The Road Trip

Chapter 10: The Past Uncovered

I woke up to something hard and in front of me was the hard-rock chest of the guy that allowed me to hug him like there was no tomorrow. And then I remembered that it rained hard last night and we were inside the tent for glamping. I looked up and he was already awake smiling at me. 

"Good morning," he said lazily. He brushed the strand of my hair and placed it behind my ear. 

I just nodded and I was mortified to even try to imagine how bad I looked right now. Hair was all over the place but he didn't seem to mind it. He kept on looking at me and then I felt a blush coming out. 

"I hope to wake up like this everyday....don't you?"

"I...am not so sure about that. I haven't really given it a thought for some time." 

His forehead creased a bit and his smile was replaced by a frown. I knew what he was thinking. Was I even considering of even ending up with someone? Of course I was... in the distant future. Just not now. Forever was technically something that fairy tales brought up that I believe to be a complete and total farce. 

"It's not what you think. It's just that I'm so not into relationships this time." 

"Why? Can you enlighten me about that?"

I eased a little from him and started to play with my hands. This was the topic that I didn't want to discuss at the moment. There was a need for me to escape this situation. 

"I know that I am moving too fast here but I just want to know how he broke everything."

"I don't want to talk about it, Travis..."

"Try... Let me in. Let me understand you."

I looked at him and he was pleading me to do something that was really hard. Yes it was indeed hard for me to reopen the wounds that I spent years of healing. But then something tells me that I need to let some things go. That it was time to give other people the chance to understand me. 

"He and I were inseparable. We met in high school, best friends actually. He told me that he started to have feelings for me in senior year and he made a move when we were in the first year of college. I was shocked but then I felt something for him too. I loved him and I said 'yes' when he asked me to be his girlfriend. But then college life changed him. He drank, went out with his friends a lot and never bothered asking me out. Half-way through the relationship, I felt that there was something wrong; that he-"

"was cheating on you," he finished for me. I nodded and he made me continue my story. 

"So one day, at the school fair for freshmen, I decided to make a visit to his dormitory. I knocked on the door but no one answered so I opened the door and boom... he was there in bed with another girl. Naked, drunk and wasn't even sober enough to talk to me. The next day, he dumped me in front of everyone else in the campus. He humiliated me in every way possible. He told me that he never liked me and that he did that because he just wanted to have fun and that he just wanted to be a popular guy in school, dating the geek."

Then I felt tears coming down my cheeks. I didn't realize that I was crying. Going back to that day has never been easy for me. Mom and Dad have tried sending me to therapists. I've gone through a lot of trauma since that happened to me. It got to a point where I never wanted to go to school again. The least that the school could do was to offer me a program where I can study just at home and complete the freshman year still with honors. 

"Listen to me," he placed both of his hands on my face. "He wasn't deserving of you. He never knew what value you had. The girl that I see now is worth everything that I worked hard for and I hope that this girl would give me chance on telling her how beautiful she is. He's a loser, Jackie. I would never do that to you."

Those were the words that I never expected to hear from him. He just made me turn a complete 360 degrees. Should I give him a chance? My head is in a blur. Then I remembered that I managed to bring some piece of drawing paper and a charcoal pencil. I bit my lip but this moment was too good to pass. He gave me a skeptical look but there was mischievous grin on his face. 

"What?"

 "Can I draw you?"

"Of course. Where do you want me?"

I stood up and tied my hair hastily in a messy ponytail. I took his hand and pulled him up and brought him by the door of the lighthouse. And so I started to draw the man who could just possibly change the way on how I look at life.