by Claire Cain
Basically, he was asking for it.
But instead of jumping him right then and there and declaring my apology, undying love, devotion, and attraction to him, I smiled, and waved him in, and tried not to be further claimed by his subtle cologne and the way his eyes swept over me, then jumped away.
“I missed you,” I said quietly and leaned up on my tiptoes to give his cheek a kiss.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked, not quite looking at me.
Not a great start.
“Let me just run grab my purse, and then we can make the seven o’clock at Green Hills.” I grabbed my work bag that had slumped down in one of the dining chairs, the only evidence left of my formerly-messy house.
“Ok. Do you have a vase?” His voice felt remote as I walked down the hall, and I swallowed down the anxious impulse to hide in the bathroom and give myself a pep talk.
“Yes, under the sink, and thank you for those, that’s… sweet.” And maybe the kind of gesture Luke would make, some effort at appeasement, if he were going to tell me we were done dating?
Oh, God, help me.
I grabbed my purse and heard the cabinet clinking shut. I brushed my long hair back out of my face and smoothed my duvet cover on my bed. I’d cleaned the apartment obsessively after getting home from work in an attempt to funnel some of my nervous energy. One sparkling apartment later, I was no less anxious, but a little more addled thanks to the nostril-scorching fumes of Clorox. Fortunately, I knew I’d probably shovel a full bag of popcorn during the movie, and that should bring back my ability to taste.
I wandered back into the kitchen and saw him staring at a sleeping Lemon on the back of the couch, the green and yellow mums sitting in a small vase.
“You ready?” I asked, and he turned toward me slowly. I couldn’t tell what, but he seemed different. Even more guarded somehow, and I had no idea what had changed.
“Yep.” His face was impassive.
That was it. That was all he said. So, when I thought he was guarded? Yeah… I was right.
“Ok. Is everything ok?” I mean, why wait to deal with this? If he was going to let me down easy, if he could tell what a mess I was, we should just get this over with. I felt like I’d been waiting for this, and I just wanted to be done with it.
“Just fine. Let’s go.”
And it went like that. For the rest of the evening. I tried to talk with him in the car, in the line for the tickets, as we sat before the previews, but everything he gave me was terse at best. We sat silently during the movie, not speaking, not touching, and I don’t think he ate a single bite of popcorn.
I vacillated between hurt, embarrassed, and angry. By the end of the movie and with a belly full of popcorn, I had leveled out to a low burn of frustrated anger. I decided I was going to force him to talk to me when we got back to my apartment. His continued silence in the car only confirmed my determination, even if it meant I unloaded my full confession on him.
He walked with me to my door but stopped there.
“I think I should probably go.”
Chapter Twenty
He was standing there, feet planted, looking at the ground instead of at me as I turned back to him from inside my house. I felt the frustration and fear and confusion boil over.
“I don’t know what’s happening Luke. I know we have a lot to talk about. And I can’t tell what changed between when you got to my house and when we left for the movie, but please just come inside and tell me what’s going on.” I grabbed his hand then, hoping that the physical contact might shake him out of this mood or whatever it was.
He stood solidly there, not moving, for what felt like a good ten minutes. His hand was rough and warm in mine, and my heart raced at the contact despite myself.
It was probably only about twenty seconds. I’m not sure exactly what conversation he was having with himself, but it must have been a lively one based on his frowning face and tense energy. Fear unfurled itself like smoke in my belly, and I knew something was really wrong, and he had to come in and talk to me. I knew I’d messed up by being late to his dinner, and by the way I handled things going forward, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad. I had braced for the worst but didn’t think I’d be facing it. And Luke was typically levelheaded and reasonable…
He couldn’t leave. I pulled him toward me, over the threshold, and he let me. I closed the door and locked it behind me, as though my doing that would keep him there. He pulled his hand from mine.
“What is going on?” I tried not to let my voice shake, but it did. My heart was pounding, and I felt shaky and weak and almost out of my mind with the need for him to talk to me. I walked to him but stopped before I reached him when he flinched.
