Is there a line between losing yourself to someone and becoming one with someone? I wish life and love and all the messy shit was easy.
Chapter 19
Keeping Within the Eye
I am sitting in my car dressed in the spare clothes from my gym bag. There are no thoughts in my head; I am just sitting. Our goodbye had been brief and sweet. Connor hadn’t lingered at the door of the café. He hadn’t walked me to the Buick—my choice, not his.
There are five missed calls on my cell phone. And five voice messages. But only one text.
Lena. Where are you? Come home.
Today, I do not have a bench on the dock and conversation to keep me away from Truman. I know that I need to go home, that I need to tell Truman what has happened and end it, but now that I am faced with the prospect of truly being rid of my life and everything I have known for so long, I am scared.
More scared than I have ever been.
I can see the ocean from where I’m parked. The storm clouds are still overhead, but the rain has not yet come. The waves are crashing against the shore, pounding it incessantly, wearing away how the beach has been formed by human hands. Carefully built castles are crumbling and notes drawn in the sand are nearly unintelligible. Every day, it only takes mere moments for what has been built on the land, that was for some time untouched by the sea, to be gone.
Like I will be gone if I keep my promise to Connor and break my life apart.
There is time, nothing but time. I do not have to face goodbyes tonight. I can sleep on it, wake in the morning, and see my feelings in the rational light of a new day. Because the world can become logical now that I am out of Connor’s arms. I can be sane. The daydreamer can be pushed down into my stomach and locked tight away inside of a suitcase—a Louis Vuitton like my gym bag that is now filled with still-damp clothing.
And why is the clothing damp, Lena?
My inner voice pokes at me, wants to wear down the walls I am trying to construct—the walls that will let me forget my time with Connor, go back to Truman, be “happy” in the life that I am scared to leave.
Hello? My inner voice is refusing to be ignored. It batters at me like a wrecking ball. My gaze flits to the coffee shop and I see Pete looking out at me. He turns away quickly, embarrassed that I’ve seen him. Connor is not in sight, not behind the counter. That he is not there sends a pang through my heart; it shoots like an electric bolt into my veins and arteries, and all the connective tissue that holds me together and makes me a person vibrates with energy.
No, I cannot go back to the way life was. I am changed. Today has changed me. In a way that no illusion… or reality… in a bathroom ever could.
Still, I drive around until dusk, until my gas tank is nearly empty, until I am tired and my eyes are heavy. Truman does not call or text again.
Chapter 20
Honestly, Goodbye
The hallway leading to the condo smells heavenly. It chases the sleep from my mind and wakes me fully. My hands no longer ache from gripping the Buick’s steering wheel while driving around aimlessly.
An aroma of roast duck—the only poultry Truman likes, which, thankfully, I like also—wafts to me. It makes my mouth water, and by the time I place my key in the door lock I have to wipe away a small drip of drool that is escaping my mouth. My brain should be screaming at me, because I know what is about to happen.
Truman has staged one of his lovely, perfect evenings—the kind that lulls me into a temporary state of happiness where I forget that I am actually unhappy. He has been doing this in different ways for years. In high school, it was a dozen roses and a fancy restaurant—courtesy of his parents’ money. In college, it was a midnight walk around campus with his fraternity brothers setting up a picnic with wine and music under the glow of one of the sidewalk lamps.
Sometimes, I wonder if I hadn’t been accepted into the same college as Truman (by the skin of my teeth), if he and I would have naturally drifted apart. How different would my life be now? Would I have a career, be married, have children?
It’s a terrible thing, to start considering all the what ifs of life. They can eat at you, haunt you with maybes, destroy any happiness you might find in the life you have. In that same avenue, though, accepting your life because you are scared of the what ifs can be just as destructive.
Nowadays, when Truman feels that I am perched on the precipice of staying and going, he orchestrates an evening of staying in. He cooks amazing food, dances with me in the kitchen, bathes with me in bubbles, and bares his soul to keep me.
