The Unrequited

by Saffron A Kent

  But then he smiles, and it’s the smile I’ve seen in my dreams forever, a smile that never fails to make me smile.

  And then we’re running toward each other like a couple of kids. I jump into his arms, laughing and crying. It’s like the last two years never happened. It’s like all the awkwardness in the world can’t overshadow the fact that he’s the closest friend I’ve ever had.

  Caleb Whitmore, my very first friend.

  We break apart, still laughing, and he lets me down on my feet.

  “Hey,” he says in a voice that’s so familiar to me, so fucking familiar that all I want to do is break down and cry.

  “Hey,” I whisper over the ruckus my heart is making. I’m so damn happy to see him.

  “You look…fantastic.” He tucks my unruly hair behind my ear.

  “You do too.” I poke his wispy beard. “Where did that come from?”

  Caleb gives me a sheepish grin, rubbing the spot. “I’m going for a mature look.”

  “What? Why?”

  “People take the beard seriously.”

  “You’re kidding.” I frown. “They’re giving you a hard time over at your dad’s office?”

  “Eh, it’s not too bad, but you know, extra muscle helps.” He rubs his barely-there beard again, making me laugh.

  “Do you want me to kick their asses for you?”

  He laughs, an indulgent look in his eyes. “God, I missed you.” He swallows, growing serious. “So much.”

  “Yeah,” I admit on a broken whisper.

  We walk to his table and sit across from each other. Caleb watches me expectantly, and I shoot him a questioning look. He glances at his coffee and then at me. “You don’t want to steal it?”

  No, I don’t steal anymore. The only person I want to steal from is not here.

  A lump forms in my throat and I chuckle around it, trying to keep things light. “Are you calling me a thief?”

  “Well, yeah. You are one.”

  “I don’t think you’re remembering things correctly.”

  “I remember everything about you, Lay.”

  I glance away. It’s too hard to look into his eyes and find my old self reflected back. There are ghosts moving in the depths of them—my ghosts, but I don’t look like them anymore. I’ve changed. I’ve changed so much since the time he knew me. I’ve done things, despicable things since then. Then again, maybe I haven’t changed at all.

  I was crazy then. I’m crazy now.

  “Thanks for the gift basket,” I say to break the silence.

  Yesterday evening, Caleb sent me a gift basket with Twizzlers that I only noticed when I came home from Thomas’ office. It was sitting on the coffee table; Emma had brought it in. She grilled me about it, too, asking me who the secret admirer was. I had to laugh at that, though it came out distorted, too much like a sob. I told her it was from Caleb and that he is gay. It didn’t hurt to say that. It didn’t hurt to say I used to be insanely in love with him but he never loved me back.

  In fact, if I’m being honest, I haven’t thought about Caleb at all in the past few days. Makes me wonder if Thomas was as much a distraction for me as I was for him.

  “You didn’t have to bribe me, you know.”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to see me after…what I told you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, unable to go higher than that. I’m exhausted. Breathing seems like a chore. I just want to stop. Stop running. Obsessing. Blaming.

  He clasps his hands on the table. “I didn’t know how.”

  “But it was me, Caleb. Me. We grew up together. You were my best friend. Wasn’t I yours?”

  It’s such a petty, childish thing to ask. Wasn’t I your best friend when you were mine? Still, I feel it’s the most important thing I can ask him, more important and vital than Don’t you love me? I realize now that I might crumble if he answers in the negative; his friendship means far more to me than his reciprocation of love.

  He lets out a watery laugh. “How can you ask me that, Lay? When I’ve spent every second of the last two years missing you like hell. I…” He thrusts his hand through his hair. “I’ve felt so…guilty. So lonely. So unlike myself. But I didn’t know how to face you after…what I did. The way I took advantage of your love. The way I left you.”

  It’s hard to look at him, to look at the naked regret on his face. My heart curls up in my chest and rocks back and forth, hurting. He’s blamed himself the same way I have blamed myself. I don’t want him to do that. I don’t want to think about what happened; it’s too fucking depressing. It’s time to share the blame and then move on.

