Not Exactly What it Seems

I couldn't believe that they would actually believe I would do anything to her. Even if they were just trying to protect her, I was really mad they would stereotype me like that. She meant everything to me. I'd never do anything to mess that up. But when he took her away, I had a feeling I was going to get the third degree from the others...

“Look,” Anthony sighed when we were safely inside the bathroom. “Do you remember Amber?”

“Amber as in the girl you were so in love with? The girl who broke your heart?” I asked. “The girl I still need to hunt down and kill? That Amber?”

He chuckled, but it was pained. “Yeah, that Amber. What you don’t know Ny, is that she didn’t break my heart. I broke hers. It was stupid and I regret it and I hate myself for it. But I was at a party one night and got a little too drunk. This one girl was hanging all over me and so we kind of just…hooked up. Amber found out and said she couldn’t stay in the relationship anymore. I couldn’t blame her, I wouldn’t have wanted her to because I was stupid and I don’t deserve her.

“I don’t want that to happen to you Ny. You deserve better than that and no guy is good enough is the bottom line. There is always that possibility that he’s going to do something he regrets that breaks your heart. I know that if one of the other guys does that it won’t hurt so much, but if Hayden does it, it will. I don’t want to see you like that. Seeing Amber like that was devastating.”

I stared at him in disbelief. I couldn’t believe that Anthony of all people would do something like that. He was the most levelheaded person I had ever met. But to hear that…I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. So for a long time, we stayed in that bathroom, me sitting on the sink and Anthony sitting on the edge of the tub, in silence. He was waiting for me to say something, I know he was, but I had no idea what to say. Did it matter? Did my opinion of what he did really matter to him? I knew that I was his favorite cousin, but what did my opinion on the matter do for him? He obviously felt badly enough before I added salt to the wound.

Eventually he cracked. “Please say something Ny, anything. I don’t care if it’s to scream at me, just something. What are you thinking?”

“All this time, I thought you were so perfect,” I admitted quietly. “I was always so jealous. I wished so badly that I could be like you, that I could just not care what people thought and still be loved by everyone. All my life I was trying to be like you because that was my definition of perfection. I don’t know what to think now. You’re still my role model, but I don’t think I can look at people the same way now. If you can do something like that, what chance do the rest of us have at being good?”

Anthony looked so pained at my soft-spoken words, like he would rather have had me yell at him for what he did. “You do know that I’ll never be able to live with myself now, right? I’ve completely destroyed life for you. I really wish you would have just yelled at me. I could deal with that at least, but disappointment is another story entirely. I want you to be happy but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t think that Hayden is capable of hurting me,” I informed slowly, trying to convince myself as much as convince him. “He’s so loyal and…well, he is like you. But just because you slip up once doesn’t mean it’s always going to happen.”

“You have more confidence in me than I do which is something I don’t deserve. But will you promise me that you’ll be careful? If I let you stay with him, will you promise me that at any sign that something is wrong, you come to me and I will either help you or hurt him? And I know that you wish everyone would love you, but everyone never loves someone. And certainly not me. You’ve got a good thing going for you, but be careful, okay?”

“Are you…are you really letting me go out with him?” I did not want to get too hopeful because that could change in an instant.

“As long as you promise me that you do not let him take advantage of you in any way at all. Got that?”

The smile that grew on my face was probably the stupidest thing ever, but I could not help it. “A, you’re awesome. And just because you did something wrong, doesn’t mean it changes my opinion of you.”

We hugged and then left the bathroom to see three anxious faces waiting to see what happened with us. We were in there for a long time. Hayden was looking very upset and stressed so I figured Jayden and Mark had talked to him while I was talking to Anthony. To inform him of the blessing that Anthony placed on our relationship, I walked over to Hayden and kissed him. All three cousins had a problem with that, obviously but I just laughed.

“Just because I told you I wouldn’t get in your way, does not give you the permission to do that in front of us,” Anthony warned. “We will still need to establish ground rules for this because it is as if he was your first boyfriend. After all, we’ve never actually met most of the other ones.” So for the next two hours, we sat there ironing out all of the details. They were the most thorough guys I had ever met and I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.