His soul is bare at its core, though; baring it to me doesn’t change that. It is so obvious now. Still, despite this knowledge I am drawn into the condo, toward the smell and the inevitability.
There he is, in the most dashing long-sleeved shirt, the buttons undone at the collar. His jeans are dark-wash and just tight enough. His dark golden hair has fallen from behind his left ear and swoops forward fetchingly. It is calling to me, to where I stand in the doorway, my key still in the lock, because I know that if I enter the condo, if I let him seat me and pour me a glass of the cabernet, then I will lose my resolve. But God, the duck smells incredible and he looks incredible.
“Lena.” My name oozes sensuality, classic Truman. “Lena, close the door and come in, baby.”
“Truman…” I hold the doorframe for support. My body wants to lean against it, glue myself to this spot on the floor so I do not have to make this choice—enter, stay, enter, leave. “Truman, I have to… I can’t… I need…”
My sentences hang in the air, half-formed skeletons of our past and our present fighting to get out of the closet. My resolve is writhing inside of me, readying itself to shrivel and go where it has always gone before—into the back of my mind to be ignored until the next time I rediscover my spine.
“Lena, please come in.” Truman walks toward me and I can smell his cologne now—it mixes in with the roast duck and red potatoes and creamed spinach and chocolate cupcakes that I now see on the counter. Like I need another reason to enter the condo, but I use this as my final excuse. Cupcakes. I am giving in to Truman so I can consume confections that will be chewed and digested and then become shit.
Chewed. Digested. And then become shit.
He is holding his hand out to me. My fingers flex and I cannot tell if they want to touch his fingers or not. Even my body is of two minds.
Truman doesn’t wait for my fingers to decide. He places his arm gently around my shoulders and he leads me into the apartment and toward the kitchen island and the barstools. The marble counter is nearly obscured by the food and plates and tall glasses of mojitos, my favorite drink. The barstool he pulls out for me seems to be laughing, the horizontal bars of the backrest curved upwards at each end. You’ll never leave. You’ll always give in. It’s easier, just stop fighting it.
“That’s not true,” I murmur softly.
“What?” His hand is still on my shoulder. I didn’t mean to speak out loud.
“Nothing.” My cheeks are on fire, caught arguing with the furniture. He’ll have me committed long term this time.
When he is no longer touching me, when he has moved to the other side of the island so that he can look at me fully, he speaks again. “You didn’t answer your phone again. Did you have it with you or is it somewhere here? I couldn’t find it.” He speaks gently, but the accusation is there.
“I had it on silent. I’m sorry.”
“Where were you?”
I decide not to play twenty questions and instead answer all of the questions that are predictably coming in one go. “I went for my usual run and then I actually ran into Vera, the nurse from the hospital. Do you remember her?”
Truman nods and I continue.
“We went for coffee at that place near the docks… I can’t remember what it’s called at the moment. Anyways, she had the day off and we just stayed together all morning and afternoon. I did a bit of shopping after that, lost track of the time. I am sorry, Tru
. But it was wonderful, really. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a female friend.” Half-truths melded with whole-lies. Believable.
“You have female friends.”
“You have female friends, Tru. I feel sometimes like they just tolerate me.”
“That’s being a bit dramatic.”
“I haven’t made a friend on my own since college. Sara Sanderson. It’s been years since I’ve even spoken with her. Now that she has kids, she’s so busy.” When I say the word kids, I realize that it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Truman doesn’t want children. His mother expects me to give her grandchildren… if I actually marry Tru, that is. I don’t even know what I want for myself. I’m a college graduate with a useless degree in philosophy. I’ve never held a proper job, because Truman always says I don’t need to work, that he makes plenty. I’m twenty-five years old and I am a kept woman with dead dreams.
“Sara. Yeah, I remember her. Short, curly hair, glasses?”
“Truman, I really think we need to talk. I mean really talk.”
