She ratcheted up the speed on the
treadmill yet again.
Now she was
unable to truly keep up with the speed of the belt, and her feet were slipping
now and then.
Her breath came in
giant heaving gasps.
Sweat was pouring down her face,
spattering the treadmill screen, and she watched the clock, which said she’d
been running for 28:17.
Run until thirty minutes is up, she told
herself.
At this speed, Raven didn’t feel like she
could even go another twenty seconds.
She was completely spent, and couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen to fuel
her body.
She was hot and dizzy and her heart was
racing.
But she pushed on, imagining Jake telling
Kurt how big a mistake he’d made in trusting Raven, and how glad Jake was to
have gotten rid of her.
Kurt would laugh and slap Jake’s
shoulder.
He would tell him that
there were plenty of fish in the sea, and Jake would nod his head in agreement.
Tears were now mingling in with the sweat
pouring down her face, but the clock hit thirty minutes, and she dropped the
speed down to a walking pace.
For the next couple of minutes, she had
to hold the bar on the machine as her legs could barely even support her
anymore.
She’d managed to completely tire out her
body, but the plan hadn’t really worked.
Even in her near catatonic state, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jake
Novak and wondering where he was and what he was doing.
***
Later that day, Skylar called and told
Raven that she was scheduled for her first chemotherapy appointment at Boston
Memorial Hospital in Boston.
“I’ll be there,” Raven told her.
“What time?”
“I’m supposed to go to the Cancer Center
tomorrow at ten in the morning.
You
really don’t have to come, Raven.”
“Skylar,” Raven told her, “I’m going to
be there with you every single step of the way.
And I don’t want to hear another word
about it.”
There was a long pause.
“I’ll see you there in the morning.”
Raven smiled and said goodbye.
After she got off the phone with Skylar,
Raven grabbed a yogurt from the refrigerator and began eating it.
The phone rang again, and she assumed
Skylar was calling her back to tell Raven something she’d forgotten to mention.
But when she picked up the cell, Raven
noticed the number wasn’t one she recognized.
A sharp thrill of fear ran through her
belly as she debated what to do.
Finally, she answered, her heart racing.
“Hello?” she asked, her voice
hesitant.
Hoping against hope, she
wondered if somehow Jake might be calling her from a new phone number.
“Hey, is this Raven?” the familiar voice
said, and instantly she knew it wasn’t Jake.
But the voice was so familiar because
she’d heard it on dozens and dozens of phone calls in her past.
That same voice had once made her smile
with joy, but now it only turned her stomach.
Caleb had somehow gotten her phone
number.
She felt physically ill
upon hearing his voice.
“I don’t
have anything to say to you, Caleb,” she told him.
“Please, don’t hang up,” he said, his
voice anxious.
“Please, Raven.”
She gripped the phone tightly.
“Why shouldn’t I hang up?”
“I know I deserve it.
You have every right to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Caleb.
I just want you to leave me alone.”
“Listen, Raven.
I think you and I need to talk about
everything that happened.”
“Why?
What is there to say?”
“A lot,” Caleb replied.
“Please.
We never spoke after everything came out
back in high school.
You never gave
me a chance.”
Raven laughed.
“When I brought Jake Novak to the bar,
you and Andre said all the same lies and then somehow that old video gets leaked
again.
Nothing ever changes with
you, Caleb.
There’s no reason to
give you another chance.”
“I’m not friends with Andre anymore.”
“I don’t really care.”
“Raven, I am so sorry.
I was such a coward and there’s not a
day that goes by, I don’t regret what happened back then.”
“Well I don’t think about it anymore, and
I definitely don’t waste my time thinking about you,” she said, and it came out
meaner than she intended.
There was a long silence.
“I understand,” he said softly.
Raven hated the fact that she was now
feeling guilty for hurting Caleb, after the way he’d treated her.
But she was also starting to wonder if
maybe she could find it in her heart to forgive him.
After all, it was only hurting her to be
so angry about things that had happened years ago.
“I don’t want to hold a grudge,” Raven
said, relaxing a little bit.
“But
I’m not sure what else there is to say.
What
happened,
happened.
It’s over and done with, and I’m moving
on in my life.”
“Maybe if we had a chance to speak in
person,” Caleb said, “I could say a few things and then let it all go.”
“In person?” she said.
“I’m actually not far from you,” Caleb
said.
“You’re in Boston, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“Your mother gave me your cell number and
said you lived in Boston now.”
Raven sighed and closed her eyes.
She didn’t see how anything good could
come from seeing Caleb in person, but then again, she didn’t have much to lose
either.
“Okay,” she said, giving in
to his persistence.
“Maybe we could
meet for coffee sometime.”
“How about tonight?
In like twenty minutes?”
She was just sitting there,
confused.
“Caleb, are you driving
into Boston right now?”
“As we speak,” he laughed.
