Hard As Rock (30 page)

I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the tears spilling down my cheeks.

“But
you,
” he said, turning to Ryan. “You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to have my back. She was my girlfriend – the only girlfriend I’ve ever had. I’ve been with a lot of women, yeah, but she was the only one I ever loved, and you
knew
that. I know you fell in love with her too, that first time I brought her over to your parents’ house… but no matter how much of an asshole I was, you shouldn’t have made a move on her.”

Ryan looked sick. “I know.”

“You crossed a line you’re not supposed to cross, man.”

“Riley says I broke the ‘bro code.’”

Derek snorted. “She said that, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Who would’ve thought. Well… she’s right.”

“I’m sorry, Derek.”

“…it’s… it’s… fuck it. I forgive you, man. I have a whole lot of shit I’ve done that I need you to forgive me for, too, so… let’s just forgive and forget.”

Ryan nodded miserably.

Derek turned back to me. “And I know you had every reason in the world to do what you did, but… my best friend?” he asked, his voice pleading. “Did you have to do that?”

My whole body was trembling. “It… it just happened. I didn’t meant it to… it just… happened.”

“I know. It’s…” He shook his head and looked down at the ground. “Like I said, I’ve got a thousand things to apologize for, and you guys only fucked up once. But… it was kind of a big one.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He looked up and smiled sadly. “Let’s call it even. Actually, no, it’s not even; I was way worse. But… let’s just wipe the slate clean, what do you say?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He breathed out heavily. “Cool.”

We stood around staring at each other awkwardly for a few seconds.

“Hey, look, um… I need to ask both of you a favor,” Derek said, breaking the silence.

“Anything,” Ryan said.

“I want to talk to Kaitlyn alone.”

As soon as he said it, my heart leapt in my chest.

I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. The heart leaping, I mean.

Actually, I wasn’t sure talking to him alone was a good idea, either.

“What?” Ryan asked, shocked.

“I did a lot of thinking while I was in rehab. A lot of therapy. About my dad… my mom… my step-dad… but after that, one of the biggest things I had to deal with was when Kaitlyn walked out on me four years ago.”

Hearing him say that was like a knife through my heart. “Derek – ”

He turned to me. “I know you didn’t, not really, but… that’s what it feels like. My therapist said I need to go back and get closure with the past. Grieve it. Bury it. I was hoping you and I could go downtown… maybe back to the dorm… confront the ghosts and say goodbye.”

Goodbye to the ghosts?

Or goodbye to each other?

“Derek, I – ”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that,” Ryan interrupted. His expression and tone were harder than they had been before. Sterner, more forceful.

Derek smiled. “I get it. I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. You still don’t trust me.”

Ryan softened the tiniest bit. “That’s not it.”

“Yeah it is. And I don’t blame you, even though I promise you don’t have anything to worry about. But here’s the thing: do you trust
her?”

Ryan looked at me.

My heart was thudding in my chest.

“Yes,” he said, though I could tell it wasn’t one hundred percent the truth.

“If you trust her, then it doesn’t matter if you trust me or not,” Derek said.

Ryan hesitated, torn.

I cleared my throat. “
Ahem.
I don’t like you two talking about me in the third person, and I
really
don’t like you acting like I don’t have any say in the matter.”

Derek chuckled. “Sorry. No disrespect intended. And I guess I didn’t even ask you directly, so – will you go with me? Will you help me sort through some stuff and say goodbye to the past?”

Now it was my turn to hesitate. “I… I need to talk to Ryan for a minute. Alone.”

Derek nodded. “I understand. I’ll, uh… I’ll just go inside, get some more water.”

He walked into the house and shut the sliding glass door behind him.

“Well?” I asked Ryan.

“I still don’t trust him.”

“I think he might be serious.”

Ryan scratched his chin. “Maybe.”

“I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

“Do you want to go?”

Yes,
a voice inside me whispered.

No!
another voice warned.

