“But then he just happened to come over the night that Eric stood you up, and everything deepened from that point on. You let him comfort you when you should have hated him instead. You let him hold you, you fell asleep together and he was hooked. From that moment on, he couldn’t get the thought of what it would be like to actually be with you out of his head.
“You were never supposed to find out. Especially not after Eric started talking about moving in together and definitely not once he proposed. He thought you may have suspected, he thought maybe you felt the same way at times, but he wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. He wasn’t going to be the one to break you and Eric up.
“But then you came to his house that night and all those illusions disappeared. He knew that he was losing you and he couldn’t do anything about it. He was completely certain that you were going to accept Eric’s proposal, that you would sacrifice yourself to make Eric happy.”
“Matthew broke my heart that night,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. Chris raised his eyebrow but didn’t attempt to quiet me. “And I broke his. I wanted him to fight for me, not to give up. I wanted him to admit that he loved me the very same way that I loved him. That I hadn’t imagined things. But he pushed me away. And I didn’t take that as self-sacrifice. I took it as indifference. And even knowing that I was going to break up with Eric, even having that clarity that we no longer belonged together, I couldn’t convince Matthew to love me. That hurt worse than anything else.
“So I ran. I couldn’t make Blake choose sides. I couldn’t turn this into another situation like they already have with you. So I erased myself from the picture and hoped that they wouldn’t hate me too much.”
“He was broken when I found him that night.” Chris interrupted. I was pretty much done anyway, so I didn’t mind. Besides, I hadn’t heard this part.
“Matthew didn’t tell me too many details,” I admitted, “I didn’t even know you’d come over after I’d left.”
“He’d forgotten about it, too. Can’t say that I blame him. Anyway, I have a key to his house. I’ve had one for a long time, so I’m used to letting myself in. I didn’t expect what I saw that night.”
I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to gather his thoughts and paint me a picture from his recollection.
“I found him on the floor by the front door. My key’s to the garage, so at first I only saw his feet. I ran the rest of the way, fearing the worst because he wasn’t moving. I thought he was dead, or having some kind of a medical issue. When he realized that I was there, he said simply, ‘She’s gone’ and I didn’t need any further explanation.”
My heart seized as I thought of Matthew lying prone on the floor, right where I’d left him. If Chris hadn’t shown up, would he still be there? I knew that feeling well enough, that catatonic state where you knew that the world continued to spin for everyone else, but you were cemented firmly in place, numb.
One thing bothered me in his tale, and I couldn’t let it drop. “You just jumped to the conclusion that because he was on the floor, he had died? Why would you think that?”
Chris cleared his throat, debating what to tell me. “The two of us have lived through some scary times. Me as the bystander, him as the instigator. I thought that maybe he’d used up all of his second chances, that his past had finally caught up with him.”
I flashed back to Matthew lying against my chest in his bed, my fingers running through his hair as he confided in me how much my disappearance had hurt him, how he’d just wanted to end all of the pain. “That’s bullshit. You know as well as I do that he’s been clean for years.” Well, I was sort of stretching the truth on that one. I knew he’d been sober for years; it was about the same thing.
“Fine. He was distraught when Eric showed up at Blake’s and proposed to you. I thought for a second that he may have done something stupid.
“Once I got him up and talking, he wouldn’t stop. I think he saw how scared I was, and he wanted to assure me that he was okay. Hell, he needed to tell himself that he would be okay. Neither one of us bought it.
“That’s when I started to hate you.”
I rocked backwards in my chair, uncomfortable. Truth be told, I started to hate myself, too.
“I hated you because you ran off with Eric. I hated you because you were still going to get everything you ever wanted. Any attraction that you’d had to Matthew would dissipate, and you’d be happy enough with your huge diamond ring, your mini mansion complete with a white picket fence and your two and a half kids. Throw in a dog and you’d have the American dream, and Matthew would have nothing.
“But we all know now that wasn’t what happened.”
“It all made sense in my head. It made sense to me to have Blake think that I was with Eric. So that I could save face. So that she wouldn’t find out what I had done to her brother, what I had felt for him. What I continued to feel every day since. In many ways, I never got up off the floor either.”
“And by some freak accident, you ran into someone that I know. Someone who knew enough about you to recognize the name. Someone who called me that night and told me what he’d seen.
“I wasn’t stupid. I knew that you wouldn’t give up your career, not even for Eric, so at first I wasn’t surprised that you were spotted in Fort Wayne. I was about to just shrug it off, but you were pulled over in an odd place if you lived in Indianapolis, or really anywhere south of here. So I questioned him a little further and realized that you’d never left.
“Getting back to your original question of why I told Matthew – I knew that you’d done some sacrificing of your own. That even if you didn’t feel anything for Matthew, you’d still broken up with Eric. I wasn’t sure when this had happened, but I was confident that it had. And instead of boasting about it and running back to Blake’s, you’d quietly found your own place. You hadn’t tried to insert yourself back into their lives.”
