Beneath the Shine

by Lisa Sorbe

  It’s the friendship thing that kills me. All these years, while most of our friends were busy pairing off, getting married, and having kids, we just grew closer. Or, at least, that’s what I thought. But maybe I was just clinging to an ideal. I’ve never been very good at reading people and knowing how fickle they can be has always scared me away from becoming dependent on others.

  But Adair? With him… For the first time, I didn’t think I had to worry about that.

  I feel like an idiot.

  My lower lip trembles, and the tears well, and crying now is so not a good thing because my head is pounding and this is just going to make it worse. So I force myself to get up, knocking a second champagne bottle off the bed and onto the floor in the process. The clatter wakes Gabe, who is curled in a ball at the foot of my rumpled comforter. He studies me with his dark eyes, and I imagine him saying, Well, you really screwed the pooch with this one, huh?

  I throw my legs over the side of the bed, my feet hitting the floor like dead weight, and nudge the bottle aside. It rolls across the hardwood and comes to rest against my suitcase, already open and half-filled with clothes. I vaguely recall driving back to Adair’s after leaving the party, stomping into my room and ripping clothes off the hangers while sucking down champagne straight from the bottle.

  I’m still in my dress, so I slip out of it and dig through the pile of tops and jeans in my suitcase, but everything is wrinkled and worn, and I just end up sitting on the floor in nothing but my underwear, my back against the bed, feeling too defeated to care. I don’t move until Gabe bumps my head with his nose, and I realize he hasn’t been outside since I got home last night. I reach back and scratch him under his chin, wondering if I could just take him and climb out the window. I have no desire to traipse through the kitchen and run into Adair.

  Turns out the decision isn’t mine, though, because just as I’m pulling on a dirty pair of jeans, there’s a knock on my door.

  “Just a minute,” I grumble, pulling a t-shirt over my head. Vanity has me scrambling for my phone and pulling up the reverse camera feature, confirming what I already know. I’m a mess. I did manage to take out my contacts last night, however, so I pop my glasses on, hoping the large wire frames will mask some of the smudged mascara coating the skin beneath my eyes. My hair is a tangled mess, and I quickly try to run my fingers through it before giving up.

  “Alright. It’s open.” My tongue is dry and the words rub against my throat like sandpaper.

  The door whines on its hinges, and Adair leans in. He’s still in his suit from last night, though it looks every bit as rumpled as the t-shirt and jeans I’m wearing. His hair is wild, sticking up like he ran his fingers through it a million times, and his eyes are bloodshot. Even so, he looks good, handsome in a way that fills me with a sense of loss for something I never had in the first place.

  He takes a step into the room, but only a step, before sliding his hands into his pockets. So far, he’s kept his eyes trained to the floor, like he can’t look at me, or doesn’t want to look at me, and either way this all hurts like hell. Because I know what’s coming. It’s in the air; we’re nothing but a lit fuse that is now, finally, reaching its end.

  This is the end of us.

  “We need to talk.”

  He still hasn’t looked at me. So I shift my own eyes away, focusing instead on my bare feet, my pink toenail polish.

  “Yep,” I say, sounding like I could care less when, in reality, I care so much it’s killing me.

  “Can we do this in the living room?” He sounds exhausted, like he can’t wait to get this over with, and the way he flippantly refers to whatever our relationship has become as this, flips a switch in me. I snap my head up, and when I see that the asshole still can’t seem to meet my eyes, I shut off every goddamned thing I’ve ever felt for him. Of course this isn’t a permanent fix, but like everything—love, like, and hate—this heartache will fade; all I need is time. And right now, I’m as cold as ice.

  “We can do this right here.” I cross my arms and wait.

  Adair nods and moves further into the room. He casts his gaze around, and when he sees my half-packed suitcase, his eyes finally snap up to meet mine. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a suitcase.”

  He rolls his eyes, finally showing some emotion. “I know that. What I meant was, why is it out? What are you doing with it?”

