“I can’t come for a holiday. Not if—”
“I know. Not if Chris is here.”
I relax into Sabin’s comfort. I know that I’m going to need it in a minute. In the way that Chris was able to stabilize me in the past, Sabin is going to have to stabilize me now because I’m about to ask him what I don’t want to hear, but what I need to hear. “Chris is staying in town, isn’t he?”
Sabin pauses and then nods again. “Yeah, sweetie.”
“And there’s more, isn’t there?”
“There is.”
I don’t say anything for a minute. “They’re sleeping together, aren’t they?”
“Oh, I have no idea. But, Blythe …” He starts to say something else and then stops.
“What are you talking about?” And then I know. The horrible understanding falls into place for me. He doesn’t have to tell me because I know. I can feel it. “Oh God, Sabin, no.” I shut my eyes and let the tears fall. I hold on tightly. It’s worse than I thought. “Please tell me no. He can’t do this.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“When?”
“Not until next June.”
Chris is getting married.
The phrase repeats in my head until it seems like I’m shouting it at myself. I feel numb. How is this possible? I thought he was just like me.
I thought the only marriage proposal he’d ever make would be a drunk one, on a rooftop, holding a wedge of lime.
I thought neither of us would ever chase after tradition for the sake of tradition.
I thought our being together would be a slow build.
I thought we would find our way into a love with no return.
I thought that we were an absolute.
Sabin rubs my back and lets my tears fall over his jacket. “Maybe you can stop him.”
“No, I can’t. Even if I could, I don’t want to have to stop him.”
***
I am numb as we wrap up the evening. By the time I’m back in my dorm room, I’ve decided that I want away from Matthews, away from Chris, and away from all the pain that’s here. If I can just get through the next thirty-six hours, I’ll be fine. I will. I can do this.
It’s just fucking heartbreak, that’s all.
Determined to avoid acting pitiful, I take my dirty clothes down to the laundry room in the dorm basement and load them into the machines. I sit on the hard counter and stare at the wash cycle. Spin. Yeah, I am definitely spinning. The room is empty, and it’s probably the quietest place on campus since everyone else is out partying before graduation tomorrow. One in the morning is not a popular time to go stain-free apparently, but that’s good because I don’t want to see anyone. That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t give a shit about going home with dirty laundry, but sitting in my room with all its packed-up boxes is depressing. I already miss Neon Jesus.
Of all the people whom I do not want to see, Chris tops the list. So when he walks into the laundry room, I immediately white-knuckle the edge of the countertop.
He sets his laundry on top of a washer. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Chris leans against the machine. As much as I don’t want to look at him, I can’t help myself. Maybe it’s only been a few months that we’ve been distant, but it seems an eternity since I’ve had the opportunity, forced or not, to see how painfully intoxicating he is. It perplexes me that he isn’t hounded by women at every turn, because he’s that intensely attractive to me. I don’t notice anyone else. Even the resentment and bitterness at the forefront of my thinking cannot put a dent in how desirable he is to me in every way.
This is one of the last times that I’ll see him, I realize. I won’t get to see him brush his black hair away from those green eyes, I won’t get to see how his shirts always cling so perfectly to his body, and I won’t be on the receiving end of that half smile that infuses my world with so much.
We sit there for a long time; the background noise from the machines is the only thing protecting us at all from the paralyzing tension.
Finally he breaks the silence. “I talked to Sabin.” He blows the hair from his eyes. “He told you.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Blythe …”
“No. No, shut up, Chris.” I feel myself shift gears to a place where I cannot control my rage and my pain. “Just shut the fuck up. Did you think that I’d congratulate you? Yeah, I’m supposed to, I know that. How can I? Jesus, Christopher. What have you done? My, God, what have you done to us?”
“I was going to tell you myself, but—”
“But what?” I spit out. I slide from the counter and continue to explode. “Who the fuck decides to get married after a few months? At our age? There is so much time left to decide … to make these kinds of promises later. Why now? Chris, why now? You didn’t even want a girlfriend, much less a wife! And … and … and now you’re engaged? Why didn’t you just tell me that you didn’t want me? That would have been fair. This? This shit is not fair. You know goddamn well how I feel about you, Christopher.”
He doesn’t take his eyes from me, and he lets me unleash all of my hurt.
“Does this all make me sick? Yes. Does the thought of you touching her the way you touched me fucking tear me apart? Yes. But, for the record, am I jealous? No. This is not jealousy. I don’t want what you have with her. I would never want something like that with you. And fuck you, no, I’m not going to say her fucking name.” I am crying freely now with no pretense that I can hold it together. “I want what we started to have. What we could have. I mean, am I crazy? Did I really make that all up?” I look at him and shake my head. I start to calm down because I recognize something in him. Something I saw during our last night at the hotel. “No. I didn’t. I can see that … I know you, Chris, and I know that you felt what I did, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
I’m right. He fell for me as I fell for him. It’s a fucking hollow victory if ever there was one.
“But I can’t hate you, because you saved me. Without you, I’d still be a walking zombie. Being with you let me …” I look around the room trying to figure out a way to say what I want. Wading through words in my emotional state is nearly impossible. I have next to no idea if I’m making any sense, if I’m reaching him in any capacity, but I need to empty myself of this so that I can go on. “Being with you let me feel, feel everything, and I needed that. I remembered better with you, I healed better with you, and you made … you made everything real.”
I stop. Now I really understand.
“And that’s why you can’t ever be with me, isn’t it? I make everything too real for you. She doesn’t do that. She lets you push away what you want to forget. She makes it safe in the way that you need it to be. You clearly need to trick yourself into … I don’t know …” I am trying so hard not to go to pieces, but it’s a losing battle. “You need to feel normal, whatever that means. Lying to yourself? It’s like what James did. It will catch up with you. It will. I wish I could hate you because that would be easier. But I can’t. I understand that you have to do whatever you can to get through … through whatever happened. Even though I don’t know exactly what that is.”
He cuts me off. “That doesn’t matter. That part of my life is over. I will not look back.” Although his voice is firm, he is infuriatingly as calm as ever, while I am anything but.
“See? That’s exactly what I mean. You feel with me, the same way that I do with you. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true. From the moment I saw you by the lake, you did something to me. You … moved me. And when you put your hands on me that day, you infiltrated every part of who I am, and we belonged to each other. Whether you want that or not. And when we were … when you and I were in bed, Chris … that last night … I could feel you, everything about you. That’s what you don’t want. I get how it feels when it’s too much. I couldn’t handle it then either, but I was willing to wait. We shouldn’t have slept together. It was the worst thing we could have done. That’s my fault, though. I take that responsibility.”