Safe With Me, Part 8 (The End) Read online

  When I got home I went straight to the living room. I barely stopped to let my backpack and coat hit the chair as I raced to the side of the couch where I kept my bong hidden behind an end table. I didn't even bother to put it in the closet anymore; I needed it too often. It had gone from a weekly occurrence to a daily ritual. My so-called friends were all apparently too busy listening to Tyler play his guitar to hang out with me. The only person I had left who would smoke with me was Jacinda, but I wasn't in the mood for her incessant cheerfulness.

  I smoked a bowl, then turned on the TV, waiting for the thoughts to stop. Unfortunately, it was one of those days when nothing made them go away. Instead of laughing as I flipped through the channels, I got lonelier. Everything reminded me of him. Every damn guy wore a flannel shirt. Every damn one of them had long hair and big, gorgeous brown eyes, and arms that I imagined crushing me in a tight embrace until the pain subsided.

  Fine, I give up.

  I decided to let myself think about him for a little while. Get it out of my system. My efforts to resist were only making it worse.

  I took out my cell phone and scrolled through my contacts to see my favorite picture of his face. He was driving, staring at the road, one hand on the wheel. He didn't know I'd taken it until several days later. It was a beautifully ordinary moment; the kind of moment I missed most of all.

  For several minutes, I gawked at that picture, fantasizing about what it was like to sit beside him and let him take me wherever we were going. I didn't care about the destination. I was already right where I wanted to be. It made me laugh to think about the trouble he went to for some of those dates. We saw every outdoor attraction in the area that was still open in November. Went to little out-of-the-way museums I'd never heard of. It was thoughtful of him to find so many new things to do, but the best part was always just sitting there beside him.

  Clenching the phone in my hand, I closed my eyes. I wanted to smell him and hear him and feel him and know he was there. I wanted to spend just one more minute in his presence.

  And then my eyes snapped open at the dull sound of a phone ringing. "Shit!"

  I'd always hated that damned touchscreen phone. It was too easy to accidentally hit a button when I was high. I made the ringing stop before his voicemail picked up.

  Several minutes went by and he didn't call back. I thought I was in the clear.

  But then the phone rang. And there was that picture again.

  I cringed as I answered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to call you."

  "Are you all right? I couldn't get to the phone before. What's wrong?" He sounded breathless.

  I heard the chaotic sounds of a busy repair shop in the background. "I'm so sorry. Really, it was an accident. I can tell you're busy. Let me hang up."

  "I'm never too busy for you. What is it? You sound weird. You need something?"

  And just like that, it felt like we were still together. Right back in our unrealistic little fairy tale. "No, I promise I didn't mean to call you. It's this stupid phone. I should probably just delete your number. I'm sorry."

  He breathed loudly for a while, and then there was silence.

  I didn't blame him for hanging up on me. It took me all of five seconds to realize my hasty comment about deleting his number was possibly the most hurtful thing I could've said. This was a guy who'd stopped everything he was doing to return my missed call.

  I stared at his picture again, unable to make myself delete him. Instead, I put the phone down on the coffee table and gave myself permission to cry for a little while.

  Susie

  Friday, January 28, 2011

  9:10 PM

  I paced my front porch in the comfortably cool night air, waiting for Dan as I held the phone to my ear. "I promise, I didn't let the homeowners' insurance lapse. It always gets paid once a year. Shouldn't you be teaching a class right now?" It was my third anxious phone call in a week from Aunt Lydia. I only answered because our last phone call ended with an argument, and since I had plans that night, I hoped to make amends quickly…then hang up.

  It was the first time in many days that I didn't have to wear my heaviest winter coat. Instead, I wore a dark purple cardigan over a matching cotton tank top. My black pants were ones I'd purchased by accident months earlier but forgot to take back to the store. At the time, they were too big. Tonight, they were on the verge of being too snug. But at least they had just enough stretch to feel comfortable. I didn't feel like going shopping for new clothes. With the exception of pants and underwear, I figured I could probably go the rest of the semester with my existing wardrobe. I honestly didn't care what size I was, as long as my webcam lingerie still fit. Food and weed had become my two best friends and together we could coast in blissful harmony until graduation.

  "Well, then what's this notice for? It says it's time to renew some sort of policy." She got quiet as if she were reading under her breath.

  "I get those all the time. It's junk mail. They make it look official but it's not. If I still forwarded your mail I'd never let you see that crap." Lydia had deemed me untrustworthy in recent weeks. She had just opened her first shipment of mail, forwarded directly from the Post Office via some kind of special delivery service. She never did it before because her mail might contain things that pertained to me, the current homeowner. But now, nearly five years later, she decided enough time had passed and she could relieve me of this burden. Or, in other words, she no longer trusted me. And I had no idea why.

  "No, it appears to be authentic and it's quite strange." She gasped. "What? An in-home plumbing policy for a bathtub?"

  Oh shit. "Uh, don't worry about that. I know what it is. It shouldn't have gone to you."

