The Love Study

by Kris Ripper

  “Me too,” Mase said quietly. “I feel really shitty about it. And I’m also so happy for them, like ridiculously happy that they have each other, and that they’re finally getting married when they’ve wanted to for so long. It seems like that should...outweigh my, um...envy. But it doesn’t.”

  I didn’t envy them exactly. But it was a little hard to watch them all wrapped up in each other without sincerely doubting I could ever be that guy. The guy who gets to be all wrapped up in someone else, and deserves to have them all wrapped up in him.

  The truth was that I was a compromise position, like Mase had said at drinks. And it didn’t seem fair to ask someone to do that. Even without a wedding, it was a pretty shitty thing to do, knowing you were not good enough for someone and trying to be with them anyway.

  “Dying alone,” Oscar announced. “My new life goal. Get laid, go home, go to sleep, go to work, rinse, repeat.” He brushed his hands against each other with finality. “Decision made.”

  “You forgot drinks,” Mason said dryly.

  “If I can fit drinks in to my busy schedule of getting laid and sleeping, I will. But since I’m not having sex with you assholes, I make no promises.”

  Mase flopped a hand in his direction. “Been there, honey.”

  “You bitch.”

  I giggled, roused out of self-pity by the memory. Their very short-lived thing was over before Mase and I hooked up. Distant history. Really entertaining now, though. “Remember when you guys—”

  “No,” both of them said at once.

  “Well, I remember, and it’s hilarious. Anyway, tell me I’m not a horrible person for having like...complex feelings about the wedding? I mean, not about the wedding. Just about...weddings. And things.” Relationships. Humans in general. One incredibly awesome YouTuber who obviously deserves better than me in particular.

  Oscar rolled his eyes again. “What does it matter if you’re a horrible person? Your feelings are your feelings.”

  “Yeah, but all the same I’d rather feel things that didn’t make me a horrible person.”

  “I don’t think it makes us horrible people.” Mason reached for the chocolates box, settling it on his chest so he could pick through the wrappers for stragglers. “I’m really glad we didn’t get married, Dec, but man. Sometimes that idea I had for our future feels so close I can almost taste it, you know?”

  “Me too.” I slouched lower on my side of the couch. “You don’t think we could have pulled it off? Not even if we worked really hard at it?”

  I expected a quick answer—I expected a Hell no—but he continued his in-depth search of the chocolate wrappers and didn’t speak for a long moment.

  “I’m not sure. Most of the time I know there’s no way. We would have drained each other and fought and eventually divorced in a fireball that destroyed the Motherfuckers and maybe ourselves. But sometimes?” He shook his head, at me or at the chocolates-less box, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe we could have made it work. I think we always would have ended up more friends than deeply in love, but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Best friends, hot sex, you’d cook, I’d clean. I guess it probably wouldn’t have worked out that way in real life.”

  That probably lingered, echoed in my mind. Would we have done that? I couldn’t deny the appeal of it. Not having to worry about the rest of it, the romantic stuff, feeling the right things at the right time, dressing up (or not), trying to come up with dates and dinners and topics of conversation. But he was also right that we were better as friends than we’d ever been as fiancés or even boyfriends, and I wasn’t sure either of us really wanted a long-term committed friendship. Or, in a way, that’s...what we had now.

  Mason definitely wanted the transcendent love affair, to be swept off his feet by someone. I didn’t know what I wanted. I thought about Sidney, all dressed up, having planned the most perfect date on earth...and how even with all that I still wasn’t able to completely feel it. How could I like them so much and fail so spectacularly at my own perfect date?

  “To dying alone,” I said, and raised my glass of water.

  “Dying alone!” my friends chorused.

  We dragged Mase’s mattress out into the living room and crashed, the two of us on the mattress and Oscar reluctantly on the couch, having not packed his air mattress. It was a glum sort of sleepover that didn’t feel any better in the morning.

  Six years ago I’d thought I wanted a wedding and a lifetime in bed with Mason. I could still remember imagining that, but for some reason, lying there listening to him snore, it was almost impossible to picture.

  The problem was, when I tried to picture something else...my mind went blank. Like I had no future at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sunday was a blur. We eventually got up. We eventually ate food. We eventually parted ways. I took a long, exhausting nap, the kind of nap you wake up from feeling groggy and heavy, as if the minutes you spent fitfully sleeping had formed a scaly layer on your skin.

  I took a shower. I couldn’t honestly remember if I’d taken one after getting back from Mason’s or not, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

  It also didn’t help.

  My phone had died sometime the day before, between videos and pictures and Instagramming and texting the mean things we couldn’t say out loud. (It was nice Mia was still friends with like all of her exes, but did she have to invite them to the wedding? Because as her friends, we were definitely not still friends with her exes.) When I finally plugged it in and turned it on, Sidney had messaged to say they hoped we were having fun.

  Just seeing their name made my chest go tight like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around me and was squeezing, little by little, until I started to break. I couldn’t keep doing this. Or I could, just like last time, and while it wouldn’t end the same way (I’d never leave Sidney at the altar because they didn’t actually want to stand at one), it would end badly, and I’d spend years wishing I’d gotten out sooner.

