by Lulu Pratt
“That’s not the point.” I laugh.
“Why don’t you let me drive you there, so he doesn’t have to come all the way here, first?” Monica asks.
I shrug. “I suggested that, but he’s weird about it. It almost feels like he doesn’t want me to go to his place.”
“Why? Do you think he’s hiding something? Like another girlfriend.” Monica winks at me and I laugh. Of course, that couldn’t be true. Then again, it’s not like I know anything about him. Just because we spent some time together, snowed in, doesn’t mean that he can’t have secrets from me. Suddenly, I’m nervous.
“Hey, I was just joking,” Monica says. There must be something on my face.
I shake my head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. “You know what? You’re right. There’s no reason for him to drive all the way here. You can drive me to his place.”
Monica agrees, and I get out to get ready to leave. It’s not that I agree with Monica, but that I’m suddenly worried that there is something Graham might not want me to know. He doesn’t want me to go to his place when I lived next to him for a long time. It doesn’t make sense.
I’m probably just being paranoid now, after everything that happened with Jacob, so going to his place will set me at ease. Seeing that nothing is wrong will prove to me that he really is the guy I think he is. I don’t let him know that we are coming, though. A part of me doesn’t want him to be able to hide anything, if there was something to hide. I feel terrible for suddenly mistrusting him, but Monica’s words scared me.
I really don’t know Graham at all.
Monica drives me to Graham’s house, and we park in the street. There is a car in the driveway of my old house.
“How is the place taken already?” Monica asks.
“The eviction note stated that the landlord needed the place immediately. There was a reason why I only had a week to get out.” I know I’m being rational, but I’m as shocked about a car in the driveway as Monica is. I know that the house doesn’t belong to me anymore, but seeing this just pushes it home.
Monica and I are both looking at the house when the front door opens. Graham steps out, and I blink.
“What is he doing there?” Monica asks in a quiet voice.
I want to know the same thing. My mind runs through a million scenarios, and none of them make sense. Unless Graham is here to try to bargain for me, which he would never do. I don’t understand what business he has walking out of my old house. I open the car door and get out. Monica says something to me, but I can’t hear her above the ringing in my ears.
“Graham,” I say.
He freezes when he hears me. He pales, and no matter what I want to believe, he looks like he’s been caught in the act. “What are you doing here?”
Graham steps off my old porch and comes to me. His eyes dart around the yard like he’s trying to find an answer there.
“I thought you were going to call me to come pick you up,” Graham says. “This is not what it looks like at all.”
“Then explain it to me. What am I seeing?”
Graham is fumbling around for words, not even uttering a full sentence. My emotions go from shocked to hurt then to furious.
“I know this isn’t another woman because you were snowed in with me. Unless… unless you’re the landlord who…” I want to end the sentence, but when I say the words, I realize the truth.
The words I’m speaking hit me as hard as they hit Graham.
“Were you my landlord?” I ask. Inside, I’m screaming for Graham to tell me that he’s not, that this is some ridiculous mistake. I will him to give me some other reason that makes sense.
Instead, Graham nods. “This is not how I wanted you to find out. I was going to tell you. I just needed to figure out how.”
My ears are ringing again. My chest is tight, and I can’t breathe. Everything that we built the last couple of days crumbles in front of me, and I feel as used and disrespected as I did when Jacob cheated on me and made me feel like it was my fault.
“Don’t try to explain yourself, Graham,” I say when he opens his mouth to speak. “I will pick up all my things from the cabin as soon as possible. After that, I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Sarah, please,” Graham says, but I shake my head and turn my back on him.
“Don’t,” I say and get into Monica’s car.
Chapter 28
Graham
“Sarah, don’t go,” I cry out, running to her when she gets back into her sister’s car. She is furious with me, and I don’t blame her. “Wait!”
“Go fuck yourself, Graham,” she says and slams the door. She says something to her sister, and they take off. There is no way that I can get her to come back. Her words bounce around me. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself.
I deserve that. I deserve all of that. I shouldn’t have hidden any of this from her. I didn’t know how to break it to her, and I was nervous that she would want nothing to do with me. Still, if I told her myself, maybe she would have reacted differently. Now, she is furious with me. Monica heard everything from the car, so I doubt she’ll be on my side, either. This was exactly what I was afraid of — I lost Sarah.
I feel like I can’t breathe, no matter how hard I try to suck air into my lungs.
“Graham?” Britney asks behind me, stepping out onto the porch. “What was that? Who was here?”
“That was her,” I say.
“Her? Your friend from the cabin?”
I nod. “I don’t think she’ll ever talk to me again. It’s all my fault. I’m in love with her, and I lost her.”
Britney comes to me where I’m standing on the sidewalk. “You’re in love with her? I’ve never even heard of this woman. What happened?”
I take a deep breath. “She used to live in this house before I evicted her to make space for you. I gave her the cabin, then accidentally got snowed in with her, and in the time we spent together, I fell in love with her. I didn’t tell her that I was her landlord here. That I was the one who evicted her. She just found out.”
When I turn my eyes to Britney, she looks horrified.
