by JD Chambers
“That’s enough. He’s been through so much worse. What is wrong with you?” I can’t believe Ben is acting like this to a man who has just lost his unborn child. Maybe he’s got a hangover or he didn’t get laid last night or something, but there is no excuse for this.
“What’s wrong with me?” He stands and raises his voice simultaneously. “I’ve had to sit back and watch you torture yourself for weeks because you thought, you still think, that you are responsible for her miscarriage. You have lost the only person I’ve ever seen make you that happy, and you are in pain, each and every day, and what’s worse is that you think you deserve it. So excuse me for being concerned that you’re about to get hit with round two of this shitstorm, because I don’t know how much more you can take.”
I’m in total shock. Yes, Ben has been holding me together, but I had no idea he felt this way. He’s told me over and over that Shelby wasn’t my fault, but between that and losing Craig, I’ve been too self-absorbed in my own guilt and depression to really listen.
Parker stands abruptly. “I should go.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Ben turns on him. “You do not get to show up like this, create all this chaos, and then leave without even telling us why. Is it going to hurt him? ‘Cause if it’s gonna hurt him, you can just tell me before I kick your ass out.”
“Jesus, Ben.”
“No, he’s right.” Parker turns to me, then back to the couch, like he isn’t sure if it’s okay that he sit down again. I sweep my hand out to gesture for him to sit back down. “I came here for a selfish reason, and I hadn’t realized what you’d been through or how you were feeling. Are you seriously blaming yourself?”
The whole world has gone crazy. How can he doubt that I’m to blame? “There’s a pretty logical correlation of events that indicate the blame for stressing Shelby and causing her blood pressure to rise falls directly on my shoulders.”
“Fuck,” he says, relaxing back against the couch and running a hand through his hair. “If I’d had any idea you were taking it like this, I would have talked to you sooner. Zach, one out of every five pregnancies ends in miscarriage during the first three months. That’s why normal people don’t even announce their pregnancies until after the first trimester is over. It wasn’t stress or blood pressure or you that caused it. It was sheer statistics.”
“That can’t be right. That many? Why don’t you hear about it more often, then?” I’m doubting everything right now. Parker’s just saying this to make me feel better, or to make himself feel better.
“I promise you,” he says. “After it happened, I spent hours talking to the doctor, looking up information online, and going through packets of information that the hospital gave to us. You can Google it if you want, but I’m not exaggerating. Shelby’s miscarriage totally, one hundred percent had nothing to do with you.”
Ben has a neutral expression right now, which must be killing him since I know he wants so badly to say “I told you so.” I honestly don’t know how to feel. Still petty that I acted that way at her party? Okay. But blameless? I don’t know. “So you aren’t mad at me?”
“Of course not. If I’m going to be honest, though, there is something that has happened that is your fault.”
Fuck, I knew I couldn’t get off that easy. Ben’s mouth drops into a frown as he eyes Parker.
“Shelby and I are getting divorced.”
“What?”
“I think we’ve grown in different directions for a while now, but I wanted so badly to hold on to the idea of marriage and a family that I refused to admit it to myself. After the way she acted, first at the party and then at the hospital, I knew I didn’t want to be married to someone like that. It was like all the makeup and dressing melted away and I could finally see what a witch she was underneath.”
“Well, damn.” Ben clasps his shoulder and gives it a hearty pat. “Congratulations.”
I’m assuming a hearty rendition of “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” would be pretty tasteless right now. But damn, it’s hard to refrain. Instead I ask, “Are you okay?”
Parker shrugs with a sigh. “Yeah, I will be. Actually, that’s why I showed up today, although now that I know what I’ve put you through, I feel bad asking for favors.”
“What’s up?”
Ben gets up to get himself more coffee, and I wiggle my mug in the air so he’ll get me more too. He quirks a brow at Parker, but he waves a hand over his mug.
