Then he released me and backed up a few feet.
“I… I need to get back.”
I inhaled raggedly, my breath taken away. Then I nodded and got off the car, dumped the leftovers in the takeout bag, and went to the driver’s side door.
Derek hadn’t moved.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
He smiled… but it was a sad smile.
“No… I need to walk.”
I felt fear rising in me a little. “I can drive you, it’s not a problem – ”
“I know. But I need to walk. I just… I need to be alone for a little while.”
The fear was turning to panic.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you mad at me?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I want you… and I can’t have you. That’s what’s wrong.”
We stood there in silence, staring at each other in the shadows.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Around four,” he said quietly, and then he turned around and disappeared into the darkness.
I watched him leave, then got in my car and sat there, stunned.
And burst into tears.
47
I barely slept that night. I was frantic that I would never see him again – and I chastised myself endlessly for even caring.
But Derek was good as his word. He came by the next day at four o’clock sharp.
When he showed up, he was his old self, laughing and teasing and grinning. Shanna was there, and she told him all about how she’d covered for me. Derek joked with her about it, though he never mentioned shocking the living daylights out of me with the whole coming over to have Shanna ‘rock his world’ incident.
I was thankful for that, at least.
Derek and I went and played pool at the student center. The entire time we kept up an easy banter back and forth. He had an incredible way of putting me at ease; it was like the previous night had never happened.
But of course, it had. And we both knew it.
I wanted to say, Aren’t we going to talk about last night?
But I was afraid to talk about it.
And I was even more afraid to hear him say, What’s there to talk about?
So I just let sleeping dogs lie.
He flirted with me a little, but not nearly as much as he could have. There were no double entendres about how I handled the cue stick or the billiard balls. And even though he instructed me on how to shoot better, he didn’t take the opportunity to get behind me and press his body against mine, to fold his arms over mine, the way you see in the movies. He kept a respectful distance the entire time.
I kind of wished he hadn’t.
48
There was one extraordinary thing that happened that night, though.
We were sitting on park benches outside the Student Center, eating soft-serve ice cream cones from the café. Since the student movie theater was right there, we got to talking about Eastern Promises again – and from there it turned into what kind of movies we liked.
“You probably like movies where they blow stuff up reeeaaal goooood,” I said with a hick accent.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked defensively.
“It’s such a guy thing.”
“Well, I’m a guy.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He probably could have followed that up with all sorts of naughty comments… but he didn’t.
“Just because I like action movies doesn’t mean I don’t like emotional shit, too,” he said.
“Emotional shit,” I said, nodding mockingly. “That’s exactly what I think when I choose a movie: ‘I want to watch some emotional shit tonight.’”
He laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“Mmmmmm mm, us chicks loooove that emotional shit.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“So, what kind of ‘emotional shit’ do you like, then, Mr. ‘I’m in touch with my feminine side’?”
“I’m not going to tell you now,” he said in fake indignation.
“Why? You get embarrassed when you cry during Steel Magnolias?”
“Okay, A, I don’t cry. And B, if I did cry, it sure as hell wouldn’t be during Steel Magnolias.”
“What about Field of Dreams? Every guy I’ve ever met says they cry during the end.”
Derek looked down at his ice cream cone and gave a secret, grudging little smile, like he’d been caught and didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Ohhhhhh – you do, you do!”
“NO – I mist up a little. Maybe.”
“‘Cause you’re Mr. Tough Guy, huh,” I nodded in fake sympathy.
“Whatever. That wasn’t the one I was thinking of.”
I pulled back and exaggerated my surprise. “Ohhhh – so you have one in particular!”