by Portia Moore
When we reach my house, I pick up her small body and carry her into my apartment, ignoring the questioning glances from some of the other tenants. I shift her in one arm to open the door to my apartment, and she stirs. But she doesn’t say anything—just nuzzles her head in my chest and clings to me tighter. I take her to my bedroom and lay her down. I put away her bag and go get her a glass of water. When I return, she’s awake, curled into a ball, and still crying tears. I sit at the end of the bed, my own head pounding, my heart breaking for her. I want to help her to do something that will make her feel better, but I know it’s a lost cause.
“Do you want some time alone?” I ask, unsure if my presence will smother her or make things worse. It’s my fault. I’m the reason she’s hurting so badly. I’m terrified that this could be the end for us, that this will all have been for nothing. She’ll only associate me with pain, hurt, loss, and we’ll never be the same.
“Hold me. Tell me everything is going to be okay,” she whimpers. “Even if it’s a lie.” Her eyes are glossed over and wet, and a shadow of a smile crosses her face.
I make my way to her and pull her close. She rests her head on my chest, and I stroke her head as she cries into me.
“Gwen, I love you,” I whisper. I don’t know if it’s the right time to say it, but I can’t sit with her for another second letting her think I don’t love her, that this is all for nothing.
“I knew there was something special about you when I first saw you. I love everything about you, and there isn’t one thing I’d change.” I lift her chin so that I’m looking her directly in eye as her tears fall. “They will forgive you. They have to. It’ll take time, but they will. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy as I can. I’ll love you times two if I have to. It can be us, forever, against the world. I promise.”
She cries harder, but she kisses my lips even though they’re trembling. She lets me know, even though she doesn’t say anything, all is not lost. She’s still there, not broken beyond repair, and I’ll make sure she never is.
Jealousy. . . .
It’s a poisonous feeling.
One that grows and grows,
wraps itself around you
and takes over your soul.
~ Lisa
FALL CAME AND went as quickly as a leaf falling from its branch, and winter took hold, sending a chill through our little town, freezing what was old to make room for the new.
He’s inside me, taking over me, consuming me, hypnotizing my thoughts, claiming my body as his. I moan his name, and my fingers dig into his back as he pushes rhythmically inside me. He plays me as if I’m his favorite instrument, and I make every sound before I crescendo. This is when he’s mine, when I’m the only thing in his thoughts, where time outside of us doesn’t matter.
He grabs my wrists and pins them down—it’s a rule I break often.
No marks.
I can’t mark him, but he marks me.
“Will,” I moan.
The tension between my thighs builds, ready to throw itself off the cliff that is us. I rock beneath him. His body is hard and his skin wet. His eyes look into mine. That’s become one of my favorite parts, when he not only gives me his body but shares his soul. His clear blue eyes clouded with lust, with need. He needs me. I free him. This is when he’s alive. I can feel him coming close.
“Don’t stop. I’m almost there,” I plead, begging him to keep going, to not stop or pull away.
He moves faster and faster, granting my request, and his lips kiss mine, taking them in a slow, passionate kiss I usually don’t get from him but I give him all the time. It’s so natural, so wonderful, but he usually keeps it from me. This kiss, even if his words never say it, lets me know how he feels, what he can’t say , and it’s what pushes me over the edge, relieving all my tension. My toes curl, and my eyes roll to the back of my head. I pant to catch my breath, and my body quivers before he follows.
His body rests on mine, our breathing frantic, our hearts beating rapidly but as one. My fingers trail up his back, and I kiss his shoulder. He rolls off me, catches his breath, and pulls me against his naked body. I revel in the small amount of time we have, the moments when he’s guilt-free, when I pretend that it’s just us with no complications. I pretend my heart isn’t going to break the moment he leaves, that reality doesn’t end the best part of my world.
