Tied Up

by Sionna Fox

  Ian’s hackles rose. “This isn’t about her. She’s not a bad person, and it’s not her fault.”

  “Sit down, Ian. I never said she was a bad person. She has many admirable qualities and I’m sure she’ll do a lot of good in the world. Happy?”

  “No.”

  “Listen. All of that stuff on the phone? You’ve always needed to do that. You’ve always defined yourself by your relationships—or lack thereof—your job, this image that you decided you were supposed to project. I think it’s great you’re seeing someone and getting evaluated. But you’re a walking collection of maladaptive coping mechanisms, and it’s going to take more than a diagnosis code to unravel that.”

  He’d been afraid of that answer. That having a name for it wouldn’t be enough. He’d been rolling around the concept in his brain like a marble since the psychiatrist mentioned it after raising his eyebrows repeatedly at Ian’s answers to his questions about his childhood behaviors. “So what do I do?”

  “You’re probably never going to get to the bottom of it. The world puts filters on all of us, and we can’t all be astronauts and paleontologists when we grow up. But think of it this way. You have this opportunity to define yourself however you want to. Whatever things you’ve convinced yourself weren’t for you? Try ’em. Movies, TV, books, food, whatever. Think like a kid filling out a ‘what’s your favorite’ whatever worksheet in school.”

  “I always hated those.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there was no right answer, so whatever I put down was wrong.”

  “Oh, Ian.” Juliette made a face stuck between a laugh and frown. “All right, I’m going to ask you two questions and you have to answer with the first thing—and I mean, the first thing—that pops into your head.” She leveled him with her boardroom stare.

  He squirmed at the thought. “Okay.”

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  He scrunched up his face and said the first thing that popped into his head. “Pizza.” He immediately wanted to take it back, to amend his answer to something healthier, more adult. But that was her point, wasn’t it?

  “Good, we’re ordering pizza for dinner. What movie did you desperately want to see as a kid but your parents wouldn’t let you?”

  “Star Wars.”

  “Oh my god, you’ve never seen Star Wars?”

  “Only bits and pieces. My father said it was for geeks and made me watch movies about sports instead.”

  “Fire up your television, sir. We’re eating pizza and watching Star Wars.”

  They ate pizza and watched the movie, and Juliette shushed him every time he tried to question inconsistencies in the physics of the universe or the plot. “There is not a single plot hole or physics error you can find that someone on the internet hasn’t written a fucking dissertation on. Enjoy the thing, Ian.”

  She hugged him when she left. “You’re gonna be okay. You know that, right?”

  “Thank you. For everything.”

  “Don’t be a stranger. I’m around for pizza and movies whenever.”

  “You know it won’t ever be like it was before?” He’d enjoyed her company, and the gentle ass-kicking she’d given him, but they were never going to be lovers again.

  She shook her head gently. “No, it won’t. And that’s fine by me. We’re friends. And you’ve got a lot of work to do on yourself before anyone else should trust you with the business end of a whip, besides.”

  He went to bed and filed the whole evening away under a new mental column of Things Ian Likes. The takeout, the movie, the friend. He’d keep adding to that list, and maybe he’d find a person who looked like himself at the end of it.

  Seventeen

  Kate did what she’d always done when there were too many decisions and too much at stake; she poured herself into the one thing she knew would end in at least a modicum of external success. She threw herself into her dissertation, churning out pages and revisions after meeting with her advisor again, sharpening her words until her arguments were honed to fine points, and she had the data and the references to withstand even the toughest defense panel. She knew her work backwards, forwards, and could cite her sources—in MLA format—in her sleep.

  She prepared for her classes, she graded quizzes and papers, she wrote her pages and formatted her tables, and when she wasn’t working on being the most professional, the most prepared—the most likely to get a pat on the head and an offer of an unsustainably low-paying adjunct teaching position—she reached out to contacts and inquired about funding and prepared herself to leave Boston behind again.

  It was for the best that she did. No matter that there were a large number of research hospitals in the city where she could almost certainly find post-doctoral work. Or organizations pushing policy initiatives. Or even private-sector companies where she could make a difference by helping rewrite the visit modules most commonly built in to electronic health software used in OB offices. But Kate wanted to get her hands dirty. She didn’t want to be removed from the day-to-day reality of the patients and families her work would affect.

  She didn’t expect to find that in Boston. Not unless a department administrator job miraculously opened up to an external hire fresh off her doctorate.

  And in what little time was left over, she dragged her ass to therapy again. Those early sessions were nearly enough to put her off it entirely. She hated trotting out her past—her mother, her absentee father, the instability of her childhood with her mom’s rotating cast of boyfriends promising presents and trips and new houses that never came. Her perpetual search for approval. Her smart kid’s inability to handle things that didn’t immediately come easily. She was a walking cluster of millennial memes, and she hated it. But she’d never be anything else if she didn’t deal with it. She appreciated the hypocrisy in her insisting that Ian deal with their baggage when she didn’t want to deal with hers. She was an asshole. But she was trying to be a better one.

  Kate worked on her dissertation, and begrudgingly worked on herself, with the occasional check-in from Jolene, who was practicing her mom skills and making sure Kate did things like eat and sleep, which made Kate feel like an ass, even though she did need the reminders.

