Tripp

by Kristen Kehoe

  I lean back and stare at Huey. His hair has new designs shaved into it, some sort of symbol on one side and a couple of straight lines on the other. His smile is strong even as he chomps on his food. He’s smaller than me, shorter by three or so inches and thinner through the shoulders, and his size combined with his happy demeanor always has people underestimating him. Happy he may be, but he’s also deadly when it comes playmaking and anticipating his opponent’s moves.

  Perhaps the best thing about Huey is his personality. He’s never pushy, just throws his findings out there and lets you sit with them. I could ignore him and he’d sit happily in silence the rest of the lunch period. As friends go, he’s my closest at school other than Rachel, and because of that, I unload on him.

  “Yeah, she wasn’t happy to see me. Apparently, yelling at a girl when you tell her you love her isn’t the right way to handle it.”

  He watches me, finishing his bite before he nods. “Yeah, girls can be funny. Like, they want to hear you say something, and then when you do, because you didn’t say it in the right way or at the right time, they don’t accept it.”

  “Exactly,” I say, feeling a little better.

  “Of course,” Huey continues, “boys are no better. We sometimes don’t say things because it’s easier to convince ourselves we don’t want to say them rather than admit that we’re afraid of what will happen when we do.”

  He stares at me, and I incline my chin as I take the hit.

  The bell rings and Huey’s smile is the same as he packs up. “Good luck my man. Flow, she’s tough—not like the arm candy you held onto earlier. Of course, it could make her more exciting, too,” he adds with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

  “Give my best to Tammy the Tongue,” I shoot back and he just laughs.

  “How ‘bout I just keep giving her mine?”

  I feel lighter when I leave detention, and then I come face to face with Lauren on my way back to class. I want to turn and walk the other way, but I don’t. I’m more man than that, and she deserves to say whatever she needs to say. Only, it’s Lauren and of course she doesn’t say anything to me. She turns her face into her friend’s shoulder and lets the other girl give me a dirty look before ushering Lauren away.

  I hear a muffled sob and my rapidly-depleting self-respect lowers another notch. However honest I pretended I was being with Lauren, I never was—not the way I should have been. It appears that it not only hurt her, but also hurt Rachel and my chances with her. So much for doing what was best.

  The rest of the day drags until I finally skip out of last period early and head to Rachel’s car. I’ve thought about it, and I know Rachel well enough to understand that she’s going to avoid me until she has a grip on what she’s feeling. Since I need to say a few more things, I’m going to force her to listen to me one last time. Then I’ll let her go and hope like hell she wants to come back to me.

  Ten minutes later, I see her walking toward me with her head down, her hands holding onto the straps of her backpack. Her hair’s starting to fly out of her ponytail, and even though her black coat is zipped up all the way, I see her shiver. I take a second to watch her and realize just how tired Rachel looks. For the first time I understand what she’s talking about when she says that things are different now. I’ve been focused on her in my life, what I want from her, what I want to give her—and she’s been focused on everything.

  She has Gracie, another little person, which means her decisions aren’t her own. Stupidly, I’ve assumed she was too afraid of me like I was afraid of her. Looking at her, I think I finally see that she’s afraid of everything and I’m not making it any easier on her.

  “Rachel,” I say her name as she takes out her cell phone, and wait for her to lift her head. I stare at her; she stares at me. I wish I could walk up to her, wrap my arms around her and let her lean. I wish I could somehow show her she can trust me enough to lean on me.

  She stops in front of me, her eyes steady and unreadable. I have to give her credit for the intimidation stance she pulls off so well. I’ve known her most of my life, and I have no idea what she’s thinking right now; talk about unnerving.

  “Waiting for me twice in one day, whatever will people think?”

  Her acid tone enlightens me to two possibilities. Either Rachel’s worn out, therefore she’s lashing out, or, Rachel’s really annoyed and is seconds away from telling me to shove it before she walks out of my life forever. Since door number two isn’t an option for me, I put on my game face and stare right back as I slide off the hood and close the gap between us.

  “We need to talk,” I say and take her keys without breaking eye contact. I leave her standing as I walk around and unlock her Explorer, settling into the driver’s seat and eyeing her through the windshield in an act far more confident than I actually feel.

  When she steps toward the car and jerks the door open, throwing her bag into the backseat, I want to breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t, because I know getting her into the car is only the first portion of the battle. Getting her to listen to me is going to be another part. Believing me, well… that’s the final step, and I can’t think about it yet.

  I don’t say anything on the way from school to my house. The rain has started to pelt down and despite the fact that it’s April, the sky is dark and gloomy. When I pull up to the curb and park in her normal spot, I turn off the engine. We sit in silence for a minute, the rain drumming on the roof, the windows fogging from the inside.

  I gaze straight ahead and begin talking. “I need to say some things to you, things you didn’t let me say this morning. I brought you here, because nobody’s home; I don’t want to do this with an audience.” I turn to look at her now, waiting for her eyes to meet mine, willing her to see inside of me for once and understand that everything I want is wrapped up in her. Then I tell her what I should have led with this morning. “I need you to listen to me, Rachel, and if when I’m done you need time, you can have it and we can go back to being friends and just be for a while, but I need you to listen first. Can you do that?”

