Hunter - Big Girls & Bad Boys (8 page)

I did the right thing, right?

>>O<<

“Hey, roomie!” Daisy announced as she barged in, luggage in hand.

“Hi, how was your Christmas?” I asked.

“Good. Nice to get out of this place for a while. You?” she asked.

“It was nice,” I said simply. I’d tried hard to repress my emotions concerning Hunter. It was what it was but that relationship was in the past now.

“Sounds boring,” Daisy remarked.

“No...someone from the shelter invited me home for Christmas. It was a good time,” I told her, leaving out the specifics.

“Anyone I know?” Daisy wondered.

“No, I don’t think so,” I told her and then to change the subject I asked her if she got any good gifts.

“I got one of those new iPads. I wasn’t expecting anything other than some cash in a card but my dad got a nice bonus at work,” she told me.

“Sweet!” I replied.

“Yeah. Hey, are you going to the MLK rally?” Daisy asked. There was always a rally on Martin Luther King, Jr. day but it wasn’t really about the man or civil rights. It was an excuse to protest everything from animal rights to global warming to war.

“No, probably not. Not feeling it,” I said.

“You’re probably right. The message gets lost in all the noise but I’m going anyway. I need to get back in the groove,” Daisy said, replying to words I didn’t really say out loud. Daisy went about unpacking, talking sporadically as she did. I barely heard anything she said. I’d like to say mentioning Christmas brought thoughts of Hunter to the forefront of my mind but even though I refused to acknowledge it, he was there already.

>>O<<

Another semester began, my last before I graduated. I was ready, more than ready, to be done. It wasn’t just school I wanted to get behind me. It was the memories of Hunter that seemed to permeate my room. I was sure letting him go and my reasoning for doing so were solid. He was a Marine and I was an anti-war zealot. He lived on a base over four hundred miles away. I was about to graduate and begin a new phase of my life that wasn’t going to include dating a member of the military or a long distance relationship.

That was the past and I wanted a fresh start. Besides, there was no way, in my mind, Hunter and I could ever move past the point we had reached. We had little in common except a physical attraction. That’s what I told myself anyway. There was more, much more. I had plans. I wanted to work at ending our nation’s illegal wars and force the country to change course. I wanted to do it from the inside, not as a politician but as a policy maker. That was to be my life’s work but Hunter turned that dream to a dreary gray.

When I was with him, I stopped looking outside of myself and looked inward. He made me feel good, both about myself and about life in general. It seemed so selfish to want that and it concerned me how easily I abandoned what I had held so dear before. Honestly, it scared me. Hunter hadn’t pushed me towards a new path I didn’t want to go down, he helped me discover a path I never knew was there.

Still, I resisted. He was gone and I told myself it was for the best. I hadn’t forgotten him by the time spring break rolled around but he was beginning to fade. I was both glad for it and sad. I wondered if there would ever be a day when I would no longer be haunted by Hunter’s memory but at the same time, I cherished those memories and never wanted to forget.

But fate intervened again. Daisy and I didn’t go anywhere for spring break. I had plenty of work to finish if I expected to graduate in May. Daisy agreed to cover for some other girls at the women’s center where she worked part-time. It was a quiet week, many students off on some adventure or another, most filled with alcohol and sex. Been there, done that.

I went to the library to do some research one morning. Daisy was already at work when I left. After several hours of studying, I went to lunch before heading back to the dorms. When I got back, however, I found Daisy waiting, her arms crossed and glaring at me as I entered the room.

“What? Did I forget to do something?” I wondered. My head had been elsewhere as of late and it wasn’t just school that preoccupied me.

“That Marine was here,” Daisy said, her words dripping with vitriol.

“Hunter?” I asked, sure Daisy was mistaken. Hunter wouldn’t come back here. Not after how I left things.

“Whatever his name is. He wanted to talk to you,” she said.

“When?” I asked, my excitement getting the best of me. She was convinced it was Hunter and I discovered I hoped she was right.

“I don’t know. Fifteen minutes ago. What’s going on, Melinda?” Daisy asked accusingly.

“Did he say anything else?” I asked, ignoring her question.

“You fucked him again, didn’t you?” she asked. That got my attention. Not so much the question but the way she asked, as if she was disgusted by the thought.

“Um...that’s none of your business,” I replied.

“Holy shit, you did. When? Over the Holidays?” she pressed, more a statement than a question.

“What does it matter?” I countered.

“He’s a fucking Marine. He’s the enemy. He’s the face of everything we stand against. How could you?” she said. That shocked me. I knew Daisy was militant but I didn’t realize it went that deep.

“He’s not the enemy, Daisy. He’s just a person who happens to be in the military,” I argued.

“Who happens to be a cold-blooded killer. You told me he was Recon. Do you know what they do? They don’t shuffle paperwork or repair radios. They kill people. Melinda, he’s a tool of the military-industrial complex and he’s willingly fighting in our government’s illegal wars. He’s not part of the problem, he is the problem,” she told me.

“I know what he is. I know who he is...inside. You’re wrong about him,” I said in Hunter’s defense. I wasn’t completely aware of it, but getting to know Hunter, falling for him, had changed my outlook. I was never as militant as Daisy but something had shifted inside of me. I would never have defended a Marine before I met Hunter even if I didn’t see them as the enemy.

“You’ve gone soft. He got to you. Fuck, he got to you,” Daisy accused.

