This Time Around

1/23

A bottle of Goldschlager was placed upon the round table before me as I sulked with my arms folded over the table, cradling my head. I looked up to see that Derek had placed it there, along with a shot glass, just as Leslie entered, frowning. “Derek, I know that makes it all better for you, but I don’t think that’s what Alexis needs right now.”

She reached to take it away, but I snatched it out of her grasp. “No, this is just fine, thanks,” I said, ignoring the shot glass and going straight for the bottle, which was almost halfway full. Leslie sat down at the table in the small kitchen of their apartment, across from me, while Derek returned to whatever he’d been doing before I disrupted their routine. Lucky Leslie had no classes on Fridays, or I would have had to cope with my drama alone.

Leslie pulled the alcohol away from me after a moment. “The difference between men and women is that women know how to deal with and fix their problems. Men just drink till they forget,” she said gently. Then she sighed. “I tried to warn you he was on his way. He managed to get an earlier flight. Derek went to pick Luke up from the airport, and he knew you were staying at Matt’s, so he called me to ask for the address. I called you, but you didn’t pick up your phone, so I couldn’t let you know.”

Regretting now that I had ignored the call, I vowed never to ignore any phone calls again. “But Sidney was there too, at the same time. He never had to knock or anything, because she had a key. Do you think... I mean Luke and Sidney don’t know each other. Do they?”

She shrugged. “Probably not. Maybe they got to Matt’s house at the same time. I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“No,” I admitted. Discussing this was my way of putting off the discussion of what I was going to do about what had happened. “Luke won’t answer my calls. I’ve left him a hundred messages. I said sorry, and he didn’t say it was okay, because it really isn’t.”

Poking at my cell phone—kept close to me in case of the slight chance that Luke might call me back—she frowned. “Have you called Matt?”

“No!” I snapped. “Why would I do that? I didn’t cheat on him, because he knew I was with Luke.”

She just looked at me for a moment, and then down at the table. She’d looked troubled for days, but I was so caught up in my own problems that I hadn’t even considered hers. And here she was, letting it all go to make sure I was okay.

“Leslie, what about you? What’s up lately?” I asked. She looked at me questioningly. I lowered my voice. “Are you and Derek all right?”

Another shrug. Leslie shook her head. “Who knows? Pete’s been calling me. And Derek and I hardly talk anymore. We’re always out with our own friends, and we could be cheating on each other without the slightest suspicion that the other was doing it.”

Wait. Pete. Calling Leslie? He was supposed to be with Tessa. “Are you and Pete...doing stuff?” I asked, alarmed. The last time they were together, he’d really gotten to her, completely breaking her heart. I wasn’t so sure they were a match made in heaven.

Instead of a guilty or an appalled look, she just smiled. “Of course not. But neither are me and Derek lately, so it doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine. I mean, how many people actually end up together forever with their high school sweetheart? Oh, I’m sorry, Lexis,” she added when I looked down at the table, now reminded again of why I was there.

“I just can’t believe he walked in on that,” I muttered bitterly.

“Was it really that bad?” she asked sympathetically, holding the Goldschlager out of my reach when I made a grab for it.

Scowling at nothing in particular, I said, “Matt’s pants were halfway down and my shirt was on the floor. Of course it was that bad.”

“You need to figure this out now, Alexis.” Her firm voice made me look over at her. “You said you would stop playing these games, but you’re still doing it. I know you don’t realize it, but you are. You’re chasing after Luke, even though you know you’ve lost him forever. And you’re forgetting Matt, even though you know he’d never forget you. What do you expect? How many times are you going to apologize to Luke before you realize it’s pointless? Do you really even want Luke anymore?”

She hit the spot. Nailed it with stunning accuracy that left me speechless. I stared at the annulment papers on the table beside my cell phone, which I’d brought there with me. No, I didn’t want to be married. Just wanted to be with someone. I was independent, not invulnerable.

Once again, I reached for the bottle in her hand. She kept it away from me. “Alexis, Matt has loved you for three years. And you won’t give him a single chance.”

“How would you know if he loved me? He was with Sidney. For all anyone knows, this is an infatuation that’ll pass.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lexis,” she said with a little smile. Leslie brought her cell phone up onto the table, looking at something on the screen. “I was just texting Rena. She and Angie are with Matt and his family at a lunch place right now, just half an hour away. You wanna call a cab?”

---

The restaurant the taxi driver drove me to was a seafood place near the beach. The driver asked if I wanted him to wait for me, but I said no and paid him, staring absently at the restaurant. Matt was there. He was in there with his family. The thought made my insides twist uncomfortably.

