Down on Love

by Jayne Denker

  “Stop saying that, because you don’t. Especially when it comes to relationships. I’ve gone through a lot, Casey, and right now I don’t want to go through any more.”

  “Not even something good?”

  “It’s never good. It might start out that way, but it never lasts.”

  He nodded slowly. “I understand. I read your blog, you know. Every last word of every last entry, all the way back to your first one, after you left your boyfriend. I read about what you went through with him, what you went through with all your other relationships.”

  “I didn’t write about my other relationships.”

  A grim smile teased up the corners of his lips. “Yeah, you did. You might have hidden them behind other names, but they were yours.”

  A rush of heat flooded her cheeks, and she clapped her hands over them. Casey was the only one who’d found her out. “See?” she whispered. “I’m a liar too.”

  “That’s kind of harsh. You told me you never expected anyone to read your blog. So who would care, right? At least in the beginning?”

  “It wasn’t that many entries. Just a few. And then people started writing in with their real horror stories, so after a while I had plenty to choose from. I should have taken the early ones down, but my readers liked them so much . . .”

  “I don’t think the Internet police are going to come after you. In the grand scheme of things, pretending people sent you material for your blog isn’t quite the same as committing mass murder.”

  “I was embarrassed all those dating horror stories were mine. I figured it wouldn’t sting as badly if I put fake names on a few of them.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were in a rough place. You were hurting. God, that Lucifer guy—”

  “Thom, actually.”

  “Whatever his name is, he really did a number on you. If you aren’t interested in being with anyone now . . . that means he broke you, Goose, and that breaks my heart.”

  George felt her own heart aching, and it wasn’t because of Casey’s limitless compassion. She closed her eyes against the sting of tears finally threatening to break the surface. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “He didn’t break me.”

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  “No, he didn’t. You did.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t even realize it until recently. Not really. But being back here, with you, and having to face . . . everything, all over again . . . now I know it all started with you.” She forced herself to look straight into his vivid green eyes, which were clouded with confusion. “I wanted you, Casey. I wanted you, and you didn’t want me. I threw myself at you, and you rejected me. I know I should have been stronger. I should have shrugged it off. What’s one guy, right? Who cares if Casey Bowen humiliated me? What’s the big deal, anyway? But you have no idea how much you meant to me. I loved you. I was young, and stupid, and I loved you with all my heart. And what you did . . . it destroyed my confidence for years. Yeah, I went out with some idiots between then and now. And I take responsibility for that, and for letting what happened with you affect me so deeply. But it did. I figured if Casey Bowen didn’t want me, I was aiming too high. Why should I hold out for a fabulous guy? Who was I, anyway? Nobody special. So I lowered my expectations. And I got what I expected, guy after guy. That was my own doing, I know. But it all started with you.”

  She stumbled to a halt and waited. Casey didn’t say anything, but she watched a veil fall over his expression as he processed this.

  Finally, he said, “I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong you are.”

  “Seriously? You’re seriously going to tell me what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling? Again?”

  “You are strong, Goose. You were a strong girl, and you’re an even stronger woman. You may not believe it, but you are. And that means there’s no way you could be ‘broken’ by any guy, least of all me. Least of all one night, one kiss.”

  “A lot more went on than that, if you recall.”

  Casey colored. “Details. The fact is—”

  “The fact is . . . it’s not just about what happened between us. It’s that you walked away.”

  “Still nothing to do with anything. You’re afraid of getting involved again, afraid of getting hurt. Just admit it, and stop retroactively blaming me for everything that’s gone wrong with your love life. I wasn’t trying to break you. I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  “Fuck your manners. I offered you my virginity, and you wouldn’t take it!”

  “And you think it was easy for me to walk away? A beautiful girl—one I was crazy about, by the way—throws herself at me. Something I’d been thinking about, hoping for, for years—”

  “What do you mean, years?”

  “Years. That’s pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it? I’d been crazy about you since high school, but I stayed away. And things haven’t changed, by the way.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you stay away from me? Why did you walk away when you could have . . .”

  Casey reached out his hand, tentatively tucked it under her hair and cradled the back of her neck. “Because I respected you.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!”

  “Okay. Because you scared the living shit out of me.” He paused. “That’s a compliment, by the way.”

  “Great. I’m a scary bitch. Thanks a lot.”

  “You were so smart, and so strong, and so mature. You were nothing like the other girls in high school. I was a stupid teenager—I didn’t know what to do with that. It was safer to date somebody bland, like Celia.”

  “So you were a coward.”

  “I absolutely was. I wish I’d been different.”

  “And what about now?”

  He grinned. “You still scare the living shit out of me. But in a good way. And over the years I’ve caught up with you. I think I can handle you.”

  “I’m not a horse.”