  “I would say I’m returning the favor, but our friendship isn’t a transaction.”

  Kate was in the middle of saying both “I’m fine,” and “I’m sorry” for the umpteenth time.

  “And anyway, you’re going to take a weekend off in a couple of weeks.”

  Kate had been waiting for this announcement since the night Jolene had not-confessed over soda in the bar. Word had slowly gotten out amongst their friends, with Jo’s total inability to keep secrets, and Matt’s slightly more circumspect joy leaking through his reserve. Watching them together had always made Kate throw up in her mouth a little, but it was so much worse now.

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t have to do anything but show up. And bring something nice-ish to wear. And be okay with staying in the same house as Ian.” Jolene rushed through the last sentence like Kate wasn’t going to catch what she’d said.

  “What? Why?”

  “So, we’re not exactly eloping. We’re going old-school Whitman and having a shotgun wedding in my hometown. My mother threatened total mutiny if we didn’t let the whole damn family attend. So yeah…Izzy’s renting the alumni house on campus so we can all stay together and I don’t have to spend the night before my wedding in my childhood bedroom. I need you to be there. It’s not like you have to share a room with him. You can be on opposite sides of the house. Please don’t say no.”

  The situation was less than ideal, but she wasn’t going to miss her best friend’s wedding because she couldn’t stay in the same house as Ian. She would be an adult if he would. “Of course I’m not saying no. I’ll be there.”

  Jolene squealed into the phone. “Good. Thank you.”

  Kate had been avoiding their usual haunts and meet-ups since she’d been back, and es
pecially since things had imploded with Ian for the second time, because she didn’t want to see him all sad-eyed and pining from across the room and find herself caving because she fucking missed him.

  He was still the first person she wanted to talk to about her work, her revisions, the students in her classes. The semester had barely begun, and she was still feeling her way into teaching. She’d TA’d in grad school before she met him, but she hadn’t been fully in charge of a room full of students in years. It was daunting, and she was never sure she was doing it right. And she wanted to tell him all the things she’d been working on. The tiny realizations that sometimes opened up old wounds, but also let them heal in ways shoving them down a bottleneck to fester in her chest never did.

  She missed the cleansing relief of a scene under his hand. She missed the way he wasn’t afraid to break her, to make her cry, because she’d asked for it, needed it. She missed the glimpses of what could have been, the sweetness and care he’d shown her. That he’d let her see his own uncertainty under the veneer of calm. But she could appreciate his vulnerability without wanting to soothe it by going back to the way things had always been. That hadn’t changed.

  So she would spend a weekend celebrating their friends, and she would be cordial. She wouldn’t make a fuss and add to Jolene’s stress over the day. She would stay in the same house with him, and it would be fine. She would ignore the pounding chorus in her head that she’d made a mistake in leaving him a second time.

  She caught a ride out to Vermont with Izzy, which she immediately regretted on discovering that Izzy was a moderately terrifying driver, weaving through tractor-trailers on the Pike at ninety miles an hour. She offered to take over when they stopped for coffee and a bathroom on Route Seven, but Izzy waved her off. The rural route didn’t improve the experience. Kate almost wished she’d chosen to ride with Evie and Sarah, or even Ian. Better to be stuck in a car with any of them for three hours than clinging to the oh shit bar for dear life while Izzy took hairpin turns through the Berkshires at high speed.

  When they finally arrived, Izzy cheerfully pointed out and named buildings on campus as the car climbed a large hill that took them to the far edge of the surprisingly vast property. The only people around were part of a low-residency grad program, the regular student body was still off on their winter internship term.

  “Holy shit, this is where you went to school?” From the top of the hill, the clapboard houses tucked under fresh snow were straight out of a postcard.

  “I know, right?”

  The alumni house was tucked at the edge of another snow-covered field, under a bank of trees that would shade it in summer. Kate resisted the urge to fall to her knees and kiss the ground when they came to a stop in front of it, if only because the dirt drive was rutted and muddy.

  The house itself was quaint and perfect, all threadbare carpets and dark, built-in shelving stuffed with books in the living room. Matt and Jolene had taken over the first floor, leaving everyone else upstairs.

  Sarah and Evie had claimed the next largest bedroom and Ian had apparently ensconced himself in the other queen-sized room. Izzy and Matt’s sister were sharing a double at the other side of the house, which left Kate to take a twin that appeared to have been carved from a closet. At least she was used to it.

  She was setting down her bag on the tiny bed when the door across the hall opened and Ian stepped out. She’d been bracing herself to see him. They hadn’t seen each other or spoken since the night she left his house in tears, and no amount of mental preparation would have been enough. She suppressed the urge to run around the stairwell and into his arms.

  His expression was carefully neutral. “Kate.”

  An echo of the night she’d officially returned and seen him again for the first time. Except now instead of haggard and rough around the edges, he looked…good. Relaxed, in a soft sweater and jeans that fit well. His face was clean-shaven, his hair had been cut; he’d obviously been getting along fine without her, not pining and picking at his meal-kit dinners.

