He was silent a moment, then said cautiously, "Well, it does seem a little hasty to move out because he had a friend over. I mean, you didn't even listen to what he had to say. Maybe he was innocent."
I snorted, loudly. "As if. And where do you get off telling me to not be dramatic? You could run for drama queen unopposed anywhere in the world."
He gave a hurt little huff on the other end of the line, but didn't object to that. "Well," he said carefully, "if you really think the man you love would cheat on you, maybe it was right for you to leave without letting him explain."
I rolled my eyes, feeling bad in the pit of my stomach, sorry that I'd hurt him. Caden hadn't even retaliated, just let me call him a drama queen and ignored that and my cold tone. That pretty much proved I was being an asshole and he was being sensible.
Caden continued, "Even if you're right and the guy wanted sex, it doesn't mean Joe did. Let's face it, he's not Mr. Clued-In. He didn't even realize you were a twenty-something at first. He thought you were some kind of well-preserved boy toy."
I huffed. "What does that have to do with anything?" I clenched my phone more tightly and scowled at the ocean. It was a beautiful day—the day after I'd left my Joe—but I sure wasn't seeing anything beautiful right now.
I sat on the back deck of the house I was sitting—and now staying at. I missed my dog. I missed my man. I missed most of all being able to trust Joe.
Over and over in my head and heart revolved the things that had happened. He had sent me away and practically invited me to cheat on him, and then invited an "old friend" who was sleeping over in pajamas. (At least they weren't mine. He'd spared me only that.)
I hurt every time I thought about it, but I couldn't stop. The images wouldn't leave my head, the wound wouldn't leave my heart. That man, and Joe. There without me. The stranger's smug smile, like he belonged there now and looked down on me for thinking I ever had.
How could you do that to me? I had thought Joe loved me. I sure loved him, and wasn't that a kick in the balls? Why did I have to go and love a man like him?
He'd been married before, had lived what was basically a life of lies for years. Why had I thought he'd be different with me? Had one hint of a pretty face, kind eyes, and gentlemanly ways turned me stupid?
I felt betrayed and angry—but that was no reason to hurt Caden.
"I wish you were right," I said into the phone at last. "I wish you were. But you're not. He doesn't love me, and it's breaking my heart."
I was maybe crying a little. It made me wish I'd had more sympathy about Caden's heartbreaks. I'd just thought, "What's the big deal? Find somebody better. You're worth it!" Because he was.
But now I knew what it was like when relationships didn't feel casual to you, when you just wanted to be loved forever by somebody who, apparently, couldn't.
The bastard. But even angry thoughts didn't make me feel any better. They did, however, make me want to cry a little less. I tried to hold onto them, to help me banish the tears currently sliding down my face.
"Oh, honey," said Caden.
"Seth?" asked Joe's voice from nearby. I heard the skitter of paws as Suzie launched herself at me, panting.
They'd walked down the little path to the deck, around the house. Had he known where to go? Or had he walked to every house on my route? And if so, had he overtaxed himself?
I looked at him closely, trying to tell.
He gave me a wry, sideways kind of smile, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. "Don't worry. I'm fine," he said ironically. "May I?" He walked towards me, stopped just before the deck, and put his hands into his pockets.
He'd been walking the dog off the leash, and normally I'd have asked him about that, since he was usually pretty leash-happy and I was the one who wanted to let her run free. But today I said nothing, just eased my fingers into her fur, comforting myself with her presence and trying to look like I hadn't just been crying.
"I guess," I said warily. Then I remembered my phone and shut the call off quickly. I could apologize to Caden later; I hoped he hadn't heard me agree to talk to Joe. Then again, maybe he'd approve.
Joe came up and sat down beside me on the deck. There were nice chairs scattered around artistically. He looked at home here in a way I never could. He belonged in a rich neighborhood with gorgeous surroundings and fancy deck chairs. Perhaps his "friend" belonged with him. I turned away.
