Authors: London Casey
Tags: #romance
I thought about the last time I saw Derreck, the night of high school graduation. Sitting in his car in the back parking lot of an empty baseball field. Talking... making promises... I was doing everything to get him to take me home and not end up with my pants down in the backseat of his car.
Derreck put the food on the table and took the lid off. He inhaled the smell and shook his head. “You still eat this shit? Chicken and broccoli... why not get something better? Christ, I knew you’d never change.”
“What are you...”
I still couldn’t make a sentence. I glanced at my cell phone. But that wouldn’t do good. I couldn’t call Scarlett. I couldn’t call Tatum. And my keys were in my room.
Fuck.
I couldn’t even run from Derreck.
When he turned and came at me, I felt trapped and cornered. I jumped back until the back of my leg crashed into the table next to the couch. My knee bent in pain and as I was forced to sit, I knocked the lamp over. I looked to see it falling. Derreck managed to grab the lamp before it hit the floor.
“Whoa,” he said. “Are you that surprised to see me?”
I slithered away, around Derreck as he put the lamp back on the table. He turned and I froze again. This time when he stepped towards me, I didn’t move. He took my right hand, his fingers moving along my hand.
“It’s been so long,” he said.
“Derreck...”
“That’s my name,” he said. “I told you I’d be back. I promised, right?”
I nodded. Yeah, Derreck did promise that.
He looks at me, turning the headlights off on his car. The pitch black is only met by the silhouettes of the baseball field fence. It’s scary. And it’s scary looking at Derreck.
“We can make this work,” he says. “I just have to go away for a little while.”
“It’s not jail?” I ask.
“Do you think I’d lie to you? Fuck, Maggie, what’s wrong with you?”
He takes my left hand and swings it at my face. I slap myself, not hard, but the implications are there. The potential of what Derreck could do if I bother him the right way... or the wrong way depending on how you look at it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m just nervous.”
“About what?”
“We’re out of high school now...”
“That’s fucking great. Finally. What a hellhole.”
“I think I’ll miss it,” I say.
Derreck slides his hand to my wrist and squeezes. “Trust me, you won’t. You understand that?”
I wince and say, “It’ll leave a mark...”
Derreck told me a while ago that if he ever starts to go too far - or as he calls it, ‘crossing the line’ - to remind him that he could leave a visible mark. That would be bad. That’s what he tells me all the time. Seeing a mark would take our love away.
Derreck opens his hand and touches my face. “Promise me you won’t miss it. Right now. Promise me.”
I nod. “I promise, Derreck. I won’t miss high school.”
“You’re going off to college,” he says. “Going to let a bunch of seniors fuck you?”
“No,” I say. “Never.”
“Fuck off,” he growls and turns. “I have to go to Florida for a little while, that’s all. My father is making me go. To help him with his construction company. I have to pay off some fines and my mother doesn’t want me around.”
“I’ll be at school, nowhere else,” I say.
“Yeah, sure. I bet you’re fucked within the first week.”
“That would be cheating,” I say. “I’d never cheat on you, Derreck. We promised.”
“That’s right,” Derreck says. “That’s why we’re here right now... we can never break promises, right?”
“Never,” I whisper.
“Good. Because I’m breaking up with you tonight. Right now. But you have to make a promise. Understand?”
“We’re breaking up?” I ask.
Derreck looks at me and nods. “I’m a fucking man, Maggie, okay? I’m going to Florida... the beaches, the women... I won’t be able to help myself.”
My heart twists and breaks. “You’re going to sleep with other girls?”
“No, I’m going to fuck them. That’s about it. But I won’t break my promise. We’re broken up now, so it’s not cheating.”
I’m in shock. My body hurts... from everything...
“But I’ll be back,” Derreck says. “Okay? I promise you, Maggie, I’ll be back.”
I nod.
“And I need you to promise me...” He slips a hand to my neck. His thumb touches my throat and the rest of his fingers dig into the back of my neck. “... promise me you’ll be waiting for me. When I come back, we pick up where we left off.”
My lips quiver. I can’t make this promise, I really can’t...
“Maggie, promise me...”
I hesitate again.
Derreck’s grip tightens. I’m ready to break down and cry. There’s darkness everywhere... inside the car, outside at night, and deep within my heart.
“You have to fucking promise me,” Derreck growls. “Right now. Fucking do it...”
I nod. I’m shaking, but I nod.
“Say it to me,” he commands. “Tell me you promise.”
“I promise,” I say. “I promise, Derreck.”
“You promise you’ll be waiting for me?”
“I promise.”
“You promise we’ll be together?”
“I promise.”
He takes his hand away.
I swear... I hope it’s the last time he ever touches me...
Derreck’s hand squeezes mine. “Are you okay?”
