The next morning, I was awoken by my cell phone ringing loudly next to my pillow like a screaming siren as my brain pounded rhythmically against my skull. It felt like the mother of all hangover headaches even though I hadn’t drank a drop of alcohol for over twenty-four hours. In a vain attempt to pretend that the ringing was only part of a dream, I turned over and put my extra pillow over my exposed ear.
“Shut it off,” Grace moaned at me sleepily. I sighed in defeat and rolled back over, grasping the phone and squinting at it through the just-awoken blurriness that clouded my eyes. I saw the one name on the screen that would make me shut off my phone entirely, and I did so with a huff before stuffing it under my pillow.
Hunter had tried to call me up until midnight, had given up for eight hours and was now right back at it. I wasn’t mad at him for his reaction. His reaction had been validated and understandable based on the fact that I had learned he had feelings for me, but it was that knowledge that made me turn off my phone. When we had forged our arrangement, we had made it perfectly clear that I had feelings for Taylor and that it would be for sex only. He had breached the deal by developing feelings for me and now it had to be over. I couldn’t continue to sleep with him knowing that it meant something more to him than that.
I’d come to care about Hunter a great deal and I couldn’t stand to hurt him like that anymore. Yes, I was hurting him by not answering his calls, but that kind of hurt would be less painful in the long run. I knew that cutting him off completely was the best decision. Just as I had almost drifted back to sleep, a voice sounded across the room.
“Cam, what’s going on?” Sophie asked. Grace sighed loudly, but lifted herself up on one elbow to join the conversation.
“A lot of stuff,” I mumbled, not ready yet to sit up and be civilized.
“Could you be more vague if you tried?” Grace asked, “Now spill. I’ve never see you turn off your phone before. What’s up?”
“It’s just Hunter,” I replied.
“And why are you avoiding talking to him?” Sophie asked. I hated when they did this, when they ganged up and asked me questions. It didn’t make me feel like opening up, instead I just wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep while they watched. My body wouldn’t let me do that with two pairs of intent eyes staring at me, however, so I admitted defeat and propped myself up to talk.
“Yesterday was a little rough.” I knew that I needed to tell them about my mom and that it was truly ridiculous that I hadn’t done so already, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them the whole story. “It was the eight year anniversary of when my mom died and I went over to Hunter’s for a little comfort, I guess you could put it. It didn’t go as planned and I would up completely freaking out and stopping it right when we’d gotten started saying that I needed to go talk to Taylor. Hunter flipped out that I had stopped it because of Taylor and blurted out that he has feelings for me and he can’t hide them anymore. Then I had to tell him why I was really upset and he freaked out and felt really bad. I went over to Taylor’s because he’s the only one I know who’s lost a parent and Hunter called me and I put my phone on silent, and then Zac called Taylor to reach me because Hunter had asked him to do that to get a hold of me. I just don’t want to talk to him because there’s no point. It’s over now. There weren’t supposed to be any feelings involved and it sucks because the sex was so good.”
“You can’t help it when you develop feelings for someone, Cam,” Sophie said, “It’s not Hunter’s fault he fell for you. I’m sure he tried to fight it. I mean, he knows how you feel about Taylor.”
“Yeah, I know, he said that. I just don’t understand how this happened, how he even got feelings for me in the first place. I just never thought about it like that.”
“Well, he did. And can you honestly tell us that you have no feelings for Hunter whatsoever?” Grace asked.
“I’ve never thought about it. It wasn’t part of the deal!” I exclaimed, knowing that my rationale was lacking, but it was the truth nonetheless.
“No, you never thought about it because of Taylor. Cameron, please do not pass up something good while you’re waiting for him. It’s not worth it!” Sophie begged. I knew that it was finally time to drop the bomb on them.
“Taylor kissed me the other night,” I said, and I watched smugly as their eyes opened wide with a combination of horror and astonishment.
“He what?!” Grace asked, “When? Where? How did we not know about this already?”
“He kissed me upstairs at the party at Jake’s the other night,” I stated, “And last night he said that he wished we hadn’t done it there because if we were going to kiss it shouldn’t have been like that.”
“What the hell does that mean? If you were going to kiss it shouldn’t have been like that? Like what?” Grace asked. Sophie just sat there looking right at me as if she was trying her hardest to read my face.
“Drunk. It shouldn’t have happened drunk. I brought it up last night and he didn’t say that it shouldn’t have happened period. In fact, I gave him the perfect opportunity to say that. Instead he just said that it shouldn’t have happened drunk.” Sophie shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair, her own little indication that she was about to say something that someone in the room wouldn’t like.
“And did he try to kiss you after he said that? Did he try to do it right?” she asked. I felt like I’d been shot in the chest.
