he was sorry for not calling to say he’d arrived safely, that a layover in Seattle had lasted longer than planned and he didn’t want to wake me after getting home. I listened to it twice just to hear his voice before hitting ‘delete,’ and then picked up the receiver to dial Gabe’s number for his perspective of my weekend. He answered on the fifth ring, seemingly out of breath and claiming to have been out for a run. I knew better because I heard a faint female voice in the background ask who it was and if he could call me back. I assumed it was Marissa.
“It’s not a bad time, is it?” I asked, feeling a little embarrassed that I’d caught them in the middle of ‘the act,’ although he didn’t have to answer the phone in the first place.
“Eh, it’s fine. What can I do you for?”
“I kind of need your opinion on Jensen since he stayed at your house this last weekend.” I brought my feet up on the couch and sat cross-legged, not caring now whether his evening extra-curricular activity was waiting for him or not.
“He wasn’t his usual self, that’s for sure,” Gabe shared, and then listened as I launched into my time with him. Once I was finished, he gave his two cents.
“Most of the weekend I was with Marissa,” Gabe said, “but we did talk before you two went to dinner on Saturday and when I took him to the airport on Sunday.”
“What was he like before we went to dinner?”
“I don’t know, I guess he seemed a little nervous.” Gabe paused.
Assuming his hesitancy was because he wasn’t quite sure what Jensen had shared with me about Fallon, I thought I better speak up. I wanted a no-holds-barred opinion from Gabe, so I told him I knew all about his drug-and-alcohol-induced entanglement with Fallon.
“Alright, good, I wasn’t sure how much of it he told you, or if he had yet.” Gabe relaxed and began to freely tell me about Jensen. “It was really tearing him up and I think he was stressing over seeing you for the first time since Phoenix.”
“Did he even tell you everything that happened in Phoenix?” I wanted to know.
“He saw Savannah, thought her kid was his, you gave the ring back and left ... yeah, he told me.”
“I think Jensen missed the point of why I gave the ring back,” I stressed. I now knew without a doubt I should have made it clear to Jensen then that I hadn’t ended things, and I should’ve done so before he acted like a single guy and did something that would be hard for me to forgive. I was starting to feel party to blame for his actions. “Gabe, I didn’t give him his ring back to end our engagement or even our relationship. I did it because I wanted him to feel like he had time to make an informed decision without any pressure. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to choose me simply because we were already engaged.” I unfolded my legs and stretched them out in front of me, digging my toes into the carpet.
“Yeah. By the way he explained your split, I’d say our boy may have missed that point. He also said something about Phoenix being a wake-up call, and that he was pushing you too fast to do the whole marriage thing.”
“Did he tell you that Emery got Savannah pregnant?” I hoped I wasn’t saying too much.
“Oh, shit, yeah. He’s pretty fucked up over that, too, that’s for sure. We talked about that a lot on Sunday. He was analyzing why he had such bad luck with girlfriends cheating on him.”
I winced at Gabe’s comment and was feeling two things at once: relief and guilt. Relief that I hadn’t told Jensen about Nate because it would have surely pushed him over the edge, and guilt that I still needed to come clean about that with him. It felt like a ticking time bomb that I needed to hurl as far away from me as possible before it blew up in my face.
“Mia?” Gabe called me back to the conversation.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You’re not saying anything. I was just telling you to just give him time. I think he’s coming back here for spring break and I’m sure he’ll be in a better mood then. When is that? A couple of weeks away?”
“Yeah, it is. I’m hoping you’re right because I don’t think I can take another uncomfortable visit with him.” I laughed awkwardly to try to lighten the mood, only it didn’t feel lightened.
“Listen, I gotta go,” Gabe said. “Hang in there. It’ll be alright.”
“Thanks, Gabe. Talk to you later.”
Gabe hung up quickly and I put my phone back in its cradle. Looking at the calendar hanging on the wall, I flipped through it until I reached what I was looking for. Spring break for me was the first week of April. If Jensen’s classes ended in mid-May, his spring break would probably be earlier in March. I picked the phone up to call him and ask. It rang four times and Erik answered in his usual chipper voice.
“Hi, Erik, it’s Mia. Jensen there?”
“He went to the library to study. I guess I was too damn loud for him.” Erik laughed. “Sorry, a little sex humor.”
I laughed awkwardly with him, but inside I was cringing. I didn’t need to hear about Erik’s sex life or have the visual of Jensen trying to study while Erik was entertaining someone in his bed just a few feet away.
“Maybe you can help me with something,” I said. “When is your spring break?”
“Oh, um,” Erik paused. I imagined he was looking at a calendar stuck on the wall as I heard some paper flipping in the background. “Yeah, here it is. It’s the second week of April. Are you coming out?”
“I don’t know. Jensen said something about coming back to visit during spring break. I get the first week of April and now you tell me he gets the second. Hmmm … I wonder how that will work out?” Not knowing what else to talk about with Erik, the line became silent and I knew I was going to have to end our so-called conversation. “Just tell him I called, alright?”
“Sure thing. Later, girl.”
Knowing that Jensen’s spring break was far enough off to give him more than enough time to chill out, I felt better. Now all I had to do was figure out how the hell I was going to tell him about the baby and what happened that night with Nate.
6. Alicia, Sidelined
Since joining the drill team the year before, Alicia had traveled quite often with them as they put on shows that usually sold out. The first show of this year was at the end of February, and Alicia secured me a spot by getting me a free ticket claiming that I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way than to drag Krissa along with me. However, having bought her own ticket weeks ago, she didn’t really see it as being “dragged.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never gone to a drill team show before,” Krissa said. “I love watching the stuff they do and talked Ryan into taking me to all of the in-town shows last year. Man,” she said as we sat in the bleachers and watched them warm up, “I wish I was more flexible.” Secretly, she’d always wanted to try out, but a fear of failure had kept her from doing it.
“It’s not really my thing, I guess.” I popped a piece of gum into my mouth. Uniforms and going to practice morning and afternoons weren’t my style.
