by Serena Bell
As if none of it had happened. Not the wild sex on the log, not the long moment when she’d held him, both of them suspended in the weird magic they’d created, when she’d understood that loving Jake was a lose-lose proposition and that her only hope lay in not letting him know exactly how much she did love him. And not the moments that had come afterward when he’d laid himself bare to her, when he’d cried in her arms and she’d understood that it was as impossible for him to truly hold himself back as it was for her.
Yet he’d somehow held enough of himself back that he could walk away from her. Just walk away, as if he were the—the fucking babysitter.
And she had let him, because if her life had proved anything to her so far, it was that Jake was only her fantasy. And the realer he became, the faster and farther he slipped away.
He was not for her.
She turned and saw Aaron still standing beside his car, but the hand that held the velvet box had dropped to his side in defeat.
Huh. What had he seen? Whatever it was, it had told him that Mira’s yes was far from assured.
She walked back toward him. Maybe that was the end of it. Maybe she wouldn’t have to say the hard word, No. Maybe he would surrender and walk away, and she could take Sam inside and nurse his hurt feelings and cry herself to sleep.
But no, things weren’t going to be that easy for her. The world wasn’t that kind.
“Think about it,” Aaron said. His handsome forehead was lined with confusion and concern. “I don’t want you to give me an answer right now. Take your time.”
“Aaron,” she said. “I’m not going to marry you.”
Because for all the things she didn’t know, there were some she did know.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t be hasty. I’m here. I have interviews on Wednesday. I have appointments set up with Realtors for Thursday and Friday. I should at least go through with all that. And give me this week. Give me a little time to convince you I’m for real.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“Mommy.”
Sam was shaking her arm. He looked an awful lot like he was about to cry, and she prayed, for his sake and her own, that he would hold it together until she could get rid of Aaron. “Is Jake still going to babysit this week?”
“Oh, fuck,” she said aloud, and then clamped her hand to her mouth.
“Mommy, that’s the worst bad word,” Sam pointed out.
“Do you need someone to watch him?” Aaron asked. “Tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday? I was going to play tourist while you were at work—I can just as easily play tourist with Sam in tow.”
“No,” she said, at the same time Sam said, “Yes!” and then, with a little more caution, “Did you bring me Legos?”
“Yes, I did, buddy!”
Aaron always spoke to Sam in that slightly simpering, exclamation-mark-ridden voice, and Mira for the first time registered how much she hated it.
“Can we play with them?”
“We’ll see,” Aaron said, which Mira knew was code for We’ll see if your mother can be reasonable and let me babysit you when she knows she needs me to.
“Let me know,” Aaron said. “I’m here, I’m willing—it’s gotta be easier than finding another sitter.”
Yes. So much easier. And that was the goddamned thing, her undoing. This was exactly who she had meant to avoid becoming, a woman who once again had proved that she was incapable of taking care of herself. Who let men weasel their way into her life, one act of salvation at a time.
You’ll need my help paying for college, one way or another.
I don’t see how you can afford to support yourself and this baby without my help, Mira.
I knew Aaron would be good for you, Mira. He’s a steady guy. He’ll be there for you when you need him.
She let them in at moments of weakness. When she was tired, so tired, and defeated. When she was back at square one, when she had no choices, when she had to do whatever was most expedient.
“Sam,” Mira said, “go inside and get into your pajamas and brush your teeth.”
“You always say that when things are getting interesting,” Sam said.
“Oh, Sam,” Mira said, and felt a rush of pure love for him. “Come here.” And she threw both her arms around him and hugged him, hard, breathing in the seaweed-and-salt scent of his hair, the little-boy-in-the-sun smell of his skin. “You are such a good boy. Now. Go.”
Sam went.
“He’s gotten taller in the last two months. He looks great. I heard he had a spill.”
“He healed fast. A few physical therapy visits and good as new.”
“I miss him. I miss you.”
“Aaron, don’t.”
“Just—don’t say no. Not yet. Just—let me watch Sam for you for a few days, okay? Give it a few days; think about it a little bit.”
She couldn’t help herself; she looked up the street in the direction Jake had gone.
“Were things serious with him?”
He’d used the past tense, and she hated that. But it was the dirty rotten truth of it, wasn’t it? It was over, and more to the point, it had never begun.
“No,” she said. And it didn’t, mostly, feel like a lie. “Okay. I do need a sitter for tomorrow.” Assuming I still have a job. She hadn’t gotten an email from her boss or anything, despite Haley’s threats.
“And you’ll think about it?”
“I won’t say no right this second.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
But she couldn’t help herself; she looked up the street one more time. Then she shook her head. He’d never claimed her, never promised her anything. As he’d said, he’d never lied to her.
If there had been any lying, she’d done it to herself.