“No, I was upset! Last night wouldn’t have been the right time either,” I said, trying my best to sound convinced by my own words. Instead I felt like I was falling as everything came crashing down again.
“And when will the right time be? According to Taylor, when will the right time be? How much time do you two spend alone together anymore? How-”
“Stop it! Just shut up!” I yelled, my hands flying to my eyes. Only a real friend can know just how to really hurt you, how to hit the right spot to send you flying face first into the wall of reality.
“I’m sorry, Cam, I really am. But if you won’t admit these things to yourself, then someone needs to put them into your head. You know, you get so mad at Taylor for being stubborn and oblivious but you’re just as bad. You’re one of my best friends in the world and I love you, but it’s true,” Sophie said in a softer voice.
I couldn’t stand to look at her so I consented to burying my face in my pillow. These were the kinds of moments that happened and changed your life for forever. No one had ever said anything to me like Sophie just had, and to hear it coming from her made it all the more powerful. It’s not every day that someone close to you says something that feels like a real smack across your ego, forcing you to see what you’ve been unwilling to let yourself see. Even though I had just had a full night of sleep, I felt my eyelids droop and I longed for sleep to take me far away from the life I was currently living.
Again, I was jerked back to full consciousness right before sleep came, but this time from pounding on the door.
“It’s 8:30 in the morning, what’s wrong with people?” Grace asked no one in particular. I was already down the end of the bed to answer the door when Hunter’s voice came sounding through.
“Cameron, I know you’re in there! Please talk to me!” he begged, his fists still lightly colliding with the wood surface.
“Go away, Hunter,” I said, my voice coming across much weaker and scratchier than planned, giving away my current state of emotion to him immediately.
“Please just let me apologize. I feel so bad about the way I talked to you. If I had known what you were going through, I would have done everything differently,” he said, his voice hardly carrying through the door, “Please let me in.” Only I understood the double meaning of that comment and I found myself slowly inching towards the door.
“I can’t do that. I’m sorry but I can’t,” I said. I knew that he probably looked disheveled and aggravated on the other side of the door, and it made my eyes sting with tears.
“I’m not going to beg, Cammy. And I know that you won’t be calling me any more because I messed it all up but I meant what I said about having feelings for you. You’re crazy, and you’re infuriating, and you’re in love with someone else, but none of that seems to matter. I don’t know when it happened, but I fell for you,” he said, and I could hear him step closer, “I’m not going to show up at your door every day begging you to change your mind. I won’t call any more either. This is me asking you one last time to consider it. To consider us.” I found that I was now standing with my forehead pressed against my side of the door.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say, placing my hand against the wood as it would comfort him somehow. I heard him suck in a breath and hold it in before stepping away from the door.
“Okay. Goodbye then,” he said before I heard his footsteps move towards the stairs. Four arms were wrapping around me from behind before I knew what was happening and I let them hug me.
“When it rains, it pours,” I sighed, patting their arms, letting them know that it was okay to let me go.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked, grabbing my shoulders and making me face her to look her in the eye.
“I guess so. That was a little intense, wasn’t it?” I tried to sound like I thought it hadn’t been that big of a deal.
“I’ll say,” Grace said, “That was very chivalrous, him coming to your door to ask you to pick him and all.” Sophie smacked her in the arm and gave her a look. I couldn’t make a response to her comment at the moment because the whole scene was still replaying over and over in my head.
“Yeah, he’s a good guy. A little pushy, but a good guy,” I told them. They just stood there and looked at me, waiting for me to say something else or to break down.
“Are you really just going to let him leave like that?” Sophie asked.
“What else can I do? If I go after him he’ll think I want to be in a relationship with him. He made it perfectly clear that the ball is in my court now.”
“Why can’t you be in a relationship with him?” Sophie demanded, getting irritated with me again, “Because you haven’t considered it? Are you just going to sit around and be single for forever waiting for Taylor to wake up and realize that you’re crazy about him?”
“He kissed me, Sophie! We’re getting closer. We’re talking again, he was there for me last night when I needed him. It’ll happen soon, I just know it.” Sophie’s hands were back in her hair and I braced myself for the onslaught I knew was seconds away.
“And what if it doesn’t happen soon? Hunter won’t wait forever for you, Cam,” she said. I threw my hands up in frustration.
“It’s like talking to a brick wall with you two! Why does it have to keep coming back to Hunter! This isn’t about me and Hunter, it’s about me and Taylor and the fact that you two just don’t want me to be with him!”
“We just want you to be-” Grace started, but I finished for her.
