Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (36 page)

“John, what are you saying? Where is all this coming
from?” I mumbled over his hand. I took it away from my
lips and placed it over my heart.

“I know you think I’m full of it. I know you probably
hate me for what I’ve done and even more for what I’m
saying. But I can’t help it. It’s how I feel,” John said, tears
silently falling down his cheeks. I saw red. My teeth
clenched. I pushed his hand away from me.

“Out.” I shrank away as he reached for me.
“Denise—”

“Just get out of here,” I said, my voice rising an octave
with every syllable.

“I was just trying to explain everything to you.” John
rose to his feet.

“Out of here now. With your doubletalk and your
lies. I don’t want to hear it anymore. You get out and
don’t you ever come back. Let Sasha put up with your
nonsense!” I followed him all the way to the front door,
screaming at him.

“Denise, why don’t you understand—”

“What? That you’re a nut case? I understand that
fine!” I slammed the door in his face.

Time to make a change.

Immediately after John left, I started looking up
flights. The next morning, I packed up a couple of suitcases and took the rest of my stuff to the Salvation Army. I mailed the letters that I had written to my parents and
sent the emails I had saved as drafts the night before to
Suse and Astoria. Those were the only people who
needed to know. But I didn’t want to see any of them.

As I got on the plane, I started mentally going over my plan again. I would live in a hotel until I could find an apartment. I would look for work in the casinos as
soon as I got there. I had looked online briefly after
buying my ticket. I decided I wanted to try to find work
as a blackjack dealer. I just liked the sound of it. All a part
of my new “on a whim” lifestyle. I decided to bluff expe
rience if it was required. I had played blackjack before.
How hard could it be? I could probably figure it out.
Besides, options were limited. It wasn’t like I could be a
showgirl with my lack of coordination.

I sat in my seat with a sigh and closed my eyes,
hoping some loud, obnoxious woman wouldn’t come sit
next to me and tell me her life story. Knowing I was
going to get somebody as it was a full flight, I hoped it
would be someone quiet. And small. Who wouldn’t fight
me for the armrest. But when I saw the screaming kid fol
lowed by the stressed-out, yelling mom heading for my
row, I rolled my eyes, took out my sleep mask, and put
my headphones on.

Why should things start going my way now
? I thought
with a heavy sigh.

TWENTY-ONE

That Thursday, I opened my front door as I was but
toning the vest of my dealer’s uniform, expecting room
service. I was a blackjack dealer-in-training. I looked up,
readying myself to tell the waiter yet another lie about
why he would get no tip and stopped in mid-button as I
saw Suse and Astoria and two of the fakest smiles I’d ever
seen in my life. I didn’t so much as attempt a fake smile
of my own.

“What are you doing here?” I asked flatly. They
walked in uninvited, rolling their suitcases along.

“We could ask the same question of you,” Suse asked
as their eyes traveled around my suite. It was pretty nice.
Lots of large, expensive furniture, a gigantic flat-screen television, a bar, and all the other usual suite perks. Since
Visa was footing the bill for at least a while. But I knew
my days were numbered and that I’d soon be heading to
some disgusting roach haven.

“Obviously you got my email,” I sighed, closing the door. I turned to face them, arms crossed over my chest.

“Yeah, but it didn’t make much sense. I mean, did
you really think that we would let you run all the way
across the country and—” Astoria started.

“What Astoria is trying to say—” Suse broke in.

“I don’t need rescuing,” I cut Suse off. Period. End of
story. Except it wasn’t going to be so easy with those two.
I should have known better, and was silently cursing
myself for sending them emails at all.

“Well, apparently you do. How else do you explain
this?” Astoria muttered.

Suse threw her a scathing glance. Astoria smirked at
her, but said nothing. There was a very distinct change
between the two of them, but I was too busy being angry
at them to fully pick up on what it was at the time.

“Look. If my parents aren’t even out here, what makes
you two think you can do this?” I snapped.

“They’re only not here because we told them not to
worry and that we’d bring your craz—that we’d bring you
back. You really freaked ’em out,” Astoria said.

I just kept staring at them with iced-over eyes, but
inside, I winced at that comment.

“Well, you wasted your time,” I said.

“Oh, no, you don’t. You had all us driving all across
the country—”

“You drove? What were you thinking?”

“I know you didn’t just ask what
we
were thinking.”
Astoria dropped her suitcase and threw her hands up in a
gesture connoting disbelief.

“I want to be left alone. How many times do I have
to say that? How many ways do I have to say that?”

“If that was true, why did you email us?”

“I didn’t want anybody to worry.”

“
Then you shouldn’t have run off to Vegas like you
did. I can’t believe how selfish you are. Whose problems
did you solve? Not even yours! Think about it!” Astoria
screamed.

I stood there in stunned silence. There was that word
again. Selfish. Was I? Wasn’t I entitled to be? It was my
life. Didn’t I get to decide what happened in my own life?

