“Where were you?”
“Out.” I tossed my bag onto the chair and went into the powder room to rinse my mouth and smooth my hair. I turned my face from side to side, trying to see if he would know I’d been with Esteban. Not sure I cared.
Niall was waiting for me in the kitchen. He’d helped himself to a glass of water and set one out for me. I sat, but didn’t pick up the water. He was wrong this time, I thought meanly. I wasn’t thirsty.
It didn’t make me feel any better.
“I just don’t understand why you got so upset,” Niall began, and I stopped him with a look.
“I don’t understand why you don’t understand.”
He looked mad then sad. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m really sorry. I’m trying to apologize.”
“You made me feel like shit. About us. About me,” I said. “You don’t understand why?”
“No. Not really. But I’m sorry I did.”
I shook my head. “How can you be sorry if you don’t really think you did something wrong?”
“I can be sorry I hurt you,” Niall said.
I started to cry again. No sobs. Just tears leaking hotly down my cheeks, myself incapable of holding them back. I sat in front of him and let him see me weep, not caring if I looked ugly, if he saw me breaking, if he saw by watching how much he’d made me come undone.
Because that was love, at least the only kind it seemed I’d ever have.
Niall reached for my hand, and I let him take it. “Let me make it up to you. Please?”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Dinner? Flowers? You name it,” he told me. “Whatever you want, whatever you like.”
“Would you let me tie you up? Blindfold you? Would you get on your knees for me, Niall, or let me dress you in lingerie or fuck you in the ass?” I took my hand from his and got up. My chair screeched on the linoleum. “Would you come for me, if I ask you to?”
“I don’t... Elise.” He shook his head, looking pained, lip a little curled.
“Because I like those things. A lot. I like to have a man on his knees for me, worshipping me, doing whatever I tell him to do. I like lingerie on men. Hard cocks in lace panties damp with precome, because he’s so fucking hard for me that not only would he come for me if I told him to, I wouldn’t have to fucking touch him.” The words tumbled out of me, cold and hard and somehow emotionless. I heard myself saying them, still felt the scald of tears on my face, but inside I felt...nothing. I’d gone numb.
Niall recoiled. “You want to know why I wouldn’t do it? Why I wouldn’t just come for you on command, like I was your lapdog?”
“Yes. I want to know why my asking you to give me something you seemed really eager to give me was such a huge, enormous deal. Tell me.”
“Because all I could think about was how many other guys you’d probably done the same thing with. Your lovers, whatever the hell you called them. All I could think about were those pictures of you, and how beautiful you looked in them, and how content, and how I was never going to be able to do any of that stuff for you. I was never going to be that guy, and I was never going to like that sort of thing, and how you were going to keep asking me to push my boundaries, and I didn’t want to do it. Okay? I didn’t want to try and measure up to something I just don’t have in me. I’m never going to make you happy, Elise. Not like that. If that’s what you need, I just can’t.”
“So then why bother?” I asked him. “Why fucking bother with the dinner and the flowers and all that other bullshit? If you really think you’ll never make me happy?”
He didn’t say anything, but that was exactly what I expected him to say.
“You want to know why you’ll never make me happy?” I didn’t want to look at his face, but I made myself stare him right in the eye. “Because you don’t know me.”
“I know you,” he said, but I cut him off with a shake of my head.
“You can’t possibly. If you’d ever listened to me, all along, you’d know. But I don’t think you’ve listened, Niall, because it’s obvious you believe there’s only one way for me to be, and it’s something you don’t want. Did it ever occur to you that there’s more to me than any one thing?”
Again, nothing.
“You’re so caught up in what you think I want that you have no idea who I am,” I told him. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that I love you, Niall.”
In Baltimore I’d told him I loved him, and he had not said it back. I’d taken a chance and said it again, and if that made me desperate and pathetic, well...if you can’t make yourself a fool for love, you don’t deserve to have it. I waited for him to answer me.
He stood. “I’ll just go.”
I’d jumped, but Niall did not catch me.
37
I told myself it was for the best. I’d already gone down the road with someone who would not give me what I wanted, and it had left me shattered. Better to end things now, I thought, before I got in too deep.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I told Evan, who’d only given me a look and hadn’t said anything at all about it. “Things end. It’s just what happens sometimes.”
“Shit, you got that right,” he said bitterly and dumped sugar in his coffee with such vehemence a bunch of it scattered across the table.
I added cream to mine, waiting patiently for the sugar he was abusing. “What’s going on?”
“I told her to get the fuck out,” my brother said quietly and far more calmly in tone than his words suggested he felt.
“Oh.” I stirred my coffee.
“She said you knew.”
My heart sank. “I’m sorry. I thought it was her place to tell you.”
“Yeah. I’m not...well, I am sort of pissed at you. I feel like an asshole. How long?” He sat back in the diner booth, his hair standing on end from where he’d run a hand through it over and over.
“I don’t know. And I didn’t know for a long time, Evan. I promise. I mean, I thought she was acting weird—”
“Yeah, right? Shit.” He shook his head. “I thought it was just stress about the Bar Mitzvah.”
