Just Because of You

by Gianna Gabriela

  “Because what could I have offered you, Amari?” I ask her, instead hoping to make her realize that I made the right choice. But I feel like I’m just trying to convince myself of something I no longer believe.

  “What do you mean?” she asks. Amari always had a bigger vision for me than I had for myself. She thought I was better than I actually was.

  “What future did you have with me?” I wasn’t good enough for her. I’m still not.

  “The future we talked about. We were both supposed to go to college together. You could’ve played football. I…”

  “You what?”

  “I didn’t care what I did as long as I was with you.” Her words confirm my fear. She would’ve dropped her dreams for mine. She would’ve let her goals pass her by while she dealt with the consequences of my actions.

  “You’re doing what you’ve always wanted to do,” I tell her. She’d always talk about how much she loved education. She was a teachers’ pet. I noticed that the first day I met her, but with her it didn’t bother me. She was inspired by the teachers, wanted to be them someday. I knew she’d be whatever she wanted to be and I didn’t want to get in the way of that.

  AMARI

  “We could’ve both achieved those dreams together,” I tell him. Yes, I admit I loved him so much that I would’ve followed him to the end of the world if he’d asked me to. But our goals weren’t mutually exclusive. It wasn’t one thing or the other. We could’ve followed our dreams together.

  “You really think that?” he asks and for the life of me I can’t figure out why he thought our pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit together back then.

  I shake my head knowing every second I spend talking to him, I’m reopening wounds that have not fully healed. “It doesn’t matter now,” I tell him, my voice cracking once again.

  “I had to leave you. I didn’t have a choice,” he says those words like he truly believes them. Like someone forced him to leave me that day.

  “Everyone always has a choice.” Even if the cards are stacked against you, even if the choice is harder, even if the choice isn’t fair, there’s always a choice.

  “I found out Ari’s mom was pregnant senior year of high school.”

  I don’t react to his words. I already knew that, he already told me. “You broke up with me because you cheated on me…” I tell him again the accusation he’s denied before.

  He rounds my desk and stands face to face with me. “How could you say that?”

  “It’s true,” I tell him, my voice wavering once again.

  “How could you think I’d be capable of that?” he asks and his tone makes it sound like he’s offended that the thought would even cross my mind.

  I look at him in the eyes and don’t hide what I’m feeling. “I didn’t think you’d be capable of breaking up with me the way that you did… but clearly I didn’t know you very well.”

  He brings his hands to my cheeks and everything inside me melts. Externally though, I try to keep it together. “You knew me better than anyone else in my life. You were the only one who actually knew me.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he speaks.

  A tear escapes me and I’m angry at myself for not kicking him out the moment he walked into my office. For letting him drive me home last night. For not running for the hills the moment I realized he still lived in this town. For letting him get this close to me again.

  “I would never cheat on you, Amari,” he adds.

  “You’re a liar,” I tell him my, words holding no confidence because I don’t know what to believe anymore.

  “You met me when I transferred into your school. You knew that I had a bad past,” he starts.

  “So what? Now your past is responsible for the choices you made while you were with me?”

  His hand doesn’t leave my face and I don’t know that I want it to. Oddly enough, I appreciate the comfort it brings me. “That’s exactly it, Amari. It wasn’t a choice I made while I was with you. It was a mistake I made before you.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask confused and frustrated. A million emotions running through me but none strong enough to push my feet to move away or get my hands to remove his from my cheeks.

  “I got Ari’s mom pregnant a few weeks before I even met you.” Could that be true?

  I take a small step back. “So then maybe you weren’t technically a cheater, but you were a liar.”

  “I did lie to you but only at the end of our relationship,” he admits.

  I back away enough to get his hands to move. “So hiding a whole child you were having with another girl before we met isn’t considered lying?” The nerve of this man to stand here next to me and try to justify himself.

  “I didn’t know about it, about her pregnancy.” I don’t know if he’s lying or telling the truth… all I know is I can’t trust him. Not again. Not when I know he’s capable of breaking me. “I slept with her at a party a couple weeks before I started talking to you. She went to a different school. When she realized she was pregnant, she didn’t know if she was going to keep Ari or not, so she didn’t tell me. Then, after she made the decision to keep Ari, she didn’t know how to tell me,” the words tumble out of his mouth.

  “When did she tell you?” I ask, finding myself believing him.

  “She told me that morning.” That morning?

  “The morning you broke up with me?” I ask.

  He nods. “I was overwhelmed. I was eighteen years old. I didn’t know what to do with the new information. I was going to have a kid. I was going to be a father. That scared the shit out of me. I didn’t have a father; how could I possibly be one? I wasn’t capable of being a father, at least not at eighteen. Not in my mind. Whenever I had envisioned a family, I always had you by my side. It wouldn’t even happen until much later, until I became better. Until I was at least close to being worth everything you were giving me.” I can hear his words, but I can’t process them. I don’t know how. It’s been six years.

  “We could’ve talked about it then. You could have told me then. We would have figured something out,” I repeat.

