One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  “Don’t,” he said.

  Meg picked up the book of matches, flipped the cover open, then tucked it closed again. Ahmed raised an eyebrow, and Meg knew he wasn’t going to make things easy for her. “Can I just say, first, that besides Henry, you are the most important person in my life?”

  “And yet . . . ,” Ahmed said.

  “And yet,” she agreed lamely.

  When Ahmed’s eyes sank closed, Meg suspected what was going on behind them—a litany of their love, a parade of memories stored that were now resurfacing, unbidden, unwanted, seen in the new context of her betrayal. She knew, because she’d been there herself minutes before and a decade ago.

  Fear coursed through her. “It’s not what you think.”

  “You don’t know what I think,” he said.

  “You think I lied,” she said. “I told you I wasn’t going to see him and then I saw him. But I swear, when I told you I wasn’t going to see him, I didn’t intend to. It sort of happened after the fact.”

  “And you conveniently forgot to mention it?”

  “Ask me anything, Ahmed,” she said desperately. “I’ll answer with complete honesty.”

  When Ahmed held out the envelope, Meg accepted it, wishing Jonathan had never sent the check. She didn’t need the hundred thousand dollars. She needed Ahmed.

  “What does he mean about the gum?” he asked.

  Of all the rotten, stinking, crappy luck.

  Meg could have kicked the ground. Words did not exist to explain about the gum.

  “He sent me this money because it’s what he owes me in back child support. He was in town over Thanksgiving and I met him at a park.” Meg rushed her words. “My dad and I went to see a lawyer for advice on how to handle things, because I was concerned Jonathan might want visitation with Henry, and . . . well . . .” She stopped and gulped for air. “My father told me not to tell you, and I took his advice. I’m sorry. I regret it profusely.”

  “Your father’s judgment’s not the greatest,” Ahmed said. “That much we know. But I asked about the gum.”

  Men don’t want you to have a past, Amy had said. They want to believe your life started the moment you met them. And if you’re smart, you let them.

  She and Jonathan had been dating for only a few weeks the first time he asked her for a piece of gum. They were in the stairwell at school, shoved behind a propped-open doorway that led to the second floor, stealing a few minutes of puppy love before going to their shared geometry class. That day she wore a short plaid skirt with knee-highs, stupidly fashionable, and chomped on her gum. He stepped close to her, pressing her backward with his very nearness. Once she was cornered, captured, he asked for a piece.

  In Ahmed’s backyard, there had been that moment when Meg, after a moment of trepidation, stripped out of her red dress and stood naked before him. Naked in the moonlight, shivering with love. As Meg thought back now, that was their secret handshake, hers and Ahmed’s, being as bold as the moment called for. Being as bold in the moment as they could possibly be.

  In the hallway of Catalina High, when Jonathan trapped her in the corner and asked for a piece of gum, she’d brought his mouth to hers and with her tongue pushed to him the piece of watermelon-flavored Bubble Yum she’d been chewing.

  That’s so gross, he’d said, laughing.

  You didn’t ask for a new piece. She’d been as coquettish as her fifteen-year-old virgin self could be.

  Here, he said. Take it back.

  Their first inside joke, their secret handshake—they’d passed used gum back and forth for years.

  Meg couldn’t do it.

  She couldn’t look Ahmed in his brokenhearted eyes and tell him about the gum. It was her memory, and it was private. She’d no sooner tell Ahmed about the gum than she’d tell Jonathan what had happened in Ahmed’s backyard that night.

  “I’ve got no idea what possessed him to mention the gum,” she said smoothly. “It was a silly thing, and it meant nothing.”

  “You’re such a liar.” Disgusted, Ahmed pushed back from the table. “You’re hoodwinked by this guy all over again. You can’t hide it. It’s all over your face. You’ve got this wistful yearning in your eyes for what I’m sure is your rosy-eyed view of a marriage that probably wasn’t all that great in the first place.”

  “You weren’t there,” Meg said. “You don’t know what my marriage was like.”

