“No. No. It’s fine.” She glances behind me. “Where’s your car?”
“In the parking lot at Juice,” I slur. “I walked here.”
Abby’s smile dissolves. “Are you drunk?”
“Not drunk…drunk-ish.”
Abby reaches for my hand, but I cross my arms over my chest to eschew her touch. Abby blanches and shrinks back. She nods and gnaws on her bottom lip. Her features are tight, pained.
“Is everything okay?” Abby asks.
No. “We need to talk.”
Abby winces. “Of all your awful, openers, that was the most ominous.”
“Sorry.”
“You keep saying sorry.” Abby shakes her head. “Stop saying you’re sorry. Why are you sorry?”
“Because of what’s happening.”
Abby’s forehead furrows. “And what might that be?”
“This.”
Her eyes canvass my face. “Have you been crying?”
I snub her question. “Abby, I can’t…we can’t…this dating thing we’re doing…” My unfinished sentence hangs in the air. I feel woozy. What do I say next? I look at her, but I’m not really looking at her. I have to give her the illusion that I am, though, to make this believable. I clear my throat to try to neutralize the emotion in my voice. “It has to end. I’m sorry.”
Abby’s irises are dark now, crestfallen. I did that. I stole her light.
“Why?” Abby asks. “Is it because I told you I was falling for you?”
“No, no. That’s not…that’s not why.”
“Then why?”
“Our timing.” I speak softly. “It was off.”
“What?”
“Reese proposed.”
Abby’s gasp is piercing, her head jerks back slightly. “You said ‘yes’?”
“I’m going to.”
Abby’s mouth opens a little, she nods slowly. “Oh.”
“I’ve been with her for five years. I owe her this.”
“You don’t marry someone because you owe them, Parker, you marry them because you love them,” Abby says.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
“I made a choice a long time ago,” I say. “This is the right thing for me to do.”
“But is this what you want?”
The weight bearing down on my chest gets heavier. “I can’t answer that.”
“Why not?” Abby’s eyes bore into me. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She’s onto me. “Nothing. That’s everything,” I lie.
“Is it?”
“I have to go.” I take a small step backwards.
“Parker, wait.”
“What?”
“Can we be friends?” Abby asks.
“No, I’m sorry.”
“No?” Abby holds onto the doorknob for support. “Why can’t we be friends?”
“It’ll be too hard,” I disclose. That’s all I can give her.
“Why would it be…” Recognition spreads across Abby’s expression. She knows. “Don’t go,” she whispers, teary-eyed.
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” I turn and dash down the stairs. My feet hit the sidewalk and I begin to run. I literally run away from Abby. I run from my truth. I run from myself.
Chapter Twenty-One
Three Months Later
Elle swallows the final sip of her martini and places the glass on the coaster in the middle of the high top table we’re hunkered down at in the back of Hugh’s Bar. She glances around the trendy taproom and curls her upper lip in aversion.
“Dude, when can we start going to Juice again?” Elle asks. “This place sucks.”
I trace the rim of my empty cup with my forefinger and shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t seen her in three months.”
“I’m aware of how long it’s been,” I say.
“If you and Abby are destined to cross paths, you will, but until then, you can’t be hiding.” Elle shakes her head. “It’s not healthy.”
“I am not hiding,” I say indignantly. I am very much hiding.
“Oh really? Then why won’t you go to Juice?”
“I wanted a change of scenery.”
Elle rolls her eyes. “Bullshit.” She leans back in her chair. “Okay. You met Abby there. Big whoop. That doesn’t mean she frequents the joint, and even if she did, what is the worst thing that could happen if you saw her?”
“That she would see me, too…duh.” I sigh, dispiritedly. “What I did to her, the way I fled from her…it was deplorable.”
Elle folds her arms on the table. “Yeah. It was definitely an asshole move, but maybe you’ll feel better if you make amends. Ya get what I’m saying? Apologize to her.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.” I gaze out the window to my left, up at the dark sky, then at Elle. “It was completely catastrophic.” I frown. “There’s no coming back from that.”
