Forever With Him

by Stacy Travis

  For once, I was cautiously eager to see what that looked like.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ballinascorney, Ireland

  Chris

  It turned out I still had three hours to kill before Nikki would be done with work and we could talk, so I flipped channels and eventually decided to order something on pay-per-view. There was the usual—new releases, action and adventure, comedy, family entertainment.

  The problem with new releases was that watching recent work of colleagues sometimes stressed me out when I was in the middle of shooting a movie. Watching the movies that had done best at the recent box office made me second-guess acting choices I was making on my current project, and I didn’t need that kind of self-editing when I was already overthinking my motivation and my take on the character.

  Action and adventure, despite being my bread and butter, didn’t appeal to me. I’d seen so many over the years that I didn’t need to watch more in my downtime. Comedies were usually my go-to, because I was always in the mood for something light that would make me laugh. But between recent flights and other late nights in hotel rooms, I’d already watched everything that I was remotely interested in seeing.

  That left hotel-room porn or histories and arthouse films, most of which were foreign-language picks with subtitles. I didn’t feel like reading a movie. But maybe there was something decent in the bunch. I scrolled, remembering how Nikki had told me she only watched smaller art films.

  It felt somehow appropriate to try to lose myself in one while I waited to talk to her. I wouldn’t tell her that the kinds of movies she liked ran a distant second to jerking off. I would just watch the damn thing.

  Two hours later, I was more depressed than I’d been all day. Why would a normal person watch these movies? I could see that the touching portrait of suffering and humanity was cinematically pretty, but it packed such an emotional wallop that I wasn’t sure I could even jerk off. Ever. Let alone have a phone conversation.

  The movie, while well done and beautiful, may have ruined my chances at ever seeing the world as a happy place, which I found borderline unforgivable. So I launched directly into an excoriating review of the shitty movie as soon as Nikki called.

  “She knew he was sleeping with her sister. She knew he didn’t love her, and yet she stayed with him and had children with him, and meanwhile, her sister fell in love with him but he didn’t want her either. So then you had the two sisters, with no man at all, raising the kids and deciding their bond was so strong because of him that they’d never marry and would just be with each other until they died. But they were so young, and they just gave up. And then the older one died before her thirtieth birthday, and the younger sister raised her sister’s kids? What kind of fucked-up person thinks of a story like this? Why do you watch these movies?”

  I stopped talking because I’d finished asking questions and awaited Nikki’s answer, but she said nothing. We were on a video chat, so at least I could see her expression, which was somewhere between amused and confused.

  “You watched an arthouse film?” she said finally.

  “Um, yeah. In the room here, while I was waiting for you.”

  “And this is your first one?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve seen a few. But not like this one. This one came straight from the lost-and-found bin at the post office or something.”

  She rolled her lips between her teeth in what I figured out was an attempt to keep a straight face while I ranted. “So you didn’t like it.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. The cinematography was excellent. The acting was great. But the story… it was awful. I want to go to a movie and feel uplifted or entertained. Not pummeled and suicidal.”

  “You should definitely stick to action movies and comedies.”

  “I think I might have to. Otherwise, I’ll end up tying a rock to my ankle and taking a night swim.”

  “Please stick to action movies and comedies, then.”

  Finally, I stopped ranting. I felt exhausted. I was already losing it from lack of sleep and working myself to the bone. I really didn’t need that black cloud of a movie to finish me off. “Can you just explain to me why you like them? I think I need to understand this about you. Are you a dark, disturbed person who feeds on human suffering?”

  She was laughing. “No. Not at all. You’re missing the point. I like these movies because they make me feel something. It’s the reason I seek out this particular kind of art, for when I want to be surprised by my emotions and I want someone else to put in the work of getting me there. Does that make sense?”

  “I mean, I guess. But it was hard to watch, and now I feel drained.”

  “It’s supposed to be. Because it’s art. It’s real. It shows the sides of us that we don’t always want to see, the messy stuff. It’s not always pretty, but I want to see it. Otherwise, it’s too easy to pretend it doesn’t exist. And when I do that, I feel like I’m looking at the world in monotone and missing all the other colors.”

  Is it a coincidence that for the second time in one night, the conversation is turning back toward the messiness of life? Probably. I didn’t really believe in cosmic, karmic life forces on a united mission. I believed coincidences happened, and that was probably one of them. But still… maybe it was worth investigating. I was starting to understand that maybe messiness was something other people accepted about life, even if it was new to me.

  “Can we talk about that? About how life is messy?” I asked. I’d been sitting at the desk, which meant my back was ramrod straight against the back of the chair, and that seemed like a terrible choice for what I hoped would evolve into pillow talk. I moved to the bed but did not take off any clothing. Despite laughing at me, I knew she felt that we needed to have a serious conversation, and I wasn’t about to derail that by trying to turn it into a booty call. Yet.

  “Sure. Do you have thoughts?”