  “Do you, Meg?” Ahmed glared at her. “He was a jerk. He left you high and dry. He’s not all of a sudden a great guy just because he gave you the money that he’s owed you for ten years! A decent person would’ve provided for his son all along.”

  “I know that,” Meg said.

  “I don’t think you do. He’s trying to buy his way back into your life, and you don’t see it.”

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to worry you,” she said.

  “Well, you succeeded,” he said. “I skipped worry and went straight to anger. Your not telling me that you saw him is the same as flat-out lying about it. And as I said very clearly, lying’s a deal breaker for me. I won’t be in a relationship with someone I can’t trust.”

  “You can trust me,” she begged. “I’m never going to see him again.”

  “See him all you want.”

  “Please, Ahmed,” she pleaded. “I thought we were in this forever! I thought you were going to ask me to marry you!”

  Ahmed stood to leave. Meg stood, too. “I don’t even know who you are,” he said, “except a person who lies to me.”

  “Jonathan and I had unfinished business.” She looked at him imploringly. “That’s all it was. I saw him at a park. We wished each other well. He made good on his child-support payments. He doesn’t want me back. He knows about you. The gum was just some stupid joke back from when we were in high school. Please, Ahmed.”

  She wondered why she always felt compelled to say please. It never worked. Ahmed looked away from her, to the curtained kitchen window. Inside was a boy who loved him very much, a boy he’d seemed to be willing to accept as his own. He looked at her, pained. ”You say he doesn’t want you back, as if that’s supposed to matter. What if he did? What if he does the next time?”

  “There’s not going to be a next time,” Meg said. “I promise.”

  “Were you ever planning to tell me you saw him?” Ahmed asked. “Were you ever planning to tell me about this massive check he gave you?”

  She knew that the truth—that she hadn’t exactly decided how or if to tell him—would not go over well.

  “Jonathan’s not a threat to you,” she said. “Yes, I have complicated feelings where he’s concerned, but he’s my yesterday. Ahmed, you’re my forever.”

  “One small problem, Meg,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Besides the fact that what you just said is sappier than hell at a time when you need to be very plainspoken?”

  Geez. So much for wooing him back with words.

  “Yes,” she said weakly. “Besides that.”

  He leaned close to emphasize his point. “I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth anymore.”

  “That’s not a small problem,” she said in a very small voice.

  “You’re right,” Ahmed agreed. “But you know how it is. Sometimes it’s just easier to lie.”

  As he walked off, Meg closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch him go, so she could pretend she wasn’t being left, yet again, by the man she loved.

  Jonathan knows me in a way no one else ever can, because he knew me back when I was an innocent, back before my heart formed its aching black holes. Even as it was him who damaged me, the fact remains: he knew me before I was damaged, and not many people in this world do.

  When he gave me the hundred thousand dollars, I accused him of trying to rewrite history, to cancel out all the bad he’d done with this one act of good. I told him it was impossible. I told him you can’t rewrite history.

  But I’ve changed my mind
.

  I think we can.

  We can decide any day of the week to get over ourselves. To look at a situation in a new light. To let something go or hold someone close. To stand and fight or to slink away in shame.

  In any case, Can a person rewrite history? is the wrong question to ask, because no matter the answer, it still deals with the past. Here’s the better question: in the moment that matters, who are you going to be?

  The next morning was coffee-shop day. Soccer day. Henry’s clear-cut, hanging-out-with-Ahmed day, and Henry had no idea that Ahmed had walked out of Meg’s life and possibly his, too. Meg had yet to figure out the riddle: how did you tell a person something that you knew was going to break his heart?

  Very carefully was the answer Ahmed had given, and she knew he was right. The grown-up heart was tougher than she’d given it credit for. It endured attacks. Got cut open, stitched back together. Got shocked into obedience. Could be forced to keep beating even as it gave up the fight.

  Meg could handle her father falling in love with Sandi. She could handle, now, ten years later, the fact that Jonathan had cheated on her and then left. Ahmed could have handled Jonathan’s reappearance. In fact, Meg knew now they likely would have come through the experience better for it. In trying to protect Ahmed, she’d hurt him, because in trying to protect him, she hadn’t honored the capacity and strength of his heart.

