Winning Back Ryan (21 page)

              An hour later, two boxes sat on my kitchen counter, one for George and one for Ben.

I remembered in the video I watched, the night Ryan first cheated, George wanted to come to my room for my cookies. So, I made the ones I remembered him liking, which were now baking. I also made him manly looking potpourri bags scented with sandalwood. They were
laying in his box with a card that read:
I’ll always be here to bake you cookies and put nice smelling shit in your place. ~Annie

In Ben’s box, the new book I purchased sat at the bottom along with an unused ice pack, pain relief gel, and a tube of penis shaped ice cube molds. His card read:

A little birdy told me that your balls were blue.

I hoped an ice pack would do.

And while you heal, you should try this writer’s debut.

Perhaps by the end, you’ll have a breakthrough.

~Princess

             
I realized the time as I placed the tray of cookies on the stove before making my way to the linen closet for my dirty clothes. I took my laundry basket that was marked in black marker: Anne.  I hauled my dirty clothes to the laundromat and when I walked through the doors, I rolled my eyes.  He walked over to me, picking up my laundry basket.

             
“Fancy meeting you here,” Brian said.

             
“What are the odds? Especially after I told you yesterday that I’d be here today,” I replied, though a smile slipped.

He placed my basket down next to him, and I took out the roll of quarters. As I began sorting my clothes, I quickly realized that half of the clothes in the basket were Ryan’s.

              “That son of a bitch,” I muttered.

             
“He stuck his clothes in your basket hoping that you’d wash them?” Brian asked before chuckling, “Man, that guy has some balls.”

             
I realized how to turn the situation to my advantage and smiled. I gathered all of Ryan’s clothes together and placed them in a separate washing machine. Then I tossed all of my clothes in another washer. After placing the quarters into the slots, I held the roll out for Brian. As he held out his hand to take it, I pulled it back, puckering my lips. He smiled, leaning in, and kissed me. When we pulled away, I held the roll of quarters back out for him to take.

             
“Something interesting happened to me today,” he said.

             
“Oh yeah?”

             
“Yeah, I put on my boxers this morning, and do you know what I found?” He leaned in closely, whispering, “Money.”

             
I held back a chuckle. “Wow. Sounds like you had a hell of a morning.”

             
He bent over the washer, his voice deepening, “You have no idea.” He waggled his brows suggestively. “It’s not every day that I wake up next to a beautiful woman wearing very naughty lingerie.”

             
“No, that only happens every other day,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “I can’t believe that you didn’t figure it out when I sent you that text. The boxers are green and the money is green. That’s why I wrote, ‘Green is my favorite color on you.’ Get it? On you, since the money was pressed against your body.” I sighed. “I would have thought someone in advertising would have caught on sooner. I suppose you were a little too busy admiring yourself in the mirror while you combed your hair a hundred times.”

I moved to sit down in a nearby bright, orange, plastic chair with my book in hand. Brian sat down next to me still laughing from my comment.

              “You’re in rare form today. Why are you wound up more than usual?” he asked.

             
I shrugged, unable to look him in the eyes. “Just in a lot of pain from the caffeine withdrawal. It’s making me edgy.” The truth was that sometimes I hurt so badly that I wanted to rip my skin off, because it honestly seemed like it would hurt less.

             
“You’re still going through withdrawal?” he asked. “That’s not normal.”

             
I shrugged again. “Maybe I drank more than I realized. I drank four large cups a day.”
Or six.

             
“Then it’ll take some time,” he replied. 

             
“Yup.” My mouth popped on the ‘p’ as I stared down at my running sneakers. Brian’s hand slipped around my shoulder.

Ring
Ring.

             
I took my cell phone out of my pocket. “Hello?”

             
“Oh, my God, Annie! Why didn’t you tell me?” Amanda Giles shouted on the other end of the phone.

             
“Tell you what?” I asked. I’ve now put her on speakerphone.

             
“That you slept with Brian! Everyone knows,” she exclaimed.

             
“How does everyone know?” I glanced at Brian curiously. Surely he wouldn’t have spread a rumor like that.

             
“Ryan is telling everyone. He has it written on Facebook.”

As soon as Brian heard her statement, he pulled out his phone, signing on to his page. He scrolled down, clicking on Ryan’s picture.

              “So, what was it like? Sleeping with Brian?” She asked me. “Isn’t it pretty incredible when he does that thing with his tongue?”

I covered my hand over my mouth to keep the laughter down while my eyebrows nearly reached my hairline. I turned towards Brian who paled at her words.

              “That’s really inappropriate, Amanda,” Brian shouted into the phone.

             
“Brian, is that you?” she asked nervously.

             
“Yeah, sorry, I was just…parking the car. Then Annie told me that you were on the phone. How’ve you been?” he asked, his jaw clenched. The words came out strained. I looked at him curiously. So, he had slept with Amanda at some point. That was news to me.

             
“Oh, Brian, what’s the big deal? It was a long time ago. But, it was pretty incredible,” Amanda replied. Brian’s features darkened as he stared at the phone between us.

             
“Alright, I have to go, Amanda,” I spoke into the phone.

             
“Why are you in a rush?” she asked, annoyed.

