Chapter 3

Ricky is on break at work and decides to turn on his phone and read his messages.  All three are from Abbey, somehow he is not surprised.  He replies “Why do you want to talk to me? You said enough by your actions last night. I am not going to deal with this back and forth s**t. Make up your f*****g mind and then get back to me.” He feels like he was a bit harsh, but she did share a special moment with him and then go to bed with her ex, he is allowed to be pissed off.  He realizes that obviously he is going to have to get Shaun out of his way, for good.  He gets a quick response from Abbey.

“I am so confused, what do you mean back and forth? Make up my mind? I thought I had? Oh, and by the way I landed safely thanks for asking. Thanks for breaking my heart right before my trip. I appreciate it.”

Ricky feels bad but he is still so angry with her, so he doesn’t respond. He gets up and goes back to work and tries to put this whole situation out of his mind.  He decides to text Matt.  “Hey dude, want to grab some beers tonight? I get off at nine”

“Yeah sure, I have plenty here still from the party so just come over whenever”

“Okay, sounds like a plan. See ya then!”

Ricky stays busy at work, luckily on the weekends Burger King is pretty much nonstop business. Any down time he has he thinks about Abbey. How did I break her heart? She is the w***e that went to bed with her ex! I have loved her and picked up the pieces for years and I am sick of it! His mind goes back and forth from anger, to sadness. I already miss her. She was really drunk maybe she just passed out like Matt said. Ricky decides to talk to Matt tonight, sober. Maybe Matt will have some insight on the situation. Ricky doesn’t think she would go back to Shaun, not after the moment they almost shared in the pool. She has to know he can make her happier than Shaun or anyone else can.

 

Nine o’clock came really quick for Ricky; he runs home to change out of his fried food scented clothes and heads to Matt’s house hoping to get there early enough to be able to talk to him without other people around. He pulls into Matt’s driveway and heads through the back gate to the yard. Matt is sitting there on a lounge chair on the deck of the pool. “Hey man, what’s up? You look shot”

“Yeah, work was crazy busy today. And I am kind of still upset about the other night”

“What about it? I thought you had fun?”

“I did have fun, until Abbey let Shaun take her to bed”

“I hate to break it to you dude, but Abbey didn’t let anyone do anything. She literally passed out walking by and fell onto his lap.”

“She had to know what she was doing.”

“I honestly don’t know. And I don’t know what happened once they got to the bedroom. So don’t bother asking. I am already in the middle of this triangle you got going on. All I do know is she obviously likes you, and I am pretty sure she is not into Shaun anymore, even if he is still crazy about her.” Matt has a problem with talking too much. He is always in the middle of situations, and doesn’t know when to shut up.

“How do you know she likes me and that she is over Shaun?  I hope you are right. I didn’t know how much I loved her until I had her in my arms…  I do feel bad though, she has been texting me and I have been ignoring her. She needs to figure out who she wants to be with.”

Matt, realizing he said too much, tries to mend the situation some. “I honestly don’t know, dude. Abbey is hard to read, like I said before the party, I think you need to just give her the summer. Don’t ignore her though, as tough as she may seem, not having you to talk to, she will crumble.”

“Well I don’t know if I can just go back to normal, whatever you may think we really don’t know what happened. They were up there for a while before Shaun came back. Something had to happen. So whether or not she meant to go to him, she still hooked up with him and betrayed me”

“Dude, she didn’t betray s**t, she is single and so are you. You need to realize that she is not yours to have yet.” As Matt finishes his sentence, Shaun walks in followed by a few more people, at the sight of Shaun, Ricky stands up and walks over to the cooler.

Shaun walks over to the cooler to grab a beer, hoping to get a word in with Ricky. “Hey man, how’s it going?”

“Are you really asking me how I am doing? How do you think I’m doing? You went to bed with the girl I am in love with, and now you are asking how I am doing?”

