“There’s a lot on my mind. How’ve you been?”
Jemma waved the question away. “You know, jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend, still working on my art career.”
“You still paint?” I didn’t mean it to come across as a surprise, but I had figured she gave that up. The razor-thin glance she gave me told me my tone wasn’t appreciated.
“I do.”
An awkward silence filled the gap, the rain picked up and just around the corner to the bakery the car started to sputter.
“No, no. Don’t do this to me, you always do this!” Jemma slammed her palm angrily on the dashboard. “It’s just a little water, get over it.”
The car, apparently, did not agree with her and eventually stalled.
“It’s okay. I’ll get out and push, just pop it into neutral.”
A little rain never hurt anybody, though the frigid icy cold of a late September valley rain might beg to differ. It was unseasonably cold, the wind howled and the rain poured like buckets of ice water dumped onto my head.
I was drenched before I got to the back of the car. I waited for the brake lights to go out before I started to push and with more effort than I remembered needing, the car began its slow trundling roll towards the bakery.
Jemma tugged and wrenched at the wheel to turn it even a fraction. She was discovering first-hand the joys of power steering. She was just about drenched in sweat from the effort of the few turns we had to make so that by the time we managed to get the car into the small lot behind the bakery and old bookstore, we were both soaked.
With a squeal, Jemma hopped out of the car and ran for cover while I grabbed my things from the back and marched up to my apartment. Jemma couldn’t stand to stay at her father’s place, so she stayed at the hotel down on Fifth.
It even had one of those old red neon signs that read Hotel down the side sticking out from the fading brick. With the other guests we were getting in town, Mister Gavinsworth was suddenly finding himself having to turn on the old No Vacancy sign.
A sight I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.
In either case, seeing Jemma soaked through and knowing that Claire wouldn’t be back for a few hours from wherever she’d run off to I figured I could at least offer to invite her to dinner and let her dry off.
I had to pitch my voice over the din of the storm once I climbed the stairs after her. “Did you want to come in and dry off? I’m going to be making dinner soon. You’re welcome to join us.”
Claire’s sister had similar green eyes, but with more hazel. It gave her a childish air, or maybe it was just the way I always saw her. Like a little rambunctious sister. She certainly acted the part.
“Oh, that’d be great.” She latched onto my arm with more closeness than I was comfortable with, but I gave her my best welcoming smile and together we headed into my apartment.
“Bathroom’s down the hall over there.” I set down my burdens on the kitchen counter and walked her towards the hall. “Towels in the hallway closet here. Dryer’s over there if you want to toss your clothes in to dry out. I’m sure you can find something of Claire’s to wear in the meantime.”
Without another word, Jemma trounced through the living room and disappeared into the hall while I set about preparing for dinner. Beef wellington took a while to prepare but was an overall fairly straightforward dish.
It struck me then how different they were. When I had brought Claire home that fateful night, soaked to the bone and crying, her concern had been that she was leaving a trail of dirt in my apartment.
While Jemma merrily created puddles of dirty shoe prints all the way to the bathroom without a care in the world. I wasn’t mad, that was how Jemma was. So focused on any given task that she didn’t pay attention to her surroundings.
While I cleaned up the mess, I thought about what had prompted me to make beef wellington in the first place.
Claire and I were watching TV two nights ago, both tired from a long day of work when she asked me about the decadent meal. I told her about it, what it was made of and the general gist of how to make it. Even though we were watching a cooking show that literally went through the steps, she paid more attention to me than the TV.
It felt amazing to be the center of her attention. And yet, it felt like she was doing that more and more. Asking me questions about things that, truthfully, didn’t matter. It was like she was being purposefully shallow, which was never a word I would associate with Claire.
We used to stay up late at night talking about everything from what we thought the afterlife was like to what the meaning of existence was. Not very light topics, and we were only kids at the time.
Lately, however, she had taken to asking me little things. Just enough that I was beginning to wonder if she was doing it on purpose to avoid something more serious.
I was probably reading too much into things. Instead of ruminating on my own thoughts, I selected a soothing playlist that I could cook to and busied myself preparing dinner.
Tonight was going to go off without a hitch.
23
Claire
You don’t ever plan to break somebody’s heart. Sometimes it just happens. I still hadn’t been able to say the three little words to Thomas that he wanted to hear. I didn’t even know if they were in my vocabulary. I clearly was capable of thinking them but why couldn’t I say them?
I had thought I loved Thomas. But when I gave it a good analytical look, weighed the pros and cons, I realized we were a poor match. We simply were not compatible.
Now, I’m not saying a weighted spreadsheet can simulate how well a couple could stay together, but it gives a pretty decent ballpark.
When I looked at Thomas I felt love, but I also felt the grief and sadness over Dad’s sudden death.
Thomas was there for me. He had always been there and I’m not sure if it was the revelation that he had never broken my heart or that I had been stupid enough to shut him out all these years that pushed us together.
