In Too Deep (6 page)

“Well, no. No I didn’t. Good,” I stammered. “I’m glad that’s what you were thinking. Because that was the last time that will happen.”

“Sure it is.” He pushed his way past me and walked out to cover the topping bins and take them back to the fridge.

“It was the last time! The only time!”

“Okay, if you say so,” he called as he walked away.

I just stood there. I felt like an idiot. I had justified our kiss as a simple “thank you” to a friend…who just happened to be a gorgeous guy. He acted like I wouldn’t be able to resist him much longer. Is this what he thought of himself? What a jerk. I could resist him. Joel was my boyfriend and that’s the number one reason I could resist him.

It was almost two in the morning when we finally had everything cleaned up and were ready to walk out the door. I was determined to get out of the building and into my car without having to talk to him. I headed for the employee exit and yanked on the cold steel door. It didn’t move. I tugged again. Nothing. I spun around toward the hook on the opposite wall to grab the keys. Noah silently stood behind me with his hand above my head, holding the door shut. The fact that he was using his physical strength to his advantage was more than a little unsettling. I didn’t know him all that well, and it was as if he was trying to prove something. My stomach lurched.

With my back against the door, I could feel the chill of the steel through my shirt. I tried to force my body as far away from his as I could, but he was leaning in, his head tilted toward mine. His breathing was deep and regular. My breath soon synced with his. I don’t know how that happened, but it did.

I looked down at the floor so I wouldn’t have to look at him in the eye, but his eyes were boring a hole through the top of my head. His body was warm and he smelled so good. He was sweaty from the grunt work it took to clean up after a crazy Little League night, but he still smelled good.

Sexy.

Stop it!

I never should have looked up, but I did, just as he lowered his mouth to mine. His lips were soft and warm and wet. He gently tasted me again.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

Small pecks, one right after the other, over and over, until the butterflies in my bones morphed into an ache between my legs which reminded me I had to stop. Just then, he put his left hand on the back of my neck but kept his right hand above us on the door. His chest pressed into mine and he slowed down the wet pecks I was trying
not
to enjoy. Then he claimed my mouth as his. His tongue slowly circled mine. I suddenly realized there was a thumping beneath my palms. Somehow, instinctively, my hands had moved to his chest. Why was I letting him do this to me? He was intoxicating. He was dangerous and bad. He tested boundaries and lived a little recklessly. He wanted me. He obviously didn’t care that I had a boyfriend. He wanted me, and that was all that mattered to him. I didn’t know whether to let that win me over or use that to make the decision that he was so far out of my league.

Our breathing increased and our kiss got deeper. There was something so sensual about the way he kissed. I wanted it to last for hours. Although the ache I felt earlier was now throbbing,
I
wouldn’t last hours.
I
needed him to stop.
I
needed to stop. This wasn’t the kind of girl I was. What he did to me made me lose all rational thinking. All I wanted at that moment was for his mouth to leave mine and travel down to my neck and my…

That’s when he stopped. My chest heaved, and his warm breath blew the wisps of hair that had fallen from my short, stubby ponytail. He dropped his hand from my neck and let it fall to his side.

“I need to be with you.” His voice was almost a growl as he tried to slow his breathing. The way he said those six little words made my knees weak.

“No.” Everything in me screamed,
Take me!

“Wow.”

He shook his head, took a step back, and opened the door. He waved his hand, directing me to go ahead of him to the parking lot. I pushed past him and was thankful for the air that I needed to help me cool off. I hurried to my car, hoping this would be an easy break from his questioning.

“Gracie. Wait.” He jogged over to me as I opened my car door and threw my purse onto the seat.

“Noah, there’s nothing to…you shouldn’t…we shouldn’t have…that can’t happen again!”

“God, shut up! Hear me out.”

He saw the disgust on my face at his blunt directive so he added, “Please.”

I nodded and with my hand, I mimicked his sarcastic gesture, coaxing him to continue.

“These last few weeks, I can’t explain it. I have never been so close to a girl and had so much fun without banging her…”

I winced.

“Sorry, that was rude. What I am trying to say is I think about you all the time. I look forward to spending my nights in this greasy hole just so I can be with you. I can’t explain it. You’re a good girl. You make me try to act appropriately without even realizing you’re doing it. I am more guarded because I respect you. That’s never happened before. This feeling is all new to me, but I think I like it. Shit, I sound like a pussy, but…”

I winced again.

