But I Love Him

by Amanda Grace

  I walk to his bed and slide in and he turns to me, and he wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my hair. I let out a long sigh, and the tension leaves my body.

  We don’t speak. We just fall asleep. All he needed was for me to be here, and he can relax and sleep.

  And tomorrow he will forget all of this. Tomorrow he will be himself again, and we can forget all this and just be together.

  And even if I have to do this many more times until things get better, I’ll do it, because I love him, and it makes a difference in his life.

  Together, we’re unstoppable.

  November 21

  Two Months, Twenty-two days

  When I arrive at Connor’s house today, his stereo is so loud I have to cover both ears with my hands as I walk down the hall toward his room. When I open the door, it’s even louder. The sounds flood my senses, a bass-heavy rock sound.

  When I swing his bedroom door open, Connor whirls on me so fast I stumble backward. I see the flash of anger in his eyes before it changes. Before he realizes it’s just me.

  His mouth drops, and he pulls me close so I can hear what he says. He has to shout over the music. “Oh God, I’m sorry, I thought you were my dad.” He wraps his arms around me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I wriggle away from him. This is just weird. He looks into my eyes, and I know I must look worried because he gives me the “one minute” signal and goes to the stereo. The sounds stop abruptly. My ears ring in the silence.

  I wait for him to explain what’s going on.

  “It’s been a long day.” Connor sinks into the little recliner in his room, but I just stand there, near the door. I’m still a little off-kilter from that look he gave me. From the anger that swarmed in his eyes. He was someone else. Someone I’ve never seen before.

  I hit things, not people. That’s what he told me. But for just a second there, it was like he could hit someone. Not me. But maybe his dad.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Connor lets loose with a long, slow sigh. “I don’t know. I mean, do you really want to know it all? I told you my life is just … messed up.”

  I step further into the room. “Tell me. It’ll make you feel better.”

  He purses his lips for a second. He’s holding back, not sure if I can handle it. I can. I know I can. If he’d just let me help.

  “My dad took a bunch of my mom’s favorite pictures and ripped them all up.”

  “Why?”

  “My mom wanted to go away for the weekend and see her mom. My grandma’s sick or something. He said she was choosing sides.”

  “Oh.”

  I say that word too much around him. It’s always oh. Why don’t I ever know what to say? Why can’t I just fix everything by making him see that his dad doesn’t matter anymore?

  Connor interlaces his hands into a steeple, but then starts twisting them around, full of nervous energy. Or is it fury? I’m still not sure.

  “He doesn’t have the right to do that to her. To take everything and just destroy it like that. It’s her mom. And she’s old. She could die of whatever it is, and he doesn’t want to let her go see her.” His voice is quieter now. I think the anger has gone.

  I walk up to him so that I’m standing right in front of the chair, our knees are almost touching. “You’re right. That’s screwed up.”

  Connor gives me a sad, pathetic little smile, but he doesn’t look me in the eyes. “I told ya you didn’t want to know all this.”

  “But I do. I want to know everything about you. No secrets.”

  Connor looks back at his hands and nods. I can almost see the relief, that he’s happy I haven’t turned and run straight out the door. “My dad takes everything from everyone. He wants it all. If he can’t be happy, you can’t either. He’s done it to me hundreds of times. You find something that you love, something that makes you happy, and he’ll destroy it.”

  He finally looks up at me, and I realize it’s just sadness—no anger, no fury. He reaches up and tugs on the loop on my jeans, and I sit on his lap, so that my side is against his chest, and I lean until I’m curled into him and he puts his arms around my waist. He’s warm, his breath hot on my neck.

  His voice gets quieter now that I’m closer. “He got a dog once, a beagle. I loved him. Named him Peanut. But once he realized how much the dog meant to me, he got rid of it. I have no idea if he gave it away or shot it or what. It was just gone. I cried for a week.” He starts tracing circles on my back. “It’s so hard to live like this. To have this constant turmoil. I just want it to be over. I want it to be all over.”

  Something in his voice isn’t right. It’s like he’s not saying he wants the turmoil to be over, but that he wants his life to be over. I take my time answering him. All the words are important. It’s about so much more than what he’s saying.

  “It will be, eventually. You won’t live with it forever. You’ll find a job soon, and you can move out and leave it all behind.”

  I stare at us in the mirrored closet doors, at him with his face against my neck, at me just sitting there, a tired, pained look on my face. It’s such a miserable little portrait that I want to march across the house and go scream at his father for screwing everything up.

  “I’ve been saying that to myself for years. I’ve been thinking it for years. But it’s never over. I can never walk away from it. My mom needs my help. All the time. Why do you think he’s gone right now? I had to get in his face for him to back down. It will never end. I just want it all over.”

  There it is again. What is he saying?

  I close my eyes, because I don’t want to look at our reflection anymore, and concentrate on the soothing feeling of his palm on the back of my knit top, on the feeling of his breath on my skin.

  “I know,” I say, even though I don’t. Even though I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “Sometimes I just want to … I just want to …”

  His voice trails off. I don’t think he’ll finish it. “I’m just so depressed I want to end it all. My life.”

