I opened my mouth to deny it, but I couldn’t.
“It’s complicated,” I said. Terrible explanation.
Chloe crossed her arms. “Then explain it to me and make it uncomplicated.”
She wasn’t going to stop, and I didn’t want this to drive a wedge between us. I didn’t think Fin would want that either.
“Fin’s just got a lot of things … in his past that he’s been telling me about. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but suffice it to say that they’re heavy and not something you would share with just anyone. We’re building trust together, building a relationship. I guess I don’t want to talk about him because I’m afraid I’m going to say too much, or blab or something. That’s all.”
Chloe listened and thought about that for a moment.
“Is that really it?”
I nodded. “Yes. If you even knew what he’s been through, Chlo. It breaks my heart.” She pulled me in for a hug, as if I was the one with the tragic past.
“He’s good to me, Chlo. And he makes me happy, believe it or not.” I gave her a smile, and she returned it.
“I know, I can see that. I just worry about you. That’s my job as your best friend. To not trust anyone else you spend time with.” She patted my back and let go.
“I really wish I could tell you, so someone else would know besides me. It’s … it’s a lot to hear about and think about. I know I didn’t go through it, but even if I heard about these things happening to a stranger, I’d be upset. He didn’t deserve it.” And now I wanted to cry.
Chloe gave me a sympathetic look. “That sounds awful. I wish I could help.”
“Yeah, me too. But it’s been a struggle to get him to trust me with anything. I don’t think he’d be willing to share it with you. But maybe I’ll ask.” I knew he would say no, but maybe not. He’d surprised me more than once.
“I didn’t know if you were going to call me today,” I said late that night when Fin finally called me via video chat. I was trying not to be jealous about the Rory thing, but it was hard.
“Sorry, Mari Cherry. Busy day. My father was … anyway. The reason I called Rory and not you was because I was asked to. I tried to argue with him, but it didn't go very well. Not that I minded calling her. She’s a good friend and fun to talk to, but she’s not you.” Oh, got it. I knew that Rory’s parents and Fin’s parents had tried to get them together with no success. Maybe they were still trying.
“Apparently, the annual Clarke Enterprises Ball is coming up and my father wanted me to see if I could secure an invitation as Rory’s escort,. I’m pretty sure she’s going with Lucas, but he thinks she’s going to drop him and come to me. I had to call her, even if we didn’t talk about that, just to save face. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
I tried to keep my face and voice neutral. “Well, I mean, I’m not thrilled about it, Fin. Why can’t you just tell your father that it’s your life and you’re an adult and you can do what you want?”
He was silent for a moment.
“I’m so sorry. I’m going to be better.”
I wanted to believe him.
“Show me. Don’t tell me,” I said.
He nodded.
“Forgive me?” he asked again.
“Yeah. But don’t do it again.” I shook my finger at him and cracked a smile. He smiled back, relieved.
“Good. Because you have nothing to worry about. I’m trying to be the man you want me to be.”
I frowned. “No, that’s not what I want. I want you to be the man you are. That’s the guy I want. Don’t change yourself for me, Fin.” It was crazy that I even had to say that. I’d fallen for him, dark and light alike.
“I guess that came out wrong. I … I want to be better than I am because you deserve better.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he put his hand up.
“I’ve done a lot of, well … not so good things. Some of them you know about and some you don’t. I thought I’d be dragging them along with me for the rest of my life, like Jacob Marley and his chains. With you, I feel almost new. Like my past doesn’t define who I am. It’s still there, and I can’t always escape it, but I have moments of freedom. And it’s glorious.” He grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile as well.
“That’s all I want for you. Freedom. Complete and total.” From his father and his obligations as well. But if I could even give him a little, that was good. “What would give you complete freedom?” I asked casually.
“You know the answer to that, and it’s not going to happen. I know you think I’m strong enough, but … it’s just not going to happen. It’s not that I don’t want to. I just don’t know if I’m up for the fight.” He was so defeated. So beaten down after so many years. He didn’t have any fight left.
“But what about me?” My voice was so quiet, I could barely hear it myself. The words slipped out before I had a chance to reel them back in.
He turned his head to the side, as if he was a little confused for a moment. “Are you going somewhere?” he asked, almost joking.
I shook my head slowly. “I just mean … if you’re not free, completely free, then can you really be with me?” It was a thought I’d buried so far back in my mind that it hadn’t been able to completely take form until now.
It was a valid question. What if Fin had to choose between me and his father? Who would he pick? I knew the answer right now, and it didn’t make me happy.
It broke my heart.
“Hey, don’t think that way. Things are good with us, right? You’re happy?” Yes. I was. But not as much as I could be. “What if it isn’t enough?” Our relationship hadn’t stood the test of time. Yes, we’d already been through a lot together, but I had a feeling the worst was yet to come.
“We don’t have to talk about this now. Wait for me to get back and then we can talk about it, okay? Just because I’m not with you doesn’t mean I’m with someone else. I only want you, Marisol.”
Oh, I wanted to believe him. I wanted to swallow those pretty words he was trying to feed me.
