Dirty Little Secrets

--John--

The summer had passed quicker than most but I tried to make every moment with Danny last. Garrett had gotten her sister pregnant and basically Danny’s relationship with the rest of her family had started to fall apart. They didn’t even see her off at the airport. Not that she cared…she’d be far away from them for four years. Far away from me.

“I’ll come see you for Thanksgiving,” Danny said gloomily after she kissed me for about the seventieth time today.

“No, you stay there. I’ll come to you.”

“Are you sure? I need to see Megan and see how she’s doing.”

“I’m sure. You’ll see her for Christmas. Besides, I’ve always wanted to see New York.”

She smiled satisfactorily and kissed me again. “I love you.”

“I know.”

She walked away and went down the terminal.

I don’t know how I was so cool with everything. I thought for sure I’d be a complete wreck when she left, but I was pretty understanding after coming to grips with the situation. Yeah, it sucks that we weren’t together, but we’ve been together for the past thirteen years and we needed to see how we could hold up away from each other for a while.

“You doin’ okay?” Eric asked me when I walked into my room. I wasn’t startled that he and Jared had made themselves comfortable without my knowing.

“Yeah. I’m pretty okay.” I plopped down next to him and let out a large sigh. “It feels like my heart was taken away.”

“Well she is your heart. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back.”

--Danny--

I was kind of relieved to leave Arizona. I wanted to be as far as I could be from my family. They didn’t even care about me anymore. Now that my parents had come to terms with Megan being pregnant, all they could talk about was how excited they were for him or her to arrive. Garrett was always over at the house anyways so I never could talk to Megan on my own. I missed her even though I’d seen her this morning. Even Ethan didn’t want to talk to me. Stupid kid. No, just kidding I love him.

I landed in New York and picked up my fifty dollars’ worth of baggage and took a taxi over to my dorm. Darcy was there already painting a picture on the wall.

“Are you allowed to be doing that?” I laughed and propped my suitcases against the bed.

“Probably not. As long as I paint it back by the end of the year, I don’t see what the big deal is.” She set her brush down. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s a party over at one of the frat’s at Columbia. You down?”

“Yeah, sure.”

After hanging out with Darcy all night and bonding over alcohol, we’d gotten to know each other more from our drunken stupor.

“So why are you engaged if you feeled tie down?” She began laughing and almost fell off of the small edge of the sidewalk she was sitting on. I couldn’t help but to laugh with her. “I mean…feel tied down…”

“I don’t know, Darce. I love him.”

“That’s beautiful Danny.” She leaned heavily on my shoulder. “Is he hot?”

“Oh God yes! He’s fucking gorgeous.”

“Got any nudes?”

“Um, no. I don’t need pictures when I have the real thing.”

“You dirty skank!” She said loudly and a few guys walking behind us looked down at me. “So are you going to stay engaged to him?”

“Well, yeah. He’s the only guy out there for me.”

“You’ve barely been out of your little town in Arizona… How would you know?”

“Sometimes you just know. Feeling tied down isn’t going to change the way I feel about him.”

****

“Why did I let you go to New York?” John said over the phone two weeks later as I laid on my bed.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” I said in a singing tone.

“Bullshit. Whoever said that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Can you come home already? Megan misses you.”

“She probably hasn’t realized I’m gone.”

I talked to John for about 10 more minutes and after talking him out of dropping out of college to come live in New York with me, we hung up. Darcy was flipping through some fashion magazine then threw it on the floor.

“I thought you’d never get off the phone with him! Let’s go!”

I felt like I was partying myself out already – two weeks in. And things only got worse. I showed up to class but I might as well not have because I was either passed out or so wasted I couldn’t comprehend anything.

“What do you mean you’re not coming home for Thanksgiving? You have to!” My mom said into the phone.

“Well John wanted to see New York and he’s coming in tomorrow and we’re going to go to Darcy’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Who’s Darcy?”

I looked blankly at the wall across from me. I’d told her about 10 times. “My roommate, Mom.”

“Oh, yes that’s right. So that’s it then? I’m just not going to see you anymore?”

“I’m coming home for Christmas.”

“Are you okay? You sound tired or sick or something. Your words are all slurred together.”

“Yeah I was taking a nap before you called.” I didn’t understand. I wasn’t even drunk or hungover yet my speech was still slurred. Maybe I’ve having a stroke.

As soon as John and I saw each other when he was coming down the escalator, he started trying to get past everybody but was blocked by this lady as wide as the width of it. I couldn’t help but to chuckle at his annoyance. Once she got off, he ran over to me and picked me up and twirled me around in his arms then planted a kiss on my lips. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

He stroked my face then started to move my sunglasses off my face. “Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?”

