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Derek snorted and then stormed out of the kitchen. I followed him with Aidan close behind. Instead of leaving the house, I found Derek sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. I looked over at Aidan who was already taking a step forward, looking ready to kick his ass. I put a hand to his chest and pleaded with my eyes for him to stop. He obeyed reluctantly.
“Derek?” I stepped forward cautiously.
“Where did we go wrong, JoJo?” He looked up at me with sadness in his eyes. “Do you know that I have thought about you every day since the moment I met you the night of that party?” My heart stopped at his admission. “I lost your phone number and I was too much of an idiot to ask you for it again, so I avoided you on campus.” We never talked about the night we met. In fact, I was convinced that he didn’t even remember it. “Shit, are you going to make me do this in front of him?” He nodded in Aidan’s direction.
“No,” Aidan said as he walked past me and to the door. “I’m not going to stick around for this. I already know where this conversation is headed.”
“Aidan?” I called after him, but he turned and put a hand up to stop me.
“Josette, this guy is about to start a death roll in hopes that you’ll give in and stop him.” He turned to Derek. “You know, I’m glad that you kept your head stuck up your ass all this time, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the chance to have her in my life. Just appreciate how damn lucky you are, asshole.”
“Aidan!” I called again, but this time he didn’t stop. My feet were frozen as I watched him get into his truck and drive away.
Chapter Twelve
I slowly closed the door, unable to process what was happening and why my heart felt like it was disintegrating. I turned around angrily to Derek.
“What are you doing?” I hissed and walked forward. “We are over, Derek. You were the one who chose to leave. To end it. I wanted to marry you.” My voice trailed off as I lost steam and slumped down on the couch.
“I know. I know,” Derek said as he rubbed his face repeatedly with his hands. “I can’t figure out why I keep screwing things up with us. The night at the bar when we danced together I thought you were beautiful and funny. I wanted to get to know you. Then over time you just seemed?.?.?.?different.”
“Different? What do you mean?” I sat up, returning my gaze to him.
“We had a lot of fun together, exactly the way twenty-year-old’s should. Things were easy, maybe too easy. For me, it was hard to take what we had seriously. You didn’t seem to expect anything from me, and I had no clue how to be in a relationship.”
“That’s complete bullshit, Derek. You knew how I felt about you and you didn’t exactly put forth much effort to return those feelings.”
“I didn’t? You’re the one who didn’t seem to have time for me. You never bothered to call. I realized that if I didn’t contact you I wouldn’t see you. Then you broke up with me when I moved to Louisville.”
My mind was reeling at hearing his perspective of our relationship.
“Y-you didn’t put up a fight, though,” I sputtered.
“I’d convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. I mean I was in Kentucky and you were in California. How could it work?”
“Okay, if you felt that way about me, how come you never told me?”
“Have you met me? I’m not that great at sharing my feelings.” He snorted.
“Oh my God. I just don’t even know what to say right now.” It was clear to me that we’d both made a lot of mistakes. Here I was thinking that I was being who he wanted when what he really wanted was for me to be myself. It would have made a world of difference in our relationship.
“Derek, I think I’m partially to blame. I thought I was being the cool girl you seemed to like. I spent the last six years trying to be the person I thought you wanted.”
“Josette.” He shook his head as he crossed the room to kneel in front of me. “I never asked you to change who you were. All I ever wanted was you.”
“Except, you never had me. Not the real me.” Derek shook his head slowly with sadness in his eyes. I felt like the biggest idiot. How could I expect him to love me when I wasn’t being myself with him?
“Maybe that’s why things never seemed to work for us. Everything just felt?.?.?.?off. I was either too dumb to notice or too lazy to figure out what was missing.”
“Derek.”
“I loved you right from the beginning.” He held my eyes for a long time, and I believed him.
Finally, he was admitting to everything that I’d wanted to hear from him, but it wasn’t causing the reaction I thought it would.
“Except, it didn’t feel like even after six years that there was enough between us to make the forever commitment that you wanted. But when I saw you at Fish Tank Freddie’s with that other guy, I’d never experienced that kind of jealousy.”
“You saw me that night?”
