When he comes back the second time, John sits, his body turned purposefully away from Kat and Sin, and begins brushing each speck of sand off his sandals with fastidious flicks of his hands.
“Want to take a walk?” I ask. Although I probably should be forcing him to keep his body still for half a second, I can tell by his shifting eyes and pursing mouth that he’s antsy to the point of bursting. When you’ve been with someone day and night for two years, it’s nearly impossible to hide a mood, and I’m creating an activity for him the same way you would a toddler.
John jumps at the opportunity, practically leaping from his towel.
We stroll at the water’s edge so that our feet get splashed by a wave every few seconds. I don’t attempt to fill the conversational void between us with tidbits or ramblings as I normally would. Perhaps sensing something, John stops and pulls me into a crushing hug.
“I love you,” he says, for what must be the fiftieth time in two days.
I nod, smiling slightly. “Me, too.” That much I know for sure.
He stands, squinting through the sun and into my eyes. “But…” he says, as if providing me the opportunity to disclose something unsaid. He hasn’t been this perceptive lately, yet there are too many things unsaid already. I wouldn’t know where to start.
“But what?” Lame, I know, yet nothing else comes to mind, and for once, I want John to do the work.
“Look,” he says finally. “I’m not an idiot. I know something’s wrong.”
I pause. “It’s not that anything’s wrong exactly,” I say at last. I’m terrified of this conversation and yet excited that we might have a meaningful exchange. “It’s just that things are different now.”
“Like what?” he asks, his brow furrowed. “What’s different?”
“Lots of things.” I pause again, wondering how to begin. How to tell him that I’m a different person than I was when I left Chicago a few weeks ago. “For one thing, I’m close with Kat and Lindsey again, and I won’t give that up.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.” He loosens his grip from around my waist, taking a slight step back as if affronted.
“I know you wouldn’t.” To his credit, John has never once tried to keep me away from my friends. I did that all by myself.
John nods and rubs my forearm a little. “Is that it?”
“No. For another thing, my parents are divorcing, and I don’t know yet how that’ll affect me, but I’ll need you to support me.”
“Of course.” Then a startled expression crosses his face. “Wait a minute. When did you find this out?”
“Last week. I called home and my mom told me.”
“God, I’m so sorry, babe.” He gives me another hug.
“Thanks,” I say, loving the comfort. I snivel a little. “My dad’s not even living at home anymore. I tried to call him at work, but he wasn’t there. I think he might be having an affair.”
John leans back, his eyes wide, his mouth open a little. “No. Don’t even think it, not until you know for sure.” He runs a hand through my hair, cupping my face.
I plunge on, thrilled by his response. “I knew there were problems, you know, but to actually split? It doesn’t seem real. Everything’s changing and…I’m scared.”
“Of course you are. Of course.” He pats my back, and I let a few tears sneak out. It’s so good to be standing with him like this.
I suddenly know for certain that I want to give it a shot with him, and in order to do that I have to be honest. I have to put Princess Denial in the dungeon.
“I have to tell you something else,” I say, turning my head to the side, resting it on his chest so I don’t have to look him in the face. Instead, I see the sapphire water and a few Jet Skiers, a calm seascape compared to the warring emotions in my head.
“What is it?”
“I—I…” I stutter to a stop. How do you tell someone something like this? “I was with someone else.”
“What?” He shoves me away from him, anger making his face spot with red.
I stumble back a foot or two, holding up a hand as if I can stop the progression of his thoughts. “Listen to me. I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“What does that mean?”
I move with cautious footsteps closer to him, giving him an abbreviated version of my night with Francesco, keeping the specifics and the details out of it. But John keeps backing away from me, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair.
“And that was it?” he says, his eyes moving all over, from me to the water to the sand and back again. “Just that one night?”
“Yes. I saw him the next day, but we didn’t do anything.” I think about Francesco kissing me outside the hotel when he dropped me off for the last time. “Not really.”
“And then that was it, though, right?”
“Well…”
“Well, what?” He cuts me off.
“I kissed someone in Ios, too.” It sounds so horrible to my own ears, so freakishly, soap-opera-y horrible. “It was a peck. Nothing else. And that’s it, I swear.”
“Jesus, Casey, I can’t fucking believe you.” For a moment I think he’s going to cry—something I’ve never seen him do. His pale green eyes well up.
“I know. I’m sorry I hurt you.” I try to touch him, but he yanks away, batting at his eyes with the back of his hand.
Then he goes still, his eyes narrowing, and I know he’s picked up on something, those attack-dog lawyer skills homing in on some off-kilter detail. I review my words. There’s nothing, I think, nothing. Because I’ve finally been honest.
“You’re sorry you hurt me?” he says, repeating my words.
“Yes, of course.”
He nods, as if he gets it now. “But you’re not sorry it happened, are you?”
I stand mute. I can’t lie to him. Not now.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You’re not sorry it happened,” he says, still nodding.
“Only because it…I don’t know.” I rub a hand over my eyes. “Because it made me feel like I used to, but I am so, so, so sorry. I want to make it up to you. I want us to try to make things better between us.”