“Sure there is.” Elle reaches over the table and grips me by my shoulders. “Don’t be such a fatalist,” she rebukes before letting go of me. “Parker, call her, atone for your idiotic behavior, and then give it up to God.”
I raise an eyebrow, leery. “Aren’t you an atheist?”
“Whatever.” Elle shrugs. “You get my point.”
“I can’t call her.”
“Ugh! Why?”
“For the same reason why I don’t want to run into her,” I say.
“What’s the reason again?”
I run both my hands through my hair, exasperatedly. “If I hear her voice or see her face, I’ll remember.”
“You’ll remember what?” Elle probes.
I tighten my jaw and glare at Elle. “Everything. The way she makes me feel.” I haven’t forgotten, though.
“Sweetie, aren’t you exhausted?”
“From what?” I ask.
“From trying to convince yourself that you’re happy when you’re miserable?”
“Psht. Who said I was miserable? I never said I was miserable.”
Elle exhales. “You didn’t have to say it. You’re extremely transparent.”
“Well, I’m not miserable and even if I were, what would it matter? It’d be my own doing anyways. I made a choice and now I’ve got to live with it.”
“No, you don’t. That’s where you’re wrong,” Elle says. “Life is a series of choices. You, my friend, just keep making lousy ones, but you can make new ones. Better ones. The kinds of choices you make out of love and not out of fear.”
“What about choices made out of loyalty?”
“What about them?” Elle asks.
“Aren’t those good choices?”
“Yes, if they’re made out of loyalty to your authentic self.” Elle purses her lips. “Do you follow what I’m saying?”
“I do, but…” My throat thickens. “My authentic self terrifies me. My parents disowned me because of her.”
“Your parents are assholes and that’s that. Don’t take the fall for them,” Elle says. “You’re thirty-two now, man. Fucking be who you are because you can’t escape who you are and this—” She moves her hands up and down in front of me as if showcasing me. “This pretending thing you’re doing…it’s not who you are.”
A loaded silence settles between me and Elle and within it, I ask myself to myself, “Who am I?”
I splay my hands on the table and look at my unadorned fingers. To date, the engagement ring hasn’t been sized so I’ve yet to wear it. Every day, I manufacture a different excuse to postpone going to the jewelers. I am out of excuses. Admittedly, I don’t want to wear the ring.
I spent the past three months making failed attempts to erase Abby from my mind, but she is all I think about.
Elle’s right—I am miserable, suffocating in falsities, poor choices and unspoken apologies.
Who am I? I don’t have the answer to that question, but I know who I am not.
“I can’t do it,” I say faintl
y to Elle. “I can’t marry Reese.”
I am sprawled out on the living room sofa, trying to keep my heavy eyelids from closing. Elle dropped me off over two hours ago, and I finally stopped crying just now. I feel depleted. I look down at Ruby, who is curled up in a ball on the carpet only a few inches from the couch. I lower my arm and smooth my right hand along her soft, white furry back.
“Don’t worry, Rubes, you’ll be coming with me wherever I go,” I mumble.
My cat glances up at me then closes her eyes again. Obviously she is not as concerned about my fate as I am.
There’s a pile of used tissues on the armrest by my head. The engagement ring is secured in the jewelry box tucked in the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt. My cellphone is wedged between my left hip and the cushions. I reach for it and once it’s in my grasp, I hold it above me. I tap the button on the bottom of the device with my thumb and the screen lights up to show me that it’s 8:06 p.m. Reese will be home soon.
I sit up and repetitively knock my knees together, anxious. I rest my elbows on my legs and fold my hands together, ensnaring my phone. I stare ahead, into the kitchen, at the front door. At the sudden sound of keys clanging from the other side of the wooden panel, my chest crushes against itself and my stomach stirs with such fury, I gag.
