by Karina Halle
So yeah, maybe he’s starting to catch on that I have some pretty mad feelings for him. And I’m too afraid to ask myself what to do next. Keep on pining and have my heart eventually crushed by our separation.
Or?
There is no or.
No matter what happens, it can’t end well.
I sigh and stare up at the ceiling of my tiny room. My window is open; I’m trying to get a breeze going inside, and outside people are laughing and talking as they walk to and fro on the street beneath the building. It’s maddening that I’m inside, stewing in my feelings, while the rest of the city gets to have fun.
But I’ve never been one to stay home because of a guy.
I put on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt with the slogan “Nope,” grab my purse and sunglasses, and head out into the street.
I’m flatting in Newington so it’s about a twenty minute walk to head into the city but I could use the exercise. Not that I need it at the moment—my appetite is gone these days for the first time in my life, and my ass has finally shrunk a size. So have my boobs. It’s so not fair. When a girl loses weight, her boobs go first. But when a guy loses weight, his dick stays the same size. If anything it gets larger in proportion.
I’ve always wanted to have a picnic in the Princes Street Gardens, and even though you rarely see anyone doing it alone, I won’t let that stop me. Fuck the happy couples and families. Why should picnicking be reserved just for them?
I stop by a shop to get some cheese and crackers and two cans of cider, and head down toward the grass, trying to find the perfect spot to have my lonely little picnic. The air smells sweet despite it being late summer in the city, and the sun feels wonderful on my back.
I feel fucking alive.
But damn if there aren’t a lot of people here. I guess the park attracts the after-work crowd, and it is a gorgeous Friday after all. It’s hard to find the right spot without being too close to a couple making out or a toddler determined to tramp all over your non-existent blanket.
I think I see a good spot, a little too close to the path, but it will have to do.
And then I stop dead in my tracks.
I see him.
Brigs.
With a child on his shoulders.
Walking with a stunning blonde that looks like January Jones. Or Grace Kelly. Someone with the neck of a ballerina and all the grace of a princess.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m in Jurassic Park, and if I don’t move, he won’t see me. I can’t think of any other option but to turn around and hide my face from his and walk the other way.
But I can’t move. I can’t stop looking. It’s like a horrible car crash.
He and his adorable son and his gorgeous, perfect wife.
How on earth could he not be happy with her? She’s turning heads even as she walks through the gardens, wearing a white sundress, her hair done up in a French twist. Shit, she even manages to make an 80s hairstyle look good.
And Brigs is laughing, holding onto his son’s legs and staring up at him with the most adoring eyes. I knew from the way he talked about Hamish that he was a father who would do anything for his son, and now I have the proof.
The exact proof why he and I will never become anything, even if he did happen to feel the same. And the odds of that happening now are probably a million to one.
By luck or grace or mercy, Brigs doesn’t see me. He walks past, happily chatting with Hamish while Miranda strolls alongside him. I have to say, at least it doesn’t look like the two of them are anything more than friends. There are no shared smiles between husband and wife, no looks of lust or love. Both of them are entirely fixated on their son.
But that doesn’t change anything, other than the fact that I’ve been a fool. And even though I’ve been telling myself it’s okay to fall in love with Brigs, to revel in that love, as long as I don’t tell him, as long as I don’t act on it, I know it’s wrong, too.
I had just told myself it wasn’t going to end well.
Now I know for damn sure.
I watch them go, walking into the sun, and there’s a spear in my chest, my heart bleeding from the inside.
Foolish, foolish girl.
I flop down on the grass and open the can of cider. I drink it quickly, trying to bury the burn. I’m embarrassed and hating myself a little bit. A whole lot.
You’re an idiot, I tell myself. A lovesick puppy who ought to be kicked.
I finish the other cider until my brain starts swimming, then start the walk back to the flat.
Halfway there, my feet lead me into a pub.
I sit down at the bar and the rugged looking bartender gives me a wide, welcoming smile.
“What can I get for you?” he asks, leaning across the bar.
“Anything that can make me forget a man,” I tell him.
He raises his brow, an eyebrow ring glinting under the lights. “I think that’s called Scotch. Or whiskey, since you’re American. On the rocks or straight?”
“Straight,” I tell him.
“Good to know,” he says with a wink, turning around to grab a bottle.
Suddenly there’s someone in the seat next to me.
I turn my head to see a big bearded beast of a man wearing a grey t-shirt. His arms are covered in tattoos, even across his collarbone. “Oy Rennie, don’t be giving your customers a hard time.”
He’s drunk but non-threatening in a weird way. I mean, he’s huge, and when he turns to face me, he’s not smiling. Just observing me with green-grey eyes, the color of the ocean beneath a dock. I don’t see any malice in them, nor predatory charm. He’s just here as I’m here.
“He’s not giving me a hard time,” I tell him, sticking up for Rennie who’s pouring me the largest shot in the world. “The world is giving me a hard time.”
Rennie turns around, giving the tatted beast a wry smile and sliding the drink toward me. “This is on the house,” he says. “Since the world isn’t being so nice.”
