The Only One

Chapter 20

My first date with John wasn’t exactly everything that I hoped it would be. I had to ice my face the rest of the weekend and my bruised nose made it look like I got in a fight. Going back to class on Monday wasn’t any better.

“Hey, Red, how’s the nose doing?” John plopped down in the seat next to me like he didn’t have a care in the world.

I glared forward, willing myself not to look at him. “You’re the one who put it there, so if you don’t mind I would like to focus on the lecture since finals are coming up.”

The girls in front of us glanced over their shoulders, looks of disgust on their faces.

I smirked. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, ladies. I fell ice skating, he’s not beating me or getting me involved in some weird sex act.” That got them to turn back around.

“Since when does sex involve bruises? What kind of stuff are you into, Red?” He leaned in, his voice low and almost right at my ear.

“I am not talking to you, John,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I told you. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

I groaned. He had apologized a million times about me falling on the ice, but then would go right back to saying that it was a good thing because I needed to let go. Easy for him to say. He didn’t have a disease or an ex that gave it to him. It was hard to start anything new, let alone let go, when that was always in the back of my mind.

“I don’t even know you,” I said, but regretted the words as soon as I them, no matter how true they were.

What did I really know about the beautiful boy who carried me up the stairs after my surgery? I knew that I was falling, hard. More than I had for anyone else and that scared me. It scared me how much I was willing to do for him. How much he made me forget about what a jerk Robby was to me.

“You know me, Melanie. Better than anyone,” he whispered the last part. “You’re the one that’s a mystery to me. You’re the one who keeps everything inside and won’t let go.”

“You keep saying that. I don’t know what you’re trying to get at. Do you want me to just keep falling on my face?” I looked up, seeing that the professor walked into the room and I kept my voice low. I did intend on passing the class and I had been slacking on paying attention ever since I started sitting next to John.

His hand slid from under his desk and slowly moved up my leg until his fingers grazed my inner thigh. He couldn’t just pull something sexy and think that I’d forgive him that easily.

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, turning my head ever so slightly toward his. “Stop it. We’re not doing this here.”

He pulled his hand out of my grip. “Geez, Red. No need to be so touchy.”

“You were the one being touchy,” I whispered. “And now I need to pay attention to our lecture.”

“Come on, Red. I thought we were good.”

One of the girls in front of us turned her head sharply. “Will you two either quit talking or take it outside? Some of us are trying to listen,” she hissed.

“Mind your own damn business,” I pushed back.

She huffed and then turned around to face the front again.

“Ouch! Feisty and I like it,” John said through a laugh.

I glared in his direction and then packed up my books and put them in my bag. He wasn’t going to stop bothering me during class and I was sure I could get the notes from someone. There was no way I could concentrate, so it was better just to leave.

Once my bag was packed I stood and didn’t even look back as I pushed past other people’s desks and stormed out the front door.

What the hell was happening to me? I used to have everything together. I was Melanie Wilder, good student, hard worker, and the girl that didn’t let people get to her. Then John Walden came into my life and everything became one big train wreck. I couldn’t blame him for the cancer, that wasn’t his fault, but the way that my body felt even more broken when he was around just made it ten times worse. I started my relationship with him thinking I could just have a quickie. To be with someone that wasn’t Robby. Then it all backfired and now I was more confused than ever.

I’d never felt this out of control before. I was ruined beyond repair and nothing was going to fix me. I put my hands on my knees and let the cool December air hit my face, forcing the tears to stay in my eyes. I would not break down in the middle of the quad.

“What was that about?” His voice got louder as I heard his feet hit the pavement, coming closer and closer.

I shook my head, slowly standing up. “This isn’t going to work.”

John’s hand was on my waist, spinning me around to face him. “You can’t get rid of me that easy. I told you that once and I will tell you that every day until you believe me.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want you!” I spat, throwing my arms in the air.

He winced, as if my words were a slap in the face. He let out a deep breath, his face completely fallen. It was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen it. Gone was his cocky demeanor and instead he was a guy that looked like he was about to lose it.

“Why, John? You don’t need me. You have millions of other girls that line up at the house every weekend for you.”

I wanted to scream it. I wanted him to just give up on me. I couldn’t keep going on with our tug of war game. No matter how sexy I found him, the more I hung around with him, the more confused I got. I needed to just stick to what I knew.

“I don’t want any other girl.” He shook his head and took a step closer, cupping my face in his hands. “I belong with you and you belong with me.”

I tried to move back, but his hands stayed put on the sides of my face. “I’m broken, John. You can’t just fix me that easily.”

“Then we can be broken together, Melanie. I want you to give this a chance. You haven’t given it a fair chance since the beginning. I don’t want this to just be some random pass. I want something real. I want you.”

“John, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m ready for. This semester has been nothing but a crazy jumble of emotions.” I wanted to let myself fall for the beautiful boy, but I was afraid if I fell too hard then I would just get hurt.

“Then let’s keep going slow. I’ll do whatever you want, baby. I just want to stay with you, in whatever context that is, friend, fuck buddy, or more.”

I swallowed hard. “Okay.”

