Rival Dreams (Rival Love #3) (17 page)

“Oh, don’t play innocent! Your buddy showed Sky.” She whips out her phone and shows me a text message from Sky.

I snatch her phone away and begin reading.

Sky: It’s over. He did exactly what I said he’d do.

Kayla: What R U talking about hon?

Sky: He hooked up with the redhead.

Kayla: Who did?

Sky: Caleb!

Kayla: When? How? I thought he was in Indy?

Sky: Who cares? Matt showed me a pic of

them. I’m done.

Kayla: I’m sorry. Come over.

Sky: Okay be there soon.

I shake my head. “I didn’t hook up with anyone. I swear.”

She takes her phone back. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t see the picture. But I’m pretty sure Skylar can identify you in a photo, Caleb.”

I grit my teeth. “Is this why she won’t look at me?”

Kayla shrugs. “Probably. Caleb, you broke her. Maybe … maybe she just needs some time. Tell her that isn’t you in the picture, but then walk away. Just until she gets her mind set. She’s not ready for anything. Not when she hasn’t healed from the first wound you dealt her.”

I slump back down into my chair “You guys, I love her. She’s everything to me. But you’re right. I need to give her space, let her figure out what she wants.”

Lance eyes me. “Dude, she’ll come around. The girl loves you.”

“Right now I think she hates my guts, but okay.”

He smiles. “Isn’t that how you two started off?”

Kayla groans. “Don’t encourage him. If you love her, you need to back off.”

I get up from my chair as soon as the family leaves. The elevator dings and my uncle steps out with five bags of food. He looks at me and asks, “What did I miss?”

“She’s awake,” I say.

“Oh, thank goodness. I got food for everyone.” He hands it off to Lance and Kayla. They start pulling things out while he heads down the hall to Erin. He wraps her up into a hug and kisses her forehead. She whispers something to him and he laughs and tightens his hold on her. It’s in that moment that I realize I want that with Skylar again. Permanently. Not for a little while. Not for a couple years. Forever.

***

I don’t set off for Sky’s room to explain myself. The doctors said we should keep her as stress-free as possible for the next forty-eight hours. Asking her about the photo she apparently saw of me and the redhead wouldn’t exactly lower her stress.

Skylar is what I call an over-thinker. It’s not a bad thing but she’ll work herself up into a frenzy. I know her, and the first thing she’ll want to do is find out who’s in the picture. Then she’ll want to know who sent it and why. And lastly she’ll want to confront that person.

When I get back to my dorm I start pulling out boxes. I untack last year’s football team poster, roll it up, and secure it with a rubber band. Then I start on my desk. It’s a bitch. Why? Because I always just blindly shove everything into the drawers. Doesn’t matter what: graded papers, junk mail, flyers, it’s all in this desk. Instead of tossing it all in a box and just sorting it later, which was my original plan, I start going through it all, one drawer at a time, then take the embarrassingly large load of crap I’ve collected over the year to the recycling bin.

Kyle is gone until Sunday evening. This means I won’t really get to say goodbye to him and warn him that I’m taking my PlayStation 4 and all my games with me. The guy is on that thing more than I am.

As I’m carrying boxes out my door, Vince shouts at me, “Hey Caleb! What’s up, man? How did … oh, are you taking off?”

“I’m moving out. No longer a student and all.” I continue down the hall.

Vince snatches one of my boxes from me. “Let me help you out, man.”

“Thanks.”

We make four trips and my car is filled.

Vince looks at me and rubs the top of his head. “I don’t know, man. Are you sure you don’t want to put some of these boxes in my car? I’ll follow you to Lance’s.”

“Nah. I gotta get going.”

He shrugs. “Alright, man.”

Chapter 29

Skylar

He hasn’t returned since I told him to leave. Not that I expected him to. Lidia keeps me company for the most part. She flips through channels on the TV and stops on some reality show about people living in a house and hooking up. It sounds stupid, but after three episodes I’m actually saying, “Ooooh, no, she didn’t.”

Lidia leans back in her chair and laughs, “I know. He’s so ugly.”

“And he was hooking up with that Marcy chick in the pool, like, two nights ago.”

Her phone rings she looks at the screen and hits ignore. “Mad at someone?” I ask.

