Let Me Be the One (13 page)

“Nothing to discourage her?”

“Yeah.  Why were they starting to sit with us at lunch?  Come to the parties again?  If you’re not discouraging her, then with a girl like Liz, you’re encouraging her.  It’s like that first night this fall at the rugby party.  I was even a little confused by your behavior.  I knew you were into Darcy but you didn’t push all those other girls away.  You didn’t make it absolutely clear to them that the attention was not welcome.”

That was it, up came the
tequila and beer.  I managed to make my way back to the couch and flopped down.  Dan just shook his head. “Go to sleep, Tom.  Tomorrow’s another day.  I’ll talk to Darcy if I see her tonight.  I’ll tell her what happened”

Didn’t think that woul
d change a thing at this point.

She was done with me.

Darcy

“I can’t believe there’s not some weird story b
ehind this, Darce.  I just can’t believe he’d do it.”

We drove into town and were sitting having a bottle of red wine.  Correcti
on, Jenna was having club soda.  I was having a bottle of wine.  I rolled my eyes.  “You didn’t see what I did, Jenna.  It is what it is.  I’m over it.  He deserves her.  I hope they get married and have skank-ugly babies together.”

“Darcy, I feel l
ike I caused this in some way.”

“Please, Jenna, stop.  I know what you’re thinking and that’s crap.  Better I learned now that if the going gets tough, he’s not reliab
le.”

“I hate her so much, Darcy.  She’s a plotting, manip
ulative bitch.”

“He didn’t look like he was unhappy, Jenna.”  I shook my he
ad, my anger replaced with exhaustion. “I can’t believe it either.  I can’t believe he’d end things between us for her.  I don’t know what actually happened but it really doesn’t change anything, does it?”

“Darcy, don’t make any final decisions.  I want to kick Tom in the balls
right now but you love Tom and I know,
I know
, he loves you.”

“Do you think there’s a reason…is there something about me that makes things not work out right?  I know I sound like an idiot but really, I want you to tell me Je
nna, if you think …if it’s me.”

“Darcy, no! That’s all I’m saying on that subject, no.”

I answered when I saw Chris’s name flash on my screen.  I managed to laugh a little before I answered with, “See, Chris, I told you I shouldn’t have gone to that party.”

“Holy shit, Darcy.  Are you ok?  I feel
so bad for bringing you there.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I really don’t know what the fuck we walked in on.  I don’t dislike many people but I think that bitch is trash.”

I tried to answer but I sounded like I was croaking, holding back the tears that were coming again.  “Darcy, he said we’d gotten it all wrong.  I don’t know what I believe but I just wanted you to know Tom said that.  Hey, you want me to come over?  I can bring my colle
ction of Jim Carrey movies and we can get shitfaced and just laugh.”

“
Thanks, Chris, but I think I’m just going to crash.”

Jenna texted Dan before she drove back.   He wanted to be with her, to stay with her and hold her every night since everything had happened.  Dan was there waiting when we walked in.  He kissed Jenna’s cheek and then grabbed me in a tight hug.  “Hey, Darce, I’d ask if you’re ok but I know you’re not.  Look, he said nothing happened and I believe him.  He’s not that much of a dick.”  I said nothing and then Dan went on, “He said she followed him into the bathroom and she tried, hence the undone pants, but he pushed her off.”

“
Poor, defenseless Tom.  I think I’m going to be sick with the visual on that.”

Dan looked down at the floor.  “Yeah, Darcy
, I know.  He’s not looking too innocent right now.”

“I feel like I hate him.”

“Darcy, I know you’re hurt now but I know he loves you.  I’ve known him for a long time.  He was never into anyone, Morgan or anyone else, like he is with you.  He is all kinds of messed up right now.”

I felt empty.  Like I had nothing left.  As he went to follow Jenna upstairs he said, “Just hear him out, Darcy.  Seriously, you’re like a sister to me.  I wouldn’t tell you to give him another chance if I though
t he’d intentionally hurt you.”

Tom didn’t come by that night.  Sunday nothing either.  I couldn’t “hear him out” because he wasn’t talking.  And after yesterday there was no way I was going to him. 

