I spend the majority of my week recalling my embarrassing encounter with Eli. The more I think about it, the more I beat myself up. He didn't even try to contact me these last few days and I can't say I expected him to. I can't imagine how much that hurt him. Dominic, still extremely unaware of the true catalyst behind the 'break up,' keeps insisting that I'm not a bad person and that it's Eli's loss.
The only person I figured I could tell without feeling extreme bouts of embarrassment is Kat. She listens to me with open ears and nods occasionally, not making any grimaces or faces of discomfort when I tell her of my mistakes. When I finish, she exhales for a brief second before shrugging.
"I mean honestly, it was bound to end," she confesses. "You like Dominic. Eli likes you. You want a relationship with Dominic. Eli wants a relationship with you. It would've eventually come to light that you guys had different goals."
"Except it wouldn't have been so...damaging." At least he wouldn't have ended up with a broken heart.
"Maybe not, but what can you do?" she replies. "It's happened to me before if that's any consolidation."
"How'd it end?" Hopefully this makes me feel a little better.
"He apologized and I cried," she explains casually. I cringe when I realize she was the Eli of the situation. "But I'm fine now, obviously."
"Yeah..." Didn't make me feel better.
"Have you tried visiting him?" she inquires.
"No!" I answer immediately. "He was so angry. If he wanted to talk to me, he'd try to. I don't think he even wants to have a conversation with me, never mind see me."
"Did you tell Dominic?" she queries and I bite my lip.
"Partially..." I couldn't exactly tell him all of it, now could I?
"What does that mean?" She looks genuinely curious as if the answer isn't quite obvious.
"How would I even explain that, Kat? 'Oh yeah, while Eli was pleasuring me, I moaned your name.' Yeah, no, I'd rather not," I retort and she nods.
"Yeah, I didn't think that one through, huh?" she mumbles. "Well what did you tell him?"
"Just that Eli broke things off with me," I confess. "I said that Eli wanted a relationship but I didn't so he called everything off. I also briefly mentioned how we were being...intimate when the very heated conversation occurred."
"So now he thinks Eli is an ass?" Kat catches on and I nod slowly.
"Well, this is a perfect situation." My phone dings with a notification and I quickly glance at the screen. I readjust my vision when I see Eli's name pop up. I quickly grab my phone and read the message aloud.
"'Can we talk?'" I recite.
Kat, whose eyes are locked on her food, laughs. "We are talking."
"No, Eli just texted me that." Her head snaps up and she looks at my phone.
"Well?" she hisses and I stare at her in confusion.
"I-I don't know. Yes?" Am I ready to talk to him?
"Of course yes, you idiot. Give me the phone!" she demands and I hand it to her. She quickly types a reply. A few seconds pass and her acrylic nails are tapping on the screen. This happens a few more times before she delivers my phone back to me.
My eyes scan the screen before I gape at her. "Today? You made plans for today?"
"Yeah because if it was for any other day, you'd have time to talk to Dominic and ruin any chance you have at making amends!"
"What do I say to him?" I skim the chat. Starbucks at 8 o'clock.
"I think it's more of a listening situation. Let him talk to you and respond accordingly," she advises. "And be honest with him. It'll hurt a lot less if you are."
I exhale slowly and nod. I can do this. I can totally do this.
+++
Update: I totally cannot do this. I approach the Starbucks, which is only a street away from my dorm, and see Eli sitting at a table with his back facing me. I freeze up for a second before muttering quiet words of encouragement to myself. 'All you did was lead him on and then moan your best friends name during a very hot hookup. No biggie. He's more hurt than you.'
By the time I manage to talk myself out of it, I'm already inside the toasty coffee shop and the bell above the door has given me away. His eyes meet mine and he waits for me to approach him. I do, slowly but surely, and when I reach him, I mechanically take a seat. "Hello," I start dryly.
"Hey," he says curtly. I note that his coat is not off and I assume he plans on making this little meet up short but definitely not sweet. This is not a 'let's fix things' meeting but an 'I need closure' meeting. He doesn't beat around the bush at all and jumps straight into things. "Do you like me? At all?"
I stumble over my words as I stare at him. I exhale quietly as I remind myself that honesty truly is the best policy. "I...I don't know," I confess. I like aspects of him, like kissing him and having his hands on me. But I also know that he's not Dominic and as long as Dominic is around, there's no competition. As much as I hate to say it, I like Dominic more than I'll ever like anyone else and that doesn't reflect on anyone but me.
He exhales and narrows his eyes slightly. "Look, Nova, I like you. I really do. But I feel like you only see me as a friend with benefits. I've said it before, I'm a relationship kind of person. You lead me to believe that you were, too," he waits for me to interject, but I don't. "This whole time, I was under the impression that you liked me but that clearly isn't the case. I was also under the impression that you and Dominic were just friends-," this is where I interject.
