My Summer Roommate

by Bridie Hall

  The day Chris broke my heart I crashed at Izzy’s place. The next morning, when I knew he was at work, Izzy helped me move my stuff from his place to hers. We managed to avoid him altogether. Now, my boxes litter her upstairs hallway, and I sleep on an air mattress. Harper has been evicted back to his place and he’s none too happy about it, but he puts up with me because I’m Isabelle’s friend. He’s great like that.

  “What’s the rush?” he says now, breathing almost normally.

  I shrug, but the gesture gets lost in the movement of my entire body.

  “You’re pushing yourself like you’ve got a marathon to win next week,” he says. “Why don’t you try enjoying it instead?”

  I want to say ‘are you crazy, this is not about enjoyment’. But I don’t. Mostly, because I’m tragically out of breath.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about Chris.”

  I risk a sideways glance, but I quickly lose half a stride to him. I don’t want to get into a discussion about Chris with Harper, of all people.

  “He’s a guy,” he says, like that explains it all. The arrogance of it annoys me so much that it gets me to speak.

  “So?”

  “Guys do stupid stuff, Chloe.” He chuckles. “Haven’t you learned that already?”

  I stop. Now I want to talk about it, but I can’t do it with my heart trying to gain independence by jumping out of my throat.

  A few paces ahead, he stops too when he notices I’m not following him.

  “So? Is it supposed to be okay because he’s a dude?”

  He walks back the few yards separating us. He looks intimidating, so tall and serious.

  “No,” he says. “But you’re too smart to be blinded by one stupid act.”

  “It was a pretty big and pretty stupid act.”

  Getting love advice from Harper is surreal. I wonder what Isabelle will have to say about it. I don’t know how much he even knows about Chris and me. I never discussed it with him, so whatever he knows must’ve come from Izzy.

  “Was it a pretty big love or a pretty small fling?” He raises one eyebrow at me, like a displeased teacher, and I want to slap him across his gorgeous face and thank him at the same time.

  “Shouldn’t we be running?” I grumble and start off again, although my legs are killing me.

  I wish things were as simple as he put it. But they’re far from it.

  Uh-huh.

  ****

  After Harper dropped me at Izzy’s, he went home. I told her about our talk. She tried her best to avoid my eyes while I repeated word for word everything Harper said.

  “I know you two talk about me. It’s okay, Iz.”

  “I only told him the basic stuff.”

  “I said it’s okay.”

  She nods, but she seems confused. It occurs to me then that she must agree with Harper, and that is why she’s avoiding my eyes. I want to ask her about it, but her phone rings.

  As I go to take a shower, I think that I should be glad for this turn of events. I should be grateful to Chris for accepting the bet, for ruining everything. Because this is what I wanted, isn’t it—nothing happening between Chris and me? Nothing is going to happen between us now, that’s for sure. So my wish came true.

  But I don’t feel grateful. I’m far from feeling happy about it. There’s no consolation in the fact that at least I didn’t have sex with him. None whatsoever. Him stopping us from becoming an item didn’t spare me. Far from it.

  I feel miserable. I’ve had the worst summer ever.

  I feel heartbroken.

  ****

  Ten days after what I refer to in my mind as ‘the incident’, we’re moving. Or Mom and Eric are. I should’ve known Mom was up to something when she insisted that she didn’t need my help. But my daughterly love for her made me blind to the signs. I mean, why wouldn’t she want me helping unless there was something going on that I was not supposed to know about? It made so much sense afterwards, but when I was driving to our new place, it never occurred to me that I might be running straight into a mess. I just wanted to help.

  I park my car on the curb, a few yards in front of the moving truck. I walk up the driveway and knock on the front door. Despite this being my home, technically, it feels strange entering without knocking.

  I open the door and walk into the small hallway. Through the door into the living room, I notice some boxes. The place already looks less empty than last time.

  “Hello?” I hear a noise somewhere in the back of the house. “Mom?”

