54
Things were frosty between us when she came back to the room. We went to bed without saying a word.
They were cold the next morning, too.
I left to took my English exam. I did surprisingly well, considering how badly my studying had been derailed the night before.
When I returned, Shanna was packing up her stuff. Her last exam was over, and she was leaving to drive back to California that afternoon.
I leaned against the doorframe and watched as she completely ignored me.
“…I think I did okay on my English exam,” I volunteered meekly.
“Yay hooray for you,” she said, never looking up.
“…did you do okay?”
She continued to box up her clothes. “Probably not. I’ve already got a 1.9, and I’m sure I flunked Physics… so I don’t think the parental units are going to be too keen on me coming back next year. I think my future has a California community college somewhere in it.”
“…I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Not your fault.” Then she smiled to herself. “Besides, it was fun while it lasted.”
“…I don’t want us to leave on bad terms,” I said.
She looked straight at me for the first time. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be a bitch.”
I bit my tongue.
Do you want to BE right, or do you want to MAKE things right?
I nodded. “I shouldn’t have said that stuff. I’m sorry.”
As soon as I said it, she let go. Real hurt showed in her face. “You know, I live my life the way I want to live it. I sleep with whoever I want to. I get a lot of shit for it – from guys I don’t sleep with… from guys I do sleep with… from girls, from teachers, from my parents… people calling me a slut, people calling me a whore, people calling me a bitch – but I don’t give a f*ck about them. They don’t know me. My parents don’t even really know me; not anymore. They just judge me. But I do what I want, and anybody who doesn’t like it can go f*ck themselves. But you… I know you don’t want to do what I do, and you don’t want to live your life like I do, and that’s fine… but I thought you didn’t judge me. You were always really nice to me. I thought we were friends. And then you go saying shit like that…”
For the first time in weeks, I felt guilt over something other than Derek and Kevin.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just… I was so mad at you. I know that’s not an excuse…”
“You know I only said it because I care about you, right? You know I only said it because I think you’re making a mistake you’re gonna regret, right?”
“What, not sleeping with Derek?”
She smiled. “When I’m 99 years old, I hope I’m gonna look back on some things in my life and say, ‘You know, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, but God damn I’m glad I did it.’ I have a sneaking suspicion that sleeping with Derek Kane might be one of those things.”
“For me or for you?”
“For either one of us. But you’re the only one with a shot at it, as far as I can see.” Then her smile faded, and she sighed. “But it’s not just that.”
The way she said it made me uncomfortable. “What is it, then?”
“Look… I’m only saying it because I like you, Kaitlyn… but I think you’re making a big mistake.”
“You already said that.”
“Not about Derek. About Kevin.”
I clammed up and crossed my arms defensively.
“You’re right, I don’t know a ton about relationships ‘cause I haven’t had any, really, but I’ve seen an awful lot of other people in them, and I do know a lot about men. And I can tell you that a good guy, a really good guy, doesn’t break up with you all the time when you don’t do what he likes. And somebody who’s right for you, who’s really right for you? They don’t make you miserable the rest of the time you’re together.”
“I’m not miserable when we’re together,” I said defensively.
“Maybe not all the time, but I hear your conversations, Kaitlyn. At least your end. You think I can’t see how stressed he’s made you the last nine months? Come on.”
What she was saying was true.
But it wasn’t the whole picture.
“We’re going to be back together soon – physically back together. It’s going to be better once we’re around each other all the time.”
She sighed. “Maybe. But even if it is, I think you’re selling yourself short. You’re gorgeous, Kaitlyn.”
I blushed as soon as she said it. It was hard for me to take compliments; it always has been.
“No I’m not – ”
“Yeah you are, quit f*cking around,” Shanna said tersely. “You’re also smart as hell, you’re funny, you’re… you could basically get any guy you wanted if you played your cards right. And you’re sticking with your boyfriend because why?”
“Because my boyfriend liked me before I was pretty,” I said quietly.
Shanna looked thoughtful. “Okay, if that’s true, then that’s actually a really good reason. But don’t you see, that’s the thing that’s f*cking him up now? He started dating a regular girl – if that’s true, which I don’t really believe it is – ”
“It’s true.”
“Okay, fine. But now the regular girl turned into a babe, and he’s not a hunk, and he’s insecure about it, and it’s driving him crazy, and he’s f*cking with your head because he’s too stupid to know that you like him for something other than his looks.”
Again, everything she said hit uncomfortably close to home.
“So, what, I should throw it all away just to sleep with Derek? Once? Maybe twice?”
She grinned. “Well, you know what I would do…”
I didn’t smile back. “He’s a player, Shanna. He sleeps with women, and he uses them, and he throws them away.”
