Crazy Maybe (16 page)

“Did she even bother to tell you about her birthday coming up soon?”  Dad asks accusingly. 

I shake my head no.  “What about her birthday?  What’s the big deal about not telling me?”

“Her birthday is a big deal, son.  She inherits the rest of her father’s
billions
then.  Doesn’t it seem strange that she hasn’t told you anything about it?”  Dad asks sardonically.

“Luke, man. 
Don’t. Do. This.
  You will be sorry.  I promise you that,” Brandon warns me.  He spears my father with his cutting eyes, “This is insane.”

I turn my anger on Brandon then spew, “You know as well as anyone that I’ve had my fill of lying, conniving women,
Brandon
.”

I shake my head in disgust and storm out of the room, throwing the photos in the air behind me.  Brandon shouts obscenities at the back of my head but I keep walking and ignore him.  I hear Andi’s sobs of pain but that doesn’t stop me either. 

I keep going until somehow I arrive at my apartment and only now does it occur to me that I left Andi behind at my parents’ house.  I left her without a second thought as to her welfare, how she’ll get home, or how badly I’ve just hurt her.  At this moment, all I am focused on is how the owner of my heart could have kept something this big from me. 
How the fuck could she have betrayed me like this?

LUKE

For the last four hours, I’ve been in my apartment pacing and steaming mad.  I still can’t fucking believe she would do this to me.  I really thought she was different.  I thought she was the most genuine and giving person I’ve ever met.  Turns out she’s just really good at hiding the shit she doesn’t want others to see.  I fucking fell for her act hook, line and sinker and I feel like a complete fucking moron for it. 

I fling open the door at the sound of incessant pounding and find Brandon standing there, looking like he’s ready to take my head off.   Just what I fucking need right now.

“I’m not in the fucking mood, man,” I try to shut the door in his face and he shoves into the door with his shoulder, knocking me out of the way and he barges in anyway.

“I don’t give a fuck what mood
you’re
in,” he yells in my face.  Then he roars loudly as he runs his hands through his hair in frustration.  “You shouldn’t have left her like that!  You should’ve listened to her and stood by her.  You owed her
at least
that much!”

“She lied to me!  What the hell – am I supposed to just forget that?” I yell back.

“About what?  What
exactly
did she lie to you about?  You knew there was something she didn’t tell you.  I heard her – she said she’s never told anyone, Luke.  But she wanted to tell
you
and you promised to believe her.  She at least deserved to be heard!”  Brandon bellowed.

“What did you expect me to do – choose her side over Dad’s?”  I scowl back at Brandon even as I faintly hear that nagging voice in the back of my mind.  The one that tells me –
although usually too damn late
– when I’ve royally fucked up.

“If
this
is how you support someone you supposedly love, you don’t deserve her, Luke.”  His voice is suddenly calm and it’s more alarming than when he’s yelling.  He’s reaching the end of his patience with me.  I just shake my head and try to end the conversation with silence.

My tactic doesn’t work.  Brandon knows what’s on my mind without me even saying it.

“Luke, she’s nothing like Megan.  Look, you never would listen to me about Megan.  She had been hitting on me for a while but I didn’t think much about it until she openly propositioned me.  She didn’t care which one of us she was with – she was trying to play both of us.  When she kissed me, I pushed her away, I swear.  She was a slut, she didn’t care and she’s definitely not the standard you should measure any other woman against.

I know you thought you loved
her, man.  But, you never looked at Megan like you do Andi.  You never cared enough about Megan to even fight with her.  The only part of you that was hurt over Megan was your pride and you know it.  I didn’t betray you – Megan did.  What happened with dad’s business wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine.  And you know Megan’s not worth even mentioning again – much less thinking about.”

When I don’t say anything, Brandon continues, “Not once has Andi ever been even slightly interested in me.  Even when you said you were just friends and I was openly flirting with her.  I love you, man, if she
ever
looked at me the way she does you, I would take her away from you in a heartbeat. 

You didn’t see how it hurt her when you left like that.  You weren’t the one who
literally
picked her up off the floor.  My shirt was soaked from her tears – for
you!
  You may never find someone who loves you like that again.  You’re lucky to have found it once.  You should think about that.”  Then he walks out to leave me alone with my pain and anger.

ANDI

Oh my God, he just left me.  He just walked out and didn’t even care that I was stuck here with no way to get back home.  He abandoned me at his parents’ house – the very people who are blatantly betraying me.  I remember falling to my knees and I remember Brandon cussing like a sailor at Luke.  Their mom was still sitting at the table and she was crying.  Their dad was looking between Luke’s back, Brandon’s face and me, crumpled in the floor.

When we hear Luke’s truck tires squeal out of the driveway, Brandon picks me up and carries me out to his truck.  After putting my seatbelt on me, he drives me home and helps me inside.  He stays with me and we talk for a long while.  He is so nice and supportive.  He told me to give Luke time to calm down.  He said Luke just overreacted and once he realized it, he would be back and begging for forgiveness.

