Fix Up

by Stephanie Witter

  “I know.”

  I look back at Derek who is frowning down at me. “He called you?”

  He nods and takes one of my hands. In the corner of my eyes, I can see Vanessa tensing. It’s not like there’s something behind this gesture. Derek is like a brother somehow, a long lost one, but always very caring. Since what happened to me, we bonded in a way I hope that’ll never break.

  “Why didn’t you tell us, Skye?”

  “I don’t really know.” I sigh and pull away from his comforting hand. I don’t deserve his compassion, not when I hurt his best friend, the guy I love. “At first I thought it wasn’t important, and when I was thinking about telling Duke, he told me he was jealous to know that I was confiding in someone else. I was afraid and confused and …”

  “And you made a mistake.”

  “What happened?” Vanessa asks, leaning toward me, curiosity illuminating her face without any trace of makeup.

  “Just something between Skye and Duke. Their relationship is complicated,” he answers for me, bringing his arm around Vanessa’s shoulders.

  “You two broke up?”

  Just at the thought my heart squeezes in my chest, so painfully that tears threatened to fall. I shake my head, unable to open my mouth, afraid to let a sob escape.

  I look past their head as the door opens revealing him. He looks ready to yell at the first person who will annoy him one way or another. He catches his backpack before it falls from his left shoulder. He’s frowning, his mouth is in a straight line and his shoulders look tense under his tee shirt. His eyes lock on mine, but he looks away at his best friend instead. He can’t even look at me now. I cross my arms over my chest and shiver.

  “You must be Vanessa. Nice to meet you,” he says politely, shaking her hand and taking the seat beside me. He bumps my shoulder softly, but he doesn’t apologize.

  “Nice to meet you too, Duke. Derek told me how your friendship goes way back. It’s great to keep high school friendships.” I observe her behavior in front of my boyfriend, not liking what I see. She’s not making a pass at him or anything like that, but her eyes are moving slowly over his tattooed arms. I know this sparkle in her gaze. The same one many girls have when they look at Duke. She likes what she sees in him, and even if I do believe she deeply cares about Derek and wouldn’t go with someone else while she’s with him, I’m pretty sure she’d try her luck with Duke if she was single.

  Tuning everything out, I look at Duke out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t make small talk. I’m not good with small talk, and while I first intended on making some effort, now all I feel is pain, doubts, and fear.

  Suddenly, the three of them stand up. With a start, I follow them outside and grab Duke’s hand as he’s about to walk away following Derek and Vanessa as they walk toward the parking lot.

  “What?”

  The venom in his voice startles me. I release my grip on him and take a step back, my eyes blurry with unshed tears. I’ve never felt so awful before. I thought that I felt ashamed when Sean beat me, but it wasn’t like how I feel now. This time around I’m the only one responsible for this. I’m the one at fault, although I don’t know how to make it better. It’s not about me acting like an idiot because I didn’t know how to deal with it; it’s about me knowingly hiding something about someone obviously feeling way more than he should.

  “I don’t care about him. I swear.”

  He tugs on his hair and sighs, looking at the bright blue sky above us. “You’re sabotaging us, and I don’t know why. First, it was Sean, and now it’s that Dr. Marshall. What will it be next? If you’re not sure about us, say it instead of lying.”

  His dark intense eyes are seeking something which makes it difficult for me to hold his gaze. His words are hard because it echoes with everything in the dark inside of me, the things I don’t understand about me.

  “I love you.” I cross my arms around me tightly and look at the people around us walking, laughing, talking, but not caring about the new drama twist in my little insignificant life.

  “I know, and I love you too. It’s not about that.” He adjusts his backpack on his left shoulder and shrugs. “It’s about where we’re going, Skye. I already have two job offers. One here in Seattle and another one in San Francisco. Before all of this I didn’t even want to tell you about the one in San Francisco because everything was clear in my head, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “But … but you still have to graduate,” I stutter, my world crashing around me, on me.