  She’d been a wreck after he’d left. She’d begged off movie night with Henry and instead invited Violet to spend the evening. The two kids continued their Monopoly marathon while Meg lay in her darkened room and tortured herself with recriminations and cried more tears than she would’ve thought she had in her. One sole hopeful thought got her through the hours: it couldn’t really, actually, in true fact, be over between them. Such a punishment in no way fit the crime, and Meg clung to the hope that after Ahmed cooled off, he’d see that, too.

  Besides, they were still alive.

  For that reason alone, it wasn’t over. Their love was forever. They’d whispered in the crevices of the night about babies they might sneak into the world. Licked each other’s lovemaking sweat. Talked of growing old together.

  Their love wasn’t ended. It had just begun.

  But at dawn, she was alone.

  When she and Henry arrived at LuLu’s, LuLu was behind the counter, arranging the pastry display. She smiled broadly at Henry and watched Meg with increasing worry, confirming what she already knew—she looked haggard. Puffy-eyed. Pathetic.

  “Where’s your boyfriend, chica?” LuLu asked.

  Meg made big don’t-ask eyes at her.

  “He’s running errands,” Henry said. “We probably won’t see him until soccer.”

  Meg ran her hand through the uncombed hair of her sweet son, who still believed what she told him to believe, who still believed in her. “You want cocoa today or cider, baby boy?”

  “Cider,” Henry said. “And stop calling me baby boy.”

  “But you’ll always be my baby.” Henry pulled away from her tangled caress.

  “And you?” LuLu said. “The usual? Pobrecita, you don’t look so good today.” She drew a mug of coffee and passed it across the counter to Meg. “Coffee’s on the house.”

  LuLu’s small kindness threatened to plunge Meg right over the edge. It was hard to be there without Ahmed—he was part of them now, and his absence was palpable. His absence was throbbing, actually. Meg thanked LuLu for the free coffee, paid for their scones and cider and braced herself as they rounded the corner to the seating area, hoping against hope that he’d be there. That he’d come to his senses and seen the symbolism in beginning again where it had all begun before, in this lovely little coffee shop.

  But he wasn’t there, as she’d known he wouldn’t be. She’d just let hope get the best of her yet again.

  “Let’s sit over here today, Henry.” With a hand on Henry’s shoulder, Meg guided him to a darker corner table by the swinging kitchen door.

  He resisted. “But that’s our spot. We always sit there.”

  “Let’s dare to be different,” Meg said. “Change is good.”

  “Whatever.” Henry tossed the chess set on the table.

  Meg took a seat. “We need to talk,” she said. “It’s going to be a somewhat difficult discussion.”

  Henry looked at her blamefully, as though he knew already she’d done something wrong. Stubbornly, he lifted the lid off the chess box and began to set up a game.

  “Ahmed and I had a fight last night,” Meg said. “It was bad, and he’s pretty mad.”

  “You’re a poet and you don’t even know it,” Henry said without a hint of a smile. “I’m white. I go first.” He moved a middle white pawn forward two spaces, then looked at her. “What’d you do?”

  How do you not break a boy’s heart?

  By telling as much of the truth as you possibly can, Meg decided, and what you hold back, you do out of consideration, not cowardice. That was the only way Meg knew to keep a heart intact when the information to share might be upsetting.

  “Remember when you called you-know-who in New York?” she asked him. “Your father, Jonathan?”

  Henry’s eyes were wary beyond his years. “Yeah?”

  “Well, he came to town last week and I met him at the park,” Meg said. “I didn’t tell Ahmed.”

  “You should have told me!”

  “Shhh,” Meg said. “Keep your voice down. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to tell anybody. Grandpa’s the only one who knew.”

  Henry’s look was scolding. “That’s a bad secret.”

  Meg sighed. “I know.”

  “And Ahmed found out and got mad at you,” Henry guessed.

  “That’s right,” Meg said. “How’d you know?”