“Did you put that woman out of her house just before Christmas?” she asks.
I nod. When I hear it from someone else, it sounds like the most fucked-up thing to do. “At the time, I was just thinking about you and the kids and getting you all safe.”
“But putting someone out of her home…” Britney says.
I nodded. “I know. I’m a monster. Don’t you think I haven’t been feeling guilty? Don’t you think I haven’t felt rotten? I know what I did. I was going to tell her, too. I just didn’t know when or how.”
“You shouldn’t have done this to create the situation for yourself in the first place,” Britney says, and I know she’s right. She turns around and storms back into the house. She’s upset with me now, too. Well, let’s just add that to the list of people who hate me right now.
I consider going after her, but there is no way that I can explain it in a way that will make it sound better. There is no way that is better. I should have done it differently, put Britney in the house with me for a while and searched for a viable place for them to stay. Instead, I fucked up the life of the woman I love.
Instead of going after Britney, I go home. I need to speak to Sarah. I want to explain myself to her, explain to her that I was worried about Britney, and that I didn’t know how to keep her safe. I don’t know how to tell her that I was so scared for Britney’s sake that all other logic went out the window. Still, I have to try.
When I dial Sarah’s number, the phone starts ringing. I will for her to pick up. After a couple of rings, it rolls over to voicemail. I try again. I need to clear this up with her, even if she ends up hating me so that I can do the right thing. It might be too little, too late, but I can’t just leave it the way it is now. I did this. I made this thing as bad as it is.
The second time calling, I reach her voicemail again. I try another time. Thi
s time, it goes straight to voicemail. Sarah switched off her phone.
“Sarah, it’s me,” I say to her voicemail. “Please, just let me explain myself. I know I was wrong. You can’t know how bad I feel. Please, I just want to speak to you.”
I leave the message, knowing I sound like a desperate ass. There’s no reason for her to ever speak to me again. She already told me she will remove all her stuff from the cabin and disappear from my life forever. There’s nothing I can do to stop her, either. I was wrong. She’s right not want to have anything to do with me.
For days on end, I let her believe that I’m doing everything in my power to help her when someone else fucked her over. Today, she realized that I’m the one who ruined her life in the first place. I realize that there is no way I can paint this to make it look good. In fact, I am starting to worry that it looks like I was playing some sick game with her, keeping her in a trap of some kind.
And after we slept together, twice, after how I showed her that I was falling for her, I know how much this must hurt. It’s hurting me. But the pain is my punishment — Sarah does not deserve this.
For the rest of the day, I’m on autopilot. I go through the motions, cleaning my place, cooking dinner, eating. I stare at the TV, and I don’t even see. I ignore phone calls when I get them as none of them is from Sarah.
At eleven at night, I finally get a text from her. I sit up, my heart beating in my throat.
I want to get my things tomorrow.
I start typing a reply. I start telling her that she can’t do that, that she has to speak to me first, but I don’t want to look like a controlling idiot. Instead, I delete the text and dial her number again. By the time the connection is made, I get her mailbox straight away. She only switched on her phone long enough to send me a text before she turned it off again. She really doesn’t want anything to do with me.
I’m suddenly angry. Shouldn’t I get a chance to be able to explain myself, at least? If she wants to be angry with me, so be it, but I should be able to justify myself.
The rage doesn’t last very long. I’m getting angry because I feel like my hands are tied, but in the end, I’m the one who was wrong. I hurt Sarah, and she has every reason not to want to speak to me, not to want anything to do with me ever again. If I let her get her stuff tomorrow, it will be the last time I ever see her.
The thought of it drives a physical pain through my chest.
Chapter 29
Sarah
On Friday, Monica and I are waiting at her place for Larry to come home so that we can pick up my stuff from the cabin. Lindsay is at a friend’s house, and I’m relieved. I don’t want her to see me in the state I’m in. I’ve been crying all day, and I don’t have what it takes to be in a good mood, not even for a seven-year-old child. Monica has been on sister duty all day, trying to make me feel better. Sadly, she’s been failing.
The truth is, my heart is broken. The pain I feel is almost impossible to imagine, especially considering how little time I’ve really spent with Graham.
“I wish you would speak to me,” Monica says. Since we came home after I left Graham’s house, I haven’t spoken much. I cried a lot, and that already has Monica in distress.
“What is there to say?” I ask. “There was a reason why I didn’t give my heart away to another man. After Jacob, I did well getting my life back together. I was an idiot, falling for Graham this fast.”
Monica shakes her head. “Sometimes, you can’t help how you feel. From what I can tell, Graham was absolutely everything you wanted in a guy. If it wasn’t for this…”
“But that’s the thing. This happened. This nullifies everything else he’s done. If he lied to me about this, what else did he lie about?”
