Left Drowning

  “Dude, what the hell? We’ll eat pizza in a little bit. The lady is still currently an iceberg. Calm down.” Sabin frowns at him.

  Then Zach stops walking. He’s less bouncy now. “Sabe …” He tips his head back just the slightest bit. “It’s just that …” Zach looks at me.

  “Oh fuck,” Sabin says under his breath.

  I follow Sabin’s gaze. Immediately, I know that this is the moment I will remember as the first time I felt very real and very painful heartbreak.

  Everyone is still sitting in their seats at the table, but there is now someone else there, too. She is standing behind Chris, her hands rubbing his shoulders. For a second, I try to tell myself that I’m seeing something other than what I am. But when she tilts his head back and kisses him on the mouth briefly, there is no point. He does do a quick scan for me, but he doesn’t spot me through the crowd. I can tell he’s uncomfortable, but I don’t give a shit.

  “Blythe.” Zach touches my arm.

  “Who is she?” I ask softly.

  Neither of them says anything. I turn my back on the view. I cannot look at this.

  Sabin turns and throws the cups from his hands into the trash can. He takes the two I am holding and does the same. “Zach, get her coat. Let’s go.”

  I look at Sabin. “Who is she, Sabin? Who is she?”

  “Don’t cry,” he says. “Please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not going to cry, I just want to know who the fuck she is.”

  Sabin starts walking me to the door, and his hand on my back is the only reason I am able to find the exit. “Just hold on, baby girl.”

  He tries to get me to wait in the entryway, under the blasting heaters, but I push into the snowstorm. Better to freeze out here than share the air in there with her. “Jesus, Blythe! Stop!”

  I am running through the snow with Sabin falling farther behind with each step. I want my room, my bed. I want away. Zach appears and forces my hat on my head and my coat over my shoulders while Sabin swears up and down. When we get to my dorm, I shake off my coat, locate my key in the pocket, and fumble hopelessly with the lock. Sabin tries to take it from me, but I shove his arm away. “I can open the fucking door by myself!”

  It takes a minute, but I do. They follow me silently to my room, and I can practically hear them flinch when I hurl the keys across the room and they hit the wall. I sit on the bed and take off my sopping wet shoes. Then I throw them one at a time at the same wall.

  “You could have at least aimed for Neon Jesus,” Sabin whispers.

  “Shut up. You’re lucky my hands are empty now.” I take a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Throw whatever you want,” he says.

  Zach sits down next to me, and Sabin squats in front of me. I can’t look at either of them.

  “Will you two just go, please?”

  “No,” Zach says. “We’re not leaving.”

  “Please go. I’m embarrassed enough.” I look at Sabin. “Please, Sabin.” The more I talk, the more difficult it is to control my voice. I do not want to fall apart.

  Neither of them say anything for a minute, and I’m hoping they’ll give up.

  “Blythe, I’m so sorry.” Sabin takes my hand.

  I look up at him and feel my eyes sting. Fuck. “How long?”

  The pause before he answers me is excruciating. “Since a few weeks … after.”

  “A few weeks after we got back to school?” I wipe my face with my sweatshirt. “Have you known the whole time?”

  “B., we didn’t know how to tell you …”

  “No, no, it’s okay.” I shake my head. “And it’s fine. I’m fine. Really.” I stand up and step around Sabin. I locate my sneakers and calmly go and set them on the heater, keeping my back to the boys as I look out the window and start babbling. “These are going to take forever to dry out. I might have to use my backup pair if I want to run tomorrow morning. I’ll have to get up early because I still don’t have that statistics stuff down, and I also have about a million chapters left to read for lit class. Actually, I should get to sleep if I’m going to get up early.”

  “It’s six o’clock,” Zach points out.

  We’re all quiet again, until I finally turn around and crumble.

  “Sabe …”

  My friend lets me fall into his arms, and he strokes my hair and tells me over and over that it’s going to be all right. “She’s just some stupid girl, Blythe. She’s not you.”

