AVOIDING COMMITMENT (Avoiding #1)

1 PRESENT Vibrations reverberated throughout the minuscule apartment. The sound dulled and then died, not even registering on the tiny figure wrapped in a heap of hand-me-down quilts. Again, the electronic noise pierced the early morning silence. Lexi groaned, nearly rolling off the twin sized bed. Her hand fumbled clumsily for the alarm clock, slamming on the snooze button several times before realizing that it wasn’t even plugged in, let alone set for an early Saturday morning wake-up call. She peeled her eyes open searching desperately for the obnoxious noise before zeroing in on her crummy old cell phone. It was situated between a box of photographs, last night’s cup of coffee, and her laptop, which had turned itself off when she hadn’t been kind enough to plug it in for the night. She stared across the room, debating whether the call was worth getting out of her cozy nook so early on a Saturday morning, just as the third ring blared through the apartment. Shoving the covers off of her bare legs, she stumbled out of bed and immediately stubbed her big toe on her nightstand. She swore profusely and barely kept from falling over as pain shot through her toe. Reaching out for the cell phone, she extended her arm and saved it from falling over the side of the cluttered desk. “Mmm hmm?” she mumbled groggily into her phone. She succumbed to the throbbing pressure in her foot and collapsed on the gray area rug she had indefinitely borrowed from her college roommate. “Lexi.” It was a statement not a question. The voice was familiar, but it was so ridiculously early, she wasn’t going to blame herself for not immediately recognizing the deep masculine tone. Lexi pulled the phone from her ear and looked at the time. She groaned when she saw it was only six; four hours before she needed to be awake. The number glaring blindly from the screen wasn’t programmed into her phone, but this came as no surprise. Two months earlier, she had accidentally dropped her phone into a toilet in a nightclub. The phone had miraculously survived, but she had lost all of her numbers. What perplexed her was that it wasn’t an area code local to New York City, where she had been residing the last two years for law school. Strangely enough, it was an Atlanta area code, and the only people she still talked to from home were her parents. When she had replaced the numbers in her phone, she hadn’t retained any other Atlanta phone numbers. Since moving to the city, she had tried to let go of her past and move on to her bright future. “Lexi, are you there?” the unidentified voice repeated into the phone. “I know…” “Do you realize it’s six o’clock in the morning on Saturday?” she asked. “Some people do like to sleep in.” “Yeah, look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I would have never called if I didn’t absolutely have to.” Her brain was trying to signal to her that she knew that voice. But there was no way it could be that voice. “Sorry,” she mumbled. She rubbed her tired eyes. “Who did you say this was again?” The person on the other end didn’t say a word. That wasn’t good. The silence prolonged as neither person seemed willing to speak up. Finally, he emitted a tiny sigh and said, “Lex, it’s Jack.” Chill bumps broke out across her arms and neck as his name registered and she was able to finally place the voice…that voice. It was him. Oh God! Why was he calling her? The sound of her heart palpitating inside her chest could be heard out the door, down the hall and quite possibly outside in the nearby construction zone through the jackhammer slamming against the concrete…not to mention through the phone. Her mouth felt like she had been chewing on chalk all night. Butterflies whacked their tiny wings violently against her insides, assaulting her stomach. All she could do was cough in disbelief. Her mind was whirling with indescribable possibilities for the purpose of his phone call. Each new idea seemingly more ridiculous than the last. She wasn’t sure if she was overreacting. So she hadn’t heard a word from him since their last encounter over a year and a half ago? That didn’t mean that he couldn’t randomly drop her a line at six o’clock in the morning. After all, they had been friends, of sorts, for nearly six years now. “Look, I know I shouldn’t have called so early. I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said quickly. She was terrified that he might hang up after only a few short minutes of his time. “What? No. Of course you’re not intruding. I just wasn’t expecting…well, you. I wasn’t expecting you.” She could hear how breathy and uneven her voice had gotten and wanted to kick herself with her hurt toe for being such a girl. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I know it’s been a while since we last spoke.” “That’s an understatement.” He didn’t say anything for a second. She figured he just didn’t have a response to that. “I guess I’ll just cut to the point. I need you.” Lexi froze, not able to comprehend what she had just heard. Her mind poured over the countless interpretations of that statement. “You…what?” “I mean, I need you here.” Her eyes bulged out. She could feel them drying out, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to blink. She couldn’t process what he was saying. He needed her? Not just needed her, but needed her there with him. Needed her home. She shook her head realizing she must be misunderstanding him. There was no way, after everything that had happened between them, he would ever call her like this. “I’m sorry…what?” “I’m not getting this out right. It’s kind of hard to explain. Do you have a minute?” She glanced around her tiny room, as specks of light began to filter in through the window. She visualized her planner, filled to the brim with meetings and appointments weekdays, and then her lame Saturday with only a haircut on the schedule. All she had was