My Teenage Dream Ended (11 page)

I didn’t want anyone outside of my circle of friends to know that I had hooked up with Rebound Guy or to find out that we had slept together. Maybe I would tell Derek…eventually. There was a part of me, though, that was glad I had experienced sex with another guy. In a way, it made me feel like I could relate more to Derek, since he’d had sex with six other girls. I tried to be positive about it and see what would come out of this new experience.

Around this time, one of my friends had a pregnancy scare and a bunch of us decided to go to Planned Parenthood after school one day to get birth control. When I told Rebound Guy I had gone on the pill, I was surprised that he didn’t seem more supportive. We had used a condom the time that we had sex and I planned to keep using them, to protect myself from STDs, but I felt like it would be a plus if I was on the pill. The only reaction I got from him was, “That’s good for you.”

I could tell he was trying to distance himself. I said I would talk to him later and told my girls about his less than enthusiastic reaction. I confided that I wasn’t happy about having sex with someone I knew I didn’t love and that I was still confused about where Derek and I stood.

Meanwhile, I honestly tried to get to know Rebound Guy. It took me weeks to sort things out in my head. I would go to his house after practice; we would talk, watch movies, go to parties and hang out with mutual friends. We were good together. We were popular; we had fun and other people were jealous of us being together. But we could sense that we each had unfinished business with our exes. We were both attached to what we had, and our exes were starting to act out behind our backs out of jealousy.

I was never blown away by Rebound Guy, but at least at first there was no drama. That didn’t last long, though. Our relationship hit the breaking point after about a month. We went to a party together and the next day at school gossip about us caught up to Derek’s sister. She came up to me in the hall and asked if I was dating a black guy. It felt like some kind of accusation. I said, “Yeah,” and kept walking past her. I knew damn well she was going to run back to Derek and tattle.

I guess she must have told Derek right away, because by lunch he was on the phone yelling at me. (Since our class schedules didn’t allow us to see each other anymore, we had to call each other to talk during school.) I let him yell for a while and then told him I would call him back.

I knew I had to break things off with Rebound Guy. That day I told him that Derek was mad we were talking. He said he understood because supposedly his ex-girlfriend was jealous, too. He confided that she tried to talk to him every day at school and that she was doing everything she could to get him back
.
I was worried that she was going to talk trash about me or inch her way towards Derek, and that thought was intolerable. We agreed to quit hanging out together.

Once I had settled things with Rebound Guy, it was time to figure out where I stood with Derek. I didn’t call him back when I said I would. Instead, I texted him and told him I needed to tell him something and I would call him later that day. After my last class, I went into the bathroom to call him. I desperately wanted to get back together with Derek and have everything work out and be fine. I wanted to forget all our issues and act like we had never broken up. I wanted to be done playing games. I wanted Derek to be real with me about his feelings and I wanted to share my honest feelings, too. I knew it was going to be hard, but I took a deep breath and called.

Derek was at home and it sounded like he was in his room.

I said, “Derek I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to get mad. I’m going to be honest with you, okay?”

He agreed, “Okay, tell me.”

“I did have sex with that guy. I don’t know why I did it, but you should understand. You’ve had sex with more than one person. I’ve only had sex with you and that was hard to deal with.”

Derek started yelling, “I loved you and you went and had sex with a nigger. I fucking hate black people.”

I let him vent and get all of his anger out. He was devastated and crying
.
Derek wasn’t a racist. He had black friends and I had never heard him say anything racist before. I think he was just so angry at the thought that I had slept with another guy that he was lashing out and trying to say the most awful, hurtful thing he could think of. This sounds crazy, but it showed me how much he really cared about me.

It got quiet on the other end of the phone, and finally I spoke. I said, “I love you Derek. I needed to figure some things out. I’m telling you the truth because I care about you. I’ll call you later and we can talk more.”

I felt bad, but at least now Derek and I were being open about our feelings. We talked a little bit on the phone every day for the next week and it seemed like we were getting closer.

Unfortunately, we still had a rocky road ahead of us.

NO MR. NICE GUY

March came and the weather started warming up again. It felt good. I was busy with soccer practice and there was a lot going on that time of year—grades, parties, getting ready for end-of-year stuff. Derek and I were still talking on the phone, but we weren’t really seeing each other. I wasn’t quite ready to get back together with him and I had no idea what he was really up to.

One afternoon at practice, I was in line to practice shooting goals when I overheard some girls talking. I could tell they purposely wanted me to overhear, so I acted like I was ignoring them and didn’t give them the glory of bothering me. They were talking about how their friend had had sex with a boy at some party and they kept going on and on about it.

Then they asked me, “Didn’t you date a Derek Underwood?”

I ignored them and focused on my ball.

