I’m in relationship hell. Drew and I are back together, but I’d kind of gotten used to it being just the two of us and now we’re back to dating other people. Only, I don’t want to. It bothers me when I see him with other girls now. I mean it bothered me before, but now it’s on a whole new level.
I felt special when it was just the two of us and now I feel insignificant. He’s still affectionate and I’m still his number one, but it’s just not the same. I want to be his ONLY one, and now I’m back to guarding my heart. My latest quarrel with Drew opened my eyes to the fact that he can still hurt me if he wanted to. As much as I love him, I have to put the walls back up surrounding my heart and the only way I know how to do that is not to care. So I shut it all off.
I shut off my feelings for Drew, tucked every desire pertaining to him neatly in the back of my head, and I abandoned the idea of love. It’s easier that way and there’s less room for confusion. I’m back to just having fun.
For extra credit I signed up to tutor with Em and Josh. My plan is to keep myself so busy that I wouldn’t have time to harp on anything Drew is doing. He’s been spending a lot of time with both Courtney and Annette, and he still has yet to take me out on a real date. I emailed my first student and we decided to meet at their house for my first official tutoring session.
Whoever it was, they lived in a more uppity part of Elk Grove. It wasn’t too far away from my house either. I rang the doorbell and a bubbly girl in a Consumnes cheerleading outfit answered, “Sidney, hi! Glad you could make it, come on in,” the practically dragged me into her house. She’s one of our cheerleaders and I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before but I can’t quite place her face. “Come this way, we’re all in my parents’ study.”
“We?”
“Yes, my twin brother and I and one of his friends,” she explains.
“Which one of you needs the help?”
“That would be me, my name is Skylar but people call me Sky.”
I shake Sky’s hand and she smiles. Where do I know that smile? It hits me even before I walk into the room and set eyes on him. Quincy. Sky is Quincy’s twin sister and I’m at his house, alone, with no one to rescue me.
“Hey Sid,” Quincy smiles as I enter the room.
Someone please save me…
“Hey,” I flash him a quick smile.
“Do you two know each other?” Sky asks.
“Yeah, she’s Drew’s girlfriend.”
Understanding spread across Sky’s face. Her mouth drops open, “OMG, you’re THEE Sidney,” she smiles.
“I’m not sure I know exactly what that means,” I frown.
“Every girl on campus is talking about your skills on and off the basketball court.”
“Again…what?”
“Sky is on the school’s leadership committee,” Quincy offers up an explanation, “there isn’t much that happens on campus that she doesn’t know about.”
“If you’re on the leadership committee, shouldn’t you be like…I don’t know smart. Why do you need a tutor?”
“Because Honors Algebra is the bane of my existence and principal Keaton said you and your sister were the top students in the school.”
“What skills were you alluding to, on and off the basketball court? Obviously it wasn’t my tutoring skills.”
“I mean everyone knows you’re some hot shot varsity player, but you’re more than that. You’re a living legend on campus. You tamed the lion known as Drew Taylor,” she raved.
“Tamed?” I grimace at her choice of words, “he’s not a puppy or a pet Sky. He’s my boyfriend. I’d like to think we’ve sort of tamed each other.”
“Well whatever you did, it’s epic. No girl has been able to get him to go exclusive…even if it was only for like five minutes.”
It was for more than five minutes, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue semantics with a girl I just met. “Whatever, lets get this show on the road.”
Sky and I both crack open our books and began to study. If you could even call what we did studying. She spent more time responding to texts than she did studying. No wonder she was failing her honors courses. I doubt she could unglue her fingers from her phone long enough to even hear a lesson.
After the fifth interruption, Sky took her texting outside for privacy. This is a joke. It had to be.
“You hungry? I can make you a tuna sandwich,” Quincy offers.
“Sure,” I nod, “Is she always like this? I mean at this rate she’ll never learn anything.”
“You’re her tutor,” he points out, “and her failure will be yours. I’d suggest tapping into the Sidney I see on the court and reading my little sis the riot act.”
“So you’re the older twin.”
“Yes,” he smiles, “and I think you and I got off on the wrong foot.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, you’re always avoiding me.”
“Drew doesn’t want me talking to you.”
“Yes I know, but have you ever stopped to wonder why?”
“Not really,” I smirked.
“He doesn’t want you talking to me because he knows I can give you what you want.”
“You’re very bold, you know that?”
“And you’re deflecting. Go out with me.”
“No.”
“You and Drew aren’t exclusive anymore and I know you’re curious. I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
Tilting my head and eyeing him incredulously, I wonder what his angle is, “What are you up to?” I ask, “Why would you want to go out with your teammates sloppy seconds?”
“Sloppy isn’t the right word for you…sexy is more like it,” Quincy’s eyes wash over me.
Again I think my heart has stopped. Sky isn’t back yet and Quincy’s friend seems amused by our exchange of words. Me…I’m in FULL BLOWN PANIC MODE.
Keep it together Sidney; don’t let him know you’re flustered.
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why would you want to go out with me? Did Drew steal your girl or piss in your cheerios or something?”
“I just think I can do better,” he smiles, “I think YOU can do better. You deserve better.”
“And a guy who’d betray his own teammate is better?”
“In more ways than you know.” He whispers, leaning into me as he slides me a tuna sandwich.
