The Rule Book

by Sarah Adams

Sometimes life is like a box of chocolates, and sometimes life is like a box of chocolates left out in the sun all day.

Because although I love having my mom as my BFF (she’s truly awesome), I’m starting to feel it’s time to make some friends.

The problem is, I’m convinced Derek doesn’t know who he’s actually supposed to meet with later. If he did, there’s no way he would have agreed to it. Because the last time I saw Derek, my college boyfriend, was when I was breaking up with him.

WHAT?!

But in reality, I was working the hardest. I could never understand why it wasn’t enough.

The only woman that I’ve ever felt really loved me for who I was outside of football. It was before I ever met these four buffoons that I call teammates—less affectionately known as friends—and let’s just say I got enough of a taste of being loved and left to never want seconds. They don’t know about her. They don’t know she’s the reason I chafe at the idea of a long-term relationship now.

I’m the last of our five-man crew without a wedding ring, and I’m going to keep it that way.

We’re a love-hate situation. As in, I mostly love to hate him.

I have anything against marriage for other people, though—it’s just not for me. Not anymore at least.

“Remember? At Lawrence’s wedding reception when you got drunk? You gave that funny speech about how all you ever want to eat for the rest of your life is ice cream and cereal and you were so sad thinking you couldn’t? I saw a shop online that makes custom ice cream resin key chains, so I had them make you this one with cereal on top.” Right. Because of the speech. My shoulders relax a little in relief that she doesn’t know about her. About Nora.

But only because I couldn’t get Nora—the woman I wanted to marry from the day I met her—off my mind through the entire ceremony. I couldn’t stop thinking about where she is now or wondering for the thousandth time why I wasn’t enough for her. Yes, we were opposites. Her being incredibly smart and driven and academically focused whereas I was a jock with an undiagnosed learning disorder who was great at partying. But we were also compatible in a lot of ways. We loved to compete—turning everything into a pointless, fun game and thriving off it. We had chemistry that I’ve never felt with anyone else. The kind that slips into your bloodstream and alters you. And if that wasn’t enough—we both loved sports. In fact, she was aiming to become an agent. Did that ever happen? And Nora’s favorite snack: ice cream topped with cereal.

“The agent is a woman.” “Ooh, maybe she’ll be gorgeous and single, and you’ll fall madly in love,” says Bree with hearts in her eyes.

But what about after you go meet the most incredible woman in the world?” I look at Nathan. “Can you please ask Cupid to stand down so I can leave?”

Simply put: Derek was my everything that was never supposed to be.

it didn’t take long for us to fall head over heels for each other. Didn’t take long for me to lose sight of my goals and dreams either. To replace them with my addiction to his smile, his touch, the way he looked at me as if I were the greatest thing in the world. We understood each other in a way no one else did. Even our need for constant competition.

We had that silly, soul-wrenching young love that can only exist in a bubble full of skipping class, staying out all night to see the sunrise while eating gas station donuts, and ignoring my textbooks in favor of watching him practice or play a game.

Sharp, cornflower-blue eyes connect with mine—so beautiful they’re nearly cruel, and I feel an old glimmer of something tug between us. And then a thought grips me before I can banish it. I’m not over him, and I’m scared I never will be.

I’m going with option 2, which means it’s time to clear the air with my ex-boyfriend.

You’re like one of those giant trees in Lord of the Rings.

“Stop following me. And watch where you’re going or you’re going to trip.” “See! I’m already such a devoted agent there’s nothing I wouldn’t risk for you!”

Nora’s soft smile as she sits beside me in class frantically writing notes and I draw an invisible heart over and over on the top of her thigh.

“Derek…please.” Her tone is so soft and pleading. I don’t want to feel anything for her. No sympathy. No heart tugs. Nothing. But dammit, I do. Because this is Nora. My Nora.

The cold way she looked at me with eyes shuttered and heart closed—I’d rather have been physically stabbed.

I wanted to spend my life with Nora, and it turns out I was only ever a brief distraction for her.

“No, Nora. I don’t think you do. Because I’m trying to tell you that there are some things you can’t look past or forget, and you don’t seem to be listening.”

Like wanting to marry her because I was so in love with her it physically hurt, only for her to break up with me before I ever got the chance.

“Don’t go yet,” she says softly. “I’m just asking for a chance that I know I don’t deserve, Derek. Please. I get that you don’t want to be friends, and that’s fine.

I believe in you and I’m asking for you to believe in me too.”

Her eyes are bright and brimming with naïve hope. Those same eyes I used to get lost in. I refuse to let that happen again.

“Derek—after this, I will stop asking you for things—but please…I’m begging you. Will you let me color-code the rules?”

The man seems as if he’s had fire ants in his underwear since I met him judging by the scowl he always gives me.

My ideas are good—and he’s threatened by them. By me.

Maybe one day it won’t feel like such a struggle to simply exist as a woman in my field, but today is not that day. So I’ll continue to fight with all I’ve got to prove I belong here. Even when that means representing my ex-boyfriend.

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s clear you don’t play videogames.” “True. But why would I need to when I could organize my sock drawer by color, size, and patterns instead?”

I think he’d rather be having dental surgery right now than sitting across from me.

I would have thought that Famous Football Player Derek would be the guy I used to know but on steroids. (Not literal steroids, though, because that shit is illegal.) The guy sitting in front of me more resembles a muscular cactus.

“Rule number three, no friendship.” His arctic blue eyes are frosted over with hatred. I imagine I look like I’ve swallowed a lemon.

His jaw tics and then I see it…the slightest tug in the corner of his mouth. He might as well have painted the words Game On across the wall.

Apparently, Derek doesn’t just remember me, he remember-remembers me.

And on and on this list goes. We lob insults in the form of rules back and forth like a Wimbledon tennis match.

And in tiny invisible ink subtext scribbled on the bottom corner of my heart: I miss my Derek.

I started drinking a lot of chamomile tea after surgery to help me sleep, and somehow, I’ve become addicted.

Why can’t you just apply yourself like Ginny?

Compound fracture to the ankle is a career death sentence.

I lie back on the counter and stare up at the ceiling and let my thoughts travel to the one place I shouldn’t. Nora Mackenzie. I smile, realizing I know the perfect way to fill my time and the silence.

Because a woman is only as good as her smile. But here’s the thing, I refuse to let these absolute corn nuts take the wonder out of smiling for me. To taint it. If I want to smile every damn second of my life, I will. If I wake up tomorrow and decide to never show my pearly whites again, it’s my choice. But what I won’t do is be manipulated one way or the other. So I just pretended to get a call and ignored them until they walked away.

(sorting by color because I like to have fun in my off time).

I wait for the line to connect while removing a pint of ice cream from the fridge along with a box of cereal from the pantry so I can make my ultimate feel-better dish: a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a dash of cinnamon sugar squares on top.

I don’t need a man to enjoy my life! That’s why community activities were invented, sweets.

Because when a man doesn’t encourage you to reach for the stars, Nora Bug, he’s putting you in a glass jar to contain your light. We don’t have to settle for air through holes poked in the top of a lid. We get to become stars ourselves

Now, back to your client—would I have heard of him or her?” Hmm. He was pretty much all I ever talked about senior year of college. He came home with me for Christmas and helped you make waffles. He sent you flowers on your birthday, and oh, yeah, took your daughter’s virginity in her college dorm room (not that my mom knows that last part, but Derek brought it up and now it’s on a constant loop in my mind).