I enjoyed handing out my gifts. I"d gotten Dante and Damien season tickets for the Lakers, a necklace for Aunt Sandra that had a family tree made of diamonds with leaves that were all of our birthstones on it, a floating diamond necklace and matching earrings for Dominique. Delilah loved her ring, and I puffed up with pride when she put it on.
She handed out her gifts last. She"d gotten Aunt Sandra a new SLR camera and a beautiful key fob that she"d had engraved with the words "Mama San." For Dante she"d gotten a beautiful pair of diamond cufflinks and tickets to the coming Green Day concert, for Damien a custom boogie board and a leather jacket. For Dominique she"d gone all out with a matching necklace, bracelet and earring set from Tiffany"s, and two pairs of UGG boots. She gave me my gift last. It was a beautiful silver watch, and I loved that it was something I could wear every day.
I pulled her aside when I had a chance, and showed here the inscription in her ring. She started laughing even as she got choked up. "Take your watch off and read the back."
She"d had my watch engraved as well, and it said the exact same thing I"d had put inside her ring. No gift that I"d ever gotten in my entire life had ever touched me so deeply.
We spent the rest of the day with the family watching "White Christmas" and "It"s a Wonderful Life", capping off the day with a huge ham dinner. It was a perfect family day, and we all laughed and talked and laughed some more, enjoying the time we spent together.
When it was over, I got to take Delilah home with me for another night, and that was the best gift of all.
It was tough separating from her again after Christmas. I missed her terribly, and I wished that time would pa.s.s quicker. I hated being away from her, hated the way time seemed to stand still. Hated more that I continued to f.u.c.k other girls from time to time, all the while praying she wasn"t doing the same. Nothing quite as pathetic as a double standard, I know.
Eventually I got as used to it as I could, and things started to improve. The thing that made any of it bearable was that I still got to see her every Sunday, and that we talked, texted and emailed constantly. We didn"t often talk about "us" or what happened, (we both agreed that it was too painful to talk about all of the time), but we talked about almost everything else. We, (she), decided that coming together at Christmas had made the ache worse, and we decided to ride it out until she graduated.
"I thought I had control of it Spence... but leaving again d.a.m.n near killed me all over again. I don"t know that I could do it again."
I agreed with her, even though it hurt. We were really chancing getting caught anyway.
She"s still the brightest spot in my life. Always has been, always will be.
Things kept changing, and life was totally different than it used to be. There were new additions to the family, and they came in the form of the Tyler sisters.
The eldest Tyler girl, Sabrina, broke Dante like a bad habit. He"s bowed out of the player"s game, and that left Damien and I. Dante was always the most responsible, the one who felt the most, (even if he never admitted it) so once I got used to seeing him with Sabrina, I wasn"t surprised that he went all in and asked her to marry him.
It"s great to see Dante so happy. My man Damien, on the other hand... He"s thrown a real f.u.c.king wrench into s.h.i.t. Aside from my love for Delilah, the worst kept secret in the family is that Damien has totally gone for the youngest Tyler girl, Brooke. Not sure what"s going on, and he"s not saying a word. Delilah and Dominique have become best friends with Brooke, but the girls say that she isn"t saying a word about what"s going on with Damien either, even though it"s very very clear that something is happening. I"ve actually been brainstorming with the girls on ways that we can get the two of them to admit that they are crazy f.u.c.king in love with each other, but so far, we haven"t had any good ideas. clear that something is happening. I"ve actually been brainstorming with the girls on ways that we can get the two of them to admit that they are crazy f.u.c.king in love with each other, but so far, we haven"t had any good ideas.
I was so excited that we were in the home stretch. There were less than six weeks until Delilah"s graduation, and I was counting down the days.
I couldn"t f.u.c.king believe it when Dante mentioned to me that he"d run into Delilah and someone she was dating at a restaurant. He told me he"d seen the two of them holding hands, and it d.a.m.n near killed me. I"m not sure how I sat through that conversation with him, because in my head I was screaming in agony.
