Karma: Chapter Five

The next morning, my dad demanded that it was finally time that he met Gavin. I told him that Gavin wanted to meet him too and Dad murmured, “Smart boy, suck up, or overly confident in his ability to charm people. So which one is he?”

“All of the above? I don’t know. Don’t interrogate him, okay?”

“Let me have my fun. Now get out of here. You’re going to be late for practice.”

Senioritis was in the air and graduation was around the corner. I was beyond excited to get out of high school. I was going to MSU to study psychology. I did everything Rayna, the girl in front of me, did. That’s pretty much all it was; a big game of follow the leader, except with a ton of speeches and different names. The only thing different about today was that it was a dress rehearsal. Joy.

Anna skipped toward me. “You wanted to talk?”

“I think we should forget about the plan.”

“What? Why?”

I told her about my run-in with Cameron yesterday.

“That’s why you want to give up? That doesn’t sound like you at all. Is there another reason?”

“Well, ImightlikeGavin.”

She scrunched her eyebrows and leaned closer. “What?”

“ImightlikeGavin.”

The corner of her lips turned up. “Really?”
I nodded and couldn’t help the smile forming on my face. “Really.”

She squealed and threw her arms around me. “So when do I get to meet him?”

“Um…I don’t know? My dad’s meeting him the next time we go out. I guess I could call and see if he’s free today if you want…”

“I want! Call him before the bell rings. You don’t want your phone taken away. Get to it. Chop chop!”

I took my phone out and called him. “Hey Gavin, it’s me. I was wondering if you were free today? I think it’s time for you to meet my best friend.”

“Really? Yeah, I’m free. What time?”

“How about five at McDonalds?”

“Sounds good, see you then.”

“Bye!”

I put my phone away and told Anna the plans, even though she already heard them. I continued the rest of the day thinking, “I’m finally moving on.” A few weeks ago, I would’ve never dreamed I’d be saying that, but here I was. Changed.

Anna insisted that I rode to McDonalds with her, just in case I wanted alone time with Gavin. I wasn’t planning on it, but if the opportunity arose, I wasn’t against it. We went ten minutes earlier than the said time because Anna was craving a cheeseburger. I ended up ordering a fish-filet and a large fry—school makes me hungry.

Like the punctual person he is, Gavin walked through the doors at five o’ clock on the dot. When he spotted us in a booth, he walked over and joined us. “Sorry I’m late! My watch must be off…”

He was wearing a neat plaid button up that brought out his eyes and a pair of dark wash jeans. “You’re not late,” I assured him. “We’re just early.”

“Oh…”

Anna held out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Anna, the best friend. I can make or break your relationship, got it?”

She could be pretty intimidating if she really wanted to. “G-gavin,” he stuttered, shaking her hand.

“I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about me.”

“Not really.”

She sent me a look. “I see how important I am in your life, Audrey. Don’t even mention it to your boyfriend. Anyway, telling by your handshake, I bet you’re nineteen, nervous, a dog lover, am I correct?”

Gavin seemed dumbstruck. “How did you get all of that from a handshake?”

“I have skills.” No, she didn’t. I told her all of that, except for his nervousness. That was just blatantly obvious. I’d play along. It was kind of fun to see Gavin so amazed and shocked.

“So tell me, Gavin, if that is your real name—”

“It is.”

“Don’t interrupt me,” she snapped. “What are your motives?”

“My motives?” Gavin echoed, confused.

I buried my face in my hands. Here we go with the interrogation. I actually think my dad would be nicer about these things. Anna…she was a piece of work.

“You know, why are you dating her? Stuff like that? Are you planning on hurting her?”

“No, I’m not planning on hurting her. I’m dating her because I like her.”

“Her or her body?”

“Both?”

“Hm…good answer.”

So that’s how my evening went. In the end though, Anna approved of Gavin. After getting over his nervousness, he was pretty suave. Anna said she had a family emergency at home. I know she didn’t. She was just using that so we would have some more alone time, which made me feel a little nervous. It was the first time that I would be alone with him after I realized my newfound feelings.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Gavin asked.

He must’ve sensed my nervousness. “Um…no.”

“Let’s get out of here. There’s only so much time I’m willing to spend at McDonalds.”

I laughed and followed him out to his black Dodge Caliber. “So whereto now?”

“I could take you home or we could go see a movie?”

“I don’t feel like going home and there are no good movies out. Let’s go to yours.”

“Are you sure? My roommate will probably be there…”

“Can I meet him?”

“Yeah, sure!” he agreed enthusiastically.

He opened the door to his dorm room and a shirtless guy was lounging on a bed. He had reddish-brown hair and had a pretty average build; not too muscular, but not bursting with flab.

“Audrey, this is my roomie, Chris.”

Chris got up slid on a shirt and shook my hand. “Chris Barker. So this is the famous Audrey! It’s great to finally meet you.”

I smiled warmly and looked at Gavin slyly. “Famous, huh?”

“Oh yeah. It’s always Audrey this or Audrey that.”

