioned Jenna, I had to keep myself from jumping over the table and slapping the shit out of him.
I’m glad I didn’t do that because a minute or two later, I realized it wasn’t Cal. This was the closest Chris had ever seemed to Cal. If I wasn’t confused before, I sure as hell am now. I was really hoping we were going to a bar but because Lisa got suspended, we’ve ended up at a skating rink instead. I’m not looking forward to this AT ALL. When I see Jenna and Chris walk in holding hands, I want to throw up. When she sees us at the checkout counter waiting for our skates, her smile is replaced by a full blown scowl.
This is going to be loads of fun.
The worst part of this is that I have no clue how to skate. I’m going to end up at a table eating corn dogs, popcorn and drinking cheap beer, because let’s face it, I definitely need a drink. I could really use a stiff drink but I have a feeling they’re not going to have liquor as strong as I need tonight.
“Did you guys order our skates already?” Chris asks, a nervous smile on his face as he notices Jenna grimace.
“We ordered yours. I didn’t know Jenna’s size,” Aidan says with a shrug. “What’s up, Jenna?” Aidan’s acknowledgement is barely a mutter.
“Hey, Jenna, glad you could come out tonight.” Lisa sounds more enthusiastic but it comes off more like sarcasm. How did Chris end up engaged to someone neither of his best friends can stand?
“Chris didn’t tell me you guys would be here,” she says, smiling tensely before shooting daggers at Chris.
“Oh, he didn’t, huh?” Lisa asks knowingly as she hands Chris his skates.
“Well you girls look awfully dressed up to be at a skating rink,” Jenna says to Lisa, but turns to look at me with disdain. “We can’t all dress like someone’s grand— ”
“We were originally going to Ardeby’s,” Chris quickly interrupts. “Why don’t you guys go grab a table?” he says, gesturing to me and Lisa.
“That’s a great idea,” Lisa says. She and I make our way to find a table large enough for all of us.
“Don’t you just want to slap her?” Lisa jokes, and I let out a frustrated breath. I glance over at them. She looks like she’s giving him an earful.
“I take it he didn’t tell her they were meeting up with us,” Lisa jokes, looking in their direction as well. That just makes this even more awkward. I feel silly. I haven’t dressed up in such a long time. Really, this isn’t even how I used to dress up with Cal, but I still feel overdressed. Half the people here seem to be high-schoolers, and I can’t even skate.
“This is going to be fun, Lauren. We’re going to have a blast.” Lisa’s obviously reading my mood.
I try to plaster on a fake smile. “Well, let’s get to it then,” she sings, putting on her skates. I loosen my laces before sliding my feet in. Aidan already has his on and skates over to us like a pro.
“I’ve still got it,” he says, leaning on the table.
“So who wants to go first?” he says, sticking his hand out to both Lisa and me. Lisa huffs.
“You know I roll solo,” she says, sticking her tongue out at him before making her way to the rink. I frown, I had planned for her to be my crutch for the little skating I planned on doing tonight. The way she’s moving around the rink, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
“Okay, it’s just you and me Lauren.” Aidan extends his hand to me.
I shake my head. “No, I’m just going to sit here and order something to eat,” I say timidly.
“Eating at a skating rink. Nah, trust me, you don’t want to do that.” His face scrunches up before flashing me a Colgate smile.
“The food’s bad?” I guess, and he nods.
“Come on, let’s break a leg,” he says, gesturing his head to the main rink. I let out a little laugh.
“I might actually break my leg out there,” I say looking at the floor. He looks at me skeptically, his clear, blue eyes narrowing in on mine as realization dawns on his face.
“You can’t skate?” he asks, covering up a laugh. I look away embarrassed.
“Why didn’t you say anything? We could have gone somewhere else?” he asks earnestly, and I shrug.
“I’m sort of the tag along. I didn’t want to want throw a wrench in things.” I shrug.
“You’re not a tag along,’ he says, sitting across from me. I glance over at Chris and Jenna who still seem to be having some type of disagreement.
“If anything, Lisa’s the tag along.” He playfully nudges my arm and I laugh. He’s different than I originally thought he was. I don’t know if he had been drinking the night I first met him, but he seemed like a complete horn dog the way he was eyeing me that night. It’s not that he hasn’t glanced at my cleavage tonight, but no more than most guys do.
“Come on. I’ll help you,” he says, taking
my hand.
