Thanksgiving passed, as Nicole’s cold did, and Nicole and Lance had managed to get along, for the sake of the others. Now, a week after the holiday, they were back to their original status.
Leslie and Nicole were riding on the guys’ bus for the trip from Houston to New Orleans, because Leslie decided she wanted to visit with them. They had stopped for lunch. Nicole wasn’t hungry, so she stayed in her bunk. She didn’t know that Lance had stayed too, as he did his best to avoid her.
While the group got their food, they talked about how sick of Nicole and Lance’s bickering they’d gotten. When they returned, they found Lance in the back and Nicole still in her bunk.
“Nicole,” Leslie started as she poked her head into Nicole’s bunk, “JC wants to see you in the back.”
“Ok.” She hopped out of her bunk and walked into the back room.
As soon as Nicole was in the room, the door slammed behind her and was blocked on the bunk side, making it impossible to get out.
Lance watched as she tried to open the door, but became concerned when she couldn’t.
“What’d you do now?” Lance asked.
“Nothing. They locked us in here.”
“What? Guys! This isn’t funny! Open the door! Let us out!” Lance yelled.
“No! Not until you two can get along! We’re all sick of your fighting. Now sit down and work out your differences. Before we’re forced to kill one of you,” Joey yelled back.
“God! Now, I’m stuck in here, with you,” Lance said.
“Shut up, Lance! This is all your fault!” Nicole yelled.
“My fault?”
“Your fault! If you hadn’t started all those fights with me this past week, they wouldn’t have done this!”
“I started the fights?”
“Glad to see you can admit to that. Well, since the problem’s been identified, let’s see if we can fix it.”
“I’m not the problem,” Lance’s voice deepened and lowered in volume as he stalked across the small space toward her.
“I beg to differ,” she replied, standing up to meet him.
“You’re the problem,” Lance got in her face.
“Ugh! I hate you,” Nicole glared at him.
“Yeah, well…I hate you too,” Lance retorted in a softer voice.
“Really?”
Suddenly, the bus jerked. They fell onto the couch. Lance landed on Nicole, and neither moved. They remained frozen, just staring at each other. A knock sounded at the door, and they heard a voice ask if they were alright.
Lance turned his head to the side, “Yeah,” he responded. Slowly, his head turned back to meet her gaze.
“Sorry,” Lance apologized, standing up and helping her to do the same.
“Uh…yeah.” Nicole sat down on the couch. “Do you …um…really hate me, Lance?”
He sat next to her, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. He turned to look her in the eye, “Do you hate me?”
She looked at him, “I asked you first.”
“I…uh…I…um…” he stuttered.
Her eyes began to tear up. “You do…don’t you?” she stood up, the tears starting to roll down her cheeks. “You hate me. You actually hate me! Why? What did I ever do to make you hate me?” Nicole screeched, her tears making her unable to control the volume of her voice.
Lance stood and took her in his arms as she wept. She fought to push him away at first, but Lance wouldn’t allow her to. Eventually, he felt her go limp, and sensed that he was really all that was holding her up. Lance sat back down, holding her in his lap. He just held her, waiting until she finished crying.
“I don’t hate you, Nicole,” he whispered in Nicole’s ear.
“You’re pretending again, aren’t you?” she questioned, “Just like last time you pretended to care,” her voice was bitter, “You don’t really care. I never know what’s going on in your head. One minute you’re saying or doing one thing, and the next you’re saying or doing the exact opposite. You just care about hurting me, like you’ve done so many times already.”
“I never meant to hurt you. I do care about you. I lied. I wasn’t pretending last time, and I wasn’t pretending that night you were sick, and…I’m not pretending now.”
“Yeah…sure.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Have you ever given me reason to?
“I guess…I’ll just have to…prove it.”
She was skeptical, until she noticed his face was slowly getting closer to hers.
“Lance…”
Just as their lips were about to connect, the door opened and they jumped away from each other, Nicole falling on the ground.
“Alright,” Joey said suspiciously, “I think you two are ok now.”
Lance stood silently and went to his bunk, not looking back at her.
“Yeah,” Nicole’s gaze followed his body out the door.
“So are you guys gonna get along now?” Joey asked, putting an arm around her.
She stood abruptly, and without a word, left, closing the door behind her. Nicole laid down in her bunk, which coincidentally was directly across from Lance’s. She remained there for a few moments before getting up again. She kneeled in front of Lance’s bunk, slowly opening the curtain to his bunk.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“He looked right into her soft blue eyes, then turned over to face the wall, his back to her. Nicole slowly closed the curtains again. Climbing into her bunk, tears came returned to her eyes, and pain and confusion to her heart.
