Jeah, Whatever

Three weeks. Twenty one days. 504 hours.

That’s how long it had been since I had seen or heard from Ryan.

I knew he was busy, taking America by a storm. Acting. Photoshoots. Interviews. But I also knew that it takes two seconds to send a message to someone. And he promised me before we both left London that he would.

And as I continued to not hear from him, I refused to let myself pine over him. Instead I busied myself with work.

Andrea was back at Stanford. My mother was re-decorating our family home so dad and I threw ourselves more into our work. He was taking on new business while I handled the public relations side of the office.

“Natalie, there’s a call on line two for you,” my secretary said on the speakerphone. I hit the second line, hopeful it would be some new work to further distract my mind.

“Natalie Crenshaw,” I answered professionally.

“Nataliiiiiiiia!” The caller scream from the other side of the line. I grinned and looked at my desk of the picture of me and my college roommate, Kate.

“Hi Katie,” I smiled, it had been a while since I heard from her.

“You’ll never believe where I’m going to be in five hours,” she said excitedly.

“If you say Manhattan, I’ll lose my mind,” I said into the phone.

“Well I wouldn’t want you to lose your mind so how about Grand Central Station?” She said. I grew excited to know that my best friend was going to be in town in five short hours. As I was avoiding emotions and needing more distraction, I could use a visit from my wild and fun loving friend.

I took down the details on when exactly she would be arriving and insisted that I would pick her up and that she would be staying with me in my apartment on the Upper East Side before hanging up with her.

For the first time in three weeks, I was going to have a perfect day.

The station was buzzing with people. Businessmen off to commute back to their suburban homes. Young couples reuniting after visits away, kids being sent back to boarding school. Grand Central had a little bit of everyone. I was tapping my foot, looking over people as I tried to spot my blondie best friend when I felt someone smack my ass, I turned around, ready for a confrontation when I instead saw Kate.

“Don’t act like you didn’t love it,” she smirked. I rolled my eyes and pulled her into a hug.

Kate was a couple inches shorter then me. She had blonde wavy hair and insanely blue eyes. Everyone insisted she be a model but she always wanted more than that. So instead she’s finishing up her law degree at Duke.

“You know I did,” I laughed, pulling away as I led her to my car.

“Glad to know corporate hasn’t changed you. Now tonight I demand you fill me in on your fabulous life,” she demanded to know what was going on.

This would be a good night.

“So wait, he said he wanted more than a hook up, it’s been three weeks, and you haven’t heard from him? Does he know who you are? Does he know the definition of a hook up?” Kate asked annoyed as I filled her in on Ryan after we had dinner.

As a ritual, we made a pasta dinner, drank some wine and then sat on the couch in our underwear, eating ice cream, talking about the boys we had in our lives.

“And I’m NOT calling him,” I said strongly.

“Did you at least try and contact him?” She asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to look desperate after he hasn’t called me,” I informed. She nodded understanding.

Kate told me about her lacrosse playing boyfriend at Duke, he was a few years younger than her but she didn’t mind that at all.

“Oh and I told Ryan about what we did,” I smiled. Kate rolled her eyes and smirked.

“Then he is definitely an idiot if he didn’t call you back,” she said, sitting on her knees.

If Ryan thought I was freaky, he would think Kate was out of commission.

When we were done talking, we decided to call it a night. I told Kate she could sleep in my guest bedroom but we instead decided to share a bed like we always seem to do. We stayed in our underwear for bed and continued to talk for a little while longer about life.

We were giggling about the different things her and her boyfriend Seth have been trying lately when my phone went off, I looked at the screen confused.

“Who is it?” Kate asked, getting on top of me to see the screen.

It was Ryan.

“Answer it,” she encouraged.

“Hello?” I said as I picked up.

“Well hello, Natalie,” Ryan said on the other end. The line went silent. Kate gave my boob a hard squeeze and I moaned loudly into the phone, not because it was sensual but because she kind of hurt me. She rolled off me laughing.

“Did my hello cause that?” Ryan asked. I rolled my eyes.

“Not even the most,” I said, sitting up and walking into my living room.

“Is someone with you?” He questioned.

“Would it matter, you haven’t contacted me in weeks,” I said harshly.

“Yeah, sorry, life has been insane, I’ve been doing so much,” he said in the phone, “but if someone is with you, I can let you go,” he continued.

“It was my best friend, Kate, she’s in town,” I informed him.

“The girl who you,” he asked.

“Yes,” I put simply.

“So were you two like, arousing one another? Hot,” he said clearly wanting to know the details of what was going on here at my end.

“No we weren’t, Kate’s just weird, Ryan, why are you calling?” I said getting annoyed.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said.

“Well you’re three weeks too late,” I snapped back at him.

“Natalie, don’t be like that, I truly got so busy. Every time I went to send you a text, I got pulled off to something else. People have been following my every move,” he explained.

“When you really want to talk to someone, you make great effort, Ryan,” I wasn’t going to let this go.

I heard Ryan sigh on the other line.

“Natalie, I’m not good at the boyfriend role,” Ryan began explaining.

“You’re not my boyfriend, Ryan, so don’t play the role. I think you just said you wanted to get to know me, you didn’t want me to be a fling and yet here we are. If that’s all you wanted from me, I wish you would have told me that so I wouldn’t feel so, so stupid right now!” I shouted, trying to be real with him but trying to not let him know just how upset I was.

“I don’t want you to be a fling, that’s why I’m calling! I know I’m late but I am calling. I would never call a fling back. You’re the first girl I’ve called back in three years. I know I have screwed up, you have every right to be upset but I figured you would try to understand,” he said, I could hear his anger rising up.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to seem like an unreasonable bitch. But I didn’t want to make it seem like he could walk all over me. But I didn’t want this to be so easily dropped and have it happen to me repeatedly. I didn’t want to be the girl who pined after a boy that never had time to know me.

“Well maybe if you don’t have time to call, it isn’t a good time we continue you right now,” I stated after our long pause.

“Things are going to slow down Natalie, it’s just the hype for now,” I could almost hear the plea in his voice.

“You say that, but what if it doesn’t?” I asked.

“Then you can walk away completely. You have to believe me that this right now means something. I called you back which I haven’t done for three years. I’m asking you not to give up on me, something I would never even begin to do with anyone, I didn’t even do that with my last girlfriend and we dated for two years,” he told me earnestly.

I agreed to keep whatever this was going. It felt slightly uneasy but the fact that he called did bring a smile on my face. And after we hung up, I was able to sleep peacefully but not without wondering how soon I may be getting hurt.