The next day, Javier drives me to Robby's lawyer's office to drop off the papers that Dex had given me. He assures me that he'll look at it and see what he can do with the information, and that's all that the meeting is. My next stop of the day is to meet Amber for lunch so that we can talk about things.
I'm kind of terrified of what she's going to say, especially after the disaster that was last night. I hope that she'll believe me when I promise her over and over again that nothing is going on with Dex.
"Amber is a really cool person," Javier assures me as he's driving me to the restaurant that we agreed to meet at earlier this morning. "You shouldn't be too worried."
"I'm still nervous," I mumble. "I hate that she's mad at me, even though I know that I deserve it."
"You two will figure it out," He promises me. "It's not like you were the one that he was cheating with."
"Yeah," I'm not as convinced as he is. Amber was with Dex for a really long time so this breakup has obviously hurt her a lot. The fact that he was cheating on her is a really big deal, and it's a big deal that it took me so long to tell her. I know that he's just trying to minimize it so that I won't be so nervous about talking to Amber, but I'm still so nervous.
"Well, even if it doesn't go well, I can come over when it's done and make you feel better," He says it with a slight smile curving at his lips that makes me blush and look out the side window of the car to avoid eye contact.
He pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant and I start to unbuckle my seatbelt. "Thank you for driving me everywhere today. I'll text you later, let you know how it goes."
Javier looks a little guilty as I'm getting out of the car and I think that he can tell that his subtle sex joke made me uncomfortable. It's not his fault that I'm so easily uncomfortable, but he probably should have picked up on that by now. Then again, we've seen each other naked twice now, so it's kind of ridiculous of me to get embarrassed about such a small and subtle joke.
Either way, I just get out of the car and hook my bag over my shoulder. Javier answers me by saying, "Yeah, no problem. Good luck."
I offer him the smallest of smiles before I turn and go into the restaurant. I'm gripping my bag pretty hard because I'm so afraid of Amber not forgiving me. I've really enjoyed being her friend this summer and it would suck if I lose that just because I made a really bad decision to side with Dex instead of her. Hopefully, she'll remember that I did eventually tell her the truth. Although, I did it in a horrible and insensitive way and I only did it to spite Dex.
This is going to be a disaster, but I still have to at least try.
I see Amber fidgeting with her red hair over at a small table by the window of the restaurant. I sit down across from her and she looks up at me.
"Hey," She says quietly.
I put my bag down and swallow the lump in my throat. "Hey. Thanks for meeting with me."
"I feel like we have a lot to talk about," she says. "I would like to start with what happened last night, because that was one big mess."
"Yeah, it really was," I agree with her. "But there's nothing going on with me and Dex. I don't know what he was doing last night, but I would never do that."
"Right. You wouldn't sleep with my boyfriend, you'd just let other girls do it behind my back," She mutters bitterly. The waitress breaks some of the tension by coming around to take our drink order but once she's gone, I'm faced with the burden of having to respond to that.
"I know that I messed up," I promise her. "But I didn't know what to do. I was confused, and for some reason, I just really wanted him to like me. Not in that way. Well... a little bit in that way, honestly, but I would have never done anything with him. Anyway, I'm really sorry that I didn't tell you. I should have, I know that. I don't really have any good reason as to why I kept this secret from you for so long."
"Did he ever tell you why?" She looks up at me, her eyes looking watery and sad, which surprises me because I was expecting her to be angry this entire time. "Why he was sleeping with her?"
"Yes, but I don't think that it would help you to know what he said," I warn her slowly.
"No, I want to know why," She insists. "I can't ask him because I can't stand hearing his voice or seeing his stupid face. I just want to know why he would do this to me. To us."
"He told me that he didn't want to hurt you," I begin, really not wanting to tell her the truth but I've lied to her enough that it's the least that I can do now is to just tell her what I know, if that's what she wants. "But he fell in love with Gabby when he got arrested. She worked for his lawyer or something. He said that he didn't love you anymore, even before he met Gabby. But he really cares about you, which is why he didn't want to hurt you."
"He thought that stringing me along after falling out of love with me wouldn't hurt?" She looks at me incredulously, waiting for me to have more answers. "Doesn't he realize how fucking pathetic that makes me feel?"
"That's what I told him when he said that to me," I promise her quickly. "I tried to convince him to tell you. Or maybe at least just break up with you so that you wouldn't have to get hurt. I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but that's what he told me."
"Why was he telling you anything? How did you even find out about Gabby?" Her eyes are getting even more watery now as she sniffles and grabs a napkin from the table to wipe her nose.
"They were hooking up in the park when I was walking Zero. It was before the carnival, before I got to know you. And then he asked me not to say anything to you."
She hides her eyes behind the palm of her hand. "This is such a disaster. He really just told me that he was going to meet his cousin. I can't believe that I was so stupid."
"You weren't stupid," I assure her. "I think he's very charming, obviously, and you were charmed. People always want to believe the best in the people that they love. Until they blatantly give you a reason to doubt them, and even sometimes, that isn't enough."