“Happy? You know, everyone says they just want me to be happy and it’s usually right after they drop a big bomb of crap all over me!” Neither of them said a word, they just waited for me to finish, assuming I had more to say to them. “I’m going to go for a walk.” They just nodded and retreated back to their parts of the room, a thick silence filling the space between the three of us.
A few minutes and a change of clothes later, I was out the door, providing them with the time they needed to talk about what had transpired in the room in the last few minutes and for me to attempt to clear my head.
I was so mad I could have screamed, but pushed away that urge due to the fact that a few other people were crazy enough to be roaming around campus so early on a weekend morning. I wanted to know when precisely I had asked for Sophie and Grace’s opinions about my social life and when they had become such experts on my feelings for Hunter. I didn’t even know if I had any so how could they? They had hardly even seen us together. And then there was the whole situation with Taylor.
If only they knew how happy I was when I was with him and how safe he made me feel when we were alone together. Last night, as soon as I walked in the room I had felt a sense of security and happiness for the first time all day. He understood me so well. Or did he?
The nagging voice in the back of my mind that sounded surprisingly like Sophie told me that if he understood me so well, why didn’t he know that I had feeling for him? And, it snidely pointed out that Hunter knew me better than most people did and we had only known each other for a short time. I really hated that voice and told it precisely where it could go before turning my thoughts over to my grumbling stomach. After assessing my position, I headed for the Student Union to grab some breakfast and the biggest cup of the strongest coffee they had.
I opted for a bagel with cream cheese, a banana, and a massive machine produced french vanilla cappuccino, which was the best they had, before settling down at a small table ready to have a quiet breakfast all by myself. Once I had managed to sink back into my thoughts despite the general chaos all around me, I was interrupted by Jackson inviting himself to sit down across from me with his own food.
“Hey Cams!” he said, immediately digging into his breakfast sandwich, “What’s up?” I gave him a look of slight disgust as I watched him talk with his mouth full of biscuit, egg, and sausage.
“I’m eating,” I stated, motioning to the food in front of me, hoping he’d get the hint that I wanted to dine alone. He didn’t, being a typical unobservant guy, and I sighed slightly as he took another big bite before speaking.
“Come on, I can tell that something’s wrong. Go ahead and tell Dr. Branner all about it.”
“It’s just been a rough couple of days, that’s all,” I admitted, busying myself by peeling my banana.
“You should come over today. We’re going to watch the game, have some beers, you know, the usual Sunday fare.”
“Maybe. Who’s going to be there?”
“Just us. Oh, and I saw Hunter a little bit ago so I invited him. He looked like total shit, so I thought he could maybe use some company.” I knew that I outwardly flinched at that comment and Jackson hadn’t missed that signal. “Is your bad mood about Hunter? What’s going on with you two? You hooked up after that one party and I now just don’t know how to read you guys.”
I thought about it for a second and then realized that there was no harm in talking to Jackson about the situation, especially since he would probably find out eventually anyway.
“Hunter and I didn’t just hook up once. We’ve been doing so rather regularly since then, and it’s… it’s over now.”
“So you two are dating?” he asked, a glimpse of hope crossing his face. What was with everyone? If they all loved Hunter so much, they could date him.
“No, we had a specifically sex only policy, but he admitted last night that he has feelings for me, so now it’s over.”
“What, you don’t have feelings for him back?” I sighed loudly and let the fist I hadn’t known I was clenching drop to the tabletop.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Is there something so wrong about sleeping with someone and not having feelings for them? Why can’t everyone just leave me alone? If I wanted to date Hunter, I’d date Hunter. I want to date someone else,” I said before I could stop the words from coming out. The look in his eyes suddenly changed as did he entire demeanor and my defenses rose automatically.
“Look, I know that we’ve never talked about your feelings for Taylor before, but yeah, I know you have them. I want you to just forget about it, okay?” he said.
“And why should I do that?”
“Because as your friend and his roommate, I’m telling you to.”
“You don’t have any say whatsoever about who I do and don’t have feelings for, Jackson. And for your information, I’m not going to forget about it because he kissed me the other night,” I stated.
“He what? He shouldn’t have done that,” Jackson said, looking slightly sick and leaning back in his chair.
“Why doesn’t anyone want Taylor and I to be together? Just butt out, Jackson!” I spat, trying my hardest to keep my voice down.
“God, I did not want to be the one to tell you this because I assumed that Taylor would do it on his own, but I can’t do this any more,” he said and I felt my stomach turn over.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling suddenly very scared and small. He took a deep breath before leaning in towards me.
“Promise me you won’t hate me because I’m the one who told you,” he said. I nodded and mirrored his pose, settling my elbows on the edge of the table and scooting forward on my chair, trying to make myself ready for whatever he might say. But nothing on earth could have prepared me for the words that came from Jackson’s mouth. Nothing.