I pulled them back down. “These lights are killer to my headache.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No, not since last week. I don’t know what’s happening.” He held my hand as we walked to an awaiting taxi. “We have my dorm all to ourselves this week. Darcy’s at her house.” I winked at him before sliding into the backseat.

“That…” He found it hard to say anything. “That’s just fine.” He smiled and kissed my cheek.

After our long awaited reunion, John was still on top of me and kissing me repeatedly. He laid next to me then intertwined his fingers with mine but looked down at my hand.

“Where’s your ring?”

“I must have forgotten to put it on this morning.”

I was in panic mode. I had no idea where the ring was. I never thought about it the whole time I was here. By chance, I walked over to my desk and it was sitting there so I put it on and laid down next to him again.

“See? You distracted me from properly accessorizing this morning.”

He didn’t say anything, just looked at me smiling then kissed me. “I missed you a lot, you know,” he finally said while rubbing my shoulder.

“Why would you do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” he breathed out. “I must like you or something.”

“No way! I like you too.” He kissed me again before getting ready to explore New York. “You know, I’ve been here for about three months and I’ve never been anywhere besides Columbia.”

“What were you doing at Columbia?” He asked with his arm around me in the back of a taxi.

“Darcy and I go to parties there some times.”

“I think you’re out-partying me,” he said with a shocked smile. “I didn’t think I would live to see the day.”

“I don’t know, I just feel like I won’t get caught by anyone here. At home, even though your parents didn’t care as long as we were in the house, I always felt like my parents would find out. Here I feel like I can do whatever I want.”

Before John’s plane landed, all I could think about was the drunken conversation Darcy and I had at the first party we attended together. How I felt tied down being engaged to him. But now, sitting in this taxi with him, I realized nothing really changed between us now that we were engaged. We still held the same laid back conversations we always had and underneath it all, he was still my best friend. And who better to marry than my best friend.

“I never thought I’d be here with you,” John said. He was standing behind me with his fingers laced with mine and his head resting against my head as we looked out from the top of the Statue of Liberty. “It’s just one of those things I never thought of doing, but being here with you is amazing.”

“Can we just get married today?” I asked softly as I looked upon the city.

“Sure. Meet me at the altar. I’ll be the one in black.”

I turned around and put my arms around him as I kissed him. “I love you Cornelius. Don’t forget that.”

“I don’t know how I could. You keep reminding me.” I playfully shook my head as he wrapped his arms tighter around me and kissed me again.

“So Danny, how are things going with your acting classes?” Darcy’s mom asked me after we said our thanks and began to eat.

“Well I’ve kind of slacked off this semester so hopefully next semester things will go better.”

“How come you’ve slacked off? You’re going to blow your full ride.”

Darcy’s mom was the typical cool mom. She wasn’t naïve about anything her daughter or I do. “I guess I’ve been partying too hearty. It’s just a new experience, being in college and wanting to do other things college kids are doing. I guess I just don’t know when to say no.”

John had been sitting quietly next to me the whole time but I felt him silently judging me for some reason. I looked at him quickly and saw him chewing his turkey aggressively.

“Well just be careful and watch what you’re doing, Danny. I’d hate to see something bad come of this for you.”

--John--

We got back to Danny’s dorm after dinner and I was sliding off my jeans and getting under the covers of her small twin size bed and she laid closely next to me in her bra and boy briefs. She used my arm as a pillow and rested her hand on my chest.

I didn’t know how I felt about Danny partying so much. Yeah, I had a party every week and we’d drink, but that was confined to beer in my house. Who knows what else she was drinking or doing. She could have started to use drugs or anything. And yeah, I’ve gone to some pretty wild college parties already but I just wanted to watch over her and see if she’s alright. But I guess that’s why she came all the way out here to go to school. She wanted her independence. From her family. From me. I can’t say I was okay with it, we were engaged for crap’s sake. But this was a new part of our lives – college – and we needed to experience it the way we wanted to. Who was I to stop her.

I got back to Arizona two days later after endless escapades with Danny in her dorm room. I hated to admit it, but New York was pretty cool and she belonged there. For now, at least.

“How was it?” My friend Tim asked me as I picked up my bag from baggage claim.

“I definitely didn’t expect it.”

“Everything okay?” He asked when I hadn’t said anything in the car for 10 minutes.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just haven’t seen her in months then I only get to see her for a couple of days. Sucks.”

He changed the subject. “So I talked to my brother and Garrett while you were gone. They said they were down to get the band started again. Alex and Ryan are up for it as well.”

“I don’t know, Tim… It was fun last year but it’s just redundant playing at the same bar and to the same twelve people every time.”

“Come on, John. You know you want to!” He sang tauntingly. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

I sighed and didn’t say anything for the next couple of minutes. “Alright.”