On Paper

by Shae Scott

  "So I'm guessing you’re mad," I started. Even I could hear the clip in my voice, already on the defensive for whatever she was going to throw at me.

  She tilted her head in that way she did when she couldn't believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. I usually thought it was cute. Today, not so much. "Before you start, it's not at all what it looked like in those pictures," I said.

  "So you weren't drunk in a bar with lots of scantily clad women hanging all over you last night? That wasn't your face rubbing against that woman's tits?" she asked levelly. I hated how calm her voice sounded.

  I rolled my eyes and heard her huff in frustration. “Nothing happened," I said.

  "Keaton, you can't tell me you don't understand why I'm upset," she said softly.

  I did understand why she was upset, but I didn't want to get into it. Did that make me an insensitive asshole? Probably. I wasn't in the right mood to care.

  "Can we not turn this into a big deal, Quinn?" I asked.

  "It is a big deal. It's a big deal to me, Keaton." She said my name like it tasted bitter on her lips. I preferred the way it fell out on a sigh, to be honest.

  "I just mean that nothing happened. It was all very innocent. There is nothing to get worked up about," I said.

  "I'm really sorry that my reaction isn’t working out to be convenient for you this morning," she said.

  I sighed, this was going nowhere fast.

  "Look, I don't want to fight about this right now. I'm calling to tell you that nothing happened. I wanted you to know. If you are going to berate me over it it's going to have to wait for another time because right now I need to get some sleep," I said.

  "Oh yeah? Nursing quite the hangover aren't ya? Maybe you should have made better choices last night and this morning wouldn't be so rough," she said.

  "Yeah, I could have lived without this conversation," I muttered.

  "Wow," she said. It came out softly, but there was a whole lot waiting there under the surface. I sat up straighter in bed, adjusting the pillows behind me. When the laptop wobbled on my knees I steadied it with my hand, as I said, "That's not what I meant."

  I looked back to the screen, but it had gone black, our connection lost.

  Shit.

  HE WAS GONE. The connection ended. He’d hung up on me. Asshole. I sat there fuming as I stared at the blank screen where he'd been. It was probably for the best. The conversation was going nowhere. I was still angry and he was still defensive.

  Honestly, I was hurt more than anything. Hurt that he'd put himself in that position and hadn't thought about my feelings. I realized that this had been a normal night out for him, but that was before. He'd told me that he wanted this to work, and for that to happen he had to try. This didn’t feel like he was trying.

  It wasn't like I was telling him not to go out and have fun. I wasn't the kind of girl who wanted to tie him down and keep him from having fun while we were apart, but geesh, have some respect for the girl back home, ya know? Was that so wrong? Was it too much to ask that I not have to see pictures of him feeling up some bimbo while he's drunk out of his mind? Do I need Instagram to tell me that I am a foolish idiot for trusting him? It hurt that he was trying to brush those feelings aside and not take any responsibility for them.

  My computer screen flashed again with an incoming call. It was him. I wasn't sure I wanted to answer it. But I knew if I didn't I would just let it fester and build into something even worse.

  I accepted the call.

  "I didn't mean to hang up on you," he said, his eyes apologetic.

  Well, at least there was that.

  "I don't want to fight," I said.

  "You sure about that?" he grumbled. Man, he was in a shitty mood. It sparked my own irritation again.

  "I just wanted to talk, that's all," I said. I studied his face. He really did look like he was dealing with a monster hangover. He could barely open his eyes all the way. But somehow he still oozed sex. It seeped out of his pores. His hair stuck up in all kinds of directions, and there was a pillow crease on the side of his face. If I wasn't so irritated with him I'd probably engage him in some awesome morning Skype sex. Sigh.

  "No, you wanted to scold me and tell me all the ways that I fucked up last night," he pointed out. I take back the Skype sex thing.

  "You're being an asshole," I said.

