Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  “And by everything you mean everyone?”

  He looked me in the eye. “There weren’t that many.”

  Ugh. When I heard him say it like that, the shock was as sharp as if it were new.

  “One was too many,” I said, feeling both the desire to cry and let this out and the desperation to not let him see me lose my composure. Such as it was.

  “I know. And I knew then. So there wasn’t any point in elaborating, was there? I can’t see that there is now.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “This was my life, Burke. This changed my whole life.”

  “Mine too.”

  “So I don’t think there was no point in ignoring any of the huge disgusting facts that led to that.”

  He looked suitably chagrined. “What I meant was, the details could only hurt you more than you were already hurting.”

  “Then again, the facts might have been a lot less painful than the many, many scenarios I envisioned and tortured myself with.” I stood up and started pacing in front of the sofa. “So why don’t you just start at the beginning? Did you cheat on me the entire time we were together?”

  “No!” He actually looked surprised. “Of course not.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t see things to be as obvious as you think they are.”

  He gave a concessionary nod.

  “How many other women were there? How long did they last? Years? Were there scores of them? More than five? More than ten? Did you ever see them before you saw me? Or leave me early to see them?”

  “Slow down,” he said, in what I recognized as his “soothing voice,” but there wasn’t a chance of soothing me right now.

  “Fuck you.”

  “There was only one when we were engaged.”

  I wasn’t proud of the fact that my first reaction was relief, since I should have been outraged at any betrayal at all. And I was. In that sense, yes, one was better than the cheerleading team that had been rapidly forming in my imagination.

  But my second reaction, following the first almost immediately, was an even bigger horror. One woman. One girl. Whatever. When we were engaged. I almost couldn’t put voice to the question. “Did you … did you love her?”

  “Of course not, Quinn, I loved you.” He sounded completely sincere. It made no sense to me. “I only saw her a couple of times.”

  I stopped and looked at him in disbelief. I wanted this moment to end. I wanted to go back and have this to do all over again so that I could not do it.

  And those moments I was talking about earlier? Where now feels even sadder than a previous sad? This was one of those moments. Only an hour and a half ago, I’d been sitting on my front stoop with a lonely little melancholy and some niggling questions that turned out to be ice cubes compared to the iceberg I’d run into.

  I resumed my pace. “Who was it?” I ground out, clasping my hands together so he couldn’t see them shake.

  “No one you know.”

  I looked at him sharply.

  “I mean it,” he said, looking me square in the eye. “It was no one I knew either. I met her at Shenanigans and, I swear, I don’t remember her name.”

  “You don’t remember the name of the woman who broke up our marriage?”

  “Her name was Quinn. You are the one who stopped our marriage.” Before I could lunge and kill him, he added, “Because of me. Because of what I did. No one else matters in this, or ever did, except for you and me. She was a prop at best. An experiment for me to see if I really wanted to get married.”

  “Yeah? Wow, the pain just goes on and on. Is this fun for you? Is this how you get your kicks, hurting someone who did nothing but love and trust you virtually her whole life?”

  “Wait a minute.” He got up and stood in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, while he looked into my eyes. “Consider this, just for a minute. It’s possible that I’m enjoying this conversation even less than you are.”

  I scoffed. “Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”

  “You get to be mad,” he said. “You get to hate me. You have one object of all your discontent and you can walk away from it if you want. You’ve done it before. With my brother. Without even looking back. Good on you.” He nodded. “But I have to live with knowing I fucked up my own life too. I can’t blame anyone else or get away from the motherfucker responsible, because it’s me.”

  “Yup.” And at that moment, I didn’t feel bad about being with Frank at all. It felt like a completely different situation. A different world. A different family.

  Burke had pushed me away all by himself.

  “But worse, Quinn, I have to live with knowing I did this to you, that I put you through this, not just then but now too. And anytime in between when you might have felt pain over it. This is torture for me, Quinn, I never wanted to hurt you, and I couldn’t have done a better job if I’d set out to do it on purpose.”

  That’s when the tears started to come. I shrugged his hands off my shoulders and took a step back. “At least on purpose would imply some awareness of me. This just happening, just going on with some slut you used as a prop or however you termed it just tells me I was of no consequence to you.”

  “No, you were of every consequence to me. You were all I ever thought about, all I ever wanted. I was ready to marry you almost the moment I met you. But when it came down to it, when it was time to really take that step, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t just under some spell of infatuation or something.”

  My jaw dropped and I splayed my arms. “Really? Seven years and you weren’t sure?”

  “Seven years of no one but you. Not even considering anyone but you. But I didn’t want to make a commitment and find out it was based on an illusion or something.” He shook his head, frustrated. “I’m not wording this right. But basically, I didn’t want to have my parents’ marriage all over again. I didn’t want to become them, and I didn’t want to change you into that.” He put his hands back on my shoulders and held me steady as I tried to resist. “It wasn’t the right thing to do, I know that. That’s why I never told you. Because the truth sounds like a lie. But it made me realize even more how much I valued you. That I never ever wanted to lose you. I don’t know what kind of man could have taken the chance on that by telling you the truth, but I couldn’t.”

