Chapter Twenty Seven The Whole Story

After explaining to Cass about helping Hailey with the National's routine, she immediately agreed to it. She was excited to make the music and throw in some of her crazy ideas.

"I know we're gonna be flipping a lot" Hailey said. "Jumping and stunts will be mixed in there, too, obviously. I'm working on the formations."

"I'm getting the music together. I have our college name throw in there a few times along with our wreck 'em saying."

Hailey nodded. "That's perfect. When do you think you'll have it done?"

Cassidy thought about it. "Give me two days and I'll have it done."

"Great." She turned to me. "Cole, do you think you could came up with our stunts and jumps. I'll have everything else."

I nodded. "Yeah. I can do stunts and jumps, no problem."

Hailey lets out a sigh of relief. "I don't know what I would do without y'all."

We smiled.

"I'm pretty sure you would've been fine." I told her.

"Bill would've killed me." She said. She glanced at her phone. "Oh! I have to go to. I'll see y'all later. We'll start practice definitely next week. So don't make any plans." She warned us.

Hailey left our dorm room and Cassidy began working on the music. I thought of what stunts and jumps we could use. Stunts were going take longer to work with than jumps. The only thing with jumps we had to be in perfect sync. If one person jumps too earlier or too late, the judges would definitely notice.

The same with tumbling. We had to time it just right or else we would run into the next group and ruin everything.

My phone chimed, indicating I had a new message. I was expecting anyone but him to text me after days of ignoring him. He sent me a couple messages and called me a few times until he dropped it.

All of his text said the same thing:

I'm sorry.

Talk to me, please.

Let me explain.

Those three messages were rearranged in different orders as he tried to get me to respond back. I never did. But this message was different.

I know you hate and would rather I dropped off the face of the earth but I can't do that until I tell you the whole story. Please allow me to tell you. -CK

I glanced at the time. It was close to being ten. Cassidy would get suspicious if I left this late and I was terrible lair. So I wasn't going to lie to her.

"Cass?"

She looked up. "Yeah."

"Chance wants to talk to me."

"Yeah...he has been for a few days now." She said.

"I know that but this message his sent me, is desperate. He really wants to talk to me."

"About what? The list? Why he lied to you? What could he possible have to say to you?"

I shrugged. "I don't know but he said he needed to tell me the whole story."

She rose an eyebrow. "The whole story?" I nodded. "If you want to see him, go right ahead. I'm not gonna stop you."

I frowned. "You're not?"

She shook her head. "No but if you come back in tears, I swear I'm gonna hurt this time."

Cassidy would probably put him in a body bag and wouldn't mind doing the time for it. She would be glad. So in order for her not to end up behind bars, I had to make sure I didn't came back crying.

I texted Chance back and he told me his was on his way. I got up from my bed and grabbed my jacket. I slid my feet into my shoes and walked out the door.

I probably would regret meeting him but something in my guts told me to do it. It was a strong feeling and I couldn't ignore it. After this talk, I wouldn't speak to him again.

That's what I told myself but I didn't know after our talk, he would need me more than ever.

I took the stairs instead of the elevator and once I got to the door, Chance was pulling up. I pushed the door opened and walked into the cold night.

I walked towards his car and hesistated. Should I really get into his car? Will I regret getting into his car? Should I even had responded back to him?

When he realized I wasn't opening the door, he rolled the window down.

"Cole?" His voice sounded raw as if he's been crying. "Please get in the car."

Hearing his voice, filled with sadness, made me open the door and climb inside. I wonder why he sad. Or was he pretending to be sad so I could forgive him?

"Thank you." He said when I closed the door.

He drove and I had no clue to where we were going. I expected he would've took me to his room but when he exited the campus, that thought went out the window.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the place I've been doing all my thinking."

That's all he told me and the whole ride to his place was silent. The music wasn't even on to play in the background and I was pretty sure this was the uncomfortable car ride I had ever experience.

He continued to drove for about ten minutes before he stopped. We were out in the country on the deserted dirt road.

He cuts the engine off and got out the door. I took that as my cue to follow him. I opened my door and stepped out. He was at the front of his car, looking out in front of him, staring at the sky.

I sat beside, leaving a whole lot of space in between us.

"What are we doing out here?" I asked.

"This is place I found while driving around. I was lost in my thoughts. I thought about how stupid I was. I thought about why I did what I did in the first place. I thought about you."

"I don't know what to tell you."

He glanced at me. "I don't expect you to say anything. I'm lucky enough to have you here with me. You don't have to speak. Let me do all the talking. If you want me to."

Well I wasn't going to not let him speak after he brought us all the way out here. I nodded my head and he took that as a sign to continue.

"You already this but I'm going to say it anyway. Before you arrived to college, Levi warned every guy to stay away from you. He said you were completely off limits. So of course every guy wanted to go after then. It was a week before the party and a few of my friends came over to my dorm room. We had the list of all the new freshman girls and we went down the list making markings."

I know he told me I didn't have to say anything but I had to ask him about the different colors.

"What do the colors mean?"

"Before I say them just know it was absolutely stupid and disrespectful. We shouldn't had categorized any of you girls." He said. "But the colors label who was a virgin and wasn't one. The green meant that she wasn't a virgin but she only slept with one guy. Yellow was she slept with more than one guy and blue was she was virgin."

Blue was my color and I was the only one with my name circled.

"So..at the party you actually were going to tell me I was on a every guys' list."

