Just As Much

by Noelle R. Henry

“Where would you go, Fee?”

  “If it was early enough, a friend’s house. If it was late, I would just camp out on the porch,” I say still looking in front of me rather than at him.

  “It wasn’t the slaps that bothered me…it was more the words. He gets in my head sometimes, but I am fine. Okay?”

  “How?”

  “Him telling Mel that no one would want to deal with me.”

  “I am sorry you had to go through that,” he says.

  “It happens, Damian. He’s out of my life now. Can we stop, please?”

  “Okay. I am sorry for asking it was just…bothering me.”

  “I know,” I say kissing him and starting it back up. But all of a sudden, I didn’t want to watch anymore.

  Summer’s End

  At the end of July, the firm offered Damian a job. However, that started more conversations about the future…their only vacant positions where in different towns, all of which were at least an hour away.

  “Damian, you are not commuting an hour every day. You will have to get up at 4am,” I say softly.

  “Yea, we will see about that,” he says.

  “We can survive. I can move in with Natalie and Mere, they still need a third roommate if need be.”

  “Let’s find out where I am stationed before we make any decisions.”

  “Okay,” I say shaking my head and going back to doing a load of our laundry.

  “You sure it’s okay I go out tonight?” he says.

  “Your friends are back in town, I think I can survive one night all to my lonesome. Sitting here. Waiting for you. In your bed,” I say.

  “That’s it I am not going.”

  “Yes, you are. Go, I will be here. Just don’t get so drunk you can’t enjoy me when you get back,” I say kissing his cheek and he smirks.

  “I’ll see you later, Baby Girl.”

  “Bye Kitten,” I say, and I hear the door shut.

  I wait up for him, but I must have fallen asleep because I wake with him beside me.

  “Out all night, huh?” I say pretending to be mad.

  “No,” he says distantly.

  “I am kidding, sweetheart. Did I fall asleep on you?” I ask.

  “I think I want some more sleep,” he says grumpily. I chuckle. Someone is hungover.

  I stay in bed and read next to him. I reach over to kiss him after he’s been awake awhile and he acts like he doesn’t see and gets up.

  “Damian, why are you acting so weird,” I say. He slept on the other end of the bed and he hasn’t touched me all morning.

  “Huh?” he asks.

  “You’ve barely spoken to me or touched me since last night,” I say hurt.

  “It’s nothing, I am just hungover,” he says, and I look at him questionably. He isn’t being him; I know hungover Damian.

  “Tacos? I can go grab some,” I offer getting up.

  “Nah, it’s okay. Really,” he says getting up and walking out of the room. I follow him as he goes to the fridge and gets a glass of water.

  “Want to watch some Chopped or something?” I ask coming up behind him and hugging him. He stiffens.

  “The idea of food repulses me. Especially that kind of food,” he says moving away from the hug. I am starting to think the idea of me repulses him.

  “Uh-huh,” I say moving away. I feel like I am being shooed away. He hasn’t seen me very much this week—why is he being so weird?

  “Well you seem beat.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, get some rest. I need to go to the bookstore and get some stuff for classes.”

  “You’ll pay more for it there.”

  “I’m renting,” I say as I grab Zeke and head to give him the space he obviously needs.

  When I get back, he is asleep again. He is sprawled out on the couch, so I go to my room and watch some Netflix to give him some peace and quiet. I guess he’s not as used to the party life.

  The next day I don’t see him. He stays late at work, then mumbles that he’s tired and goes to bed.

  Tonight, we are supposed to go to dinner before I start classes—but I am sitting at the restaurant and it’s an hour after he is supposed to be here.

  I text him.

  Dame, where are you?

  What do you mean?

  Murphy’s? 6? Don’t say you are still at work.

  Shit. I won’t make it. Sorry.

  Sorry? Damian, where are you?

  But I don’t hear from him.

  I wait on the couch.

  When he walks in, I see the look of devastation on his face and I know I am in for it. Damian looks heartbroken.

