"Well, I don't know what to tell you. I guess you should buy condoms next time you're screwing someone you don't care about."
I started to walk away, but he caught me by the elbow again. "Wait a minute."
"Why should I?" I asked.
He paused for a second, looking at me with those eyes that made the ice start to melt, so I pulled away again, forcing my eyes away from his.
"Can't we work something out?" he asked. "We can still be friends, can't we?"
"Hell no," I said.
"So, what, I just lose you altogether? I don't even get to see you now?"
"You didn't lose me, Derek, you threw me away."
With that, I turned and walked away from him, finding a seat in the far corner of the cafeteria all by myself.
The next few days weren't much better.
Initially, I had thrown myself back into school, and that was keeping me busy enough to keep me from any thoughts of Derek. But it seemed I c
ould never be busy enough to forget him because I still noticed every single time I would feel his eyes on me, whenever he would walk by me and steal a glance at me, or worse, when he would be walking near enough to Kayla for it to look like they were together.
Kayla noticed too. It brought me a small measure of satisfaction that when she would notice Derek looking over at me, she would shoot me a dirty look and cling to him. It was pretty pathetic, honestly. Why would she want him if she had to make him be with her?
I think Kayla expected Derek to be the way he had been with her when he wanted to make me jealous, so his apparent lingering interest in me made her pretty mad. Not to mention the fact that he wasn't even discreet. It wasn't that he kept voicing his interest in me, because he didn't say anything else to me after that; it was just easy to see. It was visible in the way he looked at me, the way he would look up when I would walk into a room, or get a little more alert when he would hear my voice. Kayla could yammer on for a half hour and he would just nod with a faraway expression. All I had to do was clear my throat and he would take notice.
Boy did that piss Kayla off.
But what did she expect? He didn't want her, he was just being an idiot.
I did sink to toying with the idea of giving in and giving Derek a little bit of attention, and who knows where that might end up?
But as soon as the thought of cheating entered my mind, I would think of my mother. That was what she had done, and look how things ended up for her. Before I thought Derek was different from Mike, but since I realized he wasn't, I knew enough to know that having an affair with him would only cause me more suffering, just as it had my mother. I surely didn't see myself driving head on at Kayla, but I didn't want to experience anymore pain over him either.
I wouldn't make that mistake. My mom wanted to make Mike choose between them, but she couldn't seem to follow through. I would be stronger than that. If Derek wanted to make the wrong choice, he was just going to have to live with it. He would not have his cake and eat it too.
It was really tempting to skip lunch every day, because lunch seemed to be the worst. Maybe it was just seeing Kayla in her glory with Stephanie, giving me smug looks that seemed to say, "Look, I get first dibs on everything you want." Seeing Derek sitting at the end of his table looking sullen didn't help. For all that I wanted to hate him –told myself I did hate him—I didn't want him to be sad, and he just looked so sad. Even at a table full of people, he somehow looked lonely.
And I missed him. I despised myself for missing him, but I did. I longed to go sit by him and start talking about a book, just to get him to smile.
And I only had weak moments like that at lunch.
I started to blame low blood sugar.
It was a Friday when lunch finally turned around. I entered the cafeteria and did my quick overview to see who was already there. I didn't see Derek, and I saw Kayla up at the front of the line, so I figured I wouldn't make it to Stephanie first. I really didn't have much of an appetite, and looking at the choices didn't really make my mouth water. I decided I would just order some overcooked fries, that way I wouldn't have to be in the lunchroom for very long, and maybe I could skip out and go to the library to do homework.
Suddenly I sensed a presence behind me, so I turned around and saw Derek standing there again.
I sighed and turned back around, wondering why he had to get in line behind me.
"Hi," he said casually.
"Hi," I replied tonelessly.
"Hungry?" he asked.
I turned on my heel to face him. "Why are you making small talk with me?" I asked, not playing his little game.