Page 14 of Claiming His Reunion Obsession

“Do you think I want to be so heavy? Do you think I woke up one day and thought how good I’d feel to be so big? I’m not putting myself down. I’m just being honest, realistic.”

I decide to give her a minute, to simmer down and I sure as hell don’t want to upset her. I’ve put my big foot in it enough for one night, I think. First Randy, now Chelle to boot.

“I meant what I said,” I murmur, noticing her pretending to ignore me, taking the exit to the coast we slow down a little, making things feel calmer straight away.

“I said I meant it…” I repeat with a sly grin.

“You meant what?” she sniffs, not even looking up at me now.

“About your ass being the finest I’ve ever seen… and I have to say, the rest of you is definitely to my liking. Just saying.”

I feel better when I see the corner of her mouth turning up.

“What about the rest of me?” she asks, forcing herself to pout still, but trying not to smile again.

“Your hips… your hair. Your breasts… Your eyes, your smile… the way you pretend to be mad.”

“Alright, stop it,” she says, swinging wide to punch my arm, which I make out is mortally wounded.

“I’ll stop whining about my size if you stop calling yourself old every five minutes,” she says sharply.

“Touché,” I concede, remembering I’ve had a few digs, just as many at myself as she has tonight.

“It just pains me to hear it Chelle. I’d wanna clobber anyone who said something like that to you, so when I hear it from your own mouth…”

Chapter Eleven

Chelle

“What happened?” Quinn asks, taking my hand and squeezing it again, “at college, why’d you really drop out. I know you got into medicine, your dad told me… he was so proud. I’m proud of you”

I feel embarrassed that I’ve been caught out, but I said it all so automatically at the reunion, I’d never lie to Quinn, not intentionally.

“I can listen and drive y’know,” he says, winking at me from the rear view mirror and I know I’m cornered, but in a good way.

“I feel like I could tell you anything anyway,” I say, voicing my only thought as I exhale loudly.

“You can, and you will.” Quinn says, giving me a firm but friendly cue to start my tale.

“I didn’t even want dad to know that I’d got into college. The medicine scholarship was a big deal, totally left field and not something I thought I’d get.”

“Chelle…” he warns me again, furrowing his brow and only easing it when I ease up on my own version of myself in the story.

“I won’t be too down on myself, I promise,” I tell Quinn, “but, there’s so many things that made it hard, harder than it already was. There was one couple there, sweethearts from a private school someplace, rich. I think they might have actually been related, but anyway…”

I watch Quinn’s brows raise and shiver at the thought of college all over again. It’s all still so fresh. So raw.

Literally.

The truck dips a little as we leave the paved road, Quinn lets me know it’s a private road, a short cut around to where we’re headed. He urges me on with his eyes.

“There’s really not much to tell, but these two, Sam and Tracy, they were like carbon copies of those girls from high school. Just the older versions. I knew as soon as I got to the college that they were gonna have it in for me. The snide comments, the trays of donuts piled four high at my desk whenever we had class, even the dean had words with them, but they had so much money… old money, all tied up in the college itself that they thought they could run the place. They practically did.”

“To think, people like that can even become doctors,” Quinn growls, and I can tell he’s already got his back up even though he’ll never meet them.

“The little pranks and side comments got worse. We had a group project for the term, and of course, the terrible twins, that’s what I called them. They picked me and the rest of the class just watched on as they started to make my whole life a living hell from that moment on.”

I go quiet for a moment, not even sure I want to tell this story, let alone relive it for Quinn’s sake. I can see how worked up he’s getting just thinking about other people wronging me, it feels like we’re torturing ourselves over nothing, over the past.

“It’s silly,” I tell him. “Let’s talk about something else… this is too morbid, you were supposed to be sweeping me off my feet, not bringing us down with my stupid past.”

“I just want to know, Chelle. I need to know, to understand.” He says, looking ahead, not taking his eyes off the road, gripping the wheel tight again, the whites of his knuckles shining in the dim light of the truck’s cab.

---