|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 21, 2015 22:15:39 GMT
Melanie Benson was no stranger to late night rendezvous. Over the years, various men had come and gone from her life – of varying marital statuses and at all hours of the day and night. Typically, they came and left within the same 24 hour span. At most they entertained stayed for a couple of days. So for Melanie to be waiting on her couch in black lace well past her 7pm plans really wouldn’t have been that much of a big deal.
Except Tripp VanderMill had gone and changed all of the rules on her.
In the recent weeks, since their first time meeting in Ithaca, much of Melanie’s social calendar had involved Tripp. Dinner dates, evenings in his apartment, even work functions where he’d invited her as his guest and introduced her as his girlfriend to co-workers and business partners alike. That had given Melanie a moment’s pause and she found herself wondering what being his girlfriend entailed. It was different than dating Brody, with whom she’d shared a few meals, but ultimately had a much more casual type of relationship – like close friends who were also physically intimate and went to dinner together sometimes just the two of them. Tripp was different.
And that was why she’d gone through such lengths that evening. She’d spent most of afternoon preparing dinner for him, taking meticulous care in making a three course meal. She’d purchased new lingerie at La Perla and even gotten a gift – however unconventional it was to give a blindfold to your boyfriend for the sake of him being able to use it on you, she thought he’d appreciate it. She’d lit candles, bought a bottle of wine – and she’d waited.
She knew they’d agreed on 7 o’clock when she saw him earlier that morning and she waited until 8 o’clock making excuses that a call must have run late or the traffic from the Financial District must have been bad. It was around 8:30 when, with no word from him, she’d decided maybe he wasn’t coming at all, she’d blown out the half melted candles, thrown a robe on over her La Perla and – after breaking a drinking glass and a few other things in frustration – poured herself a very strong drink and settled in on the couch.
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 1:14:52 GMT
It was a little past nine o'clock by the time that Tripp finally made it to her door. There were those days where the meetings piled up back to back and it seemed like there was never a moment to breathe, let alone to ensure that your work life didn't interfere with your social life. When six o'clock rolled around and he found himself still tied to the phone, trying to discuss options and pull together numbers for a particularly needy client, he started staring down the clock as though he could force it to stop moving and allow it to make it to her hotel apartment on time. As an act of rebellion, the clock seemed to speed up instead and before he knew it, it was nearly 8:30 and he had finally gotten the phone to stop ringing and for co-workers to stop interrupting him as he tried to make it out the door. It was obvious why it had taken him so long to become detached from his work, he knew, but he had hoped that it wouldn't have been so problematic. For the last few years, this has been what he had spent the majority of his time doing. He would have joked that he had spent more time at the office than he had at his own apartment, but the reality of the situation was that he had. It had seemed incredibly important to move forward in his career and establish himself, but now that he was finding himself being drawn to spending more time with Melanie, he wasn't sure that his priorities were still aligned.
He had been teasingly calling her dangerous since the first night that they were together, but it kept becoming more and more apparent how true that statement was every time he realized that their relationship continued to progress with or without his permission. It had barely occurred to him that he perhaps should have spoken with her about labels and the stereotype of progressing their relationship before he introduced her as his girlfriend to a room full of colleagues and acquaintances. But she was - at least that's how he had been thinking about her for some time now. At least, since their dates had become routine and he had started looking forward to seeing her at the end of a long day.
Knocking on her door, he waited with an apology ready, wishing that he would have brought her something to soften the blow.
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 1:29:58 GMT
The knock on her door jarred Melanie from her thoughts, a welcome distraction from the dangerous path her path had been wandering down. Not too long ago, such a blow to her ego would have resulted in something else. She would have called a familiar number or gone out with the girls to find someone new. But she found instead that her feelings were actually hurt and even though she maybe wanted something to make her feel better and deep down knew revenge wouldn't give her enough satisfaction.
She picked up her drink, secured her robe around her and walked to her door. Pausing to stop and check her reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall, she fixed her make up gently and pulled the door open. She looked up at him and frowned. "Yes?" she tilted her head at him. "Can I help you?"
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 1:40:29 GMT
Tripp frowned at her reaction, hoping that she would have been happier to see him. After all of the hurdles that he had already jumped through at work, he wasn't sure that he was in the mood to have to jump through hoops with her too. While still apologetic over having missed meeting her at the time that they had agreed on, he would have expected her to have been glad that he had come over at all. Having not even stopped at his apartment to change, he was feeling drained already, hoping that she was content that they just grabbed a drink and enjoyed the comfort of each other's company. Looking her over for a moment, he noted that she was dressed down in a robe, a change from her normal states of half-nakedness or relatively formal attire, and he wondered if she had actually already given up on the idea that he would have come over at all.
"Melanie, stop. I've had a long day - are you going to let me in or not?" The question came out probably more curtly than it should have, but he didn't want to be having this conversation in the hall, he wanted to just settle in with her for the moment and leave it at that.