  "It’s just who I am, baby," he muttered, leaning back against the pillows at his back and shutting his eyes. He wasn't even going to attempt to have a real conversation with me.

  "No it's not. If it were, I wouldn't waste my time," I said. He sighed and stared at the camera.

  He laughed, a hard sarcastic laugh and it pricked at my skin.

  "If you aren't going to talk to me about it then you might as well hang up. I thought we could have an adult conversation about it, but apparently you aren't up for that. I guess I expected too much," I spat out.

  "Maybe you did. I'm not one of your book boyfriends, Quinn. I'm not perfect. I'm going to screw up. If you are looking for perfect then you are looking in the wrong place. That is never going to be me," he huffed. I watched as his nostrils flared and fumed. Whoa -- I wasn't even sure where this was coming from. Had I ever made him think that I was looking for some fictional version of him? Did I put that kind of pressure on him, on us?

  "I've never asked you to be perfect. All I ever asked was that you respect me and this relationship by not whoring yourself out whenever you get a chance. It's like you get off on all of the attention. If I wasn't going to be enough for you then you should have never come to find me. You should have just left it all alone like we'd agreed. You're the one who showed up on my doorstep. I let you go. You could have kept your old lifestyle and forgotten all about me. You pushed me. So don't blame me for how you feel right now," I said.

  "You're right. I did show up. Guess I should have made sure you weren't carrying a lifetime pass to the crazy train first," he said.

  I sat back in my chair and stared at him; his words hitting me hard before seeping into every cut on my skin.

  "The crazy train?" I asked.

  "What else do you call it? Jealous, suspicious, nagging? You wanna pick one?" he said. He was so hard and defensive. But there was more to it than that and I knew him well enough now to recognize it. That didn't mean he wasn't pissing me off. Because right now, no matter what the real reason was for the way he was talking to me, I wanted to kick him in the balls.

  "Why do you have to be such an asshole? Does that make you feel better? Make you feel safe? Maybe if you push me away or screw up enough I'll walk away and you won’t have to deal with anything real?”

  "Don't try to analyze me, Quinn; I'm not in the mood." He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated.

  "Well, I'm not in the mood for you trying to bully me into apologizing or feeling guilty for being upset about that picture. Maybe you think it's not a big deal, but it is to me. And the fact that you can't understand why says a lot," I said. I hated that we were having this argument over Skype. Everything felt so impersonal and yet every word seemed to carry another layer of hurt on impact. But this was us. This was all that we had. Stolen moments and a handful of Skype dates. I'd been okay with it knowing that soon I'd be in New York and we could be a normal couple. Only we'd never be normal. There would always be trips to take, trips that would put him in the line of temptation or that would lead to the kind of internet fodder that we were fighting over today.

  I'd been right to be cautious. I'd been right to set those boundaries. I had wanted to keep that time in San Francisco special, now reality was clouding every memory and turning it all into nothing. I was watching it all fade away like the fog, right before my eyes. And at this moment, I wasn't so sure that I didn't want to let it go.

  We both sat behind our respective computers, staring at screens, but not seeing each other.

  "I don’t want to keep doing this," I said finally. I didn’t want to fight with him.

  "No one
is asking you to," he spit back.

  "Are you kidding me right now?" I choked back the angry tears that were threatening me.

  "I'm not going to beg you, Quinn. You want out? You want to call it quits? Fine. I'm never going to measure up and be your perfect guy. You're fooling yourself if you think I am," he said.

  "Is that really what you think of me? Because if it is, you’re right, you should just end it," I said, my voice going quiet. The reality of my question and the answer that I waited for had me feeling sick to my stomach.

  He took a long time to answer me. I watched his face for some sign, some expression to show me what he was thinking, but he revealed nothing.

  "Maybe I'm not the guy for you," he said simply.

  "Fuck you," I said, closing the top to my laptop ending the call. I stared at it, in disbelief. Had he really just broken up with me over Skype? Over a photo? Or rather because he didn't want to talk about a photo?