“He didn’t get to me. What are you talking about?” I asked. She sounded paranoid.

“He seduced you. He told you you’re pretty and made you feel special and then filled your head with his propaganda. A little sex and suddenly you’re one of them. Can’t you see what he’s doing? He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t think you’re attractive. He’s using you,” Daisy said.

Wow! Is that what she really thought? Did she think so little of me? Was I only a friend as long as we marched in lockstep ideologically? Apparently so.

“I don’t know what to say. You’ve managed to insult me in at least half a dozen ways. I slept with a guy and...,” I said, stopping as the truth of that hit me. It wasn’t just sex. There was a connection there. My activism paled in comparison to the way Hunter made me feel. The intensity of my passion for stopping the wars didn’t fade. Instead, I found my feelings for Hunter were that much stronger. The wars, the politics, the fight just didn’t seem to matter in the big scheme of things when I was with Hunter.

“If that’s what it takes to knock some sense into you, Melinda. You’re blowing it big time. Next thing I know, you’ll be married, knocked up and sending care packages to your very own murderer,” she said, sarcasm and viciousness oozing from her words. I stood there, stunned. Had I changed so much or was I just now seeing Daisy for who she really was?

I’d known her only since September and I assumed her vigorous protesting was just that, trying to get her message out. But now I saw her zeal went deeper. It was hate. Hate that was directed now at me and Hunter specifically. But as I learned the truth about my roommate, I discovered truths about myself too. I would never abandon my positions but I fought against war out of love. Daisy did so, apparently, out of hate.

“What else did Hunter say?” I asked her, choosing to ignore her ranting and not take the bait.

“Even if he said something, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m not going to be a party to whatever it is he’s doing to you,” Daisy said.

“Do you even listen to what you say? He’s a Marine, not some predator. What possible reason would he have for trying...oh, forget it. I’m leaving,” I said, almost getting into it with Daisy. I remembered what someone had said to me once, a professor I think. You can’t argue reason with an unreasonable person. I hadn’t even dropped my purse or taken my jacket off so I just turned around and walked out the door.

“You’re a fool, Melinda!” she called after me. I ignored her. I was outside the dorm before I realized I had no idea where I was going. I considered what Daisy said and it made me feel dirty. I tried to put her words out of my mind and focus on Hunter.

Why would he have come to see me? I wanted to think he was there to try to convince me I was all wrong about us, that I shouldn’t have ended it. I wanted to believe that but I knew it had to be something far less exciting. Maybe he lost something and wondered if maybe I’d found it. I tried not to get my hopes up but...well, I was getting my hopes up.

I was wrong to break up with Hunter. I know all the reasons I did it. I knew that logically, I was right to do so. But never argue reason with an unreasonable person, right? The way I felt about Hunter wasn’t reasonable within the life I had constructed for myself but it was real. He made me feel something I’d never felt before. Wanted. I didn’t need to save the world when I was with him to feel like I mattered. All I needed with Hunter was to be myself.

“Home! He’ll be at his parent’s home,” I said out loud suddenly. Where else would he be? I never considered why he might be here. He just was and he’d come to see me. Daisy was right about one thing. I’d blown it but I had a chance to fix that mistake...or so I hoped.

I walked to the bus stop, took the next bus to the terminal and found a route that would take me to within walking distance of Hunter’s home. I could have simply called him, I still had his number in my phone because I could never bring myself to delete it, but after my confrontation with Daisy, it just slipped my mind. It was an hour before I had arrived at my destination and then I still had to walk several blocks to Nate and Penny’s house. I hadn’t gone a hundred yards before a car pulled up beside me. I heard a familiar voice. It was Indigo, Hunter’s sister.

“Mel?” she asked. I bent down and peered past Sandy to find Hunter’s sister.

“Hi,” I replied.

“You headed to see Hunter?” she wondered.

“Uh...as a matter of fact,” I told her. The coincidence of Indigo and Sandy finding me and guessing at my purpose, or lack of coincidence maybe, wasn’t lost on me. Something was going on.

“Get in. That’s where we’re headed,” Indigo offered.

“Thanks,” I said and climbed in the back seat. “Hi, Sandy,” I greeted Indigo’s wife once I was seated and had my seatbelt on.

“Hey. Long time,” she remarked.

“Yeah...I uh...,” I began to say but Sandy interrupted.

“You broke up with Hunter. He told us,” she told me. I wondered if they were angry with me for a moment.

“It seemed like the best thing at the time,” I offered in my defense, as weak as that was.

“He still talks about you,” Indigo told me.

“He does?” I replied, surprised that he mentioned me at all after I essentially dumped him.

“Yep,” Indigo told me and then she and Sandy shared a look that told me they weren’t angry with me. There was more to Hunter’s appearance than met the eye.

“Do you know why he’s looking for me?” I wondered.

“We should let him tell you,” Sandy said. I shrugged but it was only a few moments later we pulled up in front of the house. I was nervous suddenly, my stomach doing somersaults. I still didn’t know what Hunter wanted and my head was buzzing too much to settle on just one thought. We approached the door but Indigo didn’t knock. She walked right in and Sandy and I followed. Hunter’s father, Nate, looked up from his tablet. It was a weekday and only just three o’clock. Then Penny came out of the hallway. Shouldn’t they be at work? I began to worry but about what, I had no idea.