“I don’t know. Everyone out there looks like they know what they’re doing. I’m just going to be in the way,” I say hesitantly, scooting my way back to the table.
“Everyone has to learn at some point. Granted, most people learn when they’re a kid, but we’ll make an exception since you’re hot,” he says playfully, but I feel myself blush at the compliment, even though I roll my eyes. I stand up and steady my balance. I attempt to walk in the skates, but end up grabbing his arm to not fall flat on my butt.
“I’ve got you,” he says, wrapping one of his arms behind my back so it won’t take us a year to get to the rink. It takes us a minute but we finally make it. There’s a nice amount of people skating. No one else looks like they’ve never done this before. Aidan lets go of my back, stands in front of me and puts out his hands.
“Hold my hands and act like you’re walking…on wheels,” he adds, and I take a baby step towards him. I immediately almost fall again but he grabs me, and laughs.
“Kind of go side to side while you’re walking,” he says, and we try again. I get a little further before busting my butt.
“Or you could just hold on to me,” he says. So I grab his arm and hold on for dear life.
Chapter 43
Chris
I shouldn’t have come. I definitely shouldn’t have brought Jenna tonight. She was not happy when she realized Aidan and Lisa were here.
She was furious when she saw Lauren.
Granted, I should have told her, said something or mentioned that this was already planned for all of us, but if I had she wouldn’t have come. I wanted her to come so that we could have fun, forget about all the issues we’re having, and just enjoy each other. Apparently everyone else is having a fantastic time except us. Lisa has always loved skating so she could be the only one in the rink and she’d be having fun. She’s actually a really good skater and kind of a show off, but what’s bothering me is how much fun Aidan and Lauren are having.
Together.
It started out as just annoying. It seems Lauren doesn’t know how to skate, and Aidan sucks as a teacher because for the past half hour or so she’s had to cling to him all the way around the rink. They’re talking and laughing so much that Lisa ditched her solo performance to join in on the fun. It’s good that they’re having fun. It’s just irritating to watch them together but I can’t seem to stop watching either.
“Whoa!” Lisa says as I almost slam into her. Luckily we’re both pretty good and manage to not face plant.
“Chris! What the hell,” she asks angrily once we she’s stable on her skates again.
“Sorry, Lisa. I didn’t see you,” I apologize. I really wasn’t paying attention.
“I’m sure you didn’t, seeing how hard you’ve been staring at Aidan and Lauren since you’ve been on the rink,” she says knowingly. “Come on. Let’s have a little chat, buddy.” She links arms with me and we skate off to the table. Jenna’s still in the arcade room, where she stormed off to, after she finished blowing up at me.
“I haven’t been staring.” It’s not that much of a lie. “But they’ve been skating almost an hour and he hasn’t even gotten her to where she can skate without holding on to him,” I say defensively, and Lisa shakes her head.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous.” She chuckles.
“Jealous? Why would I be jealous?”
“Of course, it would be completely ridiculous if you were jealous. It’s not like you have feelings for this woman deep down inside,” she says sarcastically, and I stop. She does the same. I frown at her. She leans forward and sighs.
“Chris, it’s okay to have feelings for her. I think it’d be strange if you didn’t. Yes ‘Cal’ is the one who met her fell in love with and married her, but at the end of the day, Cal is a part of you,” she says, looking me directly in the eye.
“You need to be honest with yourself. His feelings are your feelings,” she says sincerely.
“It’s not exactly like that,” I say confidently, but these days it’s starting to feel like she could be right.
“Oh please, Chris. She hasn’t even been here two weeks and the way you look at her, it’s not like you just met. It’s something deeper than that,” she says adamantly.
“I love Jenna,” I state plainly.
“And Lauren?” she asks bluntly.
“I’m not going to lie and say I don’t feel anything,” I say honestly. I look over at her with Aidan, how she laughs, the dimple in her cheek when she smiles, the way my heart speeds up when she’s near me, but it’s confusing. I don’t really know her, but…
“I can’t believe no one has suggested this. That you haven’t even considered it, but maybe you should put things on hold with Jenna until you figure all this out.”
“I—I can’t do that. Jenna, she saw me through the thing with my mom. She knows me. She loves me,” I say to both her and myself.
“I know Cal loves Lauren. It wasn’t just a physical thing like I thought, but Cal loves her. Those are his feelings,” I say, avoiding Lisa’s knowing gaze.