Monica can’t answer me. She doesn’t know him the way that I do — which doesn’t seem to be very much at all. Since the moment I found out, all through the night, I turned everything that happened between us over and over in my mind. I don’t know how to bring the two people, the Graham who evicted me and the Graham I got to know in the cabin, together. Part of me desperately wants to believe that this couldn’t have happened, that this is some mistake. But he admitted it. Graham is my landlord, or was, and he evicted me before Christmas. The eviction notice I’ve got is a lie, too. I was told that the landlord needed it personally. I don’t know who the hell was living in the house, maybe Monica was right about him having another girlfriend, but I know that it’s not Graham.
“I wish there was something I could do to help,” Monica says. She doesn’t ask me if I’m all right anymore. She knows the answer. I’m not.
“It’s okay, sis,” I say. “This is on me. I was so careful with so many guys for so long, that it was stupid of me to drop my guard with him so quickly.”
I can’t believe that happened. Somewhere in all the conversations I had with Monica, she said something about fate, but I don’t believe that now. Fate, destiny, none of those things should hurt this much.
“Don’t worry about it so much, Sarah,” Monica says, hugging me. “I know it hurts a lot now, but this too shall pass.” I roll my eyes at the saying that my mother raised us with. I used to believe in it before Jacob.
“There are better men out there,” Monica says.
I know she means well. I just don’t think it’s true. Monica was lucky with Larry, but he’s one in a million, and I’m not going to keep looking.
“I’ve sworn off men. This is it. I’m not trying again. First, it was Jacob, and now this. They didn’t do the same thing, but both have one thing in common — neither of them respected me enough to tell me the truth. I’m not willing to live through something like this ever again.”
The more I think about it, the more absurd it sounds. It doesn’t make sense to me. The person I’ve gotten to know in the cabin would never have evicted someone just before Christmas. That Graham was so kind and caring. The one who evicted me, I don’t know who that is.
“Can I say something?” Monica asks, and I already know it’s not something I’m going to like. I nod slowly.
“Sarah, I know Graham really messed up. What he did was completely wrong, and I’m not trying to justify it. But he did try to find you a place to stay, and he gave it to you rent-free. Surely, that means something?”
It does sound like she’s trying to justify him, like she is taking his side somehow.
I’m getting angry. “Yes, it means something,” I say. “It means that the son of a bitch felt guilty that he fucked me over so badly, and giving me a place to stay would at least give him a clear conscience.”
Monica shakes her head, and I know she disagrees, but she doesn’t say any more. Smart woman. My emotions fluctuate between extremely angry and extremely heartbroken. I don’t have anything in between. I don’t know how to control my emotions, and I don’t want to. I am going to be angry, I’m going to be sad, I’m going to ride out every emotion that Graham gave me because he messed up, and I won’t apologize for how I acted to him when I found out. He should have told me.
No matter how nice he was afterward, no matter what Monica says about the person I got to know, and all the memories I have with him that back that up, he shouldn’t have lied to me. I wrack my brain for signs, trying to find something that pointed out the hidden truth. But there’s nothing. Graham managed to hide it so well, and it only makes me feel like a fool.
Monica’s phone rings, and she steps away from me to answer it. I hear her talking to Larry. She is on the phone with him for a while before she returns. Her face is serious.
“I have a bit of bad news,” she says. “Larry has a work emergency, and he can’t come until later tonight. Will it be possible to postpone this until tomorrow? I know you want to handle it as quickly as possible, but it looks like there’s no getting around this.”
I shake my head. “Really, it’s fine. I know that I’m relying on you and Larry to help me out, and I’m not going to demand that you change things around for me. Tomorrow will be fin
e. Thank you, I really appreciate your support.”
Monica nods and hugs me again. I feel a little bit claustrophobic with all the attention she’s giving me, but I know she means well, and she’s mothering me the way she mothers Lindsay. She can’t help it, and I won’t make her change.
When I can, I manage to slip away. I leave the house and go for a walk, trying to clear my head. I’m so upset, I don’t know what to do with myself. Memories swirl in my mind — memories of Graham everything we’ve done — and it makes me more and more upset the more I think about him. It’s not just what he did that gets to me so much. It’s how I feel about him and how much this is affecting me that upsets me even more. After Jacob, I promised not to get attached to someone because if they hurt me, I would fall apart.
It seems like this is exactly what happened anyway.
Chapter 30
Graham
On Friday, Britney calls me and asks me to come over. She wants to talk about what happened, and I want to fix it with her, at least and I need her advice.
“Explain to me what happened again,” Britney says.
We’re sitting down with cups of coffee. The kids are playing in the garden, and we can talk without interruption for a bit. I explain to Britney again what happened, and she’s quietly listening this time, not interrupting or getting emotionally involved the way she did yesterday.
“I don’t understand,” she says when I finally finish. “Putting a woman out of her house just before Christmas is very unlike you.”
I nod. “I felt guilty before I even did it. But, I had to take care of you and the kids.”
Britney shakes her head. “I could have gone to a shelter if it really came down to it, Graham. It’s not your responsibility to make sure that I’m safe all the time.”
“But it is, Britney. It is. Besides, you don’t want to end up in a shelter, trust me.” I take a deep breath and blow it out with a shudder. I haven’t been able to relax since Sarah left. I am so tense, every muscle in my body aches. Every time my phone goes off, I jump.