  And there it is. The statement that’s been between the lines all along is finally out there.

  I sit more upright so I can turn and look at him. Implore him. “Don’t say that. I love you. Things will get better, I promise.”

  “But how can they? I’m stuck with this. It’s what I was born into and it’s what I’ll die as. Surrounded by it.”

  I’m shaking my head before he’s even done talking. Can’t he see? He doesn’t have to be this forever. “Yeah, but you have me now. We’ll get through it together. I’ll help you. I promise you. I’m here to stay.”

  It’s so stupid, what I’m saying. But he looks up at me and one side of his mouth lifts in the tiniest smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes, but it’s still a smile. “You’re so good to me.”

  And I smile back at him and he pulls me closer, kissing my neck, my collarbone, my arm, and I know I’ve said the right thing.

  But even as we get lost in our kiss, I can’t erase the image of the anger flashing in his eyes. It was foreign. It didn’t belong there.

  He’s not like that.

  November 19

  Two months, twenty days

  Connor and I are playing another board game today. This time it’s Battleship. I’m terrible at it. He’s sunk three of mine and I have yet to land a hit. He’s good at all these games and I’m always terrible. But for some reason I still love every minute of it.

  “B-7,” I say, picking up a white peg.

  “Miss.”

  “Oh, how ever did I know? I think you’re cheating.”

  “Am not.”

  I set my game board down on the hardwood and sit up on my knees and try to look over at his board, but he tips it away from me. “Now look who’s trying to cheat!”

  “I swear you’re moving your boats or you didn’t put them on there at all. How can I have zero hits so far? That defies the laws of probability.”


  “I’m just good at this,” he says, grinning at me with a toothy smile.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  And then I launch after him and he’s so surprised he falls over, and before I know it I’m straddling him and we’re wrestling with his board.

  “No fair—I can’t hurt you!” He’s grinning and loving every minute of this, just like I am.

  “So? You don’t play fair anyway.”

  He rolls me over so fast I hardly blink before I’m pinned under him and the board is forgotten. The television is still on in the background, casting hazy blue light around us. His eyes are so intense I could get lost in them all night, but then he’s kissing me and I close mine again.

  Every night, we get closer to the moment. Every night, I step closer to the edge.

  And tonight I’m ready to jump. I was ready before, but nervous, and I’ve thought about it long enough. I don’t just think I’m ready, I am ready.

  He pulls a blanket over us both, on the ground, and I lose all sense of time, but somehow it’s just us and the blanket, skin on skin in our warm little cocoon.

  He looks straight at me, his eyes piercing mine, and I nod at him. I can’t say it. Not out loud.

  But he knows. He reaches a hand outside the blanket, pulls something from the nightstand, and is back with me again.

  “Are you sure?” he whispers as he settles back on top of me.

  And I nod again and watch his eyes darken like a storm cloud, and then I squeeze my eyes shut.

  After tonight, there will be nothing left in between us.

  That is the way I want it.

  “I love you,” I say.

  “I love you too,” he whispers, his breath hot in my ear.

  For a second, when it happens, there is a burst of pain and I squeeze my knees together, even though he’s between them and it won’t do me any good.

  He freezes. “Are you okay?”

  I don’t talk for a moment, the breath stolen from my lungs, but then the pain ebbs and I nod. “Yes. Just go slow,” I say, my voice hoarse.

  He kisses my cheek, my temple, my ear, and finally my lips, and then he eases back a little before going forward, and I tense for a moment, but it doesn’t hurt anymore, and I breathe normally again.

  As he picks up a rhythm, his breath quickens and so does my own, and our blanket cocoon quickly warms, until we have to pull it back.

  I almost don’t recognize the low, quiet growl that tears loose from the back of his throat, but I know what it means when he collapses on top of me, his breath still coming in heavy gasps.

  After a few seconds in silence, he pulls back and looks at me, a sheepish blush spreading from his hairline to his lips. “I’m sorry I … I mean, that wasn’t … I’m sorry that wasn’t—uh—longer lasting.”

  And then I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. I have to push him off my chest because my stomach hurts, I laugh so hard.

  “That wasn’t supposed to be funny,” he says, even though he’s chuckling now, too.

  “I know, it’s just, the look on your face … ”

  I manage to stop laughing long enough to kiss him.

  “And I really … that was perfect. I promise.”

  “It wasn’t. But I’ll get better. I promise.”

  “If you’re lucky I might just let you prove it.”

  November 7

  Two Months, eight days

  Abby’s birthday is today. I’ve spent half the day getting ready, throwing a dozen outfits all over the floor of my room and wriggling in and out of every skirt, pair of jeans, and slacks I own. We have a table for six at the Seattle Space Needle; we are going into the city and we will be dining in style, and I can’t decide what’s appropriate to wear. For some reason it seems inordinately important.

  It feels weird to plan something without Connor. We’ve only been together for two months, but I spend every single day at his house, watching as the clock counts down toward my curfew.

  And even though I wish I was with him right now, I’m also excited to see Abby. We haven’t hung out in, like, two weeks, and it’s mostly my fault. I don’t want to totally abandon her.

