So Screwed

by Melissa Marino

  Still somewhat tipsy, I dragged myself out of bed to see who would be here at close to three a.m., who I didn’t have to buzz in. I looked through the peephole and wanted to sink down to the floor under it. If I was quiet, maybe he’d go away.

  “I know you’re in there, Evelyn,” Abel said. “Your neighbor was outside with his dog and said he saw you come home a couple hours ago.”

  “Shit,” I said, unlocking the door. I opened it a crack. “I’ve had enough of you for one night.”

  “Please let me in,” he begged. “Just for a minute. I’m sorry I made you puke.”

  Bridget and her big mouth. That was mortifying. I didn’t want to let him in, but I worried about the other neighbors being woken up. I opened the door the rest of the way and stepped aside to let him in.

  His black leather coat was spotted with droplets from snow. I didn’t know it had started snowing again. I looked him over, and he seemed cold. Good.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I can’t stay away from you anymore,” he said. “I need you to hear me out.”

  I crossed my arms. “Fine. Go ahead.”

  He took a deep breath in, running his hand across his face where his beard used to be. “I owe you so much more than an explanation, and I’ll give it all to you, but I need you to trust me.”

  I laughed, a from-my-belly roar of a laugh. “Are you kidding me? I’d no more trust you than I would the rats that live behind the building.”

  “Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I deserve that. Can you remember when you trusted me? You did at one time, right?”

  “At one time.”

  “Well, maybe if you can find that place again, you can remember everything we said, everything we promised.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I repeated. This had to be a joke. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Yes. I’m pretty certain I have.”

  “Look, it’s done, Abel. You’ve moved on, and you coming over here is making it really hard for me to do the same. It makes you look like even more of an asshole.”

  “Please just listen to me,” he pleaded, his hands cupped together in front of him. “I’m trying to explain why I did it, why I’m doing it.”

  I glared at him as I forced myself to ask a question I’d been too afraid to ask before. “Is this because I didn’t say I loved you? Did you find someone else because I couldn’t say it to you before I left?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  “If that’s true, which who knows at this point, then this is what I need to tell you. When I said I was falling in love with you, that was a lie. I was already in love with you. I was so crazy, crazy in love with you, but I was also crazy scared. I wanted to tell you, but there was this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was going to happen when I was gone. I didn’t expect this, but I knew something was going to go wrong. And the last thing I want to do is blame myself for that. That I should’ve told you I was in love with you and maybe you wouldn’t be doing this. You wouldn’t—”

  I paused, taking a deep breath, but Abel snuck in when my guard was down for a moment.

  “This is all on me,” he said. “All of it is my fault. I was in love with you, too. I’m in love—”

  “Shut up,” I shouted, holding up my hand. “Just…shut up. I let you in,” I shouted. “I trusted you. And you broke that.”

  “I know! I did the same, but—”

  “But…nothing! You moved on and forgot about me the second I was out of view and now you’re getting married. Married. Which, by the way, I find hilarious,” I said, snickering again, but this time it was a cold, hard laughter.

  He shrunk down, his shoulders slouching like he was being crushed from the inside. I paused, waiting for him to say something, to give me some sort of justification for what he did, but there was nothing. Just silence.

  I knew it was my chance, maybe my only chance to let it all out. I wouldn’t deny myself that or have any regrets about anything left unsaid. The torment in my heart superseded any rational thoughts I had. I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me.

  “You have my blessings, Abel, because you’ll need them. So will she. You couldn’t even stay committed to me when I was gone for just a few months. Now you’re going to promise to be faithful to her…forever. That’s a tall fucking order.”

  His eyes wouldn’t dare look at me. When he spoke, it was to the floor. “I can’t…explain it to you the way I want. I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m trying to protect you from so much and I don’t know how to tell you so you’ll understand. Just know, I have never, ever felt for anyone the way I feel about you.”

  “Felt,” I spat. “Maybe how you felt. Past tense. And while we’re on the topic of the past, retrospect is a painful but appreciated thing. You made me forget everything I ever promised myself about falling in love, that it was a word that held nothing but hurt in my life. I’m mad at myself for disregarding everything that anyone who gives a shit about me told me when I got involved with you. Bridget, Callie…shit, even your own brother! They all said not to, but I thought my own judgment trumped that. I’m glad for it, though. I know I’ll never make the same mistake again.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake! It was everything. I just…need to do this.”

  “You don’t need to do anything except be honest, but I can see that isn’t going to happen. None of this makes any sense, and the more you try to find some…explanation…the more I think you’re trying to hurt me further.”

  “This is killing me. My fucking heart, Evelyn,” he said, pounding his hands into his chest. “Look at me. Don’t you know that you fucking own me. Everything. Everything you see. Everything you feel. You own it.”

  His face, across where his dimples would appear when he was happy, was void of anything. There was nothing there. It was…empty.