“Does this corny little act work on white girls?”
Quincy belts out a hearty laugh, “See, this is exactly why I like you. You’re not afraid to speak your mind.”
“Quincy…even if I found you remotely attractive, which I don’t because I don’t date white guys…I don’t trust your motives.”
“Is this the part where you tell me all white people are the devil trying to make the brown people of the world’s lives a living hell?”
“C’mon Quincy, you know who you’re talking to. I don’t take hell, I give it.”
“Where do I sign up?”
Oh. My. God. No matter what I throw at him he takes it and dishes it right back. I’m intrigued, but I still don’t trust him.
“You should find a nice white girl to focus on Quincy,” I turn away from him and take a bite of my sandwich.
“We all bleed red Sidney. Besides, it’s too late…I’ve already got my heart set on you.”
“Aren’t you the teensiest bit worried about what Drew will do to you if I ever said yes? Black guys have a hard enough time as it is without you all taking their girls away from them.”
“Look, I’m not trying to start a revolution or a trend Sidney. I’m not trying to change history either. All I want is to ask you out and for you to have an open mind.”
I’m baffled. Most guys would have given up by now, but not Quincy. Truthfully, I didn’t care if he was white. I’d never dated a white guy before but there’s a first time for everything. What threw me off was how certain Quincy was that I was what he wanted. He barely even knew me.
“Fine, one date,” I gave in to curiosity, “But say one corny thing and I swear to God our date will be over.”
We both laugh. Skylar emerges from outside and I’ve had enough of her. I snatched her cell phone out of her hands and threatened to drown it if she didn’t focus on studying. Quincy is right. Her failure would be my failure and I had a reputation to uphold.
After silencing her phone we sat down and I finally got a chance to tutor her. We were nearing the end of our session when Skylar had a bathroom emergency. I swear this chick has A.D.D. or something. She can’t sit still to save her life. 490Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfe19eT3Smo
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out. It's a text from Quincy. He still has my number. Seven o’clock tomorrow night...that's our first official date. I glance over at him and he has this boyish grin on his face.
This time I lock him into my contacts. The entire ride home I kept reminding myself that I’m free to date whomever I please. Drew and I have an open relationship, which means we can both see other people. Yet, somehow in the back of my mind, Drew’s confession is on a constant loop, ‘I don’t want you seeing anyone’. That’s what he said to me that night in his car and I knew he meant it, just like I knew he wanted me to stay away from Quincy especially. What I don’t know, is when I’m supposed to concede to his wishes, and when I should stand my ground. Does conceding to the fact that he doesn’t want me talking to Quincy make me a good girlfriend or a doormat? There are plenty of girls he still talks to that I wish he didn’t, but my pleas fall on deaf ears. Shouldn’t his pleas for me to stay away from Quincy fall on deaf ears too? I am so confused.
As we pull up to my house, the streets are littered with teenagers playing football. Mom heads into the house while I join my friends on the curb and Drew sits down next to me.
“How was tutoring?”
“Long,” I rest my head on his shoulder and yawn, “and tiring.”
“Who was it?” Patrice asks.
“Skylar.”
“Quincy’s sister?” Drew’s head whips in my direction.
Crap! How did he know? There could be a million Skylar’s at Consumnes, how could he just assume I’m talking about that particular one?
“Yeah.”
Patrice and Em both look away like they want no parts of what’s coming next. Drew takes me by the hand and pulls me away from the crowd. It’s probably so that there are no witnesses to my murder.
He takes me across the street to his house and I wave to his mom who’s sitting on the couch, “Where do you think you’re going?” She asks Drew.
“My room,” Drew replies without even stopping to acknowledge her.
“Uh-uh. Drew, you know how I feel about you having girls in your bedroom!”
“Mom, chill. I just want to talk to her and I can’t do that in front of a bunch of people.”
We’re already in his bedroom and she’s standing in the doorway contemplating whether she should intervene or leave us alone. In the end she walks away, but not before giving Drew a warning glance. He closes and locks the door, then sits down next to me on his bed.
“Where did you study?”
Why did he have to ask that question? We both know he already knows the answer, he just wants to hear me say it.
“At her house.”
“Was Quincy there?” He asks.
This is yet another question I think we both know the answer to. Of course he was there. He lives there.
“Yeah,” I nodded, swallowing hard.
“Did he ask you out?”
I think I’m going to be sick. My stomach is churning and it feels like bile is rising in my throat. Yet, I can’t stop myself from telling him the truth when everything in me is screaming for me to lie to him.
“Yes.”
“And you accepted,” he surmised.
“Yeah.”
Nail meet coffin…
His eyes meet mine and I instantly regret my decision to go out with Quincy. I know I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t done anything Drew hasn’t already done, and yet…staring into his eyes right now I feel like I’ve betrayed him. I can’t explain it and it doesn’t make sense, but in that moment, part of me understood whatever he and I had was probably never going to be the same again.
His lips curled into a halfhearted smile, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. He pressed his lips to mine and even his kiss didn’t feel the same. His kiss was devoid of the confidence and passion I’d become used to. Even as he climbs on top of me and we go through the motions of making out…dry humping to satisfy our sexual urges…I know in my heart that October 23, 2015 is the day Drew decided not to love me back. Dare I say he seemed to be waiting for this moment like he knew it was coming?
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