He leaned in and kissed my forehead. We weren’t completely fixed and I wasn’t sure where our relationship would lead, but I’d never had a guy fight for me like John did. And the more he fought, the harder I fell.

“So, how’d you get the big bruise on your nose? Valerie beat you into submission for not taking pain meds?” Monica yelled over the coffee bean grinder.

“No, John did it.”

The grinder turned off suddenly and it was like a record stopped spinning mixed with nails on a chalkboard. A few people sitting in the coffee shop actually winced.

I turned my attention to Monica, who was staring at me with her eyes practically bulging out of her head. “Did you just say that John did that to you?”

I let out a single laugh, even though it wasn’t funny. “Oh, totally not like that. We went ice skating and I thought he was going to catch me, but instead I fell on my face.”

Monica let out a big sigh of relief. “Jesus, Mel, way to scare me!”

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” Only I was thinking. Thinking of what I was going to text John. He was playing this twenty questions game with me via text. I guess me saying that I didn’t know him really got to him because he kept texting me with random questions about me and then would answer the same question as well. The latest was about our childhood crushes. He told me that he liked me a lot, but he still wasn’t over Zoey from Zoey101 on Nickelodeon.

“What is going on with you and John Boy anyway? Are you two like a couple now?” She asked, sifting the coffee grounds into a filter.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure what we are. I think we’re together, but I don’t think there’s a title for it.”

I looked down at my phone and saw another text from John.

Disney character you would sleep with?

I smiled at that one. It was a silly question, but I answered it truthfully.

Peter Pan. I’ve always had a thing for the boys that never wanted to grow up.

Ouch. I hope that wasn’t aimed at me. Because I’m a fan of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Brunette and doesn’t mind a guy that’s an animal? Hell yeah.

“And what the hell kind of texts are those?” I turned around to see that Monica was looking over my shoulder.

“We’re just playing some weird question game. It’s silly.” I slid my phone back into my pocket.

“Text flirting isn’t silly.” Monica blinked. “You know the guy’s completely in love with you. I know I wasn’t sure about you two together, but the way he looked at you when you were going into surgery, it was raw. He has some deep feelings for you.”

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. He did come to my surgery and I knew he liked me, but I still had my doubts. The guy cared about me, that was for sure, but I was afraid that if I gave my whole heart to him then he could possibly shatter it completely.

“Come on, Mel! Like you don’t see the way he looks at you? Guys like him just don’t casually start hanging out with a girl, without the promise of sex, for no reason. He’s obviously very into you.”

“How do you know we aren’t having sex?” I challenged.

Monica smiled. “Because I got bored waiting for you to get out of surgery and read your discharge papers. You can’t have sex for another three weeks, so obviously neither of you are getting any.”

I looked around the coffee shop and made sure no one was listening to our conversation. It seemed almost every customer had a book out and was studying. Finals were coming up and everyone was trying to cram everything from the entire semester into two weeks. It made for a lot more customers at least.

I leaned in closer to Monica, keeping my voice low just in case anyone popped up. “Okay, so we aren’t having sex. Do you think that’s a bad thing?”

She shook her head. “You don’t need sex in a relationship for it to be real.”

“Even when you’re dating a manwhore who you can’t stop thinking about naked?” I raised my eyebrows.

“I don’t even know how to answer that one.” She leaned against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you saying that you’re afraid to have sex with him? Or that you can’t wait to have sex with him? Because I’m really confused.”

I let out a big breath of air through my nose. “This probably isn’t a great conversation to have at work.”

“Well, we already started it, so we might as well finish.”

I groaned and motioned for Monica to follow me toward the kitchen area. There was a swinging door that separated the kitchen from the front register area and I figured less people would be able to hear us back there. Besides, we could still see the customers.

I started talking as soon as we were by the door. “Okay, so it’s weird and probably completely crazy, but I just feel busted.”

“Like your body? Your nose?”

I sighed. “All of me. I’ve always had everything under control in my life, or at least I thought I did. Then all of a sudden I find out about this cancer and I feel like I’m completely shattered and that every time I try and put the pieces back together, they just fall apart again.”

I couldn’t believe I actually voiced the words out loud. I’d been thinking about them for so long, especially after ice skating with John. The truth was, I wasn’t as angry with him as I was with myself. With him, I felt myself lose control and part of me liked the feeling of letting loose. But the other part felt like everything was crumbling and needed to get it back together as soon as possible.

Monica took a step closer, her eyes serious. “You aren’t broken, Mel. I know where your mind is right now and I’ve been there. I also know that you were there for me when I needed to be put back together. Without you and Trey I would still be in that dark place I was in a few months ago and I don’t want you to go there.”

“So what do I do?” My hands and knees were shaking like they were about to give out. All of the emotions were flowing through me at once. If I wasn’t careful I would shatter right there in the middle of the coffee shop.

“You need to get help, Melanie. You can either find a support group or just talk to someone. Talk to me, talk to John. Don’t hold it all in. That’s the worst thing you can do.”

“I know I can talk to you about anything, but it’s different with John.”

Monica shook her head. “It shouldn’t be. If you really care about him and he cares about you, then you have to live with each other for all the dark and the light parts. Relationships are tough, but if they’re real, then they’re worth fighting for.”