“I think we’re done here.” His voice was low and it had a sharp edge to it. His words made no sense.
“What do you mean?” I searched his eyes for some hint. What the hell had happened? I knew, but I needed to understand how it could be this quick, this sterile.
“This shouldn’t be a mystery. First, the thing last weekend. Your entire life has been about your job, and I knew that wouldn’t change but thought maybe we’d figure it out. But the last few weeks have made it clear that’s unlikely, and even if we did, I refuse to be what holds you back. And now, I see you’re going to New York. There’s no reason to draw this out and make it worse for both of us when you actually leave.” He nodded to the floor where a little pile of purple stickie notes sat. They must have fallen out of my work bag.
“What?” I waited for him to explain.
“You’re going back to New York,” he said like it was fact. He said it like he knew it was true and inevitable. My eyes focused on the stickie note on top of the small pile: respond to Brenda re: New York offer.
“No. I’m not going anywhere.” I moved to him and put my hands on his shoulders to hold him in front of me and force him to look in my eyes. “I’m not going to New York. I didn’t even consider it. That was a note to respond to the offer my old job sent me. My response is no, and I just didn’t take the time to send the email—I’ve been distracted at work and am working tomorrow to make up for that, so I brought all of my reminders with me. I realized yesterday it’s been a few weeks since my old boss emailed me and didn’t want to put that off any more.” I tried to cover all the bases, leave nothing out, so he would see the truth. I could at least get that one very easily-solved issue out of the way before we dealt with what I thought was the actual issue.
“But you told me you miss New York. You loved it. Why wouldn’t you consider it?”
“I miss Ellie. I miss things about New York. But I feel like that chapter of my life is closed. I made a conscious choice to move here, even before we got involved.” I explained it as best I could, not quite ready to spill my guts all over the floor when he was still frosty.
“Are you sure?” His voice sounded smaller, but with a twinge of hope in it.
“Yes, I’m sure. Why on Earth would you think I would accept an offer to move back to New York and not mention a word about it to you?” I felt the frustration with him hit now that I’d clarified things. Was he that ready to end our relationship, and all because of a stickie note? Before he could respond, I said, “I’m hungry, and I’m making pasta.” I moved into the kitchen and pulled out a pot for pasta water and a pan for sauce, waiting to hear him say something to make this better.
“Your career has always been the priority for you.”
His words felt like a slap across the face. I turned from the stove, and I must have looked as shaken as I felt because he continued.
“That’s not wrong—not a bad thing. I do the same. And I respect you for always going after what you want. I always have. It’s one reason I’ve—we’ve—it’s one reason I’ve kept my distance. I just… I don’t think I can keep doing this. I think we’re better off stepping back before either of us is… too upset to be friends again.” He was standing on the other side of the counter, looking over it at the floor b
etween us, not at me, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
“It’s one reason you’ve kept your distance? What is? What reason?”
He just looked at me and shook his head, then swallowed. Maybe he wouldn’t answer my questions, but he could listen to my apology, at least.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I messed up last weekend. There’s no way I can fully explain to you how frustrated I feel about not understanding that going to your event instead of mine was the right choice, and I should have changed my plan from the beginning. I didn’t realize it until I was in the midst of things and just felt how wrong it was. Once I did, then my timeline was messed up, and then I was late and missed them announcing your nomination for the award…” I turned the nob of the burner and searched his face, willing him to look at me so he would see how sincerely sorry I was. When I heard the click-click-click of the igniter and the whoosh of the gas flame lighting, I set the pot of water on to boil. I moved to the fridge to gather ingredients and kept talking.
“But I will tell you, I can’t change what happened. At this point, I can’t undo that. I can only tell you that I feel like I’ve learned the lesson. I understand that it’s ok for me to compromise some things for you, and I hope you’ll be willing to do the same for me. I know that’s not always possible with your job and life in the Army, but I think that’s the only way a relationship works. I’m going to mess up again, and my guess is you will too at some point… we have to compromise. And you would have known this if you’d let me call you and talk to you some time in the last six days.” He was looking at me now, finally. He’d moved into the kitchen and was leaning back against the counter, watching me smash cloves of garlic with the side of my chef’s knife into a bamboo cutting board.
