“You said what?” Mike asked, blinking his eyes in amazement. “Nick do you even realize the magnitude in what you said?”
“Pretty much yes. I just fucked over everything and I still have 16 days left before I can get out of here.”
Mike sighed and closed his eyes. “What gave you the idea that Devyn was a spoiled little rich girl?”
“How was I supposed to know that she wasn’t? The girl is so fucking secretive about everything, I don’t even know her favorite food…”
“Burger King,” Mike interjected.
“Anyway,” Nick started. “I’ve seen that attitude before…I just assumed…”
“Well your assumptions just got your ass kicked. Tracing that attitude to a starting point would lead you to the years and years of rejection, harsh living, and learning to stand up for yourself the hard way. Not a millionaire and his daughter. Besides, aren’t you the one with millions of dollars? And more importantly, why would you even think to bring something up like that...it's really immature.”
Nick could only sit at the table and wonder about the many different ways he could spend 16 days. A hotel? Nah, too far away from school. The guys? No again, they all lived in Florida. Nick thought and thought but could only return the same solution which was there was no solution at all.
“I’m gonna make some more coffee,” Mike announced, slowly getting up from the table. The sound of a creaking door shot him back down on the couch like a bullet.
Devyn emerged from her room dressed and ready to go and walked into the kitchen. “Hey Mike, how was your night?”
“Good,” Mike sighed knowing full well that he was going to get pulled into the middle of this fight rather easily. “Yours?”
“It was really awesome….,” Devyn’s eyes darted across the room to Nick. Devyn then went over to open the door to the dorm room to look outside for a second only to see that a rose was laced through the doorframe with a note attached to it with red yarn. “Devyn” was printed neatly on the outside:
Dear Devyn:
I had such a wonderful time with you last night. I think that you are by far the most interesting person on this campus to talk to and I don’t want to loose that. So what do you say that you and I catch a movie tonight? This time, you call me?
-Eric
Devyn smiled a bit as she read the note.
“What’s that?” Nick asked, trying to bring things back to speaking terms.
“A rose.” Indifference shined in Devyn’s voice. “Anyway,I’ve got an appointment with Kacey. Have fun you two.”
“Mmm k, see ya Dev.” Mike waited until after Devyn had left before he got up to make some coffee.
“Now, who’s Kacey?” Nick asked Mike as he grabbed a mug from the counter.
“Kacey is the women who’s managing Devyn’s search for her birth parents. But, because of the low funds, they're talking about dropping Devyn's case for a two year waiting period.”
“So they’re just dropping her…like that?”
“Pretty much but what can they do? They’ve been searching for Devyn’s birth parents for eight years and so far they’ve uncovered nothing. With low funds, they can’t really keep this thing going on for much longer.”
Nick sighed and stretched to pick up the rose that Devyn had left on the table. After reading the card, he laughed a little and then sighed and put the rose down. He had completely blow everything with Devyn. Even the idea of ever talking to her again was rapidly deteriorating with every second that went by. Nick thought back to last night. Why did I say rich girl? I knew that she wasn’t rich, I just wanted to get her back. Why did I even say rich? It’s irrelevant to any argument. And why of all things did I have to hit on the one thing…the one thing that Devyn is so sensitive about…. After a couple more minutes of sitting in the silence pondering what to do next, Nick took his coffee cup into his room and picked up the phone only to set it down again. He was going to call Brian to see if he could make everything okay again, but Nick knew that this was something he was going to have to handle by himself.
“So that’s it?” Devyn asked. “It’s all over?”
“Two years isn’t that long Devyn,” Kacey said soothingly. “And it’s not like we are dropping your case, we’re just putting on the back burner. We’ll always have our eyes open no matter what, you know that.”
Devyn concluded lunch with Kacey a couple minutes early and stepped into the dorm room at 1:35. It was strangely silent when Devyn walked in. Mike was out all day searching for something to complete his Commercial Art project which was due in three days so that left Devyn alone in the dorm with Nick, but Nick was no where to be found. The usual sounds of Mario Kart were not drifting down the hallway, the television was not tuned to some stupid cartoons show. Instead, Devyn found Nick in his room drawing on a sketchpad. “What’s that?” Devyn said.
Her voice obviously startled Nick a little bit, however his only respond was, “Nothing.”
The silence stretched through time, putting up a glass-like blockade between Devyn and Nick. Finally Devyn shattered the silence. “Listen Nick…”
Nick continued to draw on the sketchpad, trying to ignore Devyn’s pleading eyes.
“I just wanted to apologize for blowing up at you last night. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t know about the adoption and it shouldn’t have been such a big deal to me in the first place. I should start accepting the fact that I never knew my parents and move on rather than dwell on it everyday and use it to form excuses…”
Nick interrupted. “That doesn’t forgive what I said to you though. I just pulled something out of the air to throw at you because I was mad and I was mad because of what you said when Claudia and Julie were here. See Dev…I guess…well, you see…”
“It’s okay Nick. Things didn’t just start and Claudia and Julie. I’ve been mean to you ever since I bumped into you and I haven’t been able to figure out why.”
“You’re not the only one,” Nick muttered.
“So I guess let’s agree to disagree. We’ve got 16 more days together and we can either go through those days not talking to each other and acting bitter and spiteful or we can try to move on as civil people.”
“Dev…I don’t know how easy that is because the only reason I’ve been fighting with you is…um…”
“…because I’ve been fighting with you,” Devyn stated.
“No, that’s not it…ah…um…nevermind.”
“No Nick…I should stop finishing your sentences. What were you going to say?”
“It’s not important, really.”
“Okay,” Devyn turned to walk out of the doorway. “If you say so.”
Nick allowed Devyn to move out of sight before he acted on impulse. “Wait!” he yelled as he hopped off the bed and chased Devyn down the hall. He turned Devyn around so that she was facing him. “Okay,” Nick began. “This isn’t easy, and this isn’t really what I was expecting to happen when I moved into this dorm, but as third grade as this sounds, the reason I have been fighting with you over trivial things is…I like you Devyn, I mean, I really think that I have genuine feelings for you. I can’t pinpoint exactly when this started but meant what I said on the chocolate chip bag. I didn’t honor it and I’m sorry, but I meant it. I don’t want to keep this stupid immature thing going. I want a friendship.”
Devyn didn’t know what to say. She glanced down at her feet and noticed for the first time how cute Nick’s stance was. She smiled a little and cleared her throat. “When you first moved in to the dorm, I was really defensive in part because I have a hard time trusting people and when you fell into playing my pathetic game, I just pulled you along with it. I’m sorry for that. But while I was dragging you along I realized how much I wanted you to follow me through arguments. It made me feel like I could trust that you were there because you and I were always in the middle of a fight and neither one of us were about to back down.” Devyn paused when she realized that what she was saying was not answering to Nick’s comments. “Nick, I like you too. I have really held deep respect for you all along, but in some stupid playground way, I couldn’t let you know. I guess that I felt intimidated because you are the so-great-Nick Carter and I’m just the college-dumbshit-Devyn McPherson. I want to have a friendship too and if it’s okay with you, I want to start off with a clean slate so Nick, I’m sorry for all the stupid crap that I’ve done and said to you. Peace?”
Nick stuck out his hand, “I guess so."
Chapter Fifteen
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