by Phoebe Fox
Such an easy word—all soft consonants and a single vowel sound. If I just moved my tongue the slightest bit and pushed out air, it would almost come out without much effort at all.
But yes felt like facing the foot of a mountain I wasn’t equipped to climb.
And tears shot to my eyes in a surge of heat and wetness, because I was pretty sure that I loved Ben.
And I knew that it wasn’t enough.
“This”—I squeezed his loose fingers hard, then let go to grasp his face in my hands—“is exactly what I want. You are exactly what I want.” I let my hands fall and come to rest in my lap. “But that’s all I know right now.”
He was looking at the concrete sidewalk, and when he finally lifted his gaze it wasn’t to meet mine. Instead he stared out over the water. The trail of white moonlight stabbing across it now looked cold where it had seemed romantic only moments before.
I tried to explain—to both of us. “I think I might want other things—more type of things—with you one day. But right now I’m building my business. And that takes so much of my time and energy. And I’m not long out of my last relationship—which as you know turned out to be a complete train wreck—and I don’t even know if I’ve managed to deal with the one before that yet. And I need to.” Ben still sat close beside me, but I felt as if he were drawing farther and farther away. “I like what we have,” I rushed on. “Just the way it is. I mean, not just the way. I want to move forward, but slowly.” I was losing Ben—I knew it—and I had to say something, anything, to stop it.
I knew even before he spoke that they hadn’t been the right things.
“You aren’t ready for a serious relationship.” It wasn’t a question.
A welter of mitigations leaped to my mind, clamoring for a bargain against losing this man. It depends on your definition of serious. Not just at this moment, but not too long. I don’t want to lose you.
I love you.
But the one I let come out was the only one that mattered. “No.”
The syllable physically hurt as it tore out of my mouth.
But not as badly as when Ben stood up, hands in his pockets, turned to me without meeting my eyes, and said quietly, “I guess that’s it, then. Come on. I’ll walk you back to your car.”
twenty-four
My drive home felt slightly unreal. McGregor was quiet, my open windows letting in only the sounds of crickets and my own tires on the road, moonlight strobing my car in between the passing royal palms lining the street, broken by an occasional headlight coming the opposite direction.
I held my hands at ten and two on the wheel, strangely calm. It wasn’t until I pulled into my own garage that the thought struck me.
We just broke up.
I sat in my car, engine off, for a long time after the garage door shut and the overhead light timed off, still gripping the wheel hard.
How did a night that included that tender kiss by the river, the certainty—finally—about my feelings for Ben, the giddy high of knowing he returned them, end up like this?
Because of my own stupid actions. The clinging residue of my past relationships contaminating this one. The mental health professional who couldn’t even manage her own personal baggage.
I dragged myself out of the car finally, feeling as if my body weighed three hundred pounds. Plodded inside and dropped my purse on the back hall table, not even slowing as I headed straight into my bedroom and sank onto the side of my bed.
Which was when the tears finally came. And for a change, I let them.
I don’t know how much time passed that way—long enough for me to wind up lying on my side on the bed, still fully clothed, my face tight with dried salt and my stomach cramped from sobs. But when it finally tapered off I pushed myself up and stood, walking back out to retrieve my phone.
This time I wasn’t going to put up a brave front, hold it all in, pretend I was fine. I wasn’t fine, and I wanted to talk to Sasha. It was past midnight on a Saturday night, my phone reminded me as I stared at the screen to pull up her number, but that had never mattered to the two of us.
Hey, I texted. You awake?
There was a long pause, and I thought she might have been asleep. And then finally: Yes. What’s up?
Ben and I broke up.
My phone rang so fast, I didn’t even know if she’d had time to read the whole message.
“What?” she screeched when I answered. I could hear pounding music in the background, a cacophony of voices.
“Geez. Where are you?”
“Not important. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. No. I think I screwed up, Sash.”
“What?”
“I screwed up!” I shouted over the noise.
“Hang on,” she said. I heard her make a comment to someone near her, and then thought I heard my brother’s voice say something back. Then there was a lot of rustling, and after a few moments the noise seemed to get sucked away, ending in a final thunk and leaving just a thudding bass line.
“Where are you?” I asked again.
“What happened?”
“I have no idea. One second we were having the best time, and we talked, and he said he thought he was falling in love with me. And I said me too, Sash.”
“Holy shit.”
“Everything was fine, and then...and then I started telling him about Chip—”
“You what!?”
“I mean not like out of the blue—he asked about Chip’s call that night, and I started talking, and it came out really badly, and he just...he left.”
There was a pause, and I knew she was considering what I’d said. “Tell me the details. What did you guys say, exactly? I need word-for-word.”
The music blared again, and then quieted with that sucking thunk.
“Everything okay, babe?” It was Stu.
“Fine,” Sasha said away from the phone. “It’s Brook.”
“Hey, sis!” he called. “You coming back in, Sash? It’s weird being in there without you.”