“I want to bury the past,” I said truthfully. “I want to feel like you guys are okay, and the band is going to be okay, and I can let go of everything and just be with you and not worry about it.”

He paused to consider, then nodded the tiniest bit. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

And that was how I found myself driving through my old college campus with the man I’d fallen in love with four years ago.

It felt like old times, with a few twists. For one, Derek was at the wheel. Back in the day, I had always been the one who drove since Derek hadn’t had a car.

For another, we had upgraded considerably from my old, beaten-up Honda to Ryan’s BMW. The plan was for us to go do our thing, then I would drop Derek off at his house and drive the car back.

But otherwise it felt remarkably like the time we had driven home from Ryan’s parents’ and dropped Derek off at his rundown house in Crack Central. All we needed was Shanna in the backseat talking smack to make it complete.

“I thought we’d start at the very beginning,” Derek said as he parked on the street outside my old dorm.

We got out and he led me to an out-of-the-way entrance on the side of the building.

“Stand right there and catch the door when somebody comes out,” he said as he went over and skulked behind some nearby bushes.

“Why are you hiding?” I asked.

“I’m not quite as inconspicuous as I used to be when I snuck in four years ago.”

Yeah, I guess that’s true.

“How long are we going to have to wait?” I asked.

“As long as it takes. I used to stand out here ten or fifteen minutes sometimes.”

I was touched. I don’t know why, exactly. It’s not like waiting fifteen minutes to sneak into a dorm was an enormous burden or anything. But it
did
cast me back to more innocent times, when a boy I had been in love with had arranged a surprise picnic on the floor of my dorm room.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“No big deal. Get ready, somebody’s coming.”

There were muffled, echoing voices inside the stairwell, and then the door clanged open. Two girls walked past, barely giving me a look as they chatted with each other.

I grabbed the door and stepped inside. After the women were far enough away, Derek stepped out of the bushes and joined me in the stairwell.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Derek asked.

It did, actually. The slightly musty smell in the air was as good as a time machine for taking me back. My room had been right next to the stairwell, so I must have walked up and down these steps at least a half-dozen times every day.

We started climbing the stairs. I remembered so much with every step:

Me and Shanna walking out into the hallway and seeing Kevin…

Me and Derek leaving with Shanna to go to Ryan’s house…

Taking things down to Shanna’s car the day she moved out…

We exited at the third floor. It was exactly the way I had remembered it: light blue paint on the walls, chipped and uneven. Darker blue doors and doorframes. The threadbare grey carpet. Nobody was in sight, though doors were open further down the hall and I could faintly hear music playing and people talking.

The door to my old room was closed so we couldn’t peer inside, but just seeing the door was enough to bring back a flood of memories. I stood there, overwhelmed.

Derek stood next to me and pointed at the carpet. “Remember that night we first met? We came out here and drank Cokes and ate Little Debbies and talked about Chaucer?”

“‘The Wife Of Bath’s Tale,’” I murmured, remembering it like something out of a dream. The story where the knight gave the woman power over what he should choose.

“At first you didn’t think I was smart enough to have read it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s not true.”

Then I paused.

“Okay, it’s a little true,” I admitted with a laugh.

“Always underestimating me,” he grinned.

“I didn’t underestimate you.”

“So you thought I was going to follow through and actually become a huge rock star?”

I laughed again. “Okay… you got me.”

He shook his head in mock sadness. “
Always
underestimating me.”

“What’s the point of coming back here, anyway?”

“Just to remember the past. Remember the picnic?”

“Of course.”

“Remember
after
the picnic?”

Do I remember you lying naked beside me in my bed, using your fingers to bring me to orgasm? And then me putting my hand around your cock, and stroking you until you came?

“Yes,” I said, uncomfortably turned on. And then I remembered Ryan, and was just plain uncomfortable. “Derek – ”

“Relax, I just needed to come back here to see where it all began. Where I saw you first. Do you remember when I walked in with Shanna?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, feeling better that we were moving away from the overtly sexual.