  “Frank could have.”

  “Frank never cared this much about anyone or anything in his life. Of course he could have risked the truth. He’s always got a plan B. He’s always either got backup for what he might lose or he risks it because he feels he can afford to lose it.”

  That was true, that was a perfect characterization of Frank. Except when it came to me. I truly believed one of Frank’s only weak spots was me. I couldn’t say why. But it had always been my feeling. “Then why did you tell him?”

  Burke stepped back and raked his hand through his hair. “I didn’t. He saw us.”

  “Where? Was it really at the farm?” I braced myself, though I was so wobbly at this point I couldn’t say I was really prepared for anything.

  “What? Why would you think that?”

  Not a denial, I noticed. “That’s what Frank said. That you took her there and she got stoned with Rob.”

  “She got stoned with Rob,” Burke said dully, like he was repeating a math question he wasn’t even going to try to figure out. “At the farm. And I was okay with all that.”

  I gave a broad shrug. “Hey, you were okay with enough of the rotten parts that I don’t know what to think. If you were okay with cheating on me, then I have no idea where you’d draw the line.” Tears burned my eyes and I couldn’t stop them even though they made me lose whatever small tenuous hold I had on my cool.

  “Why would he say it if it wasn’t true? I’ve never known Frank to be a straight-up liar.”

  Burke thought about this. “Maybe he imagined it was true. Extrapolated the truth out to include that. Or maybe he was just so sure you were wrong to marry me, in light of that he fel
t he had to add details he knew would send you over the edge.”

  That seemed plausible. And, though presented as noble, made me want to kill Frank for adding such a personally devastating story to what was already the worst news I’d ever received. “So never at the farm?”

  “No,” he said, looking into my eyes. “Never.”

  “Then where?” I asked, fearing it would be almost as bad. But what would be almost as bad? My bedroom in my parents’ house? The roof of the shop? Nothing came to mind as nearly as bad as the farm.

  He shook his head, like he knew there was no point in delving into the details, yet he had no right to refuse them to me now. “It was at that cheap motel by what used to be Price Club,” he said.

  Again, I had that feeling of relief, and again it was quickly replaced by another facet of grief and betrayal. This was something I’d picture every time I drove that way now.

  But there was no surprise there. I was asking for things that could only make me feel worse. He could have said on Mars and every time I looked at the night sky, I’d feel that little tremor of betrayal.

  No good comes from learning the details in a situation like this one. None.

  “So Frank,” he went on, “knew I knew he’d seen me but that I thought he understood it wasn’t going to happen again and there was no point in telling you. Instead, I guess he decided that the risk of losing his brother was worth it. Especially if you were the prize. So he told you.”

  I felt another resurgence of the old anger I’d felt toward Frank too. He’d waited and told me at the worst possible moment. Yes, maybe he’d hoped I’d come to my senses and realize the truth myself, but, good lord, what about giving me a week’s notice? Even a day’s!

  Suddenly I just wanted to get away from these guys. Both of them. Their entire family. I didn’t even want to finish Dottie’s dress, though I had to. I wasn’t going to let her down because her grandsons were jerks. But I desperately wished I could.

  “Go,” I said to Burke.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked at him with teary red eyes. Much like a stoner, come to think of it. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to leave you like this.”

  “Oh, please. Your time to care about doing the right thing passed a long time ago. Just go, Burke.”

  “All right, I will,” he said, with a strange sense of nonsurrender. “But first I need to know that you understand what I’m saying.”

  “You need that, huh?”

  “For your own sake, if not for mine. I need to know that you understand it meant nothing. You meant everything to me and I never got over that.”

  “Really? I’m sure your wife would have been surprised to hear that.”

  He winced. “You were gone.”

  “And forgotten.”

  “No. Never forgotten. I will never in my life get over losing you. I was young and stupid and immature and selfish, and instead of doing one of the millions of better things I could have done to make sure getting married was right for us, I did the cheapest trick in the book. There’s no excuse, but I want you to at least know the reason.”

  I nodded, mute.

  “I know you, Quinn. I know this tainted your whole view of everything we ever were together. But we were happy. We had fun. We loved each other. Even if you hate me now, even if you never talk to me again, don’t punish that girl you were by believing she wasn’t loved. She was. More than you’ll ever know.”

  I was crying out of control now. “If that’s the best I can do, then god help me.”

  “You can do much better than me, Quinn. You always could.” And at that, he turned and left me standing there, more heartbroken than I’d ever been in my life.

  No matter how I felt about him, no matter how he felt about me, no matter what we wanted or how we tried to go about it, one question remained: Could I ever trust him again?

  Chapter 22

  Even with your best friend, it’s not a particularly proud moment when you find yourself sobbing, in the middle of the night, about a guy who done you wrong. Despite the reality of the circumstances, I couldn’t help but feel like a middle-schooler. Or at least like I sounded like a middle-schooler. I was aware that my feelings were legit.

  It just became a matter of what I did with them.

  I knew that. I just didn’t know what I should—or would—do with them.