I watch Reese enter the apartment. She removes her jacket and hangs it up then puts her laptop bag on the kitchen table. She lifts her eyes to my direction.
“Hey,” Reese says. “I thought you’d still be out with Elle.”
My mouth is desert dry so I lick my lips, but they’re dry too. “We called it an early night.” My voice is gruff. “Did you finish that project for your supervisor?”
“No.” Reese shakes her head. “The program still has some glitches,” she says. “I’ll probably have to work late again tomorrow.” She starts walking towards me. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
I move over to the furthest right side of the couch and touch the cushion next to me. “Sit?”
Reese quirks an eyebrow at me and takes a seat. She scrutinizes my features. “You look like shit.” She picks up one of the soiled tissues and her face contorts in disgust. “Um. That’s nasty.” She drops it. “Is something wrong?”
The sickness inhabiting the pit of my belly rises. I choke it down and let out a long exhale. Everything is spinning. “Yes. Something’s wrong.”
“Honey, what is it?”
My eyes find Reese’s. “I love you,” I say.
“Okay. I love you, too.”
A stabbing pain of sadness, fear and remorse slices through my insides. “Right. But I don’t love you in the way I should love you if I’m to marry you so…” I pull the box from the pocket of my hoodie and hand it to Reese. “I can’t marry you. I’m sorry.”
Reese stares at me. Her expression is colorless and cold. She takes the ring from me.
I begin to sob. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
One Month Later
“Parker!” Elle yells breathlessly from behind me. “Wait up!”
I slow my sprinting momentum to a steady jog and backtrack down the street towards Elle. I fall in at her side and match her pace.
“What the fuck?” Elle pants.
“What? You said you wanted to go for a run with me.”
“Exactly.”
“So, we’re running,” I say.
“No. I’m running. You’re racing.”
I roll my eyes. “Look.” I move my hand back and forth. “We’re going the same speed.”
“Ohhh. Yeah. Now we’re going the same speed.” Elle puffs. “Where were you three miles ago? Huh? I’ll tell you where?” She puffs again. “Fifty some odd friggin’ feet ahead of me.”
I cough out a chuckle. “We’re almost there.”
“Like hell we are.”
“We are. I swear,” I say. “Come on, buddy, two more blocks.”
“Aargh. I hate you.” Elle punches me in my arm. “I hate your new neighborhood with its long, winding, hilly avenues. I hate that you agreed to let me do this. You’re a bad friend. A bad, bad friend.”
I round the corner at the end of the road and decelerate to a full stop. Elle follows suit.
“See.” I put my hands on my waist and bend to the right, then to the left to stretch. “We made it.”
Elle sits on the pavement in the center of my apartment building’s parking lot. “Bite me.”
“Elle, get up. I don’t want you to get hit by a car,” I say.
“Vehicular homicide. Cardiac arrest—which I’m about to go into—one way or the other, I’m knocking on death’s door.”
I shake my head. “Are you through overreacting?”
“Maybe.”
“I have an unopened bottle of Pinot Grigio upstairs with your name on it,” I say in a sing-song voice.
Elle narrows her eyes at me. “Do you?”
“I do.” I reach my hand down to Elle. She takes it and grins at me.
“Sold,” Elle mutters as I pull her off the ground.
Once we’re both standing, I throw my right arm around Elle’s neck and we walk together to the entrance of my current residence.
I saunter into the pseudo-living room of my studio apartment holding a bottle of white wine in one hand and a long-stemmed glass in the other. My body is still overheated from running. My tank top is saturated with sweat. I make my way to Elle, who is reclined on my futon. She’s using a storage box as a footrest. I give her the bottle and the glass and seat myself on a wicker rocking chair I recently purchased at a garage sale.
Elle frowns at me. “You’re not drinking?”
“I just downed a liter of water,” I say, motioning behind me to the kitchenette. “It’s much more hydrating than alcohol.”
