Cindi Madsen - Cinderella Screwed Me Over

When we got back to our building, I punched the elevator button for my floor. The ride took an eternity, and it felt like the walls were closing in on me. Everything was awkward and strained, the ease of the past few weeks with Jake effectively destroyed.

The doors opened and Jake started to step off the elevator with me.

“You don’t have to walk me to my door,” I said.

Jake put his hand on my back, guiding me down the hall anyway. Part of me wondered if he’d heard me at all tonight. Did he get that everything needed to change? That if I didn’t draw a line, we’d both regret it later?

The walk down the hall took three times as long as it usually did. Finally, miracle of all miracles, we reached my door. Knowing looking at Jake was dangerous, I focused on my hands, twisting the bracelet on my wrist. “Thanks again for coming with me tonight. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

Jake exhaled, and I could hear the frustration in it. “Is that your way of telling me not to call you?”

I continued spinning the bracelet, round and round. “No. But I’m going to be busy with this job, and I should be helping Steph with the wedding planning more.”

Jake put his hand on my wrist, making it impossible to keep spinning my bracelet. “So if I asked you to hang out with me on Sunday morning?”

Slipping would be so easy, and I couldn’t let myself do it. I kept my eyes glued to his long fingers wrapped around my wrist. “I’d say it’s not a good idea.”

Jake put his other hand under my chin, gently tipping it up until I had no choice but to look at him. He pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. “I’ll see you around, Darby.”

I watched him walk away. Waiting around until I found his fatal flaw was taking too long, and I just couldn’t afford to get more attached. Already, I’d been relying on him too much. I couldn’t deal with everything going down at work and a relationship that was getting too serious. When the relationship failed, I’d still need my job. It’s what got me through every time my heart had been broken, and I couldn’t screw it up.

I felt each one of the threads that had started to form between us snap, a dozen pricks of pain in my heart. They stung, but at least I knew I could survive them.

Good-bye, Jake.

Next time I decided to have a semi-long-term relationship, I was going to go for someone who wasn’t so hard to resist.

There were two relationships I tried not to think about—unless it was to remind myself of the pain love could bring. So whenever I started thinking I was an idiot for letting Jake go, I opened up those memories and let the residual heartache wash over me. I even went so far as to break out my case studies.

I stared at Robert’s name until the letters bled together. Before I’d met him, I’d decided all guys were immature idiots. But he was different. I remember thinking it was a miracle that I’d met a mature, amazing, and funny guy.

I thought he might just be the one.

Robin Hood Case Study: Robert/Robin Hood

My Age: 25

I was at The Bullpen Bar with Steph, Nadine, and a few other friends. After giving up on a waiter to come by, I’d left my friends at the table to go get a drink. I was waiting by the packed bar when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, you,” a male voice said. “Come look at this.”

Not bothering to glance at him, I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t respond to, ‘hey you.’ Get someone else to look at it.”

“What’s your name?”

I turned back to tell the guy to get lost. But his green eyes, strong jaw, and wavy, blond hair made me rethink blowing him off. It took a few seconds to figure out why he was looking at me, eyebrows raised, like he was waiting for something. Oh, right. He asked me a question.

“Darby. My name’s Darby.”

“Hi, Darby. I’m Robert. Now, will you come look at this for me? It’s pretty important, and my friend and I need an objective eye.” He glanced at the money in my hand. “Afterward, I’ll buy you a drink.”

I eyed him for a moment. What’s the worst that could happen?

“Okay,” I said, backing away from the bar. “Show me what’s so important.”

Robert grabbed my hand and led me across the room. “Don’t you dare touch it, Joe,” he said as we approached a pudgy guy. “I swear if you cheated—”

“I don’t need to cheat,” Joe said. “Because I already won.”

“Darby’s going to judge it.” Robert stopped in front of the dartboard hanging on the wall.

I pointed at it. “This? This is what’s so important?”

“Look, we’ve got fifty bucks on this. Joe thinks—”

“Hey, no biasing her,” Joe said.

“Okay, add up the points of the red darts and the blue darts. I won’t even tell you whose is whose. Then tell us the score.”

The board was older, beat-up. Unlike some of the ones I’d seen, it didn’t have metallic dividers. A few darts had hit right on the line, making it hard to decide what score to go with. Specifically, there was one blue dart between the six-point white and ten-point black. I leaned in and studied it.

Looks more six than ten to me.

“Red’s the winner,” I said.

“No way!” Joe yelled.

Robert shouted, “Suck it!” while pumping his fists in the air. (I know I said mature, and this isn’t exactly a mature moment, but I’ll get to that part later.) He put his arm around me. “Come on, Darby. Let’s get you that drink.”

When I got back to my table a few minutes later, Steph leaned in and whispered, “Who was that guy?”

“His name’s Robert. He needed me to judge a game of darts.”

“Did he get your number?”

I shook my head. “It’s not like he handpicked me. I just happened to be the first person he could find.”

Stephanie looked over my head at Robert and Joe. “He’s cute. You should go get his number.”

“Don’t stare.” I raised my voice to talk to the rest of the girls. “What did I miss?”

The girls caught me up on their conversation, which had mostly been about Nadine’s recently exed-boyfriend.

Stephanie nudged me. “He’s coming over here.”

