And Then What?. D. Graham R.
a small city with restaurants and coffee shops spread throughout the streets. It would be impossible to check them all, so I focused on places where he hung out the most.
“Maybe we should check the pubs,” Murphy suggested.
Even though the thought of Trevor being at a pub instead of on an agreed-upon date with me hurt my feelings, it was the next probable place he would have gone on a Friday night, but still not likely a place where he’d be dealing with something serious. Unless it was a bar fight. We crossed the campus towards the Irish pub he liked the best.
He wasn’t at the pub so we circled around by the football field and then headed back in the direction of his dorm. About one hundred metres down the dark path, a couple walked towards us. I could only make out their silhouettes and I wouldn’t have thought much of it if I hadn’t recognized the outline of Trevor’s broad shoulders. I stopped walking and stood frozen in the middle of the path as they approached. Murphy didn’t seem to realize it was Trevor, but as they got closer, we heard his voice. The girl laughed as if she’d been drinking. My heart contorted into some sort of seizure and slammed against my lungs, which pushed all the air out. I couldn’t make the breath suck back in.
She was the something serious he was dealing with? Seriously?
Murphy reached over and wrapped his arm around my waist to hold me up. Somehow he knew before I did that my knees were just about to get weak from the shock of seeing Trevor with someone else. My eyeballs burned because I hadn’t blinked since I first spotted them. The girl stumbled sideways and had to place one hand down on the ground to steady herself. Trevor attempted to prevent her from falling but she landed on the grass and pulled him as if she wanted him to topple down on top of her. He caught his balance in time and said something to her that I couldn’t quite hear.
I turned around, twisted out of Murphy’s arms, and hurried down the path away from them.
“Wait,” Murphy called after me.
“I’ve seen enough, thanks.”
“Murphy?” Trevor shouted, and seemed relieved to see him.
“Is that your friend?” the girl asked. “He’s gigantic.” She laughed. “That’s a funny word—ji-gan-tic, guy-jant-tic. Say it. It sounds funny.”
“Deri,” Trevor called as I walked away. I didn’t want to know why he was stumbling around at midnight with a drunk girl, so I kept going.
Murphy ran after me, caught my elbow, and turned me towards him. He leaned in closely and said, “Let me talk to him. Just wait here.”
“I can’t watch,” I said and fought to hold back tears.
“You don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to talk to him. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Give me the keys. I’ll wait in the truck. And his explanation better be really good.”
Murphy handed me the keys and turned to go back to where Trevor was helping the woman to her feet as she sang off-key. I hurried back to the parking lot, climbed into the truck, and stared out the window dumbfounded. I thought things had been good between Trevor and me. As far as I knew, everything was great. I was so in love. I would have sworn he was too. I was glad he wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere. But it was completely shattering that he would blow me off to get drunk with some other girl. And then lie about it. It was shocking. It was devastating. It was so not like him.
Maybe things between us hadn’t been as good as I thought. Maybe I wasn’t putting enough effort into the relationship, or maybe I was a disappointment to him. Did our relationship go from inseparable as children into teenage sweethearts and then slip into the someone-I-used-to-know category without me noticing? Maybe adulthood changed us. It was possible that after waiting thirteen years to date his life-long crush, when it actually happened, I was a colossal let-down. I didn’t feel that way about him. In fact, dating the guy who was not only an amazing friend but also someone I had dreamed of being with for years had turned out to be a million times better than I had even imagined it would be.
It was my fault the relationship had unraveled. I hadn’t been spending enough time with him. My course load was ridiculously heavy. And even when we did have some spare time between studying, with me being at my mom’s and him having a roommate, we barely had enough privacy to even make out. Maybe he compared us to Sophie and Doug, who had plans to move in together. Or to Murphy and Rene, who already lived together and were ready to start a family. I wasn’t ready for that. Maybe Trevor was.
I winced when I realized that’s what my vision was about. I lost him.
The truck door opened, but I didn’t look over because I already knew it was Murphy, not Trevor. “He’s just walking her home. He’ll be right back to talk to you.”
I shook my head and mumbled, “I’m tired. I just want to go home.”
“You need to give him a chance to explain, Deri. A situation came up and he didn’t feel she was in a state to get home safely by herself.”
“I’m really tired and upset. Just call him and tell him I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“I can’t. He lost his phone somewhere.”
“Convenient,” I mumbled.
Murphy shot me a grow-up-Deri expression. “He’s walking her home so she’ll be safe. You know that.”
Obviously it was more in character for Trevor to get involved in a situation where someone in trouble needed help rather than blow off plans with me to hang out with some random chick. I knew that, but I also had to face the possibility that I wasn’t cutting it in the girlfriend department. It was late and I was already being snappy and rude due to the lack of sleep from earlier in the week. I was afraid I would make everything worse if I tried to talk about it when I was so exhausted and emotional. “I just want to go home. Please.”
Murphy sighed and then reluctantly started the truck. He was quiet for most of the drive, then he said, “I know that looked bad, but he’s a good guy, Derian—you know that. And I’ve known him for almost fourteen years; he would never cheat on you. He was just helping someone who got caught up in a dangerous situation. That’s all.”
“Maybe I did something to push him away, or maybe he wanted something new,” I said as he turned out onto the street.
“He wants you, Deri. Trust me. He waited until you graduated to ask you out, but he wanted to date you for at least three years before that. And he’s loved you since the day he moved to Britannia Beach. He wouldn’t do anything to disrespect you or screw up what you guys have. If I could get him to stop constantly talking about how great you are, I would.” He smiled as he reached across the cab of the truck and shoved my shoulder. “I’m sick of it, frankly.”
It did make me feel better to hear Murphy say that, but then the image of Trevor and the woman catapulted me right back into a sludgy pool of self-doubt. “Did he seem unhappy about our relationship lately?”
“No. A bond like what you two have always had doesn’t just disappear. He’s been stressed out with school and coming up to Britannia Beach for rescues on weekends. But he has never said anything negative about you or the relationship. In fact, when he talks about the future, you are always included in that conversation. There is no doubt in his mind what he wants.”
It was true. Trevor never came across as unsure or as losing interest. He had been working really hard at school and still volunteering for Search and Rescue. That girl was definitely too drunk to safely walk home alone. It was most likely all innocent, but because of my vision about losing Trevor, I couldn’t help obsessing about the things I could have done to be a better girlfriend and a better friend to him. I should have never taken what we had for granted. I should have seen the signs that he was drifting away.
Or maybe he wasn’t. In his defence, he didn’t know about the party. If everybody hadn’t been at the condo waiting it wouldn’t have even been that big of a deal that he didn’t show up. But the