Forgiven (7 page)

Wow, that was easier than I thought it would be.

In reality there was no way I was going to forget one of the hottest kisses of my life. I should have been happy that things had turned out to be so easy—but I wasn’t. I still felt like I was being split in two over my feelings for Angie. I knew I didn’t deserve her. She deserved someone who could make her happy everyday of her life. Me? I had trouble getting out of bed most mornings.

My life was one big clusterfuck, and I knew it wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. I would not bring someone as wonderful as Angie into that. Even after only knowing her a few days, I could see exactly how special she was and if things were different, I would definitely be pushing to take that kiss to the next level.

I walked out of food court out into the sun. I looked across the courtyard and saw Josh and Emily talking. Since Josh was my ride home I headed toward them. Apparently, his talk with Coach had made a difference because he hadn’t missed a class since last Thursday.

As I got closer I called out to him. “Hey man, you ready to get out of here?”

They both stopped talking and looked up at me—how obvious was that. It was one of those situations where you knew instantly that they were having a conversation about you. The question was whether or not you cared, and today I just didn’t.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.” He turned to look at Emily. “I’ll talk to you later.”

She looked at me before she answered. “Sure, no problem.”

Now I was getting annoyed. “Do you two want me to go away so that you can continue talking about me?” I snapped.

“Dude, don’t be a fucking ass,” Josh barked, and the look on his face told me to let it go.

Emily’s face went from shocked to pissed within seconds. “What in holy hell does she see in you?”

“What do you mean, ‘what does she see in me’?” I asked astounded. I didn’t understand, Angie had just agreed that our kiss meant nothing—so why did Emily think there was something more to it.

“You really don’t get it do you?” she snapped.

“Em, let it go for now.” Josh tried to calm her down.

“Fine. He doesn’t deserve her anyway,” she said to Josh, but loud enough for me to hear. That sent my temper soaring.

“You don’t think I already realized that she is too good for me,” I roared. I might have been revealing too much, but my anger made it hard to think. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to work with her, and why I told her today I wanted to forget about the kiss the other night.”

Emily gave me a look. “You did what?” she asked confused.

The look on her face went a long way toward dissolving my anger. “I just talked to Angie. I asked her if we could forget about the other night, finish our project, and go our separate ways.”

“You asked her
that
? Oh shit, I have to go.” Emily said as she turned to leave.

Josh turned to look at her. “Em, what’s wrong?”

“Josh, I have to go find Angie. I’ll explain later.” Emily said as she headed in the direction of the apartments.

Josh turned back to me. “Why the fuck do you always need to be an asshole?”

“I didn’t do anything! Angie agreed with me that it was best to forget about it.” I still was trying to figure out what Emily was talking about.

He gave me a look of disgust. “Let’s just go, before I say something I can’t take back.”

I shook my head, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He stopped and looked at me. “Sometimes you don’t see what is right in front of you.”

I wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. Why did Emily leave when she found out about my conversation with Angie? Did Angie want to be more than just partners? I followed Josh to the car, because it didn’t matter either way. I had made my decision, and I was sticking to it.

When we got in the car, Josh started the engine but didn’t put it in drive. He turned and said something that I never thought I would hear from him. “Whatever happened in the past isn’t something you can change.” He sighed, locking his gaze with mine. “At some point you are going to have to move past it otherwise it is going to drown you.”

I had heard this same sentiment from my family, my counselor, and even some of the friends I still had back home. But Josh was running from his past so I am not exactly sure why he was giving me advice he wouldn’t follow. “Oh and you’re a fine one to talk about putting your past behind you. Don’t spout psychobabble bullshit to me that you don’t listen to yourself.”

“Whatever,” and he put the car in drive and drove back to apartment. We didn’t say anything on the ride, Josh turned up the radio so it would have been impossible to talk anyway.

I decided to text Angie about the project.

Me: Hey, it’s Caleb. Are you free tomorrow?

Angie: That’s fine. Where? When?

Me: The Library? 1:30?

Angie: Fine

Now that I had set a time to meet Angie, I felt better. I really didn’t want to think about the why of it. There was so much shit I had to deal with, plus I had a workout later. When we got back to the apartment, I saw Josh had calmed down and I was determined to find out exactly what he and Emily had been discussing earlier

“Look, I know you’re pissed, but what did Emily mean about Angie seeing something in me?” I asked.

Josh scowled at me, “Does it really matter? You’re just gonna keep pushing her away.”

I shrugged. “To be honest, I can’t bring anyone into my shit of a life.”

Josh sighed, “Dude, what
happened
that night?”

“What night?” I asked cautiously.

He looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t want to tell me something. “The night of the party, after we got home, you drank like half a bottle of Jack. We were talking about you kissing Angie, and why you couldn’t be with her. Then right before you passed out you mentioned something about her eyes and seeing them before…” he tailed off.

Fuck
. How drunk was I Saturday night? I’d never told anyone about what happened
that
night. Only the people in my hometown knew, and that’s because they were there. I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk about it—even if it would explain everything.

“I lost someone I cared about, but I’d rather leave it at that,” I stated firmly, making it clear that I didn’t want him to ask any more questions.

“I’m sorry, dude. If you ever want to talk about it you know you can talk to me. I do understand about having a screwed up life.”

Even though I was never going to share that story with anyone, I appreciated the offer. “Thanks man. Listen, I gotta get some of my homework done before workout.”

He nodded, “Yeah man, we can’t be late. I’m already in deep shit with Coach.”

“No doubt,” I laughed.