“The world isn’t being so nice to me, either,” the guy next to me says.
Rennie rolls his eyes. “We know, we know. That’s your excuse for everything.” Still, Rennie turns around and gets him a shot too. And then, to my surprise, pours one for himself. He raises it in the air.
“To the world,” Rennie says.
Me and the tatted guy raise our glasses. Theirs go down like water, though even in my heartache and the need to bury the pain, I take it easy and have just a sip.
“I’ve never seen you around here before,” Rennie says, wiping at the bar with a rag, his biceps bulging under his shirt.
“I live in London,” I tell him.
The tattooed guy makes a derisive sound. I look at him defensively. He manages to shoot me a sloppy smile. If the guy wasn’t drunk, he’d be gorgeous, that much is true. Full lips, a brooding stare, built like he does MMA in his spare time when he’s not throwing logs in the Highland Games. The kind of guy I would normally go nuts for, if only my mind wasn’t so preoccupied.
“But you’re American,” the drunk guy says, his brogue getting thicker and thicker.
“I am,” I tell him. “But I go to film school in London. I’m just here for the summer, working at the short film festival.”
“My brother is a teacher,” the guy says.
“Oh really?” I ask, staring at him closer now. He doesn’t look familiar. I wonder about Brigs’ brother. But other than the fact that he’s a rugby player, I don’t know anything about him. Though his arms look like they could definitely win a game.
He nods and licks his lips, staring down at his empty glass. Doesn’t say anything else.
“So what’s ailing you, Miss America?” Rennie says, swinging my attention back to him.
I bite my lip for a moment, wondering if I should tell the truth or not. But these guys are just strangers in a bar. In a few weeks, I’ll be gone from Edinburgh. Maybe even sooner if Brigs doesn’t need me anymore. His book is moving along at a snai
l’s pace. It used to be he would type so fast when he was around me, but now it seems everything has slowed to a crawl.
“I’m in love with someone I can’t have,” I tell them.
Rennie whistles while drunk guy twists his lips, giving me the “that sucks” look.
“I’m not sure what’s worse,” Rennie says. “Being in love with someone you can never have or having someone and losing them.”
“You can have both,” the other guy says. “That would be worse.”
“I don’t know,” I say, suddenly philosophical. “I think I’d rather know, just for a second, that your feelings were reciprocated.”
“You’d rather have that and have it snatched away thereafter,” he says, incredulous. “You’re a daft bird is what you are.”
“Easy now,” Rennie says. He gives me a sympathetic look. “You know, I’ve only been bartending a short while here but I’ve already given out a therapy session’s worth of advice. I think, in your case, you need to tell the man. I have a hard time believing that anyone who learned you were in love with them wouldn’t already feel the same.”
Normally I would blush stupidly at that. A hot looking bartender with black spiky hair, paying me such a compliment. But I only feel doubt.
“Not this guy,” I tell him. “He’s…married.”
Rennie raises his brows. “Aye. I understand now,” he says, gravity in his words.
“And I kind of work for him,” I go on. “He’s paying me as a research assistant for his book.”
“My brother is writing a book,” the guy says, his eyes narrowing, sea glass green, as he looks me over.
I swallow and nudge my glass away from me, hoping Rennie will take the hint and fill her up. He does.
“What’s your brother’s name?” I cautiously ask the drunk guy, noting the tattoo of a lion on his forearm.
“What’s your name?” he responds.
“Yvette,” I tell him without missing a beat.
“Then my brother’s name is George,” he says, cavalier.
“Drink up, beautiful,” Rennie says, filling up the glass and sliding it back to me. “You keep talking and I’ll keep filling.”
“You know I’m a poor student, right?” I ask him.
“Aye. And I know you probably need a night out,” he says. “It’s on me. Just as long as when you think it’s time to go home, you let me call you a cab.”
I nod just as a pair of pretty girls come to the end of the bar, trying to get his attention. He leaves to go tend to them as I sip the Scotch. Even the drink reminds me of Brigs, of the night we drank in his office and shared the cigar.
“He’s got a girlfriend, just so you know,” drunk guy says, nudging me with his elbow and nodding at Rennie.
I give him a look. “I wasn’t wondering,” I tell him.
“Still hung up on the married man,” he notes.
I rub my lips together and rotate the glass in my hands, watching the golden liquid spin. “As wrong as it all is, I’m not sure the feeling is going away anytime soon.” I glance at him. “Do you have somebody in your life? Ever been in love?”
He smiles and his whole face becomes youthful, like a young boy, even though his expression is embarrassed. “No, and no. But that’s okay. I’m making peace with it.” He lifts up his drink and has another sip. “Do you want my advice though?”
I cock my head and smile. “Not really.”
He chuckles. “Fair enough. But I’ll tell you anyway. Take it with a grain of salt because it’s coming from someone who doesn’t know anything.” He leans in close and I’m momentarily caught in his eyes. “Tell the man how you feel.”
“I can’t do that,” I whisper. “He’s happy.”
You’re lying, I tell myself. Why are you lying?
“If he’s happy, then it doesn’t really matter…does it?”