“That might’ve been part of it. Did she say that?”
My brother hunched forward, both hands wrapped around his mug. “She said a lot of things. It doesn’t really matter. She’s in love with the other guy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We got married too young. Had a kid. I’d never have married her if not for William, you know. We weren’t really all that good together. I just thought it was the right thing to do. And then after a while it’s so much easier to be with someone than it is to even think about trying to start all over. At least, that’s what I thought. I guess she didn’t.”
“How’s William?”
“He’s okay, actually. He joined the cross-country team and got a part in the school play. Keeps him busy after school pretty much every day. And maybe it’ll be good for him, get his mind off it. Gives Susan time to look for a place. We’ll have to refinance, get a home equity loan so I can buy her out. It’s going to fuck us financially.”
I winced. “Ouch. I’m sorry.”
“Hey. Better now than in ten years. Or twenty. I’m trying to look at it practically.” My brother cut a square of his chicken parmesan and chewed.
I poked at my cheese omelet, but didn’t feel like eating it. “What did Mom say about it? Jill?”
“Jill was a dick about it, of course. Mom was more understanding. She said Susan was a good mother and she’d be sure to do the best thing for William, and that’s all that mattered. I didn’t tell either one of them about the other guy, though.”
“Probably better not to. How are you about that?”
Evan scowled. “Well. I don’t like it, that’s for sure. But let’s face it. Another guy wasn’t the real problem. Happy people don’t cheat. She wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. Maybe we both have a chance to you know, get happy.”
“You’re a lot more understandin
g about it than I would be.”
He laughed. “I punched a hole in the wall in the den when I found out.”
“No way!” I gaped.
He nodded. Then looked sad. “It nearly fucking broke my hand. Didn’t make me feel any better, and it cost me a hundred and some change to fix it.”
“Moral lesson, don’t punch a wall. Got it.” I gave him a sympathetic smile. “You sure you’re not mad at me for not telling?”
“Would it have made it any better?”
“I don’t know. You might’ve found out a little sooner.”
“She’d have lied about it. She flat-out told me so. Then it would’ve been ugly between you and me. Nah, it’s okay. Susan told me what you said to her, about how she needed to get her act together. She said it was why she came clean.” Evan cut another piece of chicken and chewed slowly. When he opened his mouth to show me the disgusting mess inside his mouth, I knew he was going to be okay.
“You’re such a pig.”
Evan grinned. “Love you, sis. It’s going to be okay. One way or another.”
I nodded, hating the tears threatening again and forcing them away. “Yep. One way or another, everything always is.”
38
It had been a long-standing summer tradition for me to take William to as many street fairs and carnivals as we could find over the summer, but so far we hadn’t managed to get to even one. When I heard about this fall’s Fireman’s Carnival in Mechanicsburg, I knew I had to take him.
I’d asked him if he wanted to invite any friends along, but he hadn’t, so it was the two of us stuffing our faces with funnel cakes and curly fries. I bought him an all-day ride bracelet, but I refused to go on the creaking, twirling monstrosity that looked like it was held together with an old carny’s beard hairs and some spit.
“I’ll go in the haunted house, if you want. Or that Crazy Maze. But that vomitron? Nope. Text me when you’re done. I’ll come get you.”
It didn’t take him much more convincing than that before he was off and waiting in line. I fended off the game operators trying to get me to try my hand at popping balloons or squirting streams of water into scary clown mouths for a chance to win shoddy stuffed animals or square mirrors painted with skewed designs of bands kids at the carnival probably didn’t even know. As much as I might’ve had a hankering for a red-and-white AC/DC mirror, though, I shook my head and kept walking. After an oversize limeade, I needed the bathroom in the worst way. Thanking the goddesses of tiny bladders, I found the restroom in the back of the fairground’s main building, not far from where I’d left William.
The line for the women’s room was long but moved fast, and I came out a different door than I’d used to go in. Conveniently located near the milk shake stand, I noticed, and knew I should pass it up the same way I knew I was going to indulge in a chocolate treat because fuck calories. Chocolate.
The milk shake stand was near the kiddie ride area, set away from the bigger rides William had been going on. A tiny train on a bumpy track. A mini carousel. Lots of things that go around in a circle and make noise if you push the buttons in the elephant or car or airplane or whatever it is your kid decided to ride in. William had loved rides like that, and I had a nostalgic pang for the days when ten bucks had been enough to keep him occupied for as long as we could stand to stay at a carnival.
I didn’t notice Esteban right away. Why would I? Out of the context of our usual meetings, he didn’t look at all the same. He wore khaki shorts and a polo shirt and sandals, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. He looked every inch the suburban dad.
Because, I realized, that’s exactly what he was.
He had a little girl by one hand, and there was no doubting she belonged to him. Her curly black pigtails, her tiny round face, her chubby little feet in plastic sandals all killed me with the cuteness. He was bent to listen to something she was saying as she pointed toward one of the rides. He didn’t see me.
