Last Call (9 page)

“No way. We’ve been friends for two whole years. He knows I don’t date, yet he’s never tried to put a move on me.”

“Don’t be such a Dawson,” she said without missing a beat.

“Dawson? Good Lord, you need to stop hanging out with Sara. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Candace snorted; rolling her eyes like the answer was so obvious. “Duh. Dawson’s Creek. Don’t you remember how Dawson was so oblivious to everything that went on? Seriously, he didn’t know Joey was in love with him? How could he miss that? You’re being just like him.”

“Oh my God, Sara is totally rubbing off on you. And no, I’m not being a Dawson, because it is NOT so obvious, Cand. Seriously, we’ve always had such a fun friendship. I really don’t know what to do about that kiss.” I begged, “Give a girl a hand - what do I do?”

"Don't spaz out, Savannah. It was just a quick kiss. Has he called you yet?"

I pushed my plate to the side and shook my head no.

"You're right, it might be nothing. I mean, there have been plenty of opportunities for him to hit on you and he never has," she reasoned. "Of course, maybe he's jealous now that he sees you finally wading out into the dating pool."

"Jealous? What's he got to be jealous about? He knows I'm looking for a wedding date!"

Candace shrugged. Riley's behavior was as much a mystery to her as it was to me.

"Speaking of dates," I spoke up while we waited for our check, "this week’s dates weren’t so great. I hope you've got something better planned for next week."

"Oh yes I do," she sang, rubbing her hands together devilishly. "You’re meeting a special someone Tuesday night for dinner…"

"Whoa, I said drinks only, Candace," I warned.

"I know. But Savannah, I
promise
you this one is different. It's dinner, trust me. Sara picked out your Friday night guy, and we actually agreed on Mr. Saturday night."

"This is crazy," I acknowledged. "Am I really this desperate to find a date to Mary Anne's wedding?"

"Yes," Candace deadpanned.

"Hey, c'mon now."

Candace grabbed the bill from the table and stood. "No you're not desperate for a date. You
are
in desperate need of getting back in the saddle, though. Honey, what actually happened the last time you went back home? I've known you for three years and you've never opened up to me about it."

Slinging my purse across my chest, I followed Candace to the cashier’s counter where we split the check and paid. I didn't fault Candace for asking. We'd been roommates since freshman year. When we first met, she didn't feel the need to delve into my personal life. I’d told her all about Daniel dumping me my senior year of high school right before my coming-out ball, and she sympathized, but never pried. She spent countless nights studying in our dorm with me instead of trying to convince me to go out and party.

It wasn't until I came home from that disastrous Easter when Daniel had hit on me, that I finally opened up to her about him dating Mary Anne. She'd been so angry on my behalf that I couldn't find the courage to tell her about our kissing or his proposition to meet him. Or my subsequent weakness and shame over that night.

It had been two years. It was time to tell her the truth so she could understand things better.

"Cand, you have to promise that what I tell you will stay between us."

"Honey, of course it will," she promised, crossing her heart. We left the diner and walked down the sidewalk on a street full of trendy little shops. There was a wooded park up ahead, and we silently headed for a picnic table.

"I'm going to tell you a story that doesn't make me proud, but you have to understand how broken I was back then," I angled, trying to qualify my actions.

"Savannah," she all but snapped at me. "I know how broken you were. You were like a vacant shell our entire freshman year. You had no idea how to live, and you let your mother rule your every move that year. I half expected you to drop out once the year was over."

Her perception of me that first year both surprised and hurt me. She was right. I
had
come to school as half a person. The summer before school started proved to be way more than I could handle. Then as I went home for vacations, I found my past haunting me at every turn. I fell into a depression so deep I didn't recognize myself.

"You're right," I confessed. "I almost did make the decision to transfer to a school back home."

Climbing up onto the picnic table, I finally let my skeletons out of the closet.

"At Easter dinner, Daniel made a pass at me," I began.

"You're kidding."

"Shhh," I chided, holding up my hand. "Let me get through this."

She shook her head and listened as I told her the disturbing details of him coming to my room and our seedy make-out session. "The thing is, I can't explain why I did it. There was always something about him that was so mesmerizing. I fell right into his hands that day, Candace. He asked me to meet him at ‘our’ old spot that night."

Her mouth opened into a silent 'O', but she didn't speak. "I wish I could say I didn't go. I wish I could say I immediately grabbed my keys and came straight back to school. But no, I didn't. You know what I did instead?" I laughed at the stupid girl I had been.

"I put on the sexiest outfit I could find and drove to the park where we had our first kiss. Candace, I swear I smiled all the way there, thinking about Mary Anne and how Daniel was going to tell me he'd made a mistake and he wanted me back. God," I moaned; shaking my head and burying my face into my hands. "I was such an idiot. He was already there waiting for me when I arrived."

"He had the gall to bring a blanket. He spread it out under a tree and was sitting there all self-importantly like he knew I would come. Like there was never any doubt I would show. I should have run the other way, but instead I ran right into his arms."

"What a lying cheat," Candace finally fumed. "Did you two have sex?"

Shame crept through me when I admitted that we had. I couldn't justify it. I was dumb and blind and totally out of my mind.

"I didn’t tell you that we never actually slept together when we were a couple. Actually, I'm pretty sure that was why he dumped me," I confessed. "He'd been pressuring me for a while, but I wouldn't budge. We even fought about it before he went off to school. When he broke up with me it was pretty funny, because we’d spent the entire time he was home doing some heavy duty making out. I was blindsided when he pulled up outside my house the day he was heading back to school and told me that he wanted us to both have some ‘freedom’. Claimed I deserved to enjoy my last year, and that he wanted us to both experience life before we settled down with each other."

