Bullet(18)

I didn’t want Ethan to think what had happened spoiled his chances with me. Whatever had happened between Brad and me was some weird, animalistic, electromagnetic, primitive thing that I seemed to have no control over. And it certainly wasn’t a deep love like I was beginning to feel for the man next to me. Still…I wanted him to feel comfortable with our friendship, especially if that was all it ever wound up being. “Well…I like Brad too. He’s a nice guy. And…any friend of yours is a friend of mine.” I slowly let out the breath that had filled my lungs as I tried to relax.

“I didn’t mean it that way.” I shrugged and feigned ignorance about Brad’s interest, and no more was said on the subject. I wrapped my arm around Ethan too so he’d know he was important to me and hoped this particular topic wouldn’t be brought up again.

* * *

Over the next month, Jennifer and I seemed to become close friends. We did everything together—eating our meals, studying at the library, exercising. She seemed to fill in the gap of my lost friendship with Jill, the one I still clung to because it seemed to signify the last vestige of who I was before coming to college.

Jill never did come to visit like she’d promised, and—really—it was no big surprise to me. Instead, she wrote me a long email confessing that she had in fact been pregnant, just as I’d guessed. She’d gotten an abortion and somehow her parents had found out. And they were old-school Catholics, so they weren’t too pleased. Rather than deal with the arguments and accusations, she moved out of her parents’ house and in with her boyfriend to move out of the light of her parents’ disapproving glares.

I felt bad for Jill, and I wondered how this would change her life. Did she love Chad, her boyfriend of just a couple of years? She was now a nineteen-year-old wife who had broken ties to her family, and I wondered what kind of emotional scars the abortion would leave her with. That couldn’t have been an easy decision, and had anyone been by her side when she’d decided it? When she’d gone through with it? I didn’t know that Chad would have been supportive in that way, but I hoped I was wrong. God…if I’d had the chance to talk with Jill, if we’d been able to talk like we had in high school, maybe I could have talked to her, felt her out. Did she really want to be married? Could she have tried to mend the issues with her parents? Did she even try? As her friend, maybe I could have helped her see the rational side. But what did I know? Maybe she’d made the best decision out of all the available options. The email somehow felt final, kind of like a Dear John letter, terminating our friendship. But I felt I still had to try to salvage what we had. So I emailed her back, but when she never responded, I took the hint. The email was, perhaps, her last farewell.

Zane…what was up with him in the new semester? It didn’t take me long to discover that he was definitely taking an interest in me, and I had no idea why. Maybe he was tired of seeing Ethan piss away one opportunity after another. And, aside from just telling Ethan I was madly in love with him, I didn’t know what else to do. I’d never been forward with a guy, and—coming from an old-fashioned family—I thought it was his job to make the first move. So I tried to at least create the ideal environment for that first move. I spent time with him; we texted a lot, usually about music or something funny; and he’d caught me multiple times just looking at him with a sappy look on my face.

But Zane…he came over to my dorm room. A lot. Usually uninvited, though not unwelcome. He started walking with me to my classes when he could. At first, I thought he was interested in Jennifer, but he wasn’t walking her around, and he was never in my dorm room chatting her up before I got home. And, to quell any doubts I had in my mind, he later invited me to the first dance of the semester.

His dark blue eyes twinkled when he asked me, and at first I thought he was joking. Then I could have kicked myself. When he and I had talked in January, I hadn’t confessed the complete scope of the affection I felt for Ethan. That was my fault entirely. Zane had asked, and I’d just told him Ethan was my best friend. I hadn’t told Zane my secret desire was to be Ethan’s girlfriend, was to snuggle up close to him, was to have him kiss me like I’d never been kissed before.

Zane waited for my answer to his question, and when I gave it, I was slow and cautious. “I’m…not sure, Zane.”

