Apology and Forgiveness

"What was your final GPA in high school?" She asked.

"Um, 4.46," I responded.

"Me too. I'm not surprised though. We both missed being valedictorian by point-zero-four."

"Yeah, Becky Lo got a weighted perfect four-point-five. She went to USC after high school. She deserved it, she was a nice kid. I always liked her." I think Rae got the implication that Becky had been nice to me, unlike her.

"Look, Willie, I was never mean to you. I always liked you, but I just didn't have time for you like before. That didn't settle with you, so you were kind of a jerk after that. Eventually I had to give you as much distance as I could." She was right, I was kind of a jerk after she repeatedly blew me off our freshman year.

She went on, "It didn't work though. Your frustration turned into hate. Remember when your mom made you tutor me in AP Calculus our junior year after my mom called yours?"

"It was stupid. You didn't need tutoring. I was so mad at Mom for that."

"Well, I don't know about that. I only remember your anger being focused on me. I couldn't get through to you at all. I knew then that you were forever lost to me and I knew that it was my fault too. It is one of my life's great regrets that we drifted apart that way."

I let that sink in before asking, "If you got a 4.46, then you must have gotten a 'B' in something. What class was it for you?"

"Creative Writing. Miss McKinley hated me. I think cheerleaders in general. She smirked at me every time she handed me my paper back after grading. How about you?"

Uggh. I didn't want to think about that much less tell her, but she egged me on. "Gym. Sophomore year."

She laughed, then apologized. "Oh my god, I remember. I had that gym class with you. Was it because of the incident with the climbing rope?"

"I think so. Everyone got 'A's in Gym, so what else could it have been?"

"How could Mr. Burton have known how extreme your fear of heights is. You got halfway up and put a death grip on that rope, totally locking up. I thought they were going to have to call the fire department."

"Yeah, that's pretty high on my list of embarrassments from high school."

"I'm sorry. I really am, Willie."

She told me she had concluded that some of my awkwardness and moments like the rope incident fueled the way her new friends had treated me. They all knew she liked me and that I was part of her old life, so that manifested into bullying to keep me from ever being within her circle again. That, plus knowing now that teenagers can be fucking mean, it all made some kind of sense to me, as twisted as it was.

The next part of her story was brief, an uneventful time at Stanford. She was just another pretty face there and kept to herself. She didn't make any close friends or even date, putting all of herself into school, drawing strength purely from her ambition.

That ambition at the time was all about getting a corporate leadership role that would lead to her being a captain of industry. She never wanted to worry about money. She wanted to travel. She wanted to be respected. She wanted to be known for her smarts, not her looks.

She knew how attractive she was and had not planned on using that to her advantage. Then the plan changed slightly. An opportunity really. It was when she was finishing up her MBA that she was recruited by a company that had a specialized service and she fit the bill. Matchmaking. For millionaires and billionaires. A good looking, smart, 24-year-old virgin is apparently in high demand for the rich and powerful. She was even medically tested for proof that she was a virgin.

"Wait," I interrupted, "You couldn't have been a virgin. You said something before about only being with two men in your life, me and your husband, but what about Asshole?"

"I never slept with Asshole, um, I mean, Tony. Look, you have me calling him Asshole now. Well, that's OK. Asshole suits him just fine. Anyhow, what makes you think I had sex with him?"

"He practically wore a tee shirt that said so. It was pretty common knowledge."

"Well, I'm not surprised. Only I never did. I gave him just enough hand jobs to keep him from going on a rampage and fortunately he never forced me."

The matchmaking service took very little time finding someone that she could live with. He was the son of a very rich man who grew his wealth from starting a company that was one of the top 2 gaming systems on the market (an industry she was highly interested in). It was a perfect match in a lot of ways. He was in his early 30's, he wasn't bad looking, was soft spoken and gentle. They had a lot to offer each other. She would teach him how to be more assertive like his father, he would someday take over the company, and he would be influential in establishing her own career. They got along well enough and even grew to sort of love each other.

Through his father's influence, she got a job with Sax Gaming where she worked hard and was smart enough to get noticed and move up in the organization. So just like it was written, her plan for her future all opened up in front of her. Everything was perfect.