"Seth, I didn't cheat on you," he said quietly.
"No?" I said softly. "Well, what do you call it? You sent me off for two months when I didn't want to go, stayed out of contact as much as you could until I wrung it out of you, and told me I should feel free to 'enjoy myself.' Then I come home and he's there with you, the man you used to love, and I'm supposed to just think, 'Oh, that's nice.'
"No, I think you were sending me off like that so you'd feel less guilty about cheating on me, just telling yourself it's an open relationship and what I didn't need to know wouldn't hurt me." I turned to glare at him finally, tightening my fingers in Suzie's ruff. "But it wasn't an open relationship and you know it. And that's not cool with me. I can't even believe you'd try to lie to me like that."
He looked uncomfortable as he faced me. "Finished?" he asked, sounding acid and ironic.
"Yes, I think we are."
He looked away, mouth pinched tightly. He sighed heavily. "Yes, I used to love him, but you're wrong about everything else."
I let go of Suzie and put my face in my hands, taking a deep, jagged breath like a sob. I could breathe again. I could breathe. It hurt so much, but I could breathe again.
"Why?" I asked quietly.
"He was in the area and wanted to see me. He had a glass or two of wine with supper, it got late, and I told him not to drive, to just stay over."
We looked at each other. "Were you gonna tell me?"
"Yes. He…" He bit his lip. "He was apparently more interested in me than…" He looked away, clearing his throat with a harrumph sound, and rubbing a hand under his nose. Was he embarrassed? "After you left last night, he tried to kiss me."
I stared at him skeptically. "And did you kiss him back?" I raised one brow.
"No, I, ah, called him a cab."
I burst out laughing. "He is a cab," I said, tears in my eyes again, from relief this time. "So I wasn't c-crazy. You just…"
"Didn't do anything. That's correct," he said rather stiffly. "And believe it or not, I actually was trying to be selfless sending you on that vacation."
I glared at him, then addressed my knees, which I had started hugging at some point. I wasn't feeling very grown up at the moment, and his blasé attitude hurt, too. "Is it selfless to put me through hell missing you?"
"Hell. Dramatic," he said rather coldly.
I turned away, biting my lip against the tears I felt coming on. I'd accused Caden of being dramatic, he'd accused me of being dramatic—but this was worse. Maybe because I could only feel the blow when it was aimed from the man I loved. It hurt a lot.
"You're never going to see me as a real partner, are you?" I asked quietly.
"Don't start that again. I asked you to marry me."
"Yeah, so you could take care of me."
"Oh, and I suppose you don't try to take care of me? The man who watches out for me constantly and only bothers with healthy things when I'm here?"
"Maybe because I want you to live longer, you half-wit." I glared at him through my tears, thumbing them away, and took a jagged, hurting breath. "It's not okay. It's not okay, Joe. How can we…how?" I looked at him, hurting, begging him to make it okay. Even though I knew it wasn't.
He looked red-eyed and angry, as if he was going to start crying and it really pissed him off. He took a quick, shallow breath and sighed. "Maybe we can't. Maybe it's better to just end things here and now, before—"
He didn't finish that thought. He looked at me.
"If you think you're being noble, that I'm going to talk you out of this, you're wrong, Joe. I have never
cared about anybody as much as I care about you. But how can I be in a relationship with you when you treat me like one of your kids, when we—we can't deal with stuff right? You're sending me off and inviting old 'friends' over. Friends who want to fuck you. I'm supposed to be cool with that. Well, I'm not. It's not okay. None of the things behind it are okay, either."
"The not respecting you as an equal and an adult, right?" His lips thinned and his eyes were hard. Also, a bit shiny. He touched his lips with his tongue. It hurt just looking at him. I still wanted him so much, but everything was ruined. Everything.
"Seth, I don't—" He looked down at his lap. Squeezed his hands together.
"Did you cheat on your wife?"