“Other women. That’s not the way he looks at you. When he said he loved you – ”
“Don’t,” I said, wincing. To hear those words was like rubbing salt on an open wound in my heart.
“ – I think he meant it. I can tell you this much: I hope I find a boyfriend someday who looks at me the way Derek looks at you.”
“Will you look at your boyfriend the same way, though?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
She grinned. “If he’s built like Derek Kane, I might.”
55
Present Day
I sat there at our table in the lounge, listening to Shanna order some specialty off-menu cocktail, and thought about everything that had happened between us in that dorm room four years ago.
Once she was finished, I told the waiter, “Just a glass of merlot, please.”
“Jeez, you’re a cheap date,” Shanna said as the waiter walked off.
“I don’t have as much money as you.”
“I told you, I’m buyin’ first round. You shoulda got champagne to celebrate. Maybe not Cristal, but…”
“Mm.”
Life had gone well for Shanna over the last four years. Her parents hadn’t let her go back to UGA, so she’d gone to community college, just like she’d predicted. And then she’d flunked out of there, too. Too much partying, too much living life like it was her last day on earth.
However, her other… skills had led to more interesting prospects. She slept with an up-and-coming (pun intended) fashion photographer and ended up in a relationship with him. Because she didn’t have anything else going on, he took her on as his assistant – and she became pretty good at it. When they broke up a year later, she leveraged the contacts she’d made and moved out to New York City. She started working as an assistant making peanuts, but through befriending and partying with models, she’d met some people and snagged a pretty sweet job at a modeling agency. Because she knew photography, she was valuable in that respect, and she was a hell of a people person. Now she had a good salary, shared a small apartment in Manhattan with another woman at the agency, and was leading a pretty nice life for a 23-year-old in the Big Apple.
As opposed to me, who had $50,000 in student loans, no job to speak of, and had to beg my parents for rent money for a shitty studio apartment in Queens.
Which is another reason it had been so hard to turn down the Rolling Stone gig: I was so tired of being a flat-broke failure.
“If you take the gig, you’ll probably be drinking Cristal every night,” she prodded. “Or at least really good bourbon. I hear they like to party hard.”
“I doubt Ryan does.”
“Ha! That’s probably true.” She sighed and propped her chin on her palm. “I hit on two band members before they got rich and famous… and I struck out with both of them.”
“Ryan wasn’t your fault. He was a little too innocent.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “I know. I could’ve taught him a thing or two, though.”
“Or twenty or thirty.”
“See? You can interview me for the article, too. Just call me up and tell me what kind of quote you need – ”
“I’m not taking the job.”
“Why not?!”
“There’s too much… history there.”
“Funny, I was under the impression there was a certain lack of a history there.”
I glared at her. “I can’t be objective.”
“Who gives a f*ck?”
“Journalists, that’s who.”
“F*ck journalists. And I say that as someone who has actually f*cked a couple of them. You know who doesn’t give a shit about ‘objectivity’? Derek Kane’s fans. They couldn’t care less if you slept with him or not. All they know is he doesn’t give interviews to anybody, but he’ll give one to you.” She paused and reconsidered. “Actually, if they knew about the history between you two, they’d probably want to read your article even more.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Well, true, some of his female fans would want to claw your eyes out… but they’d still drool all over themselves reading your article anyway.”
The waiter came and set down our drinks. I sipped at mine morosely.
Shanna rolled her eyes. “Just go see him and write the f*ckin’ article. What are you so afraid of?”
I said it before I even thought about it:
“Giving in.”
She looked at me like I was insane. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
She was right. It kind of was.
So I just went onto other reasons.
“I shouldn’t do this.”
“Says who?”
“It’s like sleeping my way to the top. Which is basically the only reason I got this job.”
“Or not sleeping your way to the top, in this particular case.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Better to sleep your way to the top than to be like me and sleep your way to the middle.”
“You’re doing pretty well.”
“Yeah, and you could be, too, dummy. What are you really afraid of?”
I sat there and thought about it for a long moment.
“…maybe knowing that I should have made a different choice… that maybe I shouldn’t have left him, and now it’s too late. Or maybe I’m afraid I’ll sleep with him because I won’t be able to stop myself – and I’ll find out this amazing experience I had… this amazing couple of weeks that were probably the best in my entire life… that it was all bullshit. That he’s just another guy, and after he tosses me aside he’s going to go sleep with his thousands of groupies, and that I never meant anything to him at all… except I was the one girl he didn’t sleep with four years ago.”
“He didn’t sleep with me, either,” Shanna pointed out.
