Thursday morning.
It was currently Saturday, and while there had been a repeat performance every night since, I wasn’t any less confused about my feelings or what we were even really doing. We had sex. I stayed the night in his bed, enjoying my job as the little spoon. Then we woke up and went about our days as regularly scheduled. With the exception of a few text messages here or there — mainly of the hey, how’s your day going variety — we hadn’t talked about what “we were” or what we planned on doing besides providing each other with copious amounts of orgasms.
The uncertainty of what was happening between us left me feeling unsettled. So when he hadn’t mentioned seeing me over the weekend, I’d taken advantage of having a solitary apartment so I could do what all girls do and internally freak the hell out all over the place and overanalyze every word that had been said over the past three days.
It had taken all day long, but I’d completed the OMG! Does he even really like me, or is he just using me for sex phase and had moved on to the well if he’s using me, I can use him right back while I lie to myself and claim I don’t have feelings for him phase. That phase was a much safer place for me to be in at that moment.
I was settled on the couch, reading one of the thousands of books I’d downloaded on my kindle while Shady lay crashed out in his doggy bed, when the door to the apartment suddenly flew open so hard it crashed into the wall behind it.
My body jolted with a startled jump so hard I almost dropped my beloved kindle on the floor.
“Jeez, Devon,” I gasped, resting my hand on my heaving chest. “You scared the shit out of me.” Once my heart rate returned to a healthy level I was able to focus completely on her disheveled appearance. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, the blue that usually sparkled dull, like she’d just been crying. If that, along with the mascara smudged eyes, hadn’t been indication enough, the fact that her nose and cheeks were splotchy was all the proof I needed. Devon, while absolutely beautiful on a regular basis, was a very ugly crier. The longer she cried the more swollen her face would get, and the splotches would begin to look like hives if she wasn’t able to get herself under control.
“What happened?” I asked, standing from the couch. That was when I noticed a grocery bag in her hands. I recognized the contents immediately. “Oh no.”
“I need a BJ dance party. STAT.”
I followed her as she stomped into the kitchen, dumping the multiple pints of Ben & Jerry’s onto the countertop without a care. “Honey, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong,” I coaxed. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been the one in need of the BJ dance party. Typically, it was me — the one with the soft, gooey center — that got her feelings hurt and needed to blow off steam with loud music, dancing, and enough sugar to kill an elephant.
“Matt dumped me,” she muttered with a sniffle, reaching up to wipe her cheek with the back of her hand.
“What?! Why?”
The laugh she barked out at my question was devoid of humor. “He said that I was holding myself back from him,” she answered sarcastically. “He said he could feel that I wasn’t completely myself with him and he couldn’t be in a relationship with someone he didn’t really know.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?!” I shouted. “What kind of self-help, Dr. Phil kind of bullshit is that? I’m going to kick his ass!”
Devon sniffled again as her face crumbled and more tears broke loose. “The most embarrassing thing about it was that he’s right,” she hiccupped. “I was holding myself back. I’m loud, and blunt, and totally inappropriate most of the time, and I didn’t want him to see that side of me because what if he didn’t like me?”
I pulled her into a fierce hug, squeezing tightly as my own eyes filled with tears. “If he couldn’t have liked you exactly as you are, then he’s a fucking loser who isn’t good enough.”
She let out a watery laugh and pulled away, rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t even myself, and he still didn’t like me. Jesus, what’s wrong with me,