“On a complete whim – in fact, and I’m not proud to admit this, but I was pissed off and a little bit drunk when I sent the email – I gave the manager your name.”
He let the silence build up the suspense.
I was about to puke – not because I didn’t know what was coming, but because I did.
“‘Yes.’ No preconditions, no rules, no bullshit… just one word: yes.” Glen threw his hands up in the air. “So you’re it, kid. This is the Call. You’re moving up to the big leagues. Congratulations.”
My hands shook as I clenched them in my lap. “Thank you, but… no.”
Four Years Ago
It was the spring of my Freshman year in college, two weeks away from finals. I was in my dorm room at the University of Georgia, reading up for a test the next morning in my English Lit class, trying to ignore the phone call from three days earlier that was still playing in an endless loop in my head.
“Are you seeing anybody?”
“No, Kevin, I’m not. You know I’m not.”
“You’re not attracted to anybody, are you? If you are, I wish you’d just come out and tell me right now and be honest about it.”
“God, how many times do I have to say it?”
“Don’t curse at me, Kaitlyn.”
“I wasn’t – fine. Sorry.”
“Well – are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Attracted to anybody else?”
“NO! GOD, how many times do I have to – ”
“I told you, don’t curse – ”
“I wasn’t fucking cursing, Kevin! NOW I’m fucking cursing!”
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“You don’t even hear me when I DO talk to you!”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t talk for awhile, then.”
“…Kevin…”
“Maybe we should take a break.”
“Kevin, come on – there’s only two weeks left, and then we’ll both be back home – ”
“I don’t know who you are sometimes. You’re becoming more and more like your roommate – ”
“I’M NOT SHANNA, Kevin! I’m with YOU! I’m in love with YOU!”
“You don’t act like it sometimes.”
“Jesus CHRIST, I might as well go ahead and cheat on you since you PUNISH me like I have anyway!”
Silence.
“…I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Kevin… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it, it’s just you make me so MAD when you – ”
“Go ahead. Sleep with whoever you want.”
“KEVIN – ”
Click.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the first time we’d had that conversation, almost word for word. In fact, we were approaching double digits.
Kevin was my high school boyfriend in Savannah, Georgia. We’d been dating since 10th grade. He was so nervous when he asked me out the first time that he almost gave up halfway through. But he finally got all the way through it, and I said ‘yes.’ I liked him from the beginning; I grew to love him. He was a shy, sweet guy, very intelligent. We shared the same dreams of being world-class journalists someday. That’s how we met, working on the school newspaper.
We dated five months before he finally kissed me. I lost my virginity to him in 11th grade, more than a year after we started dating. Sex was good with him. I never wanted to tear his clothes off in a half-insane state of passion… but he was attentive and considerate.
But he was also incredibly insecure.
He was that way from the start, but it got worse as time went on. I was a late bloomer – like, a late bloomer. I didn’t get my period until I was 14, and I remained skinny and gangly until I was 16. But all of a sudden in 11th grade, BAM, I kind of came into my own. Curves everywhere. My skin cleared up and I finally got a fashion sense. Boys started noticing me seemingly overnight. I got a lot of attention where I hadn’t before – like, ‘captain of the football team’ attention. I think one of the reasons Kevin finally got the nerve to ask me to have sex was because he was afraid he was going to lose me to somebody more aggressive. He thought that if we ‘sealed the deal,’ I’d stay with him.
It was never about that for me. He was my first love, and I would have stayed with him no matter what. I definitely wouldn’t have cheated on him, ever. When I was twelve, my mom cheated on my dad with a business colleague of hers. Even though my parents ended up staying together, it destroyed my father. My brothers and I got front-row seats to the carnage. I hated my mom for a long time because of it. I eventually forgave her for what she did to my father and our family, but I swore to myself that I would never, ever put anybody through that.