Robert walked up to our table, his eyes on me. One corner of his mouth lifted. “Hey, you. Up for a game of darts?”

“You forgot my name already?” I asked.

The other side of his mouth got in on the smile. “No. But since you made it clear how much you like to be called, ‘hey you,’ I decided to go with that.” He put his hand on the back of my chair. “Come on. Joe’s lost three in a row, so I’ll send him over to talk to your friends.”

“Make sure you show our girl a good time.” Steph pushed me, hard enough I almost fell out of my chair.

I shot her a dirty look, then followed Robert back to the dartboard. He handed me the three red darts. “You can go first.”

I’d never played darts before, but I figured it couldn’t be that difficult. I aimed and tossed one. It barely landed in the bottom of the board, giving me all of three points. “Wow, it’s harder than it looks.”

“Here, I’ll show you how to throw it.” Robert stepped behind me.

“You’re not going to do that whole put-your-arms-around-me-because-you-think-I’m-too-stupid-to-get-it-from-a-simple-explanation thing, are you?”

Robert dropped his arms. “Not anymore.”

I aimed higher, tossed my second dart, and watched it land to the right of the bull’s-eye, giving me thirteen points. “I think I got it.”

After several games—all of which I’d lost, even with the pity points he gave me—Robert held up his last dart. “Okay, how about if I hit the bull’s-eye, you go out with me this weekend.”

I hadn’t flirted in a while, but the guy was cute, and I figured I didn’t really have much to lose. “Are you that sure you can hit it? Or are your feelings for me so mediocre you’d risk it all on a game of darts?”

A cocky smile spread across his face. “I figure if I actually hit the bull’s-eye you’ll go out with me. But if I don’t, you’ll be so flattered that I’ve worked so hard to win you over, you’ll at least give me your number.”

“That’s twisting the game so that no matter what happens, you still win.” I leaned toward him, close enough our bodies were almost touching. “It’s cheating.”

“I happen to be a lawyer, so I know how to bend the rules to my advantage.”

“Ooh, a professional liar. Now I can’t go out with you, even if you do hit the bull’s-eye. You see, I don’t date liars. It’s a good way to get burned.”

Robert put his arm around me and locked his hand on my hip. He looked at the board and lined up his shot. With a quick toss, the dart flew through the air and hit the red center.

“I guess I’ll just have to take my prize now.” Before I could ask what he meant, he used the arm he had around me to pull me closer and planted a kiss on my lips. My knees went weak and I found myself parting my lips and kissing him deeper, while the rest of the world spun out of focus.

Two days later, we had our first official date.

Robert was a public defender. He was the “if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you” kind of lawyer. Which meant he was overworked, underpaid, and took cases home with him.

He was confident and smart, and I loved how passionate he was about his job. Sometimes that meant he got swamped and we couldn’t do much. But he still made an effort to meet up for quick lunches or dinners. If we couldn’t swing getting together, we’d talk over the phone, often into the early hours of the morning.

Even with our hectic schedules, we managed to make things work. He told me how smart and beautiful he thought I was, he remembered the things I liked and didn’t like, and when I surprised him at work when he couldn’t get away, he thanked me for being so understanding and showed me off to his associates.

For five months, everything was great.

Then we had our first fight.

Robert had come over to my place for dinner. We’d both had stressful weeks, but we tried to at least spend one night together, no matter how exhausted we were.

As we ate, he filled me in on how his case had gone. “So we were able to get him off since the police officer didn’t follow procedure,” he finished.

“But he was guilty?” I asked. Earlier in the conversation, Robert had implied as much.

“Oh, for sure.”

“It doesn’t seem right. I admire you for keeping innocent people out of jail. But the guilty people should be in jail, not released for stupid reasons.”

“Honey, this is how the law works. If the police don’t follow procedure, innocent people would be convicted. So if they screw up, sometimes guilty people get off, too. Don’t worry, though, it was just minor stuff. A little larceny.”

“And he’ll probably do it again. Don’t you feel a bit responsible?”

“I feel responsible for making sure the law is enforced,” Robert said, his words clipped. “If the police have hard evidence, we plea and the guy does time. If not, he gets off.”

I frowned. “I’m not sure I could do it. I’d want to make sure he got what he deserved.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m the lawyer, and you’re a decorator.”

The condescending way he’d said decorator irritated me. “You make my job sound so unimportant. I’m not saying I’m saving lives, but turning someone’s home into a place he or she loves makes a difference.”

“I doubt many of them even realize how lucky they are to have nice things to put in their big houses. Several of my clients don’t have anything but a bare bed in a tiny room.”

“I get that, but think of how sad it would be if there was no color in the world. No beauty. No art.”

Robert took a sip of his water. “It’d be depressing, but it’s not like you need it to survive or anything.”

Anger bubbled up in me. “You know what else doesn’t help survival? Criminals being on the loose because their lawyers put them back on the streets!”

Robert threw up his hands and scooted away from the table. “All right, I guess I’ll go back to my drab apartment and figure out a way to keep more criminals on the street. You have fun in your fancy, well-decorated place.”

I didn’t even try to stop him from going.

Over the next few days, I missed Robert like crazy. I missed talking to him. Missed the way he always made me laugh. I thought over and over again, who am I to judge who goes free and why.

I realized I was in love with him.