So Twisted

by Melissa Marino

  * * *

  The new semester, my final semester, started, and for the first time in almost four months, I felt fleeting twinges of hope. I was student teaching during the day, working at Venom at night. I never stopped thinking about him, and while I could ask Abel anytime how he was or if he was seeing anyone else, I didn’t. I was finally starting to make peace with the fact that although I had messed up in the relationship, he did something far worse in my eyes.

  He left me.

  No discussion. No working it out. No listening to my side.

  His reaction was hasty and showed me what kind of value he placed on both our relationship and myself. Every day which passed that I didn’t hear from him showed me I mattered far less to him than I thought I did, and that was what hurt me the most. I could get over the breaking of my heart, but the breaking of my trust, my respect, would take a long time.

  It didn’t make me miss him any less, though.

  One evening, I was exhausted from teaching and working and I had a rare night off. Evelyn was working late, so with the apartment to myself, I ordered Chinese food, enough to feed me and twelve of my closest friends. I was going to eat every bit of it myself. Anyone who said stuffing your emotions with food was wrong never had the fried dumplings and egg rolls from Dee’s, our favorite Chinese place. If a food orgasm was the closest I was going to get to any orgasm, I was going to welcome it. While I giggled to myself over the metaphor, the pit in my stomach of sadness alerted me to the truth in the entire joke. I rubbed small circles over my stomach, soothing the pain and realizing, even after all this time and even though it wasn’t as prominent, it was getting better.

  Getting better. Not healed.

  The knock at the front door startled me for a second before I realized it was probably just my food being delivered, and they were let in by someone else coming or going from the building. I threw a hoodie on over my braless tank top in order to not give the delivery dude a free show and pulled up my sagging yoga pants. Walking quickly to the front door, I stopped to pick up my cash on the table when they knocked again harder.

  “I’m coming!” I shouted.

  I unlocked the door and flung it open.

  It wasn’t the delivery guy.

  It was him.

  Aaron.

  I thought I was forgetting his eyes, the color so blue that I lose myself staring into them, but no. They were exactly how I remembered. Everything was exactly how I remembered, his lips, his slightly curled hair, even his broad shoulders—it was all him.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds or a few minutes, I couldn’t really tell how long it was because I was too busy taking in his face, his presence, and trying to resolve the fact that he was standing right in front of me.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry to just drop by like this.”

  His body swayed slightly as he shifted his weight back and forth, and he looked toward the floor, awaiting my response.

  “You’re here?” I asked. It wasn’t meant to be a question, but that’s how it came out—as a question.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Delilah made something for you for Christmas. I know it’s kind of belated but…”

  He trailed off and reached into a small gift bag he was holding. He pulled out a pile of colorful construction paper, stickers, and crepe paper held together by ribbons.

  “You could have mailed it and saved yourself the trip.” The words stumbled out of my mouth and none of them were the ones I wanted or should’ve used.

  “Well, I had this, too,” he said pulling something else from the bag.

  A Tinker Bell mug, just like the one that I had dropped.

  An ache in my chest, starting with a slow burn, began to multiply rapidly as I recalled how many mornings he made my coffee in that mug.

  I shook my head free of angst. “Again. You could’ve mailed it,” I repeated.

  “I know, but…” He stopped and reached his free hand up to hold on to the doorway, his eyes cast downward. He waited to say anything else.

  I waited, too, because I didn’t know what to say.

  His eyes cautiously moved up to meet mine. “Can I come in?”

  I nodded and stepped away from the doorway to allow him in. He walked in and stood awkwardly next to the door. I closed it behind him, his hands fidgety and making the crepe paper rustling the only sound between us. I took a deep breath, realizing I was probably coming off like a heartbroken teenager to him, all quiet and standoffish.

  “Do you want to sit down?” I asked.

  “No thanks. I can’t stay and I’m sure you have plans on a Saturday night.” He looked at me almost earnestly, hopeful that I would deny any plans. I decided it was better off, him just thinking whatever he was thinking. Except when my intercom buzzed, alerting me someone was here, I realized my food was in fact being delivered and my cover was probably blown. I excused myself for a moment and buzzed the delivery guy in.

  “Sorry, I’m having some food delivered,” I explained.

  “No problem,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m interrupting.”

  I nodded my head, and once again, we stood in awkward silence. He looked around the apartment, eyeing framed pictures and books lying around. It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment that he had never been here. I mean, why would he have been?

  There was a knock at the door, and as soon as I opened it, I realized just how much food I did in fact order. I shoved the money I was still holding in my hand at the delivery guy and took the two large bags of food from him. I could feel his eyes follow me as I carried the bags to the kitchen and set them down.

  I turned around in time to see him place the gift from Delilah on the coffee table and then shove his hands in his pockets. The ache and sadness I had in my chest since he’d arrived, or rather…ever since we had been apart, burned even more intensely. He was familiar, but I felt like he was a stranger.

  “You’re expecting someone,” he said, gesturing to the bags on the counter. “I’m sorry for not calling.”