“Shelby’s in Georgia visiting her folks and won’t return until Thursday. I’m moving out while she’s gone, and then serving her with divorce papers through the lawyer as soon as she returns. She’s going to go completely mental, so I was hoping maybe I could couch surf with you for a couple of weeks until I can find a job and a place of my own here.”
Ben and I exchange a conversation entirely unspoken, and when I respond to Parker, I know we’re on the same page. “Sure. Are you moving to Fort Collins permanently?”
“For now. I thought a total clean slate would be best. No old house, no old job or friends or haunts. No chance that my mom, or even more likely your mom, gets roped into trying to intervene on her behalf. I want to just disappear off the face of the earth for a little while.”
“I understand that feeling pretty well these days.”
“Yeah, and now that you know you aren’t to blame, hopefully those days are over,” Ben says. “This calls for a celebration. I’m going to go get some pizza and some beer-”
“Champagne!” I interrupt.
“Champagne. Wow, weirdo.”
“To celebrate Parker leaving Shelby. It’s not weird. Pizza and beer for our celebratory brunch is weird. Ooh, we should do breakfast pizza.”
“They don’t have breakfast pizza,” Ben says.
“That one with the cinnamon and the cherries and the drippy glaze. That’s almost like a breakfast pizza.”
Ben rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m going to go out and get some things and we can all enjoy our Saturday with a clean slate.”
Ben doesn’t drink any of the champagne because he claims that it gives him a headache, but he does eat the pizza, and then insists on heading to the gym afterward. Parker and I hold a horror movie marathon for the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon. We pretend all the clueless screaming girls are Shelby and cheer when they get the ax. If I were a little more sober, I might be disturbed by our behavior. Instead, Parker and I have polished off the bottle by the time Ben returns late in the afternoon, and he walks in on an obnoxious giggly mess.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m the adult in the room right now,” he says. “I think you guys need some food in your stomachs to soak up all that alcohol. I’ll drive.”
We head to the restaurant down the street and decide to sit on the pub side. The idea of playing pool and drinking pints is making Parker happy.
“Seriously, do you guys have any idea how long it has been since I’ve gone out with a couple of guys for beers? Shelby wouldn’t ever let me drink. It wasn’t becoming. Which is funny because the only reason we got together was because of a drunken hookup at one of her sorority parties. But all that history mysteriously vanished after a few years.”
“Tonight’s your night,” Ben says to Parker, “so go wild.”
There isn’t as much variety food-wise on the pub side, but Parker insists he doesn’t care. “Ooooh, you know what I could really go for? Your knots.”
I think I might die from laughing so hard, and Ben can hardly walk straight through the parking lot.
“What?” Parker halts in the middle of a spot, and we have to grab him to keep him moving.
Ben tells the story, and by the time we enter the door to the pub, I’m wondering if they’re going to willingly serve us. Despite Ben being sober, all three of us are staggering around in hysterics. I try my best to straighten up and seem halfway sane and sober so that we can grab a booth in one of the good spots. There are a few too near the restrooms or the TVs and it sucks when
you have to sit there.
As I scan the room, my laughter dies on my lips when I see two men sitting in a booth. One is slender and hipster-y, with red hair. The other haunts my every waking minute, and most of my sleeping ones too. Parker, Ben, and I were so loud upon entering, they’re already staring at us. I watch as the smile that was on his lips changes to a grimace and the light in his eyes clicks off like a switch. He straightens and his whole body shifts from how it was previously leaning inward on the table. The redhead’s hand lingers in the middle. Were they holding hands? Was this a date? Fuck, I’m not ready for this. I can already feel the tears beginning to collect and I can’t. I just can’t.
I do the only thing I know how to do; I turn around and run.
Fuck, this is why he didn’t ever text me back. He’s already moved on. Of course he has. “Fuck!”
31
Craig
After freezing up last night when Zach walked into the pub, it took all night for Kieran to talk me down. I could have kicked myself for not running after him. I blame it on the fact that I was absolutely stunned to see Zach walk into the bar with Parker. Parker, of all people. And they were laughing together.
