It’s not just that, though.
I’m not sure how it’ll go with Anderson at the park. If anyone had asked me this morning, I wouldn’t have said I wanted to see him, but now…
I kinda do.
___
Hastings Park is a vast green expanse dotted with trees and park benches.
There’s a gazebo where carolers perform around Christmastime, but that’s not where I go. That’s where most people tend to gravitate when they come here, and I’m committed to avoiding people today.
Anderson is camped out in the middle of nowhere, a big open space where the Ferris wheel was set up over the summer.
I clutch my blanket a little closer and make my way across the park to him.
“Hey,” he says, smiling and standing up as I approach.
“I brought a blanket.” I hold it up and throw it open so I can lay it out across the lawn.
“Good thinking. What’s a picnic without a blanket?”
“A feast for ants.” I bend down to smooth out a folded edge, then I sit on the ground. “What kind of sandwich was it today?”
“Thanksgiving dinner,” he says uncertainly, handing me a heavy sandwich wrapped in white paper.
“So… turkey?” I rip into the package so I can check out the sandwich.
“Among other things. By the looks of it, I should’ve brought a forklift. I don’t know how we’re gonna eat these.”
I grin, revealing the messy-looking, delicious-smelling sandwich. “I don’t either, but I am up to the challenge. It smells amazing.”
“I think the bun is a giant dinner roll,” he says, looking at the sandwich from the side, as if he’s genuinely trying to figure out how to attack it. “Is that cranberry sauce?”
“Probably. Oh man, I’m excited.”
His gaze flickers to me. “If it’s terrible, we can order a pizza.”
“It’s going to be amazing,” I say confidently as I pick it up.
It’s impossible to take a bite in ladylike fashion, a fact I’m made more aware of because Anderson is openly watching me, but that doesn’t slow me down. I take a big bite, trying to make sure I get a little bit of every flavor for my first taste, but Anderson is right. The sandwich is too big. It’s hard to even get my mouth around all of it.
Anderson laughs as I chew my first bite, casually reaching over and thumbing a bit of cranberry sauce off the corner of my mouth.
My stomach drops when, instead of wiping it on a napkin, he sticks his thumb between his lips and cleans it that way.
“Mm, that’s pretty good,” he admits.
My stomach feels strangely hollow. I look down, feeling the faintest grime of guilt. When I try to figure out why, Hunter’s face flashes to mind.
I swallow with some effort, reaching for the Diet Coke Anderson brought me and unscrewing the cap so I can wash it down.
“Are you okay?” Anderson asks.
I hear the concern in his tone, so I look up and nod to reassure him. “Yeah. It’s good.”
Since my enthusiasm has noticeably ebbed, Anderson continues to frown. “Are you sure? You look like something is wrong.”
I put the cap back on my drink and set it down. “My mind wandered off to a prohibited area, just trying to get back.” Shaking my head to clear it, I reach for some semblance of composure. “Speaking of topics I might not enjoy, what exactly did you want to talk to me about?”
“That’s fair.” He looks down at his sandwich, but doesn’t touch it. He sighs. “Look, last night… I’m really sorry about everything. All of it. I was pissed off at the party, but after I went home and calmed down, I started thinking about it and I realized… I wasn’t a very good boyfriend.”
I frown. “What?”
“I wasn’t,” he says, meeting my gaze levelly. “I made you feel like you had to defend yourself against me. I made you feel like I wasn’t on your side. I was thinking about that day at the doughnut shop...” He sighs again, shaking his head. “You were right to break up with me. You deserve better. But that’s not the best I can do, Riley. I can be a better boyfriend than that.”
I can’t look at him.
That feeling is back, the vaguely guilty one.
I appreciate what he’s saying, but I would have appreciated it a lot more before I went into that bedroom with Hunter last night.
“Listen, Anderson, I appreciate the sentiment and… I do think we both made some very wrong choices this past week, but if one bad week was enough to break us, what we had clearly wasn’t very strong. And all of the issues we had last night? We still have them today. It’s not about being mad at each other. Yeah, we both got mad last night, but we didn’t break up because we were mad.”
“No, we broke up because you still had some kind of attachment to Hunter and I picked up on it and acted like a jealous asshole,” he states plainly. “Maybe I’m reaching here, but after last night, I’m thinking maybe you’re over that?”
My stomach hollows out. I knew he’d heard stuff about last night, but he didn’t specify which parts. I kind of figured he either hadn’t put together that I was in the room with Hunter, or he had, but in his quest to be a better boyfriend, he chose not to believe it. To give me the benefit of the doubt the time I didn’t deserve it, since he hadn’t when I did.
“I guess you’ve heard about last night,” I say without looking up.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know exactly what you heard, but… it’s not all a lie this time. I didn’t have sex with Hunter in middle school, and I didn’t sleep with my married history teacher, but I was in Valerie’s bedroom with him last night. You haven’t heard it from my perspective, but… I did hook up with Hunter after you left.”
“I figured.”
He sounds unhappy about it, but not mad.
“I didn’t know he was dating the devil,” I mutter.
“I figured that, too.”
I look up. “Did you? Know about him and Valerie,” I specify, since he never said anything to me about it.
He shrugs. “I heard things, but I didn’t pay much attention to Hunter’s love life except as it pertained to my girlfriend. I take it he sent the flowers?”
I nod, looking down again. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“I don’t, either,” he says easily. “I just want to know if you’re done with him.”
I scoff, keeping my gaze trained on the blanket. “Oh yeah. I’m definitely done with him.”
“Good.” He pauses. “Then I’d like to propose we give us another shot.”
I thought that might be where he was going with that.
I sigh, my tone regretful as I tell him, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Anderson. Done with him or not, last night still happened. You’ll hold it against me, we’ll end up right back where we were before.”
“I won’t,” he says firmly. “I won’t do that, Riley. We were broken up. You didn’t do anything wrong. Do I hate that it happened with him? Yes. But I’m not going to hold onto it. I want to give us a real shot this time, none of that petty bullshit.”