“Good to know.”

“Once he said that—”

Gavin clamped his hand over Chris’s mouth. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he apologized.

I smiled knowingly before sitting on the bed that I presumed was his. I didn’t think Chris would sit on Gavin’s bed. I looked at the picture hanging up above his bed. It was of a little girl in blonde pigtails wearing a Cinderella dress. “Who’s this?” I asked.

“That’ s my little sister, Wendy.”

“She’s adorable! She has your nose!” His hand immediately touched the bridge of his nose. “Aw, is someone insecure about their nose?”
“No!”

“It’s okay. It’s a cute nose.”

He wrinkled his nose and I lightly kissed it. Chris went to class so we had the room to ourselves. I bet you can guess what we did.

I turned the Wii remote dramatically to the side as I screamed, “Don’t hit the cow!”

We were playing Mario Kart and he was in the lead. Gavin laughed manically as he crossed the finish line. “You lose, I win…again.”

I groaned. “That’s not even fair! You probably place this everyday.”

“All is fair in love and war.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I know, but it just felt right to say that.”

“You know what also feels right? This.”

I dropped the remote and crashed my lips against his. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he ran his tongue along the bottom of my lip. I granted him entrance and pushed him so he was lying down. I straddled him and fireworks and pleasure ran through my veins. I ran my hands up and down his chest, loving the feel of the muscles.

“When’s Chris coming back?” I asked. I didn’t want to get caught by his roommate.

“Not until late. He has evening classes,” Gavin groaned as I pressed against him, getting him hard.

“Take off your shirt,” I gasped.

He ripped it off and started massaging my breasts. I kissed him harder, encouraging it. He sat up and moved us to the bed. I reached for the button on his pants. He grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes. “Are you sure?”

I nodded and moved his hand away. One by one, each of our articles of clothing fell to the floor. He went slowly at first, but then got continually faster and faster. “Harder!” I yelled.

“Say my name, sweetie.”

I couldn’t hear him. I was to busy being overwhelmed by the intense pleasure. I was getting close. I raised my hips to match his and I was done for. “Oh Cameron,” moaned, digging my nails into his backside.

His eyes shot open and he pulled out. “What did you say?”

What did I say? “I—I don’t know.”

“You said Cameron. Who’s Cameron?”

Crap, if I said Cameron, I was screwed. “I said Gavin!”

“No, you didn’t. You said Cameron. I’m not deaf, Audrey.” Realization dawned on him. “It’s that one guy from the movies, isn’t it?”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Did you two have a thing?”

“No!”

“Audrey…”

I sighed. There was no use in lying. He would just find out about it later on. “Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We dated for five years and broke up like a month ago. It was before I met you.”

“Five years. That’s a long time,” he commented. “Why’d you break up?”

So much for a relationship with Gavin. “He got fed up with my cheating.”

“You cheated? How many times?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

He rubbed his face, heavy in thought. “Have you cheated on me?”

“No and won’t.”

“What makes you so sure? If you were cheating on your five year boyfriend, what’s stopping you from cheating on a guy you met a couple of weeks ago?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“I wish you would’ve told me this before?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s going to be harder to break up with you now that we’ve…you know…done it.”

He was going to break up with me. I braced myself for the hurt. “I’ll just call my dad for a ride…”

“You’re not leaving.”

“I’m not? I’ll just make it easier for you and leave. That way you won’t be hurt or anything.”

“Can’t you see I’m already hurting? I really like you, Audrey.”

“I like you too.”

“But I don’t think I can continue this relationship…”

“Why not? Is it because I didn’t tell you? I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“Audrey, I can’t be with a taken girl.”

“But I’m not taken!”

“Your heart is. It’ll always be taken. I can see it in your eyes, you still love him. I don’t think you can ever love someone like you could love him.”

“He doesn’t love me anymore, Gavin.”

He laughed dryly. “Yeah, he does. I didn’t want to believe it when I saw it at the movies, but he definitely loves you. Feelings like that just don’t go away. So go after him, Audrey. A love like that only comes once in a lifetime.”

Feelings of warmth and comfort flooded through my body, starting with my heart. “Who was she?” I asked softly.

I knew that there was someone before me that changed him. Guys aren’t just naturally sappy, telling girls to chase after the guy that they love. He was sensitive.

“Her name was Heather. We’ve been friends since we were born, lovers since the fourth grade when my friend threatened to shave my head if I didn’t ask her out. Then one day sophomore year she got in a car crash. Neither of the drivers survived.”

I didn’t know what to say. Was there anything to say? What do you do when your boyfriend, I guess ex-boyfriend, tells you that the love of his life died in a car crash? Sorry was overused, meaningless, and quite frankly, made things worse. So I didn’t say anything. I gave him a hug. “Thanks for telling me,” I murmured.

“Moral of the story? Don’t let him get away.”

We sat there in silence for about five minutes before he said, “C’mon, I’ll take you home. But before that, one for the road?”