Beth, Caitlin, and Rene looked worried and were wal
king on eggshells around me.  The only upside to this situation is that the rest of our roommates were distracted by my misery and didn’t really notice what was going on with Jenna.  That was for the best.

They staged an intervention Sunday night.  The girls dragged me out to the movies and we went to have a bite after.  I felt like I couldn’t even stomach one
onion ring.  “I know you’re trying to keep my mind off of everything girls, thanks.”

Beth grabbed my hand, “I’m sick over this, Darcy.  I hate saying this to you but we all
love Tom.  Love him with you.”

Caitlin pushed, “Just tell her, Beth.”

I raised my eyebrows when she didn’t say anything.  “What, Beth?”

“I saw Liz last night.  Marcus heard from Ben what had happened
, so I knew.  Can you believe after all that she had the nerve to show up at Cara’s party?  Those girls don’t even like her; it’s not like she was welcome there.  Anyway, when I saw Liz I lost it.  I called her every nasty word I know and then threw a full beer at her.  I looked like a maniac.  I’m actually pretty ashamed of how I reacted even though I do hate her.”

“Did she say anything?”

Beth didn’t answer right away.  After a few moments she looked down. “She came right back at me, screaming in my face.  She said we think we know Tom but we don’t.  She said Tom had been sneaking off to get with her while he was with Morgan and nothing has changed now that he’s with you.”

Rene jumped in, “I don’t believe her.  She’s a low life and I really don’t t
hink Tom would do that to you.”

Caitlin added, “Think about it, Darcy.  When would he have been able to sneak off to her?  He was glued to your side
twenty-four-seven up until a few weeks ago.”

“I think she’s full of it too.  But even if things ha
ppened the way he claimed to Dan, I don’t know…things have been going wrong between us.  Everything is a mess.  There’s a part of me that just wants to walk away.  I have other things I need to focus on.”

Rene took my hand.  “You don’t mean that.  Don’t build up this wall around yourself.  Maybe you can’t see because you’re too close but I’m looking from the ou
tside.  You may not ever find another Tom.  He loves you.  Don’t throw that away.”

“Rene, he hasn’t even attempted to contact me.  He hasn’t tried to explain this to me.  He’s leaving me twisting in the wind.  If he loves me so much, where is he?”

Tom

She walked away from me in the quad. She walked away from me at the hospital that morning.  I would bet the farm that if I tried talking to her now she was walking away again.

Part of me wanted to go to her but the urge to wallow alone in this was taking over.  I was pretty much avoi
ding everyone and people were avoiding me.  Chris walked right by me on his way to class.  Rene and Caitlin saw me as I walked through the Commons at lunch and then looked away when I met their gaze.  I didn’t answer when Ben or Dan tried to reach out to me.  Most of the week I was hardly home so I wouldn’t run into them.  I went to class but didn’t hear a word the professors said.  I went to gym but wasn’t really doing much of anything in the weight room.  I had this strong urge to go home but I didn’t want my parents to see me like this.  I’d put them through enough.  And with them I wouldn’t be able to hide what was going on.  I felt like I had a crushing weight on my chest and I looked like crap. 

On Thursday, I saw her walking into the
library.  She didn’t notice me but I was close enough to see her slumped shoulders, her blank expression and the fact that her clothes looked like they were hanging off her.  I felt so torn—angry and sad—when I saw her.  Part of me wanted to run up, grab her, and hold onto her for dear life but I was also fucking mad at her too.  She’d pushed me away how many times?  Maybe I wasn’t justified but I was mad that she so easily thought the worst of me.  That “maybe I don’t really know you” crap was eating at me.  She
did
really know me and if I wasn’t good enough in her eyes, well then we didn’t really have a chance. 

Friday night Liz and her roommates were having a party; she
texted me the invite.  I thought about texting back something like:
I’d rather contract gonorrhea
but decided it was probably best to just ignore her completely.  I had done a lot of thinking about that part of the equation this week and I knew, for that, Darcy had a reason to be angry.  In my defense, though, I didn’t know everything.  If I had known the bullshit Liz was saying to Darcy, I never would have been the least bit friendly to Liz.  But if the shoe was on the other foot, even without all that, I know I wouldn’t have been cool with Darcy sitting around chatting up an old flame and his buddies.  But did she really think I was that low?  That I was someone who could pledge my love to her one day but secretly be looking to get with someone else the next?  That ate me up.  Maybe she was, despite everything that had happened over the last few months, always going to see me a certain way, always going to hang my past over my head.