The woman next to him did, though. She wore a flowing maxi dress that couldn’t hide the softness of her belly or size of her boobs. The baby in her arms was the obvious reason for both as well as the tiredness around her eyes, but she was laughing at the baby trying to pull down her elastic top. She was beautiful. She caught me looking and smiled. She had no idea who I was, for which I was supremely grateful.
I didn’t want him to see me. I would lose my place in line if I ducked away now, but the milk shake no longer appealed to me. To get through the crowd I would have to push past him and his family, though. To go the other way meant elbowing my way through a pack of shoving preteens. And, as is the way with most things, while I hesitated, it became too late to do anything.
His gaze caught mine. We stood and stared, no more than an arm’s length apart. I froze, desperately trying to keep a neutral face. Give nothing away.
Esteban smiled at me. Tiny, secret, brief as a blink, but it was there. Then he was bending again, this time to pick up his daughter and carry her toward the carousel. He didn’t look back but that was all right. He’d shown me he still knew me, and that was enough.
39
The brown paper bag hit my desk with a soft thump. I looked up. Alex held two oversize paper cups with steam curling from the holes in the lids.
“I added Baileys Mint,” he said.
I sat back in my chair. “It’s ten in the morning.”
“And?” Alex took the chair across from my desk and thumped my coffee down in front of me. “You look like you could use it.”
“I have work to do, Alex.”
He grinned. “I could fire you. Then you’d have no work to do, and you could sit here and drink boozed-up coffee with me and eat those pastries and tell me all about what the hell crawled up your ass and died.”
“You can’t fire me,” I said as I opened the paper bag and peeked inside, “and fuck you.”
“So hostile.” He pretended to look upset, but then propped his feet on the desk and rocked back. He lifted the coffee. “Here’s to you and me, may we never disagree. And if we do, fuck you, here’s to me.”
I laughed.
It had been days since I’d done so much as crack a smile, so the laughter croaked out of me like a rusty robot grinding its gears. It sounded quite a bit like sobbing. It sounded a little like screaming, too.
Alex watched me in silence for a moment before putting his feet down and coming around the desk to put his arms around me. I didn’t want him to hug me. Yet I found myself with my face pressed to his warm, broad chest, the subtle scent of his cologne surrounding me, and the steady beat of his heart against my cheek soothing me despite my unwillingness to be comforted.
I didn’t cry, not with tears. I did silence myself, though, the sharp, ragged edges of my sobbing laughter easing into nothing. He let go of me after a minute or so and stepped back to look at me.
“Drink the coffee,” he said. “Eat a pastry. And tell me what’s going on.”
I hadn’t laughed in a few days; I hadn’t eaten more than a few saltines or pretzels in a bit longer than that. After leaving the carnival I’d told myself it was bad carnival food, but I knew it was really just my heart twisting up my stomach. My stomach churned at the thought of food, but as soon as I caught a whiff of the sweet, caramel-topped pastry, my mouth watered. Just like my head and heart, my body was at war with itself. I pulled out the pastries and set them out on the paper napkins also in the bag. I pushed one toward Alex, who’d taken his seat again. I felt him staring at me, but didn’t look at him until I’d pulled my pastry apart into small pieces and taken a sip of the minty, boozy coffee.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“Too bad.”
I frowned and nibbled on sugary goodness. Flavor exploded in my mouth, and my stomach settled at once. I tried not to gobble the rest of it. Discipline. Self-control. My old friends.
“It’s personal,” I said.
Alex snorted. “Yeah? And?”
“And this is where I wo
rk. You’re my partner.” I sipped more coffee, letting the warmth roll through me.
“I thought I was also your friend.” He tipped his cup in my direction. He waited. Alex could be very patient when he wanted to be.
“I broke up with my... He was... Well... Whatever he was, we broke up.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I said sourly.
Alex laughed. I should’ve been pissed off that he was making fun of me, but I couldn’t really blame him. It was stupid. Everything about my relationship with Niall had been stupid.
“Your lovah?”
“I broke up with him, too.”
Alex’s laughter faded. “Shit.”
I shrugged. “It happens.”
“No wonder you’ve been looking like that.” He shook his head. “Shit, Elise. I’m sorry.”
“It happens,” I repeated. The booze had started to make me a little swimmy. So had the sugar.
Alex reached for his pastry and took a big bite. He chewed solemnly and swallowed, then drank some coffee. “It was the guy who came to see the acrobats with us, right? The one who works with your brother. The guy who took you to Baltimore.”
I paused to give him a look. “Stalker?”
“You talk on the phone in a very loud voice,” Alex told me. “What, can I help overhearing?”
I toyed with the crumbs of my pastry then licked a finger. “Yeah. That guy. He wasn’t my boyfriend.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want a boyfriend? He didn’t want a girlfriend? Why is anyone anything to anyone these days?” I curled my lip.
Alex frowned, his brow furrowed. “Yeah. Well. I know what you mean.”
“Says the happily married man.”
He laughed shortly. “Who was an asshole bachelor forever before that.”
I’d met Alex through his wife, so I’d never known either of them before they were married. In truth, I had no idea how long they’d been together, only that they were one of the best-matched couples I’d ever met. Not because they were “perfect”—but somehow, they were perfect for each other.