  “Where were you?” I say angrily.

  “Fee…” I say and I hear hurt in his voice.

  “What’s wrong?” I say.

  “Felicity…I can’t do this.”

  “Can’t do what?” I say confused. He looks away.

  “I can’t be with you, not like this. Not anymore,” he says. My heart stops and I am too shocked to speak. I just look at him, tears forming.

  “You are right. I am just going to hurt you. I need more,” he says.

  “No…No…that doesn’t make sense,” I say crying.

  “Fee, if we stay in this relationship, you will eventually hate me.”

  “What happened? Just tell me what happened at the bar the other night, Damian,” I say looking at him. “You don’t mean any of this.”

  “I do. I do mean it,” he says turning to look me in the eye. He is crying.

  “Damian, look at me, you’re scared. What scared you?” I say crawling over to him, but he stands up, like he doesn’t want to be touched by me. Rejection hits my stomach and I start to sob.

  “Need more what? Say it. Tell me exactly what you mean, Damian,” I cut into him.

  “Something simpler, More variety,” he says looking up in the air and not at me. He is lying. I know he is lying. God, I hope he is lying.

  “Is that where you have been? Finding variety? You smell like booze, Dame.”

  “No. I was drinking alone.”

  “I begged…I pleaded for you not to let me fall in love with you. I told you, you would only shred my heart. What are you doing now, Damian? Huh? This doesn’t make sense, we were fine no less than two days ago. Did you…did you cheat?”

  “No. It’s just that I don’t want to hurt you. But I can’t—I can’t stay in this, I am no good for you.”

  “So that’s it? One summer and you’re done with me?” I sob and he just looks away.

  “I am not done with you, Fee. I just can’t be your boyfriend anymore,” he says.

  I walk into the kitchen.

  “You’re running. I don’t know why, but you’re running, and you are going to regret this, Damian. So, talk to me so that we can figure this out together,” I say.

  “I’ve said all I need to say,” he says back.

  I go to the couch and sit next to him and Zeke comes and lays his head on my lap.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Dame. We aren’t done,” I can’t stop sobbing.

  “Please don’t cry, Fee. Please,” he says. But he doesn’t touch me. He just looks devastated.

  “Don’t do this,” I whisper.

  “It’s too late. I am,” he says. “I’ll give you some space. I’ll go to my room tonight and give you some time to process. I don’t want to lose you, but…”

  “Just get the hell out.”

  He goes into his room and just let’s me lay there. Sobbing. I know he can hear me, but he doesn’t care enough to try.

  I get up and grab my phone off the charge. I call Mattie.

  “Matt,” I say still sobbing.

  “Oh, God. He didn’t,” Matt says on the other line.

  “You knew,” I say shaking my head.

  “Fee…”

  “Come. Please just come,” I say.

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” he says, and I keep sobbing.

  Matt uses his key and comes in. He comes to me and h
ushes me. It’s pretty late, I shouldn’t have made him come.

  “Let me talk to him,” Matt says, and I nod.

  He goes into Damian’s room and I hear yelling.

  “You’re being an idiot, Damian. You know that? That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard.”

  But an hour later, he comes out and shakes his head.

  “Fee…I tried. He’s just…”

  “Stubborn,” I whisper.

  “I want to leave,” I say.

  “Felicity, you don’t want to leave.”

  I go to my room and I start packing. There is beauty in never feeling like this place was mine—nothing here is quite unpacked, I am always ready to go. My books are in egg crates, they only need flipped, my desk will all fit in one tote. My clothes fit in the two suitcases above them. My bathroom supplies all can stay in the drawers they are in, I just tape them up. I can be out of here in a few hours and I want to be. I can’t handle being rejected by him.

  “She’s going to leave, Damian,” I hear Matt say at Damian’s door.

  Damian comes out on that one.

  “Fee,” he says, he is hoarse. I walk over to him.

  “Are you ready to talk?” I say.