Those moments, that small window when he’s like this, are short, and when he removes his arm from across my stomach, I know it’s over. The bed shifts, and he gets out of bed and grabs his clothes. His body is beautiful, sculpted and hard, and I feel lucky that he shares it with me. His eyes find mine. I try to smile even though I want to cry. I hate this part. He knows I do, and I don’t want to ruin what just happened, but I know the words I’m going to speak will. I can’t hold them in anymore, so I try to prolong the time by trying not to say them. I try to think of everything else to say.
“Evie’s going out of town next week. She and Jack are going to Vegas.”
His eyes widen, his jaw clenching, his guard coming up around him.
“Could we spend the night together?” I’m hopeful even though his expression gives away his answer before he opens his mouth. I know the rules, I know what this is, but we’ve spent the night together before. Only once when he told them he was going out of town for business and got a room for us outside of town. It was one of the best nights of my life.
“Lisa, you know I . . .” His voice is stern but soft.
His eyes, which had been free and clear and full of me, now avoid me. I see distance in them, guilt weighing on him, and my eyes start to water. My tears don’t usually make an appearance while he’s with me.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says quietly. It’s as noncommittal as we are, but I’ll take it. He doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, so I know he’ll try, and that means so much. “Are you okay?”
It’s always the same question every single time. He looks at me with his eyes full of sadness, his expression full of embarrassment, and I hate it! That question always makes me feel terrible, as if we just did something wrong . . . which we have, but I hate that he’s conscious of it, that he reminds me of it. As if I said ‘no this is wrong, terribly wrong, I’m in love with you, and I want to be with you,’ it’s something he wants to hear.
“Yeah,” I say, my throat burning. He looks at me, and I turn my face away, feeling a tear escape.
“Lisa.” His voice is full of sorrow, fear, and every other depressing feeling that makes me want to vomit.
Anger starts to consume me, and it replaces the hesitancy I usually have to say the words I’ve wanted to say for so long. “I love you, Will.”
There’s silence, and each second cuts through me. When my eyes meet his, I see a storm in them, and I don’t care. I want him to say something. Anything.
“You know I . . .” His voice is weak, his expression full of confusion as if to say Why on earth? How dare you?
“I love you, Will!” I say louder.
He doesn’t say anything but sits on the edge of the bed, as if my words have knocked him out. I cry, and I know it’s making things worse, but I can’t help it now. My resolve is in tatters.
I get off the bed and stand in front of him, naked and vulnerable. “I know it’s wrong. I know you said that this would happen. I know all of this, but can you at least say something? Can you at least try to make me feel just a little bit better about it?”
I only see deadness behind his eyes, as if he’s left himself and only his body is here with me.
“I want to be loved how you love her! Is that too much to ask? Does just wanting to be loved make me terrible person?” I ask desperately, and his eyes water.
“No, it doesn’t,” he says softly. “But it makes me a terrible person.” He stands up from my bed, grabs the sheet, and wraps it around me. He kisses my forehead and looks into my eyes. “I can’t love you how you want me to, Lisa, how you should be loved.
”
I feel my heart race. Why did I say that? I feel anxious and angry with myself. “I’m sorry.”
I hug him, but he doesn’t hug me back. Anxiety courses through me. It was too much, I knew it was, but I couldn’t keep the words from leaving.
“I won’t ever bring this up again. Just please don’t be mad. Just forget I said it.”
“I think we . . . this is destroying you. I can’t do this to you anymore,” he says, going to the door.
I jump in front of it. He looks at me sympathetically but gently moves me out of the way. I follow him through my quiet, dark house to the back door. When he opens it, the cold air hits me. The sky’s still dark aside from the tiny light on my back porch. He goes down the porch and looks back at me.
“Good night, Lisa,” he says quietly before disappearing down the street into the darkness. His truck is parked almost four blocks up in its usual spot.