  “Actually, I do. I’ve had a conversation earlier that made me think about us and some of my assumptions that might not be true.”

  “Oh yeah? I’m intrigued. Who did you talk to?”

  The truth was, the conversation with Triss on the plane had gotten me thinking, and my talk with Nora had solidified all the ways I was approaching things wrong. My instinct was to tell her about Nora and leave out the part about Triss. I didn’t want to stir the pot.

  And… that kind of thinking was what had eroded Nikki’s trust in the first place. I had to be honest, even if lying by omission kept things clean. I’d just told her I was embracing messy, so I grabbed it in a big bear hug. “Triss gave me a talking-to and made me realize I was being selfish with my schedule and not being fair to you.”

  Nikki looked surprised and a little touched. “She said that?”

  “Yes, and she’s right. Then, tonight I had dinner with the parents of my set PA. They live nearby. His mom raised seven kids, had a killer right hook, and somehow intuitively knew the story I tell everyone about my parents was a bald-faced lie. She had some… thoughts about how to be a better son.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Her thoughts made me have thoughts. About being a better person. For you.”

  Her smile was lazy. And even though it was way earlier there, it looked like she was tired. “You’re already a good person.”

  I rolled onto my side, leaning my cheek on my hand. I was exhausted. No. I was spent. If I put myself into any more of a reclined position, I risked falling asleep mid-conversation. “Not always. Not in the way it matters. And what I realized was that I’ve been pretending that this long-distance thing is going well and thinking that as long as our relationship looks fine on paper, it must be fine, according to some wrong idea I had about how things should be.”

  She looked confused. “So what are you saying? That you’re not happy?”

  “I guess I’m not really happy, when I think about it. Because you’re right. I want to know you better. I want you to know me. Even if that means the things we learn about each
other are messy.”

  I saw her exhale, but I couldn’t tell if it was relief or frustration. Not knowing was one more bit of proof that we weren’t equipped yet to have a long-distance relationship. I wanted to know what she was thinking just by looking at her. I wanted to trust us without worrying.

  How had I missed learning all the critical steps in having a relationship?

  I’d been dating women who I didn’t really care about. So none of the rest mattered.

  I looked at her on my laptop screen, which I preferred to my phone because of the bigger view, and noted the small things about her that I’d loved since the first night we met: her deep, soulful eyes, her plush lips, which she kept pressed together unless she had something to say or unless I kissed her, and the way she rested her chin on her fist and tilted her head to the side when she was listening to me. She listened like she was really considering what I had to say because it was important to me, which made it important to her.

  “Hang on,” I said, adjusting the tilt of my screen so the angle was better against the overhead light. “Can I just… can I just look at you for a minute?”

  Her eyes, normally so sharply focused, found mine. They relented and softened. Her lips pulled into a faint smile. “Yeah.”

  For a couple minutes, neither one of us spoke. At one point, I felt myself reaching for the computer screen and wanting to connect. If I could touch the image of her face, maybe I could feel her with me when I closed my eyes.

  She was correct that having these kinds of conversations over the phone was difficult. It amplified the distance between us.

  “This is harder than I thought it would be,” I said. “I thought… we could keep things going even with the distance, but I feel like you’re slipping away.” I hadn’t realized I felt that way until I said it, but once I said it, I knew the words were right. That had been the problem from the beginning. Each time I left, and each time we tried to bridge the distance, it felt like we were drifting farther apart instead of tethering ourselves together.

  She nodded. “That’s why I thought we should talk.”

  “Is that how you feel too?” I asked.

  “Yes. In some ways it’s harder,” she said. “But in other ways, it’s no different from before we met. And that’s what makes me sad.”

  I wanted her to say I was wrong, that everything was fine, and I needed to relax about the ex-boyfriend. Everything was fine. It was fine. Because if it wasn’t fine, I wasn’t sure what it meant, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

  She moved her fist out from under her chin and wrapped her other hand around it. Then she put both hands under her chin and removed them again. “Sorry. I never know what to do with my hands on FaceTime. I should just sit on them, but then I feel like a newscaster.”

  “Put them wherever you’d like. It’s just me.”

  She wrapped them around one knee, which she pulled into her chest. Then she decided against that and crossed her arms in front of her. She shook her head and went back to resting her chin on her hand. “So here’s the thing… I feel like we’re doing everything backwards. We’ve made this big commitment based on feelings we didn’t want to end, but the fact of the matter is that we’re trying really hard to keep things going, but we don’t have a foundation yet. Because we don’t really know each other that well.”

  “I disagree.”

  “About which part? All of it?”

  “No, the last part. I know you.”

  “You know part of me, and I know part of you.”

  “That’s how it is with everyone when they’re first starting out.”

  “Exactly! It’s how people are when they’ve been on a couple of dates and have decided they’re up for more. Then, maybe it builds into what they’d hoped it would. Maybe they connect. And then—and in my experience, only then—do they decide to say things like ‘I’ll move across a country for you.’ We did this all so fast because we wanted it to last. But maybe it wasn’t based on enough. We don’t really know each other.”