“Sure,” I said, and put on a smile.
My talk with Fin was anything but satisfying. The two of us were doing well (with the exception of a few bumps and detours), but we were nearing a crossroads. I could feel it.
I needed to talk to someone. I had my phone in my hand and contemplated calling Chloe, but it was so late (or early, depending on how you looked at things) that I didn’t want to wake her up.
I waited until the morning and sent her a message asking if we could meet for lunch and talk.
I’d never felt so … off-balance before. It was a confusing feeling and I didn’t like it. Fin liked control. I’d lost mine.
“Whoa, who died?” Chloe said. Her not-so-subtle way of telling me I looked like crap. Totally understandable since I didn’t get much sleep. Too much thinking about how it would wreck me to end things with Fin. If I even should, or if I was just being dramatic. Relationships were work, and I was probably just looking for a reason to bail. I spent the night thinking in circles, and I needed another person to tell me if I was crazy or not.
I gave Chloe a glare and she gave me a hug before sitting across from me at the outdoor café table.
“What’s wrong? Did Fin do something?”
I shook my head. “No, I just … I was thinking last night about our relationship and how it’s not … complete. I mean, how can we ever be together if we’re not together?”
Chloe was able to follow my crazy thought train. She knew me too well.
“I thought you weren’t defining things, and now you’re talking about marriage?”
“No, not marriage. Not even dating. Just being together. Look, could you be in a long distance relationship? Always being apart except for a few weeks? How can you move forward if you’re not going in the same direction? And what if we did decide to be together? He’d never give up his job. Sure, I could travel around with him, but what kind of life is that? I just … I
guess I just started thinking too many thoughts, and I need you to help me sort them out.” I took a breath because I’d said everything in a rush.
“You seemed so confident when you talked about him before, but I get where you’re coming from. I’d feel the same way. I guess you have to ask yourself if the benefits outweigh the shitty stuff. Is being with him worth dealing with the distance?”
I knew the answer to that.
“Yes. Even a long distance relationship is worth it. But how long will that be true for me? It’s true now, but what about months from now? Years?” I wanted to reach out, shake her, and make her tell me what to do. Because I didn’t know what the right answer was. This wasn’t a test where I could look it up in a book. And I could ask a hundred different people, and I’d get a hundred different answers.
Chloe sighed and reached for my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I think you need to take a minute and get some perspective. You’ve clearly been thinking about this a lot, and all that thinking has gotten you nowhere. So I think it’s time to stop thinking for a while and do something else.” The waiter came and brought us menus and took our drink orders. I wasn’t hungry, but I ordered lunch anyway.
As I sipped my Arnold Palmer, Chloe made a phone call.
“Yeah, Bridget?” she said in a pitiful voice. “I’m not going to be able to come back in this afternoon. No, I think I had some bad clams or something. Oh God.” She took the phone away from her mouth and made a fake puking noise, much to the disgust of everyone sitting around us. I covered a snort of laughter with my hand.
“Sorry, I just … It’s pretty disgusting. Okay, okay. See you tomorrow.” She made more puking noises then set her phone down with a grin of satisfaction.
“There. Now I’ve got the afternoon free. What about you?” I did as well. My two classes were having review sessions for tests, and I studied so hard last week that I wasn’t worried at all.
“Free as a bird,” I said, and she clinked her glass with mine.
Chloe’s grand plan was … unorthodox. She took me to the aquarium.
“Just trust me,” she said as she bought our tickets and then led me forward.
God, I couldn’t remember the last time I was here. Not in years. My parents hadn’t been big on trips like going to the museum or aquarium or theme parks. Once again, they considered those things “common” and avoided them, for the most part. I always thought it was because my mother hated being in places where there were too many children. She wasn’t a big fan of kids in general. She hated it when parents let their children run wild, or even when kids would just get excited about things. She was one of those people who had the whole “children should be seen and not heard” mentality. Yeah, she definitely should have become a parent.
Chloe led me through the different rooms. The whole place glowed blue with light from the tanks. The currents of the water made patterns on the floor, and everything was all mysterious and lovely. I had to admit, I did feel more peaceful.
Ignoring most of the exhibits, she took me straight to a tank that was filled with small translucent jellyfish. She plopped me down on a bench and sat beside me.
“Whenever I have a big decision to make, or I’m so stressed out I want to explode, I come here and sit.” A group of kids from a school went by, but they were soon distracted when someone announced they were going to be feeding the penguins. Then it was just me and Chlo.
We sat and watched the jellyfish swim with their little movements that were jerky and graceful at the same time.
“I wonder what it’s like to be a jellyfish. They don’t have bones or brains or hearts. All they do is float,” Chloe said. “Some days I wish I could just float and not think about anything.” Her voice was hushed, as if she was worried about disturbing the creatures in the tank.
“That would be nice. No responsibilities. Nothing else to do,” I murmured.
“But it’s all they ever know. Floating. They spend their whole lives like that. You’d get sick of it.” Chloe turned and looked at me. Things had taken a turn for the existential. Were the jellyfish a symbol of me? Or were they a symbol of what I could be? I wasn’t sure.