  The choice was really obvious, but that didn’t make it easy. How did I phrase I am incompetent at relationships and you deserve better and if we keep trying to do this I’ll just fuck it up again since that’s 100% of my track record and also I’m sorry I ever thought I could do this because I can’t. And I couldn’t. I knew that now. They’d planned the perfect date and I’d felt crappy the whole time. The wedding had basically been one long exposure therapy session and I’d responded to it by first hiding in the bathroom, and then running away.

  Sidney wanted intimacy and growth and change and all I could offer was, like, whipped cream and sex jokes. It was hopeless.

  I looked at their perfectly normal, innocuous text again. Hope everyone is having fun! There was a smiley face.

  I went back to bed.

  * * *

  Due to my epically fucked sleep schedule, getting up for work on Monday was dire. Less than a week until the Fling. Time was short. The fish bowl was...not exactly a hive of activity, but now that Jack and I were semi-friendly it was at least a pretty decent place to spend a work shift.

  I was in early, with coffee. I’d brought enough emergency chocolate to share.

  Jack didn’t show.

  Around ten, when I was kind of starting to worry, Deb came in and closed the door. “Jack will be out today and possibly tomorrow. Do you need additional staff to cover his work?”

  I just blinked at her. “Um.”

  “I can reassign someone if you need me to.”

  “Um.” My mind started running down our list. Until I realized this was what I had tools for and opened the spreadsheet. “Will he be back by Wednesday? I’d definitely need help for the set-up and clean-up stuff. I think the rest of this is manageable?” I ran my eye over it again. “I should be able to fit it all in as long as he comes back. At least, that makes more sense than me spending time trying to catc
h someone up for a day.”

  She nodded. “Good. And I expect him back Wednesday at the latest.”

  For an event on Friday, yikes. Still, I didn’t want to train anyone. “Okay. Is he... I mean, I know you’re not supposed to tell me anything, but is he all right?”

  Small, not entirely reassuring smile. “He’s dealing with some outside issues. He has support, though.”

  Oh right, because she knew him in the real world, not just the work world. “Well, if you talk to him, tell him...” Tell him what? We’d spent weeks being barely civil to each other. “Tell him if he doesn’t come back I’m making all the name cards Comic Sans.”

  She smiled like she understood that level of punishment. “I will. Thanks, Declan. And thank you for all the work you’ve put in on this, it has not gone unnoticed.”

  I had no idea what to say to that, which was fine, because she waved and left the room while I was still sitting there trying to figure it out. The last thing I wanted at my job was to be noticed. Sheesh. What’s a guy gotta do to be treated like a cog in the machine around here?

  When things were tense, I’d looked forward to being alone in the fish bowl. But today the day just seemed to stretch...and stretch...and stretch while I took care of tedious tasks and list items with no one to snark at.

  And through it all the final episode of The Love Study loomed over me like a gathering storm. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. How was I going to tell Sidney that their trust in me was unfounded? And how the hell was I going to make it through a Q and A episode of the show without completely falling apart?

  I ate Jack’s share of the emergency chocolate and made another cup of coffee. I needed it.

  * * *

  I almost couldn’t get out of my car at Sidney’s. My friends weren’t watching this time—Ronnie and Mia were honeymooning, Mase was going on a date and said he’d catch it later, and since Oscar was planning to die alone he didn’t think it was relevant. Knowing they wouldn’t be out there had a strange effect on me, almost as if it took away a sense of security I’d felt during the other episodes.

  Now it was just me and Sidney and all of YouTube. Without anyone to catch me if I fell. A small voice inside my head advocated for telling Sidney all of my fears because they’d probably try to understand, but that was how I got drawn in before, by listening to parts of myself that were wildly misinformed. For instance, the parts that said, You and Mase love each other, of course you should get married! Or Maybe you’re not the worst person on earth, of course you should try dating again!

  Forcing my arms and legs to move, I made it up to the apartment. Sidney answered the door and stared at me, which I knew, even though I could only raise my eyes as high as their hands.

  I really liked their hands. Which made me want to cry.

  “Declan?” Voice low, like they were worried they’d startle me.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

  “You can’t do the show?”

  I wanted to say yes, take the out. But that would be knowingly misleading them. It was more than just the show.

  They reached out, fingertips grazing my cheek. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I did a laugh-sob thing. “I’m just tired. From the wedding.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  We stood there and this feeling inside me, this certainty that I couldn’t make it work, that I’d hurt them if I didn’t leave right now, grew until I couldn’t deny it. I would fuck it up. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next time they planned a wonderful, romantic cookie date, and no matter what I did I couldn’t feel it, I couldn’t be deserving of it.

  No.