But that wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. I was vulnerable, weak and I had clung to Thomas like a lifeline. It wasn’t fair to him. What we had was great, but it couldn’t last.
The way his features softened and became starry-eyed. I knew what I felt didn’t stack up to that.
If the way Thomas looked at me was true love, what I had was a pale imitation pawned from too many Hallmark movies. Ironically, it was his loving acts that had me realizing what I thought I felt wasn’t actually love.
How could it be when my own feelings were so small and insignificant next to his own? Eventually he’d realize how lopsided the relationship was. Maybe it’d take him years, but he’d see the charade for what it was. I would never be enough for him.
Better to rip the bandage off now, before we got even more attached. Before it became even harder to do.
Don’t you mean before you chicken out?
That too.
I had to be the better part of myself here. I’d been betrayed, lied and cheated on in the past. There was no way I was going to let Thomas feel the way I felt. Not that I would ever be unfaithful to him, but he deserved better than me.
As I pulled up to the back of the bakery and threw the truck into the park I had to reflect on how twisted it all was. The one guy that wasn’t wrong for me, ended up being too good for me.
How about that.
If we couldn’t salvage a workable business relationship, I could sign it over to him. It was the least I could do. With what I gave him, even if I pulled out, his business would do much better than it ever did before.
Hands on the steering wheel, the windshield awash with a river of late evening rain, I psyched myself up for the inevitable.
After dinner, I thought. We’ll both have a little wine to loosen up, I’ve still got my dad’s keys to the apartment. I can let him down easy and leave.
It had to be done. I couldn’t go on living a lie, watching his coffee dark eyes sink into me as I pretended that what I felt for him w
as anything approaching the same level of love he felt for me.
Somehow, I kept it together over dinner. Even Jemma’s surprise visit hadn’t thrown me entirely. In some small way, her being there helped. Her shameless flirting and the way Thomas easily set her down without making the table awkward was almost amusing.
I’d miss this.
It was like watching a kid trying to wrestle a full-grown man. Jemma’s thinly veiled flirts and double entendres slipped harmlessly off him. That only emboldened her to try harder.
There was a fierce competitive streak in her. She loved to get a rise out of people, to see what made them tick and I always thought she’d make an excellent psychologist if she could only buckle down and apply herself.
On more than one occasion I offered to pay her way through school, but each time she refused. She had always been a bit wild and it broke my heart that she still hadn’t found a way through life. When she had needed a maternal figure in her life I tried to fill that void, but it was clear I wasn’t good enough for it.
Just like I wasn’t good enough for Thomas.
What I deserved was another guy that would put me third back in New York just behind his career and himself. I could stand for that. That way I’d focus on myself and my career as well, I didn’t need a man willing to move Heaven and Earth for me.
I didn’t need Thomas, I tried to tell myself.
A man that just decided to make an incredibly delicious and complicated meal for the simple fact that I asked, in passing one night, about a dish we were watching get made.
I had only asked it because I saw the lingering gazes he gave me. It looked like the sort of gaze when something important was talked about. Something with meaning. I wasn’t ready for that so I deflected, got him talking about something he was interested in.
But I was running out of topics I could throw his way. And I was pretty sure he was getting suspicious. I was being pulled in two. One half wanted to stay, to become better. For him, and for me too. The other wanted to cut and run.
He’d find how thin and weak my love was, that I couldn’t let go of the business and leave it outside the bedroom. My mind was always working on something. It was part of how I was wired. Everything could be improved and I loved the challenge of a difficult problem.
I couldn’t leave work outside as Thomas did. I couldn’t do a lot of things he could. Rather than wait for the inevitable pain and realization that he’d arrive at one day I had to break things off now.
After dessert.
Millefeuille was something I had seen Thomas make, but never tried myself. He refused to let me pay for anything he made, and I didn’t feel right after seeing how many laborious hours he put into the creation of such a tiny thing.
He must have seen the hungry lust in my eyes because he served them for dessert. Where he found the time, I couldn’t have begun to guess. Hours of folding and rolling out pastry sheets into flakey layers, constant refrigeration and re-rolling, and finally the baking and creation of the pastry itself.
All in all, a single sheet took at least five hours of labor.
My knife crunched through the crispy pastry dusted in powdered sugar and topped with chocolate-covered strawberries. It had a consistency similar to the phyllo dough in spanakopita or baklava. Except there was a decadent buttery and chewy property to it, unlike anything I ever had before.
The cream filling was speckled with tiny grains of vanilla, and I inhaled the whole thing before I even realized what I was doing.
“You like it?” asked Thomas with a pleased expression.
My resulting moan and fluttering eyelids made him blush and I was tempted - even with Jemma right beside me - to reach my foot beneath the table to confirm my suspicions and feel if he was hard or not. I was certain he was, and the urge struggled for control until I could subdue it.
But it’d be wrong. I didn’t want to get his hopes up just to break up with him over dessert. Which I realized was now almost over.
I’ll do it after some wine. I told myself.