“Can you give me just a few minutes?”
“No—Sash, it’s okay,” I said, but Stu was talking over me.
“Okay, but I’m not going farther than the door. I’ve had more fingers all over me than a piano.” The music blared again, then faded with that same sucking whoosh.
A memory tickled at my mind at the distinctive sound, and I replayed Stu’s words.
“Sash,” I said in disbelief, “are you at Sticks and Stones?”
“Okay, review the whole conversation for me,” she said, ignoring my question.
“Sasha...answer me.”
A long silence, and then, “You said you didn’t want to know this kind of stuff about me and your brother.”
“Oh, my God. Is this all you two ever think about?”
Sasha sighed. “Brook, we have a lot of years of unexpressed sexual tension between us to work out. But trust me, we’re not just about sex—there’s lots of talking and emotional shit too.”
“I’m going to hang up,” I said. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”
“No, no—Stu’s fine. Tell me what happened. Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”
“You’re on a...date.” A rather loose use of the word.
“Chicks before dicks,” Sasha said unhesitatingly.
“Ew—please don’t talk about my brother’s genitals.” But I didn’t want to ruin their night out. And I couldn’t open up this particular Pandora’s box while Stu waited, alone and defenseless, in an S and M bar I knew firsthand was a maul session. “I’m okay, really,” I assured her. “I’m probably better off just getting some sleep so I can think more clearly tomorrow. I’ll call you in the morning and we can talk it out, okay?”
It took about fi
ve more reassurances, but after Sasha made me promise to call as soon as I woke up, I finally convinced her to go rescue Stu because I was going to sleep anyway.
But sleep didn’t come.
The middle of the night is the worst time after a breakup. It’s when most of the bad stuff happens—in the dark, lonely stillness, rationality recedes. It’s when the ache of your solitude is most acute, because the world is sleeping, and you are left alone with the pain of what you’ve lost, the grief, and the darkness that seems it will never retreat.
Except...I knew one person who was always awake at this hour.
I didn’t even try to talk myself out of dialing Chip Santana’s number.
The line rang four times before I finally heard his voice.
“Doc?” He sounded disbelieving, and that was when I finally questioned what I was doing. Wasn’t Chip the whole reason I was in this situation?
In the background I heard noise—loud voices, the thudding of bass under tinny music. He was out—maybe on a date himself—and I’d been a fool to make this call. An overpowering impulse to simply hang up swept over me, but this wasn’t the old days of landlines that hid your stupid decisions from a caller if only you didn’t speak to identify yourself. Whether I said anything or not, Chip would know I’d called.
“Brook?” he asked again, and I realized how long a silence I’d let fall.
“Chip,” I said, and cleared my throat of its roughness. “I’m sorry—I think I butt-dialed you. My mistake—good night.”
“Brook, wait!” he blurted. “Don’t hang up, okay?”
“Okay,” I answered meekly.
The phone went dead silent for a moment, and I thought we’d lost the connection after all. But a moment later the background noises returned, distant now, and I realized he must have muted himself and gone somewhere quieter.
“Hey, sorry about that,” he said, the familiar gravel of his voice filling me with an odd comfort. “I’m really glad you called.”
“It was a mistake.”
He laughed. “That’s okay. A happy accident. How are you doing? It’s so great to hear your voice.”
“I’m...” Fine. My old mantra sprang so readily to my lips, but for once didn’t tumble out. “I’m a little low, actually.” I gave a weak chuckle. “But I’ll be okay. Just one of those things. How are you?”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like the Doc Ogden I know.” I could hear the frown in his voice. “You all right, Brook? You sound upset. Can I help?”
It was a moment before I could speak past the tears aching in my throat at his kindness, the concern I heard in his voice.
“That’s nice of you, Chip. I’ve clearly interrupted your evening, though, and I...I shouldn’t have called.”
“Brook.” I heard the scrape of his lighter and an inhalation. I imagined the way I’d seen him smoke: standing against a building somewhere in the darkness, one leg propped on the wall behind him, drawing on the cigarette he’d smoke to the filter, then stamp out and put in his pocket to throw away. There was an odd intimacy in the clarity of the image. “You ever hear that old proverb about owing someone who saves your life? You pulled me through some of the lowest parts of mine. Let me at least try to return the favor.”
“Actually, I think it’s, ‘When you save a life, you are then responsible for that life.’ So according to that, I owe you, not the other way around.”
“Then do me the kindness of telling me what’s wrong,” he rejoined immediately, “because that’s what I want.”
I let out a long sigh just as he exhaled what I pictured as a mouthful of smoke, and for a moment we just breathed together.
Finally I gave in to the lonely night.
“I think I just broke up with my...with the guy I’ve been dating,” I said, low.
There was another silence, and then: “I’m sorry.”
It was so simple and perfect a thing to say, warmth rushed into my chest and filled at least a little of the aching emptiness. “Thank you.”
“He’s an idiot, for what it’s worth.”
