Bittersweet Always

by Ella Fields

  “I can’t be?” I tried to keep my voice steady, though I heard it waver under the patter of rain hitting the tin roof over our heads.

  “I’m just trying to get by. One day at a time.”

  “When did you last go to class?” He sat back, rubbing at his brow. “Toby?”

  “Who the fuck cares?”

  “I care,” I said firmly, then repeated myself, my voice breaking. “I fucking care.”

  “Chill out, Pip-squeak. I’m not your dad. I’m not your second chance to fix something that can’t be fixed.”

  Something splintered in my chest, causing a shockwave that had my feet carrying me off the porch and down the steps into the rain.

  He didn’t call after me, and he didn’t follow me.

  I wasn’t sure which hurt the most.

  His words, his actions, or this constant beating I was putting myself through.

  By the time I got back to the dorm, I was soaked, dripping water all the way up to our room. I shed my jacket and top, and fell to the floor, desperately trying to get my jeans unstuck from my legs.

  That was where Daisy found me when she returned from the shower, her hair wrapped in a yellow turban. “Whoa.” She laughed. “Need some help?”

  I collapsed to the carpet, trying to catch my breath. “I think we’re going to have to cut them off me.”

  “Let’s not lose all hope just yet.” She dropped her shower caddy on her dresser and bent down at my feet, tugging my jeans off by the ankles with enough force to send her flying back toward the wardrobe.

  Tears ran out of my eyes as I curled over on my side, laughing.

  Daisy joined in. “What did you do? Swim in superglue?”

  The laughter turned into sobbing. Lying there on the floor in my bra and panties, the cries erupted from me against my will.

  “Crap,” Daisy said, crawling over and lifting my head. She placed it in her lap, pushing my rain-drenched hair back from my face as my tears splashed onto her flannel pajama pants.

  “What’s going on?”

  She listened as I blubbered my way through a brief rundown of what happened.

  “Getting high? All the time?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, wiping underneath my nose with a tissue she’d handed me.

  “And he just let you walk home in the rain after standing you up? As what, some weird kind of payback?”

  I shrugged, sitting up and leaning back against my bed. Daisy passed me the blanket off the end of my bed, and I wrapped it around me, a shiver twitching my limbs. “Who knows. I think he just wanted to get high, if I’m being honest with myself.”

  “Pip.” She gnawed at her lip. “What he said to you the other morning—”

  “I know.”

  “You guys talked about that?”

  I didn’t answer her because I was ashamed. Not of Toby, but of myself. Which was only made worse when Daisy said carefully, gently, “This isn’t you. What’s happened to my best friend?”

  “She did something stupid.”

  Daisy tsk’d. “You haven’t. And we all love Toby, but he’s not hanging out with the guys anymore. Which is understandable because it’s gotta be hard, but he’s … changing. Every time I see him, he acts differently.”

  Hearing that from an outsider’s mouth hit me hard in the stomach, almost knocking the breath from my lungs.

  “Why did I do this to myself?” I asked, not expecting any sort of answer.

  Daisy answered anyway. “You fell in love. We don’t get to choose who that’s with. But you do have a choice here, Pippa.”

  I knew I did. I just didn’t know how to make a decision that seemed to have no happy ending.

  The next morning, I skipped. Something I rarely ever did. It was fitting, though. I was doing loads of things I thought I never would. And I didn’t know how to stop it. How to put the brakes on and take a deep breath, reevaluate everything without this bone-crushing weight sitting on my shoulders.

  “Mom,” I said.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you be in class?”

  “I’m taking a sick day.”

  A car honked in the background, and my mom cursed. “Let me pull over.” She came back a minute later. “Assholes. They think they own the road. Newsflash, most of us all pay through the ass in taxes.”

  I snorted, putting the phone on speaker and rolling over to stare at the paint chips on the wall by my bed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “How do you know something’s wrong?”

  “The sick day, for one. And two, you’re my daughter. I hear it in your voice.”

  “When …” I cleared my throat. “What did you do when it all became too much? With Dad?”

  That made her pause a long moment. “A lot of things I shouldn’t have,” she admitted. “I should’ve kept living my own life instead of letting it fall through the cracks of his. Toby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s not doing well?”

  “No. And I don’t know what to do.”

  “Honey, you’re young. I was too when I met your dad. Don’t make the same mistakes. Love him but never forget to love yourself more.”

  Love myself more. “How do you do that?”

  “It’s quite simple really. But it took me too long to learn. That’s hindsight, for you.” A dry laugh left the speaker of my phone before she deadpanned, “Say no. Say it often and never hesitate to say it when you really need to.”

  I couldn’t imagine saying no to Toby. Not if he really needed me. I suddenly had a brand-new respect for my mother, which made me feel like a bitch for all the times I thought she was weak.

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bad.”

  “He’s not getting help?”

  “Not right now. He doesn’t want to.”

  “Well, shit, sweetheart.” She sighed a sigh full of knowledge and worry. “I’m sorry. You can’t force him to.”

  “I know.”

  “Wanna come home?” she asked. “I can make you some pudding, and we can go shopping at Target for things we don’t need.”

