Miss Independent (27 page)

“I just needed to blow of some steam.”

He turned back to look at the gym. “How long were you in there?”

“A few hours, maybe more, I don’t know. They have kickboxing and self-defense classes on Saturday nights. I usually take one or the other, alternating between them every week, but I felt like I needed to take both this time.”

“Is someone harassing you?”

“No, it’s not that. The kickboxing… it’s a good stress reliever.”

She hesitated to mention that her lack of sex over the last few months is what initially drew her to the more ‘active’ classes in the first place, despite it not being the case tonight.

“Hm. Maybe I should start hitting the gym again,” he said, as if he hadn’t been there since his return to town. “Maybe we can start going together sometime.”

She laughed. “Sure, yeah. Great idea. We can get Sheila to carry our bags on the way there every week. That’s if she’s not too busy at the nail salon or planning her wedding or something frivolous.” Awkward silence ensued. She cleared her throat and started backing away from him. “I really have to go. I’m sweaty and I just feel so gross--”

“Are you planning on going to the reunion, V?” he asked. She turned a little and stopped. “Did you change your mind?”

“No. I’m set straight in not going to that thing.”

“Because of Sheila.”

“Because I have no desire to see people we went to school with. I got the friends I wanted out of it and I’m doing just fine with them.”

“You don’t miss anything about high school? The parties, the dances--”

“Getting screwed over by you? No, I don’t.”

He looked to the ground and cringed. “I guess I’m never going to live it down, and I deserve that.”

“Yeah, you do, and then some--”

“I guess that also means you didn’t miss me at all, not even a little, huh?”

She knew he was still fishing for an answer, but she couldn’t bring herself to give him the satisfaction of the one he wanted.

“What would there be to miss, Nathan? I mean, really?”

“What we had--”

“What we had before you fucked it all up by fucking Sheila? I really don’t want to do this. I’m tired and I need to leave before I say something else I might regret…” She started walking again.

“Vanessa,” he called.

She tossed her hands up and spun back around. “What?”

He took another sip of his coffee and gulped it back, nervous. “Sheila’s thinking of moving the wedding here.”

              “Here. As in, Manhattan?”

“As in Manhattan,” he repeated.

She dropped back on her heels and laughed if only because she couldn’t do anything else. “Of course! Of course she is! Six months and a week until the big day and she chooses to change locations, not just a church or where the reception is being held, but the entire fucking coast where it’ll take place. That is so very, very Sheila Harris of her.”

              “She’s not doing this to dig at you.”

              “No, of course not, she’s only doing it because she loves New York City so damn much. That’s why she couldn’t wait to get the hell away from it after high school. I can’t believe you even agreed to this.”

              He paused, questioning his own lies but refusing to admit his true motive. “Why are you still so angry at her?” he asked.

              She widened her eyes in the downright audacity of his question. “Don’t even, alright?”

“I’m sorry…” He exhaled and lowered his cup. “She told me about the fight you two had earlier today.”

              “Of course she did that too!”

              “I know that’s why you had such a shitty day. But she told me she apologized.”

              “Yeah well, she did more than you ever did or will.” She sighed and brushed back the hair that had blown in her face. “It doesn’t really matter what she said, anyway. What matters is why she said it, and she wasn’t apologizing to me so much as she was just apologizing
for
herself. She did it to make herself feel better, not because she meant it. And she’s not sorry. She’s thrilled, she’s glorious! If she could, she would sing from the rooftops that she was getting married to you, and I wasn’t.”

              “You still want to be with me?” he asked.

              “What? No. No, that’s not…” She became flustered. “That isn’t even what this is about. If I didn’t miss you, why the hell would you think I still wanted to be with you?”

              “Because you
did
miss me. It’s just that simple.”

              “I’m leaving.”

              “Why are you still so angry if it’s not true?” he asked. She was becoming more and more frustrated. The anger had risen inside of her like smoke bursting from a chimney. “If you don’t have feelings for me, why does it still matter?”

              “Because it still hurts!” she blurted. “It hurts! Your being back here doesn’t make things go away, it brings it all back to me in a flood. It doesn’t matter if I still have feelings for you or not, the point is that I had them
then
and you didn’t care!” She shook her head. “You’ve never been betrayed like that. You’ve never known what it has felt like to have the two people you trusted the most in this world break that trust in such an unbelievable way. I loved you more than I loved my own life sometimes and that scared the shit out of me, but it also made me so enormously happy just thinking that you could’ve felt the same way about me.” She felt the tears coming. He flared his nostrils and looked away. “Imagine if you did, and imagine if I was the one stepping out. Imagine catching me with one of your football friends, or worse for you, with Maurice. Imagine walking in on me fucking Maurice in the exact same way that I
saw
you and Sheila. Just imagine it for a second.”

