I drop my head back, shoulders slumping. “No, that’s not it.”
“Oh? Well, it looks like it.”
God….
Have I mentioned that I hate the way this feels?
I feel like I’m the rope in an unusual tug of war. I’m tied to Noelle and Theo instead of being merely tugged at by them, so I naturally go where they go. And I’m not tied to Jenna, and she also isn’t merely tugging, but it’s because she’s too busy holding a lighter up to me.
I feel like I’m not allowed to just be who I am in relation to both parties. Like I’m not allowed to move back and forth between them.
“Oh, and by the way,” she starts. She has her arms crossed now and is bouncing one socked heel on the floor. “Do you really not see how inappropriate it is that you bought another woman something for Valentine’s Day? It’s ridiculous enough that you went to great lengths, again, to make the kid happy when you didn’t have to. Why did you buy her mother something too?”
‘Ridiculous’? Really?
That one isn’t easy to ignore, but I make myself do it. “Friends help each other when they’re sad.”
“Mmm.” She cuts a look up and down me. “I think it’s more like, ‘I went out of my way to be sweet to a lonely girl whose fiancé is gone and to whom I’m extremely emotionally attached.’”
As true as that is, she sure has twisted the innocence of it into something that sounds wrong.
After a stunned second, I snap, “Yeah, that’s what I did. I wanted to make Noelle feel better on a day when she was especially missing her dead fiancé and my best friend in the world, so I took her favorite flowers to her in the hopes that they would brighten up her mood a little. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Jenna’s eyes nearly bug out of her head. “Beckett, what the hell! You bought her favorite flowers for her?”
“Of course I did. What else would I have bought?”
“Well, nothing, for starters!” She points to the gift bag still in my hand. “You couldn’t have at least given her something that wasn’t so significant? Some cheap chocolate or a funny card? Jesus, I’m your girlfriend and you bought her flowers?”
I blink in confusion. “You don’t even like them. Literally said that on our first date. ‘Don’t waste your money, Beckett, ‘cause I’ve never been—’”
“Yeah, sure,” she cuts me off, “but how about this? You know what her favorite flower is, huh? Do you also know which one I—your girlfriend—don’t completely hate so that, should you ever need to buy me flowers, you’d know what to pick?”
I squint at her.
Why would I know that? Who hints about the flower they hate the least? And why would anyone need to buy flowers for someone who doesn’t want them?
“No,” I answer, “I don’t.”
A new scoff. A new grab for her wine glass.
I finally go set her gift on the couch. Then I gesture out toward the world, where Noelle and Theo exist and Cliff doesn’t.
“Look,” I say, “I didn’t mean to upset you. I have never intended to do that, and I’m sorry. But I’ve also been very open and honest about how important Cliff and his family are to me. They’re basically my own family ‘cause my actual one deserves to rot in hell, and….”
Sudden emotion grips my throat as I relive, briefly but so starkly, the night that’s almost two years old now.
I haven’t told Jenna everything I remember about it, though.
And I don’t think I want to bring my closest-held memory of it into this argument, because if she can’t empathize with me on those other points, there’s no way she’ll do it on that one.
I decide to pick back up on something I’ve tried in the past. “I really think that if you just spend some time with them, you’ll like them. We can all hang out together as often as you like, Jenna, you know? It doesn’t have to be me and them versus you.” Not that I’ve ever actively ignored her or let Noelle and Theo interfere in our plans. They would never even ask me to.
“But it is y’all on one side and me on the other,” she’s countering. “Because—and I don’t know how you haven’t grasped this by now—I don’t wanna get to know them. I don’t wanna spend time with them. I don’t wanna drag around the ghosts of your other life. The reason I wish you’d let them go is so we can be our own unit. You can’t devote yourself to a thing if something else already has you, and you won’t even try to get free of the people who have hold of you.”
Ha.
Okay.
I won’t try to ‘get free’ of people I care about, and she won’t try to understand why I care.
A deep frown has taken over me.
Her expression, however, is blank for the first time in these long few minutes.
“I just can’t handle any more of this,” she says. “Not one more thing.”
A sigh blows out of me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I’m…I’m really not that surprised.
Things aren’t going to magically change, so for how long are we going to keep trying to make each other see our version of sense? I wouldn’t be happy cutting myself off from Noelle and Theo, but Jenna isn’t happy with me staying connected to them.
It’s not that she thinks I don’t care about her enough—she just thinks I care too much about them.
I tell her quietly, “I get it.”
Her eyes drift away from me and land absently on her gift.
With a slow shake of her head, she says, “You’re a great guy. And you’re a great boyfriend except for when it comes to putting up a boundary between your life and theirs. You don’t even think you need one, and…I’m just not okay with that. It’s stopping you from committing to our relationship properly.”
I think about remarking that I’m already committed to it. We hadn’t moved in together yet, but it seemed like something we’d do when the time was right; we seemed to be building up to loving each other. I’ve been faithful to her and treated her well. Been truthful with her.
But I don’t say any of that because, no, there’s no point in defending myself.