As I was skulking around campus that Friday night, doing my best to avoid everyone on their way to their respective drink-ups, I ran right into Nick.  Last person I w
anted to see. “What’s up, Tom?”

I barely looked up.
“Hey.”

“You want to go grab a beer?”

“No offense, Nick, but we’re not commiserating over this shit together, ok?”

“Hurts like a motherfucker, right?”  When I didn’t answer he practically spat, “She can’t say I didn’t warn her.  Fuck you...
brother.”

I just walked away.  When I knew Dan, Ben, and the rest of the guys would be gone I headed back home, got into bed, and stared at the ceiling.  Dan, of course, came back for me at one point during the night.  When he knocked on my door I didn’t answer and when he poked his head in I had my arm draped over my face, preten
ding to be asleep.  He knew I wasn’t; the same set of misery-laced songs were blasting from my speakers, playing on repeat.  Dan let me be.

I knew
that if I walked over to Darcy’s place, there was a good chance she was doing the same as me.  Darcy liked to have fun but she wasn’t
all
about the party.  I thought about going to her a hundred times but something held me back. 

Darcy

A whole week and…nothing.  Was he was mad at
me
? That would be delusional.  I thought, and I’d hoped, that Tom would have come to me to work it out by last Sunday morning.  But this was too long.  Too much time was passing and things were just becoming sour. I wasn’t confident that we were going to come through this anymore. 

I’
d never thought of myself as a stubborn person but maybe I was.  That word heartache? I literally ached in my chest.  I knew if I was giving advice to someone else I would tell them to stop being stubborn and go to him but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.  I was hurt.  Hurt that he had let someone get between us.  Hurt that he wasn’t crawling on the ground to make it right with me.  Hurt that it seemed like he was cutting me loose, just like I was doing to him.

The girls tried to convince me to come out with them but they hadn’t pressed too hard, they knew it wasn’t happening.  Dan and Jenna were still laying low.  They begged me to come to dinner with them but I wouldn’t.  I knew I was just brin
ging everyone around me down. 

I tried to read but couldn’t and just wound up lying in bed, thinking of him.  Every song on my playlist remin
ded me of him. Some reminded me of times when I was happy and some fit better with times like this, when I was aching with sadness.  I’m pretty sure I was crying as I drifted off to sleep. 

I just remember vaguely feeling good.  He was behind me.  It felt so good being in his embrace, feeling his fingers trace the skin along my arms, and feeling him kiss the back of my neck.  I nudged my body back into his and felt him hard against me.  His hand gently smoothed over my bare breast and then moved down to the curve of my hip.  I needed him.  I arched back, pushing my bottom against him more urgently.  He gripped my hip and then his hand slid over, lower, and his fingers splayed out underneath my navel.  He whispered, “You feel so good.  Do you want this, baby?”

A
t that moment I took in the sour smell of beer on his breath, registered the voice, and realization set in.  This was
not
Tom behind me.  My body stiffened and the contents of my stomach started to rise into my throat.  I choked out, “Nick?  What are you doing?”

He cooed, attempting to soothe me, “I told you, Darcy.  I told you he was
a fuck-up who would hurt you.  I’ll never do that to you.”

He gripped my hip again when I tried to move.  “Don’t touch me, Nick.  Don’t do this.
Please
leave.”

He pushed me away from him hard then and his voic
e rose, “Don’t do what, Darcy?”  Someone was rattling the doorknob.  He had locked it.

I scrambled off the bed and scooted away from him on the floor.  I pulled the sheet up around me.  I was pract
ically topless, the straps of my tank top down, the fabric bunched around my waist. 
What the fuck?
  I was shaking as I said, “Nick, just leave.”

He sat up then and raked his hands through his hair, “Are you kidding? I’m not going to fucking hurt you.  I just wanted to….I know…I….”  He p
unched the wall in frustration.

Someone was knocking
loudly and then pounding on the door. 

“Go the fuck a
way.  I’m just talking to her.”