“Gracie tried to make that happen. She tried to make me talk to them after a couple of weeks. She drug me over to Blake’s the night of the game and we sat outside in the car. I didn’t have the courage to try. I was too depressed.
“I told myself that he knew where I was at least part of the time. He could have found me if he wanted to, and he didn’t want to.”
“Lauren, he was grieving for you. You should understand that. I’m sure you don’t have to be at your mother’s grave to think about her or remember her. She’s everywhere for you. It was kind of the same with you, though you were very much alive, you were still dead to him.”
I stared down at the table, not wanting him to see the tears that shone beneath my lashes.
“So after Will called me and told me that he’d pulled you over, I debated with myself on what to do. Part of me told myself to pretend that he’d never told me, that I didn’t know. But in the end, something that Will said haunted me and I knew I had to come clean.”
“What did he say?” I asked, still not able to make eye contact.
“He said that your eyes were empty, hollow. Like you couldn’t care less about what happened to you, like you were unable to feel anything. And his description reminded me of someone else I knew. It was then that I realized what you had done and I might have softened a little bit toward you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
Chris sighed and pushed a napkin across the table. I took it gratefully, dabbing at my eyes and blowing my runny nose as he disposed of our trash. When he was finished with the task he hovered by my chair, waiting for me to stand. Once I was upright, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and escorted me out the door. I was shocked at his complete about face, even more so when he pulled me closer to him to give me an awkward hug once we reached our respective cars.
“Shhh,” he soothed, his words spoken into the top of my head, “it’s all over now, Lauren. The hard part is over.”
We stood for a moment, wrapped in an
embrace that was impossible to comprehend. I pulled away as if I just realized that we were in the middle of a fast food parking lot, looking to the casual observer like we needed to book one of the hotel rooms located conveniently across the street. We weren’t even close to friends, but here he was comforting me. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. I stared at him, deep into his brown eyes and searched for understanding.
“Take care of him, Lauren,” he said softly.
I nodded.
He rounded the back of my car, climbed into Blake’s old Civic and pulled away. At a loss for what else to do, I unlocked the Sonata and did the same.
Chapter Twenty
Chris’s conversation stayed with me in the back of my head for quite a while after, invading my thoughts when I least expected it. True to my word, I didn’t share news of our meeting with the one person I wanted to the most. Or his sister. Thankfully, there were others that I could confide in. And they would hear an earful.
As soon as I got home that night, I picked up the phone and dialed my dad’s number, praying that he’d be home from work. He answered on the second ring. As always, he was happy to hear from me. I hadn’t yet shared with him the news that Matthew and I had hashed things out or that I’d reconciled at least partially with Blake and Gracie hadn’t either. For once she hadn’t stolen my thunder.
I launched into the censored version of the story. My voice couldn’t contain the enthusiasm and he chuckled at my breathless description of events. At almost twenty-seven years old, I was behaving like a hormonal teenager, practically squeaking that Matthew was dreamy and the best guy ever.
Fortunately my dad had years of experience at listening to girl talk that typically would have been shared with a mother. I imagined he got it from Gracie’s end as well, given their solid relationship. He listened intently, never letting on that he was bored or that he was missing some kind of sporting event on television.
“You never talked about Eric that way,” he noted when I had concluded my recap of events leading up to that evening.
“Maybe in the beginning.” I struggled to remember back that far. I assumed that I had. After all, teenage love was a heady experience in and of itself.
“Maybe,” he relented.
I left out the part about Jeff calling me out at work. I knew it would upset him, and there was no way to detail the argument without including the comment about my mother. Since I hadn’t felt the need to mention Jeff’s seemingly harmless crush on me in prior calls, I would further have to explain things. I felt like I was already trying his patience, so I kept quiet on the subject. Besides, I still wanted to talk to Gracie and I knew that call would take hours.
I did, however, bring up my dinner with Chris. Dad knew bits and pieces of the backstory that tied Chris to Matthew and Blake, and I wanted his opinion on what had transpired.
“It sounds to me like Chris was Matthew’s Gracie,” my dad mused.
“Except that Gracie was always Team Matthew,” I pointed out, “I don’t think Chris has ever been Team Lauren.”
“I think he might be now.”
I shrugged, forgetting that he couldn’t see me over the phone. Smirking at myself, I verbalized the emotion. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just taken the path of least resistance. You know, if you can’t beat them, join them.”
“So you’ve converted him to the dark side?” Dad quipped.
I laughed wholeheartedly. “He did hug me.”
“See, everyone loves Lauren.”
“Or most people at least tolerate me.”
“I’d say that Chris still has plenty of his own demons to sort out. Until he gets resolution in his relationship with Blake, he’s always going to be skeptical of other’s happiness.”
“And since Matthew and I have only been happy for a few days, maybe Chris just needs some time to wrap his head around it.”
