Better Than Me (12 page)

Chapter 16: NOW-January

Winter break over, I am back at Weldon.  I did a lot of thinking while away.  I only cried or moped when I was alone in my room or out of the house and talking or texting Jules.  As far as I could tell, my parents appeared unconcerned.  They didn’t baby me or look worried like they did every time I was around them last summer.  I had a few sessions with Dr. Matt.  We talked through my year so far.  He reminded me of his advice-to not be too careful.  To not lose “Biz.”  We discussed what a balancing act that was.  I went out with a few of my high school friends and had drinks a couple of times.  I even went to a New Year’s Eve party at my wealthy friend, Shari’s big house.  I danced and socialized with old friends, but did not drink too much and did NOT kiss anyone at midnight.  My mind was already a whirl of feelings and emotions.  Why add something stupid and meaningless to it?  I was trying to not lose “Biz,” and stay even.  The balancing act.

Classes start back on Monday.  I am here the Wednesday before.  RAs can get back in the dorms a few days earlier than regular students to get things ready.  There will be some changes in rooms after people decide they no longer like their original roommate.  Maintenance inspections, stuff like that.  The rest of the students will filter back in between Friday and Sunday.  I have seen most of the other RAs, except Suzette.  I am constantl
y on the lookout for her, but always relieved when I don’t see her.  In my time away I have decided to reserve my judgment.  Maybe I am fabricating my suspicions about Jake and Suzette.  I mean, aren’t I just as bad?  I had been hanging out with Davis a lot.  I hug him all the time. And call him names.  And…he kissed me, like REALLY kissed me.  I admitted to myself I wanted him.  During my time away, I sent a text to Davis.

Please call or text me.

He texted me back.

Not yet
, Biz

I was sad and
I admit, I cried a bit when I read it
.  He’s not going to talk to me again.  He’s not going to touch me again.  God, I miss him.  That’s it, I miss him.  I miss my friend.  I miss my friend that I kissed in a not-friend way.

The day before I was to leave to go back to school,
Jake texted me.

How’s your break going?  Are you hav
ing fun?  I need to talk to you when you get back.

I responded
flippantly.

Break has
been great.  Having fun with my HS friends. Sure, let’s talk.

I didn’t know quite what to think of his text, but I knew what mine meant.  I was willing to listen.  I wanted an explanation.  I wanted to know exactly what was going on.
  I wanted to know why he thought I was sleeping with Davis.  Was Jake with
me
?  Was he with
Suzette
?  Davis once told me that after the first party, Jake had said, “Biz is a girl I could fall in love with.”  When Davis told me that I was ecstatic.  I had believed my relationship with Jake could be something.  Something that wouldn’t sweep me away.  A relationship I could control.  I wouldn’t be the naïve girl I was last year with Neil.  It was going to be possible to have an honest relationship.  A mature relationship; one that wasn’t about being with each other all the time.  Allowing space for the other person to do what they needed to do, but coming together at the end of the time apart.  It didn’t have to be all-consuming and I didn’t have to give up my sense of self.  Someone I could trust to love me.  I was also coming to realize that I wasn’t defined by Jake.  I would be okay if he didn’t want to be with me.  More than not being with him, I was afraid of repeating the public rejection and humiliation of last year and not being in control.  I had been holding back to be careful.  But was what I was pursuing with Jake really a relationship, really love?  I was very involved with Davis, whether I admitted it or not.  With Davis, I was “Biz.”  With Jake, I was careful.  Really, neither one of them was “mine,” in any sustainable way. 

I made
my decision.  I could be with neither.  But I wanted to let them know on my terms.  I wasn’t going to let Jake have the satisfaction of breaking up with me.  I couldn’t stay in the “friend zone,” with Davis and watch him be with Kathleen.  It all had to change.

My opportunity came
sooner than I had expected.  It’s the Friday before the start of Spring Semester and I am eating dinner in the cafeteria with Jules and Charlie.  There are a few other early-semester arrivers here and some of the other RAs.  Midway through my meal, I sense someone approaching me on my left through the cafeteria doors.  Turning slightly, Jake, holding Suzette’s hand, comes into view.  I am having déjà vu from last spring.  Neil.  Robyn. The cafeteria.  The humiliation.  I hear Jules’ inhale.  My first thought is PANIC.  Run.  Then I feel an overwhelming sense of knowing what to do.  I’ve made my decisions and I’m ready.  Jake approaches. I stand and face him. He has a yellow tinge around his left eye, like an old bruise.
What’s that?
  It throws me off for a second.  But just a second.  Jake opens his mouth to talk and I cut him off.