             
“I’m sorry. I’m just pissed that Ryan is putting my life on blast. Do you know why we broke up? I caught him sleeping with a chick in our bed. Then he was sleeping with Kelly that weekend, throwing a party, tearing my apartment apart with freeloaders.”

             
“Annie, I thought you guys had an open relationship,” she said quietly.

             
“What are you talking about?” I asked.

             
“He’s been sleeping with Kelly for like three months now. He’s been telling everyone that you and he have an open relationship.”

I stared at the front load washing machine in front of me, watching the laundry through the glass window. The clothes were spinning around and around. It was an apt metaphor for what was going on in my mind at that moment.

              “No,” I spat into the phone. “We didn’t. He’s lying and a cheating scumbag, and she’s a whore. Tell everyone.” No one could spread gossip quite like Amanda.

I hung up the phone, and Brian looked at me. “Are you alright?”

              “Ryan sleeping with Kelly wasn’t new news.” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. My head was throbbing. “What is he saying on his page? And I’d like to know when the hell he found time to screw all of these women and be home with me every night.”

             
“I’m not sure you want to read this,” he said, eyeing me warily.

             
“Just give it to me.” I took the phone out of his hand.

Woke up this morning to find Brian A. fucking Annie.
No surprise there. When hasn’t he wanted to bang her?  Wonder who else she’s going to sleep with. Step right up, take a number, and get in line to have my sloppy seconds.

             
“Are you okay?” Brian asked.

             
I calmly gave him his phone back and dialed the number to Ryan’s office. When the secretary answered, I asked to speak to Ryan’s boss, Mr. Mayfield, and that it was an emergency. When the call was patched through I told him that I was from the law firm of Bowman and Bowman.  A lawsuit had been filed against one of their employees, Ryan Kindall, for libel concerning attacks he made on Anne Watson. The proof and evidence was on his Facebook page. I was giving him a courtesy call since Mr.Mayfield owns a public relations firm and did not want the lawsuit to inadvertently affect his company or clients.

After hanging up the phone, Brian looked at me nervously.

              “You know he’s going to get fired from his job.”

             
“That’s the idea,” I said to him. “In my rental lease, there is a clause that if Ryan can show proof of being unemployed, he can be released from the obligation. I’m going to get rid of him one way or another.”

             
“Are you okay?” he asked again and I nodded. It didn’t matter what others thought about me; I knew the truth.

             
“What are you going to do after this?” he asked, his arm still wrapped around me, rubbing my shoulder.

             
“Drop my clothes off at your house, give Ryan’s clothes to Chuck. Then I’m going to the clinic.” I knew I should have done it days ago. I was just scared. I never had to do anything like this before; there was never a need.

              “I’ll go with you.” He squeezed me tightly.

             
“Dinner’s on me then.”

             
“No way,” he said, “I have a wad full of money in my boxers, remember?”

             
“That was for last night, baby,” I said, winking lasciviously. “Apparently you were incredible. Especially when you did that thing with your tongue. Totally rocked my world.” He laughed at that. “All kidding aside, are you alright? He said some pretty nasty things about you, too.”

             
He scoffed. “He’ll get what’s coming to him. Guys like him always do.”

             
After giving Ryan’s freshly-laundered clothes to Chuck, dropping off my clothes at Brian’s (I’m sure that there would be retaliation by Ryan for what I had done), we hopped into Brian’s car. Fifteen blocks away, we found ourselves at the Harte’s Health Clinic where anonymous testing was done.

             
After answering a million questions about why I was getting the testing done- No, I didn’t always have protected sex. My ex was a slime bag who slept with half of New Jersey and New York. No, I was not currently sexually active- they took the needle out.  This was a whole other fiasco that I hated Ryan for. I was terrified of needles. I felt fine when Brian had his ink done, because the needle was nowhere near me.

             
After seeing how skittish I became, the nurse told me she would use a ‘virgin needle.’ Virgin my ass, there was nothing innocent about that piece of metal. It wanted to drain me dry. I didn’t like vampire stories either for the same reason. I had an irrational fear of dying that way. She kept moving the needle towards my arm and right as she was about to prick me I jumped a mile high.

             
“Mam, you really need to sit still if I’m going to draw your blood!” The elderly nurse yelled in an exasperated tone. I honestly didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to deal with me. I couldn’t help it, though.

             
“I’m sorry,” I said while nearly hyperventilating. The longer I sat here, the longer that needle looked.

The door creaked open and the nurse and I both looked at the same time to find Brian walking in.

              “Being a little chicken again, I see,” he said to me wearing a cocky smile.
              “Sir, you can’t be in here while I’m with another patient,” she said, trying to sound authoritative.

             
“It’s alright. I’m her friend. I’ll help you draw her blood,” he explained. I sighed, realizing Brian knew about my phobia. He laughed at me whenever there was a blood drive at school. I tried to donate blood. I took one look at how big the needle was and passed out both times.

He walked over to me as I heard the woman huffing.

              “Give me your arm, you little chicken.” I glared at him indignantly as he took my hand, looking me in the eyes. Our hands and arms were now locked as though we were about to have an arm wrestling match. “Keep your eyes on me. So, what are you going to wear on your date with Max?” he asked.

The question threw me completely off guard.

              “I- I don’t know” I stammered.

             
“Well, you can’t show up to the museum naked now, can you?” I guffawed at his remark.