“Ugh! Yes, myself.” She shakes her head and looks down at her lap. “When I got the call from Dad saying you were hurt, I freaked out. And then I did something really stupid.”

“What did you do?”

Lidia’s eyes meet mine and she groans. “I called Malcolm. He was, um … anyway, it was a mistake. He’s been blowing up my phone ever since.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

“Because, he left me! Before him, I protected myself from being one of those kinds of people, getting all doe-eyed and falling for some stupid boy only to be hurt later on. I vowed to never be that person. I had a system: flirt a little, date for only two months, and get out. It was easy. I didn’t feel enough to actually get emotional.”

I frown. “Lidia, that’s not how life works, though. You can’t … you’ll never truly live until you take risks. And falling in love isn’t so bad. Sure, it sucks when you break up or things don’t work out, but … that’s how you get to find that one person. Your heart has to be ready for him.”

She snorts. “You sound like a Hallmark card.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, but it’s the truth. Just talk to Malcolm.”

“I’m not going to talk to him. God, I thought you of all people would understand. Didn’t you just push Caleb away?” She glares at the TV. “He’s been here every day. Brian had to remind him of his appointments. The boy wouldn’t budge unless forced. He cried, held your hand, and you just …” Her eyes land on mine. “Why? Because you know just as well as I do that there is going to be great distance between you two and you can’t handle it.”

I turn away from her. She’s right. The picture was one stupid thing. It means he can move on faster than I can, which hurts, or maybe he tried to get the idea of us out of his system. Brie does that sort of thing all the time. Lidia was trying to get me to do it too while she was here visiting me. So I’m not mad at him, it just hurt to see. And even if we could go back, next month is the draft. And we’ll be in a long-distance relationship where Skype chats and masturbation will have to satisfy until we physically see each other. Then our relationship will be one big humpfest instead of something more substantial.

“You’re right.”

Her hand lands on mine and gives it a light squeeze. I look up. “We’re so messed up, sis. Giving our hearts away to men who are states away. Never really getting any of the pieces back.” She rests her head on the back of her chair and sighs. “We’re screwed, aren’t we?”

I lean back against my pillows and groan. “Yeah. We really are.”

“I stalked his Facebook page until last month, when he went from single to in a relationship. God, I’m so pathetic. That’s the other reason I can’t call him back or answer his calls. He’s moved on.”

I don’t really know what to say about any of this. Thankfully I don’t have to, because my mom pops into the room.

“Do you girls want me to pick up some ice cream?”

Lidia and I exchange smiles. “Hell, yeah!” we both say.

My mom nods. “Okay. What flavors would you like? I’m picking up my two favorite men, Ben and Jerry. And then we’re all going to have some girl talk.”

I scrunch up my nose. “Mom. We really don’t need to.”

Kayla enters the room and jingles her keys. “Oh, but we are. It’s settled. Girl talk.”

I look over at Lidia who flinches but says, “Okay.”

Traitor.

Once we tell my mom the kind of flavors we want, she and Kayla are off.

Lidia gives me a look that screams we should run from this joint. I’d love to. But I’m kind of stuck to my bed, strapped to monitors, with tubes in my arms. “This feels like a bad idea.”

“You think? Why did you agree? You know you can easily disappear in the hospital. Meanwhile, I’m stuck here.”

Lidia nods. “If it makes you feel any better, my mom still doesn’t know the details about what happened between Malcolm and me. I mean, she knows we’re not together, but not the full reason. God, and she keeps asking me if there are any other boys I’m interested in. Sometimes I lie. Sometimes I just name the last one-night stand I had.”

I feel sorry for her. She’s still hung up on Malcolm, and the sick part is they haven’t been together for almost a year. God, if she can’t move on, how the hell am I going to?

“Do you think we found our soul mates too young and that’s why we’re ruined?” Lidia asks.

Tears prick my eyes. Every time I thought about Caleb and what he was to me, my soul actually felt complete. Warm, elated, and just full; I can honestly say I’ve never felt that with anyone else. He constantly challenged me, and he got me in ways that others barely could. “Caleb is mine, but I’m not ready for all that comes with it now. He’s leaving. I’m here.”