  “He doesn’t want me.” I keep my face pressed into him, hiding my eyes under the flap of his leather jacket. “But I can’t be upset because we agreed we weren’t going to be anything else. I just thought that later … we would. I’m just so messed up still.”

  “Chris is the one who is messed up.” Sabin holds me tighter. He is my rock right now.

  “He said … he said he didn’t want a girlfriend. Sabin, that’s what he said.” I lift my head, and Sabin rubs his thumbs under my eyes. “She’s not just some girl. She’s his girlfriend, isn’t she?”

  He doesn’t need to answer me.

  I step away and go to the sink to wash my face. “What’s her name?”

  “Jennifer.”

  “I assume she’s nice?”

  They don’t say anything.

  I throw water over my eyes and pat my face dry with a towel. My bed is screaming my name, so I crawl past Zach and lie down. “You can say she’s nice. It’s okay.”

  Zach lies down next to me. “She’s fine. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her.”

  “There is too something wrong with her.” Sabin lies down on my other side. “She’s boring as shit.”

  Zach laughs. “Well, there is that.”

  “Good.” I sniff and stare at the ceiling. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Chris tell me? Don’t answer that. I know why. Because you all think that I’m so fucking fragile, and I’ll come completely unglued again.”

  “No. Because we were hoping she wouldn’t be around for very long,” Sabin says.

  “But she’s still around.” I fight back tears. “Is he sleeping with her? Forget it. I don’t want to know. It’s none of my business anyway.”

  “He’s not, if that’s any comfort,” Sabin says quickly. “It’s not going to last, B. It’s not. She’s not enough for him.”

  “Neither was I.”

  “No, no, sweet girl. Don’t you get it? You were too much for him.” I realize that Sabin has said exactly what Chris said that night in my room when he left so suddenly.

  “I was fine. I swear to God I was. I wasn’t ready for anything either, but I didn’t think that …” I don’t even know how to finish this sentence.

  Sabin does. “That he’d run out and do something so stupid and thoughtless.” He scratches his unshaven face and smiles at me. “I’m telling you, I promise you, this won’t last. It’s not like he’s going to get married or anything.”

  There is a knock at the door and my stomach knots. “No,” I whisper adamantly. “No.” I do not want to see Chris now.

  Sabin nods. “I got it.” He’s off the bed in a flash. The last thing I hear him say as he storms out into the hallway and slams the door behind him is “Are you fucking kidding me, Chris? C’mon, man, you gotta get the hell out of here. Give her a goddamn minute, okay?”

  I hear their footsteps retreat down the hall. The room feels emptier without Sabin in it.

  I don’t cry again, which is good. “Zach …”

  “I know. This was not supposed to happen.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  I’m so stupid. I guess that it was really just sex between us. The friendship part, I know that was real, but the other stuff? I must have been the only one who felt it. There is no deeper connection between us, no larger reason for our scars, no epic romance that has yet to unfold.

  Except I don’t believe that. I should, based on what Chris is doing, but I don’t. My heart is screaming something else. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.
>
  Zach sits up and looks around the empty room. “Take it from someone who is also in love with a Shepherd brother. They are easy boys to fall in love with, but hard to really, really hold on to.”

  “Eric adores you.”

  Zach nods. “And Chris adores you. That’s easy to see. He does. But people like Eric and Chris? Having a relationship, trusting in that? It’s a lot harder for them than it is for most of us. You can imagine, I think, Blythe. Chris just wants safe and easy right now. It’s because he loves the hell out of you that he’s running.”

  I think about Chris’s scars and what kind of harm could have possibly caused them. And I say something that makes me sick to my stomach. “I think Chris got the worst of it.”

  “Yes,” Zach says. “I think you’re right.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  One for No, Two for Yes

  Late March sucks. The only good thing is that my preferred running weather is finally here, because the daytime temps are sometimes reaching the mid-fifties. Being able to run outside again is a godsend. That said, I’m not fucking happy. No, I’m not in the depressive fog that fell over me after the incident at the union, but I’m not exactly cheerful, either. I miss the hell out of Chris.