  “Easy,” Henry said. “That’s what happens to me every time there’s something I don’t tell you. Don’t worry. He won’t stay mad forever. You never do. Go. It’s your turn.”

  Meg laughed, appreciative for his sweet nine-year-old perspective. She made a quick move, a side pawn forward one. “Sometimes grown-ups aren’t so quick to forgive one another as they are to forgive kids.”

  “He’s gonna forgive you,” Henry said. “You know how I know?” Arms folded and hands crossed, he leaned forward across the chessboard. “He’s going to ask you to marry him.”

  He nodded knowingly, gloating. “I saw the ring. He took me out to dinner to ask me if it was okay. I said it was, of course. Duh! And Ahmed said maybe I can go to Sam Hughes for fifth grade if it’s okay with you. By then I’ll be old enough to stay by myself until you get home, and that way, I could be on the chess team and in orchestra and I’d still get to see Violet every day. So can I?”

  Meg choked on nothing and coughed emptily. “Excuse me.”

  She slapped her chest and coughed more to buy herself some time, to keep herself from falling so far she wouldn’t be able to get herself back up. Ahmed with the creamy-coffee eyes and smooth patrician skin had, in fact, wanted to marry her. Meg wished she could pull some stunt, like getting really sick and having to be hospitalized, to make him rush to her side, to be reminded how much he loved her. Maybe she could cough herself to near-death.

  “I didn’t know you wanted to join the orchestra,” she finally said.

  “Well, I do.” Henry took a sip of his cider, the chess game long since forgotten. “What was it like? Seeing him, I mean. My real father.”

  His real father. As if he had any other.

  Meg gulped her coffee. “Weird,” she said. “Very weird.” “Did he ask about me?”

  Meg’s heart quickened. Here it was, coming back around, what had frightened her in the first place, introducing this powerful element into their lives and not knowing how it would affect her most-beloved boy. Henry would remember whatever answer she gave for the rest of his life, and while it may or may not be true that we find ourselves in the broken pieces of our heart, she didn’t want her boy broken. Period. Life would break him soon enoug
h, and she’d be there for him when it did, but for as long as she could, she’d shield him. Because that was what you did with the ones you loved—you shielded them if you could and comforted them if you couldn’t.

  Which, she realized, was what her father had been doing for her when he continued on the previous night with his lie.

  And so Meg lied to Henry, because damned if it wasn’t the right thing to do. The truth was, Jonathan hadn’t asked much about Henry at all. She’d been the one who’d offered information about him.

  “He wanted to know everything about you,” she said. “Your favorite classes at school. What position you play in soccer. What sort of books you like to read. He probably asked a hundred questions about you.”

  “He knows we’re with Ahmed, right?”

  “He knows,” Meg said. “And he told me you called him to find out what I did wrong with him so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes with Ahmed. That was very sweet of you, Henry.”

  “That’s why you bought me the iPod, isn’t it?” Henry asked. “As a thank-you?”

  Meg shook her head, although he wasn’t entirely wrong. “I bought it because you’re my favorite boy in the whole world.”

  Henry basked for a moment before he asked, “So? What did you do wrong?”

  Meg straightened. “As a matter of fact, he told me I did nothing wrong.”

  “Good,” Henry said. “Ahmed should like hearing that.”

  When Ahmed missed the soccer game that afternoon, with Catherine of all people filling in as coach (how was that not a slap in the face on Ahmed’s part?), Meg called him—several times—always getting his voice mail. After her fourth call, her anger started to build. Couldn’t he even pick up the phone if only to tell her not to call anymore?

  All day he ignored them.

  Meg and Henry spent the evening down at the pool with the Loop Group and Violet. Meg tried to get into the expected spirit of frivolity, but with her phone in front of her, taunting her with its silence, the evening was interminable. Several times, she was tempted to leave Henry in someone’s care and drive over to Ahmed’s just to see where his head was at—to see if there was a chance for them. But each time, she talked herself out of it, because what if he’d decided it was, truly, over forever between them? If that were the case, she preferred not to know quite yet.