Since Forever Ago (5 page)

In fact, she had spent the good part of an hour compiling a list of guy-approved topics from which she could draw should the conversation head south at any point during their date. She had even prepared the perfect line with which to charm him: “Did you know that ‘dog food lid’ spelled backwards is ‘dildo of God’?”
He’s going to think I’m
so
chill,
Riley had thought to herself with a proud smile upon arriving at the restaurant.

Much to her dismay, however, newly heartbroken Nick had babbled about nothing other than the topic of his ex-girlfriend, even going so far as to ask Riley for advice on how to get the love of his life back.

Once she had sent a teary-eyed Nick on his way to the florist, Riley had shut her eyes tightly and demanded that Max join her for a much-needed de-briefing at a nearby bar.
At least there’s
one
guy I can always count on,
she had grumbled to herself as she ordered a vodka tonic and got a head start on raising her blood alcohol levels.

“I could name the others Jasmine and Violet. What else? Poppy? Petunia? Marigold?”

“Marigold?”

“Maybe I’ll even adopt a Chrysanthemum!”

“That’s quite the distinguished name for a cat,” Max mused with a lazy smile.

“Oh! And Tulip. I’ve
got
to get a Tulip,” Riley gushed, her cheeks getting pinker with each sip of her drink that she took.

“Are you planning on collecting them...?”

“What am I going to do, Max?” she asked, a desperate look on her face. “I’m going to end up becoming that crazy cat lady at the end of the street who gives her cats human names in place of the kids she never had.”

“You’d name your kid Petunia?” Max joked, scrunching his nose in disapproval.

“My cat child, yes,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“So you had another bad date,” Max began, feigning being supportive as he held back another one of his pleased smiles. “It’s not the end of the world, you know.”

“It wasn’t just bad,” Riley insisted with a roll of her eyes. “It was horrible! Why the hell did Evan think that I’d
want
to spend my Saturday night counseling some brokenhearted
sophomore
who was interested in nothing other than going on and on about his ex-girlfriend?”

Max couldn’t help but snicker as he imagined what Riley’s face must have looked like during Nick’s melancholic soliloquy.

“Even the couple at the next table over felt sorry for me!” she continued, groaning as she thought back on her pathetic excuse for a date. “They kept looking over with these pitiful eyes. I thought I was going to die!”

“Dramatic much?”

“I didn’t even get to use my fucking line!” Riley grumbled, slurping loudly on her drink in annoyance.

“Your line?”

“Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way,” she lamented dejectedly.

At this, Max perked up slightly.
My plan is working,
he thought excitedly to himself.
It’s really working! Evan was right for once!

“Yea,” he agreed with an encouraging nod. “Maybe you should just chill out for a bit, take some time for yourself, you know? Just wait until the right guy comes to
you
,” he continued, fighting back the urge to grin in joy.

Or at least until I’m ready to come clean,
he couldn’t help but silently add. “Maybe—”

“No, not like
that
, Max!” Riley blurted out in exasperation. “I’m totally going to keep dating. I just need to step up my game!”

“What do you mean?”

“I just have to stop eating French fries, start lifting at the gym, become a beer connoisseur, buy some non-clacky boots, enroll in a programming course—”

“What?”

“I need to stop being such a failure, or else I’ll end up running a cat shelter!” she concluded. “Tell me the truth—do you think I’ll ever find
anybody
to love me again? Because, at this point, I
really
doubt it.”

“Stop being so negative. You’ll find someone soon,” Max reassured her, his cheeks turning slightly pink as he held back all of the words that he desperately wanted to confess. 

“No, I won’t,” she mumbled dejectedly. “I really don’t think I will.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Lie or no lie?” Riley quietly asked, looking up at Max with saddened eyes.

“No lie,” he firmly replied, causing a tiny smile to form on her lips that prompted him to continue. “Someone who’ll love you for who you are. Someone who gets you.”

“That was Noah!”

