Because of You (Because of You 1)

In my mind, I heard him say, "Because Kayla's a dumb bitch and she showed up at my house…"

But on the other end of the phone I heard, "Ah, one of my buddies stopped over and…you know how it is. But hey, if you're not doing anything, you should come over now, tell me about your interview and….maybe we can pretend to study," he said teasingly.

I felt like I had swallowed my heart, and it was made of a big block of ice. I could feel it slide slowly down my stomach, landing with a sickening thud somewhere in the vicinity of my foot.

I felt like vomiting.

"Which buddy?" I managed.

"What?" he asked.

"Your buddy that stopped over, which one was it?"

"Just a neighbor, you don't know him. I tried to kick him out so you could come over, but..." he trailed off.

"I can't hang out," I heard myself say, feeling my stomach turn over. "I have…a lot of homework."

"Oh. Okay,"' he said, sounding a little bit confused, maybe even a little offended. "Well, I guess if you have so much homework I should let you go."

"Yeah, I guess so," I responded succinctly. "Bye."

I ended the call and threw the phone down on my bed like it was a snake, staring at it as I tried to rationalize why he had lied to me.

Any reason but the obvious one.

He could not possibly be cheating on me. He couldn't. It wasn't even denial, it just wouldn't make any sense. He had spent so much energy getting me back and he had complicated everything to be with me, he could not possibly be cheating on me. There had to be some other explanation, something that I wasn't thinking of in the vaguely frantic state that I was in.

Even if he wasn't cheating on me though, I was forced to acknowledge that he was lying to me.

My Derek. Lying to me.

I couldn't deal with it, I decided. I picked up my book and tried to find where I had been before Derek called, hoping to lose myself in the written word like I had done so many times before in my life.

But as with my life, I couldn't quite find the spot I had been in before Derek.

So I closed the book in frustration and hopped off my bed, locating my backpack and rummaging through it to find some homework to take my mind off things.

I really should have known better than to vent my frustrations to Alex.

Normally I wouldn't have said anything about my problems to him, I would have masked any possible distress until he was safely out of the house and dealt with it on my own.

But Alex would have to decide to spend his first Saturday night in years at home, and it would have to be the day after my interview.

I still hadn't talked to Derek since that phone call. He hadn't called me, which pissed me off, and I had refused to call him on principle.

Unfortunately, a mere 25 hours after seeing Kayla's car in his driveway, I was already beginning to wonder if I was overreacting.

Not because Kayla's car had any business being in his driveway, but because if Derek had been in the wrong, wouldn't he have felt guilty and called me already?

Maybe there really was some other explanation. Maybe…his neighbor was Kayla's brother or something, and she had come to pick him up.

I realized when that thought crossed my mind that I was getting truly desperate, and I felt thoroughly disgusted with myself. What had happened to my brain? Where was it, and would it ever come back?

Was love supposed to be so damn depressing?

That was the thought in my mind—and the look on my face—when Alex took one look at me and said, "'Who died?"

I gave him a moody glance and shook my head. "No one yet."