How the h.e.l.l could that be happening? I"m out with Delilah at least two nights a week! She never once said a word about a boyfriend. Like the pathetic fool that I am, I went and asked her who she was seeing. Delilah would never lie, and she told me the truth. His name is Eric, and they"ve been seeing each other casually for a few weeks. When I asked her if she f.u.c.ked him, she shook her head and said no, not yet not yet. When she started to cry, I knew that meant that she really wanted to, and I died inside. I kept my s.h.i.t together and told her it was okay, held her while she bawled. I knew without her saying another word that she"d moved on, that she wasn"t waiting for me anymore. Once her tears were under control, I all but ran from her apartment.
When I got home that night, I sat on my couch with a bottle of scotch and, for the first time I could ever remember doing so, I cried my f.u.c.king eyes out as my heart broke. After I pa.s.sed out in a drunken stupor, I dreamed about her underneath every nameless faceless little punk on the UCLA campus, and it made me f.u.c.king sick.
After that, a depression set over me that was d.a.m.n near impossible to shake off. I"d lost her, and I didn"t know how to move on. Most days, I wasn"t even sure I wanted to. How had we gotten this close to the finish line only to lose it?
The night that all my bulls.h.i.t caught up with me, I was with Damien at a club in Hollywood. The two of us were totally miserable, but I was really taking the cake. I"d been struggling to put one foot in front of the other ever since I realized that Delilah was with someone else, and I hadn"t gotten my s.h.i.t back together yet.
I"d hoped he hadn"t noticed, but that was a dumb thing to hope. Aside from Delilah, Damien knows me better than anyone on Earth.
There were beautiful girls everywhere, and many of them seemed to think there was a homing beacon on my c.o.c.k. My c.o.c.k and I weren"t feeling it, and I sat sullenly at the bar. It"s impossible to keep up the charade when you know you"re alone, that you"re never going to have a shot at happiness.
Thoughts like that weren"t making me feel so hot, and that made it easy for Damien to pick out that there was a problem. He threw in the towel at the club after an hour, telling me that it wasn"t worth even being there if I was going to act like it was the f.u.c.king morgue. I think that"s true, but the other reason was because he wasn"t into the game himself.
I figured we"d head our separate ways, but when we got into the lot he told me he was going to follow me home for a chat. I a.s.sumed he was going to b.i.t.c.h me out for being such a downer, then tell me that he was worried. I spent my drive home getting my game face on.
The second we walked through my front door, my game plan went to s.h.i.t. He threw it out there right away.
"Clearly something is seriously f.u.c.king bringing you down. I"ve seen nothing happen so I had no f.u.c.king clue as to why you"re like a ghost of your former self. You"ve never been this down Spence, not ever. You"re scaring the s.h.i.t out of me. I went to Dante and asked if he knew what the f.u.c.k was going on. He didn"t say anything, at least not at first. But after I badgered him, he admitted that he"d told you he saw Delilah out with some guy and that you looked like someone had shot you in the stomach. It didn"t take a genius to figure it out from there. I"ve suspected for a long time, but now I"m sure. You"re in love with Delilah."
I thought I"d die right then and there. The feeling of dread that overcame me was overwhelming. All I could think was that Damien was going to tell me that I wasn"t good enough for his sister. Damien, better than anyone, knows what a perverted f.u.c.king a.s.shole I"ve been in the decade since we both lost our virginity to Marnie George on the sixteenth hole of our country club golf course. She was a senior, we were freshman, and she f.u.c.ked us both for the first time on the same night. Our s.e.x lives only got crazier from there.
Swallowing the knot in my throat, I nodded. "Yes."
Crossing his arms over his chest, he nodded back at me. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing," I said. "She"s got a boyfriend. It"s serious enough that she"s going to have... it"s serious."
He nodded at me again. "f.u.c.k Spence that"s not... d.a.m.n. Then I guess we don"t need to have this conversation. For what it"s worth, I"m sorry."