I looked at him, wanting to scream how I really felt, but I couldn’t. The fear rushed back like nothing I could have ever imagined in my life.
“Oh, you’re just so surprised and happy, aren’t you?”
I stared. It was all I had.
“Well, listen, Maggie,
baby
, I’m starving. I flew in from Florida and grabbed a car to get here.”
“Grabbed a car?” I asked.
“I know a guy,” Derreck said.
That’s what he always used to say.
I know a guy.
And that generally meant something illegal.
“You were in Florida for such a long time,” I said.
“Of course I was,” Derreck said. “I told you I’d be gone for a while. But I promised to come back and I did.”
Derreck touched my face. The first time in years. My blood ran cold. All the passion and life Tatum had given me was ripped away.
I looked to the table, to my cell phone, still wondering if I could find a way out of this mess.
Derreck moved my face to force me to look at him.
“You kept your promise, right?”
I swallowed.
“Are you fucking married?”
“No,” I said.
His hand on my face tightened.
“Engaged?”
I shook my head.
A flicker of a smile came to his face. “Even if you’re seeing someone, that doesn’t fucking matter. Promises are promises.”
That wasn’t good enough for me. I intended to crush Derreck’s promise the second he took me home... well, a block from my home. He pushed me from his car and laughed, telling me to walk home and cry it all out before my mother saw me. I heard the next day he went to a graduation party and slept with someone. And I was supposed to keep some kind of promise to him?
“Wait a second,” Derreck said. “That look on your face. Something’s hiding...”
Derreck’s hand touched my stomach. He pushed and squeezed, making me feel uncomfortable.
“Are you knocked up?”
“What?” I asked, my voice going up.
“You want to talk to me like that again?” Derreck asked.
And there I was, right back to where I was in high school. Scared. Alone. Stuck with Derreck.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“Now, I’ll ask again. Are you fucking knocked up?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not pregnant.”
Derreck nodded. He looked down and started to lift my shirt. My hands pulled at my shirt, stopping him, but I knew the consequences. I let Derreck lift my shirt up, exposing my stomach.
“We’ll have to get you a gym membership,” Derreck said. “I don’t remember you looking like that...”
My face burned and my heart started to fall to pieces, again.
“You keep looking at your phone,” Derreck said. “Let’s have a look...”
I opened my mouth and whimpered.
Shit.
He’d read my texts. All those texts with Tatum.
He lifted the phone and tossed it hand to hand.
“So, tell me,” Derreck said. “Who’s the lucky asshole about to lose his girlfriend?”
“Drummer from a local band,” I said.
“A drummer? Some dumb fuck that couldn’t learn a real instrument, huh?”
I mentally compared Derreck to Tatum. Tatum towered over Derreck. Had more muscles, more brains, more heart. Tatum could destroy Derreck, which didn’t scare me that much. It was what Derreck would want to do back to Tatum.
“Does he fuck you?” Derreck asked.
“Well...”
“Of course he does. I told you the second you walked onto campus, those legs would be open. And yet I still keep my promises, don’t I? To my little whore...”
Every nerve pinched.
That’s where it all started.
Derreck calling me a whore. Telling me that the only way I’d ever get attention was with my body. Everything else meant nothing.
“That’s done now,” Derreck said. “The rockstar can find someone else to fuck on the weekends, okay?”
“Derreck... it’s...”
“It’s what? What is it?”
His eyes were beady and he looked ready to strike. The years in Florida had bronzed his skin but more so, the years working for his father’s construction company had chiseled his arms. Maybe back in high school I would have found the new muscles sexy but I didn’t now. They were terrifying, reminders of the strength Derreck now possessed.
“It’s nothing,” I finally said, admitting defeat.
“Of course it’s nothing,” Derreck said, “I’m here now. Like I promised. Now, why don’t we eat and talk?”
Derreck moved and I followed. He dropped my cell phone on the table and his finger began to scroll through the messages between Tatum and I. I saw his face make all kinds of reactions. Anger, hurt, then some satisfaction.
“Going to fuck him on a seat?” Derreck asked. “Kind of slutty, don’t you think?”
I swallowed and didn’t respond. Sometimes it was easier to chance punishment from not responding than to respond knowing there’d be punishment.
“Looks like the rockstar is at a show. Does his band play here a lot?”
I nodded. “They’re very popular on campus and around the towns.”
“Great. We’ll have to check them out next time they’re playing.”
How could I deal with this? How could I talk to Tatum? How could I see the band? How...
“Maggie,” Derreck whispered, looking right at me. “I promise.”
~13~
Derreck thankfully never liked to cuddle. He preferred his side of the bed, rolling tight in the covers and succumbing to sleep. That left me sitting up, looking at the dark outline of Derreck under the covers.