Shark Out of Water (Grab Your Pole, #3) (50 page)

Okay so yeah, I’m shifting a little in my seat now. It’s not that I think my parents are stupid and don’t know I’ve had sex before, but how the hell did they find ou—oh. Duh. I sent Jeff that damned postcard and because it wasn’t sealed up, what I wrote was there for all the world to read…including Jeff’s dad. Jesus, I’m such an idiot sometimes.

“But here again, we understood that if you wanted to have sex, you were going to do it regardless of whether we approved or condoned it, so your father taught you how to be safe. He was thorough in his conversation with you about it so you were cognizant of the dangers, and not only did he explain what the appropriate precautions are, but you learned how to take them correctly as well, eliminating as much danger as feasibly possible. We even allowed you to be kept back a grade with Jeff, although we did have you study with a tutor, however it wasn’t going to school or learning that was your reason for wanting to be home. You simply didn’t want to go to school without your best friend and we simply
gave
you what you wanted because we didn’t see a danger in letting you repeat a grade. Essentially, dear, we spoiled you rotten. But just like anything that’s
truly
worth having in life, love takes work, Tristan. It isn’t handed to anyone on a silver platter or even on a paper plate, and now that you’ve found yourself in a situation that requires real work on your part, you’re floundering because your father and I didn’t teach you how to swim.”

I kinda didn’t know what to say. I’ve never had a doubt in my mind that my parents love me and because of how they raised me, we’ve always had a very open and trusting relationship, and I’ve never run into any problems I couldn’t handle so it never occurred to me they might’ve been doing me a disservice, which is what she’s trying to say is the case.

“Mom, you and Dad are seriously the best parents in the world…I mean I couldn’t and wouldn’t ask for a better mom and dad than you guys. I don’t know anyone else who can say they have the kind of honest and trusting relationship with their parents that I have with you and Dad. Really, I don’t want you blaming yourself for anything…I’m a big boy and watching you and Dad has taught me a lot about the kind of relationship I want with someone and the kind of person I wanna have that relationship with…and I could’ve had it with Camie if I hadn’t fucked things up, and I did that all by myself, Mom. Well, with the help of what you’re calling passion…” …and, alcohol.

“Tristan, you can still have the relationship you want, and possibly even with Camie. I don’t know the details and I don’t particularly want to know, but the fact is, the kind of relationship you want is going to take dedication and hard work, and it’s going to be your choice whether or not it’s worth it to you to make the effort. And believe me, there’s a substantial amount of effort needed to make an everlasting relationship. There’s a reason why your father and I have date night every week…we know that to have a healthy relationship, we need to make time for each other and only each other on a regular basis. And there’s plenty of give and take even with that. For instance, your father would really rather not sit through another symphony or ballet in his lifetime. He doesn’t care for the music, the atmosphere, or really, even the people who attend, but because I enjoy it as much as I do, he puts on a smile and he goes, whereas I make concessions in other ways…like my hair for example.”

“Your hair?” I asked, looking at it and frowning. I don’t see a single thing wrong with her hair…

“Mmhm, my hair.”

“I like your hair. It’s pretty.”

“Your father thinks so too, and he loves it. But I don’t. It’s a lot of work to keep it up and sometimes I’d like to cut it so it’s easier or just to try something new. However, your father, for whatever reason, really adores this style so because it’s important to him, I make the effort to wear it the way he likes it and I try to do it with a joyful heart. And he and I do all that because we are committed to loving each other…we’ve
chosen
to spend our lives together and make the effort it takes for us to do that. You, dear, need to decide what it is that
you
want and then determine whether doing certain things are worth the effort to attain it.”

“Well, I want her, but, we’re in this really messed up stalemate right now, and even if I give in and give her what she wants, there’s no guarantee she’ll even wanna live in the same state as me anymore, let alone take me back, but even if she did, Mom, we’d still fight and I don’t want that!”

“Well that’s just too bad, Tristan, the reality is people fight. Even those who love each other the most…you can’t expect life to be like a book or a movie. You
can
, however, learn how to fight without hurting each other. Now, that’s not to say you won’t unintentionally hurt each other’s feelings every now and then, but when you have a relationship based on respect and trust, it won’t be catastrophic when that inevitability happens.”

