Almost Broken (20 page)

“Well, either
he
told me that he wasn’t moving in and basically to go fuck myself or you did. You tell me. Who was it?” she asks angrily and my mouth falls open. There’s no way I would tell Jenna to go fuck herself. I’ve never told anyone to go fuck them self.

“Wait. Move in together?” I realize what she just said. “Where’d that come from?” I ask.

“We are not having that conversation again,” she says, going into her house. She leaves the door open so I follow her in. I sit down on the couch and rest my head in my hands.

“I felt different this morning. I felt off, but good. I’ve never felt like that before,” I say aloud, but I don’t even know if Jenna is listening.

“You talked to my dad about this?” I ask her, looking up. She’s standing across from me, hands on her hips, anger still radiating off her. She doesn’t look sympathetic or worried. She looks angry. I can’t blame her, really.

“I came over this morning before I drove out to school. I couldn’t even sleep. I was so mad, it didn’t resonate with me until after you left that it was probably him. I was just so shocked,” she says tensely. I can imagine. Then it clicks. That’s why my dad and Lauren were looking at me like I had horns growing out of my head this morning. My dad must have talked to Lauren. I let out a groan. I can’t imagine how hard it was for her thinking I was Cal then realizing I wasn’t.

“I didn’t have a blackout. I wouldn’t call it that because I don’t remember what happens when I black out. I remember being here yesterday and talking to you and going home, it’s just…everything is hazy,” I admit to her. She comes and sits beside me.

“You’ve got to get some help, Chris. No more putting this off. I know that you have a condition and all of this happened, but it’s different when it’s right in your face. That guys a fucking asshole. If I knew it was him, I would have kneed him the in groin,” she says, and I let out a laugh. The only thing is that I’m not sure if it was him. It’s likely it was, but yesterday was different than what’s happened in the past.

“I’m going to set up an appointment tomorrow. I promise,” I tell her, sensing her anger starting to slowly subside.

“You have to. This is just too stressful for us to deal with without any professional help. You have to learn how to control him and keep him away. Screw integrating or whatever the experts say you’re supposed to do. He needs to go,” she says adamantly.

I nod, it’s not something I haven’t heard from my dad a thousand times.

“Thanks for not kicking me in the groin,” I joke, taking her hand in mine. She squeezes it back. She doesn’t smile, but her frown isn’t there either. I suddenly remember the reason I’m supposed to be here in the first place.

“Let’s do something fun tonight,” I tell her excitedly. All that’s been happening between us is arguing, fighting, and stress or a combination of all three in the past month. We haven’t had fun in forever.

“Like what?” she asks curiously.

“Skating. When’s the last time you’ve been?” I ask her, and she shrugs a small smile on her face.

“Probably since I was fourteen,” she chuckles.

“Go get dressed. Let’s go,” I say enthusiastically.

“Now? It’s almost nine,” she says hesitantly.

“Come on Jenna. It doesn’t have to be long. An hour, hour and a half tops,” I urge.

She’s thinking.

“As long as we’re back before 11.” She laughs, getting up and heading to her room.

“Give me ten minutes to change,” she admits with a grin. As she changes, I try to push the fact that Cal told my fiancé to go fuck herself out of my mind.

If it was Cal.

I thought it was him. I swear to God I did.

He seemed different. I really did think it was him. When he winked at me, I nearly passed out, but then it was gone. He’s lucky he was gone because the moment he mentioned Jenna, I had to keep myself from jumping over the table and slapping the shit out of him.

I’m glad I didn’t do that because a minute or two later, I realized it wasn’t Cal. This was the closest Chris had ever seemed to Cal. If I wasn’t confused before, I sure as hell am now. I was really hoping we were going to a bar but since Lisa’s gotten suspended we’ve ended up at a skating rink instead. I’m not looking forward to this AT ALL. When I see Jenna and Chris walk in hand and hand, I want to throw up. When she sees us at the checkout counter waiting for our skates, her smile quickly disappears and is replaced with a full blown scowl.

This is going to be loads of fun.

The worst part of this, I have no clue how to skate. So I’m going to end up at a table eating corn dogs, popcorn and drinking cheap beer because let’s face it, I definitely need a drink. I could really use a stiff drink, but I have a feeling they’re not going to have liquor as strong as I need tonight.