              He swallowed hard and grew deathly quiet.

              “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I thought. I can move past what you did, but that doesn’t mean I have to forgive it. Or maybe I
can
forgive it, but I’m certainly never ever going to forget. You forget, you get burned. And I’m not going to let either one of you ever do that to me again--”

              “Sheila might be having an affair,” he interrupted.

Vanessa didn’t care, but she was mildly curious as to what else he had to say regarding it. “Might be?”

“This guy she talks to on the phone sometimes, I think she met him while doing volunteer work a few months ago. Maybe they’re just friends but she lights up when she talks to him on the phone. She never does around me anymore, on the phone or in person. I don’t know if it’s actually true, but it’s just a feeling I’ve had for a few months now.”

“Why the hell are you telling me all of this as if I’m supposed to give a damn?”

“I just thought that this was my karma for what I did to you. It has to be, right?”

              “No, it’s not,” she replied.

              “Why not?”

              “Because you are still marrying her, which means you don’t care, Nathan. So why the hell should I?”

              He watched her turn and walk away, knowing that she was right and why, but hoping that her reaction would’ve been somewhat different.

              After dinner, Maurice offered to have a car take Destiny back to her hotel so that she wouldn’t have to take a cab and risk getting lost again. When she insisted on him coming with her, he didn’t hesitate to take her up on the offer. She was flaky, but enough to get him through the night. They couldn’t keep their hands off of one another as the driver swerved throughout the city. Once they made it back to her room at The Palace, she hurried him inside and fell on top of him on the bed. Neither had even bothered to turn on the lights. She ripped off her top and crawled her fingers up his chest, massaging his muscles through his shirt. He hadn’t even had time to remove his jacket. She bent down and kissed him hard, ramming her tongue so far into his throat, he felt like he was going to choke on it. He pushed her away a little and started to question if she was a twenty-eight year old virgin or if she just hadn’t had sex in an extremely long time. He knew he was good looking and could lay pipe like no other, but was he really worth all of this?

              She leaned over into his ear.

              “How do you like it?” she asked with a giggle. She slid her hands down to his crotch and he jumped. That made her laugh. She stood up from the bed and started unbuttoning and unzipping his pants.

              He shut his eyes tight and pressed his hands against his face. He didn’t want to be a witness of what was about to happen. She reached up and removed his hands, slamming them back down onto the bed. Normally, he would be into this kind of wide-eyed kink and enthusiasm, but something about this girl was starting to rub him the wrong way. Maybe it was because she was just too damn willing to get laid, and he realized within a matter of spending time with her just how sick and tired he really was of being able to land a woman who was so easy to get in bed instead of playing hard or at least making him work at it a little more. Maybe it was because he realized in watching this woman tear at his clothes like a wild hyena in a fit, that he enjoyed chasing Vanessa more than he enjoyed the game being played with someone else.

              As Destiny tried yanking his pants down to his ankles, he sat up quick and took hold of her hands. She was down on her knees, looking up into his eyes while silently begging to be one of many whose bed he had managed to rock so hard in the middle of the night that it shook the entire floor awake from their slumber. But he couldn’t. Without even saying a word, she got up from the floor, disappointed but understanding. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get it up, he just didn’t have a desire to anymore.

              She thanked him for the dinner, and the tongue, and he buckled his pants and left her room with a new perspective on what he wanted, and how he was going to get it.

              Sheila stood staring at herself in the elongated mirror in her bathroom. She had just finished a cold shower after having a milk bath downstairs in the hotel spa and was completely naked. She looked at every stretchmark that had formed around her stomach, every birthmark circled around her inner thighs. She looked at her ass and noticed it wasn’t as perky as it was in high school, and wondered if these were the reasons why Nathan had no real desire to see her outside of her clothes lately. Sure she told him that they had to wait for sex until they were married, mainly because she wasn’t comfortable enough with herself, or with him enough anymore after learning that she may never bear his children. She knew that Nathan wanted a family and wasn’t sure if, when, or how she was ever going to tell him that she might not be the one able to give it to him. But she wanted him to still see her as he did when they were in high school, to still be the woman he was so desperately willing to leave her best friend for.

When she heard her cell ringing from the other room, she thought to ignore it. She knew it wasn’t Vanessa calling to make amends, and she knew that Nathan had originally left to get away from her after she informed him of the fight she had had with Vanessa earlier that evening. She didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway. All she wanted was to look at herself and remember what it was like to be so damn desirable. But her phone wouldn’t stop ringing. She became irritated and ripped her robe from the floor of the bathroom, slipping it on her shoulders. She jerked the door back and went searching for her phone in her purse on the floor. She picked it up and noticed the number was Joan’s, and fell to the bed, annoyed.