  She doesn’t answer me and inside my lungs are threatening to burst as I hold my breath. I keep my eyes steady on hers, challenging her to ignore me, and at the same time pleading her to say yes. Instead, she watches me and then opens her door and jogs up to the front steps. I fumble with my door, so relieved, I barely notice the rain as I sprint through it to meet her at the door and let her inside.

  I brush my hand over my head to scatter some of the lingering raindrops, and then I take her hand without asking, leading her down to my room, and closing the door behind her. I give her a minute to acclimate—to take in the new details and gather herself, because I know being in here is as strange as everything else that’s happening. We haven’t been in my room alone since I began dating Lauren; we always kept it to the den or the family room, sometimes her bedroom, but not often. Now, seeing her in here, memories from our childhood come back to me and make me smile.

  I watch her look at everything, studying her while she peruses my posters and books. I feel old, decrepit almost, as I think about all of the things that have happened since our freshman year—the decisions I’ve made, those that she’s made, the choices that brought all of the consequences we’re dealing with now.

  She smiles finally and tells me she likes my new poster. Because I know it’s a front— she’s as tired and unsure as I am—I sit on the edge of the bed and wait for her to take my desk chair. She tucks her hands under her thighs, a dead giveaway that she doesn’t know what’s going on or how she feels about it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lame, but true. I don’t know how else to start, so I start backward and decide to work my way to where I am now.

  When she gives me a sassy look and asks me what I’m sorry for, I feel a small smile crease over my face. “Take your pick?” I lean forward. “I’ve thought about what you said this morning…about how it looks to you…how you feel, and I can’t ever tell you enough how s
orry I am. Even if I didn’t feel the way I do about you, I would never want to hurt you like that.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but she’s not leaving either, so I continue. “I didn’t know how to be with you two years ago. You’ve always been Rachel, and I’ve always thought of you as mine…just mine. It’s not that I didn’t think about being with you, I just didn’t think I should. I mean, you’re my best friend—you know everything about me. If we got together and I messed it up, who would I have?” I am so lame. Hearing the words out loud shows me just what an ass I was in not manning up and telling her how I felt. Apparently, she feels the same way.

  “So, your solution was to hook up with me every few years and then act like it didn’t happen?”

  I try to make a joke, but it sticks in my throat. Taking a deep breath, I try again. “That night of the party two years ago—I saw what it would be like if I had you, really had you. It felt so right, but it was also so big. I was both thrilled and terrified, and then the next morning I woke up to a text from Lauren apologizing for our argument. She told me she didn’t really want to take a break. She asked me to meet her. I used that as an excuse to leave, to escape without talking to you.”

  “Why?” she asks. I can tell that it kills her. “You keep saying you didn’t know how to be with me—and fine, I might think that’s bullshit, but it’s yours. But you couldn’t pick up the fucking phone and call me? Text me? Tell me that you weren’t ready? That you wanted Lauren?”

  The problem with being the one in the wrong is that no matter how much I know I’m wrong, I always still try to defend myself, because despite what everyone else thinks—at the time I was being an asshat, I was actually doing it for what I thought were very good reasons. When Rachel looks at me with such hurt and contempt, I can’t help but try and defend myself… and by defend myself, I mean blame her.

  “You didn’t call me either,” I snap and her eyes go to slits.

  Asshat, party of one.

  Blowing out a breath, I scrape my hands over my face and try again—this time, with honesty. “You were everything I’d ever wanted and it scared me to realize that at sixteen. I knew I wanted you, but I didn’t know if you wanted me. I thought I would go and talk to Lauren, wait and see if you called. When I got there, I told her that I’d been with you. She said it was okay, that she had made a mistake in trying to make me jealous, and we could work it out. I wanted to call you—to ask what to do—but I realized you hadn’t called me. I wondered if you wanted to forget it. When I walked in with her on Monday, and you didn’t say anything, I figured I was right.”

  Her voice is deceptively low when she responds to me. I finally understand that statement about the calm before the storm. “Let me get this straight: you left my bed to go and talk to your ex-girlfriend, then you got back together with her because I didn’t call you and you figured it was because I wasn’t interested?” Fearful, I nod. Then the bomb explodes. “You asswipe. You left me; you texted some lame thing to me that morning, and then you walked in with Lauren and pretended it never happened the next day. What was I supposed to do?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  I battle, using every excuse in the book because I’ll be goddamned if I’m going down without a fight. I explain myself again, telling I was just a kid—one who couldn’t understand why what he wanted and what he had weren’t the same thing. I see in her face that she doesn’t care; all she remembers is that I spent the night with her and walked away. I want to rage, to scream, to tell her I know I’m an asshole, but all I can do is breathe and try to explain what I was feeling then.

  “I’ve loved you my entire life, Rachel. I fucked up and thought it was best to take the punishment. Then when you got pregnant, I thought all you needed was a friend, someone to be there and take care of you. To make sure no one ever hurt you again, especially me.”

  “Well, you failed at that, and I can take care of myself.”