  No. It was more than that. This was about the fact that he didn't want to change. He didn't want to have to answer to me or to anyone. He didn't want to have to think about what he did or how it would affect anyone else. He was a selfish bastard and he had no desire to be anything different.

  I was the fool. I had believed him. All of his stupid words. That was my first mistake. The man wrote fiction for God's sake. He was a master of lies. He never promised me fairytales. In fact, he'd pretty much admitted to me that he didn't believe in them. I had just been a distraction. A story he was trying to figure out.

  I waited for him to call me back.

  He didn't.

  It was just as well. I didn't want to talk to him anyway.

  "Are you okay?" Lily asked from the doorway of my room.

  I shrugged.

  "Want to tell me about it?" she encouraged.

  "He's an asshole," I said as my fingers worried with the fringe of a throw pillow.

  "Oh. Okay then. He's an asshole. Why the new nickname?" she asked.

  I sighed, "Fine, he's not an asshole. But he's behaving like one and it's pretty much the same thing."

  "What happened?"

  I pulled up the page on my phone and handed it to her. I watched as her eyes widened at the photo then moved side to side as she scrolled through the comments.

  "Was this last night?" she asked.

  "Yep."

  "And you just talked to him about it?" she asked.

  "Yep."

  "Were you this wordy with him?" she said with a soft chuckle.

  "I think he just broke up with me." My voice broke on the words, just saying them out loud made me want to crumble. How had things gone so wrong so fast?

  "No way," Lily said, sounding as surprised as I felt.

  I relayed the conversation the best I could, but it was already becoming foggy. I kept waiting for my phone to ring, waiting for him to take it all back. Maybe he wasn't the guy for me. But I wasn't ready to let him make that decision for us.

  "What if he doesn't call me back? What if that's it? What if it’s just done?" I asked. I needed her to talk me off the ledge. I searched her expression for an answer to the questions that were threatening to send me into a panic.

  "He's hung-over and he knows he screwed up. After he cools off he'll talk," she offered.

  “Do you think I was unfair to him? Judging him on his past instead of how he’s been with me?” I asked, feeling guilt start to gnaw at my insides.

  Lily gave me a sad smile, “I don’t know. I think you both have to let go of his past and find a way to trust each other.”

  "I don't want to lose him," I admitted.

  She smiled and gave me a hug. "Let's go get some breakfast. We'll get distracted with mimosas. It will help you see everything a little clearer," she promised.

  I gave her a weak smile. "I like mimosas."

  "That's my girl. Get dressed. Keaton Harris doesn't get to ruin this day," she said. She pulled me to my feet and as I started to the bathroom towards the closet to find some clothes she grabbed my phone and left it on my desk. When I questioned her with the raise of an eyebrow she said, "We're leaving everything else here."

  I AM AN ASSHOLE.

  There was a heaviness in my chest like I’d never felt until now. It made it hard to breathe. It's been hours and I've been sitting here in the dark, staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what happened. Her voice keeps echoing in my head; her face haunting me every time that I close my eyes.

  I screwed up. The words I'd used, the things that I'd implied, they were cruel. The memories are suffocating me. I keep picking up the phone to call her, to apologize or try to explain, but I can't hit the call button.

  I'm also a coward.

  I don’t know what to say to her. I've already said too much. Words. Stupid, shitty words. I wish I could take them all back. I wish I could replace them with the words she deserved to hear this morning. I wish I hadn’t given here anything to worry about in the first place.

  She’d seen me from the beginning. I'd done my best to convince her that her first impressions were wrong. And for a while I’d even started to believe it. But now, having treated her the way that I had, I knew better. I was exactly what she'd thought. I was worse, because I'd convinced her that I was different.

  I wasn't different.

  But she made me want to be.

  I had to fix this. Now that my headache had faded and I wasn't feeling quite so vile, the reality of this morning hung heavy all around me.