I heard Beth yell, “Then open the door, dick
head!”

I moved as if I was going to go for the door and he stood to block me.  I sank back against the wall.  Then Rene and Beth were kicking at the door, trying to bust the lock.  In the calmest voice I could manage I said, “Nick, it’s ok.  Just go now. 
Please, before this gets ugly.”

He laughed harshly, “I bet Tom will get a second chance with you.  Even though that piece of shit tossed you aside for some dirty slut.  That’s how
special
you are to him.”

With that I heard heavy footsteps bounding up the stairs and with one solid push Tom was in the room and then Dan was there a few seconds later.  Tom grabbed Nick and pressed him up against the wall.  When he roared at him asking if he had put his hands on me, I heard Nick say something like he was on me and
in
me, just like I’d begged him to.

I wanted to curl up and disappear.

Tom

I was annoyed when Dan first burst into my room.  I thought he was trying to rouse me from my self-imposed exile again.  “Please, can you leave me the fuck alone?”

“Get up, asshole!
Nick’s locked himself in Darcy’s room with her.”

I don’t even remember getting there except for pract
ically tossing Jenna aside to get past her as she was racing down our stairs to get back to her place.

When I got in the room I saw Darcy curled up in the corner crying, trying to keep the sheet tucked around her.  Fuck, were all her clothes off?  She looked so small.  I was out of my body.  I just landed punch after punch after punch until he wasn’t talking anymore and Dan was pulling me off.  I heard Darcy yelling for me to stop but her voice sounded far away.  I looked down at my knuc
kles, they were split open, bloody and raw.

I didn’t know how much time had passed, five minutes or five hours, when I was in the kitchen and Darcy was putting ice on my hands.  She was looking away from me but I could see tears on her face.  I realized I was crying too.  I croaked, “Please tell me you’re ok.  Did he,” I was shaking with rage then as I tried to get the words out, “Did he…hurt you?”

Darcy whispered, “I’m ok.” Her gaze was lowered.  She still wouldn’t look at me. “Tom, he didn’t do what he said.”

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close to me.  “Darcy, I need to know what happened.  He’s not walking away from this.”

She lowered her head to my chest and whispered in between soft sobs, “I…I thought it was you in the bed with me.
”

“I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry, Darcy.”  I felt like the worst excuse for a man in the world; leaving her alone to let this happen to her. “Darcy, I ne
ed to know.  Did he…touch you?”

“No, not like he said.  I woke up before anything ha
ppened.  I know he wouldn’t have gone further...like forced me or anything.”

I pinched my eyes closed trying not to see the image in my mind and repeated, “I gonna fucking kill him.”  I took a deep breath and held her clo
ser to me.  “This is my fault, Darcy.  I should have been here to protect you.  And I should have been here when you were struggling the last month and I wasn’t.” 

“I’m sorry too, Tom.  I shouldn’t
have shut you out for so long.”

“No. 
You
have nothing to be sorry for.  I’ve had my head up my ass about a lot of things.”

With that, Dan walked in.  He had taken Nick by the ER to get his lip and the area over his eye stitched up.  When Jenna asked, he said Nick was pretty banged up, had a concussion, but would be alright.  He motioned me aside and told to me that the hospital staff asked Nick if he wanted the cops called but he declined.  “I’m glad I was here for your sake, Tom.  I think if I didn’t pull you off him you would have beaten him into a coma.”

“I’m gonna kill him the next time I see him.”

He grabbed my forearm hard. 
“No, Tom, you’re going to stay away from him.  You nearly did kill him.  It won’t do Darcy any good if you’re in jail.”

I shrugged him off and made my way back over to Darcy.  I stood behind her as she was standing facing the sink.  I was having trouble saying what I wanted to say.  I took in a deep breath.  “I know things aren’t where they were.  I just need to be near you.  Can we get out of here? Will you please come and stay with me to
night?”

She nodded and I let out a choked breath of re
lief.

I took her to my room, laid her down on my bed, crawled in behind her, and ju
st wrapped my arms around her.  We talked about everything that had gone down in the past month.  She told me she regretted not being more open with me when she was going through everything with Jenna.  Because I didn’t run to her she saw me as indifferent and I saw her that way too.  I admitted that I was afraid she couldn’t love me because of my past. 