  “I forgive you,” I tell him. “I do. For whatever happened. Do you forgive me?”

  He takes my hand in his own and squeezes. “Yes. Although there’s nothing to forgive, Lay.”

  I smile through my tears. It’s over. It’s done with. I feel light, both floaty and grounded.

  We spend the next hour catching up. He tells me how hard it was for him throughout high school, how he thought he was weird. He was afraid his dad wouldn’t ever accept that part of him. I tell him he was being stupid because hello, this is the twenty-first century. Who cares if you’re gay? Then, I tell him about how bad things got after he left, how my mom wanted me to go to the youth center but I got out of it by coming here. I tell him about Kara. I tell him about my tower, about Emma.

  The only thing I don’t tell him about is Thomas Abrams. What is there to say about him anyway? He is my professor. He taught me that reading can be cool, that words are the most important thing in the world, and I used to sleep with him and now it’s over. I let him vandalize my body, my heart, my dreams. I became a slut for him, but that’s okay. He never asked. In fact, he warned me about him, his cruelty. I gave up my morals voluntarily.

  I gave him everything, but he wanted nothing from me.

  “I miss the city,” I say to Caleb, out of the blue.

  “Then come back.” His expression is hopeful, the green of his eyes shining. “Yeah, come back. They’ll easily take you in at Columbia. Your credits will transfer and you can live with me. You don’t even have to go back to your mom’s.”

  I smile, thinking of it, picturing living with Caleb. All the movie nights we can stock up on. All the video games we can play. It could be like the old times. I could have a new home. I could build a home for myself.

  And then, in the middle of Crème and Beans on a lazy Saturday morning, I have an epiphany. It’s bone-chilling. It tells me I’d rather be homeless than away from here, this place.

  “I can’t,” I whisper, shaking my head.

  “Why not?” Caleb senses the seriousness in my tone.

  “B-Because I need to be here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” I suck in huge gulps of breath, but am still afraid I’ll pass out. “I’m in love.”

  The snow has melted—or is in the process of melting—and from underneath it, the earth is emerging, stark and damp and ugly but somehow still beautiful. I like to think we had something to do with it, Thomas and I. The friction we created with our naked bodies made the fire that dissolved the frosty world.

  Because the way we came together was magical. It made me fall in love again.

  It could almost be a story I’ll tell myself when I’m dying. The Harlot fell in love with the Fire-breather. It was beautiful and right. It was wrong and ugly, just like the earth beneath my feet. It was tragic and ecstatic. It was everything I’d hoped love could be.

  This time, though, I am going to do everything right. I’m going to change, be a better version of myself. I can’t stand the thought of my love ruining anything. It’s too pure, purer than any love that came before it or any love that will come after.

  It takes me fifteen minutes to reach my destination: the sprawling house with a tree dangling over the roof. I know Thomas isn’t in there—he’s in New York for the poetry convention—but still his presence lingers. His displeasure drags my step
s down. He wouldn’t be happy if he knew I was here, uninvited, but this is something I have to do. I need to do. This love is my strength, not my weakness.

  I knock—once, twice—and stand there, huddled into myself.

  The door swings open and it’s Susan, the lady I met a few days ago in the most unconventional way. I give her a small, trembling smile, and she returns it with a confused frown.

  “H-Hi. I’m Layla.” I remind her, even though I know she knows. How could she forget? The girl Thomas brought in at night when his wife wasn’t home.

  “Thomas isn’t here.” She purses her lips.

  “I-I know. That’s why I came.” I widen my eyes in horror at how it sounds. “No. No, I don’t mean it that way. It just came out wrong.” I sigh. “Look, I know you don’t like me. I’m not liking me very much either right now. I just… I need to see Nicky.” Susan opens her mouth to say something but I rush on. “You can be there the whole time. I know it’s an unusual request and you’ve got no reason to trust me, but I promise you I have no intention of harming him. I love that little guy and he loves me back, you know. I mean, I’m not good with kids. In fact, I don’t know anything about them. But he’s so… He’s kind of my friend, and I just want to talk to him, apologize, and you won’t have to ever see me again.”