"We are just friends," I insist bluntly. "I've never done anything with Dominic." The least I can do is assure him that I'm not out here hooking up with both of them simultaneously.
He looks at me and slowly, a look of realization settles across his features. His eyes drop to his hands, as do mine, and he makes a noise of confirmation. "Ah...so how long have you liked him?" he mumbles in a bitter tone.
I bite my top lip as I stare at the table. "A little over two years," I answer.
"Okay," he responds and I wait for him to continue but he doesn't.
"I'm sorry," I admit. "He convinced me that I should try dating and I figured it'd help me get over him. I didn't expect anything like this to happen. I'm sorry."
"Yeah..." he mumbles and I roll my hands in my lap.
"If it makes you feel any better, he doesn't like me back," I continue to babble and he shrugs.
"Not really. That actually makes it worse; you know what it feels like to want someone and not have those feelings reciprocated, but you still did it to me," he explains and I cringe at the bluntness of his statement. "No, actually, what you did was worse. You led me on and then played me."
"I'm really sorry," I apologize again, unsure of what else to say. My eyes start watering but I repress the urge to cry. I'm not the one that should be sad right now. I don't have the right to be sad.
"You know...you're kind of a piece of shit, Nova," he finishes. I stare at him with watering eyes as he stands up. "I guess I'll see you around."
I sit at the table with a sour taste in my mouth, knowing that everything he said is true. Though I didn't realize I was leading him on until it was a bit too late, there isn't any other way to explain it. I should've stopped as soon as I realized it and I should've sat down and explained things to him. I owed him that, even if I know deep down that the after effects would probably be similar. I just wish things hadn't played out the way they had. Now he hates me and I also hate myself.
When I do finally get up, it seems as if days have passed but it was barely a half hour. I start in the direction of my dorm but my feet take me to Dominic's, who I find shooting around at the basketball court outside their building. West is with him, dribbling the ball dramatically. I hate how he's my best friend in addition to the person I have feelings for. It's hard to separate sometimes whether I'm going to him for comfort as a friend or more. But at the end of the day, he's the only person I really have around here.
"You okay?" he asks when I stop at the end of the court. He lets the ball he was bouncing slowly roll into the bushes. I quickly shake my head.
"I'll catch up with you later, okay?" Dominic says to West, who takes the hint, nods at me, and heads to the other side of the basketball court.
"I talked to Eli," I blurt as soon as West starts loudly dribbling again.
"What happened?" Dominic questions.
"I hurt him really bad. He hates me, as he should. I'm a piece of shit, just like he said," I tell Dominic, who stares at me with a frown.
"You're not a piece of shit. You're just confused about your feelings..." he trails.
"I lead him on. I was well aware that I didn't have any romantic feelings towards him. You knew it, too. I knew he wanted a relationship but I still went through with what I was doing."
"Well when you say it like that..." he trails and I let out a muffled whimper. "People make mistakes, okay? You're not perfect. You're still learning. You can't beat yourself up because his feelings got hurt. I understand why he said that and why he feels that way but it doesn't fully reflect on you as a person. Sure, it was a stupid decision you made but it doesn't define you. Just, you know, learn from it and don't do something like that again."
I stare at him and repress the urge to scream. I want to tell him- of course I want to tell him. But I know better. I open and close my mouth a few times, which gains an attentive look from him. "I have to go talk to Kat," I blurt finally.
I start in the direction of my dorm, listening to Dominic call after me. "Did I say something wrong?" he asks.
"No, just girl stuff!" I respond over my shoulder as I hightail it to my dorm. I rush to the lounge, which is empty. I quickly dial Kat's number and she answers almost immediately.
"Hey, how'd it go?" she asks. I feel grateful that we're close enough that I can dump things like this on her. I go over the very short encounter with her and she ooh and aah's along with me, summing the entire discussion up with one word: "Jeez."
"Yeah, tell me about it," I mumble as I slump tiredly on the couch. "I talked to Dominic about it."
"And?"
"How much could I really tell him? He basically thinks I just used Eli; he doesn't know why the entire thing was called off," I reply.
"Yeah, you're right," she mumbles and the conversation goes silent for a few seconds. "I know we've talked about this before but do you ever think about telling Dominic that you like him?"
For the first time today, I laugh...a lot. "For some reason, I don't think that'd go too well."
"Why not?" she questions.
Embarrassingly, I inform her about the awkward, small rejection that took place in his dorm the other night when I tried to kiss him. "So yeah, I don't think he likes me," I respond in a disappointed tone.
"Or maybe he thought that would've been a bad move on his part?" she asks. "Kissing you after you just got rejected? He probably didn't want to seem like he was using you during a bad patch."
"I don't know. I just wish he'd stop flirting with me so much. That'd definitely help clear things up, not to mention help me move on," I grumble.
"You know you love it," she cackles and I chuckle quietly. I do but I don't love what it does to me.