Damn the Day I Met You

I grab my towel and wrap it around me before stepping out of the shower. Though even covered up I still screamed when I saw someone else in the bathroom. “Damn woman, it’s not like I haven’t seen anything before.”

“Toby! What the hell are you doing in here?! Get out!”

“Hey now, is that any way to treat your best friend?”

“Out.”

“Fine. But I just came in here to tell you that you love him.” I glare at him and pick up the closest item to me. Toby smirks and ducks out the door just as the hairbrush went flying. I quickly change and step out of the bathroom. Tristan was right—I did need a nice relaxing bath. Especially if I was going to deal with Toby’s hyper energy for the next 24 hours.

“So, how was it?” Toby asks once I step out of the bathroom.

I look at him confused, “how was what?”

“The sex of course! Make up sex is always the best.”

“I’m still as virgin as ever thank you very much.”

He jumps onto the bed and bounces a few times, “yeah, yeah, waiting until marriage. I guess I forgot.”

I glare at him and take a seat opposite on the bed, “not until marriage. But it needs to be with the right guy.”

“Right. Like a guy who takes you to a vineyard, and to France. A guy who doesn’t care about your money, lifestyle, or crazy-ass family. A guy who works hard, loves his sister, and takes you in when you have no home. A guy who waits-”

I slap his shoulder, “I get it! God, everyone makes it seems like he’s so perfect. He really isn’t that amazing.”

“Oh really?” Toby challenges, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yes really. He’s a jerk for one, doesn’t trust easily, he lied to me, wrote lame-ass letters instead of facing me, wouldn’t let me out of the house, beat Zach up when I asked him not to, not to mention he has a crazy family.” Toby was staring at me like I was insane or stupid, or both. “What?”

“He wrote letters?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did.”

“No. I didn’t Toby.”

“He totally wrote you love letters!”

“No he didn’t.”

“He so did. Where are they? Did you pack them? You had to have packed them. Did you read them? Well that’s a stupid question of course you did, you know what they were. Was it all begging and lovey-dovey? Where are they again?” His questions were coming out so fast I could barely catch on. Along with that he was shuffling around the room attempting find a bag or something with them in it. “Katie! You’re being so unfair!”

I laugh really hard as Toby acts like a two year old throwing a tantrum. “Hey, you’re the one who didn’t give me time to answer the questions. Though I still deny they exist.”

He rolls his eyes, definitely knowing at this point that I’m lying. “They exist, now what do they say?”

Giving in, I cross my legs and get comfortable on the bed. Toby does the same so that we’re facing each other. “A lot of it had to do with him apologizing and telling me he missed me. He then went into a brief description as to why he had to say ‘no’ to me that day and why we broke up. At the end he would write about how he wanted to meet face to face to talk about things, but then the next letter would have more detail. I didn’t finish all of them. I got to the point where he was talking about his mother and, well, that’s when everything happened. I didn’t finish the letter, or the one’s following it.”

“So basically you have a stack of letters that answer all the questions you have, and you haven’t read them yet?”

“Yes? I don’t know what they say. I’m assuming they answer my questions. But I’ll get answers tomorrow so it doesn’t matter.”

Toby sighs, “I can’t believe he wrote you love letters. That boy is more of a romantic than I pegged him to be.”

For the millionth time that night I rolled my eyes, “they’re not love letters. Simply apologizing and explaining things for me.”

“Taking the chance of sounding cliché, and definitely quoting A Cinderella Story. If a man is taking his time to write down his feeling for you, it’s a love letter.”

I grab one of my pillows and hit him with it, “I can’t believe you memorized lines from that movie.”

He laughs and grabs another pillow, copy my move, “I can’t believe you’re still in denial about this.”

And thus started a long, entertaining pillow fight filled with shrieks and screams of pains. Finally we both became tired and fell onto my bed laughing. “I admitted it once.” I announce slightly above a whisper. My breath was still ragged but I knew Toby heard me.

“Admitted what?”

I sigh and grab a handful of candies that were off to the side. “My feelings for him.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, not to him.” I continue as if he hadn’t just interrupted me. “You see after the whole cheating thing in the news, my mom and I had a pretty short conversation. I kinda admitted things there. Or at least she could tell. I went up to tell him, by orders of my mother, only to find the conversation had gone a little crazy. Zach and Tristan were fighting and yeah, I just left it and it hasn’t come up since.”

“Okay, so you’re a step above denial.” Toby jokes, tossing his pillow behind him and relaxing. “But seriously Katie, if you don’t say anything it’s just going to get harder, not easier. When you move back to New York you’re going to live every day wondering what would have happened and where you would be if you had told him the truth.”

“Or if I tell him I will be living every day regretting the fact that I moved back to New York.” I reply. These were the thoughts that had been haunting me recently. Time and ticking and I knew I had to make a decision before it was too late. The only problem was I didn’t know what to decide.

Going home-which really sounds weird. I consider Tristan’s house my home more than anything at the moment. But going home, to New York, would be the smartest, most responsible decision. I’d finish up, graduate, and move on with my life. Staying here in Italy though, I would once again be changing my life for a guy. And look where that put me the first time around. I just can’t find it in me to make such a sacrifice for something that may or may not work out in the end.

“Oh my pessimistic friend. Whatever will I do with you?”

“Shut-up about this topic and watch mindless romances until I forget about men altogether.”

Toby laughs and grabs the remote next to him, “sounds good to me!”

“But nothing Ryan Gosling!” I say before he’s able to click onto actor names.

His grin drops, “but Katie!” He whines as if he were five.

“Toby, you have way too much of an obsession with him. It doesn’t matter how many times you try, he’s not going to fall in love with you.”

“You get pissy when you’re confused.” I stick my tongue out at him and grab the remote from his grip, “wait, no, you do not get to put on—” he groans as I click the buttons, “—Lifetime. Why do you want to torture me? Lifetime movies aren’t even movies. They are like the biggest waste of money ever.”

“Hey now, who here is going through a rough time? Me. You’ve got yourself a Mr. lovey-dovey up north.”

“The same lovey-dovey I left to come take care of you.” Toby counters, “Now hand over the remote. I promise no Ryan Gosling.”

“Nope. My pity party, my choice.”

“Katie! We’re not watching Lifetime all night! My god woman, change the channel!” I laugh at how outraged he’d gotten. Sometimes it’s fun to just mess with Toby and see how many buttons you can push. Obviously I was pushing a lot right now. “I swear if you leave this on—“

“You’ll what? Leave? Come on Toby, it’s just a movie.”

He shakes his head and stands up, “no, nope, no. not going to happen.”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing. “My goodness Toby, sit down. I’m changing the channel right now.” I start clicking through to find something good on that we both agreed to watch, but we came up with nothing. “So Lifetime it is, right?”

Toby glares at me, “actually, I have a better idea. You haven’t changed your room at all, right?”

I stare at him confused. I knew everything that was in this room, and there definitely weren’t any movies. “Right…”

“Boy Meets World! How could you forget about them, it was the best summer ever.”

He was right, though really we were just extremely bored that summer. I tell him this and he just laughs, inserting the discs anyways. Hours or laughter, pillow fights, and Boy Meets World quoting, we finally fell asleep on my bedroom floor like the good old days.