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“The… Tommy Fowler?” Mandy gasps.
“Yes, the Tommy Fowler who sold his first successful company when he was nineteen and had his own TV show by age twenty five,” I tell her, feeling a bit nauseated by the thought of him. “They dated for the next three years.”
“Ouch, that sucks!” Mandy gasps. “So you lived right next door and now she had a serious boyfriend?”
“Yeah, and she would bring him home almost every day after school, thinking the three of us could hang out and be friends. It was brutal.” My stomach still feels queasy thinking about those days.
“Oh, you poor guy. I know what it’s like to be the third wheel. It’s not fun.” She places her hand on my thigh after noticing that I am still squirming in my chair.
“It gets worse,” I add for some unknown reason.
“How could it?” she asks, shaking her head and looking at me with pity filled eyes.
“Well, Tommy is a year older than us so he broke up with her right before leaving for college. She was so crushed. She knew that he only wanted to be able to mess around without any guilty feelings,” I speculate, knowing how most guys that age think.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that one before.” Mandy replies, continuing to stroke my thigh.
Thinking back, I remember how badly I wanted to ask her out, but I knew I had to wait at least a few weeks. We had begun hanging out on a daily basis again, because I was the shoulder that she preferred to cry upon. It wasn’t the role I had hoped for, but at least we were spending time together.
“So did you finally ask her out?” Mandy asks, growing impatient with my silence.
“I did. After several weeks I couldn’t wait another day,” I recall. “I asked her to go to a movie. When we got there I suggested, Just Friends. It was a movie about a guy who wanted to be more than just friends with the girl he loved.”
“Were you trying to send her a subliminal message or something?” she asks with a giggle.
“Exactly!” I point my finger at her for nailing it. “Unfortunately, it kind of went over her head.”
“That’s because she wasn’t in the same place as you, so it wasn’t nearly as obvious to her,” she explains using her girl wisdom.
“Yeah, I realize that now. Afterwards though, we did go out for pizza. Sitting in that booth with her was one of the best nights of my life,” I admit, reflecting on the way I felt that night. “Within minutes I had her laughing and by the end of the night it seemed like our relationship was finally taking a turn in the right direction.”
“You were finally in the right place at the right time?” She asks with a hint of hopefulness in her voice.
“That was my thought at the time. I was on cloud nine for almost a whole day.” I readjust in my chair trying to get more comfortable.
“So what went wrong?” Mandy pries, wanting to hear how the story ends.
“God, I still hate reliving this shit.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Tyler was the captain of the football team, he already had two college scholarship offers and was about to play the biggest game of his life.”
“So, y’all went to the game?” she asks and I have to smile at the first slip of her southern accent. That was too damn cute.
“Yes, and I was so obsessed with Vanessa that I convinced her that she should make the trip with us. I loved the idea of spending all that time in the car with her.” I shake my head, thinking back to my huge error in judgment.
“So, she was there when it happened?”
“Yeah… I’ll never forget her scream. It really was a horrific sight and the fact that we could hear it, made it even worse.”
“That pretty much killed your second date, huh?” she says, stating the obvious.
“I’ll say. Dad and I drove back in the car, while Mom and Vanessa rode in the ambulance with Tyler. I knew right there that things would change again.” I think back to the look on her face when they closed the ambulance doors. She was looking at Tyler the way that I had always wanted her to look at me. “We both spent most of the weekend hanging out at the hospital. He had to have multiple surgeries. The next Monday after school, I stopped by his room to see him. Vanessa was already there, standing next to his bed. I could hear Tyler crying and talking about how his life was over. That’s when I heard the sentence that crushed my dreams.”
“Why? What did she say?” Mandy leans towards me with a true look of compassion in those beautiful blue eyes.