After the reality smackdown from Kieran over coffee the other day, we’ve been hanging out. He’s a cool guy and won’t let me get away with shit excuses. I suppose if one good thing has come out of this whole mess, it’s the fact that I have a new friend.
One thing is for certain; I have to try to win Zach back. I may have been acting like an idiot, which Kieran has been more than helpful, and blunt, to point out to me, but Zach is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve been so worried that this relationship was one-sided that I totally missed that it was only because I was making it be one-sided. Kieran made me take a step back and think about all the things I’ve given Zach in return. I’ve never had someone not only want me, but need me. To look at me like I’m giving them a gift just by being there with them. We fill up each other’s missing parts, and I had been blind to it.
Kieran thinks after Zach’s display at the pub yesterday, I have a chance at winning him back.
“He looked horrified,” Kieran says while making me coffee on Sunday afternoon, after I’ve had the night and all morning to stew over it.
“Exactly. His whole family turned on him and I just ditched him. I didn’t have the guts to help him through it; I just figured I’d make it worse like I always do, and turned tail. Of course he hates me and looked horrified.”
Kieran tsks at me like he’s my mom or something and starts to warm himself water for tea. “I’m absolutely shocked you made it this far with him if you are that bad at reading him. He thought we were on a date. He saw you with me, leaning into each other across a table, and looked like he was going to puke. That’s a good sign!”
“Puke’s a good sign?”
“In this situation, yes. Very good. So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know what I can do,” I say with my forehead stuck in a permanent head-desk on my kitchen table. “I can’t just call him or text him. Not after all this time. I could show up at his house, but Ben probably wouldn’t let me near him.”
We’re interrupted by a knock at the door, but I’m too wallowy to answer. Kieran does it for me.
“Aha! Reinforcements,” he says and lets Mrs. Hill inside.
“I brought ginger cake,” she says to Kieran and sets it on the table near my head. The smell is heavenly. “What’s the plan?”
“That’s exactly the problem,” Kieran tells Mrs. Hill. “We need a plan to win Zach back. Tea or coffee?”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you.” Mrs. Hill sits beside me without waiting for an invitation. “What have you come up with so far?”
“Nothing. We’re stuck. Zach won’t talk to him, so we need a way to get his attention.”
“Hmm, but nothing too flashy,” Mrs. Hill says knowingly, accepting a stack of plates and a knife from Kieran, who has taken over my kitchen without asking. She starts to dole out slices of cake. “Have you sent him flowers? You could serenade him, but then again, Zach probably wouldn’t like to have the attention on him.”
“True, it can’t embarrass Zach, but it wouldn’t hurt if it embarrassed Craig. You know, a fall on your sword kind of gesture,” Kieran says, pouring water into two mugs and taking his own seat at the table.
Mrs. Hill hums in agreement.
“Are you two done discussing my love life yet?”
“Not yet, dear.” Mrs. Hill pats my head where it still rests on the table. I’m too resigned to look up at this point. “But don’t worry. We’ll come up with a perfect plan for you.”
Excellent.
32
Zach
I hate New West Fest. It’s overrun by college kids, and the stupid booths have overpriced kitschy crap that they are trying to sell. It doesn’t help that Ben has dragged me there early on a Saturday morning, when I could be sleeping in. And that he’s dragging me to booth after booth in an alternate reality version of my nightmare freshman orientation. At least Parker seems excited to be here. He’s already got a beer tent wristband, even though they won’t start serving before eleven.
I know that Craig is supposed to be working the Game Over booth, so my hope is that they are taking shifts and we will miss him. I made Ben promise to shield me as we walk past so I don’t have to worry about being seen.
“Why are we here again?”
“Because Parker has never been to New West Fest,” Ben says, which earns an excited “Truth!” from Parker. I swear since he’s been staying with us, he’s turned from tightly leashed Sunday school lapdog to reliving his frat days. With the exception that he cleans, pays rent, and is a surprisingly amazing cook. We’ve actually enjoyed him staying with us, and I think once his anti-Shelby rebellion is complete, he’ll settle down into a fun, but responsible, cousin.