We promised each other that we wouldn’t ever let time pass between
us when something was wrong.  And I made it clear to her that there was no one else that I was even remotely interested in.  Because of all the shit Liz had been saying to Darcy it was easy for her believe I was moving away from her.  I knew that I had totally messed up there.  I also felt that I’d left her vulnerable and I hadn’t protected her; that fucking ate me up.  I had to actively push the image of Nick in her bed out of my mind or else I knew I
would
wind up in jail.

The air was finally cleared between us but I knew it was going to take some time to get back to where we were.  Darcy fell asleep in my arms and I just held her all night.  It felt so good to have her back in my arms
.

The two weeks that followed were rough.  It felt like we were starting over again but not in that happy, new love kind of way.  It was like we were
trying to bridge a big gap—getting to know each other all over again.  I took her out every night, either for dinner or just long walks. We didn’t stay at each other’s places but we were back to holding hands and kissing when I dropped her off.

When Darcy got the call that Kate was in labor she called me, excited, and told me she was heading home for a few days.  I was hoping she was going to ask me to come
with her but I also knew we weren’t there yet.  I hugged her close to me and kissed her as she got out of my truck at the airport.  She looked up at me.  “I love you so much, Tom.”

Fuck it. 
I didn’t try to stop the tear from escaping my eye.   I was so damn happy.

Darcy

Rebecca Rose Donovan.  She was named for my mother, Rebecca, and Kate’s mother, Rose.  She was twenty inches long and weighed in at six pounds, eight ounces.  She was perfect—rosy red lips, blue eyes, and a little blond fuzz on her head.  Holding her was magical.  I felt unconditional love for her instantly.  It was overwhelming for me so I could only imagine how Kate and Luke were feeling.  They looked like the two happiest people on the planet.

Caleb, Mom, Dad, Luke, Kate’s parents and her sister were all crammed into the private room with me.  I was so happy to be around my family but I felt Tom’s a
bsence.  I wished he was here to experience this with me.  I snapped another picture of Rebecca and sent it to him.  He answered:

Looks like her beautiful aunt.

I wanted him here with me, to share this.

I miss u Tom. 

He answered:

You can’t imagine how much I miss u.

My heart ached as I read those words.  The past month or so had been soul crushing and even the past two weeks, with us trying to getting back on our feet, was painful.  I hated the awkward moments and some of the things we told one another were tough to say and painful to hear.  As things progressively got better, I thought we were going to come out of this much stronger. But it had been major; we’d come as close to ending things as you could get.

Caleb nudged me playfully.  “Texting your
boyfriend
?”

“Yeah.”

When he put his arm around my shoulder, his smile dropped and he whispered to me, “What the hell, Darcy?  You feel like skin and bone.  Are you eating enough?”

“I probably haven’t been.
  I’ve had a pretty crappy month.  I was helping Jenna through some stuff and Tom and I hit a rough patch.  I wasn’t sleeping much and I haven’t really been taking care of myself.”

“Hey, is he good for you?  I mean, he should be ma
king damn sure you’re ok.  I gotta say, Darcy, I don’t like this.”

“Caleb, he’s very good to me and he’s very protective.  Like I said, some things happened.  I was kind of caught up in what was going on with Jenna and then Tom and I lost our way a little.  It’s bet
ter, back to normal now.”

“What happened with Jenna?”

I looked at him apologetically. “Sorry, Caleb, I can’t say.  But she’s ok now.”

“Alright, whatever, as long as you’re
alright.  But I’m taking us out to eat right now.  I’m thinking shrimp scampi and fettucini alfredo—lots of butter.  I’ve got to fatten you back up.”

The next morning, Mom and I went out shopping.  Kate was so worried about the pregnancy that she didn’t want to tempt fate by having a baby shower.  We had so much fun picking out outfits, tiny little socks, little sleepers, hats, blankets—we went to town.

Having a new baby in the family just infused everyone with a sense of joy.  My father was ecstatic and Mom was thrilled as well.  I was already thinking about all the places I’d take Rebecca.  I envisioned buying her first American Doll, bringing her to Alice’s Tea Cup, the Central Park Zoo, and
ice skating at Wollman Rink.