“Someone other than Noah,” Max said through clenched teeth. “Stressing out over all of these random guys isn’t going to help you, you know. You should just take a break and let the right guy come along. Who knows? You might find him when you least expect it. Maybe... Maybe he’s even standing right in front of yo—”

“You’re right,” Riley groaned, causing Max to straighten up in his seat in anticipation. “You’re totally right.”

“I am?” Max squeaked out, gulping down the lump that had formed in his throat.

Don’t freak out, Fletcher,
he urged himself, clearing his throat as he gave Riley a small smile.
Of course she noticed. How could she not? Either you’re not as slick as you think, or she’s not as dumb as she loo
—

“The problem isn’t
me
! I just need to stop stressing out over all of those useless
guys
!” Riley sighed dramatically, prompting Max to immediately draw back his hand, which had been inching across the table towards her own. “Who
cares
if they didn’t like me? I need to grow some balls. Some big, titanium, indestructible balls, don’t you think?”

“B...balls?”

“So what if Brendan thought I was an unsophisticated airhead?” Riley continued, lifting her chin in drunken determination. “And who gives a shit that the only guys I actually seem to attract have bad breath or creepy smiles? Not me!”

“You sure about that?”

“From now on, I’m going to date like I don’t give a
flying fuck
,” Riley boldly declared, finishing off her drink with a loud slurp. “Just like you motherfuckers,” she added in a loud slur, prompting the group of guys at the next table to glance over in amusement.

Max didn’t respond, choosing instead to stare back at her with a giant frown on his face. What the fuck? Wasn’t she supposed to be sick and tired of dating by now? Shouldn’t she have given up?

She seems more determined than ever,
he couldn’t help but moan in his head as she began to enthusiastically babble on about her new dating strategies.
If all of these assholes haven’t turned her off of dating, then how will she realize that I’m better than them? And why is she even
in
such a hurry to meet someone new, anyway? Is she
that
desperate?

Would she be desperate enough to even consider being with
me
?
his inner voice continued as he stared across the table, a discouraged feeling filling his chest.
Does she even think of me as a guy? What would she say if I told her everything?

Yea, right. Like
that’d
ever happen. What would
you
even say, Fletcher?

“I took a statistics class last quarter, you know,” Riley was telling him, leaning forward across the table with a knowing smirk on her face. “If I just power through my dates with all of these assholes and losers, odds are that I’ll
eventually
come across a good catch.”

“You learned that in statistics?”

“What I’m trying to say, Max, is that good things come to those who wait,” Riley explained matter-of-factly, grabbing for Max’s glass and finishing off the rest of his whiskey.

Do they?
he couldn’t help but miserably think to himself as he watched Riley break into a fit of coughing.
Do they really?

“Or you can just wait patiently,” Max reminded her with a crooked smile. “There’s no need for titanium balls, you know.”

“I’ve been out of practice too long,” Riley said, shaking her head defiantly. “So bring them on. Bring them
all
on,” she added as an unamused expression clouded Max’s face.

“No way,” he muttered dismissively. “I don’t have the time or energy for de-briefings like this every time you go on a shitty date.”

“You won’t have to worry about that, because
I
won’t be requiring them. Nothing can faze me now,” she said with a determined nod. “Nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” Max replied, staring down at the row of empty cocktail glasses that Riley had amassed. “So
this
right now is you unfazed?”

“Today doesn’t count,” she snapped back. “But, from this point onward, I won’t be fazed.”

“Sure.”

“I’m going to be cool, calm and collected,” Riley announced, shooting Max a triumphant grin. “I’m going to be
unfazeable
.”

“That’s not a word,” Max glumly commented.

“The
unfazeable
Riley Benson,” she continued, choosing to ignore Max’s unsupportive response. “Just watch me.”

––––––––

“R
iley, what the fuck are you doing?”

At the sound of Liz’s voice, Riley lifted her head up from her pillow, hastily wiping at the bottoms of her eyes with the back of her hand. Not wanting her roommate to see how pathetic her wallowing session had really been, she quickly slid the most incriminating evidence underneath her comforter and sat herself upright while pasting a weak smile on her face.