  “I’ll get it,” someone calls, and I think I recognize the voice, but it isn’t either Eric’s or Mom’s.

  All the pieces fall together when I see someone walk out into the hall. He is carrying a large box with my name scribbled across in black permanent marker. His blond bed hair sends my heart into a race. His green eyes widen when he sees me. He stops dead in his tracks.

  “Chris?”

  He doesn’t speak.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, my temper beginning to bubble just under the calm veneer. I’m beginning to see what Mom meant when she said I’d better not come.

  Mom comes through a door to my right and stops when she sees Chris and me, facing down the length of the hall. Chris is starting to speak, but Mom interrupts him.

  “I asked Chris for help, love. Don’t be mad at him.” She extends her hand as if she were trying to stop me from physically attacking Chris.

  Mom’s scheme leaves me speechless. She asked him for help while she refused mine. Why would she do that? I’m her daughter. She’s known Chris for a month.

  “Chloe,” Chris starts again, but I ignore him, turning to Mom instead.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I wanted to help and you turned me down.” I’m gasping for air, I am so outraged.

  Chris again opens his mouth to speak, but I step to him and tear the box he’s holding out of his hands. “This is my stuff. Don’t you dare touch it.”

  I almost drop it because it’s so heavy. I turn to carry it in through the living room, but Mom says in a small voice, “The bedrooms are this way, love.”

  I’m so angry that the embarrassment of losing my direction doesn’t even register with me. I turn and retrace my steps, turning right into my future bedroom. I slam the box onto the bare floor. Something rattles in it. I hope it’s not the one filled with all my favorite tea mugs.

  “Aren’t you being unreasonable?” Mom says, when I snarl with frustration.

  “Yes, Mom, I’m being unreasonable. I’m technically still a teenager. A guy broke my heart. And you, my own mother, are all friendly with him behind my back. So yeah, I think I have every reason to be unreasonable.”

  Only when I finish, I realize Eric has joined my small audience. All three stare at me, stunned at my outburst. Or possibly at the hot tears rolling down my face.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Chris says, finally managing to finish a sentence. I don’t know whether he means coming to help Mom or breaking my heart.

  “Not now,” I say and I sound exactly how I feel: angry, broken and violent.

  “Don’t be like this,” Mom begs and glances at Eric. For support, no doubt. But he doesn’t speak. “I thought Chris was a strong young man and could help Eric carry all the heavy stuff. You and I, we’d do the smaller stuff later on.”

  “It’s not just about this, Mom. When have I not helped you? Huh? I’ve been your secretary, your answering machine, your everything my whole life and now that I want to help you turn me down and ask Chris instead? What the fuck? So everyone’s just dumping me now? I’m not good enough all of a sudden or something? Huh? What’s wrong with me that no one wants me anymore?”

  Mom stands there gaping at me, Chris is staring at his feet, and Eric is being his usual stoic self. Despite that, I think right now, if I had to choose my favorite person of the three in front of me, he just might be the one.

  No one
speaks. My throat is raw and my gaze is blurry from tears. My hands shake, so I cross my arms on my chest to hide it.

  “I mean, I get Chris … He’s a guy and to him it’s all about sex, so yeah, his betrayal at least makes sense. In a way.” The past few days, I’ve been starting to think that it was more than just sex to him, but I say that just to hurt him. Because right now I want to see other people hurting as much as I am. I want revenge.

  “But you, Mom … Why would you dump me like that? I’ve always been there for you. I don’t get it, you preferring Chris to me … I just don’t.”

  I want them all to see how much they’ve hurt me, but the sobbing that overwhelms me is unintentional. I don’t want to fall into pieces in front of them.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, love. That’s why I didn’t tell you about Chris coming here.”

  “Mom, tell me you understand how wrong this is. Please. Because otherwise I’ll think you’re doing it on purpose, although I can’t think of a good reason why you’d do that.”

