The line immediately went dead. Mason wasn’t good at communicating, but I chuckled thinking about him kicking Luke’s ass. I knew he’d do it if I truly asked him to.
“Khloe,” Cody said at the beginning of his message. “Um…” He let out an awkward chuckle. “What can I say? I feel like the biggest jerk around. We shouldn’t have even made that scorecard. We all believed it was a pipe dream anyway, and that’s the honest to god truth. Kent called us idiots to our faces for thinking it may actually happen, and for what it’s worth, he also was disgusted by our making it. For what it’s worth, seeing my name on that paper made me hate myself. Knowing that I was part of anything that caused you pain kills me. I hope that, even if we never meet romantically again, that someday you forgive me. Take care.”
No one would guess that Cody was the confident doctor from how meek and depressed his message sounded. To think I once thought of him as the arrogant one; he sure turned that around.
Next up was Christian. I played the voicemail and was just met with singing. The words were only half legible. It was clear he was wasted. “…and I think you’re great! …Panda bears!” I was laughing out loud while listening to Christian croon. “Love or something…” My heart beat a little faster. I wished I knew what he was saying. The line went dead mid-word and I just let out a laugh. I anticipated he accidentally hung up on himself. It was pretty good.
David was the next one. “Bonjour, Bella.” David spoke French fluently, something I’d learned somewhere along the way. “Look, I could tell you that I’m sorry, and that this was all just a big misunderstanding, but I’m sure you’ve heard that from everyone else. Instead, I want to tell you how proud I am of you for not immediately hunting each one of us down and cutting off all of our dicks. I heard some of the threats you threw at Luke, I know you’re capable of it.” I smiled, remembering how awful I used to be to them, even though they deserved it. “I miss having your dry wit around us. We need you, Khlo. We’re not good without you. I can’t say anything to convince you that we aren’t the dicks that you already know we are, but if you don’t come back and we don’t get better, you have only yourself to blame. Miss ya, kid.”
The line went dead, and I felt warm inside. Hearing the guys’ apologies one after the other was softening me a bit. I was inclined to believe they were sorry, they had to know the mistake they’d made.
Brett’s was the oldest, he tried first. “Hey Khloe, Luke told us what happened and I just wanted you to know that I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hurt you must feel, but you have to believe me that we made that scorecard way before we started up anything with you. Even before we thought we really had a chance. As soon as you were willing to be with us, we all couldn’t get over how great it was. We all said how we really liked you and that it wasn’t just a typical girl for us. Luke was supposed to destroy that thing… not that that’s any excuse. Anyway, if you feel like hearing me out, give me a call. I don’t plan on getting over you anytime soon.”
I decided to skip Luke’s in the line as I was scrolling through. I didn’t think I could handle hearing his voice. He was the one who let me see that awful thing, and when I asked him about it, he admitted to my face that the original plan was to follow the scorecard.
“That’s right,” I said aloud.
Regardless of what all the guys had said, Luke had told me the truth. They made the scorecard with every intention of racking up points at my expense. They were trying to convince me that it was just a prank, but they made it to begin with. It was well drawn out, they had points designated to everything; they had done it before and they did it with me. I deleted all the voicemails except for Luke’s and shoved my phone into my bag.
When I got to California, I was going to listen to that voicemail and formulate a carefully and strongly worded text to send to all of them. I was going to let them know that I was done for good and that I never wanted to hear from any of them ever again.
23
Cody
“I think we’ve got everything under control, Doctor.” The nurse held out a slip for me to check over and sign off on and I glanced it over. I was on call at the ER all night, but I was checking out for a couple of hours to eat dinner and sleep. I signed the paper and handed it back to the nurse I was speaking with. “Thank you. You know how to get ahold of me if you need me. I’m not going off site.”