“Actually I didn’t go to bed with her, I brought her to bed. There is a difference. And you are in love with her? I have always known that. You were so pathetically in love with her, and she picked me every time. You might as well give up, lover boy. When she gets back from Florida we will be together again and you will be back in the friend zone where you belong!” Despite knowing she wanted Ricky the other night, Shaun still can’t help taking a few digs at Ricky. If he gets Ricky out of the way, maybe Abbey will take him back.

“F**k you. You better be smart and stay the F**K away from me.  I honestly can’t believe she went back to you, but I swear to God if you hurt Abbey again I will hunt you down and kill you.”  Ricky takes a beer and walks over to Matt.

Shaun stays behind, and leans up against the fridge. He didn’t realize what he got himself into. I just keep making it worse. He chugs a beer, and grabs another as he makes his way back to the group and gets into the conversation and tries to figure out how he is going to fix the s**t he did.

They start to play an intense game of poker, Ricky and Shaun are both good at playing and hours later they are the only two left. Ricky has an ace and a ten, and Shaun has two jacks. After the flop of one ace, one seven and a jack, they both end up all in. The river brings a ten and the final card is another ace.  Ricky jumps up. “F**k yeah! See the right man wins in the end, every time”

“You got lucky, a*****e” Shaun gets up and makes his way to the cooler, after going head to head with Ricky and losing, Shaun gets a slight sense of reality and needs another drink.

“That was intense, good game man, alright I am out, bye guys” Matt’s friend Brian leaves along with two other guys.

Ricky collects his money and stands up, “Hey Matt thanks for earlier, and I’ll see you around”

With everyone else gone, Shaun stays behind to talk to Matt. “Yo dude, I need to talk”

“What’s up?”

“So you remember, the other night when I took Abbey to bed?”

“Yeah when you guys got back together or whatever right?”

“Well, we hooked up, yeah…”

“….and?”

“She… she thought I was Ricky… it was a dick move, I just miss her so much and the moment took control of me and... I couldn’t say no.”

“Wow, dude... I figured something was off! She thought you were Ricky? That makes sense. You fucked up bad because Abbey has been trying to call Ricky and he isn’t giving her the time of day, and she is heartbroken. He thinks you two got back together and I am sure she thinks it was Ricky and doesn’t understand why he’s not talking to her!”

“I know! I made it even worse tonight by taunting him. I fucked up bad, and I don’t know how to fix it”

“You have meddled enough, just stay out of it. You were drunk too, so if it comes out you can deny you knew she said that… just leave it alone. F**k man I am so sick of being in the middle. Maybe you should just come clean and suffer the consequences. You probably will lose her forever. What you did was s****y, drunk or not”

“F**k that. I’m not coming clean.”

“Why not? It is bound to come out sooner or later; they have been best friends for years. You don’t think they will talk about what happened? Besides, Ricky saw you two go to bed, and heard straight from her mouth that she doesn’t love you anymore and would never be with you again.”

“F**k, well maybe they will stay fighting and she will forget it happened. I can’t believe she remembered. She was so fucked up; she didn’t even open her eyes. I thought I was in the clear”

“Shaun, just shut the f**k up dude. Go home. If you don’t tell her I will. She deserves to know what she went to bed with.” Shaun sits there and looks at Matt, waiting for him to say something else… then eventually stands up and walks out, feeling even worse than before.

Shaun gets into his brand new Acura Rsx and turns the radio up loud. He sits there for a few minutes and tries to get his head together to drive. “I really lost her this time… once she finds out the truth she will never speak to me again, and she will be with that prick Ricky.” Shaun puts his car in gear and speeds down the street, running the stop sign at the end of Matt’s block.  Shaun makes a sharp turn down a windy road and ends up rolling off of the road into the woods, and ends up smashing into trees, out of view of the road.

