"Welcome to wherever you are, This is your life, you made it this far. Welcome, you gotta believe, That right here right now, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Welcome, to wherever you are." -- Bon Jovi 'Welcome To Wherever You Are'
6
A month later, and she hadn't discussed anything with any of her friends back home. The only person who knew anything was Blake, and only because she had noticed that Tessa was no longer wearing her engagement ring. She sighed as she made her way across the parking lot with Nate, who had offered to carry a big stack of papers out to her car... But she knew it was because he wanted to talk about Blake.
"So she's like flirting with me all the time, and I would have thought she'd get the message by now with the way I keep flirting back." He was acting like a kid in high school, but Tessa thought it was cute. "And now she's going on a date with some guy named Ethan."
"Maybe she knows the way you feel too, but she wants to make sure that there's no one else out there that makes her feel the same way," Tessa offered and he rolled his eyes.
"Is that even possible?" She almost laughed, but she smirked and looked away, and tried to busy herself with unlocking her door.
"You would be surprised," she told him as she climbed into the driver's seat and her phone started to ring. "I'll see you tomorrow, k?"
He nodded and waved as he made his way to his own vehicle and climbed in. She didn't even look at the caller ID before answering it.
"Hello?"
"Hi." Jason.
She didn't know what she was supposed to say or how she should say it. She could have started with the fact that it had been a whole month and he hadn't even bothered to call and tell her why.
"Look... I." He let out a frustrated sigh. "I know that what I did can't be justified. Do you want to know why?"
Do I want to know why? Ha! "Did you think that after a month I wouldn't be wondering why the hell you left for no reason?"
"I realized that I wasn't truly in love with you."
Wow. Stab in the gut. "That's a little harsh, I know. And don't get me wrong, you're awesome. And I love you, but not that way anymore. See, there's this girl that I dated, and we were crazy about each other, but it happened right at the same time as all that crap with Kelly. So she broke it off. But she's back in town and I had to do something, Tess. I had to. And I'm sorry. I really am, because you didn't deserve something like this."
Oh, but I do. She felt tears coming to her eyes, but she fought them and the massive lump in her throat so he wouldn't hear. She didn't want him to know she was crying.
"And this sounds so stupid right now, but I want to be friends." She felt like punching him in the face. Did he even know what she had been through?
She let out a sigh and spoke for the first time since she had said hello, "Maybe someday. I have to go." She hung up the phone and began the walk to her front door. She couldn't remember when she had drove home, but she didn't care. All she cared about was getting inside, even though she didn't know what she was going to do once she did.
She walked to her room and shed her dressy clothes and pulled that old maroon hoodie that Lauren hated so much over her head while she started a bubble bath. She silently thanked Lauren and Hailey for her last Christmas present as she laid a towel on the floor and climbed in.
- - - -
"I can't believe I'm here with you," she told Blake later that night. Blake had called her after her date ended too early and insisted that the two of them go out.
"Calm down. All we're doing is sitting here watching the people do their thing," Blake laughed as a man and woman danced pasting them, bumping and grinding the whole way.
"Now that's just gross." Tessa laughed as she sipped on a bottle of water.
"But its fun to watch," Blake laughed along as the song changed from an R&B jam to something a little more rock. "Ah man, how are we supposed to get our entertainment this way? No one does anything to songs like this."
"Maybe the DJ was about to puke or something. I know I would be," she laughed as she realized she recognized the song. "No way. It can't be."
"What?"
"This song," she laughed. "Its my friends' band."
"Come on, you know Nowhere Road?" She nodded as she sat there in astonishment. "They've been out for like, what a month? And you know them?"
She rolled her eyes at Tessa and then changed to subject to Nate. "So did Nate say anything about me today?"
"Yes," Tessa teased. "He said that you are the biggest tease he's ever seen. Oh and that he's madly in love with you."
"Good. I have to remain untouchable."
"Why?" She laughed.