"What do you mean?"
"Robby hasn't given me a reason to believe in him for so long, and yet, I'm still fighting for him. I see the best in him, because I love him. And you loved Dex, so you saw the best in him and ignored any signs that you may have seen. You can't blame yourself for what happened, Amber. It's not your fault."
"But it was so obvious," She mutters. "I keep thinking back at how obvious it really was. I shouldn't have needed you to tell me that he was cheating. I should have figured it out on my own. I really thought that he was one of the good ones."
"I'm sorry," I say quietly, because I don't know what else to say. Even after I saw him cheating on Amber, I had thought that he was one of the good ones for some reason, but I'm too ashamed to admit that.
"It's not your fault that it happened," She sniffles and drops her hand from her face. "And I know that it's not mine either. It's Dex. I was a good girlfriend, I was always honest with him and I treated him right. I thought that we were so good together, because I thought that he treated me right too. I... I thought that he loved me."
"Well, I guess now, you can find somebody that really does love you," I suggest, trying to help her find the silver lining of this situation. "Dex is all talk, no substance. You deserve somebody that really means what he says."
"Yeah. I'll be fine, I know. In the grand scheme of things, I'll get over it. It just sucks. It really fucking sucks," She mumbles to herself. "I don't know, I just always saw us growing old together. Getting a house, marriage, kids, pets, all of it. I could see it so clearly, I was so sure that we had our entire future ahead of us."
I don't know what to say anymore. I think that I've apologized and I've given her all of the motivational affirmations that I can think of to say. I just look down at the table and wait for her to continue, because I'm at such a loss.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to dump all of this on you. I just wanted to have lunch with you to get some answers and just let you know that from my side, we're good. I'm not holding any of this against you," Amber says. The waitress comes back with our orders and I start to relax a bit more in my seat.
"It's okay," I say slowly. "I still feel really bad about staying quiet for too long."
"We should talk about you," She randomly decides as she begins to violently stab at her salad. "Something is going on between you and Javier now?"
"Um," I feel weird talking about this, since her relationship just went up in flames. It feels wrong to start talking about mine, that just started and feels like it's going perfectly so far. "Yeah, we're kind of together now."
"That's great. Javi's a good guy, I'm sure that you two will be happy," She assures me. "I should have known that something was going on when you pretended to go down on him when you were drunk. You really like him?"
"Yeah, I really like him. He's sweet," I say slowly and then I take a bite of my sandwich to put a pause on the conversation. "But we don't have to talk about this right now."
"No, I want to. Really, I promise that I won't be bitter just because of what's happened with Dex. I'm happy for you, and for Javi. Have you put labels on your relationship? How far have you guys gone? I want to know everything."
"We just last night decided to consider ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend," I explain to her. I'm not sure why she wants to know this, but she's insisting on it and I don't know what else to do, so I just go with it. "And we've slept together, twice now."
"Really?"
"Yeah. The first time was kind of weird because afterward, we had dinner with his mom, but it was good. He's really understanding with me being new to all of this too," I continue. "So yeah, we're having a good time, I guess. It's still really new."
"And how are things with Robby?" She asks me. "Any updates in the trial?"
"Dex gave me some files yesterday. Um, because Gabby is working for the prosecution. I gave them to the lawyer, so we'll see if it helps."
"Dex was trying to help?" She looks confused.
"Yeah, he gave up his relationship with Gabby to help me with my brother. I'm not entirely sure why. He was kind of hysterical though."
"Does he just fall in love with any girl that'll give him the time of day?" She mumbles irritatedly. "I don't mean anything against you, it's just he started cheating on me because he loved Gabby, and now he's giving up Gabby because he wants you? What the hell is wrong with that guy?"
"I don't know."
"He's really great, other than his terrible commitment issues, so if he's going to fall in love with every girl that wants to be with him, and drop the last girl like it's nothing, he's going to be sleeping with the entire fucking female population, and breaking all of our hearts."
"Yeah, he doesn't really have his shit together. We're just eighteen though, I don't think that any of us have our shit together. That doesn't give him the right to treat everybody like shit, I know that. He's not your problem anymore though, so you shouldn't worry about how long it's going to take for him to grow up."
"I know," She sighs, taking a big bite. "Fuck him and his heartless romanticism."
"Exactly. Fuck him," I agree with her.
"Honestly, I think that I'm just never going to date again. All of this mess. Or maybe I'll only date older guys, so that they probably have their shit together. I don't know. I should focus on college right now, that adjustment is going to be big enough without overanalyzing what went wrong in my relationship."
"You're really getting out of this place, that would be enough to keep me moving forward," I mutter and then take another bite of my meal.
"You could get out too, you know," She reminds me. "Go to school, or just find a life outside of this town."
"Not for me. Not right now anyway," I inform her slowly. "Can't leave my dad alone, and I don't even know where I'd go."
"Well, you could figure it out," Amber assures me.
I like the sound of that, of figuring out where I belong that isn't this town that has always made me feel like I was drowning. "Maybe I will figure it out. Someday."