A Simply Complicated Love Story [Book 1]

4. I Can't Believe This! I Mean I Can, Its Just Messed Up

I can't believe it. I just can't! How did I not notice this sooner? It was so clear! God I feel so stupid!

Well, I knew one thing for SURE:

Vanessa was cheating on Drew. With who? I wasn't sure, but I did know that it was true. Seriously, going out at 10 PM with a ton of makeup on, and, "she does that a lot"?! It was so stupid! But unfortunately, I also knew something else, and that was that Drew would never believe me, and he wouldn't trust me anymore if I told him. But really? She moved in with us! I still couldn't believe it. These thoughts were running through my head when I noticed that Drew was still there. He was smiling.

"Spacing again?" Again? Do I do this without knowing?

"Sorry"

"No its ok. I kind of like it"

Kind of? That's nice. I must’ve had an uncomfortable looking face because he changed the subject.

"Do you want to go somewhere?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like the movies, a club, something? My treat, you look sad" he said. I knew he was trying to help.

"Its 10:00," I said hesitantly. I regretted it after because I wanted to go somewhere with him.

"So what? It’s our 10:00," he said with a charming smile that I've never seen him do, but I immediately loved it.

"Movies. There's one I wanted to see"

"Whatever you want. Its your night"

"Its our night" I said, charmingly. I was kind of proud of myself.

•••

We were walking to the movie theater, and we were just talking, like before he started dating Vanessa. I forgot how nice it was.

"You know what I love?" he asked me.

"What?" I replied, hoping the answer would be, "you", but I knew it wouldn’t.

"I love that we can just be best friends and tell each other everything, without worrying about what they'll think of it"

My heart started pounding faster and faster in my chest. That's exactly the opposite of what I was doing! Had he found out? Shut up Naomi. I just figured that out 15 minutes ago! Damn it! I'm spacing again!

"Oh, yeah, totally. I love that. Sorry for spacing again"

"Its fine, Naomi"

We got to the movie theater and my heart stopped for a second. I saw Vanessa there, and she was with...with...uhm...

I knew him from somewhere. I was trying to remember until she suddenly laughed and screamed, "James!"

James! Oh, god. He was my boyfriend when I started at high school there in New York. I needed to do something! Think fast Naomi, think fast. Uuuh...

"Drew! Can you get me a cherry coke? I’ll go get us seats" That was close.

He nodded and went to get the coke as I went to get Vanessa and James out of sight before Drew saw and got his heart broken.

I ran through the halls, pushing through all the people to get to Vanessa and James. Finally, I spotted James, and I called out, “James! Its me, Naomi! Naomi Duchess!” He shot me a kind of confused look at first, but then he recognized me and ran over.

“Oh yeah! I totally remember you from high school!” he said.

“I know! I saw you with Vanessa, Drew’s—“ I stopped myself quickly before I said something I would regret. “How are you?” I asked randomly.

“Great. I’ve been working out, dating Vanessa, moved to a sweet appartment, my life’s going pretty good” Sounds like a nightmare if Vanessa’s in it. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Pretty good, I moved in with Drew—“

“Drew… Drew… I know a Drew!”

“Uhm his last name is Truett, if that helps”

“Drew Truett? Oh, god. He was my boy in middle school! You live with him? Lucky you! Why did you move in with him?”

I remember why, very clearly. I used to live across the street from him; we hung out a lot as pretty good friends. One day, an apartment building in the next block caught on fire. Why? I don’t know. But I do know that it spread to my street. Drew’s parents were on a vacation, so he was staying at my house. We were about fifteen, and we were just doing our homework, when out the window we saw this huge fire heading toward my house. Mortified, we yelled at my parents upstairs that there was a fire. They quickly ran out and drove with everyone on our block to the evacuation center. Later, they calmed everyone down and told us that a few houses survived, but two people died, a four-year old Sally, and her mother Jane. I cried for a whole week straight, and I sometimes still do, because I could’ve been dead, but instead someone else was. Later, Drew’s parents came back from Vacation, but we were living in a hotel, so you know what they did? They bought a beach house in Florida, and a beautiful mansion in New York. Originally, one was for my family, and the other was for theirs. So we lived like that for a couple of years, but when I dropped out of community college, Drew said that he wanted me to live with him. His parents were too nice to say no, so now my parents live with the Truetts, and I live with Drew.

I suddenly came back to reality and found James laughing.

“Spacing again? Now I know its my Naomi,” he shouted as he ran to the theater. “Hey, call me"

And with that, he vanished into the crowd as I headed to the theater to wait for Drew and keep my mouth shut about Vanessa and James.