I hate the hope this man is putting in my chest. “And what if it does matter? What if he…what if this changes everything? Not just my life, but his and his wife’s and…I can’t be a catalyst.”
“Better to be a catalyst for change than a martyr for lies.”
His words fall over the bar like snowflakes. Soft, but with bite.
I just don’t know how to feel.
But I do end up having a few more drinks, and true to his word, Rennie calls me a cab. I don’t know what else I told the drunk guy, but when I leave I’m feeling empowered and bold and drunk out of my mind.
I get to my flat, my roommate already asleep and snoring lightly in her room. I flop down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling in that drunken mix of wanting to stay up later and drink but also go to sleep at the same time.
My nerves win out in the end.
In the most terrible way.
I open the email app on my phone and compose a message to Brigs.
Every cell in my body is screaming for me to stop, but all I feel is the selfish need to be heard and heard now. It can’t wait. It’s now or never.
Dear Professor Blue Eyes,
Do you believe in fate? Of course you don’t. You often say you think the universe is made of haphazard events that don’t make any sense, that we are the harbingers of our own destiny and doom.
I used to agree with you, though today I’m not so sure.
Today, I had the world make something very clear to me, something you probably aren’t even aware of.
I was walking in the park today, wanting to have a picnic at Princes Street Gardens, and I saw you there.
You were with Miranda and Hamish.
Goddamn it if you weren’t the most beautiful family.
Now I can understand why you canceled today.
What I don’t understand, though, is why you haven’t canceled every day before that.
Why have you continued to spend time with me, all day long, day after day, for months now when you have something that graceful and good and beautiful at home?
Miranda is every single thing that I’m not.
And I accept that.
But I can’t accept why you bother spending all your time with me.
I’m probably the worst research assistant there ever was.
We laugh more than we work.
You’re still the slowest writer in the world.
And yet every day I’m there.
Until one day I’m not.
Tasha
P.S. I’m drunk
P.P.S. I’m writing this because I’m a catalyst for change.
P.P.P.S. I don’t think I should work for you anymore.
Probably not the most succinct email I’ve ever composed, but I figure I’ll worry about that later when I send it.
Oops.
I already sent it.
I stare at the “sent” icon just as my phone dies.
Then I shrug. Whatever.
I lay back down on the bed and try and train my thoughts to something worth thinking of. I think about the flat back in London that I had sublet for the summer. I think about going to school, getting up every day without the warm heart and the bubbly stomach and the butterflies, and how fucking boring it’s going to be. I think about the pain I’ll feel when I won’t have Brigs’ face to look at every day, the loss of him in my life. The bitterness that will follow. Bitter always follows the sweet, especially when it comes to love. Especially when it comes to forbidden love.
I don’t know how long I sit in the dark, but eventually I get up, unsteady on my feet, and wobble out to the kitchen to raid the fridge for a half-drunk bottle of wine I know is in there.
I’ve just finished pouring myself a glass of the oaky chardonnay when there’s a knock at my door. It’s faint, as if not to disturb, but that just puts the hairs on the back of my neck up.
I glance at the microwave clock. It’s only a quarter to midnight, so not that late, but still. My roommate has never had guests over this late, and I’ve never had anyone over here except Brigs dropping off books a couple times, or the one time he picked me up when we went
to a theatre to see a screening outside of town.
Obviously that thought gives me a jolt of hope as I quickly creep toward the door, peeking through the peephole before the person can knock again.
It’s Brigs. Distorted in that fish-eye way, but still him.
Ah shit.
I take a deep breath and undo the chain, slowly opening the door.
“Hi,” I say softly, taking him all in. He’s standing there in what I saw him in earlier, an olive dress shirt and dark jeans.
I think in the deep recesses of my mind I had hoped he would show up. Isn’t that why I wrote the email? A Hail Mary? A last ditch attempt?
He looks pained, his brow furrowed. “Can I come in?” he asks, voice gruff and low. “Sorry it’s so late. I tried calling you but it went straight to your voicemail.”
“You know I never check my voicemail,” I tell him, opening the door wider.
Now he seems larger than life leaning against the frame.
“I know,” he says. “But I’ve never gotten a drunk email from you before.”
He walks in and I know I need to laugh it off.
“Well, consider yourself flattered,” I tell him, closing the door gently. “Drunk emails are the white unicorn of Natasha Trudeau.”
But as he stands in the narrow entryway and turns around to face me, our bodies too close in the dark, he’s not smiling. He’s staring at me instead, like he’s studying a treasure map he knows he’ll lose later, memorizing every detail.
“I want to talk about it,” he says, and his voice is still on the border between hushed and emphatic.
“The email?” I question, even though it’s futile to pretend now.
Every nerve inside me is dancing, waiting, wishing.
He nods and looks around warily. “Is your roommate asleep?” he asks softly.
I nod. “She is, and she can literally sleep through anything.” I almost go off on a tangent about our techno playing neighbor and how she says she’s never even heard his 90s oonce oonce crap blaring through the walls, but I don’t because the look in Brigs’ eyes is so arresting it makes thoughts fall out of my head.