"Because then I don't get hurt." She said. "Because if I let myself get into a relationship with him, I will end up hurt. He'll leave me or break up with me and then I'll just be there all depressed."
"Personal experience?" Tessa laughed.
Blake shook her head and laughed. "It just seems that everyone I've ever known has gone through some kind of heartbreak. So I avoid it. I only go on one date with a guy. Like Ethan tonight. I may talk to him on the phone again, but I'll always tell him I'm busy grading papers or something."
"Seriously?" Tessa laughed. "There are other ways to get hurt ya know? Like the death of someone close to you or something."
"I know, but at least the part I can control, I do control." She shrugged. How could it be that this crazy girl Tessa had just met had a deeper side to her that was afraid of getting hurt? She would have thought that Blake - happy, wild and crazy Blake - would have been the type to embrace every opportunity at love that came her way.
Her phone began to ring in her pocket, and she took it out to look at the caller ID. Teddy's picture - one from that first summer - lit up the outside screen. She let it ring and stuck it back in her pocket.
"You ready to get out of here?" Blake asked and soon the two of them were back in their own apartments, getting prepared for the next day at school.
- - - -
"Hey Marsh, what's up?" She asked as she made herself a bowl of instant oatmeal the next morning.
"Nothing much. Just bored I guess."
"Oh my gosh! You'll never guess what happened to me last night," she said excitedly as she jumped up and down even though he couldn't see her.
"You're jumping up and down, aren't you?" He laughed as he yawned.
"Yes. Ok, so last night me and that teacher I told you about, Blake..."
"The chick with the dude's name, yeah."
"Anyway. We were at this club place because her date ended early and I was kinda bummed, but we were sitting there drinking water at the bar and then all of a sudden they switched from rap music to your song!"
"Oh really?" He laughed tiredly.
"Yes!" She laughed as she took her bowl out of the microwave and stirred in some brown sugar.
"So how come you were bummed?" She could see him putting quotations around the word as he quoted her.
"Oh, um. Ya know. Just tired and stuff."
"You're lying." He laughed.
"Ok, so about a month ago," she couldn't believe she was about to tell him everything. "Jason left me."
"Why didn't you tell me?!" He wasn't mad, but she was sure that he couldn't believe it. "I would've chased the loser down and beat him myself."
"No, its ok. It didn't even really bother me that bad." She sighed. "But he called for the first time yesterday and all that crap. So I took a nice long hot bubble bath and then she called and we went out."
"Nice." He sighed. "I wished you would've told me."
"You know I never would have." She laughed. And it was true. The only person who knew her as well as he did was Teddy, and she wasn't really on speaking terms with him.
"So anyway. Teddy met this girl who could, like be your twin," Marshall laughed. "We've been teasing him about it the whole time."
She felt her heart beat just a little faster at the mention of his name. "Oh yeah? What's her name." She played it cool. She didn't want to give herself away.
"Jessica. She's alright. She's definitely no you. No one could ever be you." There he was again, talking about her like that.
"Marsh, what's been up with you lately?"
"What do you mean."
"Well, ever since you guys all came up here to record, you've been all kinda... mushy towards me." She finally spoke her mind, and there was a silence on his end.
"You remember that day when we spent the whole day together? When everyone else was out of town or at summer school or working?"
She blushed. "We were fifteen."
"Yeah, but still. We did everything. We got lunch, we got ice cream, we went broke into Lauren's back yard and went swimming in her pool. And then that night when we played together in the field as the sun set. And then after that..." She knew he was blushing now.
"Yeah."
"What was it I told you?" He asked her.
"That you would always be there for me. Someone I could count on when no one else was there. Someone who would love me no matter what." She had kept those words hidden in her heart, and when she was completely honest with herself, she realized he had kept his word. He was the only guy she completely trusted a hundred percent. "And you've kept it."
"I didn't just mean it as friend to friend either."
