Sitting alone in his apartment,
Cayden King stared at the phone in silence. In the week that
had passed since Christmas, he had found himself so alone. No
one knocked on his door anymore and no one called him. He felt
like an outsider.
The one time he tried to call
his parents, his father hung up on him. He wanted to call them
again and explain everything to them so that they would understand,
but he knew they wouldn't. With a sigh, he reached over and grabbed
the phone and dialed the number of the one person who would actually
talk to him.
"Dominick!" He said
excitedly when the other man answered the phone. He hadn't realized
how much he missed talking to people until he actually heard
someone's voice. "What's up?"
"Who is this?" Dominick
Perrotti questioned.
"It's me . . . Cayden,"
he responded, still smiling.
"Oh, Cayden. How are you?"
"I'm good. So listen,
I was wondering if you would like to hang out. It's New Year's
Eve and I've got nothing to do," he said, still trying to
smile.
"I'm kind of busy,"
Dominick responded. "I have plans."
Cayden paused for a moment,
his smile fading. "You have plans? Okay, then maybe we can
hang out tomorrow?" He inquired.
Dominick fell silent as Cayden
waited for a response. After a moment, Dominick spoke up. "Cayden
. . . listen . . . I had a great time with you, I really did
. . . but I'm not interested in a relationship, I thought you
knew that."
"Of course I did,"
Cayden responded, despite the fact that he really didn't.
"It was just sex. Don't
get me wrong, it was great sex, but that's all it was."
"Oh yeah, that's all it
was for me too," he falsely admitted, trying his best to
sound convincing. He didn't want Dominick to think that he wanted
a relationship with him when it was clear that Dominick didn't
want one.
"Good, then we're on the
same page," Dominick spoke up. "So listen, I gotta
go get ready for my date," he said before hanging up the
phone.
Sitting on his couch with the
phone still pressed to his ear, Cayden shut his eyes and breathed
in deeply as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.
He came to the realization that Dominick Perrotti had used him,
and it made him angry.
"How could I be so stupid?"
He questioned aloud as he put the phone down. He thought he was
smarter than that. Sighing, Cayden King leaned back on the sofa
and grabbed one of the pillows, smothering his face with it as
he cried.
A moment later, he shook his
head and threw the pillow clear across the room. As he stood
up from the couch, he wiped his tears and straightened himself
out.
"No," he said as
he shook his head. "I'm not gonna let them win. I'm not
gonna sit here all by myself anymore." He glanced around
and spotted his keys. Grabbing them, he ran for the door. He
was determined to spend New Year's Eve doing something that made
him happy, rather than sitting in his apartment all by himself
crying about things that he couldn't change. |
