Out from Under You

by Sophie Swift

  Okay, I tell myself, trying to remain calm. There’s obviously an explanation for this.

  You know what? He probably hasn’t even told her yet. It’s not like Grayson to do something as big and personal as breaking off his engagement in a public place. Grayson is too private a person to share that kind of dramatic moment with the world.

  He’s just waiting for them to get back to the apartment, where they can be alone, and he can do it right.

  Of course, that’s it.

  I feel silly for even assuming that he would do it over dinner. That’s not Grayson’s style at all.

  I let out a deep sigh and gesture to the waiter for a refill on my coffee.

  Grayson was right. This is going to be a long night.

  The busboy stacks the last remaining chair atop the table next to mine and gives me an expectant look.

  He wants me to leave.

  So he can finish closing down the restaurant and go home to his family.

  I stare miserably into my empty cup. The last few drops of untouched coffee have turned into a thick brown sludge at the bottom. My veins are tingling from the caffeine, my stomach is screaming for food, and my chest is caving in from the agony of watching out that window for the past four hours.

  I look at my phone. It’s after midnight.

  And they’re still in there.

  She hasn’t come out yet.

  Which means…

  Fuck, I don’t know what the hell it means. I’m sick and tired of trying to figure out what everything means. I’ve been doing it all night and my brain feels like pulverized meat.

  It started to rain an hour ago. I try not to see it as a bad omen.

  Does it really take this long to break up with someone? Did Grayson decide to play an epic game of Monopoly first?

  Or what if he’s dead? What if he broke the news to her and Alex stabbed him in the chest with a knife? And now she’s trying to arrange the crime scene to make it look like a suicide.

  God, Lia. Just stop.

  Stop trying to make excuses. Stop trying to talk yourself out of what you know to be true.

  He didn’t do it.

  He’s not going to do it.

  You will never have the life you want.

  “Miss?”

  I blink and turn to look up at the busboy. Hot pricks of moisture sting my eyes, threatening to spill out. He gives me a pitying look that makes me feel wretched. He probably thinks I got stood up. If he only knew how much worse it was.

  “I’m sorry,” he offers in a thick Russian accent, “but the restaurant is closed now.”

  I nod and rise from the chair, my butt numb from sitting too long. I grab my overnight bag and shuffle onto the street. I stand at the curb, the rain soaking my hair, mixing with my tears, blurring the world around me.

  I gaze up at Grayson’s apartment, wishing I knew what was happening inside. Praying that any second now, Alex will come barreling through that door, signaling that it’s over. That he kept his word. That I’m not the biggest fool on the face of the earth.

  My clothes are soaked through. My hair sticks to the back of my neck. I start to shiver.

  But still, there’s no sign of Alex.

  No sign of what’s going on in that one-bedroom apartment.

  Then, a few seconds later, I get my answer.

  The light in the window flicks off.

  My entire body is blasted by a cold tremor. A freezing sickness. A sub-zero realization.

  No one is coming down those stairs. No one is barreling out that door. Nothing is going to save me this time.

  I turn and walk into the wet night, trying to ignore the achingly empty silence that follows me like a shadow.

  I’m woken from a deep sleep by the sound of the door buzzer. Alex’s arm is draped over me, her warm body pressed against my back. I try to go back to sleep, hoping the drunk person downstairs will eventually figure out that they’re ringing the wrong unit, and move on.

  But when the buzzer goes off a third time, I finally throw the covers off, and tread into the living room. “You’ve got the wrong apartment, buddy,” I practically shout into the intercom. There’s a long, drawn-out silence, broken a few moments later by a voice.

  Her voice.

  “Grayson?”

  It’s small and broken and it shatters my kneecaps, claws at the lining of my stomach.

  Shit.

  What is she doing here?

  I told her to go home. I promised I’d call her later. And I was going to. I had planned to call her in the morning, after I’d come up with something to say. After I’d somehow magically figured out how to explain it to her, when I could barely even explain it to myself.

  I dart a glance toward the bedroom, where Alex is still sleeping.

  I jab the intercom button. “Wait there,” I whisper, “I’ll be right down.”

  After sliding on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I quietly ease the front door closed behind me and hurry down the stairs.

  The sight of Lia—soaking wet and shaking—is like a sucker punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of me.

  I open the door and beckon her into the small lobby but she just shakes her head, refusing to come inside.

  “You’re drenched. Get in here.”

  “I waited for you,” she says quietly. “I figured you’d need to see a friendly face after you…did it.”

  The shame hits me like a three-hundred-pound linebacker, tackling me to the ground, crushing my ribcage. I can’t look at her. Can’t stand to see her like this.

  Because I’m a fucking coward.

  I’ve always been a fucking coward.

  “So,” she says, her voice sounding like it’s been chipped away by an ice pick. “Did you do it?”

  I finally lift my head to meet her gaze. Her words are challenging me, even though her expression already knows the truth. Her eyes are red and puffy. Her cheeks are stained with rain and tears. The usual glow about her has been completely snuffed out.

  “Lia,” I begin, my hands quivering. I cross my arms and tuck them under my armpits. “I’m sorry. I just…couldn’t do it.”