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 1:51:18 GMT
Melanie thought about shutting the door on him right then and there. She frowned at him and looked down before pushing the door open and stepping aside. Without another word, she stepped further into her apartment. She took a long sip of her drink and glanced around for where she had left the bottle.
Spotting the Kettle One on her coffee table, she poured some more into her glass and finally looked back up at him. "Would you like a drink?" She asked flatly. "There's about to be no more vodka but I probably have more."
She glanced around her apartment and frowned. Most of the kitchen, save a few things in the sink and the broken glass. The table was still set and the candles half melted. She took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose.
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 1:58:52 GMT
Appreciative that she had allowed him inside, he let out a soft sigh, nodding at her offer of a drink. "A drink would be fantastic, thank you." He followed his glance quickly and took in his surroundings, noting that the table was set and there appeared to be broken glass littered on the kitchen floor. Looking at her curiously, Tripp tried to recall when she might have mentioned that she had been planning on putting together some sort of dinner for them. Even more so he was curious about what had caused the broken glass in the kitchen, and if she was fine. Not seeing any apparent bandages, he supposed that there was probably a much bigger problem that she hadn't quite let on to yet. Unable to place the moment in which she had given him explicit instructions to be prompt because she had planned something beyond just their usual plans, he frowned again.
"Did you cook?" he questioned, feeling as though the question was perhaps a little irrelevant. Instead, he turned his attention to the glass on the floor. "What happened?"
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 2:07:20 GMT
Melanie walked to her cabinet, finding a bottle of scotch that she typically kept on reserve for her father when he visited and poured a glass. When he questioned if she'd cooked, she shrugged her shoulder. "Yes. It's not going to be any good now. The red wine reduction is really only good immediately after it's been prepared."
When he questioned the glass, she let out a dry chuckle before handing him his drink. "Well, I waited for about an hour thinking you'd be here any minute. And then about a half an hour after that, when cleaning the kitchen, I got angry. And here we are," she gestured before reaching for her glass again, taking another long sip.
She frowned, realizing now more than ever that the man standing in front of her had the potential to hurt her. She hated feeling vulnerable and she hated that she'd allowed anything to get to that point. More than that, she was also aware that there wasn't much to do about it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 2:19:15 GMT
Tripp sighed again but took a drink from the glass that she had handed him all the same. He hadn't intended on being late in the first place, but he especially hadn't been planning on being late for a dinner that she had opted to prepare. It seemed almost unfair that she could seem to be so upset with him for missing something that he didn't even know that he would have been missing. It wasn't as though she had said to be there precisely at seven so that she could present a dinner that she had pulled together for the occasion. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the effort, because he did, but he just through that it was difficult for him to gauge how bad his tardiness was going to be when he had expected that they might have just had a drink, chatted, and gone to bed. He hadn't been expecting more than that. But he didn't think that telling her that it was her fault for getting her hopes up was going to go over well.
"Angry?" he questioned. "I didn't know that there was anything in particular to miss," he admitted. "You didn't tell me that you were planning on doing any of this."
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 2:32:23 GMT
She looked up, eyebrow ticking up. Perhaps she'd expected an apology and maybe that had been foolish. But she hadn't quite expected that response. When he said that he hadn't realized there was anything to miss, it stung worse than she'd thought possible. "Right," she said gently. "Because when you ask me to be somewhere - a dinner, a work event, your apartment - it's practically non-negotiable. But me asking you here - what could you possibly be missing?"
"And no, I didn't tell you. I thought it would be a nice surprise," she spat out. "Something girlfriend-y to do for you, since you're always the one doing things for me. I guess maybe I got this wrong. Maybe when you say girlfriend you just really mean someone to show off in public and help relieve the stress from a hard day's work in private," she nodded. "Well, that's fine. That's what I'm good at anyway."
Frowning, she looked down again and frowned. "But you could've said that. Instead of making me feel like an idiot - calling my family and friends trying to figure out how to plan something nice for you for a change. I could've just gotten naked."
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 2:40:12 GMT
The very last thing that he had been expecting had been to get angry with her that evening. All things considered, maybe it had been too much to expect that his tardiness would have gone unnoticed or without problems for them to come back to. They were dating now, he supposed, and with that he had been all too aware of the likelihood of arguments. As an afterthought, he tried to push away that thought, not wanting to focus on relationships of the past and instead deciding to be very present for this current fight with his current girlfriend. A label that he was suddenly aware that she found irony in.
"That's not what I mean and you know it," he told her forcefully. Being his girlfriend had never just been about having someone he enjoyed showing off in public or about the sex, and while he did appreciate both of those things with her, the truth was that he had realized that he had feelings for her almost as quickly as she had come into his life. He supposed that he probably should have told her that at some point but now he felt like it would have been a foolish act in the moment. "I never expected anything from you by being my girlfriend, I just thought we had reached that point and I thought that we had reached a mutual caring for each other - and don't you dare try and belittle this as nothing more than sex."