~ Meanwhile ~
“Hey,” Leslie said as she shut the door to the back room, and began to walk over to Joey.
“Hey, babe,” he joked as she sat down next to him on the couch.
“So, are y’all goin’ home for the holidays?” she asked, looking up at the ceiling.
“Yeah, we’re all spending Christmas at home this year.”
“That’s good.” Leslie said.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “So…”
“Buttons on your underwear,” Leslie replied.
They both laughed shortly for a moment then sat there silently, eventually falling asleep.
~ 3 Days Later ~
Nicole slammed the hotel room door shut, then burst into tears. She leaned against the back of it and slid down to the floor. Pulling her knees to her chest, she sobbed furiously into them.
Leslie heard the commotion and immediately rushed to her side. “Nicole, what’s wrong?”
“He…said…it…meant…nothing…to him…I…mean…nothing…to…him,” Nicole cried, hiccuping sporadically.
“Who said what meant nothing?”
“Lance!”
“I’m gonna hurt that boy. Tell me what happened.”
“Ok…
** Flashback **
Nicole walked into the elevator, the doors closing behind her. She found herself alone with Lance, for the first time since the bus incident.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
No answer.
“Why wont you talk to me, Lance? What is wrong with you? You almost kiss me, and then you completely ignore me?”
“You didn’t think that meant something, did you? Because it didn’t. Just like you don’t mean anything to me,” Lance said icily.
The door opened to Nicole’s floor.
“No. I guess it didn’t mean anything,” Nicole replied with no emotion. She turned away from him and walked towards her room, tears forming in her eyes.
Lance watched the woman he was falling in love with walk away from him as the pain of hurting her, yet another time consumed him.
** End Flashback **
“He almost kissed you? When?”
“When you guys locked us in the back of the bus. He acted like he cared so much. He said he wasn’t pretending. He almost kissed me. It scared me, because I wanted it so bad…and then, he told me that it meant nothing. In that moment, I realized just how hard I’ve fallen for him. And that moment, that changed so much in me, meant nothing to him!”
“You almost kissed Lance 3 days ago, and you never told me!”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! I’m your best friend! I’m supposed to know everything that happens to you, especially stuff that big!”
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Leslie, but at the moment that’s not what was important to me!”
“OK.”
“I’ll be back soon I have to go take care of something.”
“No! You can’t talk to Lance about this. You can’t tell him that he hurt me. He’ll know how I feel if you do that.”
“I’m going to talk to JC.”
“OK. But don’t tell anyone else.”
“Alright.”
Five minutes later Leslie was in JC’s room that he shared with Lance. Lance was gone, so she told JC everything. By the time Lance returned Leslie was gone.
“How could you do that to a sweet, caring girl like Nicole?” JC asked angrily.
“What are you talking about?” Lance asked, obviously confused.
“You told her she was nothing?”
“No.”
“Then why is she down in her room crying?”
“I said she meant nothing to me. And I told her that when I almost kissed her it meant nothing.”
“Well then why did you almost kiss her? If she means nothing to you, that is.”
“She said that it mean nothing to her either.”
“Is that how you want her to feel?”
“I- I don’t know.”
“Did you want to hurt her? To cause her pain? Is that what you wanted?”
“I don’t know what the hell I wanted JC! Is that what you want to hear? Huh?”
“No. I want to hear that you do know what you want! Because I know that that sure as hell wasn’t it!”
Lance exited to the hallway. He had to get away from his friend’s words; the truthful words he didn’t want to believe… But he knew they were true.
“How can I continue to hurt her like this?” He asked himself. He went down to her room to tell her the truth. The door was unlocked when he arrived.
“Nicole!” He said throwing open the door. He froze when he saw it. Her and Joey were engaging in a major make out session on her bed. Lance’s heart shattered at the scene.
“Lance!” Nicole shouted loudly when she saw him.
Nicole immediately pushed Joey off of her and ran towards him. But he slammed the door in her face as he left.
“No.” She whispered. “Come back, please.”
She had only wanted attention from someone, anyone, and Joey just happened to be there. The whole time she imagined it was Lance kissing her, but in reality it was just her friend Joey. She felt his arms encircle her waist from behind her. He then began to kiss her neck.
“Forget about him, Nik.” Joey whispered.