I could have been a coward and let it go at that, but I didn"t. "No, we don"t need to have the conversation. I"d hoped that when she graduated from college that we would have the conversation, but all of that"s different now. For the record, I"m in love with her and I would never have hurt her. All this," I said as I gestured around me, "all the bulls.h.i.t we"ve done, it wouldn"t have touched her, not ever. I would never have behaved like this with her. I know you probably hate me for this, and you don"t think I"m good enough for her. It doesn"t even matter now anyway, but I"ve always loved her. I"ll be a good friend, and I"ll do all the right things when she brings this guy home. It"ll f.u.c.king destroy me, but I"ll do it for her."
The look he gave me was one of shock. "Dude, come on! That"s crazy. I don"t hate you. I think you"re plenty good enough for her. If anything, you"re the only person I"d trust with her. Always knew she loved you more than anything else. She said it so often that I knew she wasn"t f.u.c.king around. I"m sorry that she"s with someone else. I didn"t see that one coming."
That he said he didn"t hate me was like a weight off my shoulders, but the fact that he thought I was good enough for his sister got me all choked up. I didn"t realize until right that moment how much his approval meant to me. It"s a d.a.m.n shame that it doesn"t matter now.
Talking about Damien and Brooke is an easy way to avoid talking to Delilah about anything really meaningful. These last few weeks, knowing that she"s with someone else... it"s been like h.e.l.l on earth. I can"t talk to her about it, and every time she brings it up, I cut her off. I just can"t hear about him. I"m losing my mind as it is. I know it"s frustrating her, but I just can"t. Not yet, and maybe not ever. I"m already thinking in terms of transferring to another one of the Hart branches, possibly the one in Greece. I can"t stay and watch her love someone else.
Right now, my issues with Delilah are secondary to my concern about Dominique. I"m frustrated with myself, I"m upset that Damien is struggling, but at least I know what"s up with him. With Dominique, I have no idea. Even worse, Delilah has no real idea either. She says she has a thought, but she doesn"t want to share it unless Dominique confirms it one way or the other.
Dominique is totally closed off, which is bizarre. She and Delilah haven"t lived together since their time in the dorms in freshman year. During their second year, Delilah had pledged one fraternity and Dominique had pledged another, and the two of them separated. Delilah now has her own apartment, and Dominique has her own as well. I know that it hurts Delilah that Dominique is around less, but until Dominique feels like explaining, nothing"s going to change.
I was sitting at my desk thinking about Dominique and what was going on when my desk phone rang.
"Spencer Cross."
From the sound of the breathing, I knew it was my mother before she even spoke. My stomach plummeted four hundred stories in five seconds flat.
"I"m delighted that you"ve kept the name Cross. I thought those people those people would have forced you to change your name to Hart by now." would have forced you to change your name to Hart by now."
Gritting my teeth, I took as deep of a breath as I could. "Those people are my family, mother. Don"t insult them. And unlike my own family, they"ve never forced me to do anything I didn"t want to do. Why are you calling?"
It was a good question, and I dreaded the answer. I hadn"t heard from my mother in almost two years, and I was just fine with that. She doesn"t have one motherly bone in her body. h.e.l.l, she doesn"t have one caring caring bone in her body. If it weren"t for the fact that I"ve seen photos of her pregnant, I"d swear she was a reptile and that she stole me from someone else. My mother is a dish best served cold, or not at all. bone in her body. If it weren"t for the fact that I"ve seen photos of her pregnant, I"d swear she was a reptile and that she stole me from someone else. My mother is a dish best served cold, or not at all.
"I"m calling because I don"t feel well. You can"t think I"ll live forever, right? I know I"ve not been mother of the year, but I"m the only one you"ve got. I"d like to look at my son before I leave this Earth, to tell you how sorry I am."
My mother doesn"t do contrite, so her a.s.sertion that she wanted to apologize had me pulling the phone away from my ear to stare at it in confusion.
"What do you mean you don"t feel well? Have you been to the doctor?"
She made an inelegant noise, indicating that she hadn"t. "You know how your father is about illness, and he"s only gotten worse. He doesn"t allow for doctor visits."