Wasting no time after getting married, they started the process of growing a family. He wanted heirs. She had no idea in the beginning that it was such a priority, of both his and of his father. Sex was almost clinical. Every three days, no more or fewer, in order to build maximum sperm count for each and every load. Only she never got pregnant.

He got impatient. Whether it was through pressure from his family or if it was from his own volition, this was a deal breaker. She was checked out and the diagnosis was polycystic ovaries and that she was very unlikely to conceive on her own. They tried IVF several times but nothing took. Only days before their fourth wedding anniversary, she got home from work to find her husband and his parents over to share in the disgrace of serving divorce papers and immediately negotiating the division of assets. Despite a prenuptial agreement, her husband had felt guilty enough to have been more generous than his father wished. Maybe the time she had spent working on his assertiveness issue had paid off after all.

When the dust settled, she was left financially well off, he even tossed in his Ferrari. He bought a Lamborghini the very next day to get over the 'breakup'. He must have gotten over it fast enough that within a year of the divorce he had remarried and had a newborn baby boy.

She got over it fairly quickly through the help of her loving sister, and then reevaluated her life plan. It dawned on her that having a partner and a baby was never part of her original draft anyway, and she was exceeding on the corporate trajectory, so she threw herself into her work. Within a year she had become a project manager and was instrumental in that year's best-selling video game, Dance City.

In the gaming industry, the accolades from a best-selling game meant she continued to cross paths with her ex and his father. She rented out her Del Mar home and relocated to the bay area, getting a leadership role in a software company with opportunities for future advancement.

She paused long enough that I glanced over at her, she was biting her lower lip and looking at me with a question on her mind. "What?" I asked her.

She asked, "Do you want children?"

"Yeah," I responded. "I mean it would be nice. I just don't think it's in the cards for me. I kind of gave up on dating. I came to the conclusion that love just isn't in the cards for me, so without that..."

"Yeah, I came to that conclusion too. I just put my head down and moved forward, leaving nothing in my wake, just like I did in high school, just like I did in college. Then something happened to me. I turned 30. I flew down and spent some time with my sister who had just had a little girl, and your sister came over with her new little one. Our sisters were just gushing with happiness and I could see why.

"I looked at my life plan again and something just clicked. What was my plan even good for? I was alone. Really alone. And what if I tried to do something about that? Date? I don't even know how to do that."

"Oh, come on," I scolded her, "a hot young woman with a Ferrari, you could pick and choose anyone you want."

"That's what you think. A choice among losers and perverts. Lucky me. Why would anyone love me for me?"

This was getting really heavy. She trusted me enough to bare her very soul and suddenly I saw a side of her that I hadn't seen since she was 13. She had gotten so worked up that two large tears had fallen and clung to her chin only to be pushed off onto her chest by another set of tears. I had to lighten things up, so I stupidly said, "Who wouldn't love you? Nobody can play Battle Djinn like you can."

She sniffled loudly, and then said, "You think you're being funny but you're actually right. The last person who loved me for me was you. Then, like always, your sister was giving me updates on you. She really worries about you, by the way. The big and handsome, successful, super-code writing gamer who lacks the courage to ask a girl out and let himself be happy.

"You asked me 'why' earlier. Why was it so important that we be friends again? For now, let me just say that I'm going to show you. I am going to give you a gift this weekend that you'll never forget. If you thought that the 'apology and forgiveness' sex was good, wait until you give me your 'thank you' sex and you get my 'you're welcome' sex in return.

+++++++++++++++++

When we got to my sister's house, it was almost eleven. Amelia's husband, John, answered the door with Amelia right behind him in the foyer. Rae popped in to hug them both and then left for her sister's and said she'd see me tomorrow though we hadn't formally planned anything.

"Glad you're here, bro. The kids will be thrilled to see you in the morning." Amelia finished a glass of wine as we sat at the kitchen table then with a kiss to my cheek, she excused herself for bed. Working part time from home and chasing the kids all day had, "wiped her out," she said.

