Cross My Heart

by A. M. Hartnett

  ‘Whatever your problem is, it’s yours. Not hers and not mine. Not together and not separately. Yours. No matter how much she likes what goes on in there, she did this for you, because you had an itch you wanted to scratch. You want this to work? Quit jerking her around, because while I might not be after your girl, I guarantee she won’t have any trouble finding someone who’d love to have her.’

  Maybe it was the way Seth was right in his face, or just his need to prove that his dick was just as big as Seth’s, but Ryan couldn’t stop himself saying what leaped to the forefront of his mind.

  ‘Who the hell are you to dish out relationship advice to me? What have you been doing since Rita passed away? Hook-ups and meaningless sex?’ He bumped Seth hard as he went to the window. ‘Talking to me like you’ve got something to teach me. Guess what, Gandalf? You don’t. You were married so long you don’t remember what it’s like to have to find the middle ground with someone new, or you do and you’re too goddamn scared to do it.’

  Seth’s expression had a menacing calm to it as he stared back at Ryan. After a moment, he shook his head and backed off.

  ‘I watched the love of my life die in front of me for months. What’s your excuse?’

  Feeling like a stone had been dropped down his throat into a pool of acid in the pit of his stomach, Ryan watched Seth head down the fire escape. He felt a compulsion to call the man back and apologise, but his pride wouldn’t allow it.

  He’d wanted to get the upper hand on Seth at least once, and even though he felt wretched he needed a few minutes to pretend he wasn’t the bad guy.

  He stepped inside the apartment and closed the window behind him. All was quiet, and the closer he got to the light of the bedroom the more sour the contents of his stomach felt.

  Evie was still in bed, half covered by the sheet, her back to the door. He didn’t bother wondering if she was asleep. He knew she wasn’t, and he knew that even if she hadn’t heard the words he and Seth had exchanged she had at least heard the raised voices.

  He stripped and crawled into the bed next to her. He could have told himself that her trembling was because of the cold he had brought in on his skin, but he knew it wasn’t true. Seth had been right. While they had been out on the balcony going back and forth, she’d been in here crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, because what more could he say?

  When she didn’t answer, he crooked his chin against her shoulder and brushed her cheek. His knuckles came away wet.

  ‘I meant it, though. I do love you. Given the way I said it, it may not seem like –’

  ‘Stop.’

  Evie rolled over. Her eyes were red and puffy, and tears had left ugly red tracks down her cheeks. She looked like a wounded demoness, breaking his heart and striking him with fear all at once.

  She sat up, and the accusation and hurt in her eyes could have stopped his heart. ‘Why now? Why did you pick now? It was just you and me up until a couple of weeks ago, and you wait until another man is inside me before you tell me you love me?’

  ‘It –’

  Just slipped out.

  That wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t true. He said it because Seth was right, because Ryan wanted her to look at him, to acknowledge him in the moment when he seemed forgotten. He said it because he was the biggest shit in the universe.

  ‘I can’t take it back,’ he said, and knew right away how petulant he sounded. He didn’t even need to see the fury invade her red face.

  ‘I don’t expect you to take it back,’ she hissed, then slung her legs over the bed. ‘I don’t expect anything from you any more.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Let’s just talk –’

  ‘About what? Tell me: is it just Seth, or would this have happened with any man we took to bed? If David hadn’t been such a shit, would you have said the same thing?’

  His head ached and he rested it in his hand. ‘I don’t know. Evie, I don’t know anything any more.’

  With angry, jerky movements, her back to him, Evie pulled on her clothes. ‘It’s not about me. I’m not going to do that to myself again. The whole time I was waiting for you to make a move on me, I kept thinking it was me, that I was reading you all wrong and you just weren’t into me at all. When you kept pulling back whenever we thought we’d come across someone to play with, I thought it was me and that I’d done something or said something to make you back off, like maybe I’d hesitated. Not any more. I know it’s got nothing to do with me now. It’s all about you.’