  “Um, what does it look like? I’m putting stuff in it. It’s. called. packing.” I say each word slowly, like he’s an imbecile that can’t process even the simplest of concepts. It’s shitty, I admit. But I’m hurt. I’m hurt and I’m not thinking, and isn’t this what you do when those you love hurt you? Drag them down to your level so you can make them suffer every bit as much as you are?

  Humans, man. Sometimes we’re a shitty bunch.

  He tips his head back, closes his eyes, and sighs. “And why are you leaving?”

  I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, and he sounds annoyed, like he’s speaking to an unreasonable child. He’s turned the tables on me, and he doesn’t get to do that. So I purse my lips and throw his words right back at him. “I should be the one asking you that question. Why are you leaving?”

  “I’m not.” He shrugs, but his words ring hollow.

  “Not yet.”

  He just stares at me and doesn’t even try to deny it.

  Gabe wines and hops off the bed. His nails click on the hardwood as he dances by the door. He does a quick spin and looks at me expectantly.

  I grab my coat. “I have to take the dog out,” I say, shrugging into it.

  Adair nods. “Can we finish talking when you come back in?”

  “Fine.” I shrug. “If you want to.”

  He runs a hand through his hair, making the strands stick up even more. “If I want to,” he repeats, mimicking me before out a sarcastic laugh.

  I glare at him as I step into my boots.

  “Christ, Betsy. Of course I want to.” He reaches back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “You’re the most important person in the world to me, damn it!”

  “Well,” I snap back, “you have a really shitty way of showing it.” I nudge Gabe along. “Come on, sweet boy. Let’s go outside.”

  Adair follows us down the hall like a moody kid. “I see you’re nice to him.”

  “Obviously. He’s not an asshole.” I stop by the kitchen door and clip Gabe’s leash to his collar. “Dogs don’t hurt people. They don’t beak hearts.”

  “Are you trying to say that I broke your heart?” He sounds angry, and his tone strikes daggers in my chest. “Because if you are, that’s bullocks. You have never given me any indication that I even had your heart in the first place.”

  And he’s right. It’s true. I’ve always turned any sort of flirtatious advance he’s thrown my way into a joke. He’d throw the pitch, and me? I’d swing for the freaking fence.

  I arrange my features to reflect a sense of calm I don’t feel before throwing him a look over my shoulder. “Of course not. It was just a figure of speech…or something.” But the tears are back, and while I was trying to sound all strong and blasé, I only end up sounding weak and pathetic.

  Adair places a hand on my shoulder, and when I don’t shake it off, he pulls me back into his chest. His voice hovers just above my ear, and it’s warm and deep, and I feel myself sinking back into him no matter how hard I try not to. “I would never break your heart, Betsy. You have to know that.”

  I twist around and look up at him. “There’s no way you can promise something like that, Adair. There just isn’t.”

  “Betsy…”

  I just hold up my hand and shake my head, effectively cutting him off. Gabe is scratching at the wood, and I’ve already carried this drama out as far as I’m willing to go. So I open the door and follow him outside, trudging through the snow, the cold, and gulp the frigid air until I can’t feel the burn anymore.

  I don’t think about that night at Josh’s house oft
en. In fact, I do everything I can not to think about it. But every once in a while, memories from back then will worm their way in, one right after another, spreading through my thoughts like smoke and obscuring how I see the world today.

  That night affected everything; it was a stone that broke the surface of my psyche, sending out ripples that swelled like catastrophic waves.

  Two days after our short Fourth of July break, I quit swimming. Even from the locker room, the faint smell of chlorine made me gag, the bile burning a hole in the back of my throat before I even slipped into my swimsuit. By the time I’d swung my legs into the shallow end of the pool, I was pressing my hand over my mouth and hopping back out, my sour stomach pushing its contents up, up, up. I forfeited my spot on the team that very day, much to the surprise of my coach, my teammates, and my parents. It was a decision that my mother couldn’t understand and one I adamantly refused to explain. The situation only served in widening the rift between us, a chasm we continued to fill with anger and resentment as the years wore on.