“And because I haven’t gotten laid in forever and I want to ogle some man calves. And thighs, if they’re daring.”
Dear god, save me from Ben on the prowl. He’s had his nose in his phone since we started wandering the booths, and I swear if he is on Grindr I’m going to kick him out of his room and let Parker take it instead.
A few booths ahead of us, I see a bright red sign for Game Over and grab Ben’s arm so that he stays closer to my left side. “Cover me,” I hiss, and Parker stands to my left too. As we get close, we hear the feedback screech of a microphone and then a voice.
Ben and Parker have both stopped, so I have no choice but to stop too, although I pull them closer together and huddle behind them like a coward.
Near the table of the Game Over booth is a large amp, with a very off-key Craig standing on top, belting out “Can’t Take My Eyes off of You.”
Dear god, what is he doing?
His song is a reference to 10 Things I Hate About You, except he’s wrapped himself in a rainbow flag, which I know is his own personal reference to something else. He’s not looking at me, but instead at the crowd of people who have surrounded him and the Game Over table. Good. He’d better not look at me. If this is some lame-ass attempt to apologize, or get me back, then he can stuff it. Radio silence for weeks, and embarrassing the fuck out of me in public is his answer? No.
Two people walk through the crowd passing out buttons as he sings. I recognize his friend Victoria and the red-haired guy from the other night at the pub.
He ends the song – thankfully for everyone’s ears – after the first verse, and begins speaking.
“There’s someone here right now that I owe an apology to. I’m not going to point him out, because the last thing in the world I want to do is embarrass him.”
So that’s why he wasn’t looking at me while he was singing. At least he’s right about that.
“I have feelings for this person, but I screwed up.”
The crowd “aws” in sympathy, but he waves it away, and I’m glad. He doesn’t deserve those “aws,” my brain says. Unfortunately
, the flutter in my chest isn’t listening.
“I haven’t told you a lot about my past,” Craig continues, no longer addressing the crowd at large, but still not looking at me. My throat gets tight and I want to leave, but I can’t when my personal shields are still planted and unmoving in front of me. Traitors. “I hope to change that, if you’ll let me, but it’s why I’m always so quick to run. It’s not an excuse. But I realize now that I owe you not only an apology but an explanation. I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you’re willing, I’d like to talk to you. I’ll be at the place where I bugged out on you. Eleven o’clock. I really hope you’ll be there. But if not, I just want to say one last time that I’m sorry.”
A button is pressed into my palm and I reflexively grab it without noticing if it was Victoria or the guy who put it there. The crowd is dispersing now that Craig’s little show is over, and both Ben and Parker are staring at me, waiting to see my reaction. Craig disappears into the Game Over tent. For once I don’t run. Just turn and continue our stroll through the booths as if nothing unusual just happened.
We reach the end of this row of tents and turn to the next one.
“Say something,” Ben finally says, shaking my shoulder.
“What are you going to do?” Parker asks. “He didn’t even tell you where to meet.”
“Yes, he did.” I pause and flip over the button to read it for the first time. It reads “Tell Me It’s Not Game Over.” I roll my eyes just to keep from crying.
I enter Suzushi’s at eleven sharp, and am promptly ushered to a table in the back. Craig is waiting and when I sit, he hands me a rose.
“I feel sort of silly doing this. I’ve never given a guy flowers before. But you’re worth feeling silly for, so I just wanted you to know.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I can’t believe you came.”
I thought Craig was so confident and sexy, and he hid his flaws so well, that I think I fell in love with a slightly idealized version of the man. But looking at him now, the clamp that was holding my heart back and not letting me get my hopes up drops away completely. Oh, I’m definitely getting an explanation, but god damn it this man is mine, sappy insecure shit and all.