He holds up his hand. “Let’s eat first, Lena. It’s been a long day and I just want to enjoy a quiet night with you. You look so beautiful tonight.”
I am sitting in an ancient pair of yoga pants and a faded shirt—the crappy spare clothes from my car—and he is standing next to my stool in his expensive clothing. The smile that brightens his face is how it always is—prismatic and intoxicating. Any self-confidence I have gained in the past days is draining away. When he kisses me, I kiss him back fully and I hate myself for it. Fully.
Like the kiss, I hate myself fully.
***
The food, as expected, was delicious.
Truman has eaten with me and talked about work and his coworkers, and we have laughed for hours now. We’ve even made fun of the stupid elk sculpture that I hate from Peggy. He has promised me that we will go through the apartment and rid it of anything that isn’t our tastes. We will redecorate and make this condo our home together. Part of me wants to believe his promises, to envelop myself in false hope that everything will change.
It is dark outside; the moon is high and dancing with the stars. I almost feel carefree and perfect with Truman. The mixture of his company with the mojito is clouding my brain. Like so many times in the past, Truman has picked the necessary moment to become the attentive, loving gentleman that is impossible to say goodbye to.
“So.” That word… that “so”… seems weighted with a thousand pounds. “If you went shopping with this Vera woman, what did you buy? You didn’t bring any bags in. Are they in the car? I’d be happy to get them for you.”
He has saved this question; I know he has. I have been drinking. I cannot think clearly, come up with a plausible answer. “Oh, um, we window-shopped mostly.”
“Window-shopped? Ah… so no bags then?”
“No, no bags.”
Truman nods, but I know that he has seen through me.
When we have been sitting in quiet for a few moments, Truman leans over and kisses my neck. His voice is a rumble against my skin. “Mmmm, you smell so good, Lena.” He pulls away from me. “Feel like a cup of coffee to go with your cupcake?” He has seen through me and he suspects. But he cannot know about Connor. He cannot know about my hours spent above the coffee shop…
The chocolaty treat is sitting in front of me on a white plate; the buttercream is a three-inch tower atop the cake. Coffee would go wonderfully with it, but I am feeling guilty and found-out. I cannot drink coffee now. I cannot face the smell of it brewing, the look of it in a mug, the way it reminds me of being with him. “I’ll have milk, actually.”
“Milk? You always have coffee. I’m going to make some—join me.”
“I. Don’t. Want. Coffee.” I bite off each word as it travels over my tongue and out of my mouth. I say them mean, with venom, and they slap Truman in the face.
“Jesus, Lena. It’s just coffee. We’re having a nice evening. Don’t ruin it.”
“Don’t ruin it?” My anger changes quickly to stunned disbelief. “Don’t ruin it?” I ask again, trying to understand. “How am I ruining a perfectly wonderful evening by wanting milk instead of coffee?”
“I’ve told you this a million times, Lena. Pick your battles. If I want you to drink coffee with me, what’s the big deal? You really act like a child sometimes.” He huffs and turns around to gather supplies for the coffee—the beans, the grinder, the cream, the foamer.
“I’m my own person, Truman. I pick what goes into my body. I pick who I spend the day with. I pick when I come home. I control myself.” I do not want to think about it. I do not want to see Connor waiting for me with that beautiful ring and the promise of a love that would also come with freedom.
“What the hell are you going on about?” He still doesn’t face me, like I do not even deserve the respect of him looking at me when I am upset and speaking. “Why don’t you go grab a shower and change while I make the coffee? It’ll give you time to cool down and then come back so we can interact like adults.”
My mouth hangs open and I know if anyone were to look at me, that I would seem the imbecile in this conversation. I am refusing to drink coffee. I am refusing to go shower. I am refusing to be pleasant.
“I slept with someone else today!” I scream the words like a banshee and then instantly I feel like I am going to be sick. My eyelids are separated by a mile; my eyeballs feel like they might pop out of my head like some overzealous cartoon character’s.