“Did you guys order our skates already?” Chris asks, a nervous smile on his face as he notices Jenna grimace.

“We ordered yours. I didn’t know Jenna’ size,” Aidan says with a shrug. “What’s up, Jenna?” Aidan’s acknowledgement is barely a mutter.

“Hey, Jenna, glad you can come out tonight.” Lisa sounds more enthusiastic, but it comes off more like sarcasm. How did Chris end up engaged to someone neither of his best friends can stand?

“Chris didn’t tell me you guys would be here,” she says, a tense smile on her face before shooting daggers at Chris.

“Oh, he didn’t, huh?” Lisa asks knowingly as she hands Chris his skates.

“Well you girls look awfully dressed up to be at a skating rink,” Jenna says to Lisa, but turns to look at me with disdain. “We all can’t dress like someone’s gran…”

“We were originally going to Ardeby’s,” Chris quickly interrupts.

“Why don’t you guys go grab a table?” Chris says, gesturing towards me and Lisa.

“That’s a great idea,” Lisa says, and she and I make our way to find a table large enough for us to all to sit in.

“Don’t you just want to hit her in the face?” Lisa jokes, and I let out a frustrated breath. I glance over at them. She looks like she’s giving him an earful.

“I take it he didn’t tell her they were meeting up with us,” Lisa jokes, looking in their direction as well. That just makes all of this even more awkward. I feel silly. I haven’t dressed up in such a long time. Really, this isn’t even how I used to dress up with Cal, but I still feel overdressed. Half of the people in here seem to be high-schoolers, and I can’t even skate.

“This is going to be fun, Lauren. We’re going to have a blast.” Lisa’s obviously reading my mood.

I try to plaster on a fake smile. “Well let’s get to it then,” she sings, putting on her skates. I loosen mine up before sliding my feet in. Aidan already put his on and skates over to us like a pro.

“I’ve still got it,” he says, leaning on the table.

“So who wants to go first?” he says, sticking his hand out to both Lisa and me. Lisa huffs.

“You know I roll solo,” she says, sticking out her tongue at him before making her way to the floor. I can’t help but frown. I planned on her being my crutch to baby skate along with tonight, the little skating I planned on doing. The way she’s moving around the floor, I don’t think that’s happening.

“Okay, it’s just me and you, Lauren.” He reaches out a hand towards me.

I shake my head. “No, I’m just going to sit here and order something to eat,” I say timidly.

“Eating at a skating rink. Nah, trust me you don’t want to do that.” His face scrunches up before flashing me a Colgate smile.

“The food’s bad?” I guess, and he nods.

“Come on, let’s break a leg,” he says, gesturing his head to the main skate floor. I let out a little laugh.

“I might actually break my leg out there,” I say timidly. He looks at me skeptically, his clear, ocean-blue eyes narrowing in on mine as realization dawns on his face.

“You can’t skate?” he asks, covering up a laugh. I look away embarrassed.

“Why didn’t you say anything? We could have gone somewhere else?” he asks in earnestness, and I shrug.

“I’m sort of the tag along. I didn’t want to want throw a wrench in things.” I shrug.

“You’re not a tag along,’ he says, sitting across from me. I glance over at Chris and Jenna who still seem to be having some type of disagreement.

“If anything, Lisa’s the tag along.” He playfully nudges my arm, and I laugh. He’s different than I originally thought he was. I don’t know if he had been drinking that night I first met him, but he seemed like a complete horn dog the way he was eyeing me that night. It’s not that he hasn’t glanced at my cleavage tonight, but no more than most guys have.

“Come on. I’ll show you how,” he says, taking my hand and helping me up from the table.

“I don’t know. Everyone out there looks like they know what they’re doing. I’m just going to be in the way,” I say hesitantly, scooting my way back to the table.

“Everyone has to learn at some point. Granted, most people learn when they’re a kid, but we’ll make an exception since you’re hot,” he says playfully, but I feel myself blush at the compliment, even though I roll my eyes. I stand up and steady my balance. I attempt to walk in the skates, but end up grabbing his arm to not fall flat on my butt.

“I’ve got you,” he says, wrapping one of his arms behind my back so it won’t take us a year to get to the floor. It takes us a minute, but we finally make it. There’s a nice amount of people skating. No one else looks like they’ve never done this before. Aidan lets go of my back and stands in front of me and puts out his hands.

