Don't Hate the Player...Hate the Game (28 page)

I tried not letting my gaze hone in on where she’d
touched her chest. We were interrupted by one of the frat boys
stumbling over to our table. “Babe, that was seriously awesome.
We’ve got a party coming up on Saturday night. Would you wanna come
and you know…perform?”

Maddie flushed the color of her pink tank top. “Um,
no thanks,” she quickly replied.

“Whatever.” He hesitated for a second. “Well, could I
get your number?”

“No!” Maddie blurted.

“Okay,” the guy replied before slinking back to his
table in defeat.

I winked at her. “Charming college guys—my, my aren’t
we Miss Popular tonight?”

She giggled nervously. “You’re never to tell anybody
about this, you swear?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can do that. It might be too
tempting.”

“Noah,” she protested, playfully swatting my arm.
With my leg almost asleep, I shifted her weight over to my other
leg. That caused her to lurch forward, and her lips were inches
from mine. We both froze, staring into each other’s eyes. When she
licked her lips, I groaned. “Maddie…” I murmured as I started
inching closer and closer to claim her delicious mouth.

Suddenly, she jerked her head back and scrambled out
of my lap. She bolted so fast from the table I barely had time to
call her name. I dug my wallet out of my pocket and threw some
bills on the table as she scurried out the coffeehouse door.

Wait, what the hell did I do? Her eyes and body
language told me she wanted the same thing I did. Just as I reached
the door, I skidded to a stop. I knew why she’d bolted. Someone on
the stage started singing The Pet Shop Boys version of
You Were
Always on My Mind
, and I knew with absolute certainty.

Maddie was once and for all the one.

***

The stifling May heat hit me when I got
outside. I scanned the sidewalk for her. “Maddie!” I shouted. I
hurried back in the direction of the movie theater where we’d
parked. I found her slumped over on the hood of my Jeep. Her body
rose and fell harshly with her sobs.

“Maddie,” I said. Tentatively, I reached my hand out
and touched her shoulder. Before I knew what was happening, she had
wrapped her arms around me. “Shh, don’t cry,” I murmured into her
hair. My arms tightened around her, pressing her against me. She
felt like absolute and total heaven, and I never wanted to let her
go. But in a way, I wanted to hold on as long as I could since
things were about to change between us when I told her about the
ring.

“It…was…our…song,” she replied, in between sobs.

I fought the urge to say, “
Yeah, I kinda knew
that
.” But if I did, then I’d reveal what a major ass I was for
not telling her about the ring.

“It was?”

“Um hmm,” she whimpered.

“Whose song was it?” I questioned, wanting to hear
her at least vocalize it.

“Mine and Jake’s,” she replied in a whisper. I closed
my eyes as my emotions rocketed through me, causing me to
shudder.

Maddie pulled away from me and wiped her eyes. “Jake
sent it to me one day after we’d been working on poets who wrote
about Courtly Love. You know, how they couldn’t have the person, so
they had to tell them how they felt in words, rather than
actions.”

I fought an exasperated snort. Jesus, Jake was even
deeper than I’d ever fathomed. Here I was thinking he’d just heard
a jam, liked the song, and decided to charm her by making it
theirs. Oh no, he’d searched out a song and related it to
literature—an even more surefire way to melt Maddie.

God, what a player!

But then the more I thought about it, it almost
seemed like a way of keeping her guessing. He could keep her at
arm’s length, but at the same time appear as a hopeless romantic.
It caused the blood to boil in my head, and if the asshole hadn’t
been dead, I would’ve killed him myself for doing that to her. Once
again, it was like my best friend was a total stranger to me.

As if she were reading my thoughts, Maddie shook her
head. “Yeah, but what’s a song right? It’s about being with the
person totally and completely, not just being on their mind.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

She smiled ruefully at me. “I mean, I don’t think he
ever really thought of me in that way. Sometimes the way he would
talk to me or look at me made me think it, and then sometimes late
at night when we’d be talking, he’d say things like how much he
cared about me—oh and he did kiss me once.”

I felt like I was in a club and the music had
screeched to a halt. “He what?”

She nodded as a red flush entered her cheeks. “Yeah,
it was right before he left on Spring Break. He came by my house. I
told him to be careful and have fun—just not too much fun,” Maddie
said with a smile. “Then when he got ready to go, he turned back to
me and he—he kissed me. I didn’t question him about it—he didn’t
mention it the entire time he was gone until that last day.”

“What did he say?” I questioned, softly.

“First, he said he’d bought me something that he
wanted to give me. He said he’d had it for a month or so, but the
right time hadn’t ever come up. Then he said he’d been thinking
about our kiss. And that there were things he wanted to tell me.
But he got another call and had to go.” She looked up at me with
tears brimming in her eyes. “And then he was gone.”

Tell her now, you asshat
! I drew in a deep
breath, but Maddie brought her hand to my chest. “It’s okay, Noah.
I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I mean, whatever it was that
I felt for Jake or what we had together—it’s in the past. So, let’s
talk about something else, okay?”

What could I say?
No, wait a minute, I need to
tell you that Jake didn’t wanna just kiss you again, but he wanted
to marry you
. But I didn’t. The words just wouldn’t come, so I
merely nodded my head and opened the door of the Jeep for her.

I drove home feeling like an absolute tool.

***

The next week flew by in a whirlwind of graduation
activities. We didn’t have school—we were officially finished.
GPA’s and class standings were tallied, and I wasn’t too surprised
to find that Maddie was going to be the Valedictorian. Mom was
thrilled that I’d managed to graduate with honors, but I was
thrilled I was graduating period.

