My Teenage Dream Ended (6 page)

Now that we were there, it was as if the party had finally gotten started. We took over—flirting with the foreign exchange boys there for the summer, watching the guys compete over who could hop over the flames and not get burned, smoking weed in beer-can bongs, peeing in the grass and hang-drying, making out with whomever in the woods or in cars.

I drank way too much, so much that I had blurred double vision. I found myself in a truck, making out with some boy and calling him Derek. He was going below the belt and I started yelling, “Let’s have sex!”

A friend came over and grabbed me out of the truck. “You idiot! That’s not Derek!” she yelled. “Come on, we’re leaving!”

I was so drunk I couldn’t walk, so she had some boys carry me up the hill through the tall grass. I don’t even remember getting home that night.

I ROLL THE DICE

The next day my friend called and said, “So the boy you were making out with last night really likes you.”

I laughed. “Oh my God! I can’t believe I thought he was Derek. I honestly don’t even remember what the guy looks like.”

Then she asked, “Well, do you want to meet him? He wants to hang out with you.”

I had nothing to lose. Derek wasn’t calling me. So I thought,
Why not?
After all, Derek was acting like he wasn’t interested and this guy definitely was into me. Plus, it was a chance to make Derek jealous.

So I met up with Bonfire Guy. He was nice enough, and I could tell he was very into me, but the whole time I was with him I couldn’t stop thinking about how he wasn’t Derek. I just wanted Derek. So I decided to take a huge gamble to win him back.

I hadn’t talked to Derek in over a week, but I took a deep breath and called to ask him to come over so we could talk. I was actually a little embarrassed and ashamed of what I was going to do. I was planning to tell him about this other guy to make him jealous. I rationalized that it would show him how much I liked him, but also that I didn’t care about him when I went out and had fun. Looking back, I can see how ridiculous my plan was, but at the time I was stuck. I wanted Derek back and I didn’t know what else to do.

In the end, it went down like this: It was a perfect summer afternoon and I was waiting outside on my front porch. Derek drove up and parked right outside our gate. I was nervous but so happy to see him. As Derek opened the gate, I said, “Hi.”

He looked me over, playing it very cool. “Hey. So…you wanted to tell me something?”

At this point in our relationship (or non-relationship) I could tell he wore the pants high and proud, and I was tired of him acting like it. I wanted to shake him up a little. I took a deep breath and plunged right in, saying everything all in a rush.

“So the other night, I went out with the girls. I drank too much and ended up making out with some boy. I barely even remember what he looks like, so it really doesn’t matter, but I wanted to tell you so I wouldn’t be hiding anything from you.”

I paused to catch my breath and then added, “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore, but at least I told you.”

When I was done, Derek was quiet. He didn’t even look at me. The silence ate at me and I realized that maybe I had truly messed up. I looked down at the ground and stayed like that, not saying anything more. I had rolled the dice and come up a loser.

I heard Derek say, “I gotta go.”

I didn’t look up. I couldn’t. “Bye,” I said almost to myself.

In my mind, it had been a straight shot from “we are so perfect and cute” to “he doesn’t care about me at all.” I felt like a month ago we had been so happy and in love and now here he was walking away. I couldn’t believe it was ending like this. I felt so stupid.

I looked up in time to see him shut the gate. Then I turned and fixed my eyes on my house so I wouldn’t have to see him leave. I would just hear his car start up and then I would know that he was leaving.

But I didn’t hear the car start. Instead, I heard Derek’s footsteps as he came back up on the porch with a big smile on his face. I looked up at him and he said, “I like you too much to stop seeing you. But don’t do it again!” I smiled back at him and we hugged each other close for a long time and then he had to leave to go to work. I was thrilled that Derek had finally admitted how much he liked me.

Gradually, we fell back into being boyfriend and girlfriend again. We started doing everything as a couple again, like I had been wanting, and he shared everything with me—or so it seemed at the time. But something had definitely changed. The trust between us had been damaged and we could never quite get back to the way we had been.

Partly, it was that I needed to let him know why I had kissed someone else. I wanted to talk about everything that had happened between us. But somehow the time never seemed right to talk about it, so it all went unsaid.

I still thought about it, though. Inside, I knew it had happened because Derek had not really been my boyfriend and that had hurt. I had lost control at the bonfire party because I had wanted Derek to be there with me, as my boyfriend, the way it used to be. Instead, he had been at some other party, doing his own thing. Derek never told me if he had kissed anyone else or if he was flirting with someone else that night, or that summer for that matter, and I never asked.

Still, even though important things went unsaid, I was happy that we were seeing each other again for more than just booty calls, so I concentrated on that. Despite what he had said earlier, Derek had discovered that he couldn’t live without me.