  “Please don’t leave mad. Please. I want us to be able to…” I just stand there and stare at him.

  “Be friends?” I say disgusted.

  “Is that possible?” he asks hopefully, and I grab his hand.

  “Come in here. Tell me the real reason you are running,” I say, and he pulls his hand away from mine.

  “I don’t want you like that anymore, Fee,” he says not looking me in the eye. I don’t want to believe him. I can’t tell if he is avoiding my gaze to avoid seeing how much he is hurting me or because he is lying.

  “Then I don’t want to be your friend, Damian,” I say. He looks like I hit him.

  He gets up and I hear him and Matt whispering.

  I hear someone leave the apartment. I look out and Matt is the only one here. Damian left. As if I meant nothing. As if this meant nothing. As if he didn’t care whether I stayed or not. As if he didn’t destroy me with one conversation and then shut me out.

  I call Natalie—and I obviously wake her.

  “When can we get into the apartment?” I ask.

  “Next week,” she says, “What’s wrong?”

  “Damian broke it off,” I say. “I need a place to stay.”

  “Come here, we have room. You can put the big stuff in my parent’s garage. Oh, Fee. Do you need me to come? Do you need me to kick his ass?” she asks.

  “Just tell your parents I’ll be there tomorrow,” I say hanging up. I am too numb.

  “Fee, you don’t want to leave.”

  “I know how to leave when I am not wanted,” I say coldly, and he looks at me worried. He hugs me to him.

  “He is going to regret this, Felicity. I told him as much,” he says hugging me harder.

  “Just stay and help me get out of here tomorrow,” I say sobbing.

  Matt comforts me all night. In the morning, I try calling Damian and he doesn’t answer.

  I leave a voicemail, “Part of me thinks you’re running, and I wish I had it in me to stay here and convince you. But I can’t handle being rejected by you like this and frankly, I deserve more. If variety is what you need, I hope it suites you,” I say hanging up.

  If he wants me, he is going to have to come to me. If Matt and I can’t convince him, no one can.

  Matt and I carry all my boxes down. I leave all of the things that didn’t belong to me there. The bed. The desk. Everything that Donna had let me borrow.

  “My mom would give you the bed,” Mattie says.

  “I don’t want it. Natalie’s apartment is furnished, anyway,” I say.

  “Felicity, you are still our family. We still love you. It will break my heart, my mom’s, and Gran’s if you decide you are breaking up with us too,” he says.

  “I didn’t decide that. He did.”

  “Felicity.”

  I look at him, I don’t want to miss coffee with Matt. Or Sunday chats with Donna and Gran.

  “I just don’t need the furniture, I will still be here,” I say reaching out and squeezing his hand.

  As Matt takes the last load, I leave a box with all of Damian’s stuff or the stuff that reminds me of him on the kitchen counter but, I take his favorite hoodie.

  All the Things That Hurt

  The first two months, he called, and he texted but all he would talk about is how he wanted our friendship back. He missed me. However, if Matt is telling me the truth, he is just as broken up about this as I am—so I refused to answer the texts and voicemails, not until he realized that he wanted more. Right now, he just wants to make sure I am okay. He feels guilty for doing what he needs to do. He’s afraid I will be too stressed by the breakup and I don’t want his pity.

  I focus on school. Sleep. I don’t do much at all. Natalie yells at me all the time, saying that I need to get out and do something, but I really don’t want to do much.

  I didn’t speak to him until Fall Break, and it was so nice just to hear his voice—I couldn’t stop myself. Everyone was with their family and my family didn’t want me anymore. He sounds like he cares. He sounds like he loves me. He talks to me like everything is okay, but I don’t let us talk for more than an hour and I only let it happen once a week—he wants more. But that’s his conscious making him worry about me. So, I don’t mention the seizures. I just tell him to stop torturing us both that I don’t have it in me to reject him, so he needs to fully reject me.

  He insists we can get through this and still be friends.