“Oh, no, I am not doing this here! Follow me.” I motion back toward the cafeteria entrance.  He does, as I march out of the cafeteria.  I hiss at him, “Just you, no Suzette.”  
I CAN DO THIS.
  As we walk out, I think I hear someone call my name. 

***

Jake is behind me.  He is actually a little beside me and behind me, but I am walking fast.  I told him to leave Suzette in the cafeteria and he did.   Internally I am smiling at the guts it took me to do so.  We walk up the stairs with Jake chattering in my ear, “Jeez, Biz.  Slow down.  Just stop for a second.  We don’t have to run all over the dorms.  Let’s just stop.  I need to talk to you.” 

“I know
.  That’s what you said in your text.”  I don’t exactly know what’s going to come out of my mouth.  I walk us to the south turret room on the second floor of Lawrence Hall, where I had so many Game Nights with Jake and Suzette.  He scoots in front of me and turns on me.               

“
What is it Biz?  What is so important that you had to drag me all the way up here?”  I am just about to open my mouth, to say what?  That I forgive him or that I’m done?  I don’t know.  The “failure is not an option” part of me wants to tell him I’m sorry I was acting so weird before break and to please forgive me.  No, I’ve made the decision.  I need to end things. 

Jake shifts his eyes off of my face and over my shoulder.  “Davis?”

Davis is here?  Davis is
here.  What the hell is Davis doing here?  Davis is HERE!  I am going to see him!

These are
my exact thoughts before I whip around to see his face. Davis’ face, his penetrating green eyes.  I am a bit mad, but mostly relieved, and honestly... beyond excited to see him.  Davis looks upset and working really hard to hold it together.

“Davis. . .
I” 

“Biz. . .
come with me.” 

“I’m talking to Jake ab. . .” 

He cuts me off.  “Come. With. Me… right now, Biz!”  He sniffs and looks right at Jake.  Jake seems to cower.  Davis lowers his voice and speaks over my shoulder to Jake,  “ Jake, she needs to come with me. You can stay here and wait or go to your room or wherever it is you go.” Davis voice drips with sarcasm on the last option he mentions. “I’ll bring her back to you when I’m done.” 

“When you’re done?”  I
turn on Davis and snap out with a bit of a shriek.  “No way am I going anywhere with you.”

“Stop it, Biz.  Just come on.”  He grabs my elbow firmly and walks me
down the hall to the ancient Disco elevator.  I suddenly realize that Jake said nothing-Not. One. Thing.-when Davis arrived and took me.  Davis is angry, or maybe not angry, determined.  I’ve never really seen this much emotion from him.  He is generally so cool and calm.  Something has him really worked up.  It’s getting me worked up.  It is, dare I say it, hot.  He pushes the button to call the elevator and miraculously it arrives immediately.  That never happens.  Still clutching my elbow with his other hand, he shoves the outer elevator door and then the gate right afterward open.  It is effortless for him.  It would take both my hands and all my strength to get it open, so now I know he’s agitated.  He drags me in and punches the button for the fifth floor.  My dorm room is on the fifth floor.  Is that where we are going?  I am getting a little scared by his behavior, but  mostly I am curious.  The elevator is small.  It is hard to fit more than three people in it.  Davis is so… something right now… something that makes it feels like he is taking up more than his usual amount of space.  He turns on me and pins me to the wall by putting a hand on each side of it by my head.  He leans his face in very close.  He is breathing really heavily.  I can feel it on my face.  I close my eyes for a second and realize… I have missed being near him.  I can smell him and I’ve missed that smell. . . that Davis smell, clean, but sweaty and warm.  After a few moments, I open my eyes.  Davis is still right in front of me. “I just couldn’t let you stay there with him and get destroyed,” he says huskily. 