“What did you think when you first saw me?”

I blushed. “I don’t remember.”

He laughed. “Bullshit. You remember. You know what I remember?”

“What?”

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’”

As soon as he said it, my heart ached inside me. I wished so much that I could go back and live those two weeks all over again.

“You were cool, too,” Derek continued. “Cool, calm, and collected. I threw a whole bunch of stuff at you, and you were completely unruffled.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Until I tried to kiss you goodnight,” he grinned. “You kind of lost it when I did that.”

“I had a boyfriend!” I protested.

And a voice inside me thought,
I have a boyfriend now!

“I know,” he said, then looked at me. “I’m sorry about that. I should have left you alone. I know that the whole thing caused you a lot of pain, and… well, I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted you too much. I apologize for what I did. But, honestly, if I had to go back and do it all over again… I would do it exactly the same. Maybe I’m not supposed to say that, but it’s the truth.”

I stared at him in silence for a long moment.

Got lost in his emerald eyes, just like I had four years ago.

“Okay,” he said abruptly. “I’m ready. You ready?”

“…yeah. Yeah, I’m ready,” I said, coming out of the spell.

“Good. ‘Cause we’ve got a few more places to go,” he said as he opened the stairwell doors and started down the steps.

We drove downtown and parked in front of the gyro shop.

“We’re going in there?” I asked, surprised.

“I was planning on it. Why?”

“I don’t know – aren’t you afraid you’re going to get to mobbed by people?”

“Naah, I hang out downtown all the time. I get asked for pictures and stuff, but people in Athens are used to seeing me, so it’s no big deal.”

“If you say so,” I muttered dubiously.

We walked into the gyro shop. The restaurant was just the way I remembered it: grease-smudged wallpaper, rickety tables, the smell of roasting meat in the air. It felt like not a moment had passed in over four years – especially when the shaggy-haired alterna-dudes behind the counter immediately shouted out welcomes.

“Derek! What’s up!”

“Hey man, how’s it goin’!”

“D – good to see you, dude!”

The guys were different from four years ago – at least I think they were – but otherwise it was complete déjà vu.

Derek walked over to the counter and shook hands all around. “How’s it goin’, Bennie? Dwight, my man! Zeke, what’s up!”

“Dude, we read you were in a car wreck! You okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“That’s cool – you went to rehab, too?”

“Yep. Just got out. In fact… as part of my recovery, I’m kind of taking a stroll down memory lane with my friend here, and I was wondering if you could maybe close down the place for the next couple of hours? Kind of make it a private party?”

“We don’t need to do that!” I whispered fiercely.

“I’d rather we not get interrupted,” Derek replied in a normal tone of voice.

“I thought people were used to you around here.”

“Not enough that they’ll ignore me completely.”

Zeke’s face fell. “Dude, I’d totally do it, but… Armin, he’d be
pissed
.”

Derek pulled a bunch of hundreds out of his pocket and started pulling them off one by one. “I’d be happy to double whatever he’d normally make off the till. And I’d triple whatever you guys normally get.”

The three guys stared at the wad of bills.

“I think we can make that happen,” Zeke finally spoke up.

“Cool – call Armin and ask if he’s okay with it. Don’t throw anybody out… just, you know, lock the door with a ‘Closed’ sign and let people out as they finish.”

I looked around. It was only 4:50 PM, so the dinner crowd was just barely getting started. The place was maybe a tenth full, if that.

Derek put down six hundred-dollar bills on the counter. “Will that cover Armin’s end for the next couple of hours?”

“Hell yeah, that’ll cover it,” Zeke said.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Buying some time on memory lane.” He turned back to the alterna-dudes and laid out another six Benjamins – $200 for each of them. “Okay, this is for you guys. Thanks for going to all the trouble.”

My eyes bugged out.

Twelve hundred dollars just to have dinner at a rundown gyro place.

“Hey, man, that’s awesome of you, but – it’s too much!” one of the shaggy dudes protested.