  I nod, not only because she’s right, but because this is the hardest thing about loving Rachel. She doesn’t need me, not like I need her. Deep down, I know this is what I need to tell her, but I don’t know how without looking weak. How do you look at the girl whose heart you broke and explain that it was fear that held you back? Not the fear of falling—but the fear of never landing, of falling and falling and falling only to realize the person you fell for will never truly love you the way that you love them?

  I can’t tell her that, not even now as I’m breaking apart and I can see that she is too. It might be pride, or just stupidity, but I can’t tell her. Instead, I stand and look her in the eyes. “Doesn’t change that I want to take care of you, and when I saw you with Dean I realized I don’t care if it’s selfish, if it’s unfair, if it’s asking too much. I want to be with you; more than I want anything else in this world, I want to be with you.”

  I step toward her and she steps back, a sure sign that there’s more than anger swirling around inside of her now. Whether I should or not, I feel rewarded enough that I keep walking toward her until she’s pressed against the wall. I’m in front of her, filling her vision, and I stop only inches from her. She tries to deny me, to remind me that she has Gracie, that I have Lauren, but I stop her and remind her that Lauren and I broke up. Then I can’t stop myself from explaining to Rachel who Lauren was to me—letting her know that Lauren, although important at the time, was never to my life what Rachel is.

  “I told her about you, you know,” I say and take her hand. “I told her that I just can’t get past the feelings I have for you, no matter how much I try to convince myself that she’s the better, safer choice. I cared about Lauren, and I liked how when I was with her things were easy…that even for just a minute I could convince myself it was right. But I can’t do that anymore, Rachel.”

  Her voice isn’t steady when she asks me why. Looking straight into her eyes, I tell her, and I pray to God she understands it’s the truth. “Because she’s not you.” Leaning forward, I stop my lips a breath from hers and wait for my words to sink in. “I’m not a kid anymore. I know how to work for what I want. You’re it for me, Rachel. You always have been.”

  She doesn’t shove me away when my lips descend on hers. I start slowly, tracing her lips with my mouth, memorizing their shape and taste as I release her hand to bring my own up so I can cup her jaw—skimming my thumbs underneath and over her sensitive skin—breathing her in as I soak up her mouth. I feel her response, a dizzy kind of yielding. I wish I could push, that I could make her mine here and now and know that it was for real, but I can’t and I won’t. I promised her I would give her time. I know she’s going to ask for it. Whatever Rachel is, she isn’t a girl of faith; she’s one of action and proof. However much she might feel for me, I haven’t given her nearly enough proof to forgive me.

  As if my thoughts conjured that very reaction, she tells me with her next breath that she believes me, and then tells me that she needs time. And then she opens herself up for the first time in years and lays her hurt out for me to see.

  “I believe that you didn’t mean to hurt me, that you were scared like I was, but you did hurt me when you didn’t talk to me, when you stayed with Lauren. I wanted you every day.” My breath stops, and my heart falters. Rachel’s eyes are steady and open as she looks at me and explains exactly how much she loved me. With each word, I feel less and less like a man. “Even when I wanted to hate you, when I wanted nothing more than for you to hurt like I was hurting, to be over you and in love with someone else—I wanted you. And still, you were with her, and it hurt. I need time to deal with that.”

  There are moments that come with such clarity I want to scream at the sky and curse fate for being such a wicked bitch. I’ve feared Rachel my whole life, and it wasn’t until that night two years ago that I understood why: she was the one thing I didn’t see clearly. My life, my goals, my ambitions, I’ve always had those all planned out
. I don’t expect them to come easily to me, but I understand that with hard work, I can reach most of them. With Rachel, I didn’t see it because I was too afraid. And now—now I see that if I had just taken the chance, our lives could have been different.

  I wish I could take it back, all of it. When I tell her this, she nods, but like me she knows I can’t. Nothing we’ve done can be undone. Now, we have to see if we can go forward. Rachel has to see if she can go forward. I hate that I wouldn’t be able to blame her if she decided she couldn’t. I think of the small amount of time when she was with Dean, how much it sliced at me to see them together, and then I imagine what it did to her to see me with Lauren every day, to watch me walk into school with her the week after we spent the night together.

  The image is painful. I rest my forehead on hers in a gesture of utter defeat and loathing for every rash decision I made. “I’m so sorry, Rachel.”

  She mumbles her agreement with my forehead still on hers. “I need to go and get Gracie.”

  Her voice is a low; I understand that it’s not just leaving right now we’re talking about. She has to go—to walk away and take the space and time she needs. I have to wait. Son of a bitch.

  “Will you call me at some point?” I ask her, trying not to grab her tighter, but still not letting her go.

  She nods. I don’t move, knowing that once I do, it’s done—I’ll be left waiting for her to tell me her decision.

  She tilts her head back so she can look at me. “Tripp, let me go.”

  I hesitate briefly, then drop my hands, stepping back, letting her pass. I wait until she’s almost out the door before I stop her again. “Rachel,” she turns and looks at me. I see the understanding in her eyes. “I love you. I just want you to know that. Maybe if you do, you’ll realize I’m not going anywhere…not this time.”

  “Tripp, it’s not that simple.”

  I smile, “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”