Chapter 26
The first few days after he walked away from her, he ran every day. He ran until it hurt, until the pain jamming up into his residual thigh¸ his hip, and his spine was like a column of fire that went almost all the way into his brain. He ran because the effort and the physical pain blotted out all the memories. Of the panic on Mike’s face when he’d thought Jake was going to rat him out, and the relief on it when Jake had told him he’d keep his secret. And the blank, bowel-loosening paralysis as Mike had clutched the steering wheel and failed to put the pedal to the metal, the thing that would have saved his life and Jake’s leg.
Of the look on Mira’s face when she’d recognized him in the physical therapist’s office: No! And Yes! As if she could speak the words that were in his heart, too.
Of the feel of Mira under him, on the ill-fated couch, on the firm surface of her mattress, her eyes rolling back in her head in a kind of mindless pleasure he didn’t think he’d ever delivered to anyone else in his life. Of her soft welcome on the beach, a contrast to the way his jeans bound his legs, the way the log scraped his ass, a thousand discomforts rendered nonexistent by the sheer, unmuted thrill of the clutch and caress of her.
Of Sam’s delight at having two parents play Monopoly with him. Of Jake’s mother’s joy at seeing Sam’s face. At his siblings’ anger turning to bemusement turning to revelatory love, because it was impossible to know Sam and not love him.
That must have been Mira’s genes in him.
He ran until the pain had shape and rhythm and even a sound in his head, like a throaty hiss.
Three nights ago, after he’d gotten back downtown from Mira’s house after walking out on Aaron’s proposal, he’d bought a fifth of Gentleman Jack at Downtown Spirits and sat it in front of him on the table. He’d taken out all three of his intact highball glasses—he’d broken one the first week after he’d bought them, tripping over his prosthetic self. He’d arrayed the three glasses in front of him and poured two fingers of whiskey into each. Measuring out the hours.
He’d taken a slug from the first glass. It burned going down like he was a high school girl who’d never drunk the stuff before, and it tasted like failure in his mouth
.
Goddamn her; she’d taken everything away, even his old refuges in self-pity and self-annihilation.
In his mind’s eye, he could see them, standing together, Aaron and Mira, Sam at Mira’s elbow. Family.
He threw the glass. It struck the far wall of his kitchen and shattered. The sharp smell of whiskey saturated the air.
Run.
It was something in the back of his reptilian brain, something older than the voice that had claimed Mira or the voice that had renounced her. It was the oldest voice back there, down there, the most primitive, the most fundamental.
If you can’t fight, run.
He poured out the other two glasses and went into his tiny bedroom. He sat on the bed and strapped on his running prosthesis.
He ran along the waterfront to Myrtle Edwards Park, passing the cruise ships, as intricate and populous as small cities and drawn up into the curve of the bay like baby whales nursing, into the Sculpture Park. His back, his arms, his good leg, his residual leg—as well as his chest and his heart—loosened as he ran, as if air was flowing into all of them, breath, the breath of the world. By the big red sculpture that looked to him like a giraffe crossed with an elephant, by the giant typewriter eraser with its waving fronds, past the Eye Benches with their black obsidian folds, scrutinizing him. Seeing into the heart of his pain and loss. He wanted to call out to them, to the black eyes themselves, to the people seated on the benches, smiling, holding hands, gazing at the stretch of green grass, the sculptures jutting up, whimsical, toward the perfectly blue sky, What do you see?
What had she seen, what exactly, when he’d told her the truth about what he’d done? What he hadn’t done? She had looked at him with sympathy, as if she saw into the center of him, and she had guessed, correctly, at some of what had passed through his mind, for better or for worse, during the moments when he’d tried to decide what the hell to do about his best friend, who was struggling with demons that might overtake him without a mission to drown them in …
He ran.
It hurt.
When it was hurting, he did not think about Mira.
Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday.
She went to work. She still had a job, though her boss had warned her that she was now in last last-chance mode. She did what had to be done, a foggy, dutiful slog. She ate lunch with Opal, giving her a quick-and-dirty version of what had transpired. “You were right. ‘Not supposed to’ is a flimsy barrier against that kind of chemistry. But it’s over now.”
Opal had questions in her eyes but didn’t voice them aloud. She kept Mira entertained with funny stories about rejected marketing campaigns and her own recent bout of awful blind dates.
Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. A procession of days accomplished. Marked off. Mira came home from work. She thanked Aaron for his help. She did not invite him to stay, not even when he lingered, awkwardly. Not even when he offered to pick up takeout. Not even when he asked, “Hey, what if I invited myself to dinner?”
“I’d politely decline,” she said.
“We need to talk.”
“I can’t.”
His eyes were hurt, but he didn’t push it, and she was grateful. Not grateful enough to invite him to stay, but grateful.
Each night she tucked Sam into bed and answered questions to which she didn’t know the answers. Why hasn’t Aaron been sleeping over? When will we see Jake again? Why hasn’t Jake been sleeping over? I can still call him Dad even though he’s not sleeping over, right? Does this mean you’re not going to live together? Does that mean it’s a divorce?
