No answer.

This had become typical of Kelly since Derek had left. She had told him that she wanted to hang-out with her friends because she had not been able to do that while Derek was around. The game that addicted her was Euchre. Kelly had always been fond of cards. She and her mother would constantly play games like Shanghai or Euchre with everyone - including Derek. Derek wasn't much for cards, having never played any games in his house when younger, and Kelly and her mother were fiercely competitive. Derek's inability to shuffle amused them, and was another one of Kelly's frustrations with Derek. Because of this, Derek did not join in the Euchre game that went on every night while they were staying at the housing site. He did this for two reasons: this gave Kelly the much needed space she had been looking for, prevented Kelly from being angry with him over his incompetence with cards.

Knowing all of this, Derek returned back into the room and sat on his bed, doing the same thing he had done every night while at college - practice shuffling his red Bicycle brand playing cards that he had bought with his last dollar before leaving home. He was actually getting kind of good at it.

Believing that Kelly was once again out late playing Euchre, Derek continued his recent hobby, occasionally becoming frustrated when his fingers would slip and the cards would be flung into a messy pile beneath his hands. He would look at the phone from time to time, waiting for her returned call, and think about the field and the futon - praying that he would never have to leave the field again.

He rationalized, "College can at least do one good thing for our relationship."

That relationship was just about to call.