Save Your Heart

We walked out into the living room together. Ashley and Jeremy were standing over the stove cooking breakfast together. The rest of the guys were sitting on the couch in front of the TV watching infomercials. Derek and I gave them a curious look.

“Derek, how dare you lose your remote!” Alex yelled. He was sitting on the end of the couch next to Jake and Brooks was beside him on the opposite end. They all looked pretty rough from the night before. Derek left my side. I watched him walk over to a desk that was opposite the TV. He picked up the remote and handed it to Alex. “I see you guys looked really hard for the remote. Good job.”

Alex watched the remote intently as if it was going to run away from him, then grabbed it. “You know, I was just checking if you were paying attention.”

Derek took a seat on the couch in between Jake and Brooks. “Uh huh. Sure, man.” I walked into the kitchen to join Jeremy and Ashley. I gave them a good morning wave and they smiled back. Jeremy lightly kissed Ashley’s head before heading into the living balancing three plates of pancakes on his arm.

“So how are you, Ry?” Ashley asked sweetly taking a bite of a pancake. She sat down on one of the bar stools in the kitchen. She motioned for me to grab the stool next to hers and I did.

“I’m...eh...” I replied with a chuckle. Ashley handed me a plate with two pancakes on it, then pushed over the butter and syrup. I put both of them on my pancakes and dug in.

“Oh the pleasure of a hang over.” She laughed. “How are you and Derek?”

I raised one eyebrow. Why would she ask that? It’s not like anything happened between us. We’re the same as we were the day before. I mean, we slept in the same bed together, but I don’t think that would make anything different between us. “Fine...Why?...” I asked curiously as I took another bite of the delicious pancakes.

Ashley raised both of her eyebrows in shock. “You don’t remember?”

Suddenly, I felt like I was about to choke. What could she be talking about? Was I really that drunk not to remember something like this? What if I did something horrible? Things always seem to go bad for me. I bet I did something bad. I shook my head nervously.

“You kissed Derek.”

“WHAT?!” I yelled forgetting where I was. Ashley and I looked around the room to see all the guys gawking at us. We waved our hands at them and they turned their attention back to the television. “What?” I whispered.

“Yeah, after you danced around for a bit, he was trying to get you to go to bed and you planted one on him.”

I felt blood rush to my head, I was sure my face was red by now. I knew I embarrassed myself somehow. He didn’t even have feelings for me and I kissed him. How stupid of me. I remembered asking Derek if I did anything else besides dance and he told me no. “Derek didn’t tell me about that.”

“He probably didn’t want to make you feel embarrassed.” She must have seen my face turn red, because she moved closer to me and rubbed my back gently “Sweetie, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen all of these guys do much more embarrassing things when they’re drunk, trust me.” She reassured me with a laugh. “To be honest, I don’t think Derek minded it.”

The lump in my throat was quickly replaced by my heart. “Really?”

Ashley smiled noticed the instant change in my mood and probably my facial features as well. “Yes. Let’s just say he didn’t push you away.”

“The one thing I’ve been wanting to do, I finally get enough courage to do it, and I don’t remember it. My life.” I made a pout with my bottom lip and hunched over. Ashley laughed again which made me laugh, too.

After I finished breakfast, I took a shower in hopes it would make me feel less icky. As the hot water flowed over me, I tried to remember mine and Derek’s kiss. I had no luck, my mind was blank. I hated that I liked Derek. I hated having any sort of feelings for any guy. I always ended up hurt in the end. I had had enough hurt in my past. I didn’t know how much more my heart could take. I tried persuading myself and others that I had no feelings for Derek. The more I said it and the more time I spent with Derek, the more feelings I developed. I really like my friendship with Derek. The last thing I want is for a stupid crush to ruin it, or to ruin me.

The hot water was beginning to run out, so I stepped out of the shower and onto the blue, fluffy bath mat that was placed next to the bathtub. I grabbed my jeans and plaid shirt from the night before and put them on. When I walked out of the bathroom with a towel to dry off my hair, Derek was in front of his dresser rummaging through his clothes. He had a dark blue pair of jeans on and he had yet to find a shirt. “Hi.” I said softly so I wouldn’t startle him.

He turned round and saw me. A smile spread across his face. “Hey, you.” He walked over to me. I looked up at him and grinned. He pushed a wet strand of hair away from my face. “How are you feeling?”

“A little better.” I replied.

“That headache is still hangin’ around, huh?” He looked at me sympathetically. I nodded in return.. “The best thing to do is sleep it off.”

“I just took a shower. There’s no way I can fall asleep now.”

Derek took my hand lightly and led me over to the bed. He told me to lay down while he went to get something. As soon as my head hit the pillow, my headache eased a little bit. Within 2 minutes, Derek came back into the room with a guitar in his hand. He closed his bedroom door before sitting next to me on the bed putting his guitar on his lap. He told me to close my eyes and listen. It was hard to do when I could hear my heart beating like a drum in my ears. A million butterflies were fluttering away in my stomach. When the music started playing, the fluttering only got more intense. I tried to keep my composer and let the music calm me. I listened to the words and melody intently shutting out all the other sounds in the world, it was just me, Derek’s voice, and his guitar.

“You’re wonderful.” I cooed before drifting off to sleep.