  Since the semester began, I have had three seizures. They were stressed induced. Between Damian, school, working, volunteering, and everything else I have picked up in order to keep my mind off things, I figured that this would happen. However, my neurologist is making me see a therapist. Dr. Yates is exactly what I needed. I needed therapy—to talk about my issues with feeling like I am everyone’s problem. I wish I would have started talking much sooner. They added anti-depressants to my med list, which only makes the risk of seizures more, but…

  I made Donna my emergency contact and she calls every now and again to see how I am, but I keep the conversations to a minimum.

  Dr. Yates and I talk about Daniel and Mel. We talk about Damian.

  Meredith moved in with her boyfriend last month and has been dwindling in and out of Natalie and I’s lives, so Natalie is taking her fair share of taking care of me and I feel like a shitty friend.

  Natalie’s brother, Gavin, moved into the other room in the apartment and he hates the fact that mine is a half foot bigger and with my own bathroom. He constantly complains about me being here and quite frankly gets on my every last nerve.

  I did do one break up thing, I cut off my hair. Mostly because shampooing reminded me of him. I have it to my shoulders now, which is the shortest it has ever been. Natalie told me she was happy that I did something normal, besides sitting on the couch. Gavin told me he liked it better longer and to get out of the way of the television.

  Damian always calls at eight Saturday nights, which happens to be tonight. It has officially been three months since he just woke up and decided he didn’t want me anymore.

  “Hey,” he says sounding so happy.

  “Hi,” I say, never quite so happy to be on the phone with him.

  “Are you coming to Gran’s birthday this Friday?” he asks.

  “Yes, your mother invited me when I talked to her,” I say, trying not to sound too into the conversation.

  “You know I will be there, right?” he says.

  “It’s your grandmother’s eighty-fifth birthday. I figured you would be there,” I say.

  “Oh, okay,” he says, and things get weird quick this time.

  “Everything going okay?” I ask.

  “Wouldn’t change a thing,” he says too chipper. On that note, I have to go.

  “I am not fee
ling this tonight, Damian. I have got to go,” I say softly. Which has been the case the last three phone calls—when he sounds happy, I hate him.

  “No. Fee. Please,” he says so depressingly it hurts.

  “What do you want from me, Damian? I am trying,” I sob.

  “I know. Please don’t cry,” he says, and I can hear him shaking his head. I can see him. Visualize him. God.

  “I just got to go,” I say as I hang up. I’m going to have to talk to Dr. Yates about how the phone calls are making me feel soon.

  “Oh lord, it is Saturday,” Natalie says coming out of her room.

  “Yep.”

  “Fee, you have got to cut him off,” she says coming over and sitting by me.

  “Why?” I ask as she turns the TV on.

  “Because he isn’t going to change his mind. It’s been three months, Fee. Cut. Him. Off.”

  I just shake my head, and for once I am starting to agree with Natalie.

  Monday, I go to my appointment with Dr. Yates.

  “I am going to Damian’s house for his grandmother’s birthday. He will be there.”

  “Is this the first time you have seen him?”

  I nod my head.

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “I think that I am going to confront him. The phone calls don’t make me feel good anymore. I keep waiting for him to change his mind…and I don’t think I can wait like this anymore and there is too much I haven’t said.”

  “What do you think confronting him will do?”

  “Give me an answer. If he tells me no again, I’ll walk away.”

  “And you think you can do that?”

  “What choice do I have really?”

  Thursday, Natalie takes me out to buy a dress.

  “So, you want something to convince him he wants you right?” she asks.

  “Yes, but remember, this is a party for his grandmother, Nat,” I say shaking my head at the lack of material she is holding up.

  “Besides, I want him to choose me because he wants me, not how I’m dressed,” I tell her.

  “But how your dressed could help,” she says with a wink. I try on the dress she hands me, and it is perfect.

  “Put on a sweater or jacket and it is grandma approved,” Natalie adds, and I smile.

  It’s time for answers.