  “Didn’t mean it that way.” He took a breath and slipped an arm around her waist, drew her to him. “Look . . . I was young and stupid, not you. And I apologize, from the bottom of my stupid heart, for hurting you. I never meant to. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  George sighed and rested her cheek on his chest. “You’re destroying the entire history I’ve built up in my head.”

  “But can you forgive me, Goose?”

  “I can’t even look at you right now.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s my fault.”

  “How about I apologize for not nailing you when you were eighteen? Because I’m really sorry about that.”

  In spite of herself, George laughed a little. “I’ll bet you are.”

  “I am. Even though Sera threatened to beat me up if I ever laid a finger on you.”

  George looked up, startled. “She knew how you felt?”

  “Maybe she didn’t know how intensely. But she knew I was, um, noticing you.”

  “She’s always been a pain in my ass.”

  “Mine too. But she wouldn’t be Sera if she weren’t.”

  “I guess.”

  “So.” Casey pulled her tighter. “We good?”

  Silence.

  “Goose?”

  Still nothing.

  “Hey, quit scaring me. What’s your answer?”

  The tears were back. George was getting tired of them. Gently she pried Casey’s arms from her and walked out of the building. She held her breath, waiting, but then she heard him following.

  It didn’t matter that they walked right into the back of a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls doing a dance routine on the town hall steps. The talent show had started. The audience at the base of the steps was peppered with green and blue shirts, and suddenly they were all staring at her. It just strengthened George’s resolve.

  With Casey still at her heels, she stumbled through the tangle of tween limbs involved in some sort of rigid choreography halfw
ay between dancing and cheerleading, made her way down the steps, and skirted around the edges of the crowd. Eyes followed them and fingers pointed—of course they would—but George forced herself to ignore them. There may have been money exchanging hands, bets paid up from Team Celia members to Team George members at the sight of George and Casey together. She ignored that too.

  She walked quickly down the rows of white tents, searching. Casey kept up, looking over at her curiously from time to time, but saying nothing. Finally she found what she was looking for—two folding tables out in the open, at the end of one of the rows, one draped in blue, one draped in green. Nate stood behind the table with the blue T-shirts, Ray behind the table with the green ones. Nate brightened up as she approached, but she walked right past him and stopped in front of Ray’s table.

  “How much?” she demanded.

  He gave her a hard look. “Five dollars.”

  She dug in her dress pocket, came up with a ten, slammed it on the table. “Keep the change.” She picked up a Team Celia shirt and pulled it on over her dress. “There’s your answer,” she murmured quietly to Casey, then walked away.

  Chapter 21

  Casey was never one for drowning his sorrows, but right about now, bellying up to Beers’ bar was all he could think to do. And it seemed to fit his mood pretty well. If only Darryl, Elliot, and Nate would shut the hell up and let him drink—and ruminate—in peace.

  But no—Darryl was talking. Again. Or was it yet? Either way, it was irritating as hell.

  “I dunno. Maybe George is right,” he ventured, hesitating a bit when Casey glowered at him. Didn’t stop him entirely, though. Nothing much ever did. “Maybe you should listen to her, man.”

  “Oh, right. I’ll just let the woman I love walk away, and I’ll go date someone else because she told me to. That’s brilliant, D.”

  The other men flinched, and Casey rolled his eyes. Of course the use of the “L” word, from Casey of all people, who’d never talked much about his love life (sparse as it was), would be a shock. But they didn’t have to act that thunderstruck.

  Elliot, most recently married and still stupid-in-love with his wife, was the most sympathetic. “It does suck, Case,” he said, leaning past his friend to grab the fresh bottle of beer Charlie Junior set down for him. “I mean, I like George. And I like Celia. You got yourself in a pickle.”

  “That’s the best you can do?” Nate demanded. “Just talk all folksy? Give the poor boy some real advice!”

  “I don’t see you offering up any,” Elliot challenged.

  “Well, I’m biased. After all, I’m Team George—”

  Nate stopped short as Casey gave him a withering look. After the fiasco of the Fourth, several days ago, Casey had forbidden his friends from uttering the words “Team George” or “Team Celia” in his presence ever again. He’d also confiscated their shirts and pitched them into the farm’s burn barrel. And he’d forced them to stand there and watch them go up in flames.

  “How about we don’t talk about it at all?” Casey snapped. “No offense, but you guys are as useless as a sack of marshmallow hammers.”

  The men spread out along the bar as the place thinned out, each taking a stool, Darryl to Casey’s left, Elliot and Nate to his right, and they drank in silence for a while. It didn’t make Casey feel as good as he expected, but it was better than their yammering.

  When Darryl reached his limit for allowable silence—and alcohol tolerance—he started muttering, head bowed, as though talking to the brass rail. Unfortunately, Casey caught one comment—something along the lines of “those crazy Down girls anyway.”

  Casey drained his beer. “Don’t fixate on what happened with you and Sera,” he cautioned. “That’s a totally separate issue.”

  “She outed me.”

  “I know. I was there.”

  “She outed me!”

  “You said you were ready.”