“How do you figure, Mom? You and Dad never fight! And yeah, I get it, I know people fight…I mean Jeff and Kate argue about stuff, but it’s usually because Jeff’s being a dick and it’s
never
like how Camie and I fight so, I don’t see how what you’re saying applies to me, you know? It’s just not the same.”

“No, your relationship with Camie, or anyone else for that matter, will not be the same as Jeff’s is with Kate because they’re different people, but I’ll have you know, you are an awful lot like I am and believe me, your father and I do fight, it’s just that we’ve learned how. And I’ll tell you something, I used to think I
hated
your father…honestly, when we were young…he would do or say things that would get under my skin in a way that just
infuriated
me to no end.

“Tristan, do you know that to this very day that man has
never
put the toilet seat down? Not once! And the two of you might think it’s funny and believe it’s your God-given right being men, but relieving yourselves on bushes and trees or wherever it’s convenient does not constitute as being one with nature, and despite years of him using the great outdoors as a urinal and anything I’ve said in protest, your father has
still
failed to understand why I have such a problem with him and men in general peeing all over the place just because they’re equipped to do it!” My mom ranted and shook her head in disgusted irritation, while at the same time making me fight to keep my snickering from surfacing because honestly, I was about to crack up.

“From your expression I’ll assume I was right about you finding public urination just as hilarious as your father and the rest of the men I know, but my point is, your father and I would get into some ugly, knock-down drag-out fights over some pretty insignificant things, but what we learned is that it was because we love each other and have unbridled passion. And that’s a very good thing.”

“
How
is that a good thing though, Mom? Feeling hate for someone you actually love?”

“Let me explain something to you, dear, I believe there to be a very fine line between love and hate and I believe that line is passion…but what side of passion you walk on is up to you. You can either learn to use it as an amazing tool to benefit you and your partner, or you can let it control you in which case, your heart can become hardened and you’ll never experience the joy and pleasure passion can offer,” she said and considered her now half-empty bottle of champagne. “Let’s use an analogy…first, how would you describe what happens when you and Camie fight? Not your actions or words, but how it feels.”

I don’t know where she’s going with this and I’m not all that comfortable talking about it with her anymore either, but at the same time, I want to. I want to hear something that’ll explain why Camie and I react to each other the way we do when we fight and I want—No, I
need
to hear that I’m not doomed to lose control of myself every time I’m around her.

“We burn. We hold in our emotions and when the pressure from the heat of holding onto them gets too high, like a pot of water does that gets too hot, we boil over and burn. We burn to the point of blisters, Mom.”

She was nodding in acceptance of that analogy and then handed me the bottle of champagne. “Alright, that’s an excellent way to describe how passion can be damaging, but now let’s look at it another way. I enjoy fine liqueurs and spirits, I do, but I
love
champagne. I love everything about it but especially the bubbles. When I take a sip of champagne, I can feel the bubbles everywhere and I find it to be almost as exhilarating as flying a plane. However, I loathe opening the bottle. For whatever reason, it’s always been difficult for me and I get impatient with trying, so what would’ve happened if I’d gotten overly frustrated in trying to open that bottle just a little bit ago?

“You saw what I was doing and took it from me so I’m sure you can agree that if you hadn’t, I would’ve become hasty during my struggle and the contents already under pressure would’ve been shaken, creating more pressure than before, consequently creating more bubbles than the bottle will allow, and when I finally got the cork out, it probably would’ve gone flying to hit me in the face and most of the champagne, finally free of it’s now too tight confines, would spill out, making it impossible for me to drink with any real pleasure. But, when you took your time and did it the right way, the cork came out without a problem and I’m able to enjoy the entire bottle and the perfect amount of bubbles.

“Now, it’s my opinion that you shouldn’t keep things from your partner because that cripples trust in a relationship,
however
, sometimes it’s not convenient or proper to express your feelings right when you’re having them and you find that out of necessity, you have to bottle things up until such a time when you can express yourself without making things worse by publicly humiliating yourself or the individual with whom you have issue with. But you need to be careful in doing that too. You can’t put your emotions on the back burner for too long because you’ll eventually forget about them until something else arises, compounding the issue.”

