CHAPTER SEVEN #2
“I, um, need to talk to you.” He cleared his throat, and I looked up in surprise.
He sounded so serious. Was he ending things with me already?
We’d been seeing each other—well, mainly sleeping with each other—for a couple of months now.
I’d be devastated if he broke up with me. I put on a brave smile, anyway.
“What is it?” I asked, trying not to sound as if I was freaking out on the inside.
He leaned forward, tented his fingers, leaned back, and finally settled on something in between. He couldn’t seem to get comfortable.
“I like you,” he blurted, and my eyes widened.
Scott was a bit socially awkward at times.
He was brilliant. At the end of this year, he’d graduate with a degree in biology and had already been accepted into dental school at the University of Michigan.
It was considered the best program in the nation, and I was proud of him for getting in.
He’d explained his social reticence and awkwardness to me soon after we’d gotten together.
I’d simply said that maybe that was his trade-off for being so smart.
Now, as he looked at me with those intense brown eyes, I barely noticed the awkwardness. “I like you, too,” I smiled.
“No. That’s not how I meant to say it.” He pushed a hand through his hair, frustrated. “What I mean is that I want to be with you Blair. It sounds juvenile, but I want you to be my girlfriend.” He reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
A little thrill went through me at his words, but I couldn’t help but hear Carrie’s voice in the back of my mind. She’d cautioned me against falling too hard, too quickly. She’d insisted that I should be dating around and really experiencing college life before choosing someone to settle down with.
I pushed those thoughts aside. “I’d like that.”
He let out a breath, as if he’d been very nervous about my answer. “I want us to be exclusive,” he said. “I don’t want to see other people, and I’d like it if you did the same.”
A cold feeling washed over me. Had he still been seeing other women the past couple of months? I’d just assumed we’d already been exclusive. “I haven’t dated anyone else since the night we met,” I admitted.
He looked startled. “You haven’t?”
I shook my head, my feeling of unease growing stronger. “Have you?”
“No. No, of course not.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and I saw his cheeks flush slightly.
I frowned. “If you have been, you need to tell me now. If I find out a few months from now that you were actually fucking two or three other women in addition to me, I won’t stay with you.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I was furious with myself when my eyes filled with tears.
He sighed. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t understand that you thought we were exclusive. I have been seeing a couple of other women.”
It hit me like a punch to the gut. “Oh.”
This conversation had started off great but was spiraling fast.
He stood up and came over to me, sensing he was losing me. “Blair. I’m sorry. I really am. The truth is that I tried being with those other women, but you were all I could think about when I was with them.”
“Did you sleep with them?” My voice quavered.
He hesitated. “Yes.”
A suspicion hit me. “Was one of them the blonde I saw you with at the party where we met?”
“Yes. Er… she and I have seen each other off and on for the past three years.”
Ouch. That hurt a hell of a lot. “I… wouldn’t have been okay with that. Did you know that? Did you purposely not tell me?”
His face had gone totally pale. “No. Of course not! I would never hurt you on purpose. And I ended it with her for good last week.”
Last week. I’d slept with him several times last week. And he’d been with her, too.
I stood up. “I can’t do this.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.
“Wait,” he said desperately. “We weren’t exclusive! You can’t hold me to something that we hadn’t even talked about…”
I cut him off by holding up a hand. “I understand what you’re saying.
I’m not stupid. I understand college is a time to explore and all of that.
But with how often we were together, I can’t even imagine when you were fitting the other women in.
” I shook my head. “But that’s not the point.
The point is that I thought we were something we weren’t. And I think you should’ve told me.”
He looked after me helplessly. “I guess this is the first time our age difference is affecting us. You’re na?ve if you think college relationships work the same as those you have in high school.
You have to have the exclusive talk if you really don’t want the person you’re dating to see other people. ”
“Thanks for the lesson. That really helps,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll see you around, Scott.”
“Blair! Don’t do this. I want to be exclusive now. I want you to be with me.”
“I thought we were exclusive then. To find out we weren’t is… awful. Maybe I was na?ve. But I won’t be ever again.” I paused, holding the door open. “I guess I should thank you for showing me the ropes.” Then I turned and walked down the stairs of his townhome.
He’d driven me there, but it wasn’t that far of a walk back to my dorm. I could do it. Plus, it gave me time to think, be alone, and cry without my friends being any the wiser.
“Blair,” he called, and I turned to see him standing on the stoop of his place. “Is that it? We’re just done?”
I didn’t fully turn around. I just said, “Yeah. We’re done,” over my shoulder.