time. “It’s six in the morning. Might as well.” “Are you sitting down? This is kind of a strange story.” “Uh…yeah, I am,” she said, glancing around her tiny apartment. Her bedroom walls were covered in cracking soft green paint that had probably been there since the dawn of time, and a collage of hooks and holes from previous tenants. Her floor was scattered with dirty laundry and destroyed textbooks. The sparse amount of furniture she had been able to haul up the seven daunting flights of stairs still managed to make the space look cluttered, something she had never quite been able to figure out. “Okay, well, just hear me out, because I promise I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t for a worthwhile reason.” He sucked in a long deep breath before continuing, “So, I’ve been dating this girl. She’s, uh, really great. Actually, I think y’all would get along. Anyway, she is really into, uh…marriage,” he said awkwardly. “And…well…you know me.” She did know him. He despised the idea of marriage. The idea of being tied down to one person, suffocating under the monogamous bonds forced upon him by a legally binding document. Knowing that after that moment, there was no turning back. Except, of course, there was always divorce. She was pretty sure that the only thing he hated more than marriage. Breaking up was bad enough without the added effort of divvying up possessions, possibly children, moving out, starting a new life, and not to mention court fees, custody battles, and worst of all, lawyers. “Yeah, I know. Mr. Anti-Commitment.” He breathed out heavily. “Now that you mention it, that’s kind of what it boils down to.” “What? The fact that you have the capability of convincing women to hold out for you until you break their hearts?” she asked coldly. Why was he talking to her, of all people, about possibly marrying his girlfriend? He hadn’t spoken to her in over a year and a half, and she was pretty sure her opinion on marriage was irrelevant to his decision. After all, her opinions on relationships, in general, had always been irrelevant. “Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, that’s what this is about. My girlfriend asked me if I wanted to marry her. Not like a proposal or anything. More like a question to see where our relationship was headed. I didn’t have an answer for her. I mean what kind of guy has an answer for that? But as you know…I mean, because of my parents…the thought of marriage tends to make me run head first in the opposite direction. She pinned me down though, and said she would leave me that second if I didn’t give her an answer.” Lexi felt like she was sitting on the edge of her seat about to witness a train wreck. Any girl who had ever tried to pin down Jack Howard for anything experienced rejection like a blow to the face. “So, I told her that was what I wanted.” “What?” she sputtered into the phone. “You told her you wanted to marry her?” He chuckled lightly at her reaction. “I told her I could see myself marrying her, but that I wasn’t ready to commit yet. I mean we’ve only been dating for a year and a half.” Jack cleared his throat before continuing. “Luckily, she took that as a positive answer and didn’t break up with me. Then comes the part of the story where you come in.” “Me? I don’t see how I could possibly come into a story about you marrying someone else.” “Well, she wants to meet you.” She never could have prepared for that answer. “I think I must have missed something. The girl that you are dating, that you want to marry, wants to meet me. Why? I’m so…insignificant.” She couldn’t even think about the different times her and Jack had tried to form a relationship. Nothing had ever worked, and the last time…no, she stopped herself from entertaining the thought. The hole that Jack left still ached when prodded, and she avoided irritating the wounded feeling that crept through her. “Don’t say that. You know you’re not insignificant.” Silence settle between them. After listening to her breathe for a while, he spoke again, “She got this idea in her head that she wants to meet every girl I’ve dated to find out why I was unable to commit to them. I guess she thinks it will help her figure out why I’m not committing to her. And don’t try to say this doesn’t apply to you, because we didn’t date. I wouldn’t have dragged you into this, Lex, but she heard about you from Kate.” Lexi recoiled at the mention of Jack’s ex-girlfriend. “So, by the way you say that, I’m guessing you actually went through with this insane decision. You are letting this girl pick and pry through your past, so that you don’t have to commit to marrying her right now?” This was low…even for him. “It’s not like that,” he said defensively. “I let her talk to them, because I wanted to show her I had nothing to hide. When Kate mentioned you and I didn’t, you can guess how she reacted. Lexi couldn’t help nodding even though she knew that he couldn’t see her. She wouldn’t be happy. Any female would be unhappy with the description Kate had likely bestowed upon her. Knowing the way Kate felt about her, it probably went along the lines of temptress, devious, manipulative, conniving, two-faced w***e. “So Kate told her what happened, which is how she got my name, but we were never, um…together.” “She doesn’t seem to care. She thinks that since I didn’t tell her about you, you must hold all the answers. So, I guess what I’m saying is that I need you, Lex,” he said, affectionately using her pet name. “I need you to meet Bekah and convince her I’m worth keeping around.” Lexi rolled her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “You’ve failed to explain how any of this is my problem,” she stated as firmly as possible. “It’s not like I can dash away from my busy schedule to take a wonderful jaunt in the park with you and your girlfriend, or fiancée-to-be, or whatever the hell she is. I have other things to do. I’m kind of busy.”