To my surprise, a large group of people suddenly exited the building. Kasey stood out among them in her sleeveless bright red dress. It was surprisingly sunny for this time of the year, so she could wear it without freezing to death. Kim walked alongside Matt; her white dress, unlike Kasey’s, had three-quarter length sleeves and fit tightly all around her body and legs.

Gail laughed obnoxiously at something Bill said, touching his shoulder lightly. Angie and Rena spoke animatedly with Kasey, seemingly unaware of my presence. I was a few yards away from them, unnoticed, my eyes fixed on Matt. My mouth had gone dry and I didn’t know what to say to get his attention.

All of the women in the group were nicely dressed, looking beautiful and elegant. I had arrived at Leslie’s in yesterday’s dirty clothes, so I borrowed a simple pair of jeans, a plain black tank, and some sandals. Plain, and I hated to be.

Kim glanced back at the restaurant they were walking away from, looking nonchalantly back in front of herself after a moment. Then she did a double take, flipping around and looking at me, seeming to study my timid expression. She tapped Matt’s shoulder and pointed over in my direction.

The expression on his face was so surprised, I almost laughed, but instead just cracked a smile at him. He said something to Kim, who nodded and walked off with her family as Matt walked in my direction.

My throat seemed to be closing up. It wasn’t until then that I really started to think about what I was going to say, panicking with every step closer he came. And did it even matter, really? If he did love me—which I still wasn’t entirely sure of—would I even need to know what to say? Apparently.

“Hey,” Matt said when he reached me. That’s it. Just ‘hey.’

“Hi,” I choked out. A quiet moment passed before I could think of anything else to say. “Your family’s going back to New York today?”

He nodded. “Yeah. They wanted to take me and my friends out to lunch before their flight, but the guys say they’re snobs or something, so they refused to come. What are you doing here?”

Now the hard part. “I wanted to find you. Leslie told me that Rena said you guys were here.”

“Are you going back home today?” he asked blankly.

No, I thought. If I was, wouldn’t everything be so much easier for everyone? “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, my life is there. It’s just that...” I broke off. What if he didn’t want me anymore? For all I knew, he could have realized that he could do so much better than me. He could have Sidney. “It’s just that you’re here,” I said finally.

His eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “Your fiancé’s there.”

I stared at the ground. It had been so hard to banish Luke from my thoughts so that I could do this. I held up my left hand, which felt naked now without Luke’s ring. “It wasn’t working out too well. I think Luke and I were both stuck on different people.”

Matt looked at me skeptically. “Oh.”

“I think...I think he might have wanted someone like, I don’t know, maybe Lacy. He probably won’t end up with her, but... Well, who cares? He was stuck on someone else, whether he admits it or not.”

The first signs of a smirk began to appear on Matt’s face. “Who were you stuck on?”

I grinned suddenly. “Some guy.” He smiled back, and I just laughed a little. “I mailed the annulment papers to a lawyer in Washington. I really wasn’t ready to be married.”

He nodded. “I know. Neither was I.” I had to smile at this. “So what are you gonna do now?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Can we just sort of...start over? You know, forget all the crap and try to do it the right way this time around?”

“Yeah,” he said, moving closer to me. “That’d be good.”

Matt’s family was now standing by his parents’ car, watching us from a distance. He must have told them about the annulment and everything to explain my absence at lunch.

But even though I’d lost everything at this point—my baby, my self-deception, my job (which Patrick definitely would not be holding for me), my fiancé—it felt alright. Because sometimes, when you have nothing, and then you manage to get something amazing—like a boyfriend who loves you unfalteringly—it’s as good as having everything.

"It's all right, 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown." -Frou Frou

Reviews

Won't-wear-a-Halo: Haha, I know what you mean. I'm like that with Anne Rice books.

mischalovers: There!

SadHappyFace: Oy, I wish I'd written some part of it in Matt's point of view, but it's a little too late now.

Nevaeh: That would be sadly ironic, and I would have totally deserved the hate-mail if I ended it that way. Lol.

thisdarkenedheart: Was that long enough? It was longer than most!

xoxo1: Lol, I think it would be undeniably soap opera-ish if Luke and Sidney hooked up.

lovehurtz911: I was thinking about writing more on this story...but decided against it. The whole thing was about Matt and Alexis wanting to be together but not being able to, and now that it's wrapped up all nicely, there's nothing left to write about. But I'm writing a different story now, a vampire one, so I hope people like it!

You guys totally kicked ass this whole time! Thanks a billion for all your support; if you hadn't reassured me that it wasn't crap, I wouldn't have continued writing it and wouldn't have gotten all the practice and improvement! I'm sad to be done with Forget Me Not, but I'm working on something else that I hope is way better, just because I think vampires make the best characters.