Forever With Him

by Stacy Travis

  I wondered if I was holding back my truth because he’d done the same.

  Chris might not have thought coffee with Johnny was a big deal at all. And it wasn’t. I hadn’t told him much about our relationship, other than the fact that it had ended badly. But now I’d made it a bigger deal by not telling him.

  Is it a big deal? Do I have unresolved feelings?

  The truth was, I did have unresolved feelings, but not because I still wanted to be with Johnny. I lacked resolution. I still didn’t understand why we didn’t work, why I couldn’t get what I wanted from him. Maybe understanding it would help me learn how to ask for what I wanted from Chris.

  We’re always supposed to be learning and evolving, right?

  I thought back to the night Johnny and I got together for the first time. I’d been sitting at the bar at Moby’s, the pub where he worked. I’d gone in alone, something I’d never done before, because I’d seen him working there a few times I’d gone in with friends, and I wanted to see if my hunch about him was correct—that his wicked smile was a sign he was up for anything. Because I wanted to be the kind of person who was up for anything too.

  He’d kissed me that night like it was just part of our conversation. He never left his barstool. He kept his elbow on the bar and rested his chin in his hand, asking questions and looking into my eyes like he really cared about the answers. That night, I told him whatever he wanted to know.

  I drank a little more of my coffee, oddly comforted by the fading memory of our first night and the possibilities that never played out later on. I’d eventually accepted that we’d never have anything long term. I’d basically had a yearlong hookup without realizing it.

  When Johnny came back, he picked up his iced tea from the counter and jumped right back into the conversation. “So, you asked me why I sobered up. I’m sure you know it has a lot to do with you.” He grinned widely in the way that used to bend my emotions to his will. He always knew the right thing to say.

  It really pissed me off.

  To some people, his pronouncement might have sounded like a compliment, as though I’d been an angelic presence who had led him to a happier place. But it wasn’t like that. Being with him when he was drinking a lot had been painful. He’d never acknowledged it when we were together. On the contrary. He’d blamed me for bringing him down.

  I wasn’t in the mood for a platitude. “Why would I know that?” I was having trouble with the new Johnny, who seemed to be sweeping away all the hurt and wrongness of how things ended with us by using his newfound clarity. I still didn’t have clarity. It annoyed me that I’d somehow helped him find his, while he was doing nothing to deliver mine. If anything, he was confusing me more. “You hated when I got on you about drinking, and you used it as a reason to cheat on me.” It felt better to be angry. Maybe I wasn’t ready to make amends.

  Getting sober and apologizing to the people he’d wronged was supposed to be hard and painful. He was approaching it like he did everything else, as if a cute smile and a few nice words could take the place of hard work.

  “I did hate it. I didn’t understand that you saw something I didn’t.”

  “So what changed?”

  “I guess… after we broke up, I was sad. It was… an unfamiliar feeling.”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. What he was saying didn’t make sense. First of all, he hadn’t seemed all that sad that we’d broken up. He’d grabbed the things he’d left behind at my apartment and hopped on his bike. Second, sadness was not a novel feeling. I’d felt it most of the time while we were dating. It made no sense. He’d let me go without a fight. He’d cheated on me. There was no reason for him to care what I thought about his drinking.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I realized a few things after we broke up. I realized that my drinking—my poor judgment when I was drinking—led to what happened at the party. And as a result, I lost something—someone—I cared about.”

  I nodded. He was right about that.

  “But what I realized after you were gone was that no one else cared about whether I drank myself under the table or not. I missed having someone who cared about me enough to worry. I guess when I realized that no one around me cared, I started to care. And I realized that drinking had become a crutch… or a self-destructive vice.”

  He’d said he stopped drinking two months ago. I did a quick calendar check in my head and calculated that was right around the time we were supposed to be in France together. “Why didn’t you say something at the time?”

  Although, what if he had? What if he’d told me he was sobering up and came to France with me?

  I never would have met Chris. My life would have been completely different. And for the first time since I’d started coming to terms with my trust issues, I realized my life would not have been better. I wasn’t supposed to be with Johnny.

  He was the reason I always expected to get hurt. He stomped on my trust, and it hadn’t recovered. He should make amends for that.

  He shook his head. “I was never going to be able to give you what you wanted. I knew I had work to do on myself—and believe me, there’s still work to be done, even though I know you think I’m perfect the way I am.” The grin was back, but I wasn’t drawn in by it anymore.

  “You’re perfectly you. You always know how to have fun. I used to envy that so much because I didn’t think I could have fun without someone pushing me.”

  He looked surprised. “That’s a silly thing to say. You were fun. We had a great time.” As usual, he didn’t really understand me. He never would.

  So I had to be grateful that he’d set me free. It was strange. I didn’t feel the need to finish my coffee in order to feel awake and alive. I just needed clarity. “Thank you,” I said, “for telling me all this. I’m really glad to know you’re doing well.”

  His smile faded a little. I knew him well enough to understand there was still something he wasn’t telling me. I really hoped he wasn’t going to say he wanted to get back together. “What? There’s something else. What is it?”