“You know what I mean.” I paused to take another sip of wine, and then I asked, “I had to take 20th Century Literature at Syracuse, and we had to read The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner… you ever read that?”
Shanna gave me a look like Are you serious?
“Even if I had to, do you really think I would’ve?”
“Stupid question,” I admitted. “Okay, so, in The Sound And The Fury there’s this character named Jason Compson who’s been taking care of his niece for 17 years. Her mother Candace had her out of wedlock back when that was really scandalous, and had to leave their town in Mississippi in disgrace. So for 17 years Mom’s been out traveling the world and living this crazy, decadent life, sleeping with rich men – ”
“Sounds like my kind of chick,” Shanna said.
“Yeah, actually, she was. Anyway, Candace has been sending Jason checks to support her daughter for years and years and years… but Jason burns them.”
“Why does he do that?!” Shanna asked, shocked.
“He hates his sister and doesn’t want her money.”
“Money’s money, I don’t care how much he hates her – ”
“Never mind. Shush. Anyway, Jason’s mother doesn’t want to burn them, but Jason says that if he cashes one of those checks, even one of them, then he’s lost all that money he’s been burning all those years. But if he keeps burning them, then the money’s not real… and he never has to deal with how much he’s lost.”
Of course, I didn’t mention that Jason was an a*shole, and that he’s only burning copies of the checks, and that he’s doing it to scam his mother so he can spend all the money on himself instead of his niece. It would have taken too long to explain, and it would have muddied the waters.
But the central analogy was sound.
Shanna narrowed her eyes. “So you’re saying…”
“I’m saying if I never see him again, then I never have to deal with everything I could have had. But if I go back and there’s still something between us… then I’ve lost… so much…”
“Orrrrr you could cash the check and at least have a couple of bucks instead of a pile of worthless ashes,” Shanna said in an offhand manner. “Which is basically what all your ‘might have beens’ are.”
Just like four years ago, her words were a slug to the gut.
I stared at her, my mouth slightly agape.
“BOOM,” Shanna said with a grin. “Got all insightful on you, didn’t I?”
I gave her a reproachful look. “I don’t think you understand – ”
“Oh, I understand plenty. You’ve got all your fancy shmancy reasons, Kaitlyn, but you know what you’re really afraid of?”
My stomach twisted. “What?”
“Getting hurt.”
I thought about saying Everybody’s afraid of getting hurt, but then I considered who I was talking to, and how she lived her life like no one was watching.
So instead I copped out.
“No I’m not.”
“Yeah you are. That’s what it boils down to: you’re afraid to get hurt. And especially by the one guy in the world who can really, really hurt you.”
I sat there in silence, feeling her words plow into me like a ten-foot wave.
She took a sip of her drink. “Just so happens, he might be the one person who can make you really, really happy, too.”
“So what should I do?” I asked, half in sarcasm, half in despair.
“You want to go out and live life and write about it, right?”
“…yeah.”
“So go out and live life so you can write about it, dumbass.”
I grimaced. “In other words… go see him and write the f*ckin’ article.”
She toasted my glass with hers. “Go see him and write the f*ckin’ article.”
56
Four Years Ago
A couple hours after Shanna and I made up, the company that rented us our tiny dorm refrigerator came by and picked it up. There were two guys, and they went from room to room wheeling out the fridges on hand trucks as people packed up to go home.
Then, an hour after that, Derek stopped by with Ryan in tow.
“Oh my God!” Shanna squealed, and pushed a lock of her hair back flirtatiously. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Good to see you, too,” Ryan said nervously, then looked at me. “Hi, Kaitlyn.”
“Hey, Ryan.” I turned to Derek. “What are you two doing here?”
“Well… I knew you were leaving after your exam, and I knew that was this morning, so… how’d it go, by the way?”
“I think I did pretty well, actually. I think.”
“Good.” He smiled, and his eyes twinkled. “So all that studying last night paid off.”
Shanna snorted.
I blushed.
Ryan looked around, confused. “What’s… what’s the joke?”
“No joke,” I said quickly. “There’s no joke. Soooo… did you come by to – ”
“When are you leaving?” Derek interrupted.
“This afternoon, I guess.”
I actually didn’t want to leave… but considering what had happened last night, it was probably a good idea to get the hell out of Dodge.
“When are you leaving?” Derek asked Shanna.
“Soon as I get my car packed. Wanna help me?” she asked brightly.
“Yeah, sure, but… don’t you live in California?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So why’re you leaving now, and not in the morning?”
“Cause if I stay here tonight, I’m gonna get drunk as a motherf*cker, and probably shack up with some dude, and wake up with a monster hangover, and not get going till tomorrow afternoon anyway, so… I figured I might as well skip the drama.”