  Sabin was wrong. Chris is still with Jennifer, and I do everything that I can to avoid him and especially to avoid seeing them together. It’s as though we got divorced and have shared custody of his siblings and Zach. We just can’t be around each other. I’m sure it’s made him uncomfortable the few times that we’ve all been together because I can’t act like nothing is wrong. It takes all my energy to smile and make friendly chitchat. I chose not to sit with him and the others at Sabin’s play last week. It was too hard. The best I can say is that so far I have managed to avoid being introduced to her. As far as she knows, I probably don’t exist, and I prefer it that way. I keep as far away from Jennifer as possible. Even from a distance, though, I know that she’s pretty, but not too pretty, which makes things worse. I can’t even tell myself that he’s just fucking some hot piece of ass in a meaningless college-boy kind of way.

  I don’t discuss the Chris-Jennifer situation with anyone. Estelle is praying for me, and for Chris and me, and while I was tempted to roll my eyes when she told me, I couldn’t. It’s not often that Estelle is straightforwardly sincere. The boys don’t broach the issue with me. There’s really nothing to say. Sabin hovers more than he needs to, but I appreciate it.

  I take comfort in the fact that none of them seem particularly enthused by Chris’s new relationship. I gather they are polite, but they don’t include her in their group. Eric conceded that she doesn’t fit the way that I do. Or did, I guess. The short period of time that I had with all of them, when things felt perfect and safe, is over. It’s not the same now that Chris and I are barely speaking.

  Despite my earlier insistence that I wasn’t ready for something serious with Chris, I’m not showing signs of being the opposite of that with other guys. I never feel like flirting with anyone, and I haven’t even gone on any dates. I am more social than I’ve been before while attending Matthews, meaning that I actually talk to other people and study with small groups outside of the Shepherd crew, but I am not attracted to anyone. I wasn’t ready for Chris, but what’s clear now is that I don’t want anyone else. For him, that’s obviously not the case.

  After Sabin turned Chris away from my door right after the episode at the union, Chris tried talking to me one more time. He came to my room, and I opened the door, but before he could even say a word, I shut it in his face. I don’t hate him; I never could, but I sure as shit don’t want to talk to him right now. It’s brutal to go from what we had to this. My heart fucking hurts all the time. Although I want him back with me, I am not going to throw myself at him, or beg, or otherwise make an ass out of myself.

  At least planning for graduation is offering some distraction. Annie is coming to Madison for the ceremony, and I cannot wait. Not only that, but I asked her if she would help me move back to Boston and stay with me for a while. I thought she’d turn down such an enormous request, but to my surprise she jumped at the chance. Her marriage broke up a few years ago, she has no children, and she said this is the perfect reason to take a much-needed break. She’s stopped practicing as an attorney full-time and instead does a lot of consulting from her Chicago home, so it’s fairly easy for her to travel when she wants. The truth is that I’m going to need help leaving Matthews and settling in back home, and I’m proud that I got myself to directly ask for help. Annie is proof that sometimes relationships can fall apart and be rebuilt, so I cling to that.

  And I run. Every day, no matter how much I don’t want to, I run because of that hope.

  I am barely past campus grounds on my Saturday morning run when my feelings start to boil over.

  Fuck everything.

  I am going to run until I puke.

  I am going to get that magazine internship that I applied for.

  I am going to hang out with Nichole this summer.

  I am going to let Annie mother the shit out of me.

  I am going to ask—no, insist— that James come to my graduation.

  Chris can go fuck himself.

  Naturally, it’s at this moment that Chris’s truck turns the corner and pulls alongside me. I glance to my left as Estelle waves from the passenger seat. I avoid looking at Chris. I don’t realize that Sabin and Eric are riding in the bed of the truck, sitting on milk crates, until Sabin yells to me. Chris drives ahead so that I am running behind the truck.

  Sabin sticks out his tongue at me and grins. I stick out my tongue back, but I am not in a smiling mood. I wait for Chris to step on the gas and put distance between us, but Sabin slaps the side of the truck. “Slow down, Chris! We got ourselves a live one!” He lifts his guitar and rests it on his knee while he strums and looks at me.