  Abby is the kind of friend everyone wants. The kind who remembers your birthday and helps you study for a test and loans you her car if yours breaks down even though she had a date, so you can go on one of your own.

  Abby is just … Abby. There’s no one like her. She moved here from Texas so it might be some Southern hospitality thing or something, I don’t know. But thanks to her, I picture all Texans like this, with a Southern drawl and a charming selflessness. I’m sure if I ever actually went to Texas I’d be disappointed, because there’s no way the rest of them could live up to her.

  She’s never missed a birthday of mine since she moved here freshman year, so I can’t miss hers.

  I slip a cute flowery blouse over my head and survey the results in the mirror. The jeans are too casual, so I slide on a pair of khakis and give it one more perusal. Not bad. I dig a sweater out of my closet in case it gets cold later.

  I hear a horn, so I glance out the window to see Abby stepping out of a limo. It’s her eighteenth, so her parents are going all out. I take the stairs two by two and I’m at the door before she can ring the bell.

  “Happy birthday!” I hug her and hand her my gift. “You have to wait ’til dinner, though.”

  “You look cute!” Abby leads me to the limo and a man in the typical driver’s uniform opens the door. She motions toward the car as if she’s Vanna White. “Your limo awaits, darling!”

  I laugh as I slide across the polished leather seats. I can’t help but sigh as everything melts away. This night is exactly what I need.

  “So we have to pick up Jessica, Rachel, and Janelle and then we’re headed out. Want a drink?”

  It’s sparkling cider, and even though it feels childish to pretend it’s champagne, we do anyway, clinking our glasses and toasting Abby’s eighteenth. And so it goes, as we chat and catch up and pick up the rest of the guests along the way, and it’s like nothing has ever come between us. It’s like I haven’t ignored her for the past few weeks. I want to apologize for it, I want to explain, but doing so makes it seem like I’m pushing it in her face on her birthday. So I don’t.

  The city lights sparkle as we approach downtown, the towers jutting into the darkening skyline. I feel the tiniest twinge of regret as I see the glimmer of the lights, wishing Connor was here with me to see it. It’s incredibly romantic.

  Once we’ve driven for what seems like eternity, the limo pulls into a big circular turn-around and we all get out and walk to the foot of the Needle, our heels clicking on the walk. I feel sophisticated, like we all belong here. Like we do this every day or something.

  The elevator access is inside a gift shop filled with a zillion different replications of the Space Needle. I resist the urge to shop for a souvenir of this night, and our group fills the lift and the door slides shut.

  There’s an actual elevator operator, which is a first for me. He’s wearing this jaunty cap and silly tux and talking about the origin of the place—something about the World’s Fair—but I’m not listening, because I can’t stop looking out the glass walls. The elevator carries us upward, into the night, and I watch as the lights of the city sparkle below us. Our view gets bigger and bigger, until I can see Puget Sound and downtown and everything in between.

  Once inside the restaurant, they usher us to a table near the window. Abby and I get the best seats, near the glass.

  A waitress with fiery red hair walks up and hands us leather-bound menus. Everything looks so good. Stuffed chicken breast and rack of lamb and even elk. Who wants elk? That sounds gross. I decide to stick with chicken. If it’s good, I’ll tell Connor about it and we’ll look up recipes and try to make it at home. Maybe I’ll even buy some of that sparkling cider and we can make our own romantic meal.

  The waitress comes back with strawberry lemonade for all of us, real strawberries bobbing
amongst the ice.

  Janelle reaches for hers and knocks it right over, and the ice cubes slide across the table and land in Rachel’s lap.

  My body tenses as I watch it pool over the white linens, and I wait for someone to freak out, to yell or jump back from the table. But nothing happens.

  And I don’t know why I thought it would. No one cares. Abby just laughs and says something about how she can’t believe Janelle is coordinated enough to make the cheer squad.

  And then we order, and we watch the night sky as it continually rolls by, the whole dining room revolving so that our view changes. It takes an hour for us to see everything, but it’s not enough.

  I want to see more. I want to stay up here all night and count every twinkling light downtown, and I want it to never end.

  October 29

  One month, twenty-nine days

  I don’t have a good feeling about this. Even though I love him, I don’t think my mom will see it. I don’t think she will see past his rough exterior to understand what I love about him.

  Connor isn’t good with strangers. He gets anxiety, and instead of blabbing like an idiot—like I do when I get nervous—he keeps his mouth shut. And then people think he’s rude, but he’s just misunderstood. He really is a nice guy, they just misjudge him, is all.

  I know my mom thought I was going to run off to some Ivy League school and marry a guy who rows boats and wears sweaters. I’ve always had decent grades, and I do want to go to college. But Ivy League? Yeah, right. I’m not exactly an overachiever. Just an achiever. Good grades, track, the usual.

  But I want her to like him, even if he doesn’t fit what she’s imagined. I want her to see in him what I see, and I want her to give her approval. I want her to know I’m going to be okay. Maybe that will help her. Maybe she can see that there’s still life and love out there for us.

  For her.

  We don’t talk about my dad. Ever. After he died she took down the pictures, and that was that.