  He rushed to the door and was about to walk out without a word. “Hey, hold up,” I called out, enraged at his gall. “What? Not even a good-bye? Wow. Twice in a row. Classy, Aaron.”

  He stopped just short of the door and turned around. “You’re obviously waiting for someone so I’ll leave before I cramp your style.”

  “Are you serious? Coming over here and storming out? I’m sorry but you can do that at your house. Don’t come to mine and do it, too.”

  I felt the heat, the anger, the hurt…everything I’d suppressed starting to rise to the surface. All these months, with the last words he ever spoke to me fresh in my mind, had been painful, even excruciating at times. He made me leave without a word to Delilah who had become everything to me, and the ache I had from being away from her was something I’d never forget.

  He stood still in the doorway, staring at me harshly, which proved to only further my anger. “I think it’s best I leave because seeing you have a date, or whatever you’re doing, is something I don’t care to see.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have come over at all. What I do or who I date is absolutely none of your concern. You made that perfectly clear to me when you threw me out.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t my business, and I didn’t come over to argue with you,” he said quietly.

  “Why did you come over, then?” I snapped. “It certainly wasn’t to just drop off something from Delilah.”

  “I wanted…”

  “What?” I shouted. “Spit it out. Why did you come here? Was it just to see how miserable I was or if I was dating someone else?”

  “No, of course not,” he responded incredulously.

  “Then what?”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out strongly, his eyes focusing on the ceiling instead of me. “I wanted to see you,” he whispered.

  His soft tone, the words laced with truth, felt like a punch in the gut to me. I had heard his words before and I believed them
, but now, I knew I couldn’t.

  “I don’t know how you want me to respond to that,” I replied irritated.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Do you think about me, Callie?”

  Tears pricked my eyes, but I knew I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him see me cry. “Don’t do this to me, Aaron.”

  “Do what?”

  “Come here! After all these months and say these things. You kicked me out like I was fucking trash, without a word, without a discussion. So, forgive me that I’m not as welcoming as I should be.”

  His jaw hung open, and I was shocked that he seemed so surprised at my reaction. I almost wanted to laugh at him to show him how twisted his thinking was, but I couldn’t. The gaping wounds he just tore open by simply being in front of me were enough to keep me stone-faced.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “You know what, Aaron? There was a time when I would’ve been anything you wanted me to be. I would’ve put on fancy dresses and pretended to be comfortable with it. I would’ve let you crowd me, and put our relationship on fast-forward. I even would’ve allowed you to be angry at me for not telling you the truth about Abel, but you don’t get to say sorry and have it all be okay. Do you know why? Because it’s not fucking okay. You held back from me, too. Whatever you went through with Lexie was still there with you. The baggage was dragged right into the middle of us.”

  He winced, surprised at my words and the power behind them. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever cursed around him before. I watched as his eyes scanned my face, looking for the girl he thought he knew. It hurt my heart to see his pain, but I knew that if I didn’t stand up, didn’t speak the truth, then it would’ve been my pain all over again.

  “I know it’s not okay,” he said quietly. “I know, but I couldn’t go the rest of my life and not apologize for it.”

  He took a couple steps toward me, but stopped short of getting too close. “I’m sorry. For what I said. For how I treated you.”

  I shook my head because I couldn’t hear anymore. I couldn’t hear apologies or look at him and see the eyes I fell in love with, that I was still in love with, without begging him to stay with me.

  “It’s too late for an apology. Get out,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows to me and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You didn’t like getting dismissed by me, and I don’t like it any more than you did.”

  “How dare you?” I screamed. “How dare you throw that in my face.”

  “Shit,” he yelled. “Damn it. This…this isn’t how I wanted this to go.”

  My emotions betrayed me and the tears began to fall as I stared at the floor.

  “Calliope, look at me, please,” he asked softly. “I know I reacted badly when I found out about things you were keeping from me, but I hope you understand, that you realize, how upset I was. Finding out you were telling Abel things, things I had no idea about or how you felt about them, made me doubt the trust I thought we had.”

  He paused briefly, looking at me with such a hopeless expression.

  “I doubted you,” he continued. “I doubted your feelings for me, and I shouldn’t have done that without hearing you out. I felt…betrayed and confused and a flood of emotions from the time I was with Lexie, and I took it out on you.”

  “Lexie,” I said, shaking my head. “She was always the other woman in our lives, wasn’t she?”

  He looked at me confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “You know,” I said. “I always wondered about Lexie. You never even told me the whole story about her, but from what I do know, I can’t understand how you loved a woman like her and then a woman like me.”

  “We were married. We had a child together,” he said. His face reddened before continuing. “Can you blame me for having some baggage?”

  I didn’t hesitate to answer. “Yes. Yes, I do blame you because you’re still not being honest. What was it, Aaron? What did she do to you?”

  “She left me!” he roared. “She left her daughter without a fucking care in the world! I came home one day and all that was left of her was a note. She didn’t even want to see Delilah ever again. So, there it is. That’s the baggage.”

  I watched as his chest heaved in residual anger, and I watched as he slowly worked his way through it. When I thought he was ready for it, I said my piece.