She did her best. She felt dry and brittle, like old paper. She felt hurt and angry and weirdly relieved, because here they were, on their own, and she could still do it, could still tuck Sam into bed each night, go to work each morning. They were surviving, and one day she’d be less hurt and angry and they’d begin thriving, she and Sam, taking care of themselves. And it wouldn’t matter that after only two nights of occupation, one of which had been down at the beach, Jake’s side of the bed felt empty, a dark, expansive canyon of absence.
On Thursday, Mira left Sam with his former physical therapist, who had the day off. Because Aaron had things to do. Jobs to get and houses to hunt, and …
He’d flown across the country, apologized, proposed, and now he was arranging his life to make room for her as his wife. And she hadn’t heard a word from Jake.
She acknowledged to herself that she had reached the end of some road. That she could not avoid answering Aaron’s proposal forever. She owed him a decision. She owed him a conversation. She owed him serious consideration.
On Friday, when she came home from work, tired, so tired, her whole body aching like she had the flu, and he offered to pick up takeout for the three of them, she let him.
When Sam was in bed, she sat with him at the kitchen table. Not so long ago, she’d sat with Jake at this same table, and the air in the room had hummed and crackled and made every hair on her body stand on end, every last cell and fiber straining toward him.
Now the air in the room was dead. Heavy, as if with grief.
She knew. She knew from the fact that she’d chosen to talk with Aaron at the kitchen table, with a flat expanse of oak between them, and hadn’t handed him a drink or invited him into the living room. She knew that no matter what he said to her, he wasn’t going to change her mind, because it wasn’t her mind’s decision to make, anyway. It was her heart’s, and her heart was aligned, like the rest of her, with Jake’s magnetic north. No matter how badly he’d rejected her, no matter how well she understood that this was probably the best thing for her, no matter how sweetly simple had unfolded into complicated and no matter how violently it had collapsed back in on itself, like some kind of star with too much gravity to endure, no amount of talk, no amount of convincing, could talk her into believing that marrying Aaron would make her happy.
He knew, too. He sat heavily in the seat across from hers and said, “You’re not going to say yes, are you?”
He was a good-looking man, with a strong, straight nose and dark hair. Dark brown, almost black, eyes. She’d once felt grateful to be courted by someone as attractive as him.
“No,” she said.
“I shouldn’t have taken his money. I get that.”
“It isn’t that.”
“What is it, then?”
“You’re a nice guy, Aaron. The best. You’ve been so good to me and Sam. And to my dad. You deserve someone who—”
She couldn’t quite finish the sentence.
“Someone who loves me?” he asked wearily.
She nodded.
“You did, didn’t you?”
“I thought I did,” she said.
His face sagged a little, and she had to look away.
“That guy—the one who was here. That’s Sam’s father, isn’t it?”
“Jake,” she said.
He put his fingertips to his forehead, rubbed them back and forth over his temples, and said, “You love him.”
She nodded. And thought, I’ve always loved him.
“But you let him walk away.”
Defensiveness rose up in her like a tide. “I didn’t let him.”
“You didn’t stop him.”
“I tried,” she said. “He told me I’d be better off with you.”
He laughed, a hard, ugly sound. “How do you know he’s not right?”
“Because …” She hesitated. “Look. I know you and my father are friends—”
“I know he hasn’t always been fair, or kind, to you,” Aaron said. “Even though he’s my friend, I see how he underestimates you. And I told you the money had nothing to do with you, but the truth is, I think you’re right that your father thinks it does, and that means it does. And I think you were right to run away from Florida. I just hoped—I hoped you’d be able to separate me from your father, to see us as two different men—”
“I do,” she said. “And it means a lot to me that you would say that, but it
doesn’t change my mind. Not because you’re somehow inextricably tied to my father in my mind, but because …”
“Because of him.”
“He’s one of the few things I’ve ever chosen in my life. I chose to move here, and I chose to be with him, and maybe my reasons are confused and screwed up, but there’s this deep, strong, inside part of me that feels like those choices are the only things I know for sure about myself.”
“Even if he doesn’t choose you back?”
She nodded. And her heart broke a little, because she knew that was exactly what had happened the other day, when she’d walked away from Aaron and toward Jake. She’d chosen him, and he hadn’t chosen her back. But that didn’t make what she’d said to Aaron any less true.
“Even then.”
Chapter 27
You could turn two weeks into a blur, Jake had discovered, if you were willing to keep moving. You could drown memory, you could drown pain, you could drown the sense of loss that woke you from the deepest sleep with the sensation of falling, as if you’d reached for her and she’d slipped from your grasp.
You could turn running and swimming and biking into a fight, a fight to hold on to purpose, a fight to hold on to sanity. And once they became a fight, you could cling to them doggedly, the way you could cling to the idea that your life would mean something if you could only avenge those tiny human figures falling like rain from the two towers.
Run.
Fight.
You want to text her? Call her? You want to know if she said yes, when the wedding date is, whether Sam will be the ring bearer?
You want to look at Facebook to see if she’s posted any photos of Sam she took, or crooked, ill-framed photos of Mira that Sam had taken?
Run, instead. Run. Fight the weakness.