“Hold my hands, and act like you’re walking…on wheels,” he adds, and I take a baby step towards him. I immediately almost fall again, and he grabs me. He laughs.

“Kind of go side to side while you’re walking,” he says, and we try again. I get a little further before busting my butt.

“Oor you could just hold on to me,” he says after I grab his arm and hold on for dear life.

I shouldn’t have come. I definitely shouldn’t have brought Jenna tonight. She was not happy at all when she realized Aidan and Lisa were here.

She was furious when she saw Lauren.

Granted, I should have told her, said something or mentioned that this was something already planned for all of us, but if I did she wouldn’t have come. I wanted her to come so that we could have fun, forget about all the issues we’re having, and just enjoy each other. Neither one of us is doing that, but apparently everyone else is having a fantastic time. Lisa always loved skating so she could be the only one in the rink, and she’d have fun. She’s actually a really good skater and kind of a show off, but what’s bothering me is how much fun Aidan and Lauren are having.

Together.

It started out as just annoying. Apparently, Lauren doesn’t know how to skate, and Aidan sucks as a teacher because for the past half hour or so she’s had to cling on to him all around the rink. They’re talking and they’re laughing so much that Lisa ditched her solo performance to join in on the fun. It’s nice they’re having fun. It’s irritating to watch them together, but I can’t seem to stop watching either.

“Whoa!” Lisa says as I almost slam into her. Luckily we’re both pretty good and manage to not face plant.

“Chris! What the hell,” she says angrily once we she’s stable on her skates again.

“Sorry, Lisa. I didn’t really see you,” I apologize. I really wasn’t paying attention.

“I’m sure you didn’t, seeing how hard you’ve been staring at Aidan and Lauren since you’ve been on the floor,” she says knowingly. “Come on. Let’s have a little chat, buddy.” She links arms with me, and we skate off to the table. Jenna stormed off into the arcade room after she finished blowing up on me.

“I haven’t been staring.” It’s not that much of a lie. “But they’ve been skating almost an hour and he hasn’t even gotten her to where she can skate without holding on to him,” I say defensively, and Lisa shakes her head.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous.” She chuckles.

“Jealous? Why would I be jealous?”

“Of course, it would be completely ridiculous if you were jealous. It’s not like deep down inside, you have feelings for this woman,” she says sarcastically, and I stop. She does the same. I frown at her. She leans forward and sighs.

“Chris, it’s okay if you have feelings for her. I think it’d be strange if you didn’t. Yes ‘Cal’ is the one who met her and loved her, but at the end of the day, Cal is part of you,” she says, looking me directly in the eye.

“You need to be honest with yourself. His feelings are
your
feelings,” she says sincerely.

“It’s not exactly like that,” I say confidently, but these days it’s starting to feel like she could be right.

“Oh please, Chris. She hasn’t been here two weeks, but the way you look at this girl, it’s
not
like you just met. It’s something deeper than that,” she says adamantly.

“I love Jenna,” I state plainly.

“And Lauren?” she asks bluntly.

“I—I’m not going to lie and say I don’t feel anything,” I say honestly. I look over at her with Aidan, how she laughs, and the dimple in her cheek when she smiles, the way my heart speeds up when she’s near me, but it’s confusing. I don’t really know her, but…

“I can’t believe no one has suggested this. That you haven’t even considered it, but maybe you should put things on hold with Jenna until you figure all this out.”

“I—I can’t do that. Jenna, she’s been with me through the thing with my mom. She knows me. She loves me,” I say to her and myself.

“I know Cal loves Lauren. It wasn’t just a physical thing like I thought, but
Cal
loves her. Those are his feelings,” I say, avoiding Lisa’s knowing gaze.

“Well, Cal hasn’t been the one staring at Lauren all night.” she says sarcastically.

“I know you want to be fair to Jenna, but this, how you’re feeling now. That isn’t fair to you, to her, or Lauren for the matter.”

I drop my head.

“Trust me, it’s not fun being in love with a man whose in love with someone else,” she says solemnly. I’m about to ask her what she means when I see Jenna walking towards the table. She’s long abandoned her skates. She sits down not glancing at either of us or saying anything. After a moment of awkward silence, she huffs.