After wine became “after Jemma goes home”, which became “after I brush my teeth.” Eventually, I was too tired and tipsy to do it at all.
I’d drank more wine than usual in a pathetic effort to get up the courage to break things off with Thomas. Throughout it all he was kind and thoughtful, taking away my wine glass when it was clear I had enough. He had to carry me to bed after Jemma left. I didn’t even get a chance to wash up.
Though I did like being carried. I vaguely remember pawing at him like a drunk sorority girl and then nothing.
The next morning I awoke with a splitting headache. Thick beams of light streamed through the bedroom window like freight trains. It made my eyes water just to look at them.
Thomas wasn’t there.
I groped around on the bedside table until I found the glass of water Thomas always left for me. I took it and downed it in one. I needed to rehydrate, some breakfast would be good too.
I made my way with enough caution that you might have thought my bones were glass. Walls held me up, and I squinted through my eyes to cut the glare of the early morning light that was doing my headache no favors.
Thomas was usually up and making breakfast by now, but I didn’t hear or smell anything. Probably for the best. The way I was feeling even his delicious eggs might make my stomach queasy.
I was going to hurt him enough soon, no use in insulting his cooking too.
After painstakingly washing up I felt mildly more human. Enough that when I walked into the living room, I noticed Thomas sitting there by himself. By the looks of him, he hadn’t slept all night.
Something stabbed my heart and I knew. I knew. I had said something last night. Something bad.
The way his eyes softened at the sight of me, the slight downward curve of those lips I loved to kiss broke my heart.
The urge to rush over to him, to hold him and sit in his lap to make him feel better, was overwhelming. My feet moved of their own accord and I stumbled forward before I caught myself. Arms wrapped around my chest. I still wore the same clothes as last night.
It wasn’t ideal. I didn’t want to drunkenly blurt it out, he deserved greater care than I gave him. Which only proved my point and hardened my resolve. The pounding headache and blurry vision didn’t make my disposition much better.
“I told you.” I felt the tears at the edge of my eyes before a single word was out of my mouth.
Thomas leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped tightly. “You did.” He spoke to the floor. “I thought we had something good here, Claire?” Just the barest hint of hope.
I had to be cruel. Crush out the hope for anything more than friendship. Let him heal, maybe some distance between us would mend the wound and eventually we could go back to being friends.
I already missed him.
We stood less than ten feet apart but it felt like miles.
“I…” I swallowed, squared my shoulders. “I can’t be what you want me to be, Thomas. What you deserve.”
“Don’t I get a say in the matter?” Thomas stood up, crossed half the distance to me. He felt the coldness in the air between us and stopped as if he couldn’t go any farther.
He’d never know how I was barely holding onto my resolve with my fingernails. If he’d swept me in a hug I would be done. But he didn’t, I hadn’t given him the ability.
I took that from him.
“I love you, Claire. I was serious before, I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way right now. Please, don’t throw it away before we’ve even had the chance to see where this goes. You don’t get to choose if I love you or not, if you’re good enough or not. That’s my choice.” His voice cracked and I almost lost it. The tears rolled down my cheeks in hot shameful rivers. “And I say you are.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I shook my head, tried to clear the cobwebs. I conjured the plainest, most achingly mundane lines I could think of. I hadn’t expected him to fight for us
, to sound so reasonable.
“You’re a great guy Thomas, but with everything that’s gone on, I haven’t been in the right state of mind. It took me until just recently to realize I’d been using you. You don’t deserve to be treated that way. You deserve somebody who loves you, who wants more for you than they want for themselves. I’m not that girl.”
He looked up, dark circles under his coffee dark eyes shining with unshed tears. I would never be the same after this. “And you don’t love me, is that it?” Did I detect a faint hint of disbelief?
My heart fluttered in my chest like a caged bird. This is it, part of me thought. I could admit I love him. So what if it wasn’t enough, we could be happy right? If I opened up myself to him totally this disaster could be averted, but what if I did and was found wanting… I couldn’t take that risk.
This was for the best.
So I lied. “No, Thomas I don’t love you. Not, in that way at least.” My heart shriveled with each word out of my numb lips. Saw the way he reeled from the weight of each as if they were a physical blow. Leave no doubt. “I love you, as a friend. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
I shut my eyes against what I’d done and spun around, somehow managed to make it back to the room and began packing my things. I choked back the sobs and let the tears fall. I heard movement, for a fleeting moment, I let myself believe he was coming into the room.
Feared and yearned for it in equal measure. I cast a watery glance over my shoulder. No Thomas.
When I finished stuffing all my things into my bag and came out into the living room he was gone.
I did the right thing. Didn’t I?
24
Thomas
I wandered aimlessly around town for hours, letting the bakery stay closed. It wasn’t important now, in fact, I couldn’t summon much concern for anything at the moment.
It felt like I should be limping, leaving a trail of blood that poured out of the hole in my chest. I couldn’t even keep the girl of my dreams for much longer than a week. Pathetic.
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