  "Hmm. I do see your name on the front. The Post Office must have been in a hurry."

  "Why don't you just let me forward your mail again? It comes right here to the house. I knew this was a bad idea."

  "Where did you put this hot tub? It says it holds two hundred and fifty gallons of water."

  I gulped. "That’s not as much water as you think. And it's not a hot tub. It's just a tub."

  She laughed in a scolding way I hadn't heard out of her in years. "I live in a third world country. I know exactly what two hundred and fifty gallons of water looks like. Where did you put this? That house was built in the fifties. The bathrooms are all too small for something this size. It has to be a hot tub."

  "It's a gigantic bathtub, okay?" I scanned the street for headlights. "It's not a big deal. It's on the other side of the wall of my bathroom. The insurance policy is for the extra plumbing in case the upstairs ever floods."

  "In my library? It must take up the entire room!"

  I groaned. "You had two libraries. And I didn't throw anything away. I just had all your stuff from one library jammed into the other library."

  "Oh, sweet Lord. It's probably heavy enough to fall through the floor. Were you ever going to tell me? Whatever will I find in my house in May?"

  "It's my house now, and I made some improvements. Added a lot of value."

  "This is shameful! You have no idea what the people here would do with that much clean water."

  Way down the street, I could see the first set of headlights I'd seen since I came outside. I had no idea if it was Dan. "My ride's here. I gotta go." I cleared my throat. "Love you." And then I hung up.

  Thankfully, it actually was Dan. I ran down to his car, relieved to see a friendly face.

  I got inside and shut the door. "I'm glad you talked me into going out tonight. I just had another pissy conversation with Lydia." I sighed as I clicked the seatbelt in place. "I'm so not looking forward to seeing her in May."

  "What happened? You used to like talking to her."

  "I know but she's been really nosy lately. Especially about the house. Like she still owns it or something."

  "Ah." He chuckled and tossed the butt of his cigarette out the window as he pulled away from the curb. "She should know better than that by now."
/>   "Well, apparently not. If I'd known she was gonna act like this I never would've taken that house." I noticed he turned on his signal light immediately, as if we were heading downtown. "I thought we were going to Devil Dog tonight?"

  "We were, but it turns out they just closed for renovations till the end of March or something. Michael sent a text message about an hour ago. We're going to Maxwell's instead."

  I sighed. "Once again, I'm the last one to know."

  "Sorry. But hey, we're all glad you're coming out. You've been a hermit lately."

  "Only because my friends abandoned me."

  "No, we haven't. Michael and Jacinda both say they try to call you all the time."

  "Whatever. Michael doesn't talk to me at all in class. And Jacinda." I stopped to think of an excuse. Truthfully, I had no reason for avoiding Jacinda except that she probably would've made me feel better, and I didn't feel like feeling better. I rarely saw her around since she shocked everyone by changing her major at the beginning of the semester. "I don't know. I just haven't talked to her. What about you? You stopped calling me all of a sudden."

  "I didn't mean to. Listen, none of us like to take sides. Except Corbie, I guess. But, besides him, we wanna be able to hang out in the same room with you and Tyler, somehow. It's our last semester together. Gotta make it count."

  I silently pondered how it seemed as if I used to have so many more friends. They narrowed down to a smaller group each semester. And now, it had just narrowed down to me.

  For the remainder of our short trip to Maxwell's, we talked about everyone's future plans. Dan said he thought Tyler was planning to stay at Lumbrough for grad school but he wouldn't be surprised if he changed his mind at the last minute. He thought Corbie was going to grad school for sure. I secretly hoped it meant he was taking the private scholarship I gave him, regardless of whether or not he got over his anger with me. Michael had always planned to go to law school at a university closer to his hometown. Jacinda and Joan both had another year of undergrad left. Dan was taking some time off to move home and work for his uncle while he contemplated life.

  We talked about a few other people, and then he asked about my plans, which he hadn't asked about in a while. I told him my honest answer: I'd figure it out before May. The only thing I knew for certain was that I was finished with college. My plans for grad school were no more. It was fun while it lasted but I was ready for something else.

  I could never tell Dan, but there were days when I thought about dropping out. I was only getting this degree because my real dad, Preston Renault, was convinced that knowing the basics of accounting would help me make better decisions with the money I was soon to inherit. He didn't want someone taking advantage of me because they could tell I didn't know the difference between cash and revenue, or a balance sheet versus an income statement. I'd learned these things by now. Did I really need to stay to get a degree?

  Maybe it was time for a drastic change of scenery. If Preston was alive, would he be upset if I left now? He never explicitly said he wanted me to graduate. Lydia always told me how proud Mom would be that I decided to go back to college. I never told Lydia, but my decision to go to college had nothing to do with Mom — it had everything to do with Preston. He said if he had more time to spend with me, he would've taught me some things himself. Instead, we traveled the world and lived every day 'in abundance,' as he put it, until the day he started to cough up blood.

