by Gabi Moore
But I said nothing. I had the sneaking suspicion that if I opened my mouth I’d choke up and make a fool of myself and say something I regretted. So I kept quiet.
He spoke slowly and deliberately, like he was wading through a prepared confession. His eyes were downcast, giving me a good look at his face. There were new things in his expression that I didn’t recognize. He seemed more grown up. A little more cautious. When he spoke I could make out tiny scars on the left side of his face, and I was mesmerized for a moment by the way they shifted and moved fluidly over the hard surface of his cheekbones.
“Everyday I was up there I thought about you, Emily. Some days, you were the only thing that kept me sane. I thought about all the good times we spent together. I kept a picture of you, and man, I looked that picture every spare moment I had. Being in the program was nothing like I imagined it. Actually, every day I would tell you all about it, you know? I would write you letters. Ok, maybe you’re thinking this sounds a little sappy…” he said and smiled secretly to himself. “But you were all that kept me going.”
I could do nothing but return a stony gaze at him. He carried on. He told me about how the program had so many glitches to start with, how the political pressures situation up there was actually a lot more complicated than the media was portraying it, that he had caught a virus up there and narrowly avoided losing his eyesight. He told me about what they were trying to grow, about the immense funding they had received, some of it from surprising and top secret sources. He told me about their tiny, lonely bunks. About how some of the female cadets had started prostituting themselves. I sensed he was getting further and further from his pre-planned speech. Then he raised his eyes to me again, as though just remembering that I was there at all.
“But what I really wanted to come here to say is that …Emily, I’ve missed you. More than you can imagine.”
I could hear him breathing. Though the bakery outside those swing doors was bustling and busy, inside this room it felt like a little bubble separate from the rest of the world. A little bubble where the past and the present were hard to tell apart. Being with him in this room felt so easy. And yet the weight of the past still wedged itself between us. He had a whole separate life he had lived for five years. And I had a whole three-minute sex video that I would never live down.
“I wanted to say that leaving you was a mistake. I regretted it every day, Emily. And I’m so sorry about leaving you. I was stupid. I thought it was what I wanted and …but you don’t want to hear my whole sob story I guess. I just …I loved you Emily. I still love you,” he said, his voice getting quieter and quieter until it was nothing more than a whisper, pausing on those familiar three words that he had uttered to me so many times before, secretly under the warm comforter in my dorm room, secretly in my ear when he held me close and nuzzled his head into my neck, secretly when he would collapse down on top of me and catch his breath, both sweaty, our bodies still knotted together and our hearts still beating madly at one another through the walls of our chests.
“Well, I don’t know what to say about that. Surely you didn’t come all the way back down here to tell me that? It sounds like you had a lot of good prospects opening up for you out there, and clearly you haven’t had your arms blown off in a terrorist attack, so…”
His face contorted and I realized with horror that I had said something truly stupid.
“Felix, oh my god, were you? Felix, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I don’t know why I said that,” I blurted.
The thought never occurred to me that he could have been wounded, that he might even have a virus right now.
He tried to force a smile but couldn’t make eye contact.
“Well, it’s true that you’re not the only reason I came home,” he said as neutrally as possible. Then he leaned forward, pulled up the hem of his trouser leg and rolled it back, revealing a twisted mass of shiny, purple scarring below the knee. I gasped. And just as calmly, he rolled it back down again. I felt awful. Apologizing further just felt like useless. I wanted to reach out and touch him. I felt sick with the thought that he had been hurt, that here I was being a cold bitch to him without caring at all what he had been though…
“I’m sorry,” I said eventually, when he had straightened up again and laced his fingers together.
“Don’t be. I’m not,” he said simply.
“Well, I don’t know what to say. I’ve missed you too, Felix.”
His face brightened.
I still couldn’t imagine what he wanted from me. I was in debt to my eyeballs and worked almost seven days a week, every week. I hadn’t been with a guy in years, and if I ever hoped to live down my shame, I’d more or less have to take a vow of celibacy for the new next few decades more. I was a train wreck.
“A lot has changed for me over the years, though,” I said. “I’ve changed. I didn’t think you were ever coming back. I …I don’t really have anything to offer you now.”
“Offer me?” he asked. “Actually, yes, there is something you can offer me.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“Let me work for you,” he said quickly and smiled.
“What?”
“Give me a job, I want to work for you.”
I laughed out loud.
“I don’t understand.”
“You need the help, Emily. You have only two servers out there and they’re both overworked, right?”
I was all of a sudden reminded of how the muscles in his neck would twitch like that whenever he got excited.
“Felix, I don’t need any extra employees, and don’t be ridiculous, you? You’re hopelessly overqualified,” I said and tried to wave him off.
“Yeah I know.”
“What would you even do?”
“Whatever you needed me to,” he said without skipping a beat. I found my eyes irresistibly drawn to his neck again. I wondered if he still looked the same under those clothes, after all these years. I wondered if he felt the same.