“I agree. I shouldn’t have shut you out. I just couldn’t have this conversation over the phone and didn’t feel like we could do much before having this conversation. I also agree that compromise is important and we’re human, so we’re going to mess up.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“And I’m not even a little bit interested in the New York job. Truly. Don’t you think I would have mentioned I was thinking about it?” I ran my knife through the garlic to mince it and grabbed a bunch of basil from a mason jar in front of me. Some grew in my pot outside, but I kept a bunch in water near the sink since I used it so often.
“I guess that’s kind of what I was wondering, but then I thought maybe I didn’t have the right to feel like you should be consulting me on job options.” He was still watching my hands bunching and chopping ingredients.
“Why wouldn’t you have the right to feel that way?” I felt a little ill asking the question, afraid of what he might say. I focused my efforts on chopping sundried tomatoes.
“I don’t know. I’m just your boyfriend. I have no real claim on you.” He cleared his throat, and I saw he was nervous. He took a few steps closer to me, brought his hands to my sides and gripped me, and I felt a little relief at his touch. So far, he’d just stood there with his hands in his pockets while I moved around the kitchen to burn my nervous energy. His response made me bold.
“But you could have,” I said, setting down my knife and wiping my hands on a towel.
“What does that mean?” he asked, his eyes skating back and forth between mine, searching for clarity.
“You could have a claim on me, if you wanted to. You kind of already do.” My heart beat faster and my throat felt tight, but I got the words out, and I saw his eyes ignite. I felt his grip at my sides tighten like he was keeping himself from pulling me toward him, but then he frowned at me.
“Don’t say that Alex.” His voice was rough and a little too loud with frustration.
“Why not?” Luke of today was a totally incomprehensible being to me. Maybe I was blinded by my own feelings and couldn’t read his because of them.
“Because I can’t have you, and you know that.” He shook me a little and then turned away from me to examine the pot of now-boiling water behind us on the stove.
“I don’t know that. I don’t know what you mean.” I tried to keep my voice calm. I walked to the stove him but thought better of touching him again. I reached around him to the bowl of kosher salt I kept at the ready. I grabbed a large pinch and tossed it into the water.
Luke was quiet for a few minutes, and I couldn’t tell if he was retreating into himself again, or if maybe he was just trying to figure out what to tell me. He held on to the back of his neck, his elbows jutting out on either side of his head. As he paced around the small space of the kitchen, I could see his hands clasped together and turning white from the tension.
While he fought whatever internal war he was fighting, I sautéed the garlic with some Parma ham, crushed tomatoes, chili flakes, and sundried tomatoes. I splashed in some red wine and set the pan to simmer.
Finally, he let his hands drop and the look he gave me made me stop. Stop moving, stop breathing, stop picking at my nail polish as I stood there waiting for him to say something, stop thinking.
“I told you I was in love with you when we were growing up. I never stopped loving you. I have always loved you, and like an idiot, I’m in love with you now.” He looked pained and miserable as he said this.
“I—”
“No, listen. I’ve always loved you, but I’ve always known you had your own goals that didn’t necessarily mean being someone’s wife. You were always heading for somewhere different—bigger than our hometown. You had ambitions and dreams. You were so talented and smart and you were absolutely made for more than some stifling high school relationship with me. I saw what happened with Jen and Louis—they both sacrificed their plans for the baby and to get married. When I heard him crying in his room night after night when he thought no one knew how upset he was, I vowed I wouldn’t be like him, and I wouldn’t ever put you in a place where you had to stay home with a kid instead of pursue your dreams.”