I really do see what she’s putting out there. I really do get that she, as Jenna and for her own Jenna reasons, isn’t able to share me with Noelle and Theo. My bond with them doesn’t mean anywhere near as much to her as it does to me.
She brings her eyes back my way, and we look at each other for a silent moment. Two moments. Three.
“I’d give you one more chance,” she murmurs now, “to choose between me and them, but why waste our time? We know who you’d pick.”
Well, just to be fair, I make myself think about it.
For the sake of this girl I like and what we’ve had going for us, I spend a second thinking about which one of these relationships makes me feel the most like myself. Which one makes me feel safest and soundest. Which one I would feel the emptiest without.
And it really does go the way we both knew it would.
I tell her, “I’m sorry.”
A soft, humorless laugh goes through her nose. “Yeah. So am I.”
So…that’s how it ends.
I guess tug-of-war always ends like this, huh? One party turns out to be stronger than the other.
She doesn’t have any important personal items at my apartment, but I have a toothbrush here, so I grab that just because. Then she tries to give her Valentine’s gift back to me. I insist on her keeping it; I bought that stuff because I knew she’d like it, so if she doesn’t want it, she can find someone else to give it to. Fine with me. Whatever she prefers.
I leave feeling disappointed as hell.
One could argue that this is my fault. If I had let Jenna’s lighter alter the rope of my dedication, then things wouldn’t have gone this way. If I had agreed to ‘wake up,’ as she said, she wouldn’t have slammed her door behind me and locked me out of the rest of her life. And all of that is probably true.
But something else is also true: I can’t walk away from Noelle and Theodora.
I meant it earlier when I told Noelle I don’t know what I’d do without her.
Seriously, who could walk away from someone who means that much?
—
Back before I started dating Jenna, most nights saw me talking to Noelle on the phone.
Sometimes we had conversations, and sometimes we didn’t say much of anything. If we weren’t talking, it was common for one of us to turn on the TV or some music and let the other listen. Every now and then, we’d just be silent together. Depended on how we were feeling. But the one constant was that those phone calls comforted us, helped us relax, helped us sleep.
For Jenna’s sake, I put a stop to it. I wanted to be a good boyfriend to her, wanted to respect her. And Noelle understood; it wasn’t an easy change to make, but it also wasn’t like we were drifting apart. We just couldn’t keep doing that kind of thing when I had a girlfriend to consider.
Still, I’ve been missing it for months.
I remember telling Jenna about those phone calls one night a few weeks in. I’d begun to try to open up about Cliff and his girls, and that one facet of how Noelle and I coped slid out of me. I hadn’t thought it a big deal since I said the habit fell off when we got together…but Jenna had looked at me so strangely. It was like I had still managed to insult her, or like she thought I was weird.
She didn’t outright say it, though. Not at first. There were just those looks any time I mentioned the girls. Then for a month or two, she flat-out ignored the mentions. For a brief time after that, she made remarks, but they were things like, ‘How do you always have so much to say about Theo? She’s a kid. Her life can’t be that interesting,’ and, ‘I think Noelle will probably live without you letting her know that Funyuns are on sale at Target. You don’t need to text her.’
But eventually, she started telling me what she really thought. And what she thought was that I needed to move on.
As I acknowledged before—and as she implied with her weak ultimatum there at the end—she didn’t want me to have both her and them. Her desire wasn’t for me to cut back on how much I saw and talked to Noelle and Theo. What she wanted was for me to stop.
“Don’t you see how unhealthy you guys’ relationship is?” she’d asked me once. “I’m sorry the link that bound y’all together is gone now, but it is gone. Why do you keep clinging to one another? I genuinely don’t understand.”
‘Unhealthy.’
I’ve never forgotten her uttering that outrageous word.
And I never managed to understand how she didn’t understand that everything Cliff brought to my life was good for me. But sometimes when she was drunk, she’d gossip about her friends and all the drama between them, so maybe that had a lot to do with it. Maybe she just doesn’t know what healthy friendships really look like. Maybe she doesn’t know how valuable it is to have people on your side no matter what.
I was sad for her on that one. If Cliff and I hadn’t become friends, I don’t know who I would have turned into, and I don’t want to even imagine it.
Everyone needs to know people like him. People like his fiancée and his daughter.
Everyone needs light and solace, just like Noelle mentioned earlier—she said it helps her that there’s a lot of light around me and Theo. And I knew exactly what she meant. And I don’t think it was fair for Jenna to insist I turn my back on it.
Disheartened though I am about our relationship not working out, I gotta say I’m relieved to not have to hear that stuff anymore.
I’m beyond relieved to hear Noelle’s voice when she calls around nine, as we agreed on over texts while I scrounged up some dinner for myself. It’s like I’ve gone days without hearing her talk, rather than hours.
We share a small laugh about how strange yet good it is to be on the phone with each other again. It really has been a long time since that last happened.
And my mood improves even more when she tells me, “I want you to know I can’t stop looking at these tulips.”
Her tone is the quiet one she uses when Theo is asleep. It’s both careful and oddly soothing.
Quietly, too, I say, “I’m so happy you like them. Really hoped you would.”