  A laugh sputtered out of me. “Tempting, but I’ll be okay.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  That was the question I couldn’t seem to wrap my brain or heart around. “I have no idea. But I can’t keep doing this.”

  “No,” she said, “you can’t.”

  Head held high, I knocked and waited.

  I understood it was hard for him to look outside himself, but he had to see what this was doing to him, to us, to me. And if he couldn’t, then it was up to me to tell him. He couldn’t keep ignoring it, hoping it would one day just go away.

  “Toby, open up!” I kept knocking.

  “Okay, okay.” He cursed, rubbing his eyes as he opened the door. “God, what time is it?”

  “Who the fuck cares, right?” I shouldered past him, heading for the living room.

  “Guess I deserved that. You’re not in class?” he asked, following me.

  “Took a sick day,” I said, taking a seat at the counter. “Had some stuff to think about.”

  Standing on the opposite side, he drummed his fingers on it, over and over. His hair in disarray, and his eyes red with dark smudges beneath them. “I’m sorry, Pip-squeak. You want a drink?” He walked to the fridge, getting out some juice and filling a glass.

  “If you’re going to apologize, at least have the decency to look me in the eye.”

  His head snapped up, eyes squinting as he studied me. He could pick me apart all he wanted and try to douse my determination, but the flames inside me would still burn.

  He came around the counter, nudging his way between my legs and gripping my cheeks. “I was an asshole, and I’m fucked up. I’m sorry.”

  “I love you, Toby,” I whispered and pressed my mouth to his.

  He stepped back after only a second. “Why do I sense a but here?”

  “You’ve treated me like crap, and I’ve let you. That’s on me, and I’m not mak
ing excuses for myself. Because the simple truth is, I love you. But I have to stop making excuses for you.”

  “Right.” He picked up his glass, draining the contents with his brows pinching together.

  “I can’t do this.”

  His actions, his issues—they weren’t an excuse. But they were a reason, and those reasons wouldn’t change just because he loved me.

  And especially not because I loved him.

  He coughed, putting the glass down. “Do what? Be with me?”

  “I want to be with you, but I can’t keep watching you do this. You need help.”

  His fingers went to his brows, and he laughed slightly. “Wow. You’re breaking up with me? Giving me an ultimatum?” His voice rose on the last words, and he continued before I could say anything. “Fuck that, Pippa. This is the way I’ll always be. It’ll never change. It’ll never go away. You need to just accept that.” His chest rose and fell harshly as he stepped between my knees, glaring down at me. “Can you accept it?”

  “Can I accept what?” I asked, my voice a wisp even though I knew full well what he was asking me.

  “Can you accept me or not?”

  Looking him dead in the eye, I didn’t hesitate. “You know what, I think you’re asking the wrong person that question.”

  We stared at each other for a loud, booming heartbeat, the silence growing venomous with too much emotion until he stepped back, grabbed the glass, and threw it at the wall.

  Glass clinked against the tiles, and something thumped the back of my head, hard enough to make me cry out. I looked at the ground, my hand going to the back of my head as I saw an old framed picture of vegetables that’d once hung above where I was sitting.

  The black frame was cracked, and when I pulled my hand away, it felt wet.

  “Fuck.” Toby grabbed my hand, staring in horror at the blood on my fingertips. “Turn around,” he demanded gently; his whole demeanor changed as though he’d flipped channels in his mind when the glass hit the floor.

  “Toby, I’m fine. I just want to go.” Shock was coursing through me, cold and terrifying. I tried to move past him, but he grabbed my shoulders and sat me on the stool again.

  His fingers parted my hair. “It’s cut your head. I don’t think it’s deep, but it’s bleeding.”

  He leaped over the counter, grabbing a dish towel and dampening it under the tap before racing back around and holding it to my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. Christ, I’m sorry.” He kept repeating himself, and I found it quite stupid. The way my head throbbed like it’d been punched, but still, it was no match for the pain in my chest.

  “I’m taking you to the ER.”

  “Please leave it. It’s just a cut. I’ll have a bump for a day or two, and the world will go on.”

  “Pippa,” he begged, but I stood, refusing to look at him as I kept the towel pressed to my head. “I’m not letting you walk home—”

  The front door opened, and Daisy and Quinn walked inside, laughing until they saw me standing outside the kitchen.

  Daisy gasped, looking around at the glass, the picture, then at me.

  Quinn growled at Toby, his entire body tensing. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “He didn’t hurt me. He just … lost his temper.”

  That didn’t seem to appease anyone. My eyes bulged, following Quinn as he moved toward Toby, looking like he was about to lose some serious shit.

  Toby just stared at me, not even trying to explain himself away. “Quinn, he threw a glass. Not at me. It hit the wall, and a picture came loose above my head. He didn’t hurt me. It was an accident.”

  Quinn stopped, turning to look at me. “You bleeding?”

  “A little.”

  Daisy grabbed the towel, checking my head with a wince. “We need to get you checked out.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Just in case.”

  Quinn returned his attention to Toby, opened his mouth to say something, then shut it with a disappointed shake of his head before directing Daisy and me out to his truck.

  Toby was left standing frozen in the hall.

