“So what if I am?” Lauren blurted out. She didn’t even know if there was any truth to what Jenn said, but she suddenly felt extremely defensive.
“You’re really asking me that?” Jenn said, her voice incredulous. “After what he did to you? I can’t believe you’d be this stupid!”
Lauren ripped the phone from her ear and ended the call, slamming it down onto the counter. She didn’t want to hear anymore. The absolute last thing she needed right now was to be scolded like a child.
The phone rang again, and she lunged forward, swiping it from the counter.
“What?” she shouted.
“Whoa. Is this a bad time?”
Lauren dropped her head and exhaled heavily.
“Sorry,” she said, bringing her hand to her forehead. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Well shit,” Michael said with a laugh. “I’m glad I’m not whoever you were expecting.”
Lauren sighed, trying to regain her composure.
“Hey,” he said, his voice turning serious. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.”
When Lauren didn’t respond, Michael asked, “Are you home?”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Lauren whipped her head up. “No, no, don’t do that.”
But he’d already hung up.
She stared at the phone for a second before she dropped her head back, her arms falling limply to her sides. “Fantastic,” she exhaled at the ceiling.
She tossed her phone onto the counter, vowing to never answer it again for as long as she lived, and then she padded across the kitchen and opened her refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of Kendall Jackson.
She poured herself a glass, holding it up in a one-sided toast. “To complete and utter dysfunction,” she said, taking almost half of it down.
By the time there was a knock on her door, Lauren was already on her second glass.
“Come in,” she called from where she sat on the living room floor.
She heard the door open, and she turned her head to see him standing in the entryway.
“You didn’t have to come here.”
“I know that,” he said, removing his jacket.
Lauren nodded, looking down to run her finger along the top of her wine glass. “Where’s Erin?”
“She ditched me tonight,” he said, laying his jacket over a chair before he walked into the living room. “She’s having a girls’ night with our neighbor.”
“That’s sweet,” Lauren said. “I didn’t know you had a little girl next door.”
Michael laughed. “Little girl? Mrs. Brigante is sixty years old. Apparently girls’ nights have no age restrictions. But still, no boys allowed.”
Lauren laughed, taking another sip of wine.
“So, whatever it is, it must be pretty bad if you’re drinking alone.”
Lauren shrugged. “Well then go get a glass and make me a little less pathetic.”
He smiled down at her sympathetically, and then he turned and made his way into the kitchen. She heard him opening cabinets until he found the right one, and then he walked back into the living room and sat on the floor next to her with his back up against the couch.
Lauren leaned over and grabbed the bottle, pouring some into his glass. For a minute, they just sat next to each other in silence.
Then Lauren said, “This is oddly familiar. Only it used to be whiskey.”
Michael smiled. “And it used to be straight out of the bottle. We’ve classed it up a bit, apparently.”
Lauren laughed. “And it used to be you that was being consoled.”
“Yeah, well. That’s because I was always the fuck-up.”
“No, it was because you always dated whores.”
Michael smiled half-heartedly, looking down at his glass. “Not all of them were.”
She turned her head to look at him, realizing how offensive that last comment must have been. One of those women had been the mother of his child.
“Will you tell me about Erin’s mom?” she asked softly.
Michael licked his lips, his eyes still on his glass. “There’s not that much to tell. Her name’s Samantha. I met her at a party. She was a friend of a friend and we just…clicked,” he said, lifting his glass and taking a long sip.
When he didn’t continue, Lauren said, “So what happened?”
He turned toward her with his brow quirked. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you?”
When Lauren just looked at him expectantly, he sighed.
“We were dating for about six months before she got pregnant. She was twenty-one at the time, and she didn’t want to keep it.” Michael raked his teeth over his bottom lip before he said, “But I convinced her to. I didn’t need something else to regret. I was twenty-four years old. Definitely old enough to face the consequences of my actions instead of taking the easy way out.”
Lauren kept her eyes on him as she took another sip of her wine.
“Obviously, she agreed to keep the baby,” he said, playing with the stem of his glass. “But that was the beginning of the end for us. I think she resented me for convincing her.”
He took another long sip before he said, “A few months later, she tells me that she’s getting back with her ex. I guess they’d rekindled their relationship while ours was going down the shitter.”
Lauren frowned, and Michael looked over at her.
“He didn’t want another man’s baby. Of course he didn’t,” he said with a hollow laugh. “I know all too well how that story ends.”
Lauren dropped her eyes, chewing on the inside of her lip.
“She tried to get an abortion, but no doctor would do it that far along in her pregnancy. So she had the baby, and she gave her to me. Signed over her rights in the hospital.”
Then he tilted his head back, draining the last of his wine before he reached for the bottle and filled his glass again.