I was nodding my understanding, thinking back to that fight I had with Camie about her offer to have sex if I took her to the dance. That one thing pissed me off so much and I didn’t want to scream at her like I knew I would’ve, so I went to my room and after a couple hours I’d cooled off, but I didn’t go wake her up to talk to her and when morning came, we still couldn’t talk about it because of school. Then I found out about her drinking on the sly and that just made me even more angry than I had been, so by the time we actually got the chance to talk privately about it, those two things combined with the little things over the months that I’d tried to ignore, thinking they weren’t that big of a deal, and I exploded.

“So before your confrontation, you need to take a reasonable amount of time for yourself to get a handle on what it is that’s bothering you, and when you’re in control, you can calmly and rationally express what you need to. Once the frustrating part has been dealt with, which is liken to opening the bottle, you can give way to the passion, or, the bubbles, that’s left and enjoy the exhilaration its effervescence creates in your relationship, which is the champagne. Once you learn how, you’ll be able to indulge in a healthy way rather than allowing the passion you have to run riot over you and your partner like it does when it comes from a place of anger, hurt, or frustration.”

Wow. I don’t know about you, but that made
perfect
sense to me. And as a bonus, I knew I could do exactly what she’d said because I already have…once. Again, it was that almost fight we had about the whole of our relationship. I played dirty the night I found out about her drinking behind my back, but I was cooled off the next day, or rather, the next night and when she came looking for me, I did have a meltdown but I had a good idea what it was that I needed to get out, and Camie never came back at me because she recognized that I needed to vent. Besides, she’d had enough time to cool off as well and was pretty much ready to take responsibility for her part, so she just let me go on until I got it all out of my system. We didn’t burn that night. On the contrary, we flew like we’d never flown before. It was probably the best night of my life thus far.

It was the night we said I love you…

Twenty One

Friday Proper, Week Four

Hearts have been broken ~ Jeff

Have you ever played the card game Hearts? If you have, you’re probably familiar with the term “breaking hearts,” but if you’ve never played, I’ll give you the general idea. In the game, the rules say you can’t play a heart if you have a card in the suit that was led nor can you lead with a heart until they’re broken. However, once someone “breaks hearts,” you’re free to lead them willy-nilly from then on out.

Melissa broke hearts.

I was staying out of it, like Katy and I’d agreed, but watching Tristan and Camie go round and round in a vicious circle was killing me. But then, on Thursday, Melissa confronted Tristan and said what we were all thinking, thus breaking hearts. It meant that since someone had played a card in the no-no suit, we all could. That is, if we wanted to risk it. The object of the game is to not accumulate points and every heart counts as one point so you really don’t wanna win a trick that has a heart in it. Anyway, when Melissa confronted him, she ended up taking the trick and the point because Tristan was out of hearts in his hand and he played a safe card, like a club. She didn’t really get through to him and although he tried, he didn’t get through to her either, but, I have a feeling he’s holding the bitch. The queen of spades. You
really
don’t wanna take a trick and get stuck with her as she’s worth thirteen points out of the twenty-six possible in one round.

Thinking our friendship might not be able to withstand me throwing another heart at him so soon, subsequently forcing him to play the bitch, I left it alone Thursday night when we were all playing ball and getting good and dirty. However, Friday afternoon I’d finally had enough. Camie was going to be getting ready for the dance with Katy at our house and that’s where the limo would be picking the three of us up as well. It was basically an excuse to not introduce her parents to the douche or explain why he’s taking their daughter to the dance instead of her “boyfriend,” and although I’ve kinda wanted to shake her for still going through with this whole dance thing especially after this past week, I’ve completely kept my mouth shut. But when I picked Camie and the cats up to take her to my house and she looked like she’d literally been crying all night and could barely choke out her request for me to take the cats to Tristan today, well, I asked what was goin’ on. She told me about Tristan’s midnight visit, what they talked about, and that he’d left her for probably the last time with him having the knowledge that without the truth, she couldn’t trust him or love him or, really, have any kind of relationship with him whatsoever. He still left without telling her the truth.