  Her face hardens. Her lips press together in a harsh, rigid line. She nods and starts to turn away. “Got it. Thanks.”

  “Wait,” I plead, “let me try to explain.”

  “It’s fine,” she says, spinning back to me, even though her bitter tone tells me that it’s certainly not fine. Not that I would ever expect it to be fine. “I get it,” she growls. “Alex has you trapped under her spell. You can’t break free. She’s enchanting. She’s sexy. She’s not afraid of a fucking thing. She’s absolutely one hundred percent perfect. And that’s what you want. But that’s not what I am. So I hope you two are very happy together.”

  “Lia,” I try, reaching out to take her hand.

  She violently rips it free. “See you at the wedding,” she spits.

  And then she’s gone. Disappeared into the rain. Into the night. Out of my life.

  I let the door swing shut and stand in the freezing cold water that has pooled under my feet. My eyes sink closed as the guilt of everything I’ve done over the past week coats me like thick, grimy oil.

  How could I let this happen?

  How could I let things get so far with her?

  Somewhere over the course of the weekend, I lost myself. I lost my focus. I let myself be swayed by immature lustful thoughts. I let myself be swept up in a fantasy world with no troubles and no hardships. Instead of turning to face my problems head-on.

  But my biggest regret of all is that I let Lia be swept up with me.

  She doesn’t deserve that. She shouldn’t have to be a part of my fucked-up quarter-life crisis. If I could take it all back and erase the last few days, I would. In a heartbeat.

  I tried to end it with Alex. I really tried. Because I thought that’s what I wanted. But as I sat there in that Vietnamese restaurant with her, staring into her crystal blue eyes, I saw everything. I saw the past eight y
ears. I saw the miserable person I was without her. I saw the way she looked at me on the beach that first day. The way she entranced me and continues to entrance me every day of my life.

  Alex was right.

  We have always been everything to each other.

  We imprinted on one another’s souls. We left marks that nothing can erase.

  Our history is as rich and complicated and dramatic as a European nation. And yet, somehow we came through it alive. We found our way back to each other.

  I couldn’t throw that away for a couple of mind-blowing orgasms. For a girl I’d known six days.

  Sure, Lia and I go back as far as Alex and I do. But it’s not the same. She was a kid then. A little girl. Now she’s…well, she’s amazing. The sex is amazing. Being with her is amazing. But it’s not enough. Not enough to build an entire life around. And certainly not enough to destroy a life for.

  My dad destroyed a life. Two, actually. He broke my mother’s heart and left her with a six-year-old son to raise all by herself. He tore the ground right out from under her feet, leaving behind nothing but devastation, all because he thought the grass would be greener somewhere else.

  And isn’t that exactly what I was trying to do with Lia?

  Search for something better—something easier—instead of sticking around to fix what I already have?

  I don’t remember my father—I never really knew him at all—and yet I’ve spent my entire life promising myself I would never become him.

  And I won’t.

  That much I have control over.

  With stiff legs and a heavy heart, I climb the steps back to my apartment and slip through the door. Alex is still fast asleep in my bed. I bend down and softly kiss her cheek.

  “I love you,” I whisper into the darkness.

  Because I want to make it work.

  Because I owe it to myself. To my mom. To her.

  And because it’s true. It’s always been true.

  The cab rattles along 1-95 as I gaze out the window. The scenery is cloaked in rainwater and moonlight, and drowning in my tears. The city turns to suburbs turns to forest turns to an assortment of quiet towns sprinkled along the banks of the Long Island Sound. Whole worlds that exist outside of this heavy ache in my heart.

  He couldn’t do it.

  That’s what he said.

  Did he even try?

  Was it all just a ruse? Some big charade to have one final fling before he tied the knot? Well, he really could have picked a better target than his fiancée’s sister. Did he do it because he knew I would never talk? Because he knew I was so securely under Alex’s thumb that I could never be the one to break this to her?

  Or was it because he got off on the challenge?

  Fucking some random girl during a bachelor party in Vegas is too easy. But fucking the little sister? Now that takes guts.

  But as hard as I want to hate Grayson Walker right now, I simply can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to believe that he could be that evil. That calculating. That heartless.

  And this is what makes me cry harder than anything.

  Because I’m a fool.

  A stupid, lovesick little fool who never grew up. Who will always be the geeky fourteen-year-old tomboy with the unrequited crush.

  I should have never turned back. I should have never rung his doorbell. But I had to know. I had to hear it from his own traitorous lips.

  Because I’m an idiot.

  “Are you okay?”

  The cab driver eyes me in the rear-view mirror, concern contorting his features. I force a smile, wipe at the tears with the back of my hand, and muster a nod. Then I turn back to the window, hopefully making it clear that I’d rather not talk.

  I don’t give the driver my home address. I can’t go there. Instead, I give him the address of La Bella Vita.

  I turn my key in the lock and stumble into the empty restaurant. It’s after two in the morning, which means Olivia closed up shop hours ago. Not that I want to see anyone right now.