“Of course I do. Thank you again.”
I drop down on my couch. “You’re more than welcome, Ms. Bright.”
She doesn’t say anything.
Shortly, she lets out a thin sigh.
“Reminds me,” she says. “I kind of got hit on at work today. I didn’t know it until after he was gone—Ceceli pointed it out then—but I did notice he called me that at least once. From my nametag, you know. ‘Ms. Bright.’”
My own breaths suddenly feel thin.
The, “Oh, yeah?” that I manage is weak.
So is her, “Yeah.”
I don’t really know how to feel about this, other than sad. I’d bet my next paycheck she’s in the same boat.
I mean…I don’t know. It’s natural for people in her position to get back out there, I think. Has to be. But it’s sad, yes. Hard to imagine her with someone who isn’t Cliff.
Scary to imagine her and Theo potentially being with a man who won’t love them the way they deserve.
Rather irritating to imagine anyone flirting with—
“So you and Jenna didn’t have a very good evening, huh?”
I blow a raspberry at the swift change in subject. It’s a meh one, although I’m glad to be distracted from thinking about some random dude eyeballing Noelle.
Still, I do want to tell her more about the breakup I mentioned while we were texting, so I go ahead.
Afterward, she says softly, “I’m so sorry, Beck. I didn’t realize we….” I hear her muffling her throat-clearing, like she feels embarrassed.
Like she feels guilty.
That will not stand.
“Hey, no,” I murmur steadily, glancing to one side like she’s sitting there for me to lay matching eyes on. “You and Theodora are my sword and shield, not a burden. I liked Jenna, but not enough to give you guys up for her.”
She’s quiet.
I give her some time to trust what I’ve said.
Then I add, “I know you’re probably over there tapping your thumbnails together, still feeling bad that she dumped me, but you can stop. Keeping her wasn’t worth losing you, okay? Take that to the bonk.”
Now a hushed chuckle comes through the phone.
It’s exactly what I hoped for.
We’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that time her phone’s autocorrect somehow texted ‘bonk’ instead of ‘bank.’ The goofy memory always gets a smile out of me, and right now, it’s strengthened by her little laugh. Making Noelle laugh is…man, I don’t even know. It does something good to my life.
“I just….” Her words are slow and soft. I imagine she’s shaking her head. “You mean so much to us, but…I don’t want you to sacrifice enjoying your life because of us. Please don’t do that.”
As serious as I know she is, it doesn’t dim how I feel.
You’d think that between her and Jenna, the immovably clingy one would be the girl who lost her fiancé and is now a single parent. But Noelle is the one showing selflessness—she’s being as selfless toward me as she always has been. Although she does need me in big ways these days, she also cares about what makes me happy just like she did way back when; not for one minute has she tried to keep me from finding that balance I was striving for, unlike my now-ex.
“I appreciate the hell out of that,” I say, “but trust me, I’m perfect over here.”
And as the unplanned words reach my own ears, I realize just how true they are.
Whatever stress or disappointment I felt before is crumbling here in the face of my and Noelle’s friendship. I feel good for the first time since I got Jenna’s aggravated text message.
I can hear her smiling, too, when she murmurs, “Okay, then. I’ll take t
hat to the bonk.”
Now it’s my turn to chuckle.
“On a different note,” she adds, “today at work, I remembered a song I’d forgotten all about. I was thinking of turning it on. Do you wanna listen with me?”
Mmm. She wants to keep picking back up on our old ways. Freaking nice.
“Yeah, I do,” I tell her. “Fire away.”
Shortly, I hear quiet shuffling and then some clicking; she must be at her computer desk in her bedroom, getting things set up so I can hear the song over speakerphone. I stretch out comfortably on the couch and switch to speakerphone, too, before settling my phone on my chest.
The opening of “Never Say Never” by The Fray is soon drifting through to me.
Oh, yes, I think as I close my eyes, satisfied and comforted. This is the stuff.
This is exactly what I need to wrap up my night with—and exactly what I need in order to properly spark off my life going forward.
This feels like coming home.
We evidently end up falling asleep on the phone. I wake in the middle of the night to Noelle snoring softly on the other end of the line…and I wake her up with my drowsy laughter. It’s not often I get to hear her snore. It’s funny and endearing.
I’m not quite awake as I get up from the couch to turn off the living room light and drag myself to my bedroom. She’s groggy, too, but she still protests me making fun of her.
I tease her, “Wouldn’t dream of doing that.”
She lets out the feeblest sound of amusement ever.
Silence falls while I clumsily pull my day clothes off; I’m sure she’s dozing again. As I’m moving my blanket back, she inhales like she has woken up a little again.
She half-slurs, “I love your heart, y’know.”
Although I find my bedding to be unpleasantly cool now that I’m not very dressed anymore, her sentence is what dominates my bleary attention.
Cliff, Noelle, and Theo have always been professionals at making me feel like I’m worth something.
“I love yours,” I tell her.
And I do it at just the right time because not ten seconds later, she’s so quiet that I think it’s safe to say she has fallen into peaceful sleep.
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