As I lay my head down, it started spinning. Oh God … this could be unpleasant. I never get sick. Please don’t let tonight be the one night I get sick. I kept my eyes closed and waited for everything to stop spinning.
“Are we still on for tomorrow?” Ryan inquired quietly.
“Mmm hmm,” I mumbled with my eyes closed. “When?”
“I’ll let you get your beauty sleep, since you’ll likely be hungover in the morning. How about we hang out in the afternoon and do dinner? We can cook in.”
I don’t remember replying. The last thing I remembered was Ryan giving me a light kiss on my forehead, sitting himself in the bed next to me, and playing with my hair.
“I got a pocket, got a pocketful of sunshine, I got a love and I know that it’s all mine, oh, oh oh oh.” Anna was trying to call me. She loved that song and programmed it in my cellphone as her personal ringtone.
The phone was nearby, but I couldn’t exactly remember where. “Do what you want but you’re never gonna break me, sticks and stones are never gonna shake me, oh, oh oh oh.”
I hid my head under my pillow to drown out the sound of my cell phone, hoping she would just leave a message. Yeah, right. You just keep on waiting, girl. She was worse off than me when Ryan delivered her home last night. How could she be awake before me?
“Take me away, a secret place, a sweet escape, take …” It finally stopped. Peace.
Not even a minute later, my landline rang. Ring … ring … Damn her! I blindly reached for the phone on my nightstand, fumbling as I picked it up.
“You suck,” I grumbled. “Let me sleep.”
“Hmm, I expected at least a thank you for my services last night.” Ryan’s voice sounded sexy and teasing.
“Oh, hey, hi.” I was groggy, but my heart skipped a beat. “I didn’t realize it was you. Anna literally called just before, but I didn’t pick up.” I looked at the clock—9:35. Ugh.
“Do you want me to let you go back to sleep?”
“No, I’m awake now.” I noticed two more ibuprofen on my nightstand, sitting next to a glass of water. I sat up in bed and popped them into my mouth. “Thanks for leaving more Advil next to my bed. I just took them.”
“Well, I don’t know how much you remember about what I said last night, but I’m calling about this afternoon.”
“Oh?” I tried to run a quick mental inventory of events from the night before. “Oh! I remember … Oh! OH MY GOD. I am so embarrassed!” Thank God he isn’t here to see me flush from head to toe. Images of me throwing myself on him, stripping down to my underwear, and then trying to make out with him all flashed through my brain. Oh … that was so cringeworthy. I squeezed my eyes shut in painful memory. He was such a gentleman about it all.
“Uh, I didn’t mind … trust me,” he said, chuckling. “But that’s not why I’m calling.” He paused for a moment. “Julia, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel later today.” He sounded genuinely sad.
“Oh, okay. Is everything okay?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, though I was way more disappointed than I was letting on.
“I have some personal things that came up today. It was unexpected. Just trust me when I say I’m really sorry about having to cancel on you.” He did sound genuinely remorseful.
“Okay,” I said hesitantly. His explanation was pretty vague. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”
“Yes and no. It’s … complicated. I want to tell you all about it, but it’s a bit premature right now.” I heard some tension and uncertainty in his voice.
What the hell did that mean? For his benefit, I decided to stay positive and lighthearted about it. I knew he couldn’t see me but I hoped he could hear it in my voice. “Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed. I was looking forward to spending time with you today, but I understand if there’s something important that you need to take care of.”
“Thanks, Julia. I’ll call you later, okay? I’ll make it up to you.”
I tried to sound as convincing as possible. “Yeah, no problem.” We said our goodbyes and hung up.
But it was a problem. I was really looking forward to seeing him today. What surprised me most though, wasn’t so much his change of plans, though that bothered me, too, but it was the unexpected sadness that came over me as a result of these changed plans. It frightened me to know that I could feel this hurt already by someone I’ve only just gotten to know.
With the wedding a week from yesterday, I knew my schedule was going to get busier by the day. Would I see him at all this week? With all of the wedding craziness, I theoretically might not see him again until wedding weekend was over. I had to assume at this point that he wasn’t coming with me to the wedding because he couldn’t or wouldn’t. If or when I saw him after the wedding, almost two weeks will have gone by. A lot can happen in two weeks. A person could fall in love in two weeks. His feelings could change in two weeks. A cold chill came over me as it dawned on me that this was a definite possibility.