  I drop my presumptuous overnight bag next to the hostess stand and slink to the bar. I grab a glass and a bottle of Chianti and uncork it with my teeth, probably violating like twenty health codes at once.

  Fuck ‘em.

  What the hell do I care anymore?

  I fill the wine glass to the top and take a long gulp.

  I notice a stack of receipts sitting at the end of the bar. I trudge over and peer at the little note Olivia clipped to the top.

  $45.21

  Our sales for the night.

  I take another long swig. Forty-five fucking dollars. Sounds about right.

  Underneath the total, she scrawled¸ “We ran out of that amazing sauce you made. The customers went crazy for it! You should definitely make more!!!”

  I love how hard she tried to cheer me up. With her multiple exclamation marks and compliments about the sauce. She has no idea that her little note is like a kick in the gut.

  There’s no more sauce where that came from.

  It was a one-time thing. A fluke. A fling.

  I pick up my wine glass and shuffle toward the kitchen, careful to avert my eyes as I pass table 9. The booth that will forever be haunted by memories of that blissful late morning. Where Grayson laid me down across the cool leather and moved eagerly inside of me, both of us gasping for breath, grasping for each other, moaning into skin and hair and mouths.

  I push through the swinging door into the kitchen and am instantly bombarded by another onslaught of fresh images.

  Grayson standing shirtless next to the stove, his muscles flexing deliciously as he stirred.

  More tears threaten to spill as I glance around the rest of the kitchen, at my mother’s abandoned dream. She begged my dad for this restaurant for so many years. She claimed it would make her feel complete. It would fill some kind of emptiness in her life.

  It turned out she was right.

  Except that emptiness wasn’t filled by a restaurant. It was filled by a sexy, dark-haired bartender with an Italian accent.

  I walk briskly toward the office, feeling purpose and resolve building with every step.

  I know what I have to do. What I should have done months ago.

  I was kidding myself to think I could keep this place alive. That my mother might walk through the door one day and want to return to her old life.

  She’s gone.

  She’s not coming back.

  She found her new perfect life and we aren’t in it.

  My sister was right to hate her all along. She saw what a selfish person my mother really is. And she held her responsible for that. Meanwhile, I tried to convince myself that it was some kind of oversight. A glitch in my mom’s programming.

  I yank open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, remove the envelopes from inside, and slam them down on the desk. The most recent letter from my mother is on top. Telling me to claim my life. To throw caution to the wind.

  The choices that lead us to happiness are never the easiest ones or the least painful.

  But it’s the happiness that comes from these tough choices that makes the pain worth bearing.

  What the hell does she know about pain? She has no idea what kind of heartbreak and destruction she left behind here. She doesn’t have a clue about the mess she made while she was out there on her “quest for happiness.” It wasn’t her pain to bear. It was mine. It was my dad’s. It was Alex’s.

  I switch on the shredder behind me and stuff the letter into it, watching in satisfaction as the tiny metal teeth chew and gnaw at my mother’s words, turning them into dust.

  I grab the next letter from the pile and resign it to the same fate. I keep grabbing and shredding and grabbing and shredding until there’s only one envelope left. But I stop when I see it’s not a letter from my mother, but rather the contract from that lawyer in New York. The one offering to buy the restaurant.

  I flip to the last page and hastily scribble my name on the line that says “Proprietor.”<
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  “There,” I say aloud to the empty office, feeling the weight of a thousand pounds of pasta being lifted from my shoulders. “You chose your life. Now I’m choosing mine.”

  I scoop up the crispy browned fish fillet with a spatula and ease it onto the mountain of fluffy yellow couscous. Then I pour the reduction sauce over the sculpture of food and set the plate down in front of my mother.

  She hoists her fork in the air, like she’s summoning troops to battle and plunges in. I watch her reaction carefully.

  “Mmm mmm mmm mmm MMM!” Her face lights up as she chews, and I feel a sense of satisfaction roll over me. The kind of satisfaction I can only get from watching someone enjoy my cooking.

  “How did I get so lucky to have a chef for a son?” she says with her mouth full of half-chewed fish, flashing me glimpses of it.

  My mother is a lot of things, but classy ain’t one of them.

  “Well, I don’t know about the chef part,” I say, layering fish and sauce onto a second plate. “But I always enjoy cooking for you.” I bring my food to the table and slide into the chair across from her.

  My mom moved to Brooklyn shortly after I announced I was being transferred to Manhattan. I guess it’s a perk of having a mother who’s practically a nomad. She’s willing to move wherever I am to be close to me. I usually spend Saturday afternoons at her house but after the hellish night I had last night with Lia and the rain and the vortex of guilt, I decided to come a few days early. Somehow being around my mom always makes things seem so much less dire.

  She waves my humility away with her fork, flinging a grain of couscous across the table. “Pish posh,” she says, badly imitating a British accent, “you are a chef and a blimey good one at that.”

  I smile. My mom always has a way of cheering me up even when she doesn’t know she’s doing it.

  “Now,” she states, sounding serious, like she’s opening up a board meeting. I would love to bring her to one of my board meetings. The look on Billings’s face when my mother tells him that he’s “too big for his britches” in one of her crazy accents would be priceless.