“Sorry.” He looked at the ground and turned to walk away, but stopped and looked right into my soul. “Could you just do me a favor?”

“Sure.” Why was my heart all of a sudden hurting for him?

“Can you just think about giving me a chance? I just want a chance. I know I can make you happy.”

I nodded. I couldn’t resist him.

Eight

Sunday, Morning after Noah’s Romantic Plea

Sunday was a complete blur. I didn’t look at the clock once. I ate a Pop Tart and drank some soda. I slept a lot and cried even more. Monday would bring a new day. Another new chance to be strong and get my shit together.

Sleep.

Monday morning I realized putting makeup on while crying was a nearly impossible feat. I gave up after applying some waterproof mascara and blush. I threw my hair into a stubby ponytail and grabbed my backpack. Today was my easy day, only one class, Childhood Development. As I hurried out and locked the door behind me, I heard the ding of the elevator hitting our floor. I squeezed my eyes, hoping it wasn’t Noah again. I took a deep breath and turned around just as Stacy rounded the corner at the end of the hall.

“Hey.” Her eyebrows raised and her gait slowed. Was she looking at my bloodshot, puffy eyes or the permanent frown carved into my face? Neither could I hide from her, so I just walked toward her.

“Hey…” She said it slower this time as she dropped her backpack and opened her arms, motioning me into her gaping hug. I couldn’t resist the comfort she was willing to provide, even if it was only for a mere moment before I had to run to class. I never needed her hug as much as I did at that moment.

“Oh, Stacy.” I crumbled emotionally…again. “He cheated. Noah cheated on me three times in the last year!” Again, my body heaved with sobs. Stacy just held on and rubbed my back. I could almost feel the shockwave run through her. She was in the position poor Jake was in Saturday morning. There was nothing she could say, and she knew it. So she just hugged.

I stood back, wiped my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, and tried to force a smile to thank her for her hug.

“Gracie, I will kill him. You know this, right?” She stomped her foot and clenched her fists.

“Stacy, I don’t know how to do this.”

She rubbed my shoulder and tilted her head. “Me neither. But I’m here however you need me to be. And Jake and Sam are right upstairs. You won’t do this alone.”

Her devotion to me made me tear up all over again so I could only nod and try to wave away the unshed tears threatening to spill over .

“I’m gonna be late. Will you be home after your chem lab?”

“Yep. Running to class as soon as I get the lab reports I forgot to take to Greg’s. But I’ll be back.”

“‘Kay. I will see you then.”

Stacy was brilliant. She came to U of T for their amazing science program. We often talked about moving away together after graduation. We would go somewhere that had a well-known university hospital with a competitive research program for her and an opening for a social worker on the pediatric floor for me. But, now all I had to look forward to was the rubber room I would probably be assigned to by graduation.

She tilted her head again and smiled. I turned and walked to the elevator. When the doors closed behind me and the elevator headed down, it hit me that this was as close to Hell as I had ever been before. I just hoped the doors opened at the ground floor and not the real place. Although, I wasn’t sure how different those two places would feel at that moment. No matter where I went, the hole in my heart was still gaping. I couldn’t outrun it. I couldn’t forget it. I couldn’t sleep it off. I would have to face this head on, but I knew I wasn’t strong enough to do it. Dammit. Why did he fight so hard for me that summer at Murphy’s if he was just going to turn around and cheat? He hadn’t changed. He was still a man-whore, and I was still confused.

Once I broke up with Joel, and Noah and I were exclusive, I never imagined my life changing again. I just figured you find your future husband in college. They call it the MRS. degree. I thought I’d found him.

Now what?

I sat in my Child Development class in a daze. I could have still been on my bed in Noah’s torn UT t-shirt and a pair of ripped sweats for all my thumping heart and racing mind knew. My stomach churned. He cheated. I didn’t know how to digest it, how to make sense of what I was supposed to do now. Two full days had come and gone since Friday night, and the pain was still so raw.

It was a dangerous thing to do, but I let my mind travel into the depths of what Noah told me Saturday night. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I suppose I had to focus on it to process and get over it. Dr. Charles’ class probably wasn’t the best place to do it, but I couldn’t stop. It came like a huge wave out of nowhere.

Rolling through my mind were all the situations that should have been red flags for me but somehow I’d missed them.