She had known this deep down too. And she did love him, but it was like she loved Jason or Ty. Teddy was the person she wanted to trust a hundred percent. But Teddy was taken now... Again.
She finished her breakfast and placed it in the sink before making her way to her bedroom to put on her clothes and finish fixing her hair. He let out a yawn and she sighed as she picked out black dress pants, a dark gray button-up and a maroon sweater vest.
"Maybe you should get back to bed. Six o'clock is too early for you anyway." She laughed.
"Ok. Talk to you later." They never officially said goodbye, it was always 'see you later' or 'talk to you later'.
"Sweet dreams," she laughed as she hung up the phone and searched through her drawer for her favorite necklace; A star that had been made to look slightly antique and hung on a long silver chain. Marshall had given it to her one year for Christmas.
She found her purse and the stack of papers she never got around to grading and made her way to her Jeep.
- - - -
On her lunch break, while Blake and Nate were out buying their lunches, she created a MySpace page for herself. She didn't know why, but she was bored, so she did it. She took her digital camera out of her purse and loaded one picture of herself, then went to work on filling in the different sections.
Within fifteen minutes of being accepted as a friend of 'Nowhere Road', she was also friends with Hailey, Lauren, Ty, Cooper, Brady, Marshall... And Teddy. He was her first message.
'Hey. How's it going wherever you are?' She snickered a little before replying.
'Great. I teach English at a high school. You?'
'Ok. I met someone and she's pretty cool. Taking a break before I start recording anything.'
She's pretty cool? Did that mean he was lying to himself when he said he liked her? Or was he just downplaying the situation for Tessa's sake?
'You should definitely get a layout on here. Your profile is totally plain' he teased her and she rolled her eyes as Blake and Nate entered the room with their food in hand, but arguing.
"You can't not eat a taco without hot sauce," Nate argued. "Its, like, the best."
She rolled her eyes. "You are ridiculous, Nate. The only reason people put hot sauce on something is because they're trying to block the taste of the food out. I'd like to taste my food, thank you."
"Ok, kids. I swear, you two are worse that Heather Nelson and Emma Santos sitting next to each other. Can't everyone just get along for an hour?"
"Whoosheddy?" Nate asked through a mouthful of taco.
"What?"
He swallowed his food and asked again. "Who is Teddy?"
"Oh, he's a friend of mine."
More than a friend if I wasn't so stupid... "Why?"
"Your MySpace page is still up," he pointed to the screen. "Send me a friend request."
"You're on MySpace?" Blake asked excitedly. "Dude, since when?"
"Like, five minutes ago," She laughed.
"So who is this Teddy?"
"Teddy Geiger," she told Blake and her eyes grew wide. "I met him and we became really good friends." She left out the part of how she met him and the true extent of their relationship.
"Is that why you have, like, twenty pictures on here of you two together?" Nate asked as he flipped through her digital camera with one hand and held a taco with the other.
"What are you, a blue-haired old lady? Can't I have a little privacy?" She laughed as she let him continue his journey through the pictures. He handed it off to Blake when he was done and she flipped through curiously.
"My friend Jenny saw him in concert in New York City a couple years ago. She was, like, head over heels for this guy," Blake laughed as she tucked her blond hair behind her ear. "But you two look like more than friends if you ask me."
Tessa blushed as she took a bite of her pb and j. "We were for a little while, but nothing really came of it."
"And why not?" Nate probed.
"Because he was recording and he had to leave a lot, then he started touring, and I met Jason, and then things just didn't work out." She said, hoping that would put an end to the questions about her personal life.
"Oh, so guess who has another date tonight?" Blake changed the subject. "His name is Broc, and he's totally cute."
Nate and Tessa rolled their eyes and laughed as the their friend dove into a complete play-by-play of her date the night before. As she listened, Tessa checked her messages for one last time. She smiled when she saw that Teddy has sent her one last message before he too signed out.
'Call me when you're ready, k?'
And just for a moment, a very brief moment, she wondered if she was really supposed to be here.