  “Yeah, I said that. Didn’t mean I meant it.”

  “Well, how the hell was she supposed to know?”

  “I don’t know! She just . . . was!”

  “Oh, that makes a lot of sense.” Casey heaved a sigh. “We’ve been having this same conversation for a dozen years. You know that, right?”

  “So?”

  “So you should be having it with Sera, not me. Maybe you’d finally clear the air, be friends again.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Dammit, you’re as stubborn as ‘those crazy Down girls’.”

  They glared at each other blearily. Neither Darryl nor Casey was backed up by Nate and Elliot, who were engaged in a heated debate about the local triple-A baseball team. Casey would have preferred to join in that conversation if he’d caught it from the beginning; as it was, he wasn’t sure if they were arguing fielding or coaching or the quality of the hot dogs at the concession stand. Just as he started to tune in to what they were saying, Darryl boomed out again.

  “Are you telling me all this time you thought Sera was right?”

  “I never said that,” Casey droned, tired of repeating the same tired lines for this many years.

  “So you’re just taking her side because you’re hot for George?”

  “There’s no connection, D. But over the years I have learned one thing about the Down girls.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They can see right through you.”

  “Me?”

  “You, me, anybody. And they take matters into their own hands. Sera probably figured you wanted to be outed so you didn’t have to do it yourself.” He added in an undertone, “Turned out she was right.”

  Darryl seemed to inflate to twice his size. “Dammit, Bowen!”

  In spite of himself, Casey tensed, wondering if Darryl was going to take a swing at him. He never had, but the way Casey’s luck was going, he wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if today was the day. And, he had to admit to himself, he’d kind of welcome it. A good, physical knockdown might get him out of his funk. He goaded Darryl a little more, curious to see what would happen.

  “What’s your problem? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  Darryl deflated almost immediately and hunched back over his beer. No punch today, then. Relieved, Casey let out the breath he’d been holding. Could’ve been ugly. Darryl was soft, but he had a whole lot of leverage behind him.

  “Stop analyzing my life and take a look at your own, instead,” Darryl growled.

  “You brought it up!”

  “You heard me.”

  “I know what I want. It’s George who doesn’t.”

  “So go convince her you love her.”

  “I tried. Didn’t work. I’m not taking your advice anymore. ‘Fix it,’ you said. And look what happened. She shot me down. Again.”

  Darryl started chuckling. “You say it’s not payback for what you did back in high school, but damn, it sure looks like it. She’s getting you good.”

  “I don’t think she’s trying to punish me.”

  “Think again, buddy.”

  Things that happened during my relationship with Lucifer that I thought were all right and now realize were Very Wrong.

  - We didn’t argue. We merely tensely disagreed. This is not civilized; it is twisted. You need a good shouting match to clear the air every once in a while; otherwise the dark thoughts build up like poison. But not too much shouting, of course. Couples should fight intelligently and—although it sounds weird—in a caring manner in order to air grievances, fix things, and move forward. Not clearing the air leaves you stuck. And believe me, it’s all too easy to lie to yourself and believe not arguing is a good thing. Then you hide behind your false peace. And you never move forward. And when the poison reaches too great a level . . . well. Death.

  - I had no friends. This is not proof that your significant other is all you need in life; it’s isolating. I found that out when I needed to call someone to talk about my problems and realized everyone I had known even a couple of years ago were no
longer on my radar. I’d voluntarily left them behind, at the passive-aggressive nudging of Lucifer. (“She’s not a very good friend to you; I don’t know why you hang out with her,” etc.) You need friends, and your significant other shouldn’t feel threatened by your having them. If s/he does, check his/her mental state.

  - I had no job. It’s not a bad thing, depending on your situation—if it’s what you and your S.O. agree upon, it can work out fine. But when one person wants it and the other one doesn’t (guess which one I was), it can turn the jobless person into a prisoner in the relationship. It also didn’t help that I had no outside interests, and when I tried to establish some, Lucifer discouraged me until I gave those up too. Just another type of isolation.

  - Lucifer gradually, subtly convinced me that everything he wanted was correct and everything I wanted was not.

  Nobody is right all the time, and anyone who tries to convince you that they are is Very Wrong. In a romantic relationship, both sides’ views should be considered equally. When one side’s score is one hundred percent and the other side’s score is zero, you’ve got a problem. (Hint: You can find the problem easily—it’s the side with the one hundred percent score.)

  - Over time, I forgot who I was. I was nobody. I was an extension of my boyfriend. I abandoned all my interests (because I was told they were Very Wrong) and adopted his. When I left, all I took with me were my clothes and my toothbrush—nothing else, not even my opinions. Because I didn’t have any. They’d all been mocked and belittled right out of me, and I was too intimidated to form new ones. Don’t let this happen to you.

  That’s enough for now. I’m sure I’ll think of other stuff later. Hey, it’s what subsequent blog posts are for, right?