As much as I dislike her, that got to me. I remember what it felt like to be trapped under his control. Terrified to move or breathe out of place, trying to stay silent and still. To this day, I wake up in a cold sweat remembering his hands on me, his mouth, and his miserable excuse for a d.i.c.k rubbing against me. "If you don"t let me touch you, Big Mike"s already told me I can touch Dante or Damien. Whichever one strikes my fancy. Don"t think I won"t do it boy. And with them, I could do more..."
Later, when that started not working, he threatened to touch the girls. I"ll never forget the sight of him and their father leering at the two of them like they were meat. I started working out the next day, and I"ve never looked back.
Snapping back into the present, I asked her, "If you don"t feel well, why not shove past him and go to the doctor? I"ve never known him to restrain you before."
"Things have changed, my darling. He"s letting me have a party though, this weekend. I"d like you to come. I won"t make you stay, I promise. But I"d like to talk to you while I still can."
I"m not sure what the f.u.c.k I was thinking. s.h.i.t, maybe I wasn"t. Somehow, she"d worked her head games on me, and the next thing I knew, I"d agreed to go.
Chapter Twelve: Delilah
I thought I"d go crazy for the entire first year after the thirty days of Spencer loving were up. I missed him, the feel of him, the ability to hold and love him, and the feelings that our being together evoked. I dreamed of being with him d.a.m.n near every night, and it made me nuts. There were a lot of bad days that first year.
I knew the first time he had s.e.x with someone else, because the following night at family dinner, he could barely look at me. I hated that he hadn"t been able to wait, and I hated that I felt that way. I knew firsthand how high Spencer"s s.e.x drive was, and I knew he wouldn"t last two years. I wondered if he enjoyed the s.e.x, wondered if he held her afterwards. I wondered if he screamed her name when he came. I wondered if she loved his scent, whether she knew that he loved to be kissed and held afterwards.
For the entire month after that, I cried myself to sleep every night. I lost ten pounds and walked around like a ghost. It was at that point that Dominique got p.i.s.sed off and told me that I was being a dumba.s.s. "You can"t wait for him Delilah. It isn"t fair, and it"s dumb to try. I"ve been your biggest supporter until now, but f.u.c.k this. You"re f.u.c.king miserable and I"m watching you disappear before my very eyes. You didn"t even have one pound to lose, much less ten."
Spencer put his foot down too. "Angel, I"m with you all the way. I"m f.u.c.king miserable without you baby, but I"m more miserable seeing you like this. If you want me to tell Dante and Damien now, if that will make you happy, I"m all in. I can"t stand seeing you like this. You"re the most important person in the world to me. If they"re mad, then so be it."
I knew that wasn"t the answer. It would just start s.h.i.t, and that wasn"t my intention. I also didn"t want Spencer to have to worry about me all the time.
After that, I realized that I needed to start acting like a functioning member of society. I also realized that I needed to stop pining over Spencer when Dominique was around, because it was p.i.s.sing her off. To her, he was a brother figure, and I didn"t want her to hate him because I couldn"t handle being away from him I floundered once, that Christmas. I needed to be with him. It was beautiful and amazing, but when it was finished, I told him we needed to go cold turkey until I graduated. I couldn"t chance getting depressed again.
Over time, I managed to regain my equilibrium. I just kept telling myself that every day got me one day closer to goal, and one day it finally took.
I"m not sure that it ever got easier, but it did get more bearable. Dominique pulled away from me a bit, and it made me sad. It wasn"t extreme, but for the first time, there was a divide. Sometimes I thought she seemed anxious to have privacy, and I wondered about that. I suspected that she was trying to hide something from me about her s.e.xuality, but for the life of me I couldn"t understand why. She understood that I wasn"t oblivious to what was going on with her, but she still refused to talk. I realized that we were adults now, and that I needed to let her have privacy even though it hurt me. When she"s ready, she"ll tell me.