“I’m not far.
Tell me your address and I’ll swing by.”
“I’m not giving you my address,” she
said.
“But I’ll meet you at
Starbucks.”
“Perfect.”
There was one on the corner, not five
minutes from the towers, so she told him to meet her there in twenty minutes,
and then got off the phone.
Afterwards, she sat and stared, as if in
a daze.
After all of this time, and
all the pain he’d caused her, Caleb wanted forgiveness, wanted to talk and get
closure.
Did she even want to forgive him for his
past mistakes?
Maybe not, maybe it was easier to
keep hating
him.
He’d sounded so nice, so Caleb-like on the cell phone, his voice light
and friendly.
It made her remember
that once upon a time he had seemed to be kind and generous and loving.
She’d believed in his feelings for her,
she’d actually thought he loved her.
And then he’d showed that video to Andre
and allowed Andre to say all of those terrible lies about her.
Caleb had never stood up and defended
her,
he’d silently stood by while Andre tore apart her
reputation.
Finally, Raven snapped out of her daze
and went to the bathroom to freshen up before meeting him at Starbucks.
She had nothing to prove, but small part
of her still wanted to show Caleb that she’d done just fine despite his
abandoning her when she’d needed him most.
She’d gotten over him and thrived, despite it all.
By the time she was heading out to
Starbucks, Raven was feeling almost chipper.
Maybe this could be the start of a new
beginning for her.
She had a
wonderful apartment in Boston (thanks to Jake) and plenty of money (thanks
again to Jake).
For the first time in a long time, she
could sit back and take a breath without worrying how she was going to survive.
There was nothing bad happening, really.
Well,
other than the fact that you can’t stop thinking about Jake Novak and wishing you
were still with him
.
But that needed to be put to rest,
also.
Raven walked into the coffee
shop with her head held high, determined to be proud and confident.
All of those men had tried to bring her
down and they’d all failed.
She was still strong and she was still
standing.
Raven ordered an iced coffee with sugar
free vanilla syrup and whole milk.
A few minutes later she was sitting with her cold drink and sipping out
of the straw, watching as people came in and out of Starbucks and trying to
decide what their lives might be like.
Some people looked stoic, others
stressed, still others were laughing and joking or completely caught up in
texting on their phones.
It was
enjoyable to just sit and observe, to feel safe and warm and relaxed enough to
make up stories about them.
Raven realized that ever since the
scandal four years ago, she’d been completely consumed with trying to prove her
worth, trying to show everyone that she wasn’t a loser, a slut, a liar or a
whore.
She’d also been trying to make ends meet
in an expensive area of Massachusetts, with no high school or college degree,
and it had taken a toll on her.
Now she finally had enough space and
freedom to take stock of things.
You
owe all of this newfound freedom to Jake.
But Raven didn’t want to think about
Jake—it was all still too raw and painful.
Instead, she sipped her drink and
refocused on the people around her, smiling a little as she watched the lives
playing out in real time, feeling somehow removed and apart, yet also
comfortingly included in the human race.
When Caleb first walked through the door,
Raven was surprised to find that she was glad to see him.
He was wearing a light blue sweater,
jeans, and Converse sneakers.
He
had those thick, black-rimmed glasses on that used to be considered nerdy but
were now the height of hipster fashion.
His hair was mussed, but he did look handsome, there was no denying it.
Caleb’s
just a boy compared to Jake.
It was true, there was still something
young and immature in the way he carried himself, the way he smiled bashfully
when they finally made eye contact.
“Hey,” Caleb said.
He had a
messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hey,” she replied.
“You made it.”
“I did,” he said, slipping off his bag
and hanging it over the chair across from her.
“I’m going to grab myself a coffee.
You want anything?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You sure?
You’re not hungry?”
“No,” she said again, trying to be
assertive in her decision, even as she realized that her stomach did feel kind
of empty.
But she wasn’t willing to
let Caleb buy her something—she didn’t want to feel like he’d done her
any favors.
Caleb shrugged, and strolled over to the
line at the register, whistling a faint tune as he went.
Raven didn’t want to watch Caleb as he
ordered at the register.
Looking at
him for too long gave her a strange feeling of déjà vu, recalling times when
they’d gone to the mall together or for a slice of pizza back in high
school.
It was all too strange, like she’d jumped
into a time machine and accidentally travelled back to when she was seventeen.
He returned to the table not long after,
and dropped a package of chocolate graham crackers on the table in front of
her.
She looked at him as he sat
down opposite her, grinning, holding an iced coffee as if to show her how alike
they still were.
“I told you I wasn’t hungry,” she said,
but couldn’t help the fact that she was glad he’d bought it for her.
She opened the plastic wrapper and slid
out a cookie, biting into it and tasting sweet dark chocolate.
“Yeah, but I remembered how much you love
chocolate.”