“So, you decided to play white knight and save me?” I question.  “Because, I thi
nk I had it under control.  I didn’t really know what I was going to say, but I figured I’d hear him out. Wait? Why did you think I’d get destroyed?”  He moves away a bit.  The elevator stops after its excruciatingly slow ascent to five.  We stand there and stare at the doors, both realizing they are not going to open unless one of us opens them.  Davis sighs heavily and takes my hand, entwining his fingers in mine.  I don’t pull away.  I like it.  Again, he throws open the doors of the elevator like it’s a patio door.  He pulls me the three doors down to my dorm room and motions at it with his other hand.  I pull the key out of my jeans and open the door.  He releases my hand, and escorts me into the room by putting his hand on the small of my back.  Davis has touched me before, hugged me, so why does this feel so new and different.  He slightly lifts me and sets me gently on my elevated loft bed.  With him standing and me sitting, we are eye to eye.  “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, Biz.  I didn’t want to be the one to hurt you.  But you are just so damn naïve and trusting.  The thing is….when I got back from break, Charlie invited me to a band practice to see if I had any suggestions for their sound.  I was trying to avoid Jake, but while I was there, I overheard him talking.  We’d already had, how do I say this, WORDS before break, after he accused you of sleeping with me.   I heard him talking about when he saw your picture, the one of you and Charlie that Smitty took when you went on the road trip.  The one of you and Charlie hugging in a crazy way.  The one I said I saw and that’s how I recognized you that first day in the cafeteria.  He said that when he saw that picture in Charlie’s room and then heard the story about what happened to you last year, he realized you were the girl that was ‘banging his RA, Neil.’  He said he’d hear you guys having sex from all the way down the hall.  I was furious listening to him talk about how you were probably SO vulnerable now and how ‘he knew he just had to get some of that’ chick.  He started going off about how you were so sweet and just the kind of girl that would always stay with him, but that you just wouldn’t ‘give it up,’ so when Suzette came along the night of the kegger it was all so easy…   Then he continued to brag, ‘Biz didn’t suspect a thing.  She was probably too busy with Davis.  She called and texted me like a million times when I was with Suzette right before break. When Suzette asked me about them, I told Suz it served Biz right for doing Davis.’  Fucking hypocrite. 

My eyes start to well up.  Davis look
s at me, concerned that I am going to cry.  What he doesn’t know is that I cry at just about everything.  I cry when I am sad.  But I REALLY cry when I am angry, which I am.  I also cry when I am happy.  Right now, even with all my anger toward Jake, I am happy. Happy because although he hasn’t said in specific words and I am just coming to realize it, I can tell Davis cares about me.  And I care about him.  Even if all we will ever be is friends.

“I am going to kill him!” I scream.
  “He knew, he knew about Neil and all of that,”  I jump off the loft bed, practically falling into Davis’ arms.

“Oh, no you’re not, Dragon!”
  He stops me with a chuckle.

“Dragon
?” 

“Yes,
a dragon is a bigger, badder version of a Lizard.  And also, because you are breathing fire right now.”   I roll my eyes to the ceiling, not believing I am laughing in the middle of this conversation.   “Yeah, that’s what I called you, so what?  Biz, listen to me. You’re not going to run down there like a crazy person or run away.  Here is what you are going to do.”

Davis talks
to me about what he thought Jake was about to do.  Break up with me publicly and painfully, like Neil.   I let Davis know I’m not mad at him for telling me what he heard.  I was already beginning to suspect Jake wasn’t what he seemed.  It was just easier, in my mind, to try and see the best in Jake.  To not think he could be anything like Neil.   Davis and I went through everything again about last year’s confrontation with Neil and Robyn in the cafeteria and why I was so torn up about it.  And the guys.  All the random guys afterward.  How it wasn’t my fault.  How I had been played in the cruelest way possible,just for the sport of it, by Neil, and now by Jake.  How I had little control over what happened, because I was a trusting person and I was hurting.  How I had wanted to hurt myself.  How Jake’s intentions didn’t match his actions, at least not his behaviors at the beginning.  He started out acting so sensitive and solicitous, but he couldn’t maintain it and the truth was leaking out.  I told Davis the decisions I made over break about Jake.  I had planned to hear him out, but still guard my heart.  I left out the part about how I intended things to end with Davis, too.  I needed to control the finish of this thing with Jake first.  In all of the romantic “relationships” I’d ever had, I’d never had any say in the outcome.  They hadn’t been honest and truthful.   It takes about two hours, but Davis and I come up with a plan.