“I’m sorry about what happened with your brother, but they got Tessa out of it, didn’t they? And she’s awesome, even if they ended up divorced. I know Louis has had a hard time accepting the way his life has turned out, but I don’t see why that changes our situation now. I’m sorry we didn’t date in high school. I kind of wish we had. I know I certainly wanted to, but you weren’t around—and I guess now I know why. But that’s beside the point. Why does that have any bearing on our relationship now?” I didn’t let my voice get shrill and screechy. I wanted to have a little tantrum right there and knock some sense into him. Why were we belaboring our lack of relationship in high school now?
“You said yourself that being together was a big deal. I think I’ve deluded myself into thinking I could be with you, and not be in love with you, or at least just keep things casual enough to survive when it’s over. I thought I could have it both ways—have you, but not cause you to compromise your goals. I realized the other night that’s impossible. I’ll always want you with me, and you’ll always have a conflict. I don’t want you feeling bad because you can’t do both—constantly conflicted like you were last week.” He said this like it would make sense to me, too.
He said it like I heard anything more than that he was in love with me.
My heart was pounding out of my ears and I could. Not. Understand. Him.
“Why does it have to be over? Why do you keep talking about this like we’ve broken up already?”
“Because it’s over! You’re not going back to New York, but eventually I’ll get orders, and I’ll leave here, and you’ll still be here. You’ll be doing the job you’ve worked for practically all your life. I’m not going to ask you to give up what you’ve worked for since high school and then be miserable. It’s just a matter of time, and I don’t think I can keep being with you and then give you up.”
“So, don’t give me up.”
“What the hell? You know what my life is. You know that being with me isn’t an option for you.” His voice shook with frustration and anger, and I knew my wide
eyes betrayed the shock I felt at his comment. I felt a flood of sadness and frustration all over again.
“Why can’t I be with you? What makes that so impossible?” My voice was steady and calm. I felt buoyed by the fact I wasn’t begging. I needed to know, yes, but it wasn’t me who was the illogical one. I could be calm, if he’d just help me understand.
“Because you’re… you. And I’ll be damned if I’m the one to stand in your way of whatever it is you want. I won’t have you look at me like Jen looked at Louis—like he’d stolen something from her—like he’d ruined her life. I saw it eat both of them, and she still can’t be in the same room as him without shredding him with her anger. She wasn’t like that before. She was nice—and she loved him.” He sounded resigned, leaned a hip against the countertop, and I felt my inner fighter rise up.
“Ok, I’m sorry, but this is bullshit. You’re telling me I can’t be with you because I don’t want to be, right? You’re saying, in essence, that being with you means giving up what I want and becoming some old embittered shrew because you’ve stolen all my hopes and dreams. Is that it?” I stalked toward him from where I was at the other side of the kitchen—yeah, stalked, because I had a hellofalot of adrenaline coursing through me, and it propelled me in his direction. We stood a foot apart, and I felt myself shaking with adrenaline and energy.
“Uh, no, I mean—”
“That’s what you’re saying. You’re taking the choice away from me. You’re assuming what I want is my job, or some other kind of person for a partner. You’re also assuming, as you usually do, that it’s black and white. That it’s either, or. You’ve made up your mind that it’s black—that we can’t be together, period, or I’ll eventually resent you like Jen resents Louis, and vice versa. But have you noticed how I’ve been unsettled, and conflicted, even? I know I haven’t unloaded it all on you, and we’ve barely seen each other the last month, but I haven’t been happy at B and W. I’ve actually been miserable because I’ve realized this dream position in this cool city at a great company with awesome coworkers and appealing accounts isn’t all that I want in life. I mean, it totally is in terms of a job, but in terms of a life? No—it’s not enough anymore. And it’s damn frustrating to have worked so hard and had this dream only to get here and realize it’s not what I thought it would be–it’s not enough. It’s disheartening, and annoying, and disappointing.” I waited for him to understand. I waited for a signal of some kind that he knew what I was saying, but it didn’t come. I grabbed hold of the counter next to me to anchor me. He just kept watching me, studying me. So, I kept going.