“But David, that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Tami, it makes no difference what you meant. The moment of that mattering is long gone. Everyone asked why I would start hanging out with a bunch of loser drug-users. You know what? They weren’t a bunch of losers. They had just all been beaten down. We all clung together and tried to forget what made us that way. Yeah, there were predators in the group, but we knew what they were and didn’t care. At least they weren’t the people we loved turning their backs on us.”
“But I didn’t turn my back on you. Not until you wouldn’t listen to me anymore!”
“Exactly! The moment I would no longer bend my knee to the almighty Tami that was the moment you turned your back on me. Look, I know I was an ass and forced the issue. What you have to realize is that I knew that the moment you no longer felt you could control me, you were gone. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was just one more excuse I had to walk away from my best friends. In a weird way, it made sense to me.
“Tami, don’t get mad. I’m telling you all this for a reason. Uncle John made me face up to what I did and why. The time I spent with him on the farm wasn’t pleasant. He made me realize that the Jan and Justin thing was just between them. I was caught as the unwitting foil used to get him back. I also came to understand that what was said hurt, but wasn’t done to be malicious.
“When I came home after the summer at my uncle’s farm, I thought we were building our friendship again. What kept coming up for me was you felt I wasn’t good enough and had to change to be what you wanted.”
“But I meant we weren’t ready for more yet. I thought you understood.”
“I understood fine. I agreed, but you added the condition that I wasn’t good enough.”
“I was trying to push you to grow up,” she said.
“Exactly! I needed to grow up. There was never a we in there. I was the one who had to change. I was the one who was inferior. You can only hear it so many times before you begin to believe it. Then when you came to me and told me you had chosen Trevor over me, I about lost it.”
“David, it was never me choosing him over you,” she said, trying to reason with me.
“Bullshit! I offered to commit fully to you. I made it clear I wanted you and only you. I loved you so much I couldn’t imagine sharing you with another man. We were going to make a life together. I had dreamed of that all my life. It was blatantly obvious to everyone how I felt about you! It nearly broke Eve and me up. I was willing to give everything up to be with you.”
“But I needed life experience too,” she defended herself.
“Congratulations, you got it. Now you’re complaining I’m not close to you. Did you ever think about what would happen to me if you abandoned me? I was left to deal with the hurt and rejection on top of being left by all my closest friends who all went off to college. How did you think it would shape me? Did you think I might try to protect myself? Why do you think it was so easy for me to lose Harper? Some might say I’m growing up. I think I’ve lost my innocence. I’ve learned that people will hurt you if you give them an opportunity.
“Peggy showed me the blueprint to surviving: just date. You know what a crush I’ve always had on her? When she left me for Mitch, I was fine. Not happy, but fine,” I said, running out of steam.
“I never realized I messed your life up so much,” Tami said.
“Actually, I’m pretty good with it now. What high school romance ever really lasts? I was just being naïve to think love at our age meant forever. It was a lesson I needed to learn.”
I don’t know about Tami, but I felt better after getting all that off my chest.
ANGIE HAD TEXTED ME John’s hospital room number. Tami and I took the elevator, and as we got off, I recognized John’s sister Alice in the waiting room. She was talking to a short boy with glasses. I snuck up behind her, and wrapped my arms around her and kissed her neck.
“Hey, Sexy. How’s your brother doing?” I asked as I breathed into her ear.
Mr. Glasses looked like he was going to have a stroke. It was probably good we were in a hospital. Alice just grinned at my antics.
“David, I want you to meet my boyfriend Donnie,” she said as an introduction.
I tickled her, and she finally squirmed away.
“David is my one of my brother’s friends who knows better,” Alice said firmly.
I don’t think Mr. Glasses, a.k.a. Donnie, liked me much. Alice definitely wanted to get to know Tami. Tami remembered me talking about Alice. They left Donnie and me alone. It was their own fault.
“How do you know Alice?” Donnie started his interrogation.
“Through her brother, I met her when I was offered a football scholarship to the University of Kentucky.”
“So, you’re a dumb jock.”
“Who gets straight ‘A’s and is about to stuff your head in a toilet so you’ll know how to deal with me better,” I suggested with a smile.
“Big talk. I can handle myself,” said Donnie, acting like he wanted to fight me.
I raised my eyebrows and flexed. He was maybe five foot eight and weighed all of 140 pounds. I was six-four, 210 pounds. About the only damage I could see him doing was hitting me in the nuts. I’d be on guard for that. I think he was brain-damaged, because he pushed me.
“What’s your problem? You worried I’m here to poach your girlfriend?” I asked.
“Screw you, asshole,” he said, and took a swing at me.
He telegraphed it so badly I just snatched it out of the air and grabbed his thumb. Cassidy had done this to me on more than one occasion and each time I begged her to stop. I knew Donnie had to be in pain. I admit it, he irritated me. I probably was being a bully when I made him kiss my shoes. At least, that was what Alice and Tami told me. He was much more polite after that. I finally got in to see John, with his mom as my escort.
“When I heard, I was worried you wouldn’t be able to carry my bags,” I said as I walked in.
“Screw you, too, Dawson,” John shot back, and then saw his mom.
“John,” she warned him.
“I think it must be how people greet me here. It must be a term of endearment because I know they love me.”
“What did you do to get my daughter so riled up?” John’s mom asked.
“I had a talk with her boyfriend. Is there something wrong with him? Is he a ‘special needs’ student?” I asked.
“Oh, hell, get Alice in here. David’s on a roll, and I think she needs to hear what a, a, great guy she’s dating,” John begged.
Their mom must not have liked him either because she went and got Alice.
“Donnie said you threatened him, and he was just defending my honor,” Alice started out.
“I don’t remember threatening him. I do remember offering to stuff his head in a toilet after he called me a dumb jock.”
“Oh, go get him! You can use my bathroom,” John suggested.
“John!” Alice complained, and then turned to her mom. “Make him stop picking on Donnie.”
I gave her a hug.
“How have you been?” I asked her.
This time she hugged me back.
“Good. How’s football going? Are you planning on coming to Kentucky to torment my brother?”
“Maybe, but I got another offer over the weekend, and some other big news.”
“Should I go get Dad so he can be jealous, too?” she asked.
“Leave your dad alone. Someday he’ll need to give you away at our wedding, and I need him to pay for everything.”
“Thank you, I needed hope she wouldn’t end up with the munchkin,” John said, referring to Alice’s poor choice of boyfriends.
“Who was the offer from?” Alice asked.
“The Ohio State University. I’m going to Alabama next week.”
“YES!” John said with a fist pump.