Chapter Sixteen-
Since there was only so much I could do to try to help Derek control his life, I decided –with all the free time I still seemed to have—to continue getting my own together.
After a particularly bad day at work, I left Wendy's and went directly to the bookstore—my happy place. As soon as I got there the first thing I noticed was the "Now Hiring" sign they had up—and not as a barista, but an actual employee.
I asked the lady at the register about it and she said it was a part-time position but she didn't know much else. She gave me an application, which I wasted no time in filling out and giving back.
After applying for my dream job, I found myself wandering down the aisles, my fingers perusing the spines of the books as my thoughts drifted back to a nicer time in my life, a time when Derek and I were first "official," Kayla wasn't pregnant, and we were free to spend time together and play our own little game of hide-and-seek in the aisles.
I missed that simple time. As much as Derek told me that we would work through the complications, part of me didn't really believe him and the other part thought, "But what if I don't want to deal with the complications?"
It had been a given before; Derek screwed up so I would learn to deal.
But why? As my hand dropped to my side and I sighed, I wondered how many other almost-18-year-olds had to factor their emotionally elusive boyfriend's child support situation into their college plans. I had already spent some time picking out which classes I wanted to take in the fall semester after I graduated—did Derek? I didn't even know, I realized as I picked up a new romance novel with some easy, saccharine relationship.
I scoffed a little, making a face at the book even though it really hadn't done anything to offend me.
It was more fun to come to the bookstore with Derek, I thought. It didn't matter that he didn't read, that he would follow me around waiting for me to be done with that little twinkle in his playful blue eyes.
But now he had to work a million hours a week, and he didn't have time to come to bookstores with me or discuss future plans. Most guys could always be counted on to find time for sex, but just a couple nights before I had tried to lure Derek out with just such an idea, and to my surprise he told me he couldn't, that he had to help his dad with something. I stopped listening after that, a little bit offended. How could he not have time for a quickie? He was a man; that was one thing they were always reliable about.
Nobody said it would be easy, I reasoned, putting the book back into its place on the shelf and heading over to the book I had actually come to get, vowing not to think about my Derek drama anymore…at least until I was back in my car.
Just when I thought I finally had life under control, Fate saw fit to throw yet another wrench in the gears.
It occurred to me once or twice that maybe I was inappropriately placing too much of the blame for the situation on Kayla and not enough on Derek, but each time I shoved the thought to the back of my mind.
I had an interview at the bookstore later the very same week that I put in the application, and I was extremely excited. Landing an interview was the hard part, I figured, and once I got an interview I was –hopefully—as good as hired.
The manager who interviewed me was this radical looking woman named Susannah with really short brown and pink hair and really pretty brown eyes. She seemed intelligent to me, and she seemed to like me almost immediately. She was totally down-to-earth and the interview began as an interview and ended up in a discussion about how we coincidentally liked many of the same books and movies. She told me about a couple that I had never heard of and never read, so she jotted them down on a piece of paper for me.
At the end of our interview/discussion, when she said she would be making the calls in the next couple days, she stopped, smiled at me and said, "Why waste time on formalities? I'm going to call you."
Thrilled at landing my current dream job, I got in my car and drove straight to Derek's house. I knew he was off, and while I was on the way it crossed my mind to call and tell him I was going to come over, but I rejected the idea. We had talked earlier and he knew I had the interview, so if I called him on the way he would ask how it went and it would completely ruin the surprise.
I was giddy and excited as I turned onto Derek's street, already imagining throwing my arms around him and giving him a great big hug and kiss, so I wasn't really paying attention until I turned my turn signal on and started to cut the wheel into Derek's driveway.
Seeing Kayla's car already parked there, I sharply jerked the wheel straight and swerved back onto the road, frowning as I looked back to make sure I hadn't been hallucinating.
Nope.
Kayla's piece of shit little car was still in my boyfriend's driveway.
Lovely.
So instead of happily greeting my boyfriend at his door to tell him about my new job I could: A.) go to his house anyway and find out why the hell Kayla was there, or B.) go home.
I selected option B, and an hour later as I buried my problems in my new copy of Howl and Other Poems, Derek called me, and I let him go straight to voicemail.
When my phone alerted me of a new message, I felt a little snag of hope that when I checked it, I would find a message from Derek being completely honest with me, complaining about Kayla showing up unexpectedly at his house two seconds before I happened to drive by and him, naturally, kicking her out because he had to call his girlfriend, whom he loved.
Instead, I got: "Hey, it's Derek. I just got off work a little bit ago and …I thought I'd see if you wanted to hang out or something. Give me a call, okay? Later."
Wow, an endlessly disappointing message in which Kayla wasn't even mentioned, let alone complained about.
And it wasn't just his words, but his tone. His tone seemed normal, just like any casual conversation that we had on a day-to-day basis. If Kayla had shown up at his house for some reason, shouldn't there be some sign of distress?
It was what he didn't say that bothered me.