John opened us both another beer from the fridge and plopped back down at the kitchen table. I always liked John. He was good for Amelia, and he was a great dad. He had a good job and made sure the family had everything they needed. He just worshiped my sister, and anyone could see it.

We took a pull on the beers before John said, "Shit, Will. I can't believe you drove the Ferrari all the way up from San Diego. That's actually the first time I've seen it, she usually brings the Lexus. So, what was that like?"

"It was kind of surreal. She had to teach me how to drive the damn thing, it's like a rocket ship." I laughed at the memory and then added, "That's the slowest I've ever driven on the I-5, it's such a cop magnet that there was no way I was going to go over 65."

I thought of something Rae had said and asked John about it. "Are you aware of something that's going to go down this weekend? Some kind of plan that I'm being kept in the dark."

John thought about it before answering, "Yeah, a little. I think you'll understand later, but I can't spill the beans. I think you're going to fight it like hell, but in the end, you're going to like it. Don't worry." He chuckled at the confusion on my face. "Rae was over here a couple of weekends ago, she comes up to see her sister quite often actually. Anyhow, Sam and Ames are normally thick as thieves and when Rae brought the idea up, there was a lot of conspiring going on."

I just grunted and took a pull on my beer, wondering what was going on.

"I gotta ask," John said in all seriousness, "what do you think of Rae? You can't deny, she is hot. To the extreme, man. And she's sweet as all get out."

"Yeah, well, I just don't know." And I didn't. Did I?

"You know, she's got it bad for you."

"Yeah, I'm getting that impression though she hasn't said anything about that. I feel like she's going about this new relationship of ours like she has a system, and just like when we were kids, she's always one step ahead of me. I just don't understand why. We've just recently been reacquainted, and it wasn't exactly a happy reunion. Before that, I hadn't seen her since high school, and even that doesn't come with any pleasant memories."

"Fuck what happened in the past. Nobody can change that. All you can do is make decisions that affect your future. And you, Mr. Lonely Heart, have a golden opportunity in the palm of your hand. All you have to do is take a chance." At that, he clicked his longneck beer bottle at my own.

++++++++++++++

It was a good thing that John and I kept it to just a few beers because the morning came too soon, announced by a four-year-old boy sitting next to me on the guest room bed, poking me in the forehead. "Hiya, Unka Will! Wanna get some cereal with me?"

In my sweats, I joined my sister who was feeding the baby in the kitchen. She poured me a coffee and gave me a knowing smirk for the way I was awoken. The little one was apprehensive about me at first as in her memory, she had only seen me on video chat. She warmed up quickly though and I got her giggling by making goofy faces.

John eventually joined us and I had the most pleasant morning getting reacquainted with the kids and joking around with adults. I made a mental note that I needed to get up here more often. Video chat is fine, but there was nothing better than clowning around with these great humans in person.

Time flew by and when the doorbell rang it was almost noon. We were all still in our 'pajamas' when a little boy about the same age as my nephew tore into the living room with Rae and her sister, Samantha, with a baby on her hip, close behind, obviously having a house key of their own. We all laughed at our state of dress and we scrambled off to our rooms to put on real clothes. I seemed to have been the only one surprised that we were having company.

John then went and threw some hot dogs on the grill while the ladies got a salad together, sliced a watermelon from the fridge, and got out some chips and things for the kids to eat. That left me with kid duty. I marveled at the fact that Amelia and Sam both had boys, born within a month of one another, and then each had girls, this time spaced just a few days apart. While on the floor goofing around with the kids, at some point I noticed Rae had been watching us. She had a contemplative sad expression on her face and slipped back into the kitchen after being caught looking.

It hit me, she couldn't have children of her own and that bothered her more than I had even thought, reinforced by her behavior that I noticed as the day went on. Throughout the afternoon, she was all smiles and happy as she fed baby food to both girls at the same time, each in their own highchair. Rae was a natural with the kids, they loved her and showered her with smiles and hugs. The moms were happy too as Rae insisted that she change every dirty diaper that came up and seemed to relish the experience. It kind of grossed me out, but I understood her enthusiasm knowing the circumstances.