“Really? I think the Martians must have removed your brain for you or something. Are you going to make cakes? Unload flour bags from the van?” I said and laughed.
“Yes. All of it.”
“Serve coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Clean the toilets?”
“Happily.”
“OK, but …why?”
The smile faded a little on his lips.
“Because I know that words don’t mean anything. I want to show you that I’m sorry for what happened back then. That I mean it when I say I still care for you. And then …then you remember you love me and you give me a second chance,” he said.
I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot. It had been so long I had forgotten what a complete charmer he could be. I shook my head and tried to think.
“You’re crazy.”
“Maybe. But just say yes.”
“Felix, this is insane. I couldn’t even pay you much.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’d be helping me out anyway. Just say yes. Say you’ll hire me.”
His eyes were alive and sparkling, looking at me intently. I wondered if he was wondering if I looked the same under my clothes, after all these years. But then I remembered the video and my heart sank.
“Ok, fine. Let’s see how it goes …but just for a week or two. And then you’ll realize it’s a dumb idea.”
He gave me a full, juicy smile and stood before me like he had just won the lottery. It felt strange. I knew that he judged me along with everyone else. For all I knew, him and Mars buddies sat around laughing at my disgrace and making carrot jokes together. And yet, I felt no judgment from him. In fact, he was treating me like I was …just myself. Just a normal girl. I realized with horror that I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be treated that way.
“I’ll be here tomorrow morning at oh seven hundred hours ready for briefing, ma’am,” he said and gave me a salute.
I laughed. It was dead true that I need
ed more help around here, but I couldn’t let him know that. Just the thought of opening myself up to him again made me break out in a cold sweat.
“Ok, ok, you’ve made your point. Just don’t get your hopes up.”
The moment grew awkward. I realized that he wanted to hug me. I extended my arms and he came forward. Putting my arms over his broad shoulders for the first time in five years felt strange. My memory told me about all the lines and contours of his body, even though I could only vaguely make them out now through the fabric of his suit. I lingered in the embrace, resting my head on his shoulder. He smelt so good.
After I realized I had been there longer than what anyone might call a platonic hug, I sunk in deeper, and he just held me there, not rushing me, just holding my ear close against his chest, his other hand on my head, cradling me. The time between us disappeared. For a moment, we were back in my old dorm room, hidden and giggling under the blankets together. When I finally pulled back, I saw dark marks on his crisp suit.
“I’ve gone and cried on you!” I said, and brushed my hands over the wet spot.
Chapter 8 - Emily
Those bags go right at the back of the storeroom, it’s driest there,” I said to Felix, looking up from my work, a piping bag half filled with cream still in my hands.
I watched him amble over, a sixty-pound bag of flour hoisted up on his shoulders. After a late afternoon of helping offload the new stock (and saving me a ton of cash by cancelling the full delivery service), I noticed how his slightly sweaty t-shirt was sticking to his ab muscles. He didn’t look like what I remembered. He looked much, much better.
“Hello? Earth to Emily?”
I snapped to attention to see Becky coming through the swing doors and removing her apron.
“I’ve closed up the register,” she announced, but had obviously seen me ogling Felix. I cleared my throat, tried to hide my blush and carried on rinsing out the piping bags.
“Great, see you tomorrow then,” I said breezily. Felix came back from the storeroom, looked at us both while panting like some kind of caveman, then went out again for another load.
Becky’s eyebrows went way up high on her forehead.
“I can see why you hired him,” she chuckled.
“Don’t objectify the poor guy, Becky, I’ll sack you for sexual harassment,” I laughed.
“Who said anything about that? I only meant he looked really strong and helpful. Although it’s clear what’s on your mind, huh?” she said and tried to flick me with the end of the apron string.
Becky eventually left; I threw the rinsed piping bags into the washer and peeled off my own apron. I had postponed a ‘date’ with Buck twice already and knew that something had to give soon. But I held onto the tiniest glimmer of hope that the bank would approve the application without me needing to deal with that asshole beyond a few evasive text messages here and there. I don’t know what made me feel worse – the prospect of letting the bakery fold and calling it a day, or knowing it was saved by someone who saw me as nothing more than easy pickings.
“All done ma’am.”
I turned to see Felix standing good-naturedly in the storeroom doorway, hands hanging at either side of him like he was ready to start a brawl.
“You learn to rustle flour bags like that on the big red planet, cowboy?” I said, switching to a hammy Southern girl accent and teasing him for calling me, yet again, “ma’am”.
“Why yes ma’am, I surely did, only up on the Mars Station we was deprived of, shall I say, charms of the more feminine kind” he said in his own silly accent, and tipped an imaginary cowboy hat at me.
I giggled.
I don’t know how he kept his spirits up like he did. Here I was moping and stewing over the accounts and he was joking away, even though I could tell the heavy lifting sometimes bothered his leg.
“Hey, it’s late. I don’t mind if you wanna take off,” I said.
“Take off? Why? I’ll stay and help you load up the washer.”