“True.”
“I think maybe I need some time to wrap my head around it. I’m still in shock about all of it, like I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning to find that it’s all been a dream.”
“I take it you haven’t talked to him today yet?”
“No,” I admitted, “today’s been kind of crazy.”
“So give him a quick call or send him a text after we hang up. Put your mind at ease.”
“I’m not used to being clingy.”
“Talking to someone you love on a daily basis isn’t being clingy. Married people do it all the time. You’re just used to being with Eric. Which at times was closer to being alone than to being in a relationship with him. And is why the breakup didn’t hurt as badly as it should have.”
“Yeah,” I conceded, “breaking up with Eric didn’t leave me on the floor. Until I smacked my head on Gracie’s table.”
“Two completely unrelated things.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Before he could question what that meant, I said my goodbyes and hung up.
Speaking to my dad usually left me feeling better about things. This time was no different. I just needed to take his advice and let Chris come around of his own accord. After all, he had warmed up considerably to me during the course of an hour, starting off as obstinate and ending up at least partially accepting of me. As long as I heeded his direction to take care of Matthew, I doubted he would be too judgmental.
I debated on what to do next. I ached to hear Matthew’s voice, but I also wanted to fill Gracie in on all the juicy details of today. I hated to acknowledge that there was a knot in my stomach about the Jeff situation that I wanted Gracie to unravel. During my conversation with Dad, unease had washed over me when I thought about it. As a result, I’d had to bite my tongue to keep from sharing it with him. I needed someone to vent to.
My mind made up, I dialed Gracie.
“Hey girlfriend,” she greeted warmly. I imagined her reclining on her couch, getting good and comfortable for a new gossip session. I wasn’t about to disappoint.
I led with the Chris story, getting pretty much the same feedback from her as I had from my dad. Like him, she pointed out that she was Chris’s counterpart on my side, and that gave her the right to expend her unique insight. We both knew that even if she hadn’t been in that particular position, she would have voiced her opinion anyway.
“It’s not a deal breaker, but it certainly helps if the best friend can at least stand you. He kind of sounds like a douchebag, but not to Eric proportions. Since you put up with Eric for ten years, you can handle Chris.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Anytime.”
“Be honest with me, Gracie. Was there any point in time that you hated Matthew?”
She paused for a moment, considering. “No. You kind of sealed your own fate on that one.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“It’s all water under the bridge. And I wasn’t directly involved, so I had the clarity that being removed from the situation brings. I could see that the two of you were in love with one another long before either one of you did. Do I think you both could have handled things differently? Of course I do. Did I think that you two should have sat down and actually talked things through instead of freaking out? Yes. Regardless of my opinion, I was there for you when you needed me. But no, I never hated him because most of your torment was of the self-inflicted variety.”
“All right. Jump down from your soapbox because there’s more. Chris unintentionally – or maybe intentionally – let some secrets slip.”
“Like?”
“Like alcohol wasn’t Matthew’s only vice. I believe he said something along the lines of ‘all the alcohol and drug use’.”
“Okay.” Gracie pronounced the word carefully, drawing out the last syllable. “I’m sure it’s no big deal. I mean, who here hasn’t smoked a joint or had some special brownies at least once or twice?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, me.”
“You’re different. Besides, if it were still an issue, wouldn’t either Chris or Blake
have warned you off of him?”
“You’re right. I’m just overreacting. That’s not what bothered me the most anyway.”
“And what was that?”
“The women.”
“Lauren, you’re not exactly a virgin, either.”
“But I’ve been with one other guy. And he’s been with many, many women.”
“Like how many?”
I sighed. “Matthew told me himself it was a few. Then he changed his mind and said several. Chris called him a man whore and made it sound like it was a different one every weekend. For years.”
“Look who you’re talking about. You’re really going to listen to some asshole who drives his ex-girlfriend’s car like it’s a trophy over the person who quite literally said he could barely function without you? Chris is just jealous. And he probably hasn’t had sex in a long time.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Calling her had definitely been the right move. I needed her to bring me down to reality before I spoke to Matthew and found myself in hysterics.
“You’re right. Maybe Chris was just testing me to see if I’d scare easily.”
“Damn straight he was.”
“Since you’re on a roll, help me to feel better about something else.”
“I swear you’re like an infomercial, Lauren. I’m now expecting someone to break into our conversation and yell ‘But wait! There’s more!’”
“Very funny. Remember Jeff?”
“Stalker Jeff?”
I’d forgotten she’d already christened him with that moniker. “You have no idea.”
She gave me her undivided attention as I summarized the scene at work. Though the whole operations center had been abuzz over it for the rest of the work day, the news hadn’t filtered down to the branch level yet. I’d half expected the gossip to reach my old stomping grounds, but it hadn’t. Now that Gracie knew though, my former coworkers would be filled in bright and early tomorrow morning.
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