  His panic crashed through his misery as she stepped into her flats. ‘Can you just stay for a minute?’

  ‘No, I can’t. I’m too mad. I need to get out of here and away from you – and before you ask, I’m not going to Seth’s. I’m going to my own damn apartment.’

  Irritation punched through his misery. ‘I didn’t ask if you were going to Seth’s.’

  ‘But I know that once I’d left you’d think that.’

  ‘Just wait one goddamn second,’ he snapped and leaped from the bed. ‘Hold up!’

  It was getting harder not to lose his temper. They’d never fought before, not like this, and up until this point he’d had no idea just how sharp Evie’s tongue could be.

  She ignored him, and so he followed her into the living room and made a grab for her hand. She instantly spun around and her knuckles caught him hard in the shoulder.

  ‘Jesus, hold up one fucking second.’ Rubbing where the pain rushed to the surface, Ryan couldn’t help but mirror her expression – deep frown and teeth bared – and he could see his own fury reflected back at him. ‘Just. Wait.’

  ‘I’m sick of waiting for you,’ she snapped. ‘All this time I thought you were wound up about screwing another man, when it’s actually about what an insecure little man you are. You want to have all the fun but when someone plays with your toys a little too long you get punchy.’

  He took two steps forward and thrust his face into hers because he knew how much it would piss her off. ‘You’re making it really hard for me to want you to stay.’

  Evie stood on her toes and their noses bumped. ‘Then you know how I feel, don’t you? I’ll make it easy for you. Goodbye.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Once more, he went where she went, to the front door, and jumped in front of her before she could reach the knob. ‘That sounded really final.’

  ‘Maybe it is final. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything here for us if you can’t trust me or be honest with me.’ She crossed her arms over her chest and hiccupped as fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘You know what the worst part is? I love you, too. I’ve always loved you, and all you had to do was say it. Just look me in the eye and hold me when we were alone and just say it to me.’

  Ryan threw his arms out. ‘I’m saying it now. I love you, Evie Potter. I’ve always loved you, too, and I’ve never been able to figure out the right time to say it.’

  ‘And it means nothing to me now,’ she hissed on a sob. ‘You can say it, but if what you do makes me feel like I’m just some object to you then it means absolutely nothing.’

  His heart felt like it was being ripped to shreds in his chest. He tried to touch her, but she shoved him away from her and away from the door.

  ‘Evie, don’t.’

  ‘I don’t want to see you for a while, Ryan. Just – just stay out of my way so I can have one day when I’m not made to feel like I constantly have to worry about what you’re feeling and whether you need more space, more reassurance, more of everything I can’t give you.’

  ‘I never meant to make you feel that way,’ he managed to say before his voice broke.

  He might have dropped to his knees and begged her to stay if the shock of losing her hadn’t paralysed him, doomed him to watch her wrench open the door and leave him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tired of crying after three days, Evie got into the bath and smoked her first cigarette in three years. Someone had left the package at her apartment after a dinner a few month
s ago, and now it did nothing for her but make her mouth funky and give her a head rush. When she was done she crumpled what was left in the garbage, then went back to bed.

  She had to go to work later in the day, another evening shift. Her first since things had blown up with Ryan. Unlike previous nights, she wouldn’t come up the fire escape but via the main entrance, peeking into the foyer like she had done for the past few days to make sure Ryan wasn’t there, then going up the stairs. She’d hope she wouldn’t run into Ryan, or even Seth.

  Seth kept his distance. She figured he would. He’d want her to burn off her misery, and then he’d come knocking to see if she was all right. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to come knocking. Eventually she’d have to talk about the bust-up with Ryan, and she didn’t want to do that.

  On the other hand, she was absolutely infuriated that Ryan hadn’t come banging on her door. What did she expect? No matter how aggressively he behaved in bed, Ryan was the most passive creature on the planet. She’d told him it was over and he’d just taken it.

