My non-answer inspired the same stare from both girls. The nice-try-but-I-don’t-think-so stare.
Letting my head fall back, I groaned. This was not the conversation road I wanted to drive down. It led through Rejection Alley and dead-ended onto Embarrassment Court.
Ninety-nine percent of my life had been an open book. I’d shared everything with Destiny and Cara except my longstanding feelings for Hud and the night I snuck into his apartment and waited for him. Naked. I’d kept that one percent of humiliating history to myself.
“Has it been that long?” Cara—sweet, na?ve Cara—asked in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“And you never did anything about it?” Destiny—relentless B.S. detector Destiny—asked in suspicion.
I figured there was really no reason not to come clean at this point. What did I have to lose, except a little dignity?
For years, I’d been holding out hope that if Hud and I ever got to spend any time together, real time, he’d see me for me. Not the spoiled “princess” he was so fond of calling me. I’d truly believed he felt the same insane chemistry I did, he just needed to know who I was, really was, before he would act on it. Part of the reason I’d always kept my feelings to myself is because I’d thought there might be something real there. I hadn’t wanted to risk it or jinx it by saying it out loud.
Over the past week, he’d made it clear that even if we were the only two people for miles, he wasn’t interested.
My heart sank as I admitted that to myself for the first time.
Lifting my head, I cursed under my breath as every muscle in my neck was strung tight with an aching pain. When I managed to sit up, my friends’ faces were looking as eager as an elementary school bookworm at story time.
“There was this one night—”
“I knew it!” Destiny’s finger pointed my way in accusation.
Ignoring her outburst, I continued, “It was grad night—”
“You were with him?” It was Cara’s turn to interrupt. “I thought you were sick. You said you drank an entire bottle of vodka and that’s why you missed the party.”
My stomach rolled at the memory of my vodka-induced inebriation. It was the first and only time I’d ever finished off an entire bottle of liquor on the solo tip. Unless you counted wine…wine was another story.
“I was sick and it was because I’d ingested copious amounts of alcohol after I’d experienced the most embarrassing, humiliating night of my life.”
“What happened?” Cara and Destiny chorused in what sounded equal parts awe and wonder.
“It all started on prom. Do you guys remember me telling you that I went home early?”
Both my friends nodded.
Cara hadn’t been able to go to prom because she’d been in the hospital at the time, getting what would end up being her last round of chemo, and Destiny disappeared with my brother, her now husband, after the dance.
“Well, Hud actually took me home.”
“Ohhhh!” They exclaimed in a misguided sense of understanding.
“No, not like that.” I corrected their assumption. “Everybody decided to go to the cemetery, to drink and…I thought I could handle it…”
“You thought you could go to the cemetery?” Destiny’s face scrunched.
“At night?” Cara chimed in.
“At the time, yes. I told myself that I was an adult and that all of my fears were—”
“You turned eighteen three days before prom,” Destiny perceptively pointed out.
“Right. So, like I said, I was an adult, I figured I needed to suck it up. Well, after a few steps in, all that bravado disappeared faster than a sandcastle in a tsunami. I’d barely made it past the gate before I froze in terror. No one noticed I wasn’t still with the group, so they all kept going.
“I opened my mouth to scream for them to stop, but, my cries were barely above a whisper. I don’t even know how long I stood there. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
My heart was racing at the memory. The danger, the panic, still felt so real.
“Finally, I was able to shuffle my feet backward until I made it out of the gates. Then I turned and started walking home as fast as my wobbly legs could carry me. Tears were pouring down my face. I was a hot mess. That’s when my knight in a shiny pickup truck pulled over and told me to get in. He drove me home and let me babble on and on about how scared I was. When he dropped me off I wanted to kiss him, or actually I wanted him to kiss me. But it didn’t happen.
“Somehow I convinced myself that the only reason he hadn’t acted on it, was because I was still in high school. I figured once that was out of the way, we could be together. So, me being me, I decided to take matters into my own hands. On the night of our graduation, I broke into his apartment and waited for him. In his bed. Naked.”
“You did what?!” Cara exclaimed.
“What did he do?” Destiny sat up straighter, her hands resting on her belly.
“Let’s just say he was less than pleased.” No way was I going to give them a verbatim recounting.