  I’m proud that I managed to get the words out at all. My throat’s closed up and I can barely swallow.

  Mom’s lips tremble, but she doesn’t speak. Chris has a look on his face that says he’d rather be anywhere else but here. I can’t blame him. So would I. Another planet would do.

  It’s Eric who speaks first. “I think your mom didn’t mean anything by it when she asked Chris for help, Chloe. He’s a decent young man who was willing to help her out. He didn’t know you’d be here. None of this was done on purpose to hurt you.”

  I’m about to protest, but he raises his hand to stop me.

  “But … But I also understand you feel played and mistreated. I guess I would too, if I were in your position. But let’s keep our heads calm and let’s not make a big deal out of it, shall we? Chloe?”

  I know he’s right. I analyzed the facts long before he spelled them out. I know none of this is Mom’s fault. Or Chris’s. Still, I am hurt.

  I wipe my tears with my palms, probably leaving a trace of dust on my cheeks from the box I held earlier.

  “Whatever,” is all I manage to say.

  I push past Eric and Chris standing in the door. I feel a hand trying to stop me. I don’t know whether it is Eric or Chris because I don’t look back. Mom calls my name, but it’s barely a whisper and it can’t stop me.

  I dart to my car, slamming the door so the shock absorbers wheeze with the rocking motion. I drive off before anyone follows me from the house. The part of me that feels sorry for myself is convinced no one even thought of following me out and trying to stop me.

  Chapter Twenty

  CHRIS

  I volunteer to help Sal clean the bakery. Amara seems to appreciate it, but Sal keeps grumbling he’d rather do it alone than watch my miserable face.

  I can’t help it. I try thinking of other stuff, but what else is there to think about when the girl you love hates you? Really, tell me, I need ideas. Because I sure can’t think of anything else to distract my mind... So I have to get out of the apartment or I’ll suffer myself to death. Me wallowing around the place––not a pretty sight. There’re pizza boxes and beer cans all over, my clothes stink and I don’t bother changing. The remote control is shattered from me flinging it at the wall when there was nothing on TV for hours on end. My phone keeps blinking from missed calls and messages from friends, which I don’t reply to. Really, I don’t need to go out and get shit-faced drunk and do some random girl. It won’t help, I tell ya. Plus, that would ruin even the infinitesimal chance of getting back together with Chloe if she ever forgives me.

  “Did you not hear me?” Sal bellows, and shakes me out of my miserable thoughts.

  “What?”

  “If you’re gonna use that detergent, put some gloves on, for fuck’s sake. You don’t wanna get a rash all over your hands. Jesus, boy, get a grip.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, and go to the locker room to get gloves out of the closet.

  Sal’s washing the floor with a large brush, while I’m supposed to scrub the machines and counters with a grease-removing detergent.

  I spray the counter and start wiping it. I hear Sal pause his scrubbing movements as he lifts up the bucket and pours clean water over the tiles.

  “Look, I understand,” he says.

  I glance over my shoulder, not sure if he’s talking to me or someone else.

  “Huh?” I say, when he keeps staring at me.

  “Them love troubles. I get it, boy. That’s why I prefer my serials to real-life fuck ups.”

  I don’t want to discuss it. I volunteered to do this specifically to distract myself from thinking of Chloe. Sal’s not helping, but my silence doesn’t deter him.

  “I used to have a life, until I made a huge mistake and slept with my girl’s bridesmaid.”

  I’m about to say something dismissive, when his words register with me. “Wait, what?”

  “Told you I know more about the ladies than I let on. Y’all think I’m clueless, don’t ya? Well, I ain’t.”

  “What did you say about sleeping with someone’s bridesmaid?”

  “Long story short, she was a girl from a Spanish immigrant family, the girl I married. Gorgeous and sweet enough to eat.” He kisses his fingertips. “Of course, I wasn’t such a lump of a man back then. I had the looks and the moves, if you know what I mean.”

  When he winks, I’m really not sure I want to know what he means.