"What an ass."

"Funny part was, I was going to cash in my V-card the night of my coming-out. He just happened to end it before I could do it."

"Well I remember you coming back from Easter break and being this totally different girl. You were
pissed
."

I laughed and stretched out my legs, letting the sun warm them. "Yeah, Daniel pissed me off something fierce that night I slept with him."

I recalled lying there as he slipped his pants back up over himself. We hadn't even bothered to get fully undressed. Talk about a hussy moment. He stretched out beside me and ran his finger along my collar bone, staring deeply into my eyes. We hadn't said more than ten words since I’d gotten there, and most of the words we did say were throaty exclamations of passion. He hadn't confessed his love for me, or his regret. He just told me how beautiful I was and how much I turned him on.

As his finger dipped between my breasts he took a deep breath and finally spoke. "We need to keep this a secret, okay?"

I remember blinking. The vision of a cartoon character shaking its head and trying to pound out something lodged in their ear because they couldn't hear came to mind. Did I miss something?

"A secret?"

"Well yeah, baby. Mary Anne can't know about this, and if we're gonna see each other again we need to play it cool."

"Whhhaaattt?" I screeched, nearly knocking him over as I sat up. "Mary Anne? I just had
sex
with you, Daniel. I… I …oh my God," I gasped.

I jumped up, grabbed my shoes and keys and ran towards my car, dangerously close to tears. Daniel yelled my name but I didn't stop. I fumbled with the keys and jerked the door open right as he grabbed my arm.

"Savannah, what did you expect? That I would dump Mary Anne for you? Come on, I can't do that - I love her."

"
Love
her?" I hissed in disgust. "What a funny way of showing her your love."

"Baby, come on. Don't be that way. I love you too. I'm just confused. I didn't expect you to feel this good.” Daniel leveled his puppy dog eyes on me and whined, “I saw you today and I couldn't think straight. I needed to have you. We can work things out. See each other on the sly until I can figure out what’s best."

"What’s best for
who
, Daniel?"

"For all of us," he murmured, pulling me back against his chest. "We're all grownups here. Who says we can't still see each other?"

I yanked away from his grip and swung around to face him; tears glittering in my eyes. "How about Mary Anne for starters, and me? I'm not going to be your little sex toy."

"Oh, you know you enjoyed it. What was between us when we were in high school was great, baby, but this - this moment," he pointed towards the blanket. "
That
was incredible. I didn't expect it from you."

"Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?" I almost gagged on my humiliation. “What? Was I a horrible kisser when we were together?”

"Come on, Savannah. You've always been so reserved; so proper and perfect. Tonight you were like a hell cat. Someone has really taught you well."

And there it was. The moment when the horror at what I'd done became anger. Red hot, fire breathing anger. I stood there in front of the person who had just changed my whole life without even knowing it. The person who’d ripped out my heart, threw it on the ground and then stomped on it when he’d walked into my party with Mary Anne on his arm nine months earlier. Now he had the
audacity
to compliment the person he assumed taught me in bed.

I leaned forward and crooked my finger at Daniel to get him to come near me; a small smile playing on my lips. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I pulled him down to my mouth and whispered into his ear. "You will NEVER touch me again, or Mary Anne will hear every last, dirty detail of this day." I breathed sweetly into his ear. Then I raised my leg and gave him a swift knee to the balls. He went down with a wail and I climbed into my car, slamming the door behind me.

I hadn't been to a family event since.

Candace looked like she'd seen a ghost when I finished the horrid explanation of that fateful Easter break.

"I went home, showered and climbed into my bed; cold and numb. But I never cried. Instead I replayed over and over what he’d said, and noticed that there was one thing that kept sticking out in my mind. He’d complained about how proper I was, how much like my mother I behaved, and that was the one point I couldn't argue. I was tired of being the perfect little country club debutante belle that my mother raised me to be."

"I remember when you came back, and it was like you flipped a switch. You loosened up and started to hang out more," Candace remembered. Then she chuckled and pointed out, "That's when we met Sara and bless her, she pulled you the rest of the way from that cocoon you'd been in."

I laughed. "Yeah she did. I wanted to be my own person, Candace, and I've tried very hard to be. I still have a ways to go to finally get what I want, but I'm working on it."

"So why haven't you dated? I mean, girl - so many guys have asked you out over the past two years…why haven’t you ever said yes?"

"I think I’ve just been scared of getting screwed over again. It's not solely about Daniel." I stopped myself and tried to figure out how to explain the rest of my story. "There was another guy. It was the summer before our freshman year, while I was still nursing my freshly broken heart from Daniel's defection. It's a long story that I'd rather not get into right now, but trust me when I say that between the two of them I was done."

"Was this guy an ass too?"

Twirling a strand of hair from my ponytail, I sighed. "Hmmm, no. He was actually really amazing, but we just weren't meant to be. I promise to tell you about him sometime soon."

"That's one dreamy look in your eye, chica."

"Oh stop, it was a long time ago. Hey - enough about me. Don't you think we should rush back home and drill Sara about her all-nighter?"

With a resounding “Yes” Candace jumped up from the table and pulled me with her. As we rushed back to the car to head home, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest. Getting the truth out there was cathartic. Maybe now I would finally be ready to move forward and make some sort of an effort with these dates the girls were setting me up on. Perhaps Candace was right. It was high time I got back in the saddle and moved on. Moved on from Daniel, as well as from the guy who’d first started to pick up the shattered pieces of my heart. Even though he was also the same guy to knock them back down again.