He was instantly at my side, helping me pile the massive baking sheets row after row into the industrial size jet washer that had cost me a truly obscene amount of money.
“Felix, you should take a break. You’ve been working here day in and day out, aren’t you tired?”
He shook his head.
“I’m getting in the way at Claire’s, to be honest, so it’s best I stay out of her hair when I can.”
I couldn’t understand how he ever imagined he’d move out of his sister’s, especially with what I could manage to pay him, but I didn’t press the issue. Besides, I kind of liked having him around. Becky thought he was a riot and honestly, he just brightened the mood around here.
We worked in silence together, two pairs of hands moving quickly to stack the dirty trays.
“Hey Em?”
“Yeah?”
“I have a question to ask you,” he said casually.
Here we go. The moment of truth. I knew this was coming: sooner or later, he’d ask about the video. Because everything in my life ultimately came down to those tragic, slutty, disastrous three minutes. He’d want to know what the hell I was smoking to do such a thing. He’d slyly try to ask me if I’d enjoyed it at all, and if that was just the kind of thing I did now. You know, just because he was curious. He’d want to know, do you kinda like it? Knowing that every male in this small town has jerked off to footage of you being fucked by an indeterminate number of college frat boys who took turns calling you names? This is what he’d want to know, but he’d ask another cover question, the kind I’d been asked more times than I cared to remember. He’d maybe say, gee, I heard about all these rumors, are they really true? But it would be obvious that he’d already seen the video and just wanted to see my reaction, to see if I’d squirm… then he’d stare at me but I’d know that he wasn’t really seeing me. He was seeing Fuck Bunny.
I sighed loudly and banged the trays into their slots, just wishing he’d say it and get it over and done with.
“This is kind of difficult for me to talk about though,” he said, and slid in another tray, sending pie crumbs sliding into the machine like tiny snowflakes.
“What is it? Just spit it out.”
His eyebrows twisted a little.
“Ok.”
He straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and then carefully wiped my fingers clean with the same rag, before setting it aside and taking both my hands in his. Then he got down on one knee and cleared his throat.
“Hey Em?”
“Yes?”
“Emily, will you marry me?”
I burst out laughing.
“What?”
“Be my wife. Promise me we’ll never lose each other again…promise me we’ll--”
“Woah woah, just …wait, are you’re serious?”
He rose up off his knee.
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Felix…”
“If you give me a second chance to make things right, I swear to you I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I would do anything for you, Em.”
I looked at him gob smacked. His shirt still clung to his hard body. He had little pats of flour all over his torso. For some reason, the sight of these little white fingerprints nearly broke my heart.
“Felix, I don’t know what to say.”
His eyebrows kinked up again. He released my hands and they fell limply back down again.
I didn’t get it. Didn’t he care about the video? He was some big shot who had beat of thousands of hopefuls to get a place on the Mars program; he had won a medal for his service and contributions. I had personally seen some women come into the café and fall over themselves when they realized they were being waited on by someone who had not only been to Mars, but had come back to tell the tale. So why me? Why would he want to marry a slutty college drop out with no career prospects at all?
I couldn’t look him in the eye. There was a time when Felix was my everything. When even his body felt
like a home for mine. When his voice was like sanity, like the only thing that made sense when the whole world seemed crazy. There was a time when I couldn’t even imagine that Felix wouldn’t be mine. And yet, that was a long time ago. I had changed. Maybe he couldn’t see that yet.
We stood in silence together. Suddenly, he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled pink envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked as he handed it to me.
“I get it, Em. It’s been a long time. I know you might have… other people in your life, other plans,” he said quietly, choking through the words. “It’s OK if you’ve moved on, if we’re not in the same place anymore. I get it. But I wrote these letters while I was up there. Almost every day I wrote you one. But I have five years’ worth of them!” he said and laughed nervously to himself.
“I know what I did to you back then was unforgivable. Just give me a second chance? I’ll wait, however long it takes.”
I looked down at the pink cardboard in my fingers. The paper certainly looked like it had spent a few unfortunate years being jetted back and forth around the solar system. I ran my fingertips over the softened paper, the beginnings of tears in my eyes. On the front, in a crooked, untidy handwriting that I would recognize anywhere, was my name, written in ballpoint pen. I threw myself against his chest and hugged him close, squeezing him so tightly I couldn’t breathe. His arms wrapped immediately and easily around me. For a while, I just cried.
“I missed you so much, Felix!” I cried into his already damp shirt.
His only response was to stroke the hair off my brow, kiss the top of my head and keep holding me.
“Felix, I can’t believe you left me. Do you know what that did to me? Do you know how hard it was without you? Do you have any idea…” my words were muffled against his chest and I found myself crying, softly at first, and then in big, gulping sobs that seemed like they were coming from somewhere buried inside me. Without noticing how or caring to stop it, I lost myself and soon was babbling as he held me, telling him how much I had loved him, how he had broken me, how I had wondered about him every day and now that he had come back.