“I am trying, Casey. I flew here to be with you. I’m trying to make sense of this new you.” He spits out the last two words. “I’m trying to talk to you. I’m trying…” He trails off, his last words lingering in the air.
I glance down at my bare feet, unable to find any words that will comfort him. When I look up, his eyes are raw, his lips and jaw making small tense movements.
After another painful, quiet moment, he turns and stalks away.
“What happened?” Kat says when I make my way back to the towels a few minutes later. “John just grabbed his stuff and left.”
She and Sin are sitting up, their faces worried. They’ve even put their tops on.
“It’s such a mess,” I say, drooping onto the sand, rubbing at my forehead. “Why did he have to come here? It’s forcing everything to a head, and I didn’t want to deal with this yet.” My voice comes out like a wail.
“What do you mean, forcing it?” Sin says. She and Kat draw closer.
“I told him. I had to.”
“About Francesco?” Kat says.
I nod, rubbing harder at my head, as if I can erase the scene.
“And Billy?”
I nod again.
“Shit,” I hear Sin say. “How’d he take it?”
“Obviously not well!” My voice rises, and Sin reaches forward, patting me on the back. “I think I really hurt him, you guys. It killed me.”
“What are you going to do?” Kat asks.
“I have to find him.”
John isn’t waiting in the room as I expected. I set off, walking the village streets in my bathing suit and sarong, my flip-flops making slapping sounds with each step. The place is quiet, since most people are at the beach, which makes my search a little easier, but I don’t see him anywhere. I look in each taverna, expecting to find him getting
quietly blotto. I look in the stores, in the cafés. I even stop people who look like they might speak English, asking them if they’ve seen a nice pale boy with light brown hair and washed-out green eyes. No one gives me any clues.
Finally, after wandering for hours like a lost mutt, I decide to take one more look at the bars by the pier. If he’s not there, I’ll wait in the room. He has to come back for his clothes eventually. He’ll never leave without his best blue pants.
As I turn the corner onto the street that leads to the docks, I see him, head down, walking quickly. After a few seconds, he raises his eyes and spots me. I search his face for some hint as to his mood, his thoughts, but he gives nothing away. When he reaches me, he wordlessly takes my hand, leading me to the pier where we’d talked last night. We sit side by side again, legs dangling over the water. John raises a hand and brushes a lock of hair from my eyes. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then, as if thinking better of it, closes it with a short shake of his head.
He turns his whole body to face me, fumbling in his pocket. He pulls something out, but it’s hidden in his hands. He brushes it lightly like he’s dusting it off, and I see that it’s a small, blue velvet box.
He opens it. At the same time, he opens his mouth and says simply, “Marry me.”
27
My mouth now hangs open, but I’m mute with shock. I can’t take my eyes off the brilliant square diamond resting elegantly on a thin wisp of platinum. Inside my head, pieces jangle loose and bat themselves around. My first coherent thought is that I’m ridiculously flattered. John wants to marry me?
John and I had spoken only briefly about marriage, and then only in the most general sense. He’d said that he wanted to be married eventually, but not yet, and I’d agreed, telling him that it wasn’t one of my main goals to wear the white, at least not until I’d established myself and proven that I could be completely independent. We never specifically included each other in that general talk. But now here he is, his face brimming with hope.
“John,” I say finally, wrenching myself back to the present, to the image of him offering up this olive branch in the form of a diamond on a bed of blue. “We have problems. I don’t know if this is the solution.”
The expectation in his eyes flickers and dims, but he pulls himself up straighter. “I’ll do anything for you. Anything. I’ll talk to you whenever you want. I’ll support you through your parents’ divorce. I want you to have all the time you need with your friends. I’ll go to counseling if you think we need that.”
“I don’t know—” I start to say, but he puts a finger to my lips, and pulls at my arms, turning me, until we’re both cross-legged, facing each other. It dawns on me that during the few times I did consider marriage, this is not how I thought I’d get engaged—sweating under the sun, wearing no makeup and sitting like kids at camp.
“I love you more than anything in the world,” John says, and he grips one of my hands tightly. “I’ve only truly realized that since you left. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy. I want you to be my wife.”
The words my wife send a shock through me. They sound possessive rather than comforting. Yet maybe this is the breakthrough I’ve been waiting for with him. Perhaps now his passion will fill in around his professional drive. Perhaps this commitment would mean warm, knowing looks and long talks late into the night. Maybe this was the solution. Maybe it did signal John’s ability to change.
“Try it,” he says, holding out the open blue box. He has a small smile on his face like a kid who knows he’s about to get that birthday present he’s waited for all year.
I pull the ring from its velvety perch, and it sparkles in the sun, reminding me of the way the sea glittered when I first saw it from the bus. I place it on the ring finger of my left hand. It fits perfectly. I hold it out, angling it this way and that, vaguely aware of John’s growing smile as he watches me. But suddenly I feel a constriction, as if the ring is growing tighter, and there’s a tightness in my chest as well.