  “Like what?” he asks, like he’s tried to figure this out before and found no other solution.

  “I don’t know but, if what you say is true, you didn’t even bother giving me the opportunity to think about it. You didn’t give me the option. You just decided on your own.” Doesn’t matter what I come up with now, we can’t go back to the past.

  “I decided to not screw up your life. You were miss-know-it-all. I was the cliché of a bad boy. I wasn’t going to let you give up your dreams to endure my mistakes with me. I wasn’t going to have you give things up to fix me.”

  “I loved you, I would’ve stayed and figured it out with you.”

  “That’s what I feared the most. You would’ve stayed, Amari. I know you. I knew you’d give up on your future for me, you said so yourself. I didn’t want you to hate or resent me later. I was on a sinking ship and I didn’t want you to drown with me.”

  “So what? You broke up with me and tried to make me hate you instead?” I ask, trying to understand. That must’ve been his intention. I remember the way he talked to me. Broke up with me in front of everyone we knew. His words have been on repeat in the back of my mind ever since that day. A sane person would’ve hated him, but I’ve never been able to hate Christian. Even though he gave me reasons to, I never could. It sure would’ve been easier to get over him if I did.

  “I thought that would be the best way to do it,” he says, pulling on his hair once again.

  “Well your plan didn’t work,” I tell him, finally gaining the strength to retreat to the other side of the desk.

  “What do you mean?” he asks, slowly moving in my direction.

  “I never hated you. Not because I haven’t wanted to because, trust me, I’ve wanted to hate you from the moment you broke my heart. I wished so many times that I hadn’t met you. That I hadn’t talked to you or fallen in love with you. Your plan didn’t work.
I stayed awake for days, weeks, months wondering where I’d gone wrong. Even now, even six years later, when this job came up the first thing that came to my mind was you. I was afraid you’d be here. But I was more afraid you’d be gone. Living your life like I meant nothing to you. I was afraid you’d moved on while all I did was stay stuck on you.”

  “I…”

  “You what,” I interrupt him. “You’re sorry?”

  He nods.

  “But you’d do it again if you could turn back time, wouldn’t you?” I ask, already knowing his answer.

  He hesitates to answer my question, which tells me what I need to know.

  “Have you ever stopped and thought that maybe things would’ve gone better for us, maybe the two of us would’ve been happier if, instead of breaking my heart, you told me the truth that day and we figured it out together?” Things couldn’t have been so different now.

  “I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself think that. I couldn’t change the past, Amari. I had to convince myself that I made the right choice back then because if I didn’t, I’d come chasing after you. I needed to believe I was doing the right thing, for me and for Ari and for you”

  “If you thought you were doing the right thing, why are you telling me now?” I ask, wondering what he hopes to gain by bringing up all the past now.

  “Honestly,” he says, reaching me. He gets so close I can almost feel his heart beating. “I never stopped loving you.”

  His words leave me with my mouth open. I’ve loved him this whole time, but I didn’t think he cared about me. That he still felt anything for me or that he ever did. I believed him when he said he didn’t love me.

  And now he’s telling me that he’s never stopped. What am I supposed to do with that? Tell him I love him too? He still had a child with another woman. If he had told me then, I wouldn’t have cared, I would’ve helped him raise her. But he chose to lie to me. He chose to shut me out. He decided what was best for him and also what he thought was best for me.

  I know what’s best for me though. “Well I did,” I respond, forcing the lie through my teeth as I pray he believes me. I want him to hurt the way I did. The way I do. Even if it doesn’t help either one of us. I don’t want him to think I still love him, even if I do.

  “You did what?” he presses. I know he wants to hear me say it. He wants me to tell him the same words he told me before.

  “I don’t love you anymore…” I reply, trying again to sound convincing. I told him the thing I’ve always wanted to tell him. I told myself if I ever ran into him again, if life would be so cruel, I would show him I’m better off without him. I would stand up and smile because I was over him.

  I told myself a time would come where I would completely let go of him.

  I guess it’s not time yet, but he doesn’t have to know that.

  “Look at me in the eyes and say that again,” he asks me, calling me out. I did avoid looking directly at him when I said those words to him because I knew he would see in my eyes that I’m lying.

  Instead of giving him what he wants, I reach the doorknob and open the door behind him. “Thanks Mr. Cole for coming in today. We’ll make sure your daughter gets her crayons.”

  “Amari…” he says and I look up to find his eyes on mine.

  “We’re done here.”

  He nods as if finally giving up. “I’ll be seeing you,” he replies with a confidence that reminds me of his daughter. He walks out of my office and I focus on his retreating figure, wondering what he means by that.

  I close the door and sit at my desk as his words assault me. I never stopped loving you. That’s the sentiment that echoes through my mind. And regardless of how much I don’t want to feel this emotion, hope takes over my body.

  20

  AMARI

  From my place on the couch, I hear a knock at my door. Getting up, I wonder who it could be and my mind goes to the worst possible case scenario. Christian. He said he was here earlier in the week and that he would see me again, so it wouldn’t totally surprise me if he were back for round two today.