“For once,” Derek grinned.
“Hey. Gotta start sometime.” Then she wiggled her eyebrows at Ryan. “Unless you wanna be the dude in question.”
“Uh… uh…” Ryan stuttered, looking like she had offered to give him a hummer in front of the entire college.
“Just messin’ with ya, man,” she said – though I knew she really wasn’t. “Besides, your mother would kill me. She’d hunt me down like an animal.”
“That’s actually true,” Derek laughed.
“What Shanna didn’t mention is that she’s driving to Tallahassee first and partying with a couple of friends at Florida State tonight,” I said.
Shanna wheeled on me. “You narc! They actually thought I was responsible for once!”
“No,” Derek teased her, shaking his head. “I know you too well.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
“I know you well enough.”
“F*ck you,” she said good-naturedly. “You still gonna help me get my stuff down to my car?”
“Sure.”
She pointed at me. “You’re definitely helping, narc.”
“Fine.”
57
Shanna took another hour or so to finish packing, during which time the four of us chatted – about Ryan’s upcoming high school graduation, about his and Derek’s plans for the band, about what Shanna was going to do over the summer. Then we carried Shanna’s stuff down to her car.
It went pretty quickly with four of us helping, though there was one point where we lost Ryan. He just disappeared for several minutes – and then he was there to meet us when we got back to the dorm room.
“Where’d you go?” Shanna asked.
“I, uh, had to use the restroom.”
He seemed awful nervous when he said it, and he glanced at Derek as though seeking approval.
“Well, come on, chop chop,” Shanna said, clapping her hands. “I ain’t payin’ you by the hour, so let’s go.”
Forty-five minutes later her Honda Civic was jam-packed with her clothes and computer and stereo speakers and TV and all sorts of crap. As thanks, she bought us all Cokes from a vending machine in the dorm lobby. We stood around for awhile, talking and drinking and laughing. Then it was time for her to go.
She walked over to Ryan first and held out her arms expectantly. He leaned over and put his arms around her –
And then, POW! she jumped up and kissed him full on the mouth.
His eyes almost popped out of his skull.
She stood back, laughing. “I’m sorry – I had to do it, I might not ever get another chance!”
Derek and I laughed as Ryan turned beet-red.
“What do you mean, you might not ever get another chance?” Derek asked. “I thought you were coming back here next year.”
She shook her head. “No… I’m pretty sure I got too many D minuses, so… probably not.”
“Oh… that sucks. I’m sorry to see you go.”
“Me too.” She hugged Derek. “When you guys are famous and on tour, will you let me come backstage?”
“Hell yeah,” Derek said. He gave her a bear hug and lifted her squealing off the ground, twirling her around. “In fact, I’ll be pissed if you don’t come backstage to see us.”
When Derek set her down, she came over to me. We smiled at each other sadly and just hugged.
When she was right up next to me, she whispered in my ear, “Live a little, Kaitlyn. Don’t make that mistake we talked about.”
Then she pulled away, winked at me, and got in her car. She rolled down the window and waved and shouted at us as she drove off down the road.
58
Derek, Ryan, and I stood around awkwardly after Shanna drove away.
Derek gave his best friend a look like, Well? What are you waiting for?
That was odd, I thought.
“Uh… I should probably get going, too,” Ryan said, running his hand through his hair.
Then I knew something was up.
“You don’t have to run off,” I said.
I was nervous to be alone with Derek.
Partially because I really, really wanted to be alone with him, which could bring about no good whatsoever.
“I kinda do. I promised my mom I’d do this thing… and… I gotta go.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“No, that’s my dad’s car down there,” he said, pointing to a black Cadillac. “I picked up Derek and we both came over here.”
“You picked Derek up in the hood in that?” I asked, impressed. “I’m surprised you weren’t carjacked.”
“It’s not that bad,” Derek chided me.
Ryan and I both nodded somberly at the same time. “It’s that bad.”
“Don’t tell my mom, okay?” Ryan asked me very seriously.
I laughed. The idea of me tattling to his mother was pretty adorable.
“I won’t.”
We kind of stood there for a second doing the awkward ‘do we hug, do we shake hands?’ dance – then I decided to end it and moved in to hug him.
“It was really, really nice meeting you,” I said as he put his arms around me.
His arms were warm and comforting. He was a good hugger.
“You, too. Friend me on Facebook?”
“Sure. Let me know how you guys are doing with the band.”
“You got it. Well… I’ll see you,” he said to me and Derek, and walked down the street.
I looked at Derek.
He looked back at me and smiled.
We were alone…
…and no one would be interrupting us in the empty dorm room.