Last fall he went back to school while I was stuck at home commuting to UT Martin and counting down the days until I moved into my dorm on the Knoxville campus. One night he called to ask me if it would bother me if he had a girl as a study partner for his Trigonometry class. Her name was Steph. He explained that the professor assigned the partners and he didn’t want to make waves. My red flag should have been the fact that he could have cared less about making waves. Noah thrived on riding the waves he made. He just wanted her as his partner. But I was too naive and trusting. I never had to have my guard up with Joel, and now I may never let it down.

The next red flag should have been the night he showed up drunk at our apartment after a Sigma Chi/Kappa Delta social. The second he walked in I saw a deep red smudge near the collar of his shirt. Lipstick. He assured me it wasn’t. “Some drunk bitch ran into me with her face,” he slurred. I used my fingernails to scrape the color from his white shirt but it was a futile attempt. Why did it not hit me at that moment? It was Madison’s lips I went to bed with that night. I actually believed the story about the run in with a drunk girl.

I guess I could give myself some credit for the Ivy revelation. I did see a red flag even though no one else did. Friday night, I trusted my gut enough to call him out and I did. And he didn’t lie. He told me straight up…every ugly detail. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for me to have significant trust issues.

That’s when it hit me…I
knew
of Steph,
saw traces of
Madison, and
tasted
Ivy. Things got worse as our story unfolded. I laid my head on my desk so no one would see the tears pouring from my eyes. Things couldn’t get worse. I was broken. They had to start getting better or I may just dissolve in my own sadness.

The sand wafted into clouds of pale as my body surrendered to the slow pull of the deep. My heart and lungs fought to do their jobs in my chest as the water pressure threatened to squeeze me into oblivion. My lungs ached, but water didn’t enter them. It was like limbo between life and death and someone was taking their time making up their mind as to whether I would survive this or not. But as of now, it was a slow, painful struggle, and I felt every sensation with a magnitude that threatened to wreck me.

After class, I walked home alone, thinking that is how I was meant to be. Wrecked.

Nine

When I opened the door to our apartment, I breathed some semblance of joy. I didn’t think anything could make me happy, but something did. Jake, Sam, Stacy, and Becki were sitting at the kitchen table having what looked like their own private sandwich buffet. Becki was a friend Stacy and I knew from Martin Campus. She transferred when we did, but still lived in the dorms. There was a place set for me, complete with an open Rolling Rock. These four were my lifeline. They were the only reason I was upright.

Before I had a chance to drop my backpack, they were up, standing in a line, waiting their turn to hug me. One by one, their hope for healing filled me temporarily by osmosis.

“We can’t have a party without some tunes,” Sam yelled as he ran to his iPod already plugged into our speaker dock. “There’s nothing a little Pearl Jam can’t fix.” He winked at me when he hit play. Sam and I shared an obsession with Pearl Jam. We knew every lyric to every song. We had long conversations about our thoughts on the underlying meanings behind songs like “Deep,” “Corduroy” and “State of Love and Trust.” A calm resonated through me when the first notes of “Amongst the Waves” poured out of the speakers. Music was my drug. It was as close to a high as I imagined I could get at that moment. I smiled at Sam and blew him a kiss for knowing exactly what I needed to drown out the ache in my heart. Funny how music connected the dots between me and the men in my life.

As I walked over to the table, Jake looked up and patted the seat next to him. “Right here, beautiful.”

Sometimes his words melted me.

All four of them skipped their afternoon classes and we just hung out. We danced and sang like idiots and laughed until our sides were splitting. Jake and Sam were trying to outdo each other telling Stacy, Becki, and I about all the shenanigans that went on in their dorm freshman year. Every now and then, a story would include Noah, and their voices would get quiet. I could see their brains backpedaling to change to a story that didn’t include him.

The day turned to night, and we finished our lunch leftovers for dinner. Soon Stacy was locked in the bedroom studying and Becki left for work.

“You sure you’ll be okay?” Jake rubbed my arm as we stood by the door.

Sam walked over pointing to his iPod. “You want Eddie here with you?”

“Thanks, Sam, but I’ve got tons of Pearl Jam on my iPod.”

“No, I meant the real Eddie Vedder…I know people…” Sam’s biggest shtick was his claim he had unbelievable connections with celebrities. He could fit it into most conversations, and he always got the reaction he was going for—all of us in stitches.

“Even though Eddie Vedder is probably the only person who could take my mind off the last couple days, I need to turn off all my distractions and get some work done.”

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t offer.” He winked

One more big hug and a peck on the cheek from both Jake and Sam was just what I needed to get me through to bedtime.