  I’m not ready for round two or any more rounds for that matter.

  Reaching the door, I take a deep breath then open it.

  “What was taking you so long?!” My best friend says right before she envelops me in her signature bear hug.

  Relief swarms me. “What are you doing here?” I say in between mouthfuls of her hair. Gross, I know, but she’s got so much of it that when it’s not contained with an elastic it’s all over the place.

  “What do you mean?” she asks, letting go of me. “I told you I was coming.”

  I open the door the rest of the way, letting her in. “I was expecting you tomorrow.” She said she’d be here on Friday not Thursday.

  “I happened to be done with work earlier than I expected. Felt right to come and surprise you. I figured you’d be home around this time.”

  “Well, you were right. I got here a few minutes ago,” I step back from her hug and smile at her. My best friend always makes things better.

  “I see you’ve settled into pajamas already,” she says, taking in my appearance.

  I’ve missed her so much. “At least you found me with clothes on,” I tell her, laughing.

  “Smartass,” she bites back.

  “I’ve missed you,” I say, bringing my arms around her one more time. I hug her tightly and then, unexpectedly, I start to sob.

  “Let it out love, let it out,” she tells me the thing she’s told me many times before.

  Lately, it feels like all I do is cry. “I’m so sorry!” I wipe at the tears and internally beg them to stop.

  “Christian, huh,” Emely says knowingly.

  I push through my sadness. “Did you drive here?” I ask, closing the door behind us.

  “Not to Forest Pines, no. I flew in then rented a car at the airport.”

  “You should’ve called me… I would’ve picked you up.” I’m trying to change the conversation because I don’t want to talk about him. Not right now.

  We make our way to the living room. “I thought your car wasn’t working…”

  “No, it’s not.” Wait a second. “How did you know it wasn’t working?”

  She gives me the ‘oh shit’ look I know very well coming from her. “You told me,” she replies a few seconds later.

  I know for a fact I didn’t tell her my car wasn’t working, especially because telling her that would’ve led to a whole conversation about what happened after it broke down. Talking to her about my car would’ve opened a whole can of worms about Christian I wasn’t ready to open.

  “Don’t lie to me,” I tell her as we both stand across from each other in my living room. God, I’m so sick of lies. Why does everyone lie to me? Why don’t people think I’m worth the truth? When did honesty stop being the best policy?

  “Amari,” she starts and the look in her eyes tells me I won’t like what I’m about to hear.

  When she steps toward me, I take a step back. “How did you know?” I ask again.

  “If we’re going to have this conversation right now, we’re going to need a drink.”

  “We can skip the drink and go straight to the truth.” My chest tightens and I wait for the other shoe to drop. If my best friend thinks I need alcohol in me to hear what she’s about to say, it’s not a good thing.

  I see the helpless look in her eyes, a look she doesn’t wear often. “Do you trust me?” she asks.

  “I do,” I tell her. I trust her with everything. But every second we stand in my living room, I start to doubt whether I should.

  “Alright, I’m going to need to use my best friend card while I still have it,” she says and the uncharacteristic seriousness in her tone confirms to me what I already imagined. Aside from Hannah, the only person she could’ve learned my car wasn’t working from is Christian. I know it wasn’t Hannah because they don’t know each other. And even if Hannah had told her about it, she would have already told me
. It wouldn’t be as big a deal as she’s making it.

  Emely heard it from Christian.

  Emely has talked to Christian. My mind reaches its own conclusion, making my heart question everything in the process.

  That’s the only reasonable explanation and yet it is so unreasonable. It makes no sense at all. Why would my best friend be in contact with my ex-boyfriend? It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I had the chance to exchange words with him myself. Why would he be comfortable telling her about the status of my car?

  “You need to just talk to me, you’re worrying me. I’m starting to think the worst of you and I don’t like that.” Not at all. Emely has been a rock in my life, sustaining me when I felt like I couldn’t move forward anymore.

  She takes a deep breath and, from where I stand, it looks painful. “Can we go somewhere for a drink?”

  “No, we need to talk now,” I tell her. My words are firm, leaving no room for discussion.

  She looks around the room and for a second I think she’s about to run out of here. “Do you have scotch?” she asks.

  I guess she really needs some liquid courage to tell me what’s going on. “Yes, I do.”

  “Could you pour some in a glass?”

  “Do you really need alcohol to talk to me right now?” I ask though at this rate I’ll just give her what she needs so she can finally tell me what I need to know.

  “I do and I think you will too. So, let’s just get two glasses. One for you and one for me.”

  I look at her, trying to figure out what she’s keeping from me. “Emely, you’re scaring me.”

  “I know… it’s just a little scary to have this conversation with you. Could we please get a drink, then I’ll tell you everything?”

  Everything. The last word feels so packed and I stand here with no clue what it means.

  I’m desperate to hear what Emely has to say and know she won’t tell me until I’ve gotten her, us, the drinks she thinks we so desperately need.