  She’d wanted him to show the same take-charge bravado he exhibited in the bedroom. No matter what she had said to him that night, she’d wanted him to fight for her, to stalk her down the fire escape, crush her in his arms and kiss her breathless.

  Instead he had done as she asked and left her alone and miserable.

  And as the hours passed, he left her wishing she had never moved into his building and never laid eyes on Ryan Kline. Then she wouldn’t feel so miserable about losing him.

  Evie dragged the comforter over her head and turned her face into her pillow as the hot flood started again. She’d already washed her pillow twice and now she decided she’d just let it get as disgusting as possible and then throw it out when this passed.

  If it passed. At the moment, there seemed no hope that she’d ever be free of it.

  She tried not to slip into those happy memories when she and Ryan were cuddling on the sofa or walking hand in hand down to the coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon, but it was impossible. To keep from replaying that awful night, she retreated into the one shelter she should stay away from. She remembered his smell when they were cuddled up on the sofa, the tang of his skin when she’d steal a kiss before he left her for work, and the heat of his palm resting against the small of her back as they waited for the bus to rumble along while on some outing.

  And then came all those times he could have told her he loved her. It should have been so simple, drummed out by the quickening beat of their hearts on a whisper but exploding into her blood.

  Instead, she’d forever equate that moment with the pinch of another man’s fingertips bruising her and the delicious friction of his cock between her legs.

  Damn him.

  She got out of bed again, this time determined not to return. She stripped the sheets and loaded them into the laundry basket. Sure that Ryan was at work, she trudged down to the laundry room and filled the washer, then sank on to a folding chair to experience a minute of being out of that apartment and out of that bed, to put just a little distance between her and the smother of unhappiness.

  A figure loomed in the corner of her eye, filling the entrance to the laundry room.

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t last,’ she said with a bitter laugh.

  ‘It’s a wonder you have anything left to wear, the way you’ve been doing laundry lately. Must be worn clean through.’

  Seth loped into the room and dragged another chair from the sorting station. It squeaked under his weight, threatening to rebel against his girth.

  ‘You look like hell,’ he said.

  ‘You smell like Pine-Sol and sweat.’

  He chuckled and sprawled out, giving her leg a nudge. ‘I was kind of hoping I’ve just been forgotten while you two sort it out, but I get the impression I’m wrong about that.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Have you talked to him?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want to talk about him, either,’ she snapped, then sighed. ‘Sorry, it’s not your fault I’m pissed.’

  ‘I know it’s not. It’s his, that fucking idiot.’

  ‘Seth –’

  He raised his hands. ‘I’m shutting up. I just want to make sure you’re OK.’

  ‘Did you really think I’d be OK?’ Though she felt that peppery sting in her sinuses, she discovered she was all dried up inside and couldn’t even produce enough saliva to soothe her sore throat. She sighed and settled back. ‘I can’t believe he hasn’t even texted me. I know we weren’t going out for very long, but I thought I deserved more than silence, even if I did ask for it. Did you talk to him?’

  Seth shook his head. ‘I think he’s avoiding me, too.’

  ‘Then how did you know?’

  ‘I just figured. I wasn’t sure until I got a look at you. Evie, I’m sorry. I know he means a lot to you.’ He nudged her again and offered that wide smile. ‘Care to make me a cup of tea?’

  Tea sounded lovely, but it was normal. She wasn’t in the mood for normal.

  ‘No, I…’ she began, and to her utter mortification she began to cry again.

  Her eyes had been left so dry that the tears burned and blinded her. She buried her face in her hands and resisted as Seth reached for her, but she was in no condition to be brave. She let him pull her closer, and she sobbed against his chest.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t stroke her hair or rub her back. He just gave her the shelter she needed.

  Drawing back, she intended to apologise but instead spat out words as sharp as crushed glass. ‘I miss him so much and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything but feel like shit,’ he told her, and laughed when she punched his arm. ‘You know I’m right, even if it isn’t fun to hear it.’

