Jack wandered into the room and she eagerly hopped up from her seat to greet him. The smile he returned to her was weak and he held up his hand. “Lexi,” he said her name as if reprimanding her. She couldn’t help it, she radiated with energy. Her curls bounced in her face as she backed away obediently. She looked at him concerned, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Sorry,” she said smiling playfully, trying to play off the seriousness of his appearance. She didn’t know why she was sorry just that he off somehow.
“No, Lex, it’s fine. I just need to talk to you about some stuff,” he said averting his eyes. Lexi paused in her excitement and took a good hard look at him. Large black circles ringed his eyes as if he hadn’t slept the night before…for several days even. Obviously, he hadn’t been having the same dreams as her. His clothes, which were normally in pristine condition, hung off him wrought with wrinkles. He hadn’t even given her a hug when she had walked in. Something serious was going on. “Oh, ok. Well go ahead. I’m all ears,” she said pretending to stay upbeat despite the awful feeling forming in the pit of her stomach.
He sighed heavily, finally meeting her eyes. “I have a girlfriend.”
“You what?” she practically screamed at him, shock evident on her now very pale face.
His head fell to his chest and he wouldn’t meet her gaze. “She doesn’t live here. That’s how you haven’t come across her. We’ve been dating since high school,” he added the last part in an almost whisper, his voice breaking.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she shrieked, tears unintentionally springing to her eyes. “How can you stand there and tell me that everything we have is a lie?” She pushed past him and into the kitchen running her hands against the sides of the cool countertop in an attempt to calm herself. It didn’t work.
“It’s not a lie.”
She glared at him fiercely, her jaw locked tight. “How?” Lexi asked through her teeth, smacking the countertop with the palms of her hands.
“Lex, I can explain.”
“Oh, can you?” she asked turning to face him. “How can you possibly explain?”
He paused, achingly watching the tears stream down her cheeks. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, you’re sorry?” she retorted, throwing her hands in the air. “What good does that do? How does this solve anything? I don’t need your apology, and anyways you still haven’t given me an explanation.” She stood straight-backed in front of him, nostrils flaring, staring him down. “You said you could explain. Well, try. Please try to explain to me how any of this can possibly be okay. How could you lie and deceive me like this? All those things that you said,” she cried running her fingers through her tangled curls. “God, did you mean anything you said?”
“Please don’t cry. We weren’t even really together.” She shot him a look of death. “I know we spent a lot of time together,” he said throwing his hands up in defense.
“Enough time that the fact that you had a girlfriend might have come up, don’t you think?”
“Yes. I wanted to tell you so many times.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Jack. If you wanted to tell me, then you would have. Obviously, you didn’t want me to know. You wanted to double dip.”
“Oh, stop with that,” he said taking her shoulders in his hands. “I stopped what we were doing before anything serious happened.”
“Before anything serious happened. Really? Are you serious?” she asked venom apparent in her tone.
“Lex...I...”
She cut him off, not really wanting to hear his definition of what serious was. “Is that what all those phone calls were? All those weekends at home? You were visiting your...girlfriend.” He nodded solemnly. “You let me go through all of this, let me feel like we were working towards something, while the whole time you were parading around with your girlfriend?” she asked weakly, her voice cracking. “What kind of person does that?”
“Lexi, please.”
She couldn’t listen to him pleading with her. She just couldn’t do it. Suddenly, her voice shifted from despair to anger. “So, tell me, what did your girlfriend say when you told her that you had let some other girl sleep in your bed? What did she say when you told her that you would trail kisses across that same girl’s face and down her neck with countless promises for more? Hmm?” she asked forcefully pushing him away from her. “What did she say when you told her how beautiful you thought I was, and how much you had never met any other girl as amazing as me? Was she happy? Wait, let me guess, you didn’t tell her,” she spoke fiercely, accusing him. “Of course not, because had you told her, then she would be the one crying right now. Not me.”
Jack brushed his hair back from his eyes and paced away from her. “Please, Lexi, God, I didn’t want this to happen.”
“You didn’t want this to happen?” Lexi asked in disbelief. “God, are you blind? Why did you even ask me out in the first place, if you were so set on not letting this happen?” she threw the question at him angrily. “You didn’t have to. I was walking away. You could have and should have just left it at that. Just answer me that, since you can’t seem to answer anything else.”
“I hesitated,” he started lamely. “I wasn’t going to ask you out, but I thought that I could hold you back. That we could just be friends and maybe, you could even meet Danielle. Then we started hanging out, and I was in deep over my head after the first time we hung out. You were…are,” he corrected himself, “amazing. I didn’t want to stop what we had, and I never wanted to hurt you like this. But, by the time I realized I should tell you about Danielle, it was too late.”
“You’re right. It is too late. Good-bye, Jack,” she said shoving him against the pantry door, snatching her jacket off the couch, and marching towards the exit.
“Lexi,” he called rushing after her. He latched on to her elbow and spun her around. “I told you because I want us to still be friends. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t feed me that,” she quipped, struggling to yank her arm free. He held on tight, not letting her loose. “Let me go,” she cried warningly.
He ignored her command. “I’m not feeding you anything. The time isn’t right for us, but I don’t think that means there won’t be a time for us,” he said, his blue eyes pleading. “Please, Lex.”
“You tell me you have a girlfriend. A serious girlfriend, of what, two or three years?” He nodded. “Then you tell me that the time isn’t right for us, but you think you might want to be with me in the future? How can you even ask that of me? How much more selfish and pigheaded can you possibly act?”
He winced as she berated him. “I’m not asking for you to wait for me.”
“Good, because that’s never happening,” she said under her breath.
He forged onward. “I just mean, don’t give up on this. We haven’t even begun, and I don’t want us to be over.”
“You’re right. We haven’t begun, and we never will. Thank God, this was over before I let you fool me any longer, before I actually acquired feelings for you.” He winced again. She was saying these things just to hurt him now, and it was working. “Now, let. Me. Go,” she demanded, indicating with her forehead that he was still tightly holding onto her elbow.
“I really am sorry, Lex,” he said finally releasing her.
“Save it,” she said cutting off any further retorts. “Just do me one thing, Jack.” She yanked open the front door.
“Anything,” he volunteered eagerly.
“Don’t you dare ever lie to me again,” she said as she slammed the door behind her.