  “He admitted he lied, he screwed around with another woman,” I said to Glenn, putting voice to the horrible words I didn’t even want to think about.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know,” he said, with genuine sympathy. “But he also told you why. He told you it was because he was afraid of making a huge mistake—for both of you.”

  “Screw that!”

  “No,” Glenn said, looking at me seriously. “I’m not saying anything that you feel or felt is invalid. Honestly. So let’s assume you’re right, your heartache sucks and will be hard to get over, if ever.”

  “Fine.” I raised my head to him. “So your point is…?”

  “What if he’s just telling the truth?” He sighed and shrugged, as if, for a moment, he couldn’t come up with other, or better, words. “What if he was just scared and fucking around to see how it felt and there was nothing more to it than that?”

  I gaped at him. “Are you serious? Just fucking around like it meant nothing, and he could return to our relationship like it meant nothing? How much more does there need to be to it?”

  He was completely unperturbed by my heat. He just shrugged. “Yeah. Wanted to see if the thing with you was real before he became his dad. Or his mom. Or whoever he relates to more. Whatever; before he had a potentially horrible marriage.”

  “Why would that be okay?” I asked, still incredulous. “On what planet would it ever be just fine for a man to cheat on a woman, or vice versa, on the eve of their wedding just to, what? Be sure he really wanted her?”

  “Would you rather be with a man who lusted after other women and thought maybe there was something better out there all the time?”

  I straightened my back. “Are you kidding? No, I want a man who wants only me.”

  “Of course, I understand that, of course.” Glenn’s voice was suddenly gentler. “I get that, I’m not on the bandwagon where all men are cheaters by nature and women have to accept it or be miserable. What I’m saying is that he was young—”

  “Twenty-three.”

  Glenn tipped his face and raised an eyebrow, leveling a gaze on me that I totally recognized as impatient. “Oh, twenty-three. You know what? That’s not old enough to get married no matter who you are.”

  “I was twenty-one!”

  “And how’d that work out for you?”

  I wanted to punch him. “Just fine, Dr. Phil.”

  “Is that why you’re so upset right now?”

  I considered for a moment, but the dull, throbbing pain inside of me took over. “No, I’m upset because he was unhappy—by all accounts he was unhappy time and again—and that was still better than being with me. At least to him.”

  Glenn paused. Thought. But it didn’t seem like he was thinking about what I’d said so much as he was thinking about what to say to me. He thought he already knew the answers.

  Maybe he did. But maybe he didn’t.

  “Quinn,” he said, too patiently. “This was a long time ago. A really long time ago. And I know it was before your wedding and that you were devastated by the betrayal. I would have been too. Anyone would have been. Seriously, I’m not discounting that.”

  “Seems like you are,” I answered, but there was a question in there too. What are you getting at?

  “Quinn.” He dropped his hands in his lap and leveled a very earnest gaze on me. “Men are different from women, biologically.”

  “No!”

  Impatience snapped across his face. “I’m not being sarcastic or defensive. I’m completely serious. For men sex can literally mean nothing. For women, I know, it can mean close
to nothing but it’s always measured. Am I wrong? Have you not spent time considering every man you’ve slept with, even if it didn’t end up being a relationship?”

  “Obviously! I never just slept with a guy indiscriminately.”

  “There you go.” Glenn slapped his hand on his knee. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to say to you. You don’t understand because you can’t understand. Men feel emotions more acutely…”

  “Oh, please!”

  “… therefore they avoid them much much much more strenuously. They will do anything to find out, or prove, that what they feel isn’t real so it’s not bound to them for the rest of their lives.”

  I tried to think of Burke in this context. Sweet, loving Burke—or so I’d thought—wanting desperately, deep inside, to get away from me and feeling that was the only way he could ever fully be himself. “I don’t buy it,” I said. “I’m sure some men are like that—I’m sure some women are like that too—but there’s no way I can believe Burke was just curious enough all along to experiment with anyone and everyone else, even to my obvious detriment.”

  “I’m not saying he was just curious,” Glenn returned, his voice hardening. “I’m saying on a very base level he was freaked out and did the number one, biggest dumbass thing he could. Name me one guy—one person—who is incapable of that.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not excusing it,” Glenn went on. “We all have free will, presumably we can all make the right choices over the wrong ones. But do you? Every single time, do you?”

  “In a situation like that? Absolutely.”

  “What about in a situation that might matter almost as much?” he acquiesced. “Have you ever been too booked to sew an embellishment, or too tired to double-stitch a hem? Actually, I don’t know enough about sewing for sewing analogies, so forget that. Have you ever put your trash bag by the door instead of taking it out to the garage because you just didn’t feel like it?”

  “Seriously? You think that’s the same thing?”

  “No, I don’t think on a chart you’d put in front of a classroom it’s the same thing,” he said. “But I think to a panicked guy who’s still young and who was raised by his grandparents because his parents’ marriage sucked until his dad died and then his mother sucked so badly in general that she couldn’t be bothered with him, yeah, maybe all of his values got jumbled up together.”