  “What did you do to him? That you need to apologize for?” She is looking at me with an evaluating gaze.

  “I, uh, I’d rather tell him. Please.”

  Maybe my desperation to talk to a seven-month-old baby breaks through to her, or maybe she takes pity on a girl with tears stuck to her eyelashes. Either way, she nods and steps back. “Five minutes. I stand there the whole time.”

  Relief sags my shoulders. “Yes. Yeah. Anything.”

  I step inside Thomas’ house for the second time, and it feels more wrong than my previous visit. Sunlight pours into the living room and there he is—Nicky, playing in his bassinet. The sunrays make him glow, all pink-cheeked and stubby-nosed.

  The little guy with his drooling chin and tufts of black hair commands my entire attention, like the room begins and ends with him. Just like his dad. I feel a surge of love for him, something very similar to maternal love, which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I’m not a mother. I’m barely an adult myself, but as I walk over to Nicky, my arms ache with the need to pick him up and smush his face into my neck.

  I come down to my knees in front of him and smile, looking into his blue eyes. He is chewing on a baby elephant and abandons it to grin at me.

  “Lay…laaaa,” he shrieks.

  “Hey, little guy. You remember me, don’t you?” I finger-wave at him like I always do and he grabs me with his sticky palm.

  I bend down and place a soft kiss on the tiny fist holding my finger. He chortles and keeps chewing at his elephant. I remember Thomas telling me how Nicky thinks everything is food.

  “Hey, I’ve got a present for you. Here.” I take my Russian-style hat off, this one white in color. “You can have it, though you already have my most favorite one.” I blow fishy kisses at him, making him laugh. “God, you’re so adorable. I could just eat you up.” I feel Susan’s presence so I hastily add, “I won’t though, so don’t worry.”

  Nicky plays with his new hat, waving it around in his dimpled hands while I gather the courage to say what I came here to say.

  “I broke the deal,” I blurt out, much like I do with Thomas when I need to get something difficult off my chest. I cringe. “Ugh. That just kinda came out. I think I should start at the beginning…not that it’s gonna make any difference to you.” Nicky is busy with the hat and waving his fists while squirming in his yellow onesie. “But I’m going to do this the right way. So, I made a deal with your dad. It wasn’t anything formal. It was just…a silent understanding, and trust me, I only made it because I thought…he needed it. I needed it too, but his need was…so much bigger than mine, you know, so much more potent. But, I broke the deal.”

  Susan shifts behind me but I keep my focus on the little bundle who doesn’t even care what I’m saying. “I know you’re not gonna understand what I’m saying right now, and you’re probably gonna forget all about me because I don’t think we’ll see each other anymore, but I want you to know I didn’t break it on purpose—the deal, I mean. It just happened, okay. I never planned on-on, you know, falling for your dad.” I scrunch my eyes closed and breathe out a puff of air.

  “But I’m going to do the right thing now. I’m-I’m backing off, Nicky. You don’t have to worry, okay. It won’t touch you. My mistakes won’t come back to haunt you.”

  I think of the tears Emma has shed for something that was never in her control. Nothing is worth that; I know it now. No amount of excuses can absolve what I did, and if there’s even a sliver of a chance that it can touch this little guy, I’m not willing to take it.

  Tears gather in my throat and eyes and I swallow to bury them—not that Nicky notices. “Your dad loves you very much. He isn’t like my dad. He’ll never leave you, and I bet your mom loves you equally, if not more. And you know what, your dad loves your mom just as much as he loves you. So…don’t worry about anything.” I sniff. “I’m sorry for whatever damage I did.” I lean over and kiss his forehead. He gurgles out a laugh. “This is the last time we’ll see each other, so take care, okay? I’ll never forget you.”

  With one last look at him, I stand up and find myself face to face with the most beautiful and fragile-looking woman I’ve ever seen. Hadley.

  She’s…She’s back.

