Authors: Alice Dee
She tilted her head, squinting in the same bright sunshine. Again, she let herself down when she failed to find the right words.
“It’s fine.” Shane turned away.
“Shane I like you,” she said to his back. He turned around, his eyes so tight she could barely see them.
“Yeah just not like that.”
She licked her lips.
“I just don’t think right now…is…the time?”
“I get it.”
“I had a lot of fun last night. I haven’t laughed like that in a really long time.”
Confused, he scoffed which shut her up.
“I have to go. I’ll…I don’t know, see you later?”
She nodded. Seeing him in his clothes from last night brought back the memories of those last hours and flushed her with a feel of nostalgia. It swelled in her throat and threatened to come through in tears.
“Shane wait.” She walked to him and put her hand on his hard chest. “I just want to take things slow.”
He rolled his eyes to the top of his head. “Uh, we kissed all night. That’s pretty slow to me.”
“I’m not just talking about sex. I don’t want to hurry anyth-”
He rushed her as she spoke, sliding his tongue against hers, stopping her words. Seconds later their arms were wrapped around one another and they were making out against his car. Wet through she gazed at him when he stopped, her eyes half open, wanting him to keep kissing her. Her lips were still parted and she was similar to dazed.
“Here, give me your phone.”
She hesitated for a moment like she was stuck on stupid, reached in her back pocket and then handed it to him.
“I’ll put my number in here and you can call me when you’re ready. When you want to do something, go out, whatever, call me.”
She took the phone and smiled.
“Okay.”
They put their lips together again.
“Be safe.” She went back to her apartment where Shamayla was still sitting at the kitchen table.
“Did you kiss him?”
Hope pressed her back against the door.
“More than kiss but less than sex.”
“Did you blow him?! What happened last night? Tell me!”
“No, I didn’t do that!” Hope slid into a chair. “We stayed here,” she explained. “We ordered in, we hung out, we laughed. We talked about the random things…”
“Did you…” Shamayla eyed the empty Azul bottle and its buddy next to it, the empty vodka bottle. “…drink?”
“Yeah, and then we ate and we watched TV. Well no, the TV was on but we just…” the memory of last night sunk in her lowing stomach, that butterfly fluttering that was so similar to dips in roads.
“We kissed.” Hope stared at the table in deep thought.
“Uh huh. Go on…”
“That’s it. We just kissed, all night.”
Shamayla scrunched up her face.
“You kissed all night?”
“Yes,” she laughed. “We just made out for hours. I haven’t done that since I was in high school. It was sweet. He felt me up but he didn’t ask me to undress. We just made out till the sun came up and it was nice, it was fun, it was exciting.”
Shamayla dropped her chin in her hand.
“Is he a good kisser at least?”
Hope smiled to herself for a moment, remembering every last detail of his wet but never sloppy kissing.
“Yes,” she replied. “He had me wanting to do more than kiss but he was a perfect gentleman about it.”
“How romantic,” Shamayla mumbled. “Are you going to see him again?”
Hope bit her lip.
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Are you crazy?? Why not?!”
She shrugged with a feeling of uneasiness.
“I wish I would have met him before Dominic. I wish Dominic never happened.”
“But he did. So what?”
“I just don’t want this to look the wrong way.”
“If you like Shane you should see him again. He’s a nice guy. I was wrong about Dominic. So fuck him, get with Shane.”
Shamayla continued to talk and Hope pretended to listen. She nodded her head a lot but she didn’t know what the heck Shamayla was rambling on about. She was thinking about Dominic.
44…Jealousy lingers
Tristan sat up in bed, eyes roaming around the room. Through the brown sunshade sun rays barely made their way through, and stripes of light lined Dominic’s walls and dresser top. No pictures. She got out of bed while Dominic snored and went into the kitchen for a drink, but mostly to see if her suspicions were right. They were. Not a single picture where their photos were once taped. He took every picture of her down, every picture of them together. She crossed her arms and went into the living room. Same thing. It was as if he tried to erase her existence from his home.
She wondered how many times Hope had been in the apartment because no way could Dominic deny Hope had been. She knew Hope had been inside and no doubt laid in his bed, tainting it along with everything else she touched. It sickened Tristan to think Dominic could even do that. It was disrespectful to their relationship and downright disgusting. She regretted coming home with him last night. Maybe they should’ve gone back to her room instead.
“Come back to bed.”
She saw Dominic standing in the hallway, rubbing his wild, wavyish hair. Her fist tightened at the vision of him being with Hope, of Hope having her dirty paws all over him.
“I can’t stay,” she lied. “I have stuff to do.”
“Not even for like, an hour?”
“I can’t,” she snapped. “I have to go.” She roughly brushed past him and went to his room to gather her belongings.
“Is something wrong?”
“Nope,” she said, stuffing her purse with her bra and wallet, cell phone and keys. Fed up with this and that, she angrily snatched her keys out of her purse.
“Can I have a kiss?”
She wanted to knee him in the balls, no doubt. She remained calm though it took everything in her to do so, turned around and pressed her stiff lips to his soft ones.
“Sure you’re all right?”
“Yep,” she spun around with her purse and headed for the front door.
“I’ll call you-“
His front door slammed before he could finish what he was saying.
She sat in her car for a moment, thinking about that night when she stopped by to drop off a package for Dominic while he was at the gym. She had Charla with her and as they were about to walk out of Dominic’s apartment, she saw Hope pull in. The girls went back inside.
“Pretend you’re having sex with Dominic!” Charla blurted.