Meanwhile, Bonfire Guy apparently hadn’t been as drunk that night as I had been. He kept pestering my girlfriends, asking to hang out with me. One day his crew of guys showed up where I was hanging out with my girlfriends and we met again. After that, they kept showing up until we finally agreed to start hanging out with them.
He would invite me to his friends’ parties where I knew my girlfriends would be. I told him that Derek and I were dating again but it was cool if he and I were just friends.

This caused some friction at parties and it was definitely a juggling act for me, but I didn’t mind because that crew of guys was nice and I loved the attention. But Derek definitely did not think the situation was so cute. Now that we were back to going out instead of just having sex, he was getting jealous and possessive.

I started thinking I had gambled and won after all. Somehow I had played the game right. I thought,
I have the boy I want and now he’s all mine
.

THE LYING STARTS

Derek and I continued our late night intimacy and our growing relationship through the beginning of July. Then, over the July 4
^th
holiday weekend, Shelly had a party at her house and kids from every high school in our district were there.

I went to the party without Derek. He said he would stop by early and bring me food, but he couldn’t stay because he had to go help his stepdad with some work. His stepfather was a truck driver and Derek would help him from time to time. Shelly found it weird that he was going to work on a holiday night, but I defended him and insisted that it wasn’t so strange.

Derek showed up with my favorite Jimmy John’s sandwich. Some of my friends were inside the house and the rest were outside by the lake. We could hear a lot of people outside on the deck, but we were enjoying our time together inside, chatting and sharing my sandwich.

Derek was a little unhappy because Bonfire Guy and his crew were at the party and he had to leave to go help his stepdad, but I just hugged him to show him that he was the only one I cared about. Then I told him, “Let’s go upstairs and you can help me finish getting ready.” Derek was always good about watching me get ready. He liked to watch me put my makeup on—it made me feel so sexy and beautiful.

We went upstairs and hung out and talked while I got ready. Afterwards, on the way out of the room, I grabbed his manhood and dared him to stick it in right then and there. We were both laughing because we knew we could only go about a second without being seen. But he did it and,
Oh my God!

Then we heard people downstairs, coming in from the deck. If they looked up, they would have seen us doing it on the landing, so instead I switched to licking him down south. Now I was hidden so it looked like he was just standing upstairs on his own. It was fun and sneaky and left Derek a little on the spot, as he had to pretend that nothing was happening while being totally teased by me. He started laughing because we were so about to get caught.

I heard someone downstairs ask, “Where’s Farrah?” I didn’t really want to get caught, so I stood up and said, “Okay, let me walk you outside.”

As we walked downstairs and outside some of my girlfriends followed us to the front of the house to watch us kiss and say goodbye. We really got into it. It was probably quite a show. For me it was the sexiest way a guy could say goodbye to me.

I said, “I’m going to miss you. Call me if you get done helping your stepdad early.”

Derek smiled at me. “Okay, I will. Don’t flirt with any boys.”

We were staring into each other’s eyes, talking to each other so close, our hips connected as we rocked from side to side. It felt sexy and right. I turned to leave and Derek tapped my booty “bye” and my girlfriends’ jaws all dropped. One of my friends joked, “Ooh, your hips were rockin’!” There were giggles and winks all around and I thought,
Aww, I have my perfect boyfriend.

Two days later, Derek and I went on a dinner date to a restaurant where he used to work. I was trying to enjoy myself, but Derek was being such a jerk that I couldn’t. There wasn’t much to our conversation, and he seemed to be checking out some girl who worked there. I couldn’t understand why he was acting that way. Then one of the servers approached our table. He was apparently friends with Derek.

“How’s your food?” he asked.

I said, “Fine, thanks.”

Then he said to Derek, “Good seeing you at that party the other night. That was a crazy Fourth of July!”

...Blah, blah, blah
he went on, but I zoned out and just looked up at this guy and then over at Derek. Derek’s face had turned red. Busted.

I was so shocked and angry I could barely speak, but I managed to say, “You went out the other night?”

The guy looked over at Derek, realizing he’d ratted his friend out. Then he laughed and walked away.

Derek just sat there, not acting like such a jerk anymore.

I looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

Finally he said, “I got done helping my stepdad early.”

At this point, I was fuming. “You couldn’t have told me that yesterday?” Obviously, Derek had wanted to go party with other people on the Fourth
from the get-go. Or maybe he had gotten a better offer. Either way, he hadn’t been straight with me about where he was that night.

When I thought back to how clueless I had been at the party, how I had flirted and fooled around with him before he went off to supposedly go work with his stepfather, I got more and more angry. I sat there fuming, staring out the window.

Derek acted cocky about it, trying to laugh and play it off like it didn’t matter. But the only thing I could laugh about was how dumb he must have thought I was. I refused to eat the rest of my dinner and felt a little satisfaction that he had to pay for it anyway. I wanted to waste his money on purpose, like he had wasted my time by not being honest with me.