  She. Is. Back. Just as I thought she would be. I always knew it, but still, it seems incredible. I want to laugh, and then I want to cry.

  Before I really do any of that, the situation becomes glaring.

  I’m practically a stranger and I was rambling to her baby like a deranged person. She is studying me with gorgeous golden eyes and I feel so ashamed. So naked.

  I’m the girl sleeping with your husband. Me. I’m the one who fell in love with him, who dreams about him, who will probably keep dreaming about him for the rest of her life. So, you can kill me if you want to. In fact, I’d advise that myself.

  “You’re good with him,” she says in her classic, melodic voice.

  “What?” I squeak. In comparison, I’m a hyena with broken vocal cords.

  “With Nicholas. You’re good with him.”

  The musical notes of her voice stumble over the name of her son, going off-key. Now that the initial shock of seeing Thomas’ love in the flesh is gone, I study her with as much objectivity as I can.

  Her eyes are swollen and red-rimmed, and her blonde hair, though beautiful and smooth, looks too threadbare. She has on a large white sleep robe that swallows her petite body. She appears even more fragile than the last time I saw her, but she seems at peace. She glows with an odd light.

  This is the woman who left her seven-month-old baby alone and went away. This is the woman who left Thomas. I want to shake her, shout at her. In this moment, I’m so fucking jealous, so angry. She has everything that I want and she doesn’t even care.

  Before my anger turns harsher, I remind myself that I’m in the wrong here. I took what belonged to her. I have no right to feel this way.

  “I, uh, I’ve got no experience with kids, but Nicky makes it easy, I guess.” I add, “You have a beautiful family.”

  She stiffens at my answer, and I regret saying the last part. My anger was apparent just then. Maybe even my jealousy…I don’t know. I need to leave before I blow our cover and make trouble for Thomas.

  Just then, I hear Susan coming back. “Here.” She thrusts a book at me and I stare at it in confusion. “The book. It was right on the desk and I was looking for it everywhere.” When I still don’t take it, she goes on, “Thomas doesn’t like when someone touches his books, but you must be failing pretty badly in class if he wanted you to have it for the exams, no?”

  There’s a mischievous twinkle in her brown eyes, and I wonder how she is
even capable of it at a moment like this. I take the book. “O-kay.”

  I practically run out of there and speed walk until the house is out of sight. Then I come to a stop in the middle of the road and look up. The sun is out, and I can’t remember the last time it was sunny like this. It feels like it’s been ages since I saw the sun.

  The world is brighter, and I feel that I did something right. I restored all the balance I’d tipped. The broken rules are patched up. The universe is right again.

  I send a wish up in the clear sky. Please, let Hadley be back for good this time. Please give Thomas what he wants. Please God.

  And then I cry all the way back to my tower. I hate the fucking sun.

  It’s Sunday night and I’m alone in the apartment. Two months ago I would have used this time to binge on Twizzlers and porn. I’m still bingeing on Twizzlers, but instead of porn, I’m typing like the wind.

  My fingers are flying on the keyboard, words pouring out of me, and I’m thinking, No one has ever written a story like this. For weeks, I’ve had this girl in my head. She is loud. She has a neon green backpack. She is adventurous and she wants to see the world. Her name is Eva. For weeks, I ignored her, because hello, I want to be a poet, not a fiction writer. Fiction writers are lame. Poets are geniuses. They change the world. They make you think. They are magical. Like Thomas.

  But I can’t ignore her anymore. I can’t ignore her need to take shape. Besides, I know if I don’t write, I’ll never stop crying. I might even slip back to my destructive ways. I might drink all the liquor and smoke all the pot, and then I’d die, and I don’t want to die. I want to live. I want to write.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Then, I hear a shrill noise—my phone. I jump and turn around at my desk. My room has exploded. Clothes and books and empty candy boxes are on every surface. I have half a mind to let it go to voicemail, but for some unknown reason, I don’t.

  The noise is coming from my bed, and I dive for the phone before the ringing stops. It’s an unknown number but I pick it up anyway. “Hello?”