“You’ll figure it out. With her or with someone else you deserve.” Gannon nods, and I have a feeling he’s more in tune with the situation with Bevan than he’s let on.
“Hey, look who’s here.” Gannon hits me in the shoulder.
I turn just as Gretchen reaches me, and her face is all sardonic amusement. “Hm, look, it’s the guy who took me on a great date and then completely ghosted me.”
I blanch, knowing I was also selfish when it came to how I treated her. “Listen, I’m really sorry about that. I was going through some stuff, hadn’t dated much after my ex, and I meant to reach out—”
“But it was just easier not to reject me or even be a standup guy, I get it.” She’s being sarcastic, but I can hear the biting undertone.
“You deserve better. I’m sorry.” I bow my head, humbled.
“I do. You can make it up to me now by dancing with me.” She reaches for my hand.
My brain isn’t working as fast as my feet, and before I know it, we’re on the dance floor. Because my feelings are so conflicted, I try to get into it, listen to the music, and smile at Gretchen. I’ve been fucked up in the head when it comes to love and relationships these days, and wouldn’t it just be easier if I could get into someone else? Wouldn’t my life be less complicated if I could fall for someone where there’s no history between us?
We start to dance, and I try my hardest, just like last time, to get into it.
“So listen, there is this formal for the business school.”
She’s yelling in my ear over the music and my head is pulled in so many different directions.
“I know it.” Because Bevan has gone.
“I was wondering if you’d go with me. It’s lame, but I thought maybe we could get to know each other more and …”
I don’t hear much of what she says, both because I’m not paying attention and the music is too loud. Maybe I nod just to get her off my back. Gretchen grinds on my body, and we’re back in the same place we were when I brought her back to that house party months ago. Her pert ass claps back at me, and despite the fact I’m two beers in, I don’t feel looser.
I feel completely sober. Scott shows up next to us, filming the dance floor on his phone. I know he’s storying for Instagram, and I make a motion like I want him to buzz off.
Suddenly, everything feels too loud. Gretchen is too forward, and I don’t want to be here at all. Sweat beads at the base of my neck, my lungs feel hot, and it feels like all of my organs might just pop out of my skin.
The reason I’m so panicked about confronting things with Bevan head-on is because I’m so head over heels in love with her. It’s because our souls are connected, and if we end up in disaster for a second time, it will wreck me beyond repair.
But I’d rather try than never know at all. I’d rather fail than never be in love like this again. This all-consuming, makes you physically ill, kind of love. It isn’t worth it if it isn’t Bevan.
I don’t look back as I stalk off the dance floor, in a full out sprint by the time I reach the door and make my way outside.
My journey home from the bar is a blur, a hasty adventure in which a million explanations ramble through my mind. What will I say when I see her? What will I do?
I enter the house and float up the stairs as if my feet aren’t even touching the floor.
The three knocks I land on her bedroom door sound like gunshots to my already rapidly beating heart. My cock strains against the zipper of my jeans. In my chest, the thing that only beats for her is knocking around in wild anticipation.
Bevan appears, and before she can talk, my hands dive for her hair and then we’re kissing. Long, languid declarations of love that steal all the breath from my lungs. Backing her up, I feel it when the back of her knees hit the mattress. I want to get carried away, never tell her what’s been on my mind tonight, but I know it will only lead us right back to where we were.
“I don’t want to be here right now,” I confess.
I see something pass over her face. Confusion, fear, lust, and indignation. Then Bevan’s upper lip goes stiff, and she leans away from me.
“Then get out. If you don’t want me, all of me, I don’t want this.”
I would have been less surprised if she’d taken out a bazooka and shot me in the middle of the chest. In all the time we’ve been apart, I’ve been calling the shots. I’ve been the adamant one, the person who was pushing her away and trying not to go back here. Now I’m trying to tell her how I feel, and I’m going about it all wrong. Again. We never could seem to get on the same page at the same time.
“Bev—” I start, attempting to explain myself.
“No!” she cries.
Bevan has just drawn the line I have always been unable to do, and I immediately want to cross it. The guys and Taya were right, along with the girl I’ve always been in love with. I’m a selfish asshole.
“You’re jerking me around, playing me hot and cold. And maybe it’s because you can’t cope with your own mix of emotions, but I’m not going to be your punching bag. I’m trying to do the work, going to therapy to prove to myself and to you, at first, that I can move past my issues. That I can mature and stop feeling so hurt. I want to work on not blaming the problems of my childhood on you and not lashing out. But, Callum, you’re making that really hard. This week I thought we were getting somewhere. With the back rub and the laundry and the candy … it felt like we were forming something. That bond we’d always shared was coming back. Then I hear you’re at a party with your new little friend, but you show up here wanting to get in my pants?”
“Who told you I was with her?” I demand, annoyed that someone has been tattling on me.
Bevan looks guilty. “You were all over Scott’s Instagram stories. Grinding on her at some bar in the background of his videos while Scott lip-synced to the music. Regardless, you were with her most of the night. What, she wouldn’t put out? So you thought you’d come back here, and I’d sink to my knees? You must really think I’m pathetic, Callum.”
“So you’re spying on me?” My blood ignites.
I’ve gone straight past the point, but jealous streaks were always a hot button issue between us. We both ran scorching red, or green in this case, and I’m letting it cloud what I initially came here to say. But I can’t stop the jumble of words coming out of my mouth.
“It’s not spying. I’m friends with Scott on social media, just like I am with every other person in this house. Oh, except for you. Remember, you blocked me?”
The laugh that bubbles up from my throat is all sarcasm. “Oh, here we go. I was wondering when we’d broach this topic. I blocked you so that I didn’t have to see your pictures, or when you started going out without me. I didn’t feel like seeing guys on your page, commenting on thirst traps or shit.”
“Yeah, because I post so many of those. You know I’m not like that at all, and I’ve stayed in most nights since we broke up, or didn’t you notice? Let’s be honest, you blocked me so that I couldn’t see what was going on with you and other girls.”
If I am being honest, it was a little bit of both. I was furious at Bevan when we broke up, even though it was me who’d made the ultimate choice. I blamed her for pushing me to it, for making it so that we couldn’t be together without all the toxic energy. So I blocked her, to spite her. To make her think I was out hooking up with all kinds of girls, because she had done this to us.