“I know. It’s like you can follow, but what happens if everything goes to shit? Then what? You come back home. Where the hell is that exactly? I attend Columbia because it’s free and it’s a good school. Plus I don’t have to live in those dorms. But other than that it doesn’t feel … I don’t know … like I belong there.”

“And you’ve been living there all your life. I know. That’s how I feel about this place sometimes. You tell anyone this, I will hurt you.” I give her my best mean face and she just laughs. “I thought this was what I wanted. I love the school, don’t get me wrong, it’s just … lately it feels really empty. I don’t know if it’s because my memories of this place are tainted with him, or if it’s really because my dreams are elsewhere.”

“Exactly,” Lidia says with a smile. “That’s exactly how I feel. Malcolm and I weren’t on campus together that much, but that house, our street, the buildings around us—our relationship is smeared all over the place. It’s hard getting through one day without some thought of him.”

The door opens again. Both of our moms and Kayla come in bearing gifts of Ben and Jerry’s. I indulge in my favorite, turtle cheesecake, while Lidia devours cake batter. Kayla is digging into Everything but the … , and Julie surprises me when she scoops spoonfuls of Half Baked into her mouth. My stepmom is a calorie counter and I thought I’d die before seeing her down some ice cream. Julie moans and my mom almost loses her grip on her Chubby Hubby. “My goodness, Julie, are you okay over there?” she asks.

Lidia snorts with laughter and so do I. Kayla just looks at the two of us like we’ve lost our minds. My mom is concerned about Julie and Julie smiles. “I haven’t had ice cream in ten years. I forgot how delicious it is.”

My mom’s eyes bulge. “Ten years? Really? Good Lord, woman, you deserve a medal.”

Kayla clears her throat. “Ladies, before we get carried away, I’d just like to point out why we’re all here.”

My mom smiles at Kayla. “Right you are.” She looks at Lidia and then me. “When there was a chance I might lose you, it put my life into perspective. Skylar, before the accident I noticed a change in you. Not a good kind. Lidia, there is a change in you too. Last Christmas, you were distant and uncheerful. I’m worried about you girls.” She turns back to Kayla. “Don’t even think for one second you’re getting out of this, missy. I saw you during the holidays and you had the deepest frown. I’ve kept quiet, told myself you ladies would figure it out. But I can’t sit back and watch anymore, so Julie and I are going to be your ears. We’re going to give you advice—not as mothers but as adults. Mothers tend to be a little more smothering and give bad advice because they want the child in you to never grow up. We tend to hold on. You’ll know someday, when you are moms.”

I swallow down a bit of turtle cheesecake and glance at Lidia and Kayla. Crap. We’re in for it now.

Julie looks at all of us. Her dark eyes land on me. “How about you go first.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Call it intuition but I think you need more advice than these two.”

My mom nods. What has the world come to?

I huff and shove my spoon into my ice cream, not looking at them anymore. “Fine.”

I take a bite of the wonderfulness that is supposed to make all of life’s problems seem smaller than they are, but in this case it’s not helping. “Caleb and I broke up on Valentine’s Day.”

My mom gasps. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“Obviously. I just … I was still in shock. Still am. I mean, what the hell? I should have seen it. All the signs were there. He was acting weird. He didn’t come apartment hunting with me. He stopped checking to see if I made it home from work okay. But I told myself whatever it was it would be okay.” I shake my head. “To get even more bizarre, I got talked into going to his going-away party. Everything was fine, until he punched Brie’s boyfriend, who was just helping me through a crowd to get to the …” Shit. My mom doesn’t know I drink even though I’m not legally old enough. I chew my lip and mumble, “ … water. There was a crowd. You know, because it was where people were drinking. I wasn’t.”

I look at my mom and she shakes her head. “Skylar, I’m not stupid. I know you drink. Just don’t drink and drive. Got me?”

Oh. This just got strangely weirder. “Okay, fine. I was getting a drink because he was there. I couldn’t exactly handle seeing him while I was sober so I thought drinking might help. As I was getting a beer, Caleb decided to make an ass of himself. He decked Brie’s boyfriend and accused me of flaunting my next conquest in front of him just to piss him off. So I stormed out of his dumb party, but not without giving him his gift.