He wakes up freezing, alone, in the dark.
Pulls the blankets around him and mutters, “Goddamn,” under his breath.
This is nothing new, but it stings this time.
--------
“So her fiancé set a date.”
“Honestly? I- I wanted to just- I wanted to throw myself overboard.”
“Because I was going to tell her right then. I mean, I had my hand on her shoulder. I was saying, ‘Hey, Can I talk-’ And then there it was. Her wedding date. The period at the end of this stupid, run on sentence.”
“Not only that, but earlier that night. God. We were out on the deck, alone, and she- I mean, I’d known before that she probably felt something for me, but right then? I knew for sure.”
“Yeah. It was right there on her face, in her eyes. Like I could’ve kissed her and she would’ve let me. And then to see her so happy with her fiancé? Fuck. That’s- I just shut down then.”
--------
There are things he won’t be telling him:
How he’d come home that night, barely managed to slip off his shoes and fallen into bed. How he’d sunk his teeth into the corner of his pillow and cried for two hours until he felt lightheaded and fell asleep.
How he’d called Katy the next night, apologized for as long as he’d cried the night before. How she’d come over reluctantly because he promised to make it right, swore he was going to be better this time. How he’d slept with her that night, just because he felt so disconnected and he needed that. How he’d broken up with her again the next morning and she’d called him a “fucking bastard son of a bitch,” and he could only nod because he was a fucking bastard son of a bitch.
How Pam had asked him, “What’s going on with you?” And he looked at her, not feeling anything at all and said, “I don’t know.”
--------
“To tell you the truth, I’m just angry.”
“He was drunk. They’ve been engaged for three years and he can’t even set a fucking date until he’s drunk off his ass? And this is who she wants to spend the rest of her life with? Seriously? And she was so happy about it, too.”
“I hate it. I absolutely hate it.”
“I’m angry with her, I guess.”
“She just refuses to…move.”
--------
He feels like he can’t breathe. No, he feels like he’s going to be sick.
Without asking, he leans over behind the couch and cracks the window just enough to feel a cold rush of air hit his face. He takes a deep breath and then sits back down.
The therapist (still not his therapist) gives him this nod, like he’s saying, “Yes, I understand.”
He fights the urge to rip this guy’s head off right now, because he doesn’t think he could possibly begin to understand.
--------
“I broke up with Katy that night.”
“Because I- I don’t know. It was weird. I was already going to break up with her before, because I had this master plan to tell Pam how I’m so in love with her and she was going to tell me that she felt the same way. But, then, when Roy set the date, it just hit me, you know? That I really didn’t want to be with Katy. That I really was completely in love with this other woman. And even though that was the moment when I should’ve held onto Katy, when all of my hopes of ever being with Pam should’ve vanished, I felt more resolute than ever that I would-”
“Yeah, a deadline, exactly. That’s it exactly. Now that there’s a deadline, I feel like now’s the time to do something. Or…I don’t know. Now there’s this push, I guess.”
--------
The therapist uncrosses his legs and then crosses them again, covers his mouth with his hands, nods along with everything he’s saying, squints his eyes like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.
And on the tip of his tongue are the things he wasn’t, isn’t going to tell him.
--------
“Yeah, I do.”
“What else is going to make me happy? Not my job, that’s for sure.”
“I wish I could answer that. I think if I could answer that, I wouldn’t feel so, so-”
“Look, I know it’s your job to ask me things like that. I know my mom’s probably telling you to ask me that over and over, but here’s the thing, as long as there’s her, I’m not going anywhere. That sort of makes this all even more pathetic, doesn’t it?”
--------
She’d asked him where he went every other Monday. They were having lunch and she said, “So, I mean, it’s not really any of my business, but where do you go on Monday afternoons?”
He couldn’t even think of a lie and just said, “Uh, I’m actually going to therapy.”
She looked down at the table then. “Oh.”
“I don’t really need therapy, but my mom wants me to go. She thinks I’m- I don’t know.”
She’d smiled, looking sort of relieved. “Yeah, moms can be like that sometimes.”
“Yeah.”
She hadn’t said another word to him.
--------
“I, uh, can we talk about something else?”
“I don’t know. I just really can’t talk about this anymore right now.”
“Um. My roommate’s thinking about moving in with his girlfriend.”
“No. If he does, I’ll probably have to move. I can’t afford the rent on that house on my own.”
“Yeah. I might get a dog.”
--------
On the walk back to his car, he swears he sees her rounding the next corner, in the mirrored surface of a store window, everywhere. He gets to his car door and closes his eyes tightly. There’s a pressure building there behind his eyes- No, all over his body. It makes his bones ache.
He’s surprised, though, that when he does close his eyes that darkness that had become so familiar to him was absent. There was something else there instead. Something just in between darkness and light. Something better, but worse all at the same time. As if there were a curtain he could simply draw back if he could only find the edge of it.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I struggled a lot with this chapter. And I'm still not completely satisfied. Anyway, sorry this took so long to get up. This story is turning out to be more of a challenge than I originally thought.