  “It’s with a company I did an internship at last summer.”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. It’s like I’ve been robbed of all my words, leaving me devoid of anything and everything. I uncross my arms and close my fists. My nails are biting my skin viciously, but I don’t care.

  “Just because I didn’t tell you that Dr. Marshall is young, you’re considering going to San Francisco. Just because I disappointed you! Just because I’m not irreproachable! Do you realize how …” I take a deep breath and look down at the asphalt. “Never mind.”

  “What? You think it’s easy for me to see that my girlfriend, the girl I love, lied to me and is repeatedly sabotaging us? I’m human, Skye, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to fight on in the long run, not when it’s against you.”

  “Does that mean that you’re breaking up with me?” My voice is shaking so badly that I barely recognize myself.

  He shakes his head, and it’s his turn to look down at the ground. “I’m saying that we both need a break to let you decide what you want. I need this break to deal with this last strike, and after that we’ll make a decision together.”

  “Just so you know, I’d never choose to see you move to San Francisco, Duke.”

  “And I’ll never choose a relationship in which we’re both suffering despite our feelings. We’ve suffered enough in our life as it is.”

  I gasp and turn around, walking away with tears falling down my face. I can’t look at him anymore; I can’t hear him talking like this. I need to be alone, away from him. I hear him calling me, his voice pleading, but I don’t turn around. And I run toward my dorms as my lungs are burning me from the inside, making the psychological pain physical too. The worst, it’s not even a nightmare. My life has been worse than my nightmares since Sean walked into my life, and even now that he’s almost out of it, it’s not better.

  ***

  DUKE

  “Skye!’’ She doesn’t turn around. I kick at the closest thing, a car’s wheel. “Fuck!’’ I ignore the stares of the students around. All I can see is Skye’s thin body stiffly running away and toward the dorms.

  My breathing is ragged when I realize what I’ve done. I asked for a break between us, exactly what I didn’t want to do. But as soon as I walked in the coffee house and saw her, all I could see was a fucking red blinking neon light over her head saying “BETRAYAL.’’ So yeah, a break seemed a good idea at first, but now that we’re taking a break … all I want to do is hug her and breathe her soft and sweet smell in, feel her small body against mine while she’s talking to me with her sensual voice screaming sex.

  I tug on my hair and look around, not even sure where I parked my car. I’m fucking lost in every way possible. Then, maybe a break isn’t such a bad idea. I don’t know. Shit.

  I’m fucking lost.

  *

  SKYE

  “San Francisco? He’s considering leaving hours away from here?” Kate asks me in disbelief, her blue eyes looking at me with sadness as I’m hugging myself in one of my old oversized sweatshirts.

  I should be sweating since it’s so hot today, but I feel cold from the inside, like everything in my body is freezing and even the long sleeves can’t warm me anymore.

  “Yes, San Francisco. I’m about to lose the man I love because I’m always screwing things up instead of acting like an adult,” I reply absentmindedly.

  I can’t really explain how I feel. It’s like all this pain is numbing me, leav
ing just a shell. My brain is replaying again and again what he told me outside the coffee house a couple of hours ago, but I can’t really show any emotions anymore. Everything is bottled up inside of me, freezing my heart, hunting down the butterflies in my stomach. Yeah, I feel numb by the pain.

  Kate grabs my arms tight against me and shakes me twice. “Wake up, Skye! It’s not the moment to close yourself off. It’s not going to do any good to your relationship. You screwed up, we all know it, but you can do something before you lose Duke.”

  I free myself from her soft hands and stand up, walking to our little window and looking outside. When I feel so low, I always expect it to rain outside but it’s not. The sun is bright, people are laughing in the halls outside our room and life is not stopping because little old me is sad and thinking that I have nothing to fight for anymore. I should think about my friends and my parents, not just about my boyfriend, but it was for him that I started to fight in the first place. It’s thanks to him that I’m still breathing today and yet … yet, I’m about to lose the only person who showed me how life can be amazing with the right person.

