Magan Vernon - The Only One

“I’m so awesome!” I giggled and moved my hips to the music. “Do you know how awesome I am?”

“You’re awesome!” Valerie laughed and almost knocked some girl over as she hip bumped me and then swung out.

“Where the hell is my man to see how awesome I am?” I slurred.

“I don’t know! Call him! Tell him that you want to use him as a pole.”

“I will!” I pulled out my phone to dial his number and that’s when I saw a familiar blur of long, brown hair out of the corner of my eye.

It was Missy. The girl that had given John a lap dance. She was saddling up on some guy, but I couldn’t see his face. Then she moved over, her hips flowing like liquid. There was another guy next to him and she turned toward him, grinding her hips against his. His was a face that I recognized. She was grinding on John.

I gasped and tears pulled at my eyes. “That asshole!”

Some fraternity function he had. He just wanted some alone time with Missy. All those nights we shared. No wonder he didn’t care if he was sleeping with me or not. Not when he had some slut on the side.

“What?” Valerie blinked and turned toward the direction I was looking.

“Let’s get out of here.” I turned to leave, the tears stinging my eyes and the alcohol still burning my throat, but Valerie grabbed me and pulled me back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She had to practically yell in my ear.

“I’m not going to watch John get it on with some random girl.”

She shook her head and then forced me to look in his direction. “He’s not even interested in her.”

“What are you talking about?” I watched Missy run her fingers down his biceps.

“Watch and see. He doesn’t even care that the girl is practically dry humping him.”

John kept on his conversation with Brad, oblivious to Missy. Then her hands move lower to his jeans. That was when he finally looked at her. I sucked in a breath, hoping I wasn’t about to watch him do something that would hurt. But he didn’t. Instead he grabbed her wrist and looked right at her. I didn’t know what he was saying, but his facial expression said that he wasn’t pleased and it solidified that it wasn’t a good thing when he dropped her wrist and she stormed off.

“See! I told you,” Valerie yelled. “Now let’s go get your man.”

There is only so much that one can drink and make out before the night becomes nothing but a blur. John was happy to see me, grinning and pulling me against his warm body the minute I ran up to him. He then proceeded to buy me more drinks. The more I drank the more my body was like liquid gelatin. I didn’t care that his lips were all over me right in front of my sister or that Brad may have grabbed Valerie’s ass. I just wanted John. All of him. Cancer be damned.

“We should get out of here,” I whispered into his ear before I nibbled on his earlobe.

“What did you have in mind?” His lips trailed from my neck and back up to my ear.

“Back to my place?”

“Sure. I’ll just tell Brad.” He pulled away from me and then leaned toward Brad, who was mid tongue thrusting with Valerie.

John pulled Brad away and then said something to him that I couldn’t understand. Valerie just stared, blinking at him. I think she had more to drink than I did.

John came back over, sliding up next to me. “Me and Brad are going to get a cab, come on.”

“Brad?” I blinked.

“Yeah, he and Valerie are ready to leave too.”

What a cock block. I thought it might just be us in my apartment, but I couldn’t be so lucky. We piled into a cab and went back to my tiny apartment. The place felt even smaller as Brad stumbled over my coffee table and fumbled around my kitchen, taking whatever alcohol he could find and mixing it together.

I didn’t want to keep drinking. I wanted to find the very close comforts of my bed with John. He barely seemed to notice my advances as my fingers trailed up his inner thigh while we sat on the floor, playing a game of Asshole with Valerie and Brad. I could have pulled his pants down right there and I didn’t even think he’d notice.

Finally the designated driver came and picked Brad up after Valerie fell asleep on the couch. I practically jumped for joy as I watched him stagger out of the house.

“You ready for bed?” I asked John, trying my best to put on a seductive smile.

“Yeah, I’m beat.” He walked the few steps to my bed that was only separated from my couch by a bookshelf.

“I’d like to beat you.” I swerved over to him and put my fingers through his belt loops pulling him against me.

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, Red.” He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown either.

“It means that you need to get in this bed with me, now.” I let go of his belt loops and pushed him back. He barely moved when I pushed him, but then took a few steps back.

“Come on, John, let’s stop with the teasing and get this party started.” I slinked forward, slowly pulling off my tunic and throwing it on the floor so that I was just left in my strapless bra.

I put my hands on the waistband of my leggings, but then John grabbed my wrists, forcing me to look up at him. “Stop it, Red. Your sister is right there on the couch.”

“Psh! She wouldn’t care.” I couldn’t move my wrists and the world felt like it was spinning, so I just leaned forward and put my head on his chest.

“No, Red.” He let go of my wrists and then stepped around me. “I’m not doing this right now.”

“Why not?” I pouted. “Is it because I’m a cancer freak?” I didn’t know where the words came from. There was something about the alcohol that made me say things.

“What the fuck? Where is this coming from?”

Instead of being horny I felt something else bubble inside me. “You. All you wanted to do was jump my bones before you found out I had cancer. Now you stop before we ever go all the way. It’s like you feel sorry enough for me to kiss me, and let me get you off, but not enough to fuck me.”

He stepped forward, shaking his head and putting his hands on my shoulders. “That’s not it at all. You know I care about you. I care about you so fucking much it hurts.”