"Yes and no. Yes, I was going to tell you but no you weren't on every guys' list. Just mine. Back in my room, we picked who we wanted and I just wanted you."

"Because I'm a virgin, right?"

I wasn't embarrassed that I hadn't had sex yet but I couldn't help but wonder if I wasn't a virgin I wouldn't be in the situation right now. I probably wouldn't had cared as much, either.

He nodded. "Yes."

I could feel my throat tighten up and I was close to tears. I felt like hitting him but that wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't change the past. I tried to swallow but there was a lump in the back of my throat.

"Do you want me to continue?" He asked when he saw what state I was in.

I nodded, weakly.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

He looked at me for a few seconds before continuing his story.

"So after the party, I tried every way I could to talk to you. But Jayce didn't like that very much. He couldn't do anything about it but try to tell you to stay away from me. At first I figured he would've attempted to date you so you wouldn't talk to me but when you told me y'all stopped being friends, I dove in and tried to get you to go out with me."

I thought back to the second time Jayce kissed me. It was back when we were playing laser tag. Then later that night or earlier the next morning really, he kissed me again. He gave me a hickey. Were those all attempts to date him?

But I couldn't think that because after he kissed me he acted like nothing happened and brushed me off like I was nothing.

Yet, when he kissed me in his truck, it was like I was his everything. Until Arianna broke my blissful mood. Then he started dating her but he tried to be my friend. My best friend again, despite what Arianna wanted.

He brought back our thing, our handshake we did before each and every game. He wanted me to cheer for him like I always did. He even wanted to fix us at the Halloween party. He talked about Superman and Wonder Woman being together. He broke up with Arianna. And how could I forget the short kiss he gave me underneath the mistletoe?

Did that mean anything? It had too, right? Or was I just being irrational?

I came out my thoughts when I heard Chance's voice. He was continuing with his story.

"I'll admit I was only tryna talk to you because of the list but once I started to know you, I forgot all about that dumb list. I honestly did but every time Jayce popped up it would came back to me and you wanted to know too. I wanted to tell you but I didn't know how. I just kept telling you, if Jayce told you his, I would tell you mine. I figured Jayce's sounded worse but how stupid was I? It didn't matter who was worse because neither one of us were in the right. We lied to you."

He was right both of them were completely assholes. They both used in one or another and they lied to. They betrayed my trust.

"But don't be mad Jayce. He might've said some pretty harsh things but there's more to that story than you know."

Chance didn't want me to mad at Jayce? That had to be the first. And there was more to Jayce's story as well? Maybe...maybe Cassidy was right. Maybe there was more to the video than we thought.

"I'm not going to tell you. That's his story but I'll help him. That's the least I can I do."

I guess he was done talking but I had a question to ask him.

"What made you change your mind?"

He rose an eyebrow. "About what?"

"About talking to me. You stopped reaching out. What made you suddenly want to talk to me?"

He closed his eyes and then sighed as if he was exhausted.

"My mother."

"Rhesa? How? Why?"

Tears silently fall down his face as he looked at the sky. He didn't bother to wipe them away.

"What's wrong?" I asked, worried. "What happened?"

"She...she's not doing to well." He confessed. "She has only some days to live."

That's why it sounded like he's been crying earlier when he picked me up. It was actually because he's been crying. My heart dropped at the thought of Rhesa, the lovely, amazing, kind hearted, woman leaving this earth far too soon.

"I was just going to leave you alone. You didn't want anything to do with me and I wanted to respect that. I told my mom about what I did and she was disappointed in me. She wanted to know why I would do something to a sweet, beautiful, girl like you and I didn't have an answer to that. I told her how you didn't want to talk to me but she asked me to reach out to you one more time and explain everything and beg for you forgiveness. So, here I am. I'm not expecting you to forgive me, though."

I suddenly felt bad for what I did to him at the restaurant and what I called him. He was probably going through a hard time and I didn't make it any better.

I was fighting back tears. I wanted to be strong but hearing that Rhesa wanted this made it hard to. Without thinking about it, I hugged him, tightly as if it would make all his pain go away.

"You shouldn't be here with me." I said. "You should be by her side."

"I know I should but I had to tell you."

We stood there, hugged, together for awhile until I pulled away.

"I forgive you." I said, truthfully.

I was certain if Rhesa wasn't on her deathbed, right now, I still would've forgave him. He told me his story and he didn't have to.

"Thank you."

"You should get to the hospital." I told him. "I'll be here whenever you need me."

"That's kind of but you don't have to."

"But I want to. Rhesa means something to me too."

It was true, she had a special spot in my heart since the first time I heard about her. She was too sweet not to be loved by everyone.

We walked away from the hood and got into the car. He drove me to my dorm building and I wanted nothing more than to stay with him but I knew he needed to be with his mother.

Before I got out the car, Chance stopped me.

"Wait." He said. "I told you I would help Jayce."

He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a CD holder with a disk inside of it.

"Watch this video and it will change you mind. I promise."

I took the disk from him.

"I can't say this enough, but thank you, Cole. Thank you for allowing me talk to you."

I leaned over the console and gave him another hug. I stepped out the car and closed it.

He drove away and I glanced at the disk in my hand. This was Jayce's chance at redemption. I was holding all the answers in my hand but yet I didn't watch it as soon as I walked into my room.

I didn't even watch it the following day. I was scared too. But Chance said I would change my mind and I had to believe he was telling me the truth.

At least this time.