  “Not anymore,” I whispered.

  “You own it,” he repeated. “From the second I saw you, you’ve fucking owned my heart.”

  There was one more question I needed to ask. It made me the most terrified of all, but I had to know. “Is she pregnant?”

  I watched his chest heave, the weight of my words catching his breath. My head used to rest on that chest as I listened to his heartbeat. My fingers would run across his smooth skin until he’d roll me under him to kiss me so deeply I’d be dizzy. It was like a magic spell.

  Spells, like promises, broke though.

  “No,” he said, staring right into me.

  It was supposed to be a relief, but it only proved to make me even more confused. Confused and angry.

  “You’re locked in pretty hard there,” I mocked, remembering when he’d say it to me. “Do you use that on your fiancée?”

  “No.”

  It was all falling apart.

  Fallen.

  My insides, my spirit…broken. Now, I wanted to let myself indulge in the pain because it was all that was left. The tears, the screaming…all of it.

  “I want you to leave now,” I said, gathering what little was left of my strength. “And if I so much as see you on my street, I’ll call the cops. Understand?”

  “Evelyn,” he pleaded. “Please. I need you to understand. I need you to just…give me time…to make you understand. Please don’t do this. You…you’re…my beloved, remember?”

  I did remember, the flowers he sent me that got mixed up with a funeral arrangement that said BELOVED on it. I would remember it all because I’d never imagine in my life I’d believe in the fairy tale.

  I touched his face, tears running down his cheeks. He leaned his head to mine, our foreheads touching. I knew it was the last I’d have of him, and selfishly my heart told me to take it. My brain would catch up. I knew it.

  It was excruciating. Every cell inside of me screamed, telling me not to let him go, and that was wrong. He wasn’t mine anymore. He never was.

  “Please,” he whispered through a cracked voice. “Please.”

  I slowly un
tangled myself from him and stepped back.

  Back.

  Back.

  Until I backed up against the door. I reached around and blindly turned the knob. Stepping aside so I could open it, my eyes never leaving his. Without any room for him to misunderstand, I chose my next words carefully and said them with a razor-sharp tone.

  “Fuck you, Abel.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ABEL—

  It was a bad idea to go and try to pick out my wedding band the day after I saw Evelyn. I stood in front of the jeweler, eyeing the different selections in front of me, and all I felt was sick. The shiny gold bands were supposed to mean love and forever, but to me, it meant a lie. I left without getting shit.

  I was walking home when a text from Dafne said she was waiting for me at my place. I gave her the key since it made sense to, but I hated myself for doing it. Then I hated myself more for hating it in the first place. There was no doubt she wanted to hear about how the ring purchase went, and I dreaded having to disappoint yet another person.

  “Hey,” I said, calling from the front door when I entered.

  She was in the kitchen, steam rising from a pot above the stove. “Hi,” she said, smiling. “I’m making dinner.”

  I shrugged myself out of my coat and sat down on the couch, exhaustion from doing nothing running across my body. “Okay,” I said.

  “How did the rings go? You find something you like?”

  I listened to her drain the pasta or whatever she was making into the sink, waiting for my response. Everyone wanted answers from me all the time, and I was fresh out of them. I hadn’t had any answers in a long time.

  “No. I didn’t,” I said.

  She stepped away from the kitchen and joined me on the couch. Her face frowned, the disappointment I’d anticipated written all across it.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  I did know, but I couldn’t tell her that. She scooted closer, resting her head on my shoulder.

  “It will be okay, sweet Abel,” she said, placing her hand on my leg. “I know it isn’t what you want at all, but three years isn’t that long.”

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye as she licked across her bottom lip, but keeping her burgundy lipstick in place. Her hand on my leg, her head on my shoulder. I hadn’t been touched by anyone in so long, not since Evelyn left.

  “Dafne,” I said, placing my hand on top of hers. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t do what?” she asked. She rose from next to me and stood in front of me, before kneeling down in front of me.

  I couldn’t pick out a ring or plan a wedding.

  I couldn’t eat her food and pretend we were something we weren’t.

  I couldn’t stop the nausea that came over me, knowing that three years was a really fucking long time.

  I couldn’t stop wishing with every breath I had that she would go away and I’d get my Evelyn back.

  She leaned closer, placing her palms on the sides of my face. She stared into my eyes, searching for something, validation or some shit, but there was nothing for me to give her besides what I was already doing.

  And it was all so wrong. Her deep chestnut eyes weren’t the blue-colored ones I wanted looking back at me.

  Her hands on my skin weren’t the ones I wanted. It wasn’t her.

  And the way she smelled. It wasn’t the sweet, flowery perfume that only Evelyn wore. It was a clean, fruity scent.

  “I can’t do any of this, Dafne,” I mumbled.