I get a sick feeling that it won’t be there again, that my words have pushed him too far and his good night was really a good-bye. I cry and cry into my pillow, in the bed that smells like him, and wish for things to be different. The worst part is that I’m angry. I think stupid thoughts about if it wasn’t for her, things wouldn’t be like this, and that’s silly and ridiculous and makes me feel a thousand times worse.
I HAVEN’T HEARD from him in two weeks, the longest we’ve gone without seeing one another since that night in the coffee shop when it all started, where we first made love and it felt the way I knew it should have felt, the way I’d read about in books. I’ve lost a part of myself. I’m empty. Something is missing. I frequently check the cell phone he bought me, hoping for a call, a text, something, anything, but nothing comes. The worst part is that Evie and Jack got married in Vegas. I now have a lazy slob of a stepdad, but my mother’s been blissfully happy, and I hate her for it. I hate her for being happy while I’m miserable. I hate myself for being such a miserable envious bitch.
Everyone notices. Chris and Amanda, they can both see that something’s bothering me again. Even the acceptance letter to my second-choice school doesn’t make me feel better. They both think that Brett and I are fighting, and I feel badly about the deception. Brett’s still great and technically my boyfriend even though we’ve only had sex twice in six months. I lied and told him I didn’t think I was ready for what we did, and he was sweet and understanding and didn’t force the issue.
I trudge through my classes, glancing at my phone, the one I lied about and said Brett bought me that Will really did, between each period. A ritual that’s completely torturous. I head to the library at lunch. I’ve started avoiding the cafeteria because lunch is overwhelming. It’s become so hard to look at my friends, the people I usually share my secrets and deepest flaws with. I can’t look at them, especially Chris, because of my guilt and because he reminds me of Will.
“Hey.”
I look behind me and see Chris. He’s wearing a concerned smile, and he sits at the table with me.
“Hey,” I say back as he takes out a notepad and textbook.
Chris is very subtle. He’ll sit in my presence until I spill. I know he wants to know what’s going with me because it’s lunchtime and he’s here instead of stuffing his face. One of his favorite pastimes is eating, and I have no idea where it goes. I can’t spill though. He can’t know what’s wrong with me. Not this time.
“What’s up?” I ask, and he shrugs.
“Nothing, things are good. Except my best friend’s gone MIA on me.” He gives me a small grin.
“That Aidan is such a bastard, huh?” I joke, feeling a teensy bit better when he laughs. I sigh.
Aidan’s been gone for the past three months, since his mom had one of her itches to move again. It happened all the time when we were younger, but she really picked the worst possible time to jump up and move again.
“He isn’t the only one,” Chris says, and his voice is sullen.
“I’m sorry. I just have a lot going on.”
“We’re best friends. If we can’t be there for each other when it counts, what’s the point?” he says, looking at me with those beautiful green eyes of his. I hold his hand, and he squeezes mine.
“Sometimes just being there helps,” I say.
He goes into his bag, looks around for our nosey librarian, and hands me a bite-sized Snickers. I laugh and pop it into my mouth, and he does the same with his. We sit and eat in silence, and I get the feeling I’m not the only one with a problem.
“What about you? Want to talk or eat another piece of candy?” I ask.
He gives me a sad grin. “It’s my dad.”
My heart starts to pound. “What wrong?” I ask, trying to contain the desperation in my voice.
“He-he’s been walking around like zombie again,” he says.
I feel my insides tighten.
He shakes his head. “He was doing good. He was being himself again, the dad I missed. I heard my mom talking to my aunt. She’s worried about him.”
I can see the worry in his eyes. “Everything’s going to be okay. Your dad loves you guys more than anything.” I know my words are truer than he knows.
He nods. “Yeah, but . . .”
Instead of finishing, he takes out two more bite-sized Snickers, and we eat them together, and a little piece of my soul crumbles from knowing that my best friend is hurting because of me. At the same time, a little piece of my heart becomes alive again because I know Will is hurting just as I am. But when he’s hurting, everyone else is hurting. I don’t want to hurt anymore. I want to be fixed, and we can fix each other.