I see myself then, in years to come, still unsatisfied, bitching and complaining to the friends I have left or to some strangers in an identity-free support group for co-dependents, whatever that means. I see that John is willing to give me everything—everything he can muster. The counseling, the time with friends, the talks. Yet John’s everything will never satisfy me. He is not the one that Jenny was talking about. I see that clearly now, where I’d only caught glimpses of it before.
I tug the ring off my hand and push it back into the box. “I can’t, John. It’s not right.”
I’m struck by the fact that this gesture might have done the trick only a short time ago. It could have been enough. But after the last few weeks, I find myself unable to settle. What’s the old adage? You don’t marry who’s right for you, you marry who’s right for you at the time. Well, I want the person who’s really right for me, even if I have to wait forever.
“Casey, please,” John says, the smile plummeting off his face, his eyes pained again.
I despise myself for causing that look, that pain, but I can’t do anything different.
“Please,” he says again. “I’ll do whatever you need.”
“I know you will, but…” I pause for a moment, searching for the proper words. Turning my head, I see a cruise ship leaving its mooring. “We’re not meant for each other,” I say at last. “I’m not the one for you.”
“Bullshit,” he says. “You’re the only one for me.”
“John, what about everything I said to you? I just told you that I was unfaithful.”
A spark of anger briefly interrupts the anguish in his face. “I’m willing to get past it.”
I’m not, I respond silently.
My eyes cloud with tears. How did it come to this? I wonder. How can I hurt him like this?
“Don’t do this, Casey,” he says. “Don’t do this. Just give it time.”
“Time won’t help.” Then finally I say it. “It’s over.”
“No, no,” he says, talking over my words. “We’ll go to counseling. I won’t bring up marriage again. I’ll give you all the time you want.”
The urge to accept this time is so strong. It would salve his hurt, which shines from his eyes, but I see with clarity that procrastination would only be prolonging the inevitable.
“I’m so sorry.” I pull him to me. His weight sags against my chest. He doesn’t return the embrace.
I watch helplessly as John packs T-shirts, a bathing suit and his white button-down in the stiff tan suitcase. Normally, he’s a meticulous packer, making small, wrinkle-free rolls of his T-shirts, separating his underwear from his toiletries. But now he throws in a pair of shorts with a haphazard arm, dumping running shoes and a can of shaving cream on top of that.
I panic momentarily, wanting to tell him to take the ring out and ask me again, but I can’t get my mouth open to say the words. I try to convince myself that leaving John will be something like graduating from college. I’d loved University of Michigan, but I’d outgrown it. As painful as it was to leave Ann Arbor, I knew it was time to move on. Logically, this analogy works, but it trivializes John, comparing him to a campus where I was personally responsible for increasing the sale of Budweiser.
“Can I help?” I ask as he stomps around the room, gathering his travel alarm clock off the nightstand, snatching a shirt from the chair.
He throws me a stony glance, but his look softens after a second, and he shakes his head. I wish I could do something to alter that wounded expression, but it’s time to face the music instead of ignoring the steady beat that’s been thumping in the background like a neighbor’s bass.
“Why don’t you just stay the night?” I ask.
“I can’t stay now. You don’t want me, and I have to go.”
“That’s not true.” And it isn’t. Because when John left, it would be official. Over.
“The boat to Athens leaves at ten tonight. I’ll just wait at the dock,” he says.
“It’s only seven o’clock. Let’s get something to eat first.” It’s all unraveling too rapidly. I’ve been on this lazy vacation, growing accustomed to island time, and now John is here, and within twenty-four hours a two-year relationship has crumbled.
“I can’t,” John says, zipping the suitcase. “I have to go.”
“I’ll walk you to the dock.” I move closer to him, desperate for a little more time.
“No…” He starts to say something else, but my shrill voice drowns out his words.
“I’m coming with you to the dock!” I say, snatching his bag off the bed and carrying it to the door, as if by doing this I can lessen his emotional load, as well.
John sighs and follows me.
The pier for the Athens liner is deserted. No noisy backpackers to divert our attention, no innkeepers hawking their establishments. It’s eerily quiet, but for the water slapping against the dock. A well of emotions rushes up inside me—fear of being alone, guilt for causing his pain, relief that there has been some conclusion, some decision. Most of all, I feel sadness at the loss of him because even though it’s the correct decision, he’ll leave a definite gap in my life.
“I’ll wait with you,” I tell John, gazing out at the water, clutching the handle of his bag to stop my hands from trembling.
“No.” He grabs his suitcase and drops it with a thud. “Just go.”
“I’ll wait,” I say, as if I hadn’t heard him.
“Casey. Leave,” he says in a harsh tone.
I flinch, then slowly I touch his arm, his elbow and finally his shoulder, until he turns toward me. When his head finally follows and he looks at me, his eyes are brimming with tears.
“I wish you understood,” he says.
“I do.” I pull him to me. “It’s just—”
“Don’t explain any more.” He leans his forehead against mine. “I can’t take it.”
At the sound of the tired resignation in his voice, my own tears rush out again. All I can do is hold him as tightly as possible. Seconds go by, then minutes.
Burning the Map Page 23