 

Abbey is more than heartbroken but being 2,000 miles away from both guys gives her a positive attitude for the situation. Not having to see them on a daily basis will really help her get over both of them, since obviously she needs to.  Abbey runs to her grandmother at the terminal, “Grandma!!! Oh how I have missed you!”       

“I miss you too dear, you hungry?”

“Starved!”

“Around the clock it is” Around the clock has become a tradition. As soon as she arrives, her Grandmother takes them there and they feast on a huge southern style breakfast filled with grits, sausage biscuits and gravy and hash browns. She puts her bags in the trunk, and sits down in the front seat and checks her phone to see if Ricky redeemed himself from the a*****e message he sent her before. To her surprise he didn’t sent anything and a tear rolled down her cheek. Ricky told her he loved her all of the time, she thought it was a different kind of love they shared that night, and was so excited to finally be with him, but obviously he got what he wanted and that’s it. “F**k him!”

“Excuse me dear?”

“Oh, did I say that out loud? I am sorry, Grandma. I am just dealing with boy issues and my mind was going in a million different directions and I just. I am sorry”

“Oh, don’t you worry about it, you know dear, I am always here if you need to vent about these boys you speak about, I may be old but I was young once”

“heh, thanks Grandma”

               

Abbey and her grandmother arrive at her house; Abbey brings her stuff into her bedroom and starts unpacking. She is trying anything to get her mind off of Ricky and how heartbroken she is. She doesn’t understand what he wants her to decide, nor does she understand why he is so upset at her. We made love and he doesn’t want me? I guess he got what he wanted from me. What an a*****e!

 Abbey angrily throws her clothes in her drawers and walks out into the living room.  Abbey’s Grandmother, Anne has a beautiful home. Everything has a place; she even has all of her DVD’s in order with a book to sign them out if you borrow one to watch. Her house has beautiful dome ceiling with stucco paint and two bathrooms both with Jacuzzi tubs. She lives in one of those senior citizen communities, so technically Abbey is not supposed to be there, but they have been coming there since they were in single digits and no one ever said anything.

Abbey sits down and watches Jeopardy with her Grandmother, and enjoys a relaxing drama free evening. Anne makes her way to bed shortly after Jeopardy, leaving Abbey to fend for herself. Abbey puts in a favorite childhood movie, “The Secret Garden” and lets it bring her back to those childhood summers with Brad. Life was so much simpler back then.

After the movie, Abbey grabs her phone and decides to text Ricky.

“Hey… I know you told me to leave you alone but I just wanted to tell you I love you and I miss you tons. If it will make things better can we just forget about the other night?”

Ricky had just gotten home from Matt’s party and was lying in bed when he got the message. With the events of the night, he decided to take Matt’s advice and to stop ignoring her. It is not like it was easy for Ricky to not speak to her; after all she is always on his mind.  “Hey babe, I don’t want you to leave me alone and I sure as hell don’t want to forget about the other night. What’s done is done and that’s that. I love you, and you know that. And I will always be here for you if you need anything or if he f***s up again. I just can’t promise that it will be the same.” He tried to make it nicer than before, but picturing her walking away in Shaun’s arms made him feel sick.

Abbey gets so excited when her phone vibrates and she sees it is from Ricky. Her smile soon fades when she reads what he wrote. What the f**k is he talking about? She thinks to herself, and she decides to call him, maybe they can talk it through easier on the phone. “Hey, so um what are you talking about?”

“Matt’s party, you know what I am talking about”

“Do I? Ricky, what happened at the party was special and if you don’t think so then maybe this whole thing was a mistake”

“I don’t know how it would be special for me. And maybe it was a mistake, just like us trying to be friends again. Look, Abs just enjoy your summer away from us all and maybe have your head on straight when you get back okay?” Ricky doesn’t give her a chance to respond, before he hangs up.

Abbey throws her phone across the room and hugs her bear and immediately starts crying. How could it not be special for him? Obviously I don’t mean anything to him. Abbey cries herself to sleep, and hopes to wake up for it all to have been a bad dream.