Lauren stared at him, her throat suddenly feeling tight. She pictured him at twenty-four years old, coming home with a newborn, completely alone. No wife, no girlfriend, not even his mother to turn to for guidance. Going strictly by doctors’ advice and parenting books.
Her heart felt like it was breaking in her chest.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt it harden.
“Did you love her?”
Michael looked up at her. “Samantha?”
Lauren nodded.
He sighed. “Yeah. In my own way, I did. Or at least I thought I did. But after she left Erin, I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
Lauren pursed her lips, nodding slowly as she looked down. He loved Samantha. He gave himself to girls like that all the time.
But he’d walked away from her.
And suddenly, it was as raw as if it had happened yesterday.
Without warning, everything she’d been bottling for years came rushing to the surface.
She was furious.
Furious that she couldn’t have a real relationship because of him. Furious that she’d gotten in a fight with her best friend because of him. Furious that Jenn was right, that she probably just ruined another good thing because of her goddamn feelings for him.
And it wasn’t about closure. It wasn’t about answers. It wasn’t about getting her friend back.
It was about finally getting to stand up for herself, after all this time.
“You loved her,” she said. “She was a shitty person, and you loved her.”
He kept his eyes straight ahead, but Lauren watched his shoulders rise as he inhaled a deep breath.
“You did it over and over,” she said with paper-thin restraint. “Gave your heart to these worthless girls.” She took a breath before she said the words she’d been waiting almost nine years to say. “So what was wrong with me?”
Michael closed his eyes and dropped his head, nodding slowly. “You know, for the past few months, I’ve been going b
ack and forth between wishing we could just have this conversation and praying we never would.”
“What was wrong with me, Michael? Why did you walk away from me like that?”
She watched him put his glass of wine on the floor before pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbing roughly.
“Tell me why.”
He slid his hands down his face. “We were friends, Lauren—”
“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” she snapped, cutting him off. He turned his head and looked up at her, startled. “We’re both adults now. You knew it was more than friendship for me. You knew I was in love with you. Anyone with eyes could see that I was.”
He looked away from her, and she could feel herself losing the hold on what little composure she had as she pushed off the floor and stood over him.
“That last day? When we were together?” she said, her voice shaking. “It was more than friendship for you too then. Even if it was just for that moment. Don’t even try to tell me it wasn’t.”
She saw a tiny muscle flex in the side of his jaw, but he still wouldn’t look at her.
“How could you just walk away like that?” she demanded. “After everything we were to each other? Why would you do that to me?”
She thought of them together in that bed. Her first time.
“I mean, was I that bad?”
“No,” he answered firmly before she’d even finished the question, whipping his head up to look at her. “Stop it. Don’t go there.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Well then give me an answer!” she shouted. “I deserve to know why you abandoned me!”
“Don’t you get it?” he said, jumping up to face her. “Don’t you get that it wasn’t about you?”
Lauren shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t give me that. I know you’ve been hurt. I know you’ve lost people in your life. But if you’re gonna stand here and tell me this was about your fear of that happening again, that’s complete bullshit,” she spat. “It’s not fair that you applied that fear to me. I never gave you a reason to.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t psychoanalyze me,” he said with disgust. “You think I’m gonna say it was all subconscious? That it was me trying to protect myself because I was afraid to love someone and have them leave me again? This wasn’t some subliminal self-preservation crap. It was intentional. I wanted you out of my life!”
Lauren swooped down and grabbed her wine glass as she pushed past him. “Well, you got what you wanted Michael, so now I wish you’d just leave me the hell alone!”
She stormed into the kitchen and slammed the glass down in the sink, causing it to shatter. Before she could even check to see if she’d cut herself, she felt him grip her arm and spin her back around.
“Let me finish!” he shouted. “I wasn’t protecting myself! I was protecting you!”
Lauren was completely frozen, as much at his tone as she was at his words.
He took a breath, and although he kept his hold on her arm, when he spoke, his voice had softened significantly.
“Because if I didn’t leave, it would have ended in disaster. It always did with me. I didn’t know how to have healthy relationships. Shit, I still don’t know if I do. And I couldn’t put you through that.”
She ripped out of his grip and took a step back, completely appalled. “So what you’re saying is you tried to avoid hurting me by hurting me?” she cried.
“I had to, Lauren! I’ve been fucking up people’s lives since the day I was born. You know that. My very existence ruined every life it touched.”
She took another small step back, folding her arms as she stood her ground. “You know I never believed that.”
“Of course you do!” he exclaimed. “You’re just another example of it!”
“But it didn’t have to be that way!” she yelled, silencing him. “You made that decision! You could have taken a chance! Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out. But maybe it would have been the best thing to happen to both of us. Did you ever think about that?”
He stared at her, saying nothing.