I’m not so sure about that.  This may be just the excuse he needs to get out of our relationship.

Brandon just left and now I’m all alone again.  I’ve gotten so used to having Luke here with me.  The silence just punctuates how lonely my life was before him.  I’m going to allow myself to wallow in self-pity tonight.  I will scream, cry, eat fattening foods and grieve tonight.  And come tomorrow, I will move on.  Because that’s what I do.

I have to be strong.

LUKE

For the last five days, I’ve been replaying everything that’s happened with Andi up until this point in our relationship over and over again in my mind.  I’ve examined every word, every gesture and every minute we’ve shared.  Brandon’s last words to me have been like a fucking recording set on replay and there’s no escape from them.  And at this very moment I realize how bad
ly I have fucked up.  What I have lost and what I will probably never have again. 

I know without a shadow of a doubt that I don’t deserve her at all. 

I’ve done nothing worthwhile in my life to deserve someone as wonderful as she is.  Even my fucking brother believed her – believed
in
her – when I didn’t.  He was there for her when I wasn’t – and she fucking needed me.  I simply turned my back and left her alone when she needed me more than ever.  At that moment -
that very moment
when she needed me to believe her and I didn’t, I broke my promise.  I broke her heart.  I broke the very love of my life – I broke
her
.

My guilt and humiliation over Megan has tainted my view of relationships overall.  I’m seeing that now.  Brandon has tried to tell me for the last few years but I didn’t want to hear it.  Or face it.  I’ve convinced myself that it’s much easier to run from my demons rather than face them.  But sitting here alone, wallowing in my self-loathing, there’s nothing easier about it.  There’s nothing easy about discovering I’ve probably lost the one true lover and friend that I’ve ever known.

I know she’s been at the gym because some of the other guys have talked about how differently she’s been acting.  They haven’t come out and asked me yet but I know they eventually will.  She’s apparently avoiding me, avoiding going to the gym at the time she knows I’m likely to be there.  I volunteered at the center again today and she wasn’t there either.  I wonder if she knew I was there and just stayed away.  I’ve tried to call her but she ignores my calls.  I’ve went by her house but she won’t answer the door, if she’s even home

.

ANDI

I had practiced a different song for the weeks leading up to the last night Luke and I were at the club together.  The night the band played and the last full night we were a couple and I was truly happy.  For the past week, I’ve been practicing a different song – one that really speaks to my frame of mind right now.  I don’t know if Luke will be at the club tonight, but in a way I hope he is because I picked this song with him in mind.

I’ve avoided seeing Luke at the gym but I’ve still been going.  I’m not letting him run me off from something that means so much to me.   Shane has asked what’s wrong with me lately because I haven’t been acting the same lately.  But he didn’t ask anything about Luke, so I doubt he knows anything yet.  Luke has called a few times but I couldn’t answer.  After what happened at his parents’ house, I don’t know what he’s calling to say.  To accuse me of more terrible things?  To finish his malicious rant?  To apologize and actually hear what I have to say?  To ask for his favorite t-shirt back that I stole from him?

I can’t take the risk – no matter what it is he wants.  I can’t hear his voice and not have my heart ripped out of my chest again.  So I ignored his calls.  I hid when he showed up at my house.   I saw his truck but I couldn’t even look out the window and actually see him – I was afraid I’d go running to him, begging him like I did when he walked out and left me behind at his parents’ house.  I’m afraid I will make a complete fool out of myself for someone who never loved me like I loved him.  Love him, I mean.  Still.  I wonder if it will ever go away, though I know I’m not the first or the last to feel this way.

So I focus on the anger instead.  The betrayal of being left there, on my knees sobbing my eyes out, while he callously walked away.  Not the least bit interested in hearing what I had to say.  Not caring that he’d so easily broken a promise he
had just made – one that meant the world to me because I knew it would mean the difference between losing him and keeping him.  I just never imagined his dad would be the one who so heartlessly threw me under the bus.

I’m at the club with
Christina, Tania and Katie.  They’re trying to cheer me up but nothing is working.  No use in even trying drinks or shots tonight - nothing can infiltrate this huge bubble of anger that has enveloped me.  I’m glad in a way because I can use it on stage tonight.  Especially since Luke just walked in with the guys and they’re headed this way.  I look at my girls and we silently, solemnly swear we will not move to sit with them.

Shane and Will give each other confused looks before looking at me.  I think Luke is about to walk up behind me so I quickly get up and leave the table.  It’s about time for my song anyway so like a big chicken, I go hide in the ladies’ bathroom until it’s my turn.  I make my way onstage and avoid running into Luke on the way.  I’m regretting showing him around backstage now because I’m looking around every corner to make sure he’s not there first.  I have nowhere to hide.