  I knew the problems that quitting the team would cause. The backlash that would ensue with my parents, my mother in particular. “Quitters never win,” she would always tell me. And now, in her eyes, I was a quitter of the worst kind.

  I was one of the best swimmers on the team, a first lane Shark well on her way to high school and college glory. By the time I was in the seventh grade, the resilience with which I stroked my way through the 500 meter freestyle had college recruiters seeking my parents out after meets, shaking hands and making promises that, if I kept this up, I’d be guaranteed a spot on their school team.

  But despite all that, despite everything I had going for me at the time, I had to cut and run. That nice little cookie cutter future filled with college and security and the blissful unawareness of humanity’s sick and twisted underbelly was no longer mine. Every time I got so much as a whiff of chlorine, my mind would hurl me back to that night and I’d relive the whole suffocating experience over again. And, weirdly enough, the fact that I wasn’t able to remember most of it just made the it all the worse. It was like being thrown into a pitch-black room with a monster; you couldn’t see it, but you knew the bastard was there. Hungry and waiting…

  It became a habit, seeking out situations that matched what I was feeling. I no longer sat with my lunch crew; everything about them was shiny and right, while I was tarnished and wrong. The carefree way with which they still got to live their lives only made me bitter. Hope was a warped illusion I viewed through the veil of shame and disgust that had permeated every aspect of my life. I couldn’t see a respite through all the fog.

  And none of it mattered, not really. Because I already saw myself as ruined. So I followed my fear into bouts of loneliness and my pain into bad relationships. I leaped into situations that compromised my morals and integrity. I had already been shown that my body was nothing—that I was nothing—so what did it matter?

  I learned that to live was to ache, and eventually the hurt became such a part of me that, after a while, I forgot it was even there. Without realizing it, I had dulled everything down…then covered it all up with a shine so no one could tell.

  Not even me.

  I insist on showering before resuming our talk. It’s only fair. I can think better when my outsides aren’t reflecting my insides. So I step into the guest shower and scrub at my skin, my hair, turning on the water as hot as I can stand it and letting the heat loosen the tension in my neck, my shoulders. I stay in so long my fair skin flares crimson when I get out, dripping water on the rug beneath the sink while I towel dry my hair. I notice the pastel pink locks are starting to fade, the blonde creeping back in like a tangle of weeds overgrowing a thicket. I run a comb through the tresses and decided to let the flaxen strands stay.

  Maybe it’s time for a change.

  I don’t bother drying it, just top my pale lashes off with some black mascara before throwing on the same clothes I was wearing earlier and heading back out to the kitchen. The smell of coffee hits me as soon as I step out of the steamy bathroom—a peace offering from Adair, no doubt. What I really want is a jug of water along with some aspirin so I can ditch this headache that’s been tugging on my brain since waking up an hour ago, a product of too much champagne and too many tears. When I enter the kitchen, I’m surprised to find two little white tablets alongside a mason jar full of water in front of my spot at the table, reminding me that this man knows me almost better than I know myself.

  Adair traded his crinkled suit for jeans and a flannel, and he’s hunched in his seat, head bent over a mug of the hot brew, when I slide into mine. I only let my eyes drift over him briefly before sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms. When I don’t say anything, he nods toward the aspirin. “Thought you might need those,” he says.

  I shrug because I don’t want to let him know that he’s right, that I do need them, and let loose a long sigh before I pop the tablets in my mouth, like I’m the one doing him a favor and not vice versa. I swallow half of the water, take a breath, and then chug the rest. The cold trickles through my system like icy tendrils, tempering the flush leftover from the shower.

  “Thanks,” I mange when I’m finished.

  He nods and finally raises his eyes to mine. “So.”

  I answer his nod with one of my own. “So.”