  I give him the nastiest look possible. My music is not up loud enough to block out his booming voice, and I promise myself that from now on I will crank the shit out of my playlists.

  Eric is yelling at me, but his voice doesn’t have nearly the obnoxious power Sabin’s does. I remove my earphones. “What are you guys doing? I’m kind of busy.”

  “I know.” Eric leans in and says something to Sabe and then he holds up his arm and points to his watch.

  “What?” I really wish they’d get the fuck out of here.

  Sabin keeps strumming his guitar. “Eric tells me that you’re training for a half marathon.”

  “No, I am not.” Eric is going to be in deep shit. Yes, he has brought up the idea of a 10K, but that’s only a little over six miles. I cannot run a half marathon. That’s over thirteen fucking miles.

  “I told them that you could run a half marathon at a standard marathon-qualifying time!” Eric shouts. His unreasonable exuberance grates on me. “One hour and twenty-seven minutes.”

  Sabin leans off the side of the truck bed and calls out to Chris. “Stay with her, Chris. We’re going to clock her mileage.”

  “Go to hell!” Not only can I not run a half marathon, but I am obviously not ever going to run a full marathon. I can’t stop myself from glancing at Chris in the driver-side mirror. We make eye contact for a fraction of a second, and even that is more than I can take. I put my earphones back in and jack up the volume. I refuse to have a yelling conversation with these lunatics, and I’m not in the mood to run behind the truck. And what are they all doing out so early in the morning together anyway? Damn bad luck for me that they happened to find me.

  Unless Eric organized this. Damn him.

  I keep my head down and do what I can to ignore them until they go away. What I’m not prepared for is that Eric seems to know my route, so just before I make a turn, I see him yell up to Chris, directing him where to go. Although I hate deviating from my routine, when we hit the end of the road that leads to the lake, I go right instead of left. Chris has already gone left, so I’m free.

  Until I hear his truck peel back
a few yards before he bangs out a U-turn.

  “Fucking asshole,” I mutter. I keep my eyes on the road and just run, not even flinching when his truck pulls in front of me again. Sabin and Eric are cheering and clapping, and I can’t help but crack a smile. They are ridiculous. I give in and accept that they are here for the duration of my run. At least I don’t have Chris in that truck bed facing me, too. Presumably his eyes are on the road. Eventually I circle back and pick up my favorite route.

  Goddamn if Chris doesn’t keep the truck fifteen feet in front of me at all times, even waving the occasional car to go by us. I feel incredibly stupid, but I maintain my normal pace. Twenty minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I catch Zach waving wildly to signal me. I look up and see him shaking his head. He cups his hands and yells at me.

  Annoyed, I take out my earphones again. “What?” I yell, not hiding my aggravation.

  ”You’re too slow,” he calls out. “You’re way, way too slow.”

  “Too slow for what?”

  “If you’re going to run this half marathon, you better hurry up.”

  “I told you I’m slow! Stop saying the word marathon! Go away.”

  Back to the music. But my fucking phone is dead. I can’t believe this. This has never happened. I have never run without music, and I can’t. Without the sound and the mood … Music blocks out everything: ankle pain, shaky legs, the cold, and most importantly, it prevents my mind from taking over. I start to walk. Within seconds Sabin is banging on the truck again, and Chris screeches to a halt.

  “What are you doing?” Sabin looks unreasonably upset.

  I catch my breath and hold up my phone. “Dead.”

  He holds his hands out at his sides. “So what? Just run, baby!”

  I can hear Chris all too well when he leans out the window. He looks right at me. “She can’t run without music.”

  I hate that he knows me this well. I fucking hate it. And I fucking hate how much it hurts to look at him.

  And then there is music blaring from his truck. I’m going to murder him. I walk faster and reach the back of the truck. “Can you please go home now, all of you, and leave me the fuck alone?” My voice is cracking, and my throat is tight.