“How’s everything coming?” asked Joan.

“Fine,” she said. “Everything’s fine.” She looked down at her nails, realizing she needed another manicure soon.

              “Just ‘fine’? Has the guest list improved since the last time we spoke, Sheila?”

              “You mean have I managed to get Vanessa to show up? Not yet. But to be honest, I don’t even think I want her there anymore.”

              “Why not? Remember that I did this as a favor to you, because there are at least seven other people I could’ve chosen to take over for me. Most of who were actually part of the committee and bothered to pay their dues each year.”

“I know--” she groaned.

“You say that, but I don’t think you do. Especially after you outright begged me for this position just so that you could get close to her again. I had to convince people outside of the committee that you weren’t initially listed as VP because there wasn’t enough room for your name on the invitations. I had to pay those on the inside with my own money to keep their traps shut. And now you don’t think you even want her to show up?”

              “I just don’t think she’s ready to mend things.”

              “She caught you having sex with her boyfriend, Sheila. No offense, but I’m surprised she didn’t knock your teeth out upon seeing you and Nathan again.”

              “There’s still time,” she mumbled.

“Whatever time is left, you better fix it. I get no refunds from begging people to keep quiet just to help YOU.”

She carelessly leaned back and crossed her legs. “I think she still has feelings for Nathan.”

              “So?” Joan replied. “You’re the one getting married to him.”

              “I think he still has feelings for her too.”

              “He didn’t ask
her
to marry him.”

              “That’s because she wasn’t available, not to him anyhow.”

              “I don’t think she wants anything to do with him anymore,” said Joan flippantly.

“How would you know that?”

“I don’t. It’s only my personal opinion given how she reacted after finding you two together. And I heard she dated Maurice in college and some professor not long after that. Nathan was probably the last thing on her mind until just recently.”

              Sheila’s ears perked up then. “A professor?” she asked, a smirk forming on her lips. “Vanessa dated a professor at NYU? How old was he?”

              “Late twenties, early thirties. He was some kind of maniacal genius who graduated high school at fifteen. From what I heard what they had was nothing too special.”

              “How did you
hear
about any of it?”

              “I had friends that went to NYU who knew about her. The Maurice thing was well known, two beautiful people dating, the sexy underwear model and the up and coming magazine mogul. It was all over
Page Six
every week, I’m surprised you never heard about it out there.”

“Nathan pretty much ignored most of what was going on here, especially anything having to do with Vanessa’s love life.” She paused. “Now what about this professor?”

“That was more of a private ‘thing’. I don’t know if it was an actual relationship or just a lot of really great sex. A friend of mine walked in on them nearly going at it in his office. I heard she was bent over his desk and everything. He paid my friend not to talk because he could’ve gotten kicked out of the university if she had.”

“How much did he pay her?”

“Enough to begin graduate school the following semester. I don’t know how long they lasted, but I know that it ended pretty abruptly after my friend found them. Vanessa transferred out of his class around the same time too.”

              “Where’s this professor now? Still teaching?”

              “He’s doing missionary work someplace, the Congo, I think? It was really publicized at the time, but I don’t remember off the top of my head. His name was Adrian something.... Hey, I have to go, the baby is crying and her father isn’t home from work yet. Are you going to try again with Vanessa?”

              Her mind drifted, the wheels were spinning. “I’ll try again with her,” she said halfheartedly. “And thanks, Joan. You have no idea how much this call helped me tonight.”

              “Don’t go around repeating any of what I said. It’s just gossip and none of it matters now.”

              “You’re right. Thanks again.”

              As soon as she hung up, she tossed her phone behind her on the bed and started swinging her foot. She felt like she had finally found the goose that laid the golden egg.

              Vanessa had returned home a lot later than anticipated. After talking with Nathan, she needed to stop some place for a drink. She wanted to erase the memories of everything he had said, as well as everything him. She bounced around from one hotel bar to another, only stopping when she realized she had to remember how to get home on her own. She tiptoed into the house, trying to be as quiet as a mouse, but made noise after noise as she trailed into the laundry and tossed her sweatshirt into the wash, and removed the bun from atop her head while simultaneously trying to make her way upstairs. She passed Nikki’s room and saw the light off underneath the door, which meant she was either sleeping, or not there. She stopped and gulped before passing Maurice’s door, as it was wide open; the light was still on, as was a lamp that she could see shining across the wall. It was the one on his nightstand, which meant he was reading. She thought about walking past without saying a word, but she couldn’t do that. She had to say something to him. At the moment, she felt he was the only legitimate person she could trust with not only her body, but her heart as well.

              She slid up to his door and curved her neck, peeking into his room. His back was against his headboard. His shirt was in a hamper across the room. She knocked a little to gain his attention. He looked up and smiled.