  I didn’t like what she was saying, and a part of me wondered if she’d had a change of heart about me after seeing her ex. I had to know. “Does this have anything to do with your ex-boyfriend?”

  She was silent for a moment. And in that time, I realized I didn’t expect her to give credence to my insecure line of thought. I expected a quick denial. Instead, in her moment of silence that seemed to stretch into several minutes, I was feeling that painful surge of bile in my chest again that made me want to tear a hole through my own ribs to get it out.

  “Actually, it does. But not in the way you think.”

  “What way is that? How do I think?"

  “You think… I don’t know, that I’m not over him? That I have second thoughts about breaking up with him?”

  “I have more confidence in myself than that.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “But do you? Regret breaking up with him?"

  She pressed her lips together. I could tell she was trying to be kind to my jealous heart and not laugh. “No. Not at all. Definitely not.”

  “So what, then?”

  She was walking through her apartment, and I could see the background moving with her as she went, but I didn’t know which room she was in until she stopped. When I heard the whoosh of the door and a twittering of birds, I knew she’d pulled open the patio door, and then I could see she was sitting outside. “I hate that we’re having this conversation over the phone,” she said. “We’re so disconnected. We’re nowhere near each other.”

  “Well… yeah… I’m across a continent and an ocean, but that—"

  “No. I don’t mean physical distance. I mean… we’re having all-out experiences and aha moments separately, with other people. Instead of growing together.”

  I had fully reclined against the pillow on my bed. Even though we were deep into the conversation, it was coming on two in the morning, and I was feeling the effects of my day, the beer from earlier, the emotionally taxing movie, and the strain of being on two separate continents. I just wanted it all to go away until I had a chance to sleep and recharge my brain.

  “Can I explain what I meant earlier when I said that seeing Johnny made things more clear for me? I think it will make you understand that we’re kind of on the same page here,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “And please don’t feel jealous. I promise you, I’m way over him.”

  “I’ll do my level best. Talk to me.”

  Another big inhale and exhale. Either she was nervous, or she was just using her breathing time to think and make sure she said what she meant. The birds were chirping at a furious pace, like they were trying to outdo each other, but I didn’t want to interrupt her by asking her to go back inside.

  “The long and short was, he made me realize that it’s not me. When he and I were dating, he challenged me all the time for not being spontaneous or carefree. And he wasn’t the first boyfriend in my life who said I was too serious because I like to have a plan. He only wanted to live in the present, and he convinced me that I was the one with the problem because I couldn’t be that chill. And then he went looking for someone who was more easygoing than me. He eroded my trust and make me believe it was my fault.”

  I couldn’t stand this fucking guy, and I didn’t even know him. I hated him for cheating on her, and I hated him even more for fucking with her trust. She didn’t deserve that.

  “I hope he paid for the coffee, at least,” I grumbled. She was good and sweet and wouldn’t tell him to shove off, but he had no claim on her now, and hearing that he’d made her doubt anything about herself made me crazy. “And I hope he told you that he was the one with the problem and set you free from that burden.”

  She huffed a small laugh. “Not exactly. I realized that the relationship didn’t end because of my personality defects. It ended because of his. And that did set me free. So I have to be myself with you.”

  “I never asked you to be different.”


  “I know. It wasn’t something you asked for, but because I’d grown accustomed to thinking I needed to be more carefree, I tried to give you that version.”

  She got up from her chair on the porch, moved inside, and shut the balcony door behind her. The sudden quiet was a relief.

  “Sorry. Birds were disrupting my train of thought,” she said, settling on the couch. “Anyway, I’ve been trying to be this chill version of myself that was cool with you working in New York or leaving for two months at a time. But I’m not that chill. I’m serious, and I think about the future, and I want what I want. Which is why I need to stop being a chickenshit and ask you for it.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you—you never convinced me you were easygoing and chill. And I love you for every freaked-out, methodically organized thought in your head. And for so much more.”

  Nikki smiled at that and met my eyes on the screen, her own eyes round and a little dewy.My heart started racing. Here was my opportunity, my chance to listen and really hear what she needed from me.

  I didn’t care what it was—I would give her anything. I would give her everything.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  I watched her eyes, waiting for an indication of what she was thinking, but her expression betrayed nothing. It hurt to see her on a screen and not be able to touch her. I hated it. I thought she knew, because the corner of her mouth edged up into a smile.

  “I want us to be together in the same place. For more than a day at a time here and there. I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me?”

  I didn’t have to hesitate. Being away from her had confirmed it even more. “Yes. So much. Yes.”

  “Then we need time. Together.”

  “I want that too.”

  “Okay… well, it’s not just gonna happen. We have to make it happen. I still feel like a temporary houseguest in your life. I want to know you better. I want to be sure of you. I want to feel like we’re on a path together, and right now… I don’t.”