  After a brief and unnecessary, in my opinion, trip to the triage nurse, Quinn dropped us home. Daisy took it upon herself to wake me every few hours. I loved her, I really did, but after the third time, I caught her cheeks and told her that I’d go sleep outside on a bench if she didn’t quit.

  She still woke me up one more time.

  The glass hitting the wall kept replaying in my head. The loud crack, and the tinkling sound it made as it collided with the tiles.

  What did you do when the one person you wanted most in the world was no good for you? In my heart, I knew he was it for me. That bone-deep, soul-connecting kind of love. Yet I felt like I was being dragged away from him by some invisible force even if I knew it was probably for the best right now.

  Because I couldn’t save him, and he didn’t want me to.

  He had to want to save himself, and no amount of love or pleading could make that happen.

  Useless. I felt completely and utterly useless.

  By midmorning, my phone had finally shut up, and I soon guessed why.

  “He’s downstairs,” Daisy said from the window near her bed.

  “I know,” I said, staring at the drawing she had sketched of us last October. It was hard to look back on a time when everything felt so good, so right, when you could clearly see the tiny fissures forming. The ones you ignored because that feeling of euphoria, of finding your heart’s happiness, was always there to quickly cover them in glue.

  I was forgetting that we were also new. We didn’t know. Had no idea that it could end this way.

  Has it ended?

  I didn’t think it would ever end; this feeling of belonging to someone even when you weren’t with them. Even when everything had snowballed out of control.

  It didn’t mean I could keep doing this.

  There was a certain strength in being there for someone who needed you.

  But you needed ten times that amount of strength to realize you couldn’t keep allowing them to ruin themselves.

  Did it make me weak? For not being able to watch the person I loved spiral out of their own mind, disappear through the cracks of reality more every day, and rarely come back?

  Possibly.

  My fingers brushed over the space where our faces connected on the rough sheet of art paper.

  “Do you want me to go down and talk to him?” Daisy offered.

  “No, that’s okay.” A single tear rolled down my cheek, slipping off the curve of my chin and dropping with a tiny splash on where Toby’s fingers touched my hair, turning the charcoal a darker shade of gray.

  “Pip,” Daisy said. I looked over at her, startled by the harsh look of concern on her face. “Come here. I’m sorry, but I think you should see this.”

  Peeking through the lace curtain, my hand flew to my mouth as I watched Toby pace back and forth down on the pebbled pathway. A few passersby looked back at him as he kept walking up and down, down and up, his hands continuously running through his hair and down his face.

  Tears welled, and my chest constricted, every part of me tensing with the need to go to him. To wrap my arms around him and tell him it would be okay.

  But I couldn’t promise him that, and my feet refused to move.

  “Want to make some noodles downstairs?” Daisy asked a few hours later.

  I declined, trying to get lost in a book while my head tried to sort out the tangled mess that was my brain. “I’m good.”

  “You haven’t eaten,” she said.

  “I had a muffin earlier.”

  Daisy lingered a moment longer, her gaze heavy on top of my bent head. “Where do you think he went?”

  “Home,” I said. “Hopefully. Or Matt’s, I don’t know.”

  “You okay?”

  I tossed my book aside, staring back over at the window. “I’ll be fine. If you want to go see Quinn, please just go.”
>
  “But you’re—”

  “I’ll be torn up whether you’re here or not,” I said. “Besides, I think I’m going to go over and check on him soon. Just to let him know I’m okay and maybe see if I can get through to him one more time.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  My eyes met hers. “He’s not going to hurt me, Dais.”

  “I know,” she said quickly. “But he just seems so, I don’t know, unstable.”

  “He is, but I know him. I can’t leave him to freak out after what happened. Not without a conversation.”

  “Okay, when are you going?”

  I looked at the time, knowing it’d be dark soon. “Guess I should get it over with before I chicken out.”

  “Pippa, you can leave it till tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t, but I didn’t expect her to understand that.

  Daisy ditched her noodles, opting to make something at the townhouse instead.

  The rain had stopped, but the sun had yet to dry the dampness that lingered over Gray Springs like an icy veil. I shivered as I approached the house, finding Toby’s car parked next to Quinn’s truck in the driveway.

  We went inside, and Daisy joined Quinn on the couch.

  Quinn nodded at me. “Doing okay?”

  Daisy curled into his side, his arm folding around her. “Yeah. He’s here?”

  “Upstairs. I think he’s sleeping. Haven’t heard anything in a while.”

  “Okay.”

  I was about to leave the room when he said, “Um, just be careful, all right? He’s pretty messed up over what happened. And he won’t talk to me.”

  Nodding, I made my way upstairs, each step making my heart beat faster as I reached the landing. I closed my eyes briefly, trying to gather my wits and my thoughts. No matter what, they wouldn’t cooperate, so I kept walking, trepidation sending the hairs on my arms rising.

  “Toby?” I knocked on his door.

  When there was no response, I dropped my head to the door, inhaling deeply before turning the handle. I looked over at him, closing the door behind me. He was lying on his bed, limbs strung out like a starfish. I didn’t realize why that sent chills skating down my spine until I rounded the bed and saw his face.