His eyelids fluttered. His hands tightened, his voice cracked. "How is that—any of your business?" He caught his voice, got it under control by the end of the sentence, but it was all so wrong.
I stood up. "I think you sh-should keep the dog. She'll be happy there."
"Seth," said Joe.
"Goodbye, Joe."
"You can't understand, and you can't think it's the way I meant to be with you. We're in a committed relationship, not an in-name-only marriage where both sides—"
"It doesn't matter if I understand. It isn't any of my business. Right?"
He was following me up to the house, and the dog barked once sharply behind us, but I ignored them both, went inside, and pulled the glass door shut firmly. I locked it and looked at Joe through the glass. He looked back, so close, yet so far away. He didn't raise a hand to put against the glass; he looked affronted and angry.
"Seth," he said, muffled by the glass. His eyes looked so sad and lost—and like he regretted things, but couldn't take any of them back.
I pulled the curtains.
It was all I could do before I ended up breaking down in front of him and shaming myself, being too dramatic.
#
I got a text that evening, and was surprised, because Joe had never really bothered to learn texting before. He'd said it was too much trouble. I'd blocked his calls on my cell, but hadn't thought to block texts from him. I'd have to fix that in future.
Soon.
After I sat there and obsessed about what he was writing me, while curled on the couch and not eating all the junk food I could find. Certainly not.
Pieced together over several text messages, and looking past a couple of misspellings and auto-corrects, this is what he said:
I'm sorry. I have felt for some time that you didn't really want to stay long term. Marriage is just one part of that. You've never made the home your own, and it should be. It should be ours. But I feel as if I've become a burden to you, a chore. I know you care, but I thought the distance would help you find space to admit you needed to leave for your own wellbeing. Now I see I was being selfish not to broach this subject in person.
I didn't want to have to face you leaving me. I thought it would be easier if you left slowly. But I miss you so much. My heart is broken, and I know if I had handled things differently it wouldn't be.
Please come back.
If you're going to leave me, don't do it because I'm foolish and inconsiderate. Do it because you don't love me, or you can't deal with the heath issues anymore or some other reason that can't be prevented. Let me know what I can do to fix this.
It was just like Joe: earnest and considered, well-mannered and sincere. I missed him so much. He wasn't the sort to have a yelling fight, to really put everything on the table, and of course it had hurt him to write all of this out.
But he was right, too: he hadn't done it on purpose to be a jerk, or to hurt me, or to cheat on me. That wasn't his way, either. But this was: fumbling awkwardness, careful words and long silences, the ways of a man who barely trusted his feelings and certainly didn't know how to deal with them.
The ways of a man who had spent most of his years in the closet, and hardly knew how to navigate the shoals of actually dealing with what was going on with him and the one he loved—loved?—and kept fumbling around in the dark, getting it wrong.
Could I live with that?
Hell, yes. Better than just saying goodbye and not living with it.
I did love Joe. I loved him too much, sometimes, so that the thought of him dying was like the air all squeezed out of my lungs and my heart stopping, and everything frozen and still and awful, stricken with terror.
I'd never lost anyone close to me. Not really. I hadn't known my mom or dad, and none of my close friends had died. My grandmother, who had raised me, was still here and loved me dearly. But she was getting older. And my lover was an older man with heart problems.
I was going to lose somebody someday, and probably not as far in the future as I'd have liked.
Yeah, it scared me shitless.
But at least that would be an honest loss, not a we-fucked-this-up-good loss.
I gathered my courage. I thought about it, and then stopped thinking about it and got off my ass. If I thought too long, I'd find reasons not to go home.
I went home. The walk seemed longer than usual. Maybe I was dragging my feet.
Joe was sitting on the front porch. He wasn't drinking coffee. I knew it was because he had a schedule. He could drink coffee once a day, in the morning, and not too much. That's what his doctor had told him recently. And he stuck to it, because that's my Joe: diligent, even when it's hard. Trying to do the right thing.