  “I worked six months to save enough money to buy a car so I could take Sophia on a honeymoon. I drove myself to the church that morning, all cocky and with my heart pulsing in my eyes like you see in cartoons. I was marrying the prettiest girl around, an’ I was sure we’d make the cutest babies. But too much booze at the party later made me stupid. I slept with one of the bridesmaids. I don’t even remember her name, but I still remember the look of hurt on Sophia’s face when she found us in the janitor’s closet at the restaurant. She sent me divorce papers within the week.”

  He falls silent and suddenly seems embarrassed. His foot is nervously kicking the bucket, tipping it slightly every time, until it topples over and clatters on the tiles.

  “Wow. I had no idea you were married.”

  “Not a story I like sharing. She was my one and only love. To this day I regret being so stupid. Maybe if I’d asked her for forgiveness she would’ve forgiven me, but I didn’t have the balls to face her afterwards.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. What do you say to someone who’s been mourning the loss of his only love his entire adult life?

  “You don’t want to end up like me, watching soap operas because they’re safer than real life, boy.”

  The vulnerable expression he’s had while he talked about Sophia is again replaced with his gruffness.

  “If you love that girl, fight for her.”

  He doesn’t know what exactly happened between Chloe and me. I just told him that we were over. There’s a part of me that wants to leave it at that. But another part wants, even needs commiseration, although I know I brought all this on myself. It was my stupid acts that got me where I am, no one else’s. Chloe trusted me, and I betrayed her trust and humiliated her in the worst possible way.

  “I made a terrible mistake too, Sal. I don’t think I stand a chance of getting her back.” When I say the words out loud like that, they make it all more real and painful.

  “Grovel, boy. And then grovel some more. If she cares, she’ll forgive you, but she’ll make you work for it. Women are like that. They deserve to be, too.”

  “I don’t know. I fucked up pretty bad. I’m not sure I deserve to be forgiven.” This is the first time I admitted it, but a part of me thinks I really don’t deserve forgiveness for my stupidity.

  “Where there’s love, there’s forgiveness.”

  I want to believe him, but what if she doesn’t feel anything for me or not enough, in any case?

  “And if she doesn’t love you, isn�
�t it better that you’re rid of her?”

  That was just it. I wasn’t better off without her, not by any chance. I needed her to love me. That was the whole, scary truth.

  ****

  Armed with a tub of ice cream, I ring the bell at Izzy’s. When she opens the door and her face darkens when she sees me, I freeze. If this is how her friend greets me, what will Chloe’s reaction be?

  “Is Chloe here?”

  “Sorry, she went out.” Her expression has softened a little, and that gives me hope. But I’m not sure I should believe her about Chloe being out. I know what girls are like, looking out for each other. Chloe might well be peeking through the curtains in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I’m tempted to glance up, but I stop myself.

  “Any idea when she’ll be back?”

  “Not for a while, I think. She’s got a yoga class downtown.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know what to do. I feel foolish with the ice cream tub in my hands. “Here, could you give her this? Tell her I really want to see her, if she’s willing to talk to me.”

  “Sure.”

  I shuffle my feet, feeling I should say something to get at least Izzy on my side, but I don’t know what or if it’s even possible. I’m about to turn and leave, when I change my mind.

  “Is she very pissed?”

  “I think she has a right to be, don’t you?”

  I feel pretty small when she’s staring me down like that, and she’s a head shorter than me.

  “Yeah, yeah, she does,” I say, remorseful. “I don’t stand a chance of her forgiving me, do I?”

  “Give her some time, Chris. Maybe she’ll come around.”

  “You think?” I’m not sure if she means that or if she’s just saying it to get rid of me. Probably the latter.

  She shrugs in response. “Chloe’s a generous person. Just not when it comes to her heart. You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

  Not the answer I was hoping for, but it was all she was willing to give me, apparently.

  Instead of my hopes rising, I feel even more wretched on my way home.