I headed to my room. I needed a recharge before Coach’s workout. I knew I’d be sore as hell when I got home. When I got to my room I had the urge to text Angie, but I pushed it aside. I was fucking exhausted. I hadn’t slept well the last few nights—hell, I hadn’t slept well in the last two years—but the last few nights seemed to be worse than normal. I’d been worried about seeing Angie after what happened Saturday night, but it worked out just fine. I still had no idea what Emily and Josh were talking about but I knew that whatever it was, they had to be wrong. With that thought, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

Before I knew it my alarm was going off to get up for our workout. I got up, changed and went to the living room to wait for Josh.

“Yo, asshole, get out here, otherwise we are going to be late,” I yelled down the hallway.

Josh finally walked out of his bedroom, still looking half asleep. “I’m coming. Shit. What do you think coach would do if I skipped workout today?”

“I think he would drive over here to kick your ass, now get in the goddamn car.” I gave his head a slap on the way out the door. We took my car to campus, but by the time we got there almost everyone had finished changing and was headed out to the field. We both got changed as quick as possible and got out just in time.

Coach walked out of his office, “Well good afternoon ladies, some of us still look like we are asleep,” he said sarcastically, clapping his hands in front of him. “We need to do something about that. Defense, you are going with Coach Platt to work on upper body strength.” Throwing his thumb over his shoulder, he gestured toward Coach Platt. “You need to be strong enough to stop people from touching my quarterback, since you let the other teams through the line all last year.”

The members of the defense started to truck back into the weight room, but not without their share of grunts and groans. I looked over at Josh and he didn’t look very happy about this arrangement either. We knew Coach Platt was an ass-kicker in the weight room. I chuckled at him as he started to walk away.

“Shut up, asshole,” he muttered under his breath to me.

Coach started talking again. “Oh, offensive ladies, don’t think you are getting off any easier.” Coach pointed at us. “You can’t score a touchdown if you can’t get the ball down the field fast enough. So we’re gonna run sprints for this workout.”

The moans started as soon as Coach said the word ‘sprints.’ At this point I wasn’t sure which was worse—the weight room with Platt or sprints with Coach. Both options were terrible.

“This fucking sucks,” I looked next to me to see Nick standing there, shaking his head. “Can’t I have one good day? They always start out good and end up shitty,” he whined.

I knew Andrew wouldn’t let Nick’s whining go, and sure enough as soon as the comment came out of his mouth, Andrew started. “Oh poor Nicki. When you get home, have Angie rub your legs better.”

Huh?
Were they serious? Nah, after last week’s locker room discussion they had to just be fucking with Nick again.

Nick looked furious, “Fuck you asshole. Y’all are gonna be jealous when I finally get her to go out on a date with me.”

Was he fucking kidding? I could feel the anger boiling up in my system. Nick was not good enough for Angie—she deserved so much better. I had to relax and remember that she hadn’t agreed to go out with him. Shit, he hadn’t even asked her yet.

I laughed, “Good luck with that.”

For the entire hour and a half Coach beat the shit out of us, and it seemed like the workout would never end. It was exactly what I need to get the talk about Angie out of my head. I knew I had to forget about her, and if Nick found some way of convincing her to go out with him I would just have to deal with it.

At the end of practice Coach brought us all into the locker room. “I know you guys think that we’re being a bunch of pricks by pushing you so hard.” He shrugged. “Maybe we are. But maybe we’re pushing you because we know that each one of you has potential that you haven’t tapped yet.” He paused letting his words sink in. “Something that could change everything.” Coach looked at each one of us.

It felt like he was talking about more than football. If he was, I knew he was wrong about me. There was no untapped potential in me—all I did was cause hurt and destruction to anyone and anything around me.

“Alright boys, enough mushy for one day. Get showered up and head home. See you Thursday,” Coach said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I got showered and changed and once again I was waiting for Josh. “Hurry up man, you take for-fucking-ever,” I called back into the locker room.

“Relax. I’m fucking coming,” he yelled back.

It seemed like we had the same conversation every time. “So is Christmas,” I replied, knowing it would piss him off.

Finally he came out of the locker room and we headed back to the apartment. I knew I wouldn’t have a problem sleeping because I was wiped out, but a voice in the back of my mind kept telling me it was the fact I was going to see Angie tomorrow that had me so relaxed.

Once class was over, I decided to head back to the apartment. I had a raging headache and just wanted to lie down. I was also hoping I would beat Emily back—that way I could lay down before I had to tell her about that afternoon.

When I walked into the apartment I saw Jillian sitting on the couch, working on some of her homework. She looked up as I closed the door. “Hey Sunshine. Heard you had a good weekend?!”

I laughed without any humor. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

“Oh come on, I heard you hooked up with Caleb Jacobs,” she cooed, a dreamy look in her eyes.

“How did you hear that? You know what, I don’t wanna know.” I said shaking my head. “It’s been a long ass afternoon, and right now I just want to lie down and take a nap,” I sighed.

“Oh honey, I’m sorry. I heard about it from one of the guys in my class, and I couldn’t help being excited. Caleb is the hottest guy on campus and with your looks, I figure there is no way he wouldn’t go for it,” she said excitedly.

Jillian was a great roommate, and I knew she wasn’t trying to make me feel worse. She was just excited at the idea that I might have found a guy. She knew I didn’t run to any guy who gave me a second glance, so she realized that there must be something special about Caleb. There was, but it was a physical reaction and it wasn’t enough for me—or him apparently. He didn’t have a real hard time pushing me away.