We spent the mornings marching in and out of the “god
dome”, the mega-church in town where all the county high schools
held their graduation ceremonies. We’d nicknamed it “the god dome”
because it was roughly the size of the Georgia Dome. The Senior
Advisors, Mrs. Clarke and Mr. Duncan, religiously timed us and made
sure everything was going to come under an hour.

Maddie effortlessly gave her speech. And for one so
shy, her voice echoed throughout the “god dome” flawlessly. I only
hoped she could keep her nerve throughout the ceremony. Of course,
there was one part she did falter on. That was when she mentioned
Jake. Several of us had gotten permission to wear black armbands in
memory of him. His parents planned on attending, and his mom was
going to accept his diploma during a special part of the
service.

In the end, the whole ceremony was a blur, and before
I knew it, I was tossing my cap up with the rest of my
classmates.

I waded through the crowd towards my family. Showing
a unified front, my mother and father were sitting together. My
family took up about three rows considering both Alex and I and one
of my other cousins, Brittany, were graduating.

“Congratulations, Noah!” Mom shouted over the roar of
the crowd. She hugged me to her and kissed me on the cheek.

My dad was grinning behind her. “Way to go, son,” he
said, sounding like the proud—rather than prodigal father.

“Thanks,” I said.

Across the aisle, I saw Josh. He beamed and waved at
me. I waved back.

“Ready to go eat?” Mom asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

At first, Mom had wanted to rent out a room at the
country club to celebrate my graduation and my cousins. But Grammy
wouldn’t hear of it. She’d been up since four am cooking, and we
were all going to pile into her house like we did at Thanksgiving
and Christmas.

We partied long into the afternoon. My uncles had
even allowed my dad to come, and I was glad to see him and my uncle
Mark talking like old times over steaming plates of fried chicken,
green beans, corn, and okra. It was a surreal feeling seeing him
sitting there. He was still working overtime to make things right
between us. Although I knew he wanted to desperately, he hadn’t
pushed me about bringing my step-mother or introducing me to my
half-sisters who were seven and five. That was just going to have
to wait. I was quite ready to go there yet.

At four, Alex found me through the crowd. “It’s about
time we left.”

I nodded as that familiar feeling of grief fueled
dread entered the pit of my stomach. “Hey Mom, we’re going to the
cemetery now.”

“Okay, sweetie.”

Mrs. Nelson had asked for all of Jake’s friends to
meet at Rolling Gardens around four. She was going to have Jake’s
cap and gown along with his diploma sealed into the mausoleum, and
she wanted his friends to be there for it.

So Alex and I climbed into my Jeep and headed down
the road. I couldn’t help shaking my head at how it wasn’t supposed
to be like this. It should’ve been Alex and me riding along the
highway with an inebriated post-graduation Jake. The corners of my
lips curved up as I thought about how stoked he would’ve been to be
finished with school. I could almost picture him standing up in the
back, hanging precariously out the side of the Jeep and screaming
at passing traffic like an idiot. But instead, the backseat was
ominously quiet.

FUCK! It shouldn’t have to be this way. We should
have had the radio blaring, been singing along at the top of our
lungs, with our futures burning bright ahead of us. Instead, only
Alex and I had futures left. Once again, the burning ache raged its
way through my chest, causing me to rub my heart over my shirt. “I
think I’d rather be shot than have to go do this,” I admitted.

“Yeah man, I know what you mean. I don’t know why
there has to be so much shit in life you have to do when you don’t
want to,” he mused.

“I guess the closer we get to being adults, the more
we’ll have to do it,” I said.

“Maybe you’re right. It sure is a pisser though. I
mean, your whole life you want to be older. Old enough to drive, to
smoke, to drink, to graduate, and to go to college. Then when you
finally make it, you find out it all kinda sucks!”

I laughed. “You got that right.”

There were already several cars at the cemetery. I
wasn’t surprised to see Maddie and Pastor Dan. We’d talked about
going, and I knew Pastor Dan was going to say a prayer.

Mrs. Nelson smiled as she saw Alex and me walking up.
Jason and Jonathan stood behind her, but Mr. Nelson wasn’t with
her. Figured, that the Asshole wouldn’t come. He’d probably thought
it as stupid idea.

Once we were all gathered around the vault, Mrs.
Nelson cleared her throat. “I just want to thank you guys for
taking time out of your parties and celebrations to come be with
us. I won’t have this opportunity again—I will imagine Jake
graduating from college and how his life would have turned out, but
it won’t be tangible. This diploma and robe are real. I especially
want to thank Maddie for all the time she spent tutoring Jake. I
don’t know if he would have made it without her. I want to thank
all of you for being such wonderful friends to Jake. He loved you
all, and we love you too.” As she began to choke up, she nodded to
Pastor Dan.

He smiled sadly and stepped forward. “If you’ll all
bow your heads please,” he said. We obediently lowered our heads
and waited for his voice to echo through the cemetery. After he
finished, a chorus of “Amen’s” rang through the cemetery. Several
of the girls including Maddie wiped the tears from their eyes.
Jason and Jonathan took the cap and gown and diploma and gently
eased them in beside Jake’s urn. Then a cemetery worker in a blue
jumpsuit stepped forward. His nametag read ‘Earl’. He wiped his
face on a red bandana and then started sealing the vault back
up.