  When I think how much I hurt him—and am still hurting him—I want to break everything around me. When I think that I’m adding to his pain still lingering inside of him, I don’t want to fight to stay with him. I don’t want to make him unhappy. He deserves so much more, so much better, and for a while, I forgot it. He deserves more than me; he deserves better than me.

  “That’s it, Kate.” I turn around and face her, silent tears falling down my cold cheeks. I shrug and swallow a sob before it breaks free from my mouth. “It’s time I let him go.”

  She shakes her head, her thin and perfectly trimmed eyebrows frowning. She stands up and holds up her hands. “Have you lost your damn mind?” She points at me, almost menacingly. “I don’t want to see your self-destructive side taking the upper hand, Skye. Stop all this bullshit and fight for your man!”

  Again, I shrug, disconnected. I feel the pain of this decision, it’s like a knife cutting all my organs, but I’m at a point where I’m wondering if I’m ready for a relationship. I’m doing everything to make things harder between Duke and me, and I don’t hurt only myself; I hurt him too. I can’t tolerate it anymore. He’s right. He shouldn’t have to fight against me to be in a relationship with me. Duke and I, we know how love is not enough in life.

  “We’re both tired, Kate. Not long ago you even hinted at a break up if it was to keep Duke and me from tearing at each other. At least right now I know he loves me. I don’t want to see us back together and happy for a while to end with him hating me. It’d be worse.”

  I see her shoulders falling and understanding changing her face. With what she told me about her parents and their marriage, she’s not going to say anything to convince me otherwise. Instead, she nods, sadness creeping on her face. It’s my undoing.

  A sob escapes me, and I fall on my knees, my arms tight around me, my wild frizzy hair hiding me, some locks sticking to my damp face. I can’t take anymore pain. Why am I still hurting? Why can’t I be happy? Why do I always do everything wrong?

  Carefully, she kneels next to me and engulfs me in her tiny arms, whispering comforting words I can’t even hear through the noise of my sobs.

  “I love him so much,” I cry, my breathing loud. “I can’t breathe, Kate.”

  “Shhh …” She kisses the top of my head, a hand patting my hair like my mother would do. “It’s going to be all right. Let it go, Skye.”

  *

  SKYE

  “How are you?”

  I frown and shake my head. Derek called me twenty minutes earlier to ask me to come and get a coffee with him at the coffee house, and even if I don’t know if it’s Kate or Duke who called him to let him know how awful things are since yesterday, here I am, facing him as he’s trying to smile encouragingly. He’s not about to comment how my eyes are so red and bloodshot that they’re barely open or how pale I am—or the fact that I’m back in my oversized sweater. I’m regressing, but it’s been only twenty-four hours since I had my mature moment when I decided to break my heart. Granted, I still have to call and see Duke to break up officially, but it’s a done deal.

  “Why did you ask me to join you here? I don’t want to see Duke right now.” I gaze at the door. I know he often stops by to grab a coffee, and I’m not ready to have THE talk with him. I might never be ready, but that’s another point. And yet, I’m craving to see his longish dark hair, his eyes so intense locked on mine, his mouth so inviting and his bright tattoos coloring his tanned skin. But it’s over. Soon, he’ll be with another girl, and I’ll be a piece of his past, a complicated one.

  “I just wanted a coffee, and Kate told me that you didn’t want to leave your bed this morning.”

  “You saw Kate?” I ask surprised.

  He nods and takes another sip of his coffee, his brown eyes lost in thought for a second. “She was waiting for me after one of my classes. She’s really worried.”

  I drink the last drop of my coffee, burning my tongue in the process, and check the time on my cell phone. I should be able to relax because I know Duke is in class right now; he’s not about to walk in here, but I’m still worried because I know I won’t be able to keep my head high and my eyes dry. “There’s nothing to be worried about. I messed up.”

  He sighs and grabs my hand in his. The heat of his skin grounds me a little more, but it also makes the pain more vibrant inside of my chest. I blink several times, afraid to see my tears falling in the middle of the coffee house.

  “Are you really going to break up with him?”