  If you love something, set it free, right? And I did. I thought I did. What a supremely stupid time to realize I loved them. But at least it clarified things: I would not hurt Sidney like I’d hurt Mason. I was older, and wiser, and knew just how badly I could fuck something up this time. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to do this—”

  “I can cancel the show tonight,” they said, backing into the room. “It’s no big deal.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Sure I can. I’m your spinster uncle, and sometimes your spinster uncle has more important things to do than spinster at people.”

  Oh, god, that made it so much worse.

  “No, you can’t.” My eyes overflowed. “You can’t cancel the show. It’s your job, and people need you. And I can’t do this. I wanted to, I wanted to so much, but I can’t. I’m not made for it or something, I don’t know how. And I should have known I couldn’t handle this, but for a while it seemed like I could, and I just...wanted to so much.” I rubbed tears out of my eyes. “I’m sorry but it’s better to end it now than...than keep going until it’s so much worse. Believe me, it hurts so much worse when you wait.”

  Sidney had stopped moving. Maybe stopped breathing. “No. Please don’t—”

  But if I didn’t leave immediately, I’d let them talk me into staying, and I couldn’t.

  Rip the Band-Aid off fast. Not slow.

  I turned, still crying, and ran. They called my name but I didn’t stop, just ran to my car and sat there, tears pouring down my face, heart pounding, gasping for breath like air had become water and I was drowning.

  You’d think it would be enough to understand you’re having a panic attack and you’re not really going to die, but every time I think this one’s going to kill me.

  It didn’t. When I could breathe again I drove home.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  In between crying and sleeping and hating myself, I was drinking way too much caffeine to stay awake at work. I’d even bought a pack of energy drinks, which Jack (now back from his unexplained absence) side-eyed like it was speed.

  Which... I guess in a way it was. But legal. And probably not that addicting. I’d just have to suffer through a few days of come-down after this week, but first I needed to get through this week.

  Sidney had left one message on my phone, sounding teary and miserable, only saying that they were thinking about me and that they didn’t want to invade my space so they’d leave it to me to contact them, and they really, really hoped I would. After which there was a long pause, a waiting, expectant pause. But they only said, “I’d like to sit down and talk to you. I think we can figure this out.” And hung up.

  Sure they did, because they lived in the safe, contained world of Your Spinster Uncle, where questions were asked, answers given, and hearts were only broken in words on a screen, after which good advice was enough to fix everything.

  Where you didn’t have to see someone’s smile wilt on their face when they realized you could never be what they wanted you to be. That wasn’t going to happen again. I’d gotten on the roller coaster and run it straight into the ground and now it was over. End of story. Good try, bad fail, finis.

  I needed to stay busy, so I cleaned my unit from top to bottom. I gave Toby the Australian Shepherd a bath and groomed him until he was fluffy and preening. The Jenkinses were due back Friday, so on Thursday I made a stir-fry, decided I didn’t like it, threw it out and started over. Twice. Nothing tasted that good, but I ate the third one anyway because by then I was tired of cooking.

  I deep cleaned the entire kitchen. When I was finally done it was one o’clock in the morning, and I needed to be at the hotel at seven to start setting up for the Fling.

  Just enough time to get a few hours of fitful sleep, take a morose shower, and cry. A lot. I cried so much—in the shower, getting dressed, driving—that the second Jack saw me he pulled me out of the conference room and frog marched me to the onsite Starbucks.

  “Don’t we have a million things to do?” I mumbled.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Declan, but I don’t think you’re going to be much use to us until you
stop—” He waved a hand at my face.

  “Oh god is it that obvious?” I scrubbed ineffectually with my sleeves. “Dammit. I keep trying to get my shit together and then...” And then I’d think of the way they pushed up their glasses, or their soft laugh, or the way they sometimes tugged their hair when they were thinking hard and I’d get all weepy again.

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “No. I mean it’s stupid. I mean... I’m useless at dating and I really liked the person I was seeing but there’s no point in me trying to be better than I am because I’ll only fuck it all up again.”

  He shot me an unimpressed look. “That sounded like a lot of words that spell ‘I got scared and sabotaged my relationship.’”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  He grunted a non-response and turned to order our coffees. I pulled out my wallet but he smacked my hand away like he was offended, and I was too tired to insist. I’d just have to owe Jack a coffee. Then I’d get him one and he’d get me one and—

  Actually, today was probably the last day we would work together. He was still hoping Deb would offer him a permanent position, and I’d probably have to go back to the temp pool at some point, so maybe circumstances would intervene and I’d never end up paying off my coffee debt.

  What a terrible thought. I hated owing people stuff. And I’d gotten used to Jack.

  He handed me my coffee. I thanked him. We returned to the conference room, but sat down instead of continuing to work while our coffees got cold, as we usually did.

  “My grandfather fell asleep in his chair in the living room with a lit cigarette in his hand on Sunday afternoon,” he said abruptly.

  “Omigod.” Oh my god.

  “They’re okay. The house suffered some damage, but nothing too terrible.” He sniffed at his shirt. “At least, I think I managed to get most of the smoke smell out of my work clothes.”

  “That’s horrible, Jack, I’m so sorry. It sounds terrifying.”