We both had a new friend though, someone that we all love to pieces. My brother Dante had gotten a new executive a.s.sistant named Sabrina, and her sister Brooke is our new permanent sidekick. The Tyler sisters are part of our family, and we all love having them around. Brooke and my brother Damien definitely have huge feelings for each other, but neither of them is saying a word. The good thing is, with how invested Damien is in Brooke, he"s taken to coming out with Dominique, Brooke and I several nights a week when we go to clubs, which means that Spencer"s with us too.
At the beginning of my senior year, I met Eric. He was cute, nice, and he liked me a lot. He kept asking me out, and I kept saying no. I was finally within striking distance of graduation and the ability to be with Spencer, and I couldn"t have cared less about dating anyone else.
All that changed one night when I went to a bar in the valley that I normally wouldn"t have gone to with a few of my sorority sisters and some of their friends. One of my sorority sisters had a friend named Carrie that was tagging along with us. She was really pretty, but ridiculously shallow and annoying. She was going on and on about some hot guy that hung out at the bar we were going to, telling us all what a great lay he was. "f.u.c.king huge," she crowed. "He and the guy he always has with him are like celebrities in the bar. I"ve heard that they used to be around a lot more, but they only stop in every so often now. Everyone wants a ride on one of them. They"re pretty selective. I had my guy once almost a year ago, and I"m not stopping "til I"ve f.u.c.ked him again. He f.u.c.ked me almost unconscious, and I need more of that. You guys should see this dude"s p.r.i.c.k. It"s mammoth."
I found her crude and disgusting, but I didn"t really care about her since I had my real friends there for fun. Most of us stayed in the front of the bar drinking, while Carrie dragged a few of the "looser" girls into the back where the pool tables were. "I"m in search of Mr. Big c.o.c.k," she shrieked. Most of us hung our heads in embarra.s.sment at that.
About an hour into the night, one of my sorority sisters went to the bathroom, which happened to be located near the pool table. When she came back, she came right over to me. "I don"t know who Mr. Big c.o.c.k is, but the other guy he"s with is your brother, the one that used to bring the Krispy Kremes for the entire sorority on Fridays."
I felt the bottom drop out of my world, just like that. She was talking about Damien, and I knew exactly who "Mr. Big c.o.c.k" was. I was sick to my stomach. It was one thing to know he was f.u.c.king other people. It"s another thing to know that he was f.u.c.king trash like Carrie.
I knew that I needed to go look, but I also knew that I needed to get the f.u.c.k out of here. Pulling my cell from my purse, I walked outside and called Brooke and asked her to come get me. After giving her the address, I went back into the bar.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I made my way through the bar and back into the pool table area. I wasn"t sure what I would find, but when I got a good look at what was going on, I almost lost it. Carrie was all but on top of my brother while Spencer had some little s.l.u.t sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck. I noted that neither my brother or Spencer looked particularly engaged, but it crushed me just the same to see someone else touching Spencer.
Luckily for me, neither one of them noticed that I had been standing there. I hauled a.s.s out of the bar and stood waiting for Brooke to arrive. When I got home, I scrubbed myself raw in the shower while I cried. Here I"d been, foolish enough to wait for him, all while ignoring what he was doing. Having it in my face made me feel like a foolish little baby. If he cared about me, I don"t think he would be f.u.c.king people like Carrie.
The following weekend, Eric was out with me and my friends again. I was so d.a.m.n tired of waiting, of being a good girl. Spencer wasn"t out there being good, and now that I d.a.m.n well knew it for sure, I felt like I needed to experience other men myself. Eric and I had the same group of friends, and I liked him. Not in the way that I liked Spencer, not even close, but I was attracted to him. I missed kissing, I missed being held. Now that I knew first hand that Spencer was f.u.c.king anything that walked, I was fed up with it. Why was I the one that was expected to wait, while he was out there nailing anyone he felt like? How was that fair? I started to think that maybe I should get some of my own back. If he was out having s.e.x, why wasn"t I?