  ‘I know.’ She sniffed hard and kept leaking, but she was past the point where she cared how horrible she looked. ‘I’m sorry you were dragged into this. We should have got our shit together before we invited someone close to get freaky.’

  ‘I’m not sorry,’ Seth said with apology written all over him, ‘at least not for everything that went down before Ryan fucked up. It was fun, Evie, and to be honest I think I needed it as much as you did.’

  ‘How so?’

  He leaned back and swiped his hand over his face. ‘I don’t want to put this on you while you’re still snotty.’

  ‘I don’t mind if you don’t mind. Besides, it’ll make me feel better to hear about someone else’s misery.’

  ‘Thanks, you’re a doll.’ He shared a laugh with Evie. ‘It’s been a long time, Evie. I haven’t been a boy scout since Rita went, but I’ve been careful about not getting into any territory where I might feel something. You two, I knew you were a hell of a thing and I’d only ever be a third wheel, and I was fine with that, until I’d be on my way out and you two would be getting cosy together under the sheets. I’d go back to my apartment and feel sorry for myself because I only had Marco to cuddle. I miss that, you know?’

  Evie tried not to mist up again because she had slept alone for three nights, because she missed having Ryan’s arms around her. She tried to focus on what Seth was saying, but it was hard to do so while her wounds still oozed.

  ‘Maybe this will be a silver lining for you,’ she said quietly. ‘You can go find your someone to cuddle now.’

  ‘I still don’t know if I’m ready. I can’t imagine I’ll become the luckiest man alive for a second time in my life.’

  ‘I think you’re ready. I think you’ve been ready for a while, but you just don’t want to be.’

  ‘You got that right,’ he agreed sadly, then gave her a tired smile. ‘Your nose is running. Come here and give me another hug so you can wipe it on my shirt again.’

  She pressed close to him and for a few seconds simply enjoyed being hugged, until the barbs of the past dug into her and the thought of never being wrapped in Ryan’s arms again.

  There was no hiding it from Seth, who looked truly sorry for he
r as she drew back but offered no futile words like ‘you’ll feel better’ or ‘things will work out’, like those few friends she had spoken to about her breakup.

  ‘I’d better get back up,’ she mumbled and dragged her laundry basket against her stomach. ‘Maybe we’ll do tea tomorrow when I get back from work.’

  ‘Maybe we should skip the tea and go right to the hard liquor,’ he suggested, and followed her into the hall. He headed for the storage room while she shuffled towards the elevator. Over his shoulder, he called back to her. ‘Don’t hide out in the apartment, OK? I’ve been doing it for years. It just makes it harder to get moving when you’re ready.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not going to hide from anyone – and neither should you.’

  Back in her apartment, she locked the door behind her and threw herself face-down on the sofa.

  She wasn’t going to hide. Starting tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Whenever hiding no longer sounded like the best idea ever.

  Ryan woke from his power nap with a jolt. He’d only been drifting, as he had been doing for days, and with the sudden sharp pain in his chest he worried that exhaustion and heartbreak were going to grant him a quick heart attack to put him out of his misery.

  No such luck. He opened his eyes and Marco was on top of him in mid-stretch, claws out and puncturing flesh.

  ‘You furry jerk,’ he growled, and rather than shoo the cat off the bed he pulled it into his arms and sat up. He’d never subscribed to the notion that cuddling something that could turn into a hissing missile of bloody carnage at any moment could be soothing, but as the cat began to purr he felt a little better in spite of his determination not to.

  It was inevitable that the cat would walk right in and make itself at home. Ryan hadn’t bothered to shut the windows even now that the temperature was dropping at night. He supposed he should. It was stupid to expect her to poke her head in one night and ask if he had room for her in his big bed, especially when he’d been doing a damn good job of doing nothing in the aftermath of their breakup.

  Coward.

  The voice in his head had quieted in the last day. The incessant rambling about all the things he could have done differently finally ran out of steam, but still belched out that word frequently enough that Ryan couldn’t settle down. He expected it always, and it kept him thinking about what a shit he had been to Evie.