I smiled weakly as I walked up to the porch. I motioned to the porch swing.
He looked surprised, but nodded.
I sat down beside him. We swung a little, in silence.
He didn't seem to know what to say, and neither did I.
"So, I got your texts. Thank you."
"Y-You're welcome?" He sounded nervous, scared even, and I looked at him, realizing that he thought this was it, that I was breaking up with him for good. Relief filled me. He looked so scared, he couldn't really be wanting me gone. He had to have been telling the truth. I wished he hadn't tried to play martyr about everything. It had just hurt us both.
"Um, I'd like to…to come back," I told him awkwardly. "I miss you. I think I understand now why you did it, and I don't want to give up on us."
I barely got the words out before he lunged at me. Joe—lunged. He caught me in his arms, for once overcome by emotion, acting on instinct alone. He squeezed me so tight I couldn't help but hug him back just as hard. He was trembling slightly.
"I'm…I'm glad," he said in a choked voice.
I patted his back, smiling a little, even though I was also in tears. He was never going to get much better at this emotional stuff, was he? Or probably at trusting himself.
But he was trying, and I was trying, and perhaps together, we could make it work.
#
We didn't say a lot the rest of the day. I think we were both too afraid of breaking things between us, things that were more fragile than we had realized. Instead, we were very lovey-dovey and quiet together. We made love; we cooked together; we took the dog down to the beach for a walk. When Joe took his daily nap, I stayed in bed too, just to be near him.
I listened to him breathe, and wondered how long it would last, and then consciously put that thought away, because I would rather have what time I could with him than lose him sooner, the way he seemed to think I should.
I cherished those moments, even with the pain. There was so much left to learn, to do, to explore with each other. I wanted this to be real. I wanted him to be a big part of my life, and for neither one of us to feel like a charity case to the other. I had so many thoughts, concerns, and plans of action. I fell asleep before I could reach the end of any of them.
The next day, I began work on changing the rooms I'd never liked in the house. I picked out some paint, with his permission, and a few decorations for the walls—surfing posters, stuff like that—to make it look less iceberg-cold. I enjoyed the way he smiled when I worked on making the home ours instead of his.
We went sailing more, an
d he taught me things about his boat. He got all bronzed and beautiful in the sunshine, and his smile had more lines, and his eyes were warmer than ever when he looked at me. Sometimes, he wasn't ashamed to kiss me out in the open, with a tenderness and love that never ceased to surprise me. It was as if I was his whole world, not in a scary, possessive way that wanted to hold me close so I couldn't get away, but like I was a sunrise to him, something that caught his breath in a new way every morning, even if it didn't come as a surprise. He didn't try to hold me in his grasp any more than he would have the sunset. But I think I let him know I wanted to stay.
#
"If you really don't feel good about marrying me, will you at least let me put you in my will?" he asked one day as I was loading the dishwasher. He'd been handing me pots, and now I almost dropped one as I stopped and turned to gape at him.
The dog took the moment and her chance: she edged between us and started licking at the edge of the pot, wagging her tail guiltily. She was normally pretty good, but it was beef stew. And I was too distracted to scold her…much less care.
I gaped at Joe. He was turning red in that delightfully sexy way of his, just a little, in his cheeks. He looked so gorgeous when he blushed, cute and sexy and delicious. But he wanted to put me in his will.
I turned around and put the pot in with the others and started the load. Suzie sat down, looking disappointed. I spoke as evenly as I could, but my voice still shook. "I thought we talked about this. I don't ever want to profit from your death. And by the way, you're not allowed to die."
"I don't want to," he said quickly. "But it will happen someday. And the odds, the statistics are in favor of me dying first."
"I could get hit by a bus."
He smiled sadly and gently. "Please don't. Be careful around public transportation. And I know you don't want to talk about this. But it's important. Please just hear me out."
"I don't want to." I walked swiftly from the kitchen, cowardishly hoping he wouldn't follow me.
The Way to Joe Page 7