Ruby decided to wait until
after supper to call Gavin. She wanted to make sure he was home. Plus, she
needed that extra time to build up the nerve to call it quits with him.
Ruby sighed. Quit was the last
thing she wanted to do concerning Gavin. The man made her feel so good just
being in his presence. Not to forget how good he made her feel in the sex
department. Now she had to give all that goodness up.
It’s
not fair! she lamented.
Closing and locking her
bedroom door, Ruby lay across her full-sized bed, took a deep breath, and then
called Gavin from her cell phone. She didn’t dare use the house phone. One of
her parents might pick up during her call, especially since there was a phone
in nearly every room. She couldn’t have that.
Incidentally, though her
parents owned cell phones as well, they insisted on keeping landlines in the
house. The Hudsons didn’t trust the stability of the towers in their area or
what they deemed to be a passing fad, despite the fact that cell phones had
shown great staying power for years.
“Hey, Vinny, it’s Ruby,” she
said in a somber tone when he answered her call. Inwardly she was impressed
that he picked up at the end of the first ring. It showed his eagerness to talk
to her again. She seriously doubted if he would be so eager after this call.
“Hi, Red,” Gavin replied. “What's wrong? You
sound down.”
Dang! The man knows me well enough to pick up on my moods already, Ruby
thought. She dreaded breaking up with him even more now. How many women had men
in their lives that paid that much attention to them? Very few.
“Actually, I am feeling a
little down tonight,” Ruby replied.
“Want to talk about it?”
“I don’t want to, but I know I
have to seeing how it concerns you,
too.”
“How so?”
Ruby went on to explain how
that parking lot lie somehow got back to her father and what it was going to
mean for their new relationship. “Now not only is my family expecting me to get
married soon, my father expects you to properly ask for my hand in marriage
next Sunday after supper,” she concluded.
“I see. I had no idea small
town gossip traveled so fast,” Gavin replied after hearing her out.
“Yes, it does. And because it
does, I have to break things off with you right now before people start
actually planning our wedding.” Ruby frowned.
“Why can’t we just tell your
family the truth?” Gavin sounded grieved. “Why can’t we just tell them that
we’re not getting married and are just really starting to date? I mean, why end
a perfectly good relationship over a simple misunderstanding?”
“Because they can’t handle the
truth. It would only raise more questions. Questions whose answers might send
my father into cardiac arrest again. Even the healthiest father might have a
heart attack after finding out that his baby girl had sex in the back seat of
her car with a virtual stranger? I’ve already given him one. I can’t…I can’t be
responsible for another,” Ruby said, almost choking on a sob at the end.
“This is the second time I’ve
heard you mention giving your father a heart attack. I know I haven’t known you
for very long, but I can’t imagine you causing anyone deliberate harm. In fact,
when we got caught the other night, all you could think about was your father.
You didn’t seem concerned about yourself at all.”
Ruby swallowed hard to wet her
suddenly dry throat. Should she tell him about the DVD? Should she tell him how
her recklessness almost resulted in her father’s death?
I
might as well since I can’t be with him anymore anyway, she
decided, convinced that she had nothing to lose.
“You’re right, Vinny. You
haven’t known me for very long. You don’t know how I disappointed my parents
because their last chance to have a son turned out to me – another girl. How I
had to watch my father go out of his way to bond with a neighbor’s fatherless
son even though I was trying hard to
fill that void right here in our home. How no matter how much of a tomboy I
tried to be, no matter how many sports I played, I would never measure up
because I would never actually be a
boy. You don’t know that one of the reasons my older sisters can’t stand me is
because I’m so competitive. In fact, I made it my place to best them at every
household chore and even at cheerleading, even though I’m the least feminine of
the bunch.” Ruby stifled another rebellious sob.
“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry,”
Gavin said in a comforting tone.
“No, let me finish,” Ruby
said, wanting or rather needing to get everything out in the open now. “You
also don’t know how I shamed my parents by going off to college with their
hard-earned money only to end up in some cheap sex video. How because of that
video finding its way back to my hometown, men around here think I’m a tramp
and my own sisters don’t trust me around their husbands anymore.”
(c) 2014 by Mi'Chelle Dodson/Suprina Frazier
(c) 2014 by Mi'Chelle Dodson/Suprina Frazier
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