  I stared down at my phone, a photo of us pulled up and staring back at me. Even in a photograph she took my breath away. How had I let her believe that I could walk away from that? How could I have dismissed her like she didn't matter?

  Fuck, I'm such an asshole.

  I'd let the entire day pass without making any move at all.

  I couldn't let her fall asleep thinking those things. I couldn't let her think we were over.

  Unless she wanted it to be over? What would I do then?

  I pulled up her number and hit send before I could question it further. It was time to grovel.

  "Hi," she greeted me, her voice hesitant.

  "I’m sorry," I said. First and foremost she needed to hear those words, because I really was sorry. I heard her soft sigh and held my breath.

  “"You hurt me," she said softly. I could hear the pain there, the way her voice faltered on the words as if she were holding back tears. It hit hard, three words that ripped through me like shrapnel. It took my breath and stopped it short. Her honesty a mirror I couldn't ignore.

  "I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Quinn." My voice cracked, heavy with the pressure of my heart. I wasn't used to apologizing. I wasn't used to admitting wrongs or feeling them so deeply. She didn't say anything. I knew she was sorting it out, but her silence was agony.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said finally. My heart stuttered.

  “What?” I asked.

  "I never meant to put that kind of pressure on you. To feel perfect,” she said softly. Her words were like a punch to the gut. Of all the horrible things I’d said to her, she’d taken it and made it about her. She was taking the blame. I cursed the distance and my inability to pull her into my arms.

  I let out a breath, “Quinn—“I let the sentence fall unsure what to say. She’d taken me off guard with her apology.

  “Wait—Just let me say what I need to say first,” she said.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. I closed my eyes, lying back on the bed in an effort to stop the room from spinning. This fighting and making up stuff was hard as shit. I heard her take another deep breath and I knew she’d been practicing this conversation in her head all day. The thought had me more than a little worried. Quinn in logic mode didn’t bode well for me.

  “I’m not trying to take away your fun. And I don’t want you to feel like I don’t trust you. I never want to be the burden that you left back home.”

  “Quinn, I never,” I interrupted.

  “I’m not finished,” she said, c
utting me off. I shut up. “My reaction this morning might not have been convenient and it might not have been the cool girlfriend thing to do, but it was real. And it wasn’t just about trust. It was more that I felt like you weren’t making us important. You were just slipping into your party role without giving us a second thought. Without giving me a second thought. Or about how I would feel. And it hurt because I know I would never want to put you in a situation like that, where you had to see me draped over some other guy, drunk out of my mind. Think about it, Keaton, how would you have reacted had the situation been reversed?” she asked.

  I couldn’t even answer her, because she was right. I’d have lost my mind.

  “I’m sorry I judged you on your past. But I’m not sorry for reacting the way I did. I reacted because I care about you and about us.”

  “You’re right. I fucked up. And I didn’t know how to fix it,” I said, my voice came out sounding rough.

  “Did you mean what you said? About wanting to end it?” she asked quietly.

  “No. I was just being cruel. Trying to beat you to it I guess. I don’t want to lose you. I know I hurt you, baby. It kills me. I want to fix it. I just, I don’t know how.”

  Her silence was killing me. The truth was I didn't know how to do any of this. I was good with the easy stuff, not so much the work that relationships require. It's why Quinn threw me for a loop. Half of my heart was ready to jump in and work to be everything she needed or deserved. The other half knew what a selfish prick I was and was just waiting for the best time to run.

  "Say something," I urged.

  "I'm still sorting it all out," she admitted. Her honesty held my chest in a vice grip.

  "I know I'm not easy to be with sometimes. I'm moody, I'm selfish and I can be completely preoccupied. I don't know how to do this, Quinn, but I'm trying. I want to try." I waited through more silence.

  "Okay," she said finally.

  "Okay?" I asked, just needing her to reassure me.