The session concluded with a hug. I never thought that was professional, even when I started therapy at eleven years old, but I had come to view Dr. Merryweather as more of a wise, if a bit self-important, old grandmother than a psychologist. If nothing else, I got to dump my problems on someone for a whole hour without being interrupted or made to feel guilty over it.
I scheduled another session for the following week.
***
Ryan and I were officially dating by Christmas, but not before I came clean about going on a date with Cal and attending his party.
“I swear I don’t like him!” I had cried.
“I knew about the party, Brooke,” Ryan said. “Even a reject like me hears about the parties.” He eyed me curiously. “I’m not mad, but why did you go?”
“My friends were insistent, and I didn’t want them going alone. Drunk girls are easy targets,” I said. It wasn’t exactly true. Melanie and Taylor weren’t my friends, but I went to the party regardless to protect them. And that part was true.
Ryan nodded. “And the date?”
“He wouldn’t leave me alone about it. And I know what you said about him being bad news. I just thought I could go and show him how lame I was and then he’d stop harassing me about a date,” I said.
“You’re far from lame, Brooke,” Ryan replied.
I shrugged. “Well, I was pretty lame on the date.”
Ryan thought for a moment. “You could have just told me. I could have beaten the shit out of him for you.”
I smirked. “I didn’t want you getting blood on your hands.”
“Oh, I’d love to get blood on my hands,” Ryan said. He sounded dead serious.
I shivered involuntarily. “Why does he hate you, Ryan?” I asked softly.
Ryan rubbed his jaw. “Because I don’t want to be like him.”
We were quiet for a time before I spoke. “Are you upset with me about the date?”
Ryan shook his head. “No, Brooke. But I do wish you would have listened to me in the restaurant. I wasn’t kidding when I said that Cal was a bad guy.”
I nodded. I wanted so much to know why Ryan thought Cal was bad. A tiny part of me suspected that he had some knowledge of Cal’s devious sexual behavior, but I was unwilling or too scared to ask him. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want Ryan involved in my investigation. I liked him on the outside, and I liked escaping to the outside every time we were together.
“I should have asked you a long time ago to be my girlfriend. Officially speaking. Will you?” he said.
Were we just talking about Cal? Because I couldn’t remember. All I knew in this moment was that Ryan wanted me as his official girlfriend, and it felt like a huge box of fireworks had been set off all at once inside my heart and mind. An ecstatic explosion.
I nodded enthusiastically and crushed my lips to his.
I’m sure people at school knew we were together even though we kept our relationship low key. We talked with one another when we got the chance between classes and sat together at lunch. We were never physical, though. He preferred to keep that behind closed doors, and I was never one for open displays of affection anyway. I think Cal understood that Ryan and I were together, and he stopped bothering me with his “That guy is bad news” rhetoric.
Perhaps making our relationship official right before a major holiday like Christmas wasn’t the wisest idea considering neither one of us felt comfortable giving each other presents. We didn’t want to deal with the pressure of it and thought time spent together was the most appropriate gift we could give. He took me to dinner one evening and then to the North Carolina Museum of Art to see a Picasso exhibit. He listened intently while I jabbered about lighting and colors and meanings that were even over my head. It was a perfect night, made all the more perfect by what he asked me on the way back to our neighborhood.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Brooke,” Ryan began.
“Mmhmm.”
“And I sort of had this planned out in the hopes that you’d say ‘yes’.”
My heartbeat sped up. “Okay.”
“My sister is at a friend’s house for the night, and my parents went out of town for the weekend on their annual Christmas trip for two,” he said.
“Where did they go?” I was curious.
“They went to some bed and breakfast in the mountains,” Ryan replied.
I smirked. “And they trust you at home alone?”
“Oh, I’m very responsible, Brooklyn. You haven’t figured that out by now?”
I shrugged as he pulled into his driveway.
“So would you like to come in?” he said.
I was nervous. I’d waited an eternity to have sex with Ryan. I thought I even acted too brazen or too impatient from time to time, coming across as a common street hussy. Now, he was asking me, and I felt clammy and awkward, like a virgin. I tried for humor.
“Come in for what?”
Ryan grinned. “Coffee.”