He wasn’t a quitter. He pushed back his black hair and leaned forward. God, he really was gorgeous, and my subconscious started giving him serious consideration. “Why not? We’re friends, right?” His eyes searched mine and then he said, “It’s Ethan, isn’t it?” I couldn’t say a word, and my silence told him what he needed to know. “Valerie, you need to forget about him except as a friend.” He stared at me. “Trust me on this. Come with me to the dance. I know you care about Ethan a lot, no matter what you say, so don’t even try to deny it. But what would it hurt for you to go to the dance with me?”

“Oh, Zane. I know Ethan won’t ask me to the dance. That’s not it. But it’s a Valentine’s Day dance. And if I go with you…” I felt the wind leave my sails. Much as I cared for Ethan, I didn’t want to hurt the man who’d actually grown a pair to ask.

He knew what I was saying, though. “He’ll think we’re a couple, right?” He paused. “Jesus f*ck. Val, I really don’t want to be the dickhead to tell you this…” I could see some kind of emotional struggle in his eyes. “No. Fuck it. Not going there.”

“What?” No way was he getting away with not talking now.

“No. Forget it.” He took a deep breath. “Just…never mind.”

He started to stand up, so I stood too. He was tall, but I still reached for his shoulders. I wasn’t going to be demanding, because that already had gotten me nowhere, but I knew he was withholding something from me, and I wanted to know. “Please tell me.” He looked at me and then above my head at the wall behind me. “Is it something I’ll find out anyway?”

And that’s when I saw the change in his eyes. Yeah…it was something I’d find out later. He looked almost sad. He sighed and then said, “Ethan…uh…is taking another girl to the dance.”

The breath left me just as surely as it would have had someone punched me in the gut and thrown me to the ground, following it up with a few kicks. I couldn’t hide my feelings, because they were too fresh, and I’m sure I looked like a wounded animal. “Oh…”

Wow. That hurt more than I would have expected, because I’d thought I was okay with the best friends/ maybe relationship down the line stance Ethan had taken. But now I knew. Ethan didn’t love me that way, probably never would. I had to grow up and face reality. So I had to accept that the occasional arm around my shoulders, kiss on my cheek, and hand in mine were simply friendly gestures that meant something entirely different to Ethan than they did to me.

And that meant another thing as well. That meant it was time to give other guys their shot. I’d thwarted advances from classmates here and there without the guys ever getting far enough to actually have to be rejected. It was time to accept other guys’ interest in me, and I would start with Zane. Zane, an incredibly good-looking guy who was also a friend—he’d be a great first candidate, and I guessed he was just in the right place at the right time. I nodded. “Okay.” I took a deep breath and Zane didn’t say a word. He looked like he felt guilty as hell. “The dance is tomorrow night, right?”

He looked unsure, as though we were venturing into unknown territory…and, really, we were. “Uh...yeah.”

I took a deep breath and tried to smile, but I’m sure it looked like my cheeks had been injected with Novocain. “What time will you come by?”

Zane tried to appear sober, but I could see the twinkle in his eyes return. “So…you’ll come with me?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He got his bearings back. “Um…eight o’clock sound all right?”

“Yeah…”

He placed his hands on my shoulders. “You okay? Goddamn. I’m sorry I said anything. What an *.”

I shook my head. “No. No, Zane. You were just the messenger.” I forced the smile this time. If I really didn’t care about Ethan in that way—as I’d been trying to convince Zane—then it shouldn’t hurt at all, right? So I had to make the smile convincing. “No worries. We’re going to have a great time.”

“Yeah, we are.” He hugged me, and I’m sure he sensed he shouldn’t go any further…not yet, anyway. Because he knew. Deep down, he knew. No matter what I said, it was pretty apparent to every f*cking person on the planet except Ethan that I loved the boy. So Zane was going to try to comfort me or, at the very least, help me save face. And I appreciated that. Sure, I knew he had an ulterior motive, but I wasn’t going to hold that against him. And I’m sure I wasn’t doing his ego any favors. He knew he wasn’t my first choice. But maybe he cared enough about me that it didn’t matter.