Again they asked, “Hey, didn’t you date a Derek Underwood?”

I turned around and said, “Yeah, a while ago. Who cares?”

I moved forward, kicked my ball and switched lines.

When I got out of practice, I called Derek. He picked up his phone and when he realized it was me he got all weird. He said he was in the shower and I thought,
Why would you pick your phone up in the shower?

I was aggravated, but I heard the water running, so I just came out with it, “Did you hook up with with some girl at a party this past weekend?”

Derek replied, “Yeah.”

I said, “And you think that’s okay?”

Derek said “Yeah. I have to go get ready. Bye.”

I was disgusted and hurt. I thought,
Yeah, he has to shower to wash her off!
I couldn’t believe that after everything Derek and I had talked about he would do this to me. Again! Now, every time I went to practice I would hear about Derek and this girl that was trying to be his girlfriend and the issues they were already having. It made me not want to go to practice anymore.

I knew I needed to quit breaking my dating rules and just move on. I was disappointed in myself, but I shook it off and decided this was my chance to get back on track. So I switched practice times and started dating a boy who had soccer practice with me. We had met at one of my part-time jobs the previous winter, so I had known him for a few months.

I figured he was the type of guy I should go for; he was nice, caring, and played sports. He really liked me. I met his parents and they liked me, which was a really nice change. We would go to parties and I would stay over at his place. He was so nice and cute and perfect, but I could not bring myself to kiss him or be anything more than friends. For a month and a half I seriously tried to make it work, but eventually I realized I was just using him to take my mind off of Derek.

I decided to be honest with him about how I felt, but he didn’t take it very well. He couldn’t let it go. He created tension and drama between my best friends and me, which made me feel that he wasn’t such a nice guy after all.

I was so sick of the drama and I couldn’t deal with stupid gossip anymore. I felt like I had something more important on my mind anyway, like,
How am I going to get Derek to come talk to me again and quit being a loser?

Meanwhile, on top of fighting with my own girlfriends, I had to watch Derek and his new girlfriend holding hands walking down the hall. Derek would practically rub it in my face. I was going through mad hay fever and for days I looked like I had been crying my eyes out over him and his new sweetheart. My life was sucking wind.

I stopped talking to everyone who brought drama into my life. I only talked to my guy friends who had my back. They would come by my soccer practice and tell me what Derek had been up to. They told me he had started smoking. I was shocked because Derek had told me he would never smoke and didn’t like it when other people did. I kept hearing negative rumors about Derek. I didn’t want to believe any of it, but then one day my friend and I went to the Walgreens across the street from my school. I saw Derek walk in and I was going to go talk to him, but then I saw him walk out and the alarm went off.

He didn’t stop at the register and the alarm had gone off, so I figured he must have stolen something. But I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say anything to my friend who was with me. My friends didn’t want to hear about Derek anymore anyway. I decided to just let it go. I realized that if he really didn’t want to talk to me anymore, I needed to accept it.

But I couldn’t help thinking,
What’s happening to Derek?
He was smoking and now it looked like he was shoplifting? I felt like it was my fault. I broke up with him and gave his ring back. I had sex with some other boy and told him about it. I felt like I had pushed him over the edge and now I wasn’t there for him when he was clearly self-destructing.

DUDE, THERE’S A HAIR IN MY TACO!

Meanwhile, I had started talking to a preppy skater boy who I had kind of always had a crush on. I was sick of Derek and when you’re sick of a boy sometimes the only answer is to talk to other boys. One day I went up to Skater Boy and said, “Let’s go out tonight.” I thought he had a girlfriend but he agreed to go out with me, so I figured they must have broken up.

That night, Skater Boy and I went to my college friend’s party and I drank enough jungle juice to forget where the potty was. The next morning, my alarm went off at 5:00
AM
and I found myself in Skater Boy’s bed, spooning him. I untangled myself, stood up and whispered loudly while tapping him, “Hey, you need to get up. I have to go to work. Can I borrow some shorts? Mine are wet.”

He got up and threw me some shorts. I ran to the bathroom and peed. The release felt good because my bladder was so full from all the alcohol I had drunk the night before. When I came out of the bathroom, Skater Boy told me to call him later and I went to work. So on my break, I called, like I used to do with Derek, but this call wasn’t as cute.

When he picked up, I said, “Hey, I’m on a break. Figured I’d call you quick.”

He answered, “Are you okay? Do you remember anything from last night?” He didn’t seem concerned. I was getting more of a smartass vibe.

Right away he said, “Dude, you pissed all over me and my bed last night!!”

I started laughing, “Huh? I don’t get it. I peed this morning after I got up.”

Laughing, he said, “That’s why you asked me for my shorts.

Remember?”

I said, “Oh. You’re probably right. Sorry about that.”