But how much control did I have over my own life if
I was doing crazy things like running off to Vegas? And how much had it helped? I’d cried myself to sleep every
night since arriving. And I had a photo of John and
myself tucked under my pillow at that very moment. On
top of that, I’d never felt more lonely and sad than when
I’d stepped off of the plane a few days earlier. And wasn’t
I fighting at that very moment not to feel relief that Suse and Astoria were there—to feel anger instead? Hadn’t I
been fighting to feel anger for so very long?

“So this is you two knowing what’s best for me
again?” I asked, stubbornly holding onto my self-right
eousness.

“No. This is us trying to be your friends. This is us
determined to help. Friends don’t let friends run off to
Sin City and—and—please tell me you’re wearing that
ridiculous outfit for some reason other than you’re a
blackjack dealer,” Suse said.

I laughed, unbuttoning my vest and tossing it onto
the back of the couch.

“Okay, okay. Let me call in to the casino and tell
them I’m not coming tonight. This thing with us is going
to take a while, I guess. And yes, I am. A very good one,”

I
said, turning away from them and finally allowing a
smile to spread across my face.

* * *

Later that night, we were all sitting around with a
bottle of wine, laughing. And I was extremely happy they
had followed me. I begrudgingly realized I hadn’t been as
ready to run away as I’d thought I was.

“Remember how we used to talk all the time about
how we were going to take a trip to Vegas before we grad
uated?” I asked.

Astoria and Suse laughed.

“Oh, yeah. Well, this definitely isn’t how we planned it, huh?” Suse said with a lazy grin.

“Guess not,” I said, squinting at the wine bottle.
“Okay. I’m going to get the other one out of the fridge.”

“Wow. I think this should be it,” Astoria mumbled, face down on the floor. She had the lowest tolerance of all of us and was just about done in.

Suse, Astoria, and I discussed a lot that evening. I could tell they were treading lightly, especially Astoria,
and I appreciated it. They were really trying. I decided to
put forth effort, too. I needed to do better than I was doing. I had never looked at the situation in a light that put me at fault. I tried to make everyone else the villain.
To some extent, maybe they were. But I wasn’t com
pletely helpless and hapless. And I definitely needed to
accept that maybe running away would accomplish
nothing. But for that night, I was working mainly on
a
ccepting the idea that it was possible for me to be
wrong. Baby steps.

* * *

Little did I know at the time that their sneaky asses
had gone behind my back and called that fool up.
Apparently, John hadn’t been happy at all since our
breakup and especially since Barrister’s. And the more
wedding plans Sasha and Elizabeth made, the more mis
erable John became.

John, by nature a party boy, had really been screwing
his life and liver up since Barrister’s. Apparently, he’d
been out drinking with Tyler and Shawn every night after
finals had ended. Sasha didn’t care because she was
wrapped up in visions of white and wedding bells. His
parents didn’t care, either. All they knew was that he had
“regained his senses.” Nobody was there to watch him
spin down, down, down. But Suse and Astoria had
noticed. And they put every feeling they had about the
situation aside except for their concern for me.

So once they found me in Vegas, they gave Mr. John
Archer a call. They waited until I went to work the next
night. They didn’t waste any time.

“What?” he slurred into the phone.

Astoria put him on speaker phone. “Listen, drunk
ass, it’s Astoria and Suse.”

“What do you want? You ain’t done enough yet?”
John belched loudly into the phone.

W
hat does she see in this fool?
Astoria mouthed to Suse. Suse shrugged.

“I never did anything to you,” Astoria snapped.
“You put ideas in Denise’s head.”

“I was just trying to warn her about guys like you.
And you did just what I said you would, didn’t you?”
“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait!” Suse cried, giving Astoria a dirty look and
mouthing,
This is for Denise. Stop.

“I’m waiting,” John slurred in a sing-song voice. Astoria rolled her eyes. She sat back on the bed.
“We’re with Denise. In Vegas. And we think you
should come here,” Suse said with a sigh. There was a long pause on the other end. “John?”

“What are you doing in
Vegas
?”

“We found her here. She’s got a job as a blackjack
dealer, she claims she’s dropping out of law school and
she’s never coming back,” Astoria said and mouthed,
And it’s all your fault!

“She doesn’t want me there,” John said.

Astoria threw herself back on the bed with an exas
perated sigh. Suse gave her a disapproving look and
leaned in closer to the phone.

“She’s sick over you, John. And I think you’re sick
over her, too,” Suse said.

“I’m engaged,” John countered quietly.

“Do you love Sasha?”

“I’m marrying Sasha. That’s the way it’s gotta be,” John said.

A
storia stood up, shaking her head and went into the
bathroom.

“And you don’t want Denise anymore? You don’t even
want to be her friend? You don’t want to stop her from
throwing her life away?” Suse asked gently. “Because at this point, I think you’re the only one who can.”