  “I’m sorry, Aaron. And I’m sorry for Delilah. I can’t imagine how awful that was, but I’m also not her. I’m not Lexie, but you kept waiting for me to turn into her.”

  His eyes looked around the apartment. He stared at framed pictures on the wall and my grandma’s Tiffany lamp before squinting at something in the kitchen. With slow steps, he walked to take a closer look. As he approached the refrigerator, I knew what he had seen. The several things Delilah had colored for me decorated the front of our refrigerator.

  He stood in front of the drawings, smiling sadly. “You have been more of a mother to her than Lexie ever was. I should’ve told you before. I should’ve told you a lot of things before.”

  My mind screamed to tell him to leave, but beyond the screams was the quiet voice that told me I needed more. I wiped away the falling tears and stared at the ceiling to keep more of them contained.

  “What else should you have told me?” I asked.

  Even though my eyes were closed, I heard him moving closer. “I should’ve told you that I’m not perfect, and I didn’t expect you to be, either. I should’ve told you it wasn’t all about sex, that I fell in love with your smile and your boundless energy. I should’ve told you I’m a hotheaded, stubborn asshole, that there’d be times I need to be put in my place. Mostly,” he said, close enough for him to brush his hand against mine, “I wish I told you about my past earlier. I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. Putting everything in fast-forward was my way of making sure I kept you.”

  I shook my head, unable to understand his reasoning. What had taken so long? Why now?

  I couldn’t think of all the questions spinning around my mind without considering what my role was in all of this. As much as I wanted to put it all on him, I couldn’t. The things I kept from him were the catalyst and his reaction was the result. Two parts that made the whole big fucking mess.

  I lifted my head to look at him. “I shouldn’t have lied,” I whispered.

  He was right in front me, so close I squeezed my eyes shut to keep from looking, but it didn’t matter. I felt him. The energy, the heat, from his body that had always been my downfall was penetrating me, taking over and dragging out all the emotions I’d tried so hard to bury.

  His hand left mine and moved, so gingerly, to palming the side of my face while his thumb brushed away the tears.

  It was him and his touch, and he was here.

  I shook my head against his touch and hesitantly eased myself into his hand. “I want…but…”

  His lips, soft and warm, pressed to my forehead. “Tell me,” he breathed against my skin.

  “I want to forgive you and I want to forget,” I answered, pausing briefly. “I want to, but I can’t.”

  “I know,” he whispered, holding my face in both of his hands now.

  His smell, the smell that was only his was surrounding me along with his sweet breath. He kissed my forehead again, then my temple and my cheek while my tears streamed down between his fingers. I knew I should tell him to stop, tell him to leave, but I knew once I did, that would be it. He would be gone for good.

  “Are you waiting for someone else tonight? Or any other night?” he asked as he ran his nose along my jawline, making my skin erupt with heat in a way that only he could.

  “No.”

  He lifted my face so I was staring at him, our mouths inches apart. “I hope to hell you can forgive me, but if you can’t, I understand.”

  It would have been so easy, so very easy to just tell him I did understand and all was forgiven, but it would have been another lie. I would never be able to live with myself, or look him in the eye, if I l
et what he did and all he said be forgotten. But I couldn’t.

  My heart was breaking all over again.

  He didn’t ask for a response; my silence and my tears told him everything he needed to know. “Shh,” he muttered. “Please don’t cry. Please.”

  He brought my mouth to his, brushing his lips against mine hesitantly and waiting for me to tell him it was okay. I didn’t.

  I pushed him away from me with both hands and watched him stumble back. His determination was fierce, though, and he came right back to me, sweeping his hands through the back of my hair and pulling me toward his face. I wanted to hit him…slap him…scream at him to get away from me, but my heart, the heart that hadn’t been whole since he left me, was winning the battle. Suddenly it wasn’t a question of anger or hurt, but finally putting it all to rest.

  I wanted him to put his healing hands and lips on me and make it better, to say good-bye to me in the only way we knew how.

  “Please,” he begged.

  He wasn’t asking me in words if it was okay to move forward, and when I pressed my lips to his, I wasn’t answering him in words, either.

  His lips moved cautiously with mine while he voiced tiny moans, the sound both arousing and agonizing. Like we had so many times in the past, we let the physical lead our emotions, and while I knew it could lead to only more hurt, I wouldn’t stop.

  I gripped his shirt tightly in my hands, pressing myself into him as hard as I could.

  I knew it wouldn’t be close enough until his skin was on mine, our bodies wrapped up in each other, and reminding me of everything I’d lost.

  “I missed you,” he murmured against my lips. “I’ll miss you so much.”

  He bent down and picked me up, never breaking our kiss until he started carrying me toward the bedroom. I wrapped my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck as I directed him to mine.

  “Are you sure?” he whispered as he laid me across my bed.

  His knee nudged my legs open for him to get close, and he pushed up from his arms above me. I looked at him, his beautiful blue eyes, now sad and dark. I hated it. I hated that those same eyes once sparkled and delighted in seeing me.