Tristan’s eye lit up. Charla was a fucking genius. As Hope made her way inside her apartment, Charla started pounding on the wall, Tristan shouting “oh Gawd Dominic, oh GAAAAWD…BAAAAAABYYY…” She had Charla bent over laughing her head off. The faces Tristan was making were priceless.
“Yeeeeah…oooooh, yeeeeeeah, oooooh Dom,” Tristan moaned, all dramatic, eyes squeezed shut. Charla gave one final thud and Tristan moaned, “I love you toooo!”
“You think she heard that?” Charla whispered.
Tristan smiled and shrugged. It felt so good to do that…she was actually smiling for the first time in a long time.
Now, Tristan started the car. The memory of what she and Charla did had her smiling again. If there was any surefire way to right things wrong, it was to wrong things right. She was willing to fight dirty. She would go miles to destroy Hope so no, this was by far over.
Dominic knew there was a lot of wrong he had to make right with Tristan. A part of him told him there was no way he could ever make up the fact he left her own her own, triggering her stress which led to her miscarriage. He didn’t blame her for being angry with him and knew that he was lucky she even considered taking him back. So no, nothing he could do would ever make it better, but he would try anyway.
He felt he was deserving of a beat down and would allow Tristan to go for broke until it was out of her system. She was a woman so he knew he was in for a long ride. But she was his girl and yeah, he told himself, he still loved her. She was changing his mind slowly, and he was thinking less about Hope.
He picked her up Sunday afternoon and took her shopping. Dominic knew girls love shopping. They love to spend money, especially someone else’s. But she seemed out of it and wasn’t interested in anything. He knew it was because she was still emotionally scarred from the loss of their baby so he moved on to the next plan, lunch. They ate at the food court because she didn’t want anything fancy. But she only picked at her food and answered all of his questions with attitude. Finally he asked her what was wrong, the baby?
“Do you love her?”
You would think Tristan had just smacked him across the face. He fork fell from his hand.
“Love... what?”
]“Her.” Tristan looked him in the eyes. “Tell me the truth. Are you in love with her? I need to know.”
“Oh my go- Tristan I’m with you.”
“You left me for her.”
“Oh give me a fucking break!” He pushed his food away, making her feel bad for ruining his appetite.
But then again, he’d ruined her appetite for weeks. She crossed her arms.
“I don’t know if I can move on, if I can get passed it.”
“Passed what?”
“Passed her. It’s like, a reminder everywhere. Every time I go to your place I’m going to think of her.”
“She doesn’t even live there anymore, she moved!”
“Yeah,” she pouted, eyes watering. “Was the break up that bad? It must have been passionate for her to not even be able to be your neighbor anymore.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You must think she’s prettier than me.
Is
that why you did it? Is it because she’s skinnier, is she better at it than I am?”
“We’re not doing this.” He sat back. “We’re not.”
“If you really to work things out, you’ll tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What’s she like.”
“Why are you doing this? What good is talking about her?”
“I need to know!”
“Keep your voice down!”
“I want to know so I can prevent it from happening again!”
Dominic closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
“It was a mistake, ok? Drop it Tristan. It’s over.”
“If it wasn’t for the miscarriage you would still be with her, right? Do you love her? Answer me.”
“No!” He grabbed their trays and angrily dumped their trash. Tristan jogged to keep up with him as he walked out of the mall. When she caught up she went on.
“If you loved me how could you leave me for someone you don’t love, someone you don’t even know?”
“Don’t do this.”
“Does her profession excite you?”
“No.”
He unlocked the doors to the truck and hopped inside.
Tristan buckled herself in and stared down at her hands, the tears splashing them, one after the other.
“She’s not prettier than you. She’s not better than you in any way. Okay? You’re a far better fuck and you’re way hotter. You’re the girl I want, not her, not anyone else.”
Tristan’s featured softened a bit.
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes, I mean it. We were having problems and I used it as an excuse to go out and do something really stupid. But I’m sorry,” he insisted. “She’s only a memory, and not even a good one. It was a mistake, Tristan. I want to get passed it. But you have to let me. If you want this to work out, you have to get over it. It happened, we can’t change it. Let’s just move on.”
“How do I know if you run into her you won’t-“
“Stop. I want you.” He put his hand under her chin. “You. Only you.”
She replayed his words over and over in her head, still not fully convinced.
“Okay. You’re right. I want to move on too, I want to forget this.”
‘Yeah because who is Hope?’
Tristan crossed her arms and stopped crying. How could she cry because of Hope? Hope didn’t give two shits about her relationship with Dominic. Hope knew he had a girlfriend and seduced him anyway. Tristan cleared her throat and took in a deep breath that felt really good. Screw Hope.
45… Shane’s got balls
The atmosphere inside of Denny’s was hazy and every person and object was haloed by an opaque glow. Glenna put an elbow on the table and held up a cigarette, blowing smoke up at the lamp above the table. She swept her bangs aside and listened to Hope and Mercedes talk. Hope opened her purse and took out a cigarette. As she lit up she glanced at the doorway and did a double take when she saw Dominic walk in with his thick arm around Tristan’s shoulders. The blood in Hope’s veins seemed to run chrome, flooding her insides cold. She paused for a moment, saw Shane and some other guys she’d never seen before tail the volatile couple. She went back to lighting her cigarette, dropped the lighter in her purse. The girls went on with their chatter while Hope took in the clique heading for a booth across the way.
“What’s wrong?” Glenna asked, noticing Hope’s rigidness. Hope made a face like nothing was wrong but a few seconds later she caught herself staring at them again. Tristan was in a tight dark pink mini skirt and black and white polka dot halter top. Glossy crayon green heels hugged her feet and her eye makeup was dark and intense. Her peanut butter hair was pulled down to one side, resting over her right shoulder.