  “I was just going to take a walk.” He shrugged into his coat at the top of the stairs and started to head down.

  “Want company?” Kate blurted before she could stop herself. She hadn’t even taken off her coat yet. Though she could use stretching her legs after being trapped on the Pike with Izzy leap-frogging tractor-trailers like they were in a video game and not an actual moving vehicle, she could take a walk with anyone. She could take a walk by herself.

  She stopped in the doorway, stuck between muttering never mind and slamming the door to the room and following him out of the house whether he wanted her there or not. Goddammit, she missed him. But he was probably fine because Evie had cleaned him up, he’d gone back to work. Just because he’d shaved and gotten a haircut recently didn’t mean anything had changed. But what if it did?

  “Sure.” He continued down the stairs. Kate closed the door to her room and followed.

  Jolene caught them at the door and raised an eyebrow. “You okay?” she whispered as Kate leaned in for a hug.

  “Aside from Izzy being the worst driver ever, I think so?”

  Jolene squeezed her one more time. “Be careful out there, it’s slippery. We’re heading into town for dinner in an hour.”

  Kate walked with Ian in silence to the end of the dirt lane. “Left or right?” he asked.

  Left went back the way she had come, past the large stone building that housed the music department to skirt around the rest of the campus. Kate chose right. The road led them past a walled garden and a cluster of houses, then petered out into a dirt path that took them farther down the hill. It opened up next to a small cow pond, covered in ice, surrounded by browned reeds and cattails.

  “How have you been?” His voice broke the crunching of their shoes on the frozen path.

  She stopped and closed her eyes. She could give him an empty half-truth out here in the cold. She’d been busy. She could be as polite and cordial as she’d promised herself she would be and leave it at that. She wasn’t going to word-vomit about therapy and classes and her dissertation and her defense preparations and this thing she was talking herself into applying to that started in the fall. But she couldn’t bring herself to lie either. “I’ve been better.”

  He lifted his hand—he’d forgotten gloves again—like he wanted to touch her, soothe her, then dropped it to his side. “Me too.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “We are going to a wedding tomorrow. I figured it wouldn’t do to show up looking like I haven’t left the house in three weeks.”

  “Have you?” She wouldn’t exactly blame him if he hadn’t. They’d been stuck in another bitter polar vortex. The sad little electric heater in her sublet could barely keep up against the frigid temperatures, and she’d been double-layering her socks and leggings.

  “Only for the essentials. The dangers of working from home in the middle of winter.”

  “Wait, what?” Did he work out some new arrangement with Jeff where he didn’t have to go to the office?

  “Oh, right. I quit, officially, a couple of days after…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Kate was mildly astonished that he’d followed through under the circumstances.

  “Oh. Wow. I figured—”

  “That I’d go right back to work to avoid any other major life changes? I thought about it. But I couldn’t do it. I should have left years ago. And the house is going on the market. It’s too big for only me.”

  “Holy shit. And you’re okay?” She couldn’t fathom the man she’d known undertaking that much of an overhaul of his life at once.

  “I’ve had a few moments of utter panic.” He smiled wryly. Kate was shocked he could admit it at all, let alone with any humor. “But for the most part, yes, I’m okay. I’ve had help. I’ve been seeing someone. Several someones now, trying to figure it all out. So it’s for the best. Alice got promoted into my position, and I made sure to tell her that if they didn’t offer h
er the same contract I’d had, she should walk.”

  “I don’t picture her as someone who has a hard time sticking up for herself.” While it shouldn’t have been true, in the sausage fest that Ian’s office was, Alice had been forced to be tough. She’d had to prove herself twice over to colleagues and clients in order to get where she was. Kate was glad she’d taken Ian’s place.

  “Hardly, but forewarned is forearmed. She knew what she should be getting, so they couldn’t lowball her and let her think she was getting a comparable deal.”

  “So what are you doing now?”

  “Funnily enough, I took a job with the same company Toby works for.”

  “And you’re okay with that?” Ian liked to keep very thick lines between his work and social lives. Or at least, the Ian she had known did. This was a whole other person walking a path through the main campus with her.

  “We both work remotely most of the time. And it was the best fit culturally. Even if when I am in the office, I’m almost certain I’m the oldest person in the room.”

  Kate laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m surrounded by twenty-somethings. But they needed a project manager, and I liked the company. So we’ll see how it goes.” He shrugged.

  “I just…who are you?”

  Ian laughed. “Your coming back and leaving again drove home a few things. That house, that job, they were all vestiges of the person I thought I was supposed to be. I’ve found I rather like working at whatever odd hours suit me and being able to do it in sweats. Plus, it’s incredibly convenient for scheduling appointments to not have to make excuses about ducking out in the middle of the day. I was stuck in more ways than one, still trying to prove myself to people who never cared. No one gives a shit if I have a big house, books I don’t read, a nice car, or some impressive accomplishment to write in to the alumni magazine. I’ve been doing a lot of work. Trying things out. Seeing what I like. Working with a bunch of twenty-somethings has been good for that, actually. I keep having to look up what their jokes mean. It’s been quite an education. And I don’t have to pretend to give a shit about football anymore.”