  She exhaled a hard breath, blowing her hair out of her face. I didn’t know if it was for the sake of her hair that she did it or if it was her way of trying to figure things out, too. The almighty cleansing breath—breathing in answers, breathing out questions.

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve tried, Abel. I’ve tried to make the best out of this.”

  “How the hell could it be anything but awful? We don’t love each other. I’m not even sure I like you at this point. You think the next three years will be anything but agony for me? You’re getting what you want so I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “You don’t think I understand?” she asked, raising her voice before she stood. “You aren’t the only one losing. I don’t want to marry you. It’s a means to an end. So, I’m sorry you’ve lost your girl, but the man I want will never be completely mine. This was an arrangement. It was to save us both, but I don’t know if I can go through three years, let alone three months of this with you.”

  She was getting upset, and it was something I’d never seen from her before. She’d always been calm, together, but her tone, the way her accent deepened with each word made something inside me crack. In the center of my chest, something split open and the truth surfaced faster than I could comprehend.

  I wasn’t going to do this.

  “What?” she asked.

  I hadn’t realized I said it out loud, but I did. It was out there. It hung in the air like smoke, the charred remains of everything I had burned.

  “I’m not going to do this,” I repeated. “I can’t marry you.”

  Her head lowered, her hair shielding the expression on her face. “I…don’t know what to say.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I didn’t. How could I? One mistake was leading to another, creating a domino effect that was destroying everyone and everything around me. I thought I was saving everyone I loved, protecting them, but the hurt I was causing was doing that anyway. I had to end all the lies because the one thing I was trying to save was the very thing I was destroying.

  “You are so unhappy,” she said, staring at the ground. “You’re filled with so much sadness and so much…” She paused, waving her hand around as she searched for the word she wanted. “Torment. So much torment.”

  I didn’t know what the next move was, but I was going to let her take it. Yes, she went along with it all, but I knew she was a victim, too, in some way.

  And when her head lifted, I expected to see anger or hurt. Instead, I got something I completely didn’t expect: relief.

  She dragged her hands through her hair and held it tightly before twisting it around behind her. “I,” she said, blowing out a sigh, “tried, Abel. Now that you’ve said it, I know what is true. It can’t.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dafne.”

  “Are you?” she snapped, glaring at me.

  “Yes. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have gone into this knowing I wasn’t going to be strong enough to marry you when my heart belongs to someone else. She’s the one, my one,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “I don’t even know if that makes sense.”

  “It does make sense because you aren’t the only one with love. I love Benji. Everything I have is because of him, but he belongs to someone else. If he could marry me, he would. I know he would. But he is promised to someone else already.” She paused before shaking her head and continuing, “There is nothing left to say if you’ve made your decision.”

  I didn’t know why, but in a way I was sorry for her. She was like me in a way. Stuck in a situation needing to find a way out. I felt the need to tell her that.

  “Dafne, I’m sorry. I…I just…I don’t even know how this all happened.”

  “Because you danced with the devil, Abel,” she said as she stood and walked to the door.

  I danced with the devil.

  He brought me to hell and the only way to redemption was to either marry Dafne or pay up. I thought going to my parents would be the worst thing, having to admit to them I had gotten myself in trouble again. No. The worst thing was realizing I was getting exactly what I deserved by making deals with Benji again.

  The final bridge had just gone up in flames. Now I was going to have to see how I could put out the fire.

  “You know what?” she asked, leaning against the door. “Make something out of your life that is held with truth. Living a life running from who you are is hell. I will always run
.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I could guess. It wasn’t like I ever asked why she needed to stay. Everything I did, every word spoken and step I took since the night of the poker tournament, when Dafne found me drunk outside an abandoned fast-food restaurant, was based on lies.

  She snatched her purse and shoes from the floor by the door and flung it open. “Vai a farti fottere, Abel,” she shouted before walking out, her shoes not even on her feet.

  I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I hoped it was something along the lines of, “Go fuck yourself, Abel.”

  And like that, another woman walked out of my life. There was something about thinking you’d hit rock bottom, but thinking and actually being there were two different things. I didn’t need to think anymore if I was there. I was. I looked around my darkening apartment, and there was no hint of light. I was at the bottom.

  The truth had me in a choke hold for months, and now, with no other place to turn, I had to release it.

  I picked up my phone and scrolled through the names until I found the one I needed. I dialed and then I waited.

  One ring.

  Two ring.

  Three…

  “Hello?”

  “Look, I know I’m not your favorite person right now and there’s a lot of shit to cover, but I need you. I need your help, and I don’t have anyone else to go to,” I sniffled. My voice cracked as I continued, “You have no reason based off everything I’ve done, but I’m begging you to at least listen to me. Can you come over?”

  There was a long pause, and I didn’t know if the silence was the connection going bad or something else worse. But for the first time in months, I took in a breath that wasn’t backed with fear when I heard Aaron say, “I’ll be right there.”