“Oh. Well, thank you, Dr. Smartass, but after that marathon, I’m ready to get hammered.” Elle fills her glass halfway and raises it to her mouth. She takes a drink. Her eyes wander around my home while she swallows then settle on me. She purses her lips, her left eyebrow arched, disapprovingly. “Dude, we moved you in here three weeks ago. Have you unpacked at all?”
“Um.” I lift my shirt up and wipe the beads of perspiration from my forehead, biding time to think. I point at her and smile. “Yes! My clothes.” I nod. “I unpacked my clothes.”
“Your wardrobe doesn’t count.” Elle shakes her head. “And what is that piece of junk you’re sitting on?”
“It’s not junk.”
“Let’s be real,” Elle says. “It’s dilapidated.”
“Whoa. Alright, it’s a little aged. I’ll give you that, but it’s a classic. Also, it’s perfectly functional.”
“Right.” Elle sips her wine and clears her throat. “And this futon is from…nineteen eighty seven?”
“Leave my futon out of this.”
“Okay. The futon is exempt, but honestly, your new habitat is dingy.”
“Is not,” I say indignantly.
“Is too,” Elle says. “It’s depressing.”
I make a gesture with my left hand to the four walls of the studio. “I hung up lights to spruce it up and stuff.”
Elle glances along the large space, servicing as both a parlor and a bedroom. “They’re Christmas lights, Parker.”
“Nah uh.” I fold my arms over my chest. “They’re ornamental lights.”
“You mean like for the holidays.” Elle smirks.
“No. They can be for everyday lighting, too,” I argue. “They’re multi-purpose.”
“Sure they are.”
I glower at Elle. “I vote for a change of subject.”
“That’s fine.” Elle grins. “What’s the status on the Abby situation?”
“Ugh!”
“Man, you walked right into that,” Elle says, a flare of arrogance in her voice.
I sigh. “The status hasn’t changed.”
“Have you tried changing it?”
“Um.” I press my lips together. �
�I’ve thought about calling her.”
“Ah.” Elle takes a mouthful of wine. “Well, unless you can telepathically make that happen, then you haven’t tried.” She tips her head back on the futon cushion. “It’s been four months. Just call her already!”
“And say what? ‘Hey, Abby, sorry for driving a knife through your heart. Wanna get coffee sometime?’” I look pointedly at Elle. “Nope.”
Elle faces me. “Don’t be a nitwit. That’s not what you would say.”
“If you were me, what would you say?”
Elle beams. “I have a genius idea!”
“No! Veto!”
“Psht. You can’t veto my idea,” Elle says. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“We should keep it that way.”
“Please, hear me out?” Elle asks.
“You’re going to tell me anyways, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Whatever. I’m listening,” I say.
“Thank you.” Elle smiles. “I think we should practice.”
“Practice?” I quirk an eyebrow at Elle.
Elle puts her glass and the bottle on the wooden armrest. “Yeah. We’ll practice for when you call Abby.”
“I’m not going to call Abby,” I say.
“You are though.” Elle pulls her cellphone out of the pocket of her yoga pants and holds it up to her ear. “I’m Abby. Now call me.”
I snort. “You’re joking?”
“I’m serious.”
“Elle, no,” I say. “No fucking way. We’re not doing this.”
“C’mon, dude! Let’s have one go at it. One.”
“No. None.”
“It’s necessary for you to tell her how you feel,” Elle says.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the humane thing to do, and it will give you both closure.”
“What if Abby doesn’t want closure?” I ask.
“No offense, but if Abby dropped out of your life the way you dropped out of hers, wouldn’t you want closure?”
I growl. “Probably.”
“Okay then,” Elle says. “Here I am. I’m Abby. Hit me up on my celly.”
I lower my head and shake it slowly as I reach down to the floor for my bag. I haul it onto my lap and extract my phone from it. I stare at the keypad. I have Abby’s number memorized even though it’s saved in my contacts. “Must we do this?”
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