  I wiped a tear from my eye as Dan pulled up along the street outside Maxwell's.

  He frantically looked around the inside of his car. "You see my cigarettes? Had a brand new pack." He let out a relieved sigh when he found them three seconds later, wedged between his leg and the seat. "Okay, let's go."

  "Wait, is that Caleb's Civic up there?" I pointed up the street.

  He closed his eyes and made that little scrunched-up expression I knew too well.

  "Damn it!" I pounded my fist against my thigh. "Tyler's here, isn't he?"

  "Don't be mad, please?" He opened his eyes and turned to me, wincing. "I didn't think they'd be here yet."

  "I didn't think they'd be here at all."

  "Well, they were gonna come here, but the rest of us were going to Devil Dog." He chuckled. "And now we're all just here."

  "But—"

  "No." Dan placed his hand on mine. "Calm down. You don't even have to talk to him. Seriously, just go in there and have a good time and forget about him. We miss you. And if you're not gonna take him back and make it easy on us, we'll have to figure out another way to keep you around."

  I hated to admit it, but he made sense. It would probably be no different from avoiding him in class, anyway. "Fine," I said. It hurt to be around Tyler, but at least I could give it a try for the sake of some friendships I'd built over the years.

  "Finally." He smirked and extended his arms in my direction. "Hug."

  I unfastened my seatbelt and leaned across the seat to put my arms around him. Dan's body was scrawny compared to Tyler's, but he was cozy and familiar to my senses. For the briefest of moments, I wondered what it'd be like to rekindle our old 'relationship,' which floated somewhere between 'romantic' and 'friends with benefits.' It was more like an intense friendship with generous amounts of nudity.

  "Hey," I said, far enough away from his ear that it hopefully wouldn't seem like foreplay. "Remember a few months ago when you told me you'd come running over to take care of me if things didn't work out with Tyler?"

  He cleared his throat and loosened his arms, slowly drawing them away until he was back in his seat. "Don't do that to me right now, okay?" He rubbed his eyebrows. "I can't say I haven't thought about it but I'm trying so hard to be a good friend to him. To both of you." He shook his head. "And I finally…" He paused, his light blue eyes staring at his steering wheel, his voice weak. "I finally…stopped waiting for you."

  Instantly, a chill ran up my spine. He'd never said it out loud before. I'd convinced myself that Dan actually hated me. Somewhere deep inside, I guess I always knew his true feelings.

  I watched his eyes glaze over as he glared at his steering wheel. Knowing Dan, he'd just sit there all night, waiting for my response. I was determined not to accidentally say the worst thing at the worst time like I did with Tyler earlier that week. All I could say was, "I'm sorry."

  He stayed quiet for a moment, his eyes piercing the steering wheel. "I really wish I could hate him. That asshole swooped right in from out of nowhere…and…" His voice trailed off.

  "But what about how annoying I am? You always act like you're just tolerating me."

  "I know. That's what I wanted you to think, I guess. I don't know." Slowly, he turned to me. "Doesn't matter anymore. I want a girl to look at me the way you looked at Tyler. I saw it right before Thanksgiving when we were going over some test questions and he answered one." He chuckled. "You gave him this sickening look like he was the smartest guy in the world and it was such an easy fucking question. It was kinda gross at first but…" He sighed. "I want that. I want a girl who thinks I'm the best. So, I'm not gonna be your rebound."

  "Oh." How could we have known each other so well for so long and never had this discussion? I wanted to cry for Dan. Maybe even for me. If I'd known about Dan's feelings before, maybe things would have been different, but probably not. Before Tyler, I was hell bent on living the lifestyle of the perpetual bachelorette.

  Fuck, life was so much simpler back then.

  Dan breathed deeply and patted my leg. "Forget about all that. Water under the bridge. We're still friends. Time to go inside now. Get it over with."

  A knot formed in my stomach. Tyler was in there with his roommates, probably drunk already. That could only mean trouble. But I made a promise to Dan; this was my last-ditch effort to have a pleasurable final semester of college. I opened the door and followed Dan to the bar, trying not to let myself be sad about what he just told me.

  My nervous stomach tightened again when I read the scribbled words on the chalkb
oard inside, just as Dan handed his driver's license to the man at the door. 'Karaoke Specials' was scrawled right above '$3 Well Drinks All Night Long!'

  "Damn it!" I grabbed his arm. "They have karaoke here now?"

  The burly, overly-tanned security guard overheard me. He explained that when the owner heard The Devil Dog Saloon was closed for a while, he decided to take advantage. If tonight went well, they'd have karaoke night on Fridays for a while.

  Trying to hide my dread, I smiled like I was glad, but alcohol and karaoke were a flammable combination for my slightly-shy ex-boyfriend. Add anger to the mix… God, I was stupid for letting Dan talk me into this.

  I calmed down as soon as we walked inside the dimly lit bar. There was a small stage off in the corner in the back of the dance floor but nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the shrill drunk girl warbling her way through a barely-recognizable Katy Perry song.