“Then why won’t you just do me already?”

“Because I care about you too much to just have some mindless sex with you.”

“Pffffft!” I plopped down on the bed. My head was spinning and I wasn’t exactly sure what I was saying.

“Red...” He sat on the bed next to me, putting his hands on the side of my face, meeting my eyes with his. “You know I want you. I’ve done nothing but tell you that. But you just had another procedure done today and you’re shit faced. I’m not going to do something we’ll both regret when you’re sober.”

I shoved his hands down. “So you’d regret me?”

He shook his head, letting out a big sigh. “I didn’t say that.”

“You only think of me as some cancer freak. You’ll make out with me, sure, and take care of me, but when it comes to actually getting down? Oh no. Can’t do that with the cancer girl. Though you’ve probably done it with a million other girls at the Alpha Mu house.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You know how much I care about you. As for the sex, is that what you want? For me to just fuck you tonight while you can barely even stand? I’m not going to do that.”

“I can totally stand. You’re just using it as an excuse.” I fell back on the pillow. I could have stood...maybe.

He groaned. “Melanie, this is ridiculous. I’m not going to sit here and argue with you about sex. If you don’t realize how much I care about you by now, then I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

“Tell me that you want to make love to me and what’s holding you back from doing it.”

“What?”

I didn’t know where the words were coming from, but they all spilled out of me. I met his eyes, looking straight at him. “Tell me what’s holding you back from loving me.”

John mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand him. I wanted to ask, but my head was pounding and my eyes felt so heavy and the bed felt so comfortable.

“Red, are you okay?” He sounded so far away. So far away. I closed my eyes and I couldn’t hear his voice anymore. I couldn’t see his beautiful face and I didn’t have to face his rejection.

When I woke up the next morning my head was pounding. I moaned and rolled over, hoping to bury my head in John’s chest and sleep a little longer. But John wasn’t there. I opened my eyes and the room was too bright. I blinked and felt along the left side of the bed. Empty.

My eyes finally adjusted to the light and I saw a bright yellow sticky note on the pillow. All it said was “Sorry.” I sat straight up. John’s suitcase that was always in the corner was gone. I stood and looked out the window. His jeep wasn’t parked out front. He really was gone. He didn’t even say goodbye.

I heard a loud groan from the couch and I walked around my bookcase. Valerie was spread out on the couch, squinting and unsquinting her eyes. “Never. Drinking. Again.”

“You can say that again,” I muttered.

She rubbed her eyes, her makeup smearing on her hands. “We didn’t do something stupid like have a foursome, did we?”

I let out a breath. “Not unless the foursome involved something that would cause John to leave.”

“What?” She sat up slowly, holding onto her head.

“I don’t remember much, but I think we had a fight and all I have to show for it is a sticky note on my pillow.”

She shook her head. “I’m too hungover to discuss this now, but after breakfast, we will analyze this the whole way home.”

I hadn’t really shopped for groceries since I knew I would be going home, which meant nothing for breakfast, but that was fine with Valerie. Her idea of cooking was picking out a new restaurant anyway. We stopped at a little diner not far from campus. It was open 24 hours and was always crawling with students. But this morning it was empty.

By the time Valerie downed two cups of coffee and ate half her omelet, she finally talked. “Okay, Mel, spill.”

I forked my bacon. I wasn’t really hungry, but Valerie swore that greasy food cured a hangover and my head was pounding. “Spill what?”

She clanked her spoon against her coffee cup, pouring another pound of sugar into it. “What the hell happened with you and John? You two were all over each other on the dance floor and then he just leaves you a sticky note? That does not sound like the same guy.”

“How would you even know what was going on at Gatsby’s? You were all over Brad.”

I looked up as Valerie rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. Don’t put this on me. So I made out with one of John’s random frat brothers. It didn’t hurt anyone and I didn’t care that he left. You actually love this guy.”

I almost choked on my bacon and had to pound my fist against my chest. “I never said that I love John.”

“Yeah, but you do. That’s as plain as day. You need to stop being such a girl about it and get rid of whatever is holding you back and fall in love with full force.”

“Even if I did love him, it takes two people to be in love and by the way he left last night I’m not sure he feels the same way.”

Valerie clanked her spoon on her mug. “Seriously, stop with the pitying. Is this what you did last night to make him leave?”

I could feel the tension building up and I put my hands into tight fists. “No, he left because I did what you said. I wanted to sleep with him and he turned me down.”

She blinked. “Ex squeeze me? Did you just say that the guy that was practically screwing you on the dance floor turned down sex?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Could it have been because you just had another procedure done? Or maybe because you were so drunk that you could barely walk and he didn’t want to do that to you?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t feel that bad after the biopsy and I wasn’t that drunk.”

“Puh-lease. You kept telling me that you were white girl wasted and fell into a garbage can outside the bar.”

“No I didn’t.”

Okay, so that might have explained the bruise on my hip. It still didn’t excuse John for just leaving a sticky note. He had stayed with me through a lot worse things than drunken stupidity.

“Whatever, Mel. It was nice to see you let go, for once, but it was like you still couldn’t get over your insecurities. Just let the boy love you and stop over thinking. I promise that you’ll be much happier.”

“Whatever you say, Val.”