“And now where are we?” she said, her voice breaking. “You had a child with a woman who was a horrible excuse for a person and a mother, and I ruin every goddamn relationship I start. How was that the best decision for anybody?”
“Christ, Lauren,” he groaned, shaking his head in frustration. “You’re speaking in hindsight. Can’t you see it from my point of view? I didn’t trust myself not to screw up with you, so I had to walk away. But if I left, I’d be hurting you. It was a lose-lose for me.”
He took a step toward her, his eyes almost frantic. “I was a scared fucking kid, and I picked what I thought was the lesser of two evils. I did what I thought was right, because in my mind, the alternative would have been so much worse. I thought it would be better to leave you angry but intact than to drag you down with me. You were too good for that. You were too good for me. You always were.”
Lauren stood there, digging her nails into her palms beneath her folded arms. Anger, confusion, regret, and frustration swirled in her gut, making her body feel like a live wire.
Michael turned away from her, dropping his head back and fisting his hair before he whirled back around. “Do you know what the messed up thing is? Your freshman year, right after we met, I remember standing in the hall when you were leaving class, and Mr. Benton questioned you about hanging out with me. He said something about being careful of the company you keep. And you told him you’d expect better from a teacher.”
Lauren felt her shoulders soften as her defenses momentarily faltered. “I don’t remember that,” she murmured.
“Well, I do. I’ll never forget that. The way you stood up for me. And I remember swearing then and there that if anyone ever caused you pain, I’d kill them.” His eyes were desperate now. “Do you think I wanted to be the one? Do you think it didn’t rip me to shreds to do it? That I haven’t thought about you constantly since the day I left?”
He took another step toward her. “I’m so sorry, Lauren. There aren’t even words for how sorry I am. I made a horrible decision, and I wish I could take it back.”
Michael’s eyes darted back and forth between hers, waiting for her to speak, but she couldn’t think beyond the surfeit of emotions churning through her body. She could barely breathe.
He looked down, shaking his head. “I just…I didn’t know what to do with us, you know? I never planned on crossing that line with you. It wasn’t supposed to go that way. We were supposed to be friends. I was supposed to look out for you, to keep you away from idiots like me. You were never supposed to love me. I wasn’t prepared for it.”
She exhaled slowly, unfolding her arms as she felt the tiny fissures forming in her resistance.
“I always knew I would fall in love with you,” he said softly, “but you were never supposed to love me back.”
Lauren’s expression fell. “What did you just say?”
Michael looked confused by her shock. “I loved you,” he said, like it should have been obvious. “So much. My God, more than anything.”
All at once, Lauren’s vision tilted, and she reached behind her and gripped the edge of the sink to steady herself.
He loved her?
No. That’s not how it happened. She’d already determined long ago what went wrong. She fell in love with her best friend who didn’t love her back, who slept with her out of pity because she begged and then ran away to get rid of his mistake. And she had come to terms with his cruelness, with her stupidity, as best she could.
But now everything she knew, everything she thought she had a handle on, was completely upturned.
Lauren closed her eyes as she shook her head, and she heard Michael take a step toward her.
“No,” she said, holding her hand up to stop him.
He hesitated for just a second, but then he took another step toward her, and she took a quick step back and shook her head frantically.
“No. That makes it so much worse,” she nearly sobbed. “It’s so much worse now.”
“Lauren—”
“I can’t do this right now. You need to go,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Lauren, just—”
“You need to go.”
“Please don’t do this—”
“I said get out!” she shouted suddenly.
His shoulders dropped as he stared at her, and she turned away from the expression on his face.
The look of utter defeat in his eyes.
She heard the sounds of him exiting the kitchen, the shuffling noises as he put on his jacket, and then the front door closed softly, and there was silence.
Lauren let her knees give out as she slowly slid down the front of the cabinets until she was sitting on the kitchen floor.
She hugged her knees into her chest as a feeling of panic began to envelope her.
She closed her eyes, remembering the incapacitating pain. The double loss. Not only was her love unrequited, that in itself would have been painful enough to deal with, but in the same shot, she also lost her best friend in the world.
And she never could figure out which one hurt more.
It never healed. She could openly admit that now as she sat up against the kitchen sink with tears pooling in her eyes. It had been more like living with a disability. She had learned to work around it, to accommodate it, but it had never gone away.
All these years, she thought it had been so simple. The boy she loved didn’t love her back. He had handled it callously, and she had been a fool.
But now? He left because he loved her? That whole time, he had been in love with her?
She exhaled heavily and dropped her forehead to her knees as the first tears fell.
She meant what she said to Michael. This made it so much worse than thinking he just didn’t want her.
He loved her, but he still left her. And he never came back. Not even a second glance.
How could they ever move past this and start again now? How could she trust him? If he’d been able to crush her when he was in love with her before, what would stop him from doing it again?
And how badly would it hurt the second time around?