I can fix Will.
THE HOUSE IS empty. Gwen is gone, escaped to my stepsister Clara’s house. She’s hired Gwen to help with some decorating, so Gwen’s staying in Chicago to finish up the job. Chris is over at his friend’s house, setting up for someone’s birthday party, I think. I hear a lot these days, but it’s all jumbled together. It’s better that way. I try not to think because thinking reminds me of what I’ve done, what I’ve let happen to me.
I’ve become that guy, that terrible stereotypical man who’s cheated on his wife, who’s betrayed his family with a younger woman, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself because I was weak and let it happen. I hate myself because there is no tangible reason as to why I’ve been unhappy. I hate myself because being with her made me happy, made me feel alive again. She brought me back to my old self, but my old self would have never done anything like this.
My old self loved Gwen with every part of him every second of the day. My old self would have died before hurting Gwen. My old self promised he’d protect her from the pain he caused her so many years ago, that she’d never have to experience it again.
The smartest thing I’ve done in the past year was walk away from Lisa that night, and I didn’t do it until after she’d given me her body willingly, unselfishly, and made it mine. I took her each time knowing that I took a piece of her with me when I left. I saw it in her eyes even when she tried to hide it. I hid from myself that each time I left, I left a part of myself with her.
She looked at me with her big, wide eyes full of tears and told me she loved me, and I couldn’t say it back. I felt terrible—I wanted to be able to say it back more than anything. She wouldn’t have understood that would have made things worse. If I’d said those words, it would have made everything worse, intensified things that much more. I care about her, I crave her, I want her, but love . . . I can’t love her the way she needs me to. You can’t love two people at the same time, and even in the state I’m in, my heart belongs to Gwen. It’s ridiculous, I know, because I shouldn’t be able to cheat if I love Gwen.
I’ve grown selfish. This year has made what I want come first—my priorities have shifted. It’s been two weeks since I’ve had Lisa, and I miss her. Like an addict, my withdrawal turns me into an asshole. I just have to detox, forget about her, learn to handle things the way I should have in the first place, not like a fifteen-year-old boy with a bo
ner. I have to get back to who I was, fall in love with my family again. Maybe we should go on a trip. We all need a vacation, especially before Chris starts school. I have to let Lisa go. She deserves more. I don’t want to ruin her. She got a shit deal with her dad, and I’m already adding to her view that men aren’t worth shit.
I’ve been staring at the inventory book, but my mind keeps jumbling everything together. I shut it—I’m not getting anything done tonight. I head to the kitchen and grab a beer, then decide to get the Whiskey I have hidden under the sink instead. The one good thing is I haven’t used alcohol as a crutch. The last thing I need is to be a guilty asshole alcoholic. But today I’ll give myself a pass since I’m here alone and won’t have to look at the hopeless stare Gwen has given for me the past few days.
WHEN THE DOORBELL rings, I’m a little dizzy, the bottle of Whiskey half empty from when I started. I might have overdone it . . . I make my way to the door, and when I open it, she’s there. The light on the porch illuminates her face, calling attention to her bright, seductive eyes, her plump lips. She’s like a tempting angel. She’s breaking the rules. Rules that she made up the first night after we crossed the line and she said we should have rules to keep things from getting messy, from going bad. One of the rules was for her to never show up here for me, that we’d never be in my house alone. Maybe she doesn’t know I’m here alone. But she has to know Chris isn’t here, and Gwen’s car is gone.
“Can I come in?” she asks. It’s cold out, freezing. Her cheeks are red. She doesn’t have a hat or scarf on, just a coat that really should be classified as a jacket but has fur around the hood.
A little voice in my head says, “Walk her to her car. Tell her you’re sorry you ruined her life and she’ll find someone who makes her feel the way she says she does with you and who can love her how she wants, how she deserves.” But the other parts of me win out aided by the whiskey. I step aside and watch her pass. We stand in the kitchen.