  “Okay,” he says, blowing out a sigh and folding his hands on the table. “I guess I’ll start.” He looks up at me from under his brow. “What happened last night? You knew I wanted to finish our conversation. Personally, I thought what we were talking about was pretty damn important. But you? Apparently not, because you left without so much as a good-bye. I…”

  He takes another deep breath, like he’s trying to calm himself down, and I have to admit that I admire his effort. Because me? I’m fuming. My heart is fluttering and the inhalations pumping my lungs are shallow and fast.

  “So,” he continues, his tone measured, “what I really want to know is…why’d you run out last night? What the hell was that about, huh?”

  His voice isn’t accusing, not exactly, but his words make me bristle. “I enjoyed meeting your cousin last night,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “William, isn’t it? And Shona, his wife? Lovely, lovely couple.”

  Adair frowns. “So you left because, what, something about my cousin rubbed you the wrong way? Are you serious?”

  I fight the urge to call him an idiot. Not that he is—at least, not usually—but because I feel like lashing out. I want him to hurt just as much as I do. And he has to be a complete idiot if he can’t put two and two together. “No,” I snap. “William and Shona seem perfectly nice. I mean, it would have been nice to know they were coming. You know, the first of your family to visit since you moved here…kind of a big deal, right? I just find it odd you never mentioned it.”

  “It was sort of a last-minute trip.”

  I arch a brow. “Last minute? From Scotland to Iowa?” I tilt my head back, study the chipped drywall pattern on the ceiling. Suddenly this all seems stupid. So what his relatives came to visit and he didn’t find it necessary to tell me they were coming. It’s really nothing to be angry about. Truth be told, I’m more hurt than anything.

  “William had a lot to say about you,” I add offhandedly.

  He sighs, pulls his elbows from the table and leans back in his chair. “Yeah, I gather he did.”

  I glare at him. “So? Now you know why I’m so…so…ticked.”

  “Ticked? Betsy, come on. Didn’t it cross your mind to—oh I don’t know—give me a chance to explain before running off and getting blitzed?”

  “So you’re telling me that William didn’t know what he was talking about?”

  One second passes, and I wait. Two, three…Four.

  Adair is too quiet for too long.

  I huff. “That’s what I thought.”

  He leans forward, palms flat against the table, and frowns. “I tried talking to you about this last night. He
ll,” he says, throwing his hands in the air, “I wanted to talk about this with you yesterday, but you ran off before I could get a chance. Hair appointment my arse,” he mutters under his breath, looking away and swiping a hand over his beard.

  “I already apologized for that,” I say, my jaw tight. “So let’s move on, shall we?” I wave my hand his way. “Go ahead. You want to talk? So talk. You’ve got the floor, hot stuff.”

  Adair drops his chin to his chest and sighs. When he looks up, all the fight seems to have drained from his body. His face is a stoic mask, all hard edges, all ice and stone. But his eyes…his eyes shine with regret.

  And they tell me all I need to know.

  I pull my hands under the table, curl my fingers into fists and try to concentrate on the sting of my nails digging into my flesh. My breath is coming too fast, yet the oxygen doesn’t seem to be getting to my brain. There’s an ocean in my head, and it’s raging in my ears, the roar so loud I can barely hear him speak.

  “I’m leaving.”

  Fourth of July – Four Years Ago

  The roadside stand was overflowing with sweetcorn, and Adair bought three paper grocery bags full at my command.

  “Trust me. This party of yours needs sweetcorn,” I said, helping him load the bags into the back of my truck.

  “As much as it needs…sprinklers?” He peered into the truck bed, taking in the sprinklers—one whirling and one oscillating—that we’d purchased just moments before at a local hardware store, his expression doubtful.

  “Yes,” I confirmed, slipping my sunglasses off the top of my head and down over my eyes. “Every damn bit as much.” I folded my arms, rested them on the truck, and considered him as he secured the bags of corn in between the sprinklers and the boxes of fireworks we picked up earlier that afternoon from the next town over. “I can’t believe you’ve been in Iowa all this time and haven’t had corn on the cob yet. Dude, you’ve been missing out. Doesn’t Whatsername ever cook for you?”