But bottom line, if having Shayla Whitman as a fuck buddy or friend with benefits was his only option?
He’d take her however he could get her.
Shay cleared her throat. “So,” she said. “Chapter Three…? It would be great if we had something to send, before I text Maddie.”
Right. Yeah. Rough and fast. Pete remembered. He, too, cleared his throat as he took the ramp onto the freeway that took them home. “Chapter Three. The Graduation Party Fucking—no, better make thatFiasco.”
It was like something out of a bad ’80s movie.
A high school graduation party on the beach. A junior boy, crazy in love with the senior girl who was his best friend.
I knew Lisa was going to the party with Brad, her boyfriend, but I’d heard rumblings of rumors that he was going to dump her that night. People were talking about it, because, well, she was a drama student. Whatever happened was going to be dramatic.
I never went to those things. Why torture myself, watching her with him?
But that night…I think Lisa must’ve been aware of the rumors, too, because she started drinking early. I bumped into her in the parking lot of the local ice cream place a few hours before the sun even set—kids went there to use the bathroom and/or get a raspberry swirl cone. That was why I was there. I still won’t say no to a good raspberry swirl.
She hugged me. “Peter Greene!” I could smell the alcohol on her—she was already trashed. She made me promise that I’d go to the beach, and that we’d dance together to “Let’s Go Crazy,” since that was “our song.” Whatever that meant, since there was no “our” anything.
So yeah, I went, and I witnessed the dumping, which was about as horrific as it could be, considering Lisa was so drunk that she had no clue what was happening. It was a cross between a breakup and a key party—and if you don’t know what a key party is, Google it. But brace yourself first.
In short, Brad—football hero that he was—was “setting Lisa free” as they went off to different colleges on different coasts. He was Notre Dame–bound, she was going to some little two-year performing arts school in LA. But to celebrate their new “freedom,” he was going to go fuck Karen Possingham, while Lisa was handed off to whichever one of Brad’s football buddies “won” her. Seriously, Brad was actually holding a raffle, and the winner got to drive her home, stopping in some dark cul-de-sac along the way.
I wanted to kill them all.
So I just went over to her, and picked her up. Brad was shouting something at me, but I ignored him. I carried her out of there and put her into my car.
And here’s where it got super-’80s-movie. Because yeah. I took her to Hiroko’s. She was so drunk, I didn’t want to take her home; get her into trouble with her parents. Hiroko already disapproved, but I trusted her, and she and I took turns with Lisa as she puked her guts up all night long.
Fast forward to the next day. Lisa finally woke up, and pieced together the horror show of the night.
I remember we were out in Hiroko’s garden, and she said, “You saved me from that douchebag. Thank you.”
I said, “You’re welcome.” I didn’t say “You’d do the same for me,” because I knew she wouldn’t’ve. But that was okay, because she wasLisa.
She hugged me, and when she didn’t let go, I asked, “Are you okay?”
That was when she kissed me.
And I’m human, so I kissed her back. And Jesus, it was nice. It was perfect. It was everything.Everything.
Except it wasn’t.
She put her hand on my thigh and started heading north, up the leg of my shorts, and I wanted—sobadly—both for her to touch me and for this to be real. For her to have finally recognized that she loved me, too.
But I stopped her, because I didn’t want to be herfuck youmessage to Brad. And I sure as hell didn’t want to be her Karen Possingham.
Apparently, I was the first boy in the history of Lisa to sayno.
And I kept sayingno,because I wanted her to love me. I had to be the guy who didn’t sleep with her. So that’s what I did. In August, she went to LA. I visited her on weekends during my senior year, and I’d bring a bedroll and sleep on the floor of her dorm.
I hated acting—I liked the backstage stuff—but even though I hated performing, I auditioned for the same school, and got in. In hindsight, it wasn’t as boneheaded a decision as it looks. Even though my test scores were high, my grades were shitty because I just didn’t care, so the alternative was community college or the armed services. I was good at stage managing, and you could argue that learning how to act would help me deal with actors. But bottom line, I was majoring in Lisa.
So, in the longest ’80s movie plotline ever, in August after I graduated from high school, I moved to LA, too. I didn’t have the money for a dorm room, but that was okay, because I just moved into Lisa’s room, where I slept on the floor—assuming she didn’t have an overnight guest.
Seventeen months after I first turned Lisa down, she told me that she didn’t think she could live without me. And she asked me to be her boyfriend instead of just her friend. And then, for a while, I had everything I’d ever wanted, because Lisa loved me, too.
Shayla looked up from her computer. “Let’s deleteassuming she didn’t have an overnight guest. Maddie doesn’t need to know that her mother did that to you.”