“Thanks, but actually I’m the idiot. I did it.” Pain stabbed me again.
“Oh. Well, then how come you’re so upset?”
I stood up and walked over to my bare bedroom window, where I’d never gotten around to replacing the curtains Jake ate. I never even got to say goodbye to Jake. He was just gone. I looked out at my empty backyard, and my eyes grew hot. “Because I think I love him.” I knew the words might hurt Chip, but I couldn’t hold them back. “But I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“Why not, Brook?” Chip’s voice was low and raspy.
The tears spilled over. “I don’t know.”
I pressed my palm to the glass, cool even in the warm, humid night, and then let my forehead fall to rest beside it. Tears dropped to the windowsill, and I tried to keep from sniffling audibly.
“Brook...I hate hearing you sad.”
Apparently I hadn’t succeeded in hiding the sound of my crying. “It’s okay. It’s normal. It passes,” I managed.
He gave a low chuckle. “It must be hard being the doc. You know all the right answers, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with everything.”
That was exactly how I felt. I gripped the phone tighter, knowing I needed to hang up, but still reluctant to let go of this thin thread of connection when I felt so adrift.
But Chip made the decision for me.
“Look, Doc, I gotta go right now. But I can call back in a little bit, okay?”
Of course. He was out with friends—or a girl. He couldn’t sit here and hold my hand all night while I clung to the most fragile of connections. I pushed away from the window and wiped a hand under my eyes, flushed with the knowledge that I’d crossed a line I shouldn’t have.
“That’s okay, actually,” I said. “You’ve been really nice, but please don’t worry about calling back. I shouldn’t have called in the first place.”
“No—I’m glad you did. Really, Brook.”
“Okay. Well, hope you have a good rest of the night. And...thanks, Chip.”
“Talk to you soon, Brook.”
He was wrong, I thought as I broke the connection. Chip and I wouldn’t be talking again like this anytime soon.
Or ever.
There was no way I’d sleep tonight, I realized once I’d finally changed into shorts and a T-shirt and slid beneath my cold covers. My mind hadn’t stopped swirling since I left Ben.
Or since Ben left me, I supposed.
But something startled me out of a sound slumber, sending me lurching to sit up. I stilled, palms against the mattress, with my heart racing, disoriented and trying to figure out what had scared me awake.
Then loud noise came again—banging. Pounding.
On my front door.
This time when my heart surged it was from relief. Ben! I pushed out of bed and practically flew into the living room, throwing back the bolt and yanking the door open.
To see Chip Santana standing there, hand still raised into a fist.
Disappointment crashed over me as he jumped at the suddenness of my answering, and then his face relaxed into a grin. “Geez, Doc. You scared the crap out of me.”
Every proper answer filtered through my head in a flash—You’re the one who scared me! Or, What are you thinking, showing up uninvited in the middle of the night? Or, given my half-dressed, disheveled state, This is completely inappropriate.
But what popped out of my tight throat was, “Why are you here?”
The grin disappeared and his face softened into concern. “You were upset, Doc. I thought maybe you needed a friend.”
I shook my head. “Chip...” I didn’t know what should come after that. Some version of “thanks anyway, but no.” But ins
tead I took a step back and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
Wordlessly he did, and as he passed me I smelled the faint scent of tobacco and his cinnamon scent, and something different—spice and tomatoes. For the first time I noticed the Taco Bell bag in his other hand. I nodded to it. “What’s...?”
Chip lifted the bag slightly. “Thought you might be hungry. I was. Kitchen?” he asked, pointing to the doorway at the other corner of the living room, and when I nodded Chip disappeared through it.
When I numbly followed I found him retrieving plates from the cabinet over the microwave as though he’d been in my kitchen dozens of times.
He plated the food as we stood in silence, opened two drawers as I watched before he found the silverware and placed a fork on each plate, then picked up the restaurant’s napkins and both plates, and tipped his head to the left. “Living room or dining room?” he asked.
“Dining,” I pushed out in a rough voice. It seemed safer to sit in the late-night darkness with a table between us.
And in fact, it would probably be safer if I weren’t standing here with him wearing a thin concert T-shirt from the nineties and no bra.
The last time we’d had a middle-of-the-night encounter with me dressed this way, we’d wound up lying pressed together on a deserted beach, the only thing keeping me from doing something I would have wildly regretted the cop who’d hauled us off to jail. Chip had a way of overriding my better instincts.
“Can you excuse me for a second?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah.”
In my bedroom I changed my shorts for an old faded gray pair of Stu’s sweatpants with blown-out knees, a drawstring tie, and gathered ankles that made me look like MC Hammer. I pulled on a bra under the T-shirt and a college hoodie over it, and slid my feet into beat-up shower shoes. I didn’t need to check my mirror to know that it was the unsexiest ensemble I could have put together. Although I was unexpectedly glad to see Chip, to have the company to save me from my solitude, I didn’t need to send the wrong message. For either of us.