Truman’s entire body is rigid. The fridge is open and his hand is on the bean grinder.
Everything in the condo is frozen. Even the tiny particles in the air, illuminated by the Edison bulbs, seem to hang in time, unmoving and flabbergasted by my outburst.
It is so quiet for so long. The fridge is now dinging rhythmically because its door has been left open too long.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
I am reminded of the clock in the hospital, its ticking like a hammer striking anvil.
“Truman…” I do not know what to say, only that I cannot let this silence continue, that I need to fill the air with words. Maybe even that goodbye that has been sitting in my stomach like discarded trash. “Truman, I am sorry. It… I won’t say it just happened. I knew what I was doing.”
He is still a statue.
The fridge dings manically and it seems to me that its dinging gets more persistent with every passing moment.
Finally, Truman moves. His hand reaches out and grips the fridge door and he closes it softly. The dinging is gone in reality, but I can still hear it—like the telltale heart, it sounds in my brain over and over until I think I will go well and truly mad.
“Please look at me, Tru.” I feel like I shouldn’t use his nickname. It’s an intimate gesture and I have lost that right by betraying him. It’s not like he hasn’t done the same thing tenfold. Why am I feeling so guilty?
“Lena, I know you’re not stupid.”
I am surprised to hear guilt and regret when I am expecting anger.
“I haven’t been faithful to you throughout our relationship.” Truman turns to face me now; he leans back against the counter and crosses his arms against his chest. “Even as recently as before you were in the hospital… but that’s over. I ended it and I’m going to be yours forever. See, I’m not stupid either. I’ve a future ahead of me and I can’t afford scandals. I need a wife, a family, stability at home. And I love you.”
He has a future ahead of him. As recently as before I was in the hospital. Can’t afford scandals. He needs a wife… a family. Children?
“How many, Tru?”
“Numbers don’t matter, Lena. That’s the past. I pick you for the future. Isn’t that all we should care about? Tomorrow? Not yesterday?”
“Yesterday, I’d been faithful to you for more than eight years.”
“And today, you weren’t faithful.” He’s been standing in front of me, straight-faced and serious, but now, cur
iosity changes his expression. “Why did you cheat on me now, Lena? You don’t do casual… if you did, you’d have cheated a long time ago.”
I don’t know how to answer this. No, I don’t do casual, but I’m not sure I did it for love either. I can see love growing with Connor, even a future, even everything, but why had I jumped into bed with him today?
“Because I almost died, because I have almost died more than once now, and I’m tired of living like this.” I gesture to the condo, to the world at large.
“Living like what?” And he seems genuinely confused. I can see the condo through his eyes, how luxe and comfortable it is. I can see my life through his eyes, how I want for nothing, how I do not need to work.
“You control everything, Truman. You want to know where I am, who I’m with, you want me to drink coffee when I don’t want to drink coffee. You treat me like something you own, not someone you love.”
“That’s ridiculous, Lena.”
“See! You don’t even recognize what you’re like. You think that we’re happy, that we have this perfect little life, but we don’t.” I reach up to my neck, to the necklace there. I need the comfort of it between my fingers, the little pearls bumping against my skin. A gasp escapes my lips as I realize it isn’t there. My starfish is gone. It has to be at Connor’s. Perhaps on the floor or between the couch cushions.
Truman sees the expression on my face, the mad dash of my fingers across the skin of my neck. “Where’s your necklace?”
“I don’t know. Truman, I can’t lose it. I have to go look for it.” Standing up abruptly, I knock the stool to the ground. It lands with a clatter on the hardwood.
“Lena, relax. We can look for it tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve been waiting for the perfect chance tonight to give you this.”
My body is edging toward the door. I have to have my starfish. I cannot be brave tonight without it. I cannot leave Truman. “Give me what?” My words are hurried. I don’t care what he is going to give me. I am sure it’s nothing that I want.
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