Anything For A Friend

Chapter 9 - Life Apart

I'm going to apologize now. I am not completely happy with how this chapter turned out, but I will post it and maybe revise it later. I hope all of you like it, anyway.

Rhia

The days after Max left were a nightmare. I was an emotional zombie. I went through the motions, bring happy for Bria and Jason, going to work, even spending time with Dane. My heart was in none of it. All I thought of was how badly I missed Max.

I felt extremely guilty when it came to Dane. We hadn't been officially committed to each other at that point, but I still felt as if I had cheated. I almost told him, but embarrassment about the situation stopped me. I wasn't embarrassed because Max wasn't good enough, because he was wonderful. I was embarrassed because I was closing in on thirty, and he had only just turned eighteen! I was the adult, and for all intents and purposes, I had made the wrong decision. Everyone I knew would be disappointed in me. What was even worse was that I had loved it, I loved him.

We weren't meant to be, though, Max and I. I purposely avoided Facebook, and sat on my hands when I thought of texting him. Dane and I had made a decision to be exclusive the weekend after my involvement with Max. If I hadn't cheated then, I would certainly be cheating now. Dane was my boyfriend, and I loved him, too. Being near Dane didn't excite me the way that being near Max did, but he was easygoing and compassionate, so I dealt with it.

The first time we had sex, I told him that I wasn't a virgin. I also told him that my first time was wonderful, but ill-fated. I didn't really give him a time frame as to when that actually happened. The only detail I gave was that I had been a late bloomer. I think he would have left me in a second if he'd known how I'd really lost it, especially since I'd been seeing him at the time.

I can honestly say that sex with Dane did not come close to being with Max. He tried, but he just didn't get me. He didn't know where or how to touch me to make me squirm, he thought it was weird that I wanted to kiss when I was about to climax, and we never came at the same time. None of this would have been terrible if I wasn't wishing that he was Max every second of our time together. I didn't understand how Max, who was young and unexperienced, could please me so much more than Dane, who had a few other women under his belt.

It wasn't bad, though, life with Dane. I just didn't feel the way I felt when I was with Max. He had definitely taken a part of me with him when he'd left that Sunday morning. Whether I liked it or not, life went on. I was surviving, and sometimes I was even happy.

Bria and Jason had gotten married a little more than a year after his proposal. They bought a house in the suburbs near where Bria and I grew up. I held my breath when I visited, hoping that I wouldn't run into Max. Although, I'd be lying if I said I didn't fantasize about how that might play out. I carried my 'souvenir' with me in my purse, just in case.

Dane and I were relaxing on his back patio one day, a little more than three years after Max's visit, when my phone rang. It was Joey. "Hi," I answered.

"Hey, sis," he replied.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I was wondering if you and Dane would be interested in coming to the beach with us at the end of June. It's a huge house, and the more people we take, the cheaper it is for each person," he explained.

Uh oh, I thought. It sounded like an awesome offer, but if Max was going to be there, I wasn't. "Who's all going?" I said, praying that Max's name wasn't one of them. I figured he had to be going, though. He was Joey's best friend.

"Well," he began, "Jake and Tina are going, Brent and Krissy will be there, Brendan and Maya are going, and I thought Bria and Jason might want to go."