  It’s hard to swallow past the lump in my throat, and I’m not even sure I’d be able to talk right now. I just nod, avoiding his face. “Yes,” I whisper, almost afraid to mutter this single word, so simple and yet sealing something so much more in my life and Duke’s.

  “It’ll break him, Skye.”

  I look up and see the worry in his soft eyes, the eyes who saw his best friend doing crazy things so self-destructive in the past that they thought he’d never be alive past his twenty-first birthday.

  “I’m breaking him already, Derek.” I take a deep breath as my vision gets all burry. “I’m the self-destructive thing in his life. He’s not happy with me, and I keep hurting him. I can’t do it to him anymore.”

  He frowns and leans back in his chair. “You’re making a big mistake. You’re just sabotaging your relationship, hurting yourself purposefully in the process.’’

  I stand up, my body tense. I get it. He’s taking his best friend’s side, but he doesn’t see the bigger picture. I’m doing it for Duke. It’s crushing me, killing me from the inside, and I know I will never be able to open up to someone else like I did with Duke. But in the end, I’m finally doing something good for him. We can’t possibly keep on doing this.

  “Whatever.” And I walk out, tugging on the long sleeves of my sweatshirt.

  It’s over, and I’m back to how I felt before I met Duke. Over.

  Chapter Nine

  DUKE

  I look at my cell phone and laugh without humor. The fucking thing isn’t ringing, and of course. I’ve yet to receive a text from Skye. What the hell went through my fucking mind to ask for a break? As if she needs another reason to put the breaks on and turn away from me whenever she’s freaking out. Instead, I should have shackled her to me. Maybe that way we’d be finally able to lay it all out and actually act like a real couple in spite of all the shit around us.

  “All right, man?’’

  I turn my head toward Grayson and nod. He’s just like me, on his bed and looking at his cell phone, willing it to ring. But it’s been as silent as mine.

  “You?’’

  He shrugs and sits up, his back against the wall. His blond hair is covering most of his face, but I’m pretty sure there’s not even a hint of a smile. “My girl doesn’t seem all that bothered that we broke up. When I think I had her family throwing shit at me and I sai
d nothing to her for so long, this is how it ends? Just because I’m fed up of always keeping my fucking mouth shut. Nice, right?’’

  I run a hand on my goatee and over my cheeks. I need a good shave. I’m a real mess. “It would seem even guys sit next to the phone waiting for it to ring, hmm?’’

  He chuckles, making the bed hiss under him. “Do you want to go out for a drink? I think I need one, and from the look of it, you do too.’’

  Thinking about some hard liquor to help me forget and numb everything for a little while is very tempting. But it’s not a good idea. I’m not in the right frame of mind to keep it smart and not down the whole bottle. And if I end up drunk out of my mind, who knows what other fucking mess I’d get myself in? Skye doesn’t need me drunk dialing her.

  “Na, I’m fine.’’

  He stands up and pats my leg before opening the door. “Don’t mope around. At least you still have your girl. It’s just a break, nothing more.’’

  Staring at the door closing, I let the onslaught of fear take me over, taking me under. My breath gets heavier, faster. My heart hammers in my chest and my skin gets clammy.

  In reality, I’m afraid that I started something much bigger than just a short break. I feel it, the fear lurking ready to break me, ready to beat me down and leave nothing behind.

  Blowing out some air, I don’t try to fight the quiver of my lips or the sting in my eyes.

  *

  SKYE

  With everything that has happened to me, I loathe violence. I really do, and yet, right now I can only think about slapping the sheepishly looking man in front of me with all my strength.

  With his clear blue eyes, his perfect dirty-blond hair and his smart clothes, I can’t stand being in front of him in his office while holding his gaze when I know he’s going to be delighted at the news that I’m about to be officially single rather soon.

  Dr. Charles Marshall should be the one listening to me without interfering or without feeling anything besides mild compassion. And yet … yet … I know he’s got some kind of weird crush on me. I just let it all happen. A part of me knew it, and I liked it. I still like it—I hate myself for this.