Sometime around mid afternoon, the baby girls were both down for a nap and I can't explain how it happened, but I was suddenly alone with Rae. She looked at me intently and I now realized that her scheme was afoot.

She started with, "Willie, I'd like you to take me to dinner. After that, a little dancing."

I nervously replied, "You aren't really asking me, are you?" She shook her head, no. I knew I didn't have a say in the matter.

"I want you to dress up for me."

"I didn't bring any nice clothes," I replied, seeing an out.

"John's already picked out a suit for you. You and he are close enough in size, it will look fine on you."

She sent me off to shower and get ready, but not before I heard the slap from a high five and when I turned to look back, Rae and my sister were grinning like they had eaten the proverbial canary.

When it was Rae's turn to shower and get ready, I had to admit that I looked good in John's Armani suit, but it was not a look I was comfortable with. I hadn't worn a suit since I interviewed at SDG right out of college.

John came in from the front door a little wet and sweaty. He said to me, "Well, you get to drive the Ferrari, but I at least got to wash it." I looked out the front window and it was parked in the driveway in all its shining, fire engine red glory.

An "Ahem" came from behind me, and I turned to see Rae in a red dress looking just as smoking hot and sexy as her car. Her lips painted red just as bright as her dress. She had done her hair up in an interesting coiffure behind her head, exposing bare shoulders. She looked exquisite and I was ready to go straight to the 'thank you' sex she brought up earlier.

She walked up to me to adjust my tie and said, "Your face tells me that you approve. Thank you. You look great too." I got a brief kiss on the lips, and she said, "No drinking tonight, OK? Not even a beer. Clear heads tonight." I agreed, but then just being with her like she looked was a big enough rush as is.

Once I was situated behind the wheel of her Ferrari, I asked her where she wanted to eat. She asked if I had remembered where the Marriott was by the university campus and I did, carefully driving the speed limit, getting a lot of attention at every stoplight. About two blocks from our destination there was a parking lot for the local beach, and she had me pull into it and turn off the car.

"I need you to trust me," she started. From the look on her face, whatever she was going to tell me was going to be a doozy. "You are not going to be happy with me, but I want you to do this. I have a method to my madness and you will thank me later. Just please. Don't freak out."

"What's going on?" I could hear my own nervousness in my voice.

She shook her head, like she had changed her mind about something. "I want you to pull up to the valet at the hotel. I want you to stay close to me when we check in. Yes, we are staying the night. Then, we'll eat, dance, and I want you to stay as close to me as humanly possible the whole night. I don't want us to be separated for even a second except for when we have to pee, and even then, we'll go at the same time. Can you do that for me? For us?"

She was nervous. Making me even more nervous. She pleaded, "It's really important."

I grunted an 'OK' and then she let out a big breath that she had been holding.

When I pulled up to the hotel, she directed me to a covered parking space in front of the valet's station. Getting out the valet said to me, "We've been expecting you. You have this spot reserved for the night and we'll keep a close eye on it." I handed him the keys and a twenty that I fished out of my wallet, wondering what's the going rate to tip a valet to watch a Ferrari? I felt like a cheapskate so pulled another twenty out for him.

She hooked her arm in mine and we walked to the lobby, getting a lot of attention along the way. She checked us in, fighting off my attempts to pay for the room. She insisted it was her treat. I pocketed the key cards and the woman behind the counter gave our room number to a bellhop behind me that I saw had Rae's and my duffel bag which he took up to our room.

We took a couple of steps into the lobby and she stopped me. She said, "Take a deep breath," and I did as I was told right along with her. We let it out and then, with our elbows linked, she pulled herself closer into me and with her free hand put a death grip on my forearm. She walked me around the corner from the lobby and I saw a table with a couple of ladies sitting at it under a banner that read, "SBHS 15-year Reunion."

I stopped dead in my tracks. "Fuck, no," was all I could get out and I tried to spin around and make a hasty exit. She was ready for my reaction and prevented me from leaving. I looked at her closely with as much malice as I could convey, and she kissed me. Deeply. Open mouthed with her tongue trying her best at convincing me that this was OK. It was like a fast acting drug and calmed me down even with my heart racing.