He winked as I gawked at him. He wanted sex after telling me all of this? He burst out laughing. “I’m joking, Audrey. Let’s go.”

“So you two broke up?” Dad repeated for the thousandth time.

“Yes Dad, we broke up. It was mutual.”

“Crappy sex?” he sympathized.

A blush rose to my cheeks. “Dad!”

“What? It was a legal question.”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“You just hate me don’t you? You have a boyfriend your whole life and then you get a new one and I didn’t even get to meet him before you break up. Thanks Audrey.”

“Sorry?”

“You should be,” he retorted. “Now go make me some food.”

“Do we need to go over this again? It’s your job.”

“You’re no fun.”

My phone buzzed, indicating I had a text. It was from Mom.

Hi honey! We’ve set the date for the wedding. June 14th! I’m sending you the picture of your bridesmaids dress. I’ve been planning this wedding since I was sixteen! PS: when’s graduation?

I smiled. The dress she had picked out was a strapless, flowy, plum dress with a sweetheart neckline. There were subtle ruffles on the skirt. It looked like it would fall just above the knee, but I’d need to try it on. It was simple, yet incredibly pretty.

Good choice, Mom. Grad is on June 3rd

Ah, graduation. It was right around the corner; just two more weeks and I was free from that prison. Then I’d have to go to college, but I wasn’t going to let that sour thought ruin the moment. Aside from my breakup with Gavin, I was having a pretty good week.

Once I told Anna, she was utterly disappointed in me. When I told her we could continue the plan, she jumped for joy and started cranking her brain for ideas. That girl really did like devising things.

I guess I could start by calling him and asking if we could talk. And so that’s exactly what I did. He agreed and suggested we meet in a public place, but not so public that just in case one of us got angry, we wouldn’t attract much attention. So we picked a small park by the river.

As I stood by the bridge, looking at the calm serene water, nostalgia engulfed me. This was where we shared our first kiss. Eighth grade seemed like forever ago. We were so childish back then, but at least we were together and happy.

“Audrey,” a voice called, bringing me away from my reminiscing.

“Cam,” I greeted softly. “Hi.”

“No need for formalities. Let’s just talk.”

I nodded. “I’m not dating Gavin anymore.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah.”

We stood there in awkward silence, avoiding eye contact. I’m not sure exactly why I called him here to talk…I guess I just wanted him to hear his voice. It was kind of stalkerish, but I had that right as an ex-girlfriend, right?

“Is that all? You know I just could’ve found out from Facebook.”

“Yeah…I guess.”

“Now let’s talk about the real reason we’re both here.”

“I want you back, Cam.”

He laughed humorlessly. “You want me back? I’m in a relationship, Audrey.”

“I’ll let you give me hickeys,” I tried. “Anywhere you want and as many as you want!”

“Hickeys aren’t going to cover it. Audrey, you broke my heart pretty much everyday. I took you back because I couldn’t stand life without you and I was willing to put up with your cheating. But when you were with Josh again, that was the last straw. Do you realize you never even once apologized to me? Not one single, ‘I’m sorry, Cam.”

Was that true? Had I never even apologized for what I did to him? I felt like such a horrible person. Who does that? Cheat and not apologize. Apparently me. “I thought I did…I know it’s probably too late now, but I’m sorry, Cam.”

“Thanks, but you know we can’t get back together.”

“Why not? Is it because you’re dating Julia? Because you can easily dump her.”

“Because I can’t get back with you knowing that you’re capable of hurting me like that. And Julia…I like Julia. She’s nice.”

Was he crazy? Julia wasn’t nice. “No, she’s not! She’s a vindictive, evil, whiny cheerleader, who by the way is out to get me, who’ll spread her legs for anyone.”

He shook his head. “That’s just her outer layer. Once you get to know her she’s really sweet, funny, and the cheerleader thing? That’s just a bonus. And unlike you, I know she won’t cheat on me.”

Ouch, that stung.

“And,” he continued. “She’s a tiger in bed.”

Ouch, that hurt even more. I know that they slept together, I pretty much witnessed it. But hearing it from his mouth and him implying that she was better than me? That was like a stab in the heart and ego. I was confident in my bed skills…not so much anymore.

“I see. You really like her, don’t you?”

“I think I’m in—”

“Don’t say it!” I screamed. “Don’t you dare say it. Don’t say the L word. Don’t ever say in front of me ever again, got it?”

“Okay…”

“So there’s not chance of us getting back together?” I asked, trying not to get my hopes up because I knew they’d be crumbled as soon as his mouth opened.

“Sorry Audrey.”

“Don’t be. It’s my fault anyway. Have a good life, Cameron.”

“You too, Audrey. You too.”

We went our separate ways, well actually, he went and I just stayed leaning against the fence that separated me from the river flowing below. I needed that, closure. It kind of settled my heart down a bit. And for the first time since I started this whole charade, I felt serene and at peace. And dare I say, I kind of liked it.

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Hey guys! This is NOT the end. I was seriously considering it to be the end, but decided I needed to add a few things.