“Well, Cal hasn’t been the one staring at Lauren all night.” she says sarcastically.
“I know you want to be fair to Jenna, but this, how you’re feeling now isn’t fair to you, to her, or Lauren for the matter.”
I drop my head.
“Trust me, it’s no fun being in love with a man who's in love with someone else,” she says solemnly. I’m about to ask her what she means when I see Jenna walking towards the table. She’s long abandoned her skates. She sits down not glancing at either of us or saying anything. After a moment of awkward silence, she huffs.
“How much longer are we going to be here? It’s almost 10:30. I have class tomorrow.”
I sigh.
“I’ll go and see if Lauren and Aidan are ready to go,” Lisa says. “Well, actually, they look like they’re having fun,” she continues lightly. Lisa glances over at me as I turn around and watch them. They are having fun…too much fun.
Lisa sighs and stands up.
“Well, Chris and I drove together. There’s really no reason for them to leave just because of me,” Jenna says feigning innocence. “Come on, Chris, let’s leave them to it,” she says, standing and taking my hand. Lisa looks at us awkwardly.
“I’m not really ready to go.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“You’re not ready to go?” she asks sharply. “Right. Because you’re having so much fun,” she says sarcastically.
“I think they’re ready too,” Lisa interrupts. “I’m going to go get them,” she says, and quickly skates away.
Jenna lets out a deep breath and puts her head in her hands. “Do you think I’m stupid, Chris?” she says quietly.
“No, I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“You are really, really pushing it…why did you bring me here if you were just going to stare at Lauren all night,” she says angrily.
“I wanted to come here to have a good time with you, and ever since we got here you’ve acted like you don’t want to be here,” I protest.
“I didn’t want to be here with them! I thought this was going give us a chance to spend time together. You didn’t tell me this was going to be a big field trip with your wife in tow,” she spits at me.
“They’re heading over. Can you please be nice?”
When they make it to the table, Lisa’s wearing a nervous frown. Lauren and Aidan are all smiles, laughing as they plop into their seats.
“You guys ready to go already?” Aidan asks, catching his breath.
“They’re going to close in a little while anyway,” I reply shortly. I’m not sure why I’m irritated with Aidan. Actually, I know why, but I don’t mean to sound like it.
“I told Chris that if you guys weren’t ready to go, you didn’t have to. For some reason Chris has Caylen confused with Lauren and thinks she needs a babysitter,” Jenna says, adding a laugh. The awkwardness sets
in as soon as she says it. I see Lauren’s eyes narrow in on Jenna.
“Well, I think I’m a great babysitter,” Aidan jokes, throwing his arm around Lauren’s shoulder. She smiles at him.
She smiles at him!
She doesn’t inch away uncomfortably or shoot me a glance for help. She just smiles. I can feel my face heating up.
“I’m starving. You guys want to get something to eat?” Lisa interrupts.
“Is the food that bad here?” Lauren giggles.
“Terrible,” Aidan says, turning his body towards her.
“I didn’t know you couldn’t skate, Lauren,” I say and she shrugs.
He gets a wide smile but I get an indifferent shrug?
“Yeah, I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s night by saying anything.” She laughs. I can feel Jenna shift in her seat.
“Chris, are we leaving or do I need to need to call a cab?” she asks me sharply. I see Lauren let out a deep breath. I’m trying to hold in my own.
“Oh, Chris, I meant to ask you. Could you take a look at my car? It was making this weird ticking sound while I drove to your house,” Lisa asks abruptly.
“Yeah, sure Lisa,” I say wondering why she’d pick now of all times to ask me.
“Great. How about I just drive your car home? I can drop Jenna off, then come back tomorrow and pick it up.”
“Yeah that’d be cool,” I say trying to contain my smile. Lisa definitely wins best friend of the night award.
“Come on, Lauren. I’ll walk you up to turn in your skates,” Aidan stands up and takes Lauren’s hand to help her up. I think my eye literally twitches as they go to the counter together.
“See, everything works out,” Lisa says cheerfully. Jenna’s glaring at me like she wants to rip my head off. “I’m going to go turn in my skates.” Lisa leaves me at the table alone with Jenna.
“I don’t even know why I’m here, Chris,” she says quietly. I expect her tone to be deadly and spiteful, but it’s just quiet, and it makes me feel ashamed.