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 2:56:35 GMT
Melanie glared up at Tripp. "Could you stop speaking to me like I'm a child? And like my trying to do something for you was, for some reason, ridiculous?" Frowning, she paced her way through the living room, she shook her head at him.
"And I do care about you," she spat out. To a degree, she was angry at him for that too, as much as she knew it was out of his control. She cared about him and had wanted everything with him to be different, so much so that she'd tried to be different. But when one hour had stretched into two, she had started to think maybe she'd been fooling herself. "I'd like you to leave," she finally said sadly.
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 14:56:02 GMT
Shaking his head at her, Tripp tried to determine which part of this all she really seemed angry about. It was difficult to tell when she kept snapping at him about half a dozen different things. If anything, he had maybe expected her anger to remain planted around the fact that she had obviously gone to great lengths to plan an evening for them together, but the way that she spat out the statement about caring about him, he wondered if there was more to it than just that.
"I'm not leaving," he told her forcefully. "That's not how relationships work, Melanie. You can't just tell me to leave and expect me to do it. We're going to be adults and we're going to fight, and then we're going to make up and move past this entire ordeal."
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 15:29:21 GMT
Melanie frowned at him, shaking her head. "I don't want to make up with you," she lied. She chose, instead of talking, to look for something to clean the glass off of the floor. Living in a hotel had afforded her a few luxuries very few had - such as on call maid service whenever she needed it. But it seemed like the wrong time to also call up someone from housekeeping. So she walked back to the kitchen, bending down and gingerly picking up the larger pieces at least, to get them out of the way. She dropped them into the garbage can and tried to find something else to keep herself busy.
Melanie walked to her table, picking up the plates there to dump the food out. It had been sitting out for far too long and as she’d said, it was best when eaten immediately after it was prepared. “And just for the record, even if I hadn’t done all of this,” she stated as she dropped the salad into the garbage can. “There was something to miss, Tripp. Me.” She shook her head, refusing to look up at him. “I don’t think you really want to make up and work it out, because I think you think I’m wrong and you’re right. I think you want to move past this so that you can continue coming and going as you please.”
“I get that your job is important, I get that sometimes you’re going to run late. But if you want a someone to sit around on their hands and just wait for you to get home, find someone else. That’s not me. You want an adult relationship? I know my excuse – I’ve literally never been in one before. What the fuck is yours?”
|
|
|
|
Post by Tripp VanderMill on Dec 22, 2015 15:42:54 GMT
Maybe he would have expected her anger, or for her to continue to scream at him, but he hadn't been expecting her to actually hurt him in return. It wasn't until she had said that she didn't want to make up with him that he realized how much he had hoped that she would have. Whatever feelings he had for her, the reality was that they were getting much more intense, and very quickly too. The fact that she already had the power to effect him in such a way made him very aware of how much he regretted having missed whatever it was that she had put together for the evening.
"What do you want from me, Melanie? Do you want me to tell you that I should have called? Or that i should have assumed that you were taking this relationship seriously already? For God's sake, we haven't even discussed what this is because I was under the assumption that we were on the same page and I'm not sure that we are." Perhaps part of him was still unsure how she had felt about the fact that he took the first step in labeling their relationship, or maybe he just didn't want her to think that he was moving too quickly. "Just because you've never been in an adult relationship before doesn't mean that you don't have to communicate with me. I can't read your mind, I don't know if something is important to you if you don't tell me that it's important."
|
|
|
|
Post by Melanie Benson on Dec 22, 2015 16:03:52 GMT
Melanie frowned, placing a pan in the drying rack and turning around to look at him, drying her hands on a nearby dish towel. “Yes, you should have called,” she told him. “Or texted, or sent a carrier pigeon.” She crossed her arms in front of her and looked away. “I don’t know what page we’re on, Tripp. You called me your girlfriend and I – admittedly was surprised – but I liked the idea of it. More than I thought I would.”
“My only relationship before this wasn’t…anything like this, Tripp. I knew what it was the second I stepped into it and I knew when it was going to end and under what circumstances.” She rubbed her temples. “And I don’t like talking about my feelings. It makes me feel weak. You make me feel weak. Sitting here waiting for you made me feel foolish, like I thought being your girlfriend meant one thing and I was wrong.”
She shrugged a shoulder up. “I just wish you’d said you were sorry. That dinner or not, you’d just pretended that for those two hours you would have preferred to be here with me instead of just expecting me to be find taking whatever I can get with you.”
"I mean, I don't know what you want from me either, Tripp. Do you want me to tell you that you made me sad? That for a little bit, I thought you weren't coming over at all and the idea of that was so upsetting, I broke a perfectly good wine glass? That I want to be the kind of person who can be in a relationship because I want to be in one with you?" Sighing, she shook her head and turned back to the sink. "I'm pathetic now, I should hate you for that."
|
|
