Oh, right.
"I have one more term," I stated.
"What's that?" he asked.
"You have to cuddle with me afterwards, you can never treat me like that again. If you do, I will simply kill you in your sleep and not have to worry about you sharing the tape with anyone."
"Well, with options like that..."
"Yeah, cuddling doesn't sound so bad, huh?" I replied cheerfully.
"Well, I ask again, what are you doing tonight?"
"Working."
"And after that?"
"Homework," I replied.
"Need help?"
"Nope," I said, smiling.
"Come on, Nikki," he said.
"No. Take a shower, scrub off all the yucky Kayla germs, but as I'm sure you were just kissing on her today, your lips –and other body parts—are coming nowhere near mine until I feel confident that they're cootie-free."
"I thought I was making the rules," he complained.
"Well, if you wouldn't have been kissing Kayla today I might not be doing homework tonight, but you did and I am, and as long as we're doing this whole faithful thing, you're going to have to be okay with that. If you saw me sucking face with Andy, would you really want me to come kiss you right after I was done?"
"You didn't see me kissing Kayla, you're just guessing," he argued.
"Be that as it may, I'm doing homework tonight. Do you work tomorrow?"
"No," he said.
"Maybe tomorrow then," I said. "If you scrub really thoroughly tonight."
"Right back at you," he responded.
After that we said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. As I went to do my homework, I felt better than I had recently, and the world didn't seem like such a bad place.
Unfortunately, before I could rendezvous with Derek again, I had to go through the uncomfortable part: breaking up with Andy.
I didn't know what to say. Technically, I didn't have a reason to give him. Sure, I could tell him I had been cheating on him with Derek, who was blackmailing me and threatening to show our sex tape to the world, but I somehow didn't think that would be the most painless way.
I didn't want to hurt him more than I was already going to. Maybe I didn't love him, but I still cared about him as a friend, and I knew he cared about me.
I decided to wait until after school to do it, but Derek was pretty impatient, which surprised me.
The very first thing he asked me when I walked into class and found him sitting on my desk was, "Did you do it yet?"
"Do what?" I asked at first.
"Did you break up with him?"
He looked anxious, more invested in my break up than I expected him to be.