I was ripe for the picking, and when Eric asked me out the next time, I said yes. We went to the movies, out with our friends, to dinner, and to the beach. I enjoyed spending time with him. One night after a movie, I went with him back to his house. Things got hot and heavy, and I wound up giving him a b.l.o.w.j.o.b. It wasn"t a stellar experience, but it wasn"t horrible. I felt stupid that afterwards I felt guilty about Spence. G.o.d knows he wasn"t feeling guilty about me. After a few more weeks of dating, I opened my mind up to the possibility of having s.e.x with Eric.
The very night that I"d made the decision, Spencer showed up at my apartment to ask about Eric, after Dante had told him he"d seen us out together. When Spencer asked me if I"d had s.e.x with Eric I couldn"t lie so I said no...not yet. I felt his pain to the tips of my toes, and I couldn"t help but cry. He told me that it was okay, said that he understood. I knew d.a.m.n well that he didn"t, and that it wasn"t okay. It was written all over his face. That was the moment that I realized that any feelings I had for Eric were barely lukewarm.
I love Spencer, and the only future I"ve ever dreamed of involves him. Spencer"s reaction to my relationship with Eric let me know that he still cared about me, that he still wanted me. I"d started to really believe that he didn"t, that what happened between us was an anomaly to him. We"ve spent the last two years not discussing it at all, and after that night in the bar with Carrie, I thought he"d gotten over it, over me. I"d decided that I needed to focus on something else, and now I"d hurt Spencer.
I broke up with Eric the next day. It didn"t escape my attention that it didn"t affect me at all. I tried to talk to Spencer about it, but he was busy avoiding me like the plague. I refused to tell him over the phone, through text or via email, and since he refused to talk to me, I couldn"t do anything. Anytime we did did talk, he managed to make sure that there were other people present so that we couldn"t really talk, he managed to make sure that there were other people present so that we couldn"t really talk talk. There were things that needed to be said, though. I"m still furious at him that he f.u.c.ked s.k.a.n.ks like Carrie, that he let himself get into a situation where he"s being talked about like a piece of meat.
I"ve tried, but I haven"t been able to work it out so that Spencer and I can be alone together at any time. It"s just s.h.i.tty timing I think. There"s so much s.h.i.t going on with my family at this point; I"ve got Dominique acting weird and hiding something, Brooke pining for Damien, Damien pining for Brooke, and on top of that, I"m about to start working at Hart. Now just isn"t the time to force the issue with Spencer.
At some point, he will have to listen to me. Until then, I have to wait. No matter how angry I am, I love him, and I"m going to fight for him. What are a few more weeks in the grand scheme of things?
Spencer got it into his head that it would be a good idea for Damien to pretend to have a girlfriend. He told Damien he thought it would help make Brooke stop wanting him, but Spencer told me later that he didn"t think Damien would go through with it. He thought it would force Damien to realize his true feelings for Brooke. Damien did go through with it, and things did not go well. The girl he"d brought home pretending to be his girlfriend was actually someone that my sister was seeing. That forced everything out into the open, and Dominique fessed up to the fact that she"s a lesbian. I love that she finally came out, that she"s finally happy and content. Her girlfriend, Tally, is a doll, and I"m attaching to her already. Unfortunately, Damien and Brooke aren"t speaking, and I"ve been desperately worried about both of them.
Meanwhile, Spencer still won"t really speak to me about anything non-family related. I"ve still been unable to tell him that I didn"t have s.e.x with Eric, and it"s killing me. I"ve waited long enough, and tomorrow I"m going to his house to force him to speak to me. Enough is enough. I"ve graduated, and we need to be together. Our time has come.
Things might finally be looking up with Brooke, too. After weeks of hermit-like behavior, she called me earlier to let me know that she wants to go out tonight. Things might not be so good with her and Damien, but the fact that she"s finally willing to get out of the house is a good sign.
I"ve started working at Hart with the rest of my family. I"ve only been there for two weeks, but somehow Spencer has managed to almost entirely avoid me. I"m not even sure how the h.e.l.l he"s doing it, but I"m beyond frustrated. At what point is he going to get his head out of his a.s.s?
Chapter Thirteen: Spencer