Spades

Derek.  And Joe.  THAT is what I didn’t want to see. 

There will be more about Joe later, but just know he is on the tennis team with me, as well, and one of my best friend boys.  (You know, not a boyfriend, so a friend boy.)  I’m sure Derek showed up at the courts looking for me, after not finding me at my apartment, and Joe led him here.

Frustrated, I dumped the rest of my food in the trash and stormed over to Derek.  “You haven’t been returning my calls.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him behind me out the door.  “WHY are you here?” He looked at me.  His expression was so sad, so lonely, and so desperate; it hurt my heart to see.  As much as I couldn’t admit that I didn’t want to be with him, I also couldn’t deny that I care immensely for him.

“I’m sorry.”  That’s all I could muster.  I shamefully looked down at my feet and started to walk out the door to my car.  Derek followed me.  The beauty of having been with Derek for this long is we didn’t need to always speak to know what was going to happen.  I got into my car, and he got into his truck, and he followed me to my apartment.  I had seen Maddie and Sarah eating in the cafeteria with some of their track friends when I walked out, so I knew they wouldn’t be home, and Elena was working at the on-campus coffee shop that night.  We went inside.  He sat down on one side of the couch.  I elected for the chair.   

Derek asked quietly, “Did you cheat on me?” I paused, not because I did, but because I had actually thought about it.

Derek stood up.  “Derek, wait.  No, I didn’t.  I promise.  I’m so sorry I ignored you.”  Once I started, it was like word vomit just pouring out of my mouth.  “I’ve just been so stressed with tennis season starting up, the pregnancy scare, keeping my grades up enough to matter in the future, and working, and everything with you, that I don’t know if I can do it anymore.  I need to give something up.  I don’t know that I’m ready to be in a serious relationship… I mean, I know we’ve been together more or less two years, and it’s serious, but I mean, it’s serious to the point where I know you’re considering proposing to me, and I just can’t handle that kind of pressure right now.  I’m not ready.  I thought I was, but I’m not and I don’t want to hurt you and our relationship isn’t good with how it is, and this isn’t the type of relationship I imagined…” I trailed off.  I was crying.  Derek wouldn’t look at me.  I didn’t MEAN to say it, but I did.  I started again, slower and more carefully.  “Derek, what I mean by that, is that we fight all the time.  You don’t trust me.  You shouldn’t be with me if you don’t trust me. I meant that our relationship is not how I imagined it would be at this point.”

“I understand.”  He was a man of few words.  He walked over to me, and pulled me up by my hands.  He enveloped me in a protective hug.  I almost didn’t hear him when he whispered, “I love you.  Forever.  And I know you’ll change your mind.  I’ll be here waiting for you when you do.  Like always.”  My stomach churned when he said it.  Not because I felt the same way, but because he was my safety blanket, and I knew that running back to him was always an option, and I probably would, and I would end up hurting him again.  I tried to mentally stale myself to him.  He pulled away and looked at me.  He had tears in his eyes.  I looked away.  Then he left.  I was sad, because he has been such a big part of my life, but not in a break-up sad way, because I had checked out emotionally so long ago.

I laid on the couch under a blanket, with just a light on, until Maddie and Sarah walked in.  They already knew and didn’t ask.  They just walked over to me.  Maddie said at my feet and Sarah picked my head up and laid it on her lap and started playing with my hair.  Sarah said what we all were thinking.  “You need to stop doing this to yourself.  And to Derek.”  I nodded and closed my eyes.  Sarah and I had known each other for 2 years.  She and I had met freshman year about the time that Derek and I started dating.  We were instant friends.  By accident, really, because she transferred here second semester of freshman year for her boyfriend, who claimed he was single and was talking to me.  Nothing happened between us, sexually, but he claimed I tried feeling his “member,” to her, and she hated me initially.  Then we sat down, talked, and realized he was a player, laughed, and lived happily ever after.  Maddie and I met first semester of freshman year, and really hit it off.  We had similar passions in life and similar personalities.  I loved her dearly, and she knew exactly how to take my mind off of the events of the evening.  “Spades night?” My eyes shot open.  “Um, of course!”  Maddie grabbed her phone and I knew she was texting Elena to let her know.  Elena would be home from work soon, and we would sit around, playing Spades, eating chips and salsa, and drinking Coke.

I told the girls about James.  Sarah had met him several times when she had come to visit me at the Racquet Club and actually liked him a lot.  She said make him break up with his girlfriend and go for it.  Maddie told me to take my time.  Elena said she thought James was a bad idea, because of how he acts now while he has a girlfriend.  I decided I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I changed the subject to Elena and Jeff.  They had been dating for over a year, now.  I knew they were very serious about each other.  I could tell the way Elena looked at him, and talked about him, that this was her One.  Elena was my oldest friend.  We had met when we were 5, when my family moved to the town we grew up in.  We became best friends immediately, and were inseparable, bonding over My Little Pony and lemonade stands to boys and sports, as we got older.  Elena was beaming, as I asked if they had talked about marriage at all.  She said they had, and she expected Jeff to propose, but she didn’t know when.  She gushed for awhile.  We also talked about Maddie and her boyfriend, Gavin.  They were the couple you always rolled your eyes at and were grossed out by.  For example their phone endings usually went something like, “You hang up first…”, “No, you hang up first!”, and on and on.  Adorable, in the “eye-rolling-I-want-to-claw-my-ears-out” type.  After all the lovey gushing, our conversations turned to our weekend plans.  Seemingly forever bachelorettes-at-heart Sarah and I agreed that we wanted to have a girls’ night out this Friday after my first match of the season, and Maddie and Elena both wanted to join.  Maddie and Sarah don’t have a track meet this Friday or Saturday, it will be Thursday, instead, so we could all go out, have a blast, and sleep in Saturday.  I cannot wait until Friday, after this emotionally trying week!