  He took a deep breath then exhaled in such a forceful way, I had to bite my lip to avoid smiling at him. “I’m getting married.”

  I had to laugh. “Wait, what?”

  “Yeah… married.”

  “How?”

  “We met at a coffeeshop where I was hanging before my AA meeting.”

  “Is she recovering too?”

  “No. That’s discouraged, for obvious co-dependency reasons.”

  My jaw grazed the floor tiles at the evidence of Johnny’s evolved self. Also, meeting before an AA meeting meant that whoever he planned to marry had known him for two months or less. He saw nothing wrong with that. He had no problem promising a future to a person he barely knew, because he didn’t overthink things the way a lot of people did. If it felt right, he did it.

  In some ways, I envied him. I wished I could be as open to trusting in my own happiness. “How do you do that? How do you just decide to get married and believe everything is going to work out? How do you know you’re going to be happy?”

  He looked at me like my question made no sense. “Why would anyone not want to be happy?”

  I looked at him like he was being dense. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He leveled his warm, puppyish eyes at me, reached out a hand, and gripped my arm. “I know what you meant. And the way I go through my life is a one-eighty from how you approach yours. I know that. I’m not super deep, and I’m okay with that.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re—”

  He held up a hand to stop me. “I’m decently smart. I’m not talking about that. I’m saying I make a choice to live my life without thinking too hard. I know you’re not built that way, and I’m not saying you should change. But I do think you should get out of your own way. Trust that what you want—whatever it is—is the right thing. And that will make you happy.”

  I stared at him, a little dumbfounded that this
guy who seemed to live always in the present without much concern about anything besides hedonistic pursuits had just distilled my issues down to a single directive.

  I had to trust that the karmic life rulebook wouldn’t penalize me for asking for what I wanted.

  My phone buzzed with an alarm I’d set so I wouldn’t be late for work. “Johnny, I’ve gotta go. But it was good seeing you. And congrats on your engagement.”

  He smiled. “So, am I forgiven? We’ve done the amending?”

  I kissed him on the cheek. “Consider us amended.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ballinascorney, Ireland

  Chris

  When I called Nikki after we wrapped for the day, the last thing I expected her to say was that she’d just had coffee with her ex-boyfriend. I mean, I was glad she told me, but at the same time, it was information I could have lived without.

  No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to know. It was just that her being so honest and open made me feel shitty about not telling her that Triss had tagged along on my apology junket to LA. I saw not telling her as protecting her feelings, but her immediate honesty about seeing her ex only made me realize I was just protecting myself.

  It was a learned behavior, borne of self-preservation. I needed to keep my walls high in order to guard the pieces of myself that I didn’t want to leave open to public consumption.

  “It’s a learned behavior.” Her words came back to me. She and I were no different, really, both guarding parts of ourselves for different reasons. Or maybe the same reason—fear. If I wanted her to trust me, I had to be trustworthy.

  Our day of filming had gone pretty well, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I was going to Nigel’s parents’ house for dinner before heading back to my hotel to watch movies until I fell asleep. I’d gone to my trailer to call Nikki for our daily conversation, which was always the best part of my day… but not that day.

  We weren’t more than a few words into the conversation before I started picturing the two of them together, even though I didn’t know what he looked like. It wasn’t a problem. I just pictured him from behind, looking at Nikki, who of course was lovely, talented, and brilliant. He would have been an idiot not to want her back.

  It turned a decent filming day into a pile of shit. Even before she started telling me why he’d come by and what they’d discussed, I felt an unwelcome burning pain in my gut at the possibility that I’d already blown it with her, like Triss had said, and that she was losing patience with my career.

  I couldn’t control anything when I was far away on a movie set, letting local bar owners do away with my credibility. If they were getting back together, I deserved it.

  My mind had been visiting jealous places it hadn’t been to lately while she said things I didn’t even hear.

  Is she really telling me what beverage he ordered her? Does she think I care when I’m busy calculating all the ways I’ve blown our relationship?

  “…and Johnny really wanted to talk, so…” she said.

  I’d heard none of it. Instead, I was scrambling to recall what I knew about the guy. When we’d been in France, she’d mentioned that she was just getting out of a relationship, but she hadn’t seemed interested in talking about it, and I hadn’t pressed. I didn’t need to know. I didn’t especially want to know. She’d been with me, and that was enough proof that the other guy—whose name I’d just learned was Johnny—was a distant memory.

  But is he really? I hadn’t pressed her for information because I’d assumed she was over him. She hadn’t seemed inclined to elaborate. We were in Antibes. It was beautiful and relaxing. There was no reason for me to ask for details about her breakup. I’d been cocky enough to consider her interest in me proof that she wasn’t looking backward.

  As we were talking, however, I wanted to know everything. Who is he, and why did he take her to coffee? What had their relationship been like? Why did they break up? Why did he want to see her?

