Thinking Of You

Chapter Eight

He did come back. Nick came back every day for three days in a row. At first he just casually talked to everyone, trying to get to know everybody and possibly make a new friend or two. The whole time making eyes at me. I would just turn away from him, try to just focus on my job or give some excuse to why he couldn’t just hang around our table. But it was really, really hard to focus on anything else. By day three he was only trying to get to know me in any way he could. He even made sure he bought something from me every time to make sure I couldn’t say he was loitering. Which both annoyed me and made me slightly happy at the same time. But he was always nice, polite, and seemingly very interested in what I was into and what I had to say. We talked for hours about random topics. Movies, music, even comic books. But those conversations soon turned to more personal topics. He told me he had cancer when he was fifteen, barely making it through to be sitting next to me, alive. At first I thought he could be lying, but I couldn’t deny the port scar on his chest. I couldn’t tell you why but every time I saw him I got instant butterflies, like I couldn’t wait to spend another full day with him.

But by day four Otis had had enough of him constantly following me around. He planted himself in the chair right next to me after putting the only open chair beside him even further away on the edge of the road. “What are you doing?”, I asked him. “You have been bitching about that guy for days now, clearly you don’t want him around, so I’m making sure he finally gets the point”, he told me. I got up and moved my chair away from him and next to the empty one. “Clearly you’ve never heard of playing hard to get Otis. I don’t just let people into my pants like the rest of you. You gotta work for it”, I tell him sitting back down. He shook his head, pulling out his phone, “from what I understand you’ve never let anyone in your pants anyway”. I felt my face flush bright red. He looked up just in time to notice before I tilted my face towards the dirt. “Wow”, he said, “I was just taking a shot in the dark, but holy shit”. “So what?”, I say picking my head back up, “I’m a virgin. Who really fucking cares?”. “Apparently Ben does….cause he’s telling a different story”, Otis said, laughing to himself. I couldn’t believe it. A surge of anger started to build up rapidly in my chest. “What are you fucking talking about?”, I ask him. Otis put down his phone and folded his hands together. The grin that spread across his face only made me madder. “Otis, what the fuck is he saying about me?”, I demanded. He finally fessed up, “Ben told me and Travis that you guys had sex alot just before school let out. And you got so clingy and possessive that you drove him nuts. So he broke up with you”, he told me.

I truly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I saw red. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”, I said. I jumped up from my chair and made my way over to the horse trailer around the corner of the park building. Ben and Travis were emptying out the trailer of all the supplies when I pounced. “Hey mother fucker, get out of the trailer! We gotta talk, now”, I yelled at him. They both turned around, very surprised. “What do you want? We’re busy”, Ben said. I stepped up inside and stomped right up to him. “Have you really been telling all your buddies that we had sex?”, I asked him. All he did was smirk and go back to unpacking stuff. When he ignored my question, I smacked the shovel out of his hands. “Answer me! Have you been spreading lies about me or not?”, I demanded again. He looked at Travis then back at me, as if trying to figure out whether or not to lie to my face. He chose wrong. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. We had fun, but I don’t want you. You weren’t even a good lay anyway”, he said, putting his hands up.

My rage was ready to explode in full force. It only grew when Travis started laughing at my reaction to Bens words. I couldn’t stop myself. I started to smack him, punch him, did whatever I could to hurt him. He blocked most of my wrath with his arms but I managed to knock him to the floor. Travis grabbed me and pulled me off of him, but I got one last good punch into his throat. “Okay Faye, you need to calm down”, Travis said dragging me outside the trailer, Ben following close behind us. “Put me down Travis! This has nothing to do with you!”, I tell him. He finally put me down and I stumbled to the ground, landing flat on my ass. I picked myself back up and tried to go back to fighting but both Ben and Travis backed away from me. “Seriously? Would you stop already? You’re acting crazy”, Ben said. That actually made me laugh, “so I’m supposed to just ignore the fact that you’re spreading lies about me? Making people think I’m a slut? We didn’t do ANYTHING like that while we were together and you damn well know it!”. He just sighed, clearly not taking me seriously. He got close enough to me that only I could hear him. “I don’t care. You’re nothing but a warm mouth to me, and you wouldn’t even do that. You wanted me to do literally everything you wanted with nothing in return. You’re a fucking tease”. “All I wanted was a boyfriend who wanted me, not just a piece of ass”, I said.

I couldn’t stop the tears from starting to stream down my cheeks as my anger started to crumble into hurt. My fists were still balled up tight, but I knew I couldn’t do anything else, even if I really wanted to. Luckily for me Destiny and Otis came around the corner before I made a bigger fool of myself. Destiny put herself between me and Ben, “what the hell is going on back here?”, she asked. I wiped my eyes, couldn’t bring myself to talk about it anymore. The way everyone was looking at me made me feel like I really was acting crazy. I couldn’t even tell Destiny what was going on, even though it should’ve been very obvious. Travis and Ben looked at each other, silently smiling to themselves and stifling laughing between themselves at the same time. I looked at Ben one more time before saying, “fuck you”, and walking away. Destiny tried to follow me but I sped up, silently telling her that I wanted to be alone. They were gonna say whatever they wanted about me, who cares if they added crazy to the list.

I made my way around the park, following the path through the many booths of the fair. A few people gave me some funny looks when I walked passed them, probably due to my puffy eyes. I just wanted to go home and hide in my bed. I sat down on a swing that faced the river to try to calm my nerves. I hoped the gentle sound of the water would help. But unfortunately even being alone in nature couldn’t help my mind. The whole ugly scene kept replaying over and over again in my mind. And it just kept making me more angry. The laughing, the pity, the out and out lying. Just when I was ready to get up and take my anger out on Bens face, Nick came into view.

“Hey beautiful”, he said, “Destiny said you took off and I wanted to check…”, his voice trailed off as he noticed my face. He walked over to me and put his arms around me. It felt like having steel cables protecting me from the world. I let my muscles relax, putting my arms around him as I inhaled his smell. He moved his mouth to my ear, “what happened?”. And then I broke down. We sat down on the swing and I told him everything Ben had been saying, how I had tried to defend myself. He wiped my tears from my eyes, as if he were touching a soap bubble that was about to burst. He leaned back into the swing and began to rock us back and forth, trying his best to calm my nerves. Then he said, “want me to kick his ass? I’d knock him into the ground like the little pussy he is. It wouldn’t even be hard, he’s built like a damn stick ”. That actually made me laugh. “No”, I said, “he’s not worth the jail time, or even the paperwork for the arrest. If he didn’t call the cops on you, his mom definitely would”. “Let him call the cops, I know every one of them”, he declared. When I gave him the side eye, he clarified, “my mom’s a dispatcher at the police station”. “Oh”, I said, “that makes more sense then”.

He put his arm around the back of the swing, “listen, do you wanna get out of here and go hang out at my house? It’s quiet at the moment. My parents took my sister to a dog show, so it’d be just us. I’ll even have you back in time to catch your ride home”. I had to admit, getting as far away from the park as possible did sound really nice, especially since I looked like hell now. I got up and stretched my legs, “what did you have in mind to do?”, I asked him. “Whatever you want”, he answered, “I’ve got all night for you”.