“Stop thinking so hard. That’s one of your problems, you know. You think about things too much. The jellyfish doesn’t need a brain to know how to float. They just do. They know,” she said.
“And we know that they know that we know,” I said, hoping she would pick up on the old Friends reference.
She grinned at me. “I see what you did there.”
“Do you approve?”
“Of a random Friends reference? Always.” We started talking about other things, and I felt the tension that had seized my body last night ease up a little.
“This makes me really want to go swimming, and not in a pool.” The beach was another place where I hadn’t been in a long time. When had I stopped doing things like that? Probably when I entered college and didn’t have time for things like fun and sleep anymore.
I’d had fun with Fin. He loved doing goofy things. Hell, our first date had been on a Duckboat.
“You’re smiling, so I’m guessing you’re thinking about him,” Chloe said, picking up on my thoughts. I was so easy to read, and I hated it.
“Yeah. On our first date, he rented an entire Duckboat. I thought he was crazy and that it was too expensive, but he didn’t seem to care.”
Chloe sighed. “Listen. I can’t tell you what to do in this situation. I really can’t. But here’s the thing. Sometimes you can make decisions and choose a path, and you end up on another one anyway. I don’t really believe in fate, but I do believe that some things happen for a reason and we need to give up and let go of control. You’ll drive yourself insane if you try to control life. You can’t. I mean, you can’t control if you walk outside and are hit by a taxi, or if you get cancer, or fall in love, or lose your job or a million other things. What’s going to happen will happen. That’s what I think about you and Fin. But if you’re unhappy, then you should definitely not stay with him. It’s okay to put yourself first when it comes to relationships. I learned that one the hard way.” Her face fell, and I knew exactly who she was talking about. Harmony, her ex, made her life miserable, but she’d been too blinded by love to see it.
“Anyway, that’s my two cents. Take it or leave it.” I leaned toward her and she put her arm around me. “Things will work out. They don’t for everyone, but I think they will for you. I have a feeling.” She rubbed my shoulder, and I inhaled her perfume. Chloe might not be a very conventional girl, but she always wore Chanel No. 5. I asked her why, but she never told me.
“And what about you?” I asked.
She paused before she answered, “I don’t know. I thought I had my great love, and it turned out not to be. I guess I’m just trying to accept the fact that I could be alone, and that’s okay. I might meet someone, but if I don’t, I can deal with being by myself. I couldn’t for a long time, but I think I can now. Or I’m just going to end up with a shit ton of cats.”
I lifted my head from where it rested on her shoulder. “But you’re allergic to cats.”
“Exactly.”
Watching the jellyfish did help me stop thinking for a little while and get a bit of mental clarity. After that, Chloe and I went to the movies for a double feature of Grease and Footloose (the original, thank you very much). We sang along and danced in the aisles, and generally had a foolish and fun time.
“We need to do things like this more,” I said as we left the theater and tossed our empty popcorn buckets in the trash. We’d decided to have “dinner” at the theater which consisted of popcorn, Milk Duds, and Starburst. Chloe had a grand explanation of how popcorn was made from corn, which was a vegetable, and butter was dairy, and Starburst were fruit, and that somehow made it a healthy meal. I just went with it.
“Yeah, we do. Definitely. We also need to play hooky more. I didn’t realize how fucking stressed I was until I got out of that place.” Funny that managing a spa would
be a stressful job. You’d think all the deep breathing and calming energy would make it a chill place to be. But no.
“I don’t know about that, but we need to make more time for just the two of us.”
She nodded and gave me a greasy smooch on the cheek. “You know I love you, right?” she said.
I put my arm around her waist. “Yeah, right back at you.”
I left my phone off during the movies, and I had a message from Dad, but I didn’t listen to it until I got back to my apartment.
My hand shook a little as I held the phone to my ear. All the calm I’d had a little while ago looking at the jellyfish was gone.
The message was brief, saying that he would love to donate, and for me to know how much he should write the check out for. That was it. Nothing else. Since he left the message just a little while ago, he was probably still home, or maybe Mom was, so I called back.
She answered.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, Marisol.” Her voice was sharp and clipped as usual. This actually comforted me.
“Hi, I just wanted to call and give you the amount for the charity.” Good thing I had a reason for calling, and I didn’t have to make one up.
“Oh, yes. How much?” She definitely sounded as if she was either in the middle of something or she didn’t want to talk. Or both, as was usually the case.
“It’s two hundred a plate for the dinner.”
She made a little sighing noise. “And what’s the charity again?”
“Leukemia.” She couldn’t really say no to that.
I heard her scribbling on the other end. Probably writing it out as we spoke.
“I can come pick it up right now, if you want. Then you won’t have to worry about it,” I said quickly.
She made a noncommittal sound. This was like trying to have a conversation with a nonverbal cavewoman. But at least she wasn’t insulting me.
“Your father and I have a dinner tonight. You can come get it if you want, but we won’t be here.”
Deep Surrendering: Episode Six Page 5