  So I asked. “Who is this guy? And why did he take you to coffee? And why did you break up, anyhow? Is there a reason he wants to see you now?”

  At first, she laughed, and that put me at ease because it seemed like anything that was a laughing matter couldn’t be that serious. Then I realized she was laughing at me. “Chris, that’s a lot. It’s a conversation for another time. I’m at work.”

  “So why did you tell me you had coffee? You can’t open a can of worms like that and just put the lid back on.”

  “I’m telling you because I want to be up front with you. But I can’t go into details about all the reasons our relationship tanked on a ten-minute break. That isn’t the point.”

  I paced in a circle in my trailer. What is the point? If she didn’t call to tell me he’s old news, why do it at all? “I’m not sure why I needed to know about this.”

  She was silent again, and when she spoke, she wasn’t laughing at me. “You needed to know because it happened. I thought we were being honest with each other. Or is it just me?”

  “Is this some kind of dig about the pictures with Triss?”

  Her voice was stiff and labored. “It’s not a dig. But since you mentioned it... Would you have told me she kissed you if no one had taken a picture?”

  I guessed I didn’t answer quickly enough. I took a moment to think, and it was a moment too long. Thinking? You really want to sabotage your relationship by thinking?

  “You wouldn’t have, would you?” Her voice had gone an octave higher, and I could tell I needed to do damage control.

  “No. Of course, I’d have said something.”

  “Really? Because…” I heard the muffled sound of someone talking to her in the background. Her response was also muffled. Then she returned. “Hey. Sorry. How late will you be up? Can I call you when I’m done with work? I think we really need to talk. About a lot of things.”

  I closed my eyes and wondered how we had gotten from coffee with her ex to needing to talk about a lot of things. “You can call me whenever you want. I’m not going to bed until we talk.”

  “Okay, perfect. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. Okay? Talk to you soon.” She hung up without any pleasantries, and I threw a water bottle against the door of my trailer, where it cracked and splashed water everywhere. It felt good to throw something.

  I’d gone two days without getting my morning workout in, which was always a mistake. If I hustled, maybe I could get on the treadmill for half an hour before heading to dinner. Just the thought of sweating out my aggravation made me feel slightly better.

  I looked at my phone and saw that I had a good eight hours before I would be able to talk to Nikki.

  And then I felt like shit again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Glencree, Ireland

  Chris

  Dinner at Nigel’s parents’ house went about as well as could be expected, considering I was in a foul mood. I hadn’t had time for the treadmill, and on the way over, Nigel had told me to expect an inquisition from his mother. “She likes to pry. Prides herself on prying, really. And she’ll tell you what’s what if she sees fit.”

  I needed that like I needed a lobotomy. “Ah, looking forward to that,” I said with moderate sarcasm that didn’t seem to trouble Nigel one bit.

  Despite my inner glowering, the dinner had the effect of pulling me out of my head for long enough to enjoy the evening outdoors in the yard.

  His mother, Nora, could only be described as a delight. When the two of us arrived—me with a bottle of wine tucked under my arm and a box of milk chocolates one of our craft services people had given me—his mother punched Nigel in the arm and embraced me in a giant hug. Then she hugged him.

  “The fist was for only giving me a moment’s notice he was bringing company,” Nora said.

  Nigel looked guilty.

  “When did you tell her I was coming?” I asked him. He’d invited me to dinner three days before.

  “Just about an hour earlier,” Nora said, giving him anothe
r solid punch.

  “Oh, I hope you didn’t go to any trouble,” I said. I immediately felt badly that she’d felt pressured to cook something special at a moment’s notice.

  “Not a bit of trouble. My cooking’s the same as always, but I’d have made a better dessert. You’ll see why later on,” she said in a loud whisper. She winked at me and led us both to the kitchen, where I saw an enormous pot of stew on the stove, a freshly baked tin of buns, and six small mince pies. It was enough food for ten people, and unless she’d invited people I didn’t know about, there’d only be four of us at the table.

  “Mum’s a proper chef. You’ll thank me later.” Nigel’s admiration was clear in the way he looked over the kitchen and everything she’d prepared.

  “Okay, okay, enough blowing smoke up my bum. Take your friend out back, and I’ll tell you if I need you.”

  Nigel herded me through the house—which was modest and cluttered with ceramic collectibles ranging from bunnies to teacups—without pointing out anything in particular. I hesitated before following him through the back door. He turned back and looked at me. “What?”

  “You live here, right?”

  “I do. Why, you keen to see my bedroom or something?”

  “I don’t need to see it, but if you wanted to give me a tour or something, I wouldn’t object.”

  “You wouldn’t object. And they say the British are proper. Just say what you bloody want, Christopher. You want a tour, ask for a tour.” Yeah, he insisted on calling me Christopher. He’d explained on our first day working together that given our age difference, it would make him feel like he had slightly more authority if he could call me Christopher. “Like when your mum uses your full name right before she whacks you upside the head for taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

  I’d agreed to let him call me whatever he felt like, but now that I’d met his mom, I had a whole new visual.