“Hey.”

“What is that?” Liz asked as she craned her neck in the direction of Riley’s laptop to take a better listen. “Are you listening to Michelle Branch?”

“She was a great singer-songwriter,” Riley whispered back defensively as she shut her Macbook closed. “I just hadn’t listened to her songs for a while, that’s all.”

Narrowing her eyes suspiciously at her mess of a best friend, Liz marched towards Riley’s bed and pulled back the covers. “Are you kidding me?” she barked out as a bottle of Burberry Touch and a half-empty bag of Kettle Corn fell from the tangle of blankets. “I thought you said you were over him. That you were going to forget everything?”

“All right, I didn’t forget,” Riley hissed back as she attempted to wrestle the glass bottle of Noah-scented cologne away from Liz’s grasp. When she failed to pry it away due to her roommate’s hulk-like strength, she resorted to hugging her pillow to her chest and taking a deep sniff, inhaling all of the five hundred sprays from earlier that afternoon. “I never forget. I can’t forget!”

“Riley, you’re better than this.”

“No, I’m not,” she adamantly replied, grabbing for the bag of popcorn and shoveling some into her mouth. “I’m really not,” she repeated, a few crumbs falling from the corner of her lips.

In sharp contrast to the self-assured orations she had delivered to anyone who would listen, Riley was, in fact, still quite fazed. She had spent the past few weeks experiencing the exhilarating highs and crippling lows of being on the emotional rollercoaster in regards to her feelings about Noah, and it just so happened that this moment was one in which she had hit an absolute low.

There had been days when she would triumphantly brush off any depressing memories from the six years that she had spent with him, applauding herself for being so mature and blasé about the whole situation.
You’re all grown up
, Riley had said in awe to herself as she perused her closet for cute outfits that she would don on future dates.
You really
have
turned a new leaf
, she had thought proudly while shoving mementos from their relationship into the garbage can in her room.

Then there had been those nights on which absolutely hated him, cursing his very existence as she looted all of the cabinets in the kitchen in search of every last bag of junk food on which she could get her grimy paws.
Why did smartphones have to be invented?
she had silently warbled, gripping a Snickers bar between her teeth as she cyberstalked her asshole of an ex-boyfriend.
I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing!
she had pleaded with the universe while ripping open trash bags in search of the photo of her and Noah at Disneyland on their third anniversary.
Please bring him back!

“Get a grip, dude,” Liz said with a look of disgust on her face, ripping the bag out of Riley’s hands and crumpling it into a ball. “He was a lying, cheating asshole. Get over it.”

“So much for being supportive, huh?” Riley cried out pathetically. “I’m so lucky to have a friend like you!”

“I’m not going to support
this
,” Liz replied with a frown. “
This
is unhealthy.”

“You don’t get it!” Riley wailed as she fell over onto her pile of blankets. “We had a connection!
I
still don’t really get it!”

Liz merely stood there, watching Riley’s theatrical performance with a bored look on her face before unraveling her snack bag ball and inhaling her own handful of Kettle Corn.

“We were doing so well. And we were together for
so long
. I just don’t understand how he could do that to me.”

“He’s a terrible person,” Liz said matter-of-factly. “You know, you should be happy that this happened sooner rather than later.”

“But why did it even have to happen at all?” Riley squeaked back.

Liz let out a tired sigh as she hopped onto Riley’s bed, playfully nudging her friend’s head with her finger. “Everything happens for a reason,” she chirped out in a saccharine voice, prompting Riley to let out another depressing groan.

“I hate it when people say that,” she bemoaned loudly. “People only say that when they don’t know what else to say.”

“Well, I
don’t
know what else to say,” Liz admitted with a laugh.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Riley muttered out as she propped herself up against her headboard. “I guess a part of me just thinks that this is temporary. That he’s going to come crawling back, look me in the eye and tell me that he
isn’t
happy now.”