Drowning Erin

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  Brendan texts Tuesday on his way back from Boulder to see if I want to come over for dinner. Although he’s been texting me with updates on his mother since we got home from the hospital last Friday, I haven’t seen him in person. I know it should probably stay that way, but I can’t say no. His mother is sick, and he needs support. Besides, it’s not like something is going to happen now, under these circumstances.

  In other words, I’m too weak to resist.

  His place is in the heart of Manitou Springs, near his new office. He lives in the upper half of a subdivided row house—just two rooms badly in need of updating, yet way more to my taste than Rob’s shiny McMansion. This place has character: the kind of moldings they don’t put into homes anymore, gorgeous hardwood floors worn just the right amount.

  He smirks as I look around. “I’m sure you’re wondering where the guest suite and billiards rooms are.”

  “It’ll be adorable once you paint,” I reply, flipping him off. “I’m just relieved you took down that stupid hammock.” For many reasons.

  “I didn’t,” he replies. “It’s in the bedroom.”

  I feel sick and excited at the same time. And why on Earth would I be excited? It’s not like I’m going to be trying out the hammock, for God’s sake.

  He goes outside to start the grill while I work on potatoes and salad. I tend to hum when I cook, so I’m in my own little world when he comes back in, not realizing he’s there until I feel his hands on my hips. His hands, just like they are, have inspired a hundred different thoughts I never should have had.

  “What are you making?” he asks.

  His voice is a quiet rumble, not his normal voice. His breath is against my neck, so warm and close I swear that if I leaned back only a fraction of an inch, I’d feel the press of his lips. The fine hairs on the back of my arms stand on end.

  “It’s a surprise,” I say breathlessly. It’s not actually a surprise, but I don’t think I could even form the right words at the moment.

  He releases me, reaching overhead to grab a plate, and that’s when I realize our moment was nothing more than him maneuvering around me in a small kitchen. Here I am so infatuated that he can’t even touch me in the process of getting a dish without me turning it into a porn-worthy moment. I really need to get a grip, but I know—just as I did years ago—that it’s far too late for that.

  Over dinner we talk about Dorothy undergoing radiation therapy. Even though the margins were clear around her tumor, she wants to be certain, so she’ll start treatment after she gets back from Olivia’s race next weekend. “I can’t believe she’s planning to travel that soon after surgery,” I tell him.

  He sighs. “I know, but I guess the lumpectomy was a lot easier to recover from than a mastectomy, and she says she’ll never forgive herself if Olivia wins and she’s not there to see it. Besides, she’ll have Peter there to help. I didn’t realize until all this happened how lucky we are that she has him.”

  “See? There are some benefits to being in a relationship,” I chide.

  He quirks a brow at me. “Really? That’s the best argument you’ve got? That I’ll have someone to take care of me if I get breast cancer?”

  I sigh wearily. “Fine, Brendan. I’ll try to appeal to the only thing you care about: you could get laid all the time.”

  He makes a face. “Please never mention that again when we’re talking about my mom and Peter. That’s a pretty piss-poor argument anyway. I’m getting laid a lot more often than you are.”

  I stare at my plate. He’s right, of course, but Rob and I are hardly typical.

  “His promotion changed things. I’m sure it won’t be like this forever.”

  “His promotion?” he asks.

  The astonishment in his voice forces me to meet his eye.

  “I was just talking about you being on different continents for the past few weeks,” he says. “He got that promotion last summer.”

  Brendan’s surprise provides me a moment of clarity. I’m still young, and for the past year, an important part of my life has been pretty much non-existent. One more item on the long list of things I’ve given up to be with Rob. That list is too long. I’m beginning to wonder if this can even be fixed.

  I call Rob when I get home from Brendan’s, out of duty and nothing more. I don’t want to hear about restaurants with beds, pirate radio stations, how much fun he’s had. I don’t care.

  He tells me he’s sorry he didn’t call the day before, but they were all out late, and he passed out when he got in. I didn’t even notice, but I keep that to myself. I ask if he had fun for lack of anything else to say, and he replies for mostly the same reason, I’m guessing, telling me about some shot contest they attended.

  “Christina had to be—” he begins, and then his voice stops and starts, “uh, carried out.”

  Christina is a common name. Just because there’s a girl there named Christina does not mean it’s the same Christina we fought about. Not the Christina who’s thrown herself at him more times than I can count. Surely it cannot be the same Christina, because he couldn’t possibly have just not thought to mention that she was there for six weeks.

  “Not Christina from Denver.” It’s not a question, it’s a fucking warning, because it had better not be Christina from Denver.

  “Well, yeah,” he stammers. “I mean, she’s a key player in the merger.”

  I say nothing, because honestly, I just can’t believe he’s managed to keep this fact to himself for so long.

  Can. Not. Believe. It.

  “Erin…” he says.

  “Has she been there the whole time?”

  “Well, we needed to have her here for—”

  “I did not ask you, Rob, what her role is there. I don’t give a fuck what her role is there. I asked you if she’s been there the whole goddamn time.”

  He huffs in irritation. “And I was trying to tell you. Yes. We needed her here because—”

  “So Christina, the little whore who’s hit on you in front of me more times than I can count, is among this group of people you’re wining and dining every night.”

  “It’s not like that. It’s a whole group of us.”

  “And it’s taken you six weeks to share that with me.”

  “It isn’t a big deal,” he says with a groan. “I’m shocked you care. You don’t even act like you miss me half the time.

  “Did she go to Belgium with you?” I remember him telling me about the trip—that only a few of them went. I remember how oddly vague he was about it.

  “It was a group thing. You know I’d never cheat,” he replies. His non-answer is an answer in and of itself. I can’t believe he went away with her. I can’t believe he’s been lying all this time.

  “So nothing has taken place with Christina since you left?” I ask. My voice is like ice. “Absolutely nothing.”

  He is silent, and in that moment of silence I realize that a whole world of possibilities exists in a place where I believed there was only one. I’ve believed so thoroughly in his loyalty that it never once occurred to me there was another option. He was the person who would always do the right thing and wouldn’t ever hurt me the way Brendan had.

  I gave up everything for that, and it was an illusion.

  “One night we kissed,” he says on an exhale. “I was drunk, but I stopped it, and that was it.”

  “But you wanted more.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to say that, Rob. She’s hot, and the two of you are over there together and not sleeping with anyone, and you wanted to do it. And you still have an entire month more of this bullshit—”

  “Three,” he interjects quietly.

  “What?”

  “They’re saying late August now. But I’m going to try to come home at the end of June to visit.”

  I gave up myself for him. I gave up the things I loved. I hid and scurried to present him with the version of me he’d find most palatable, and this is what I
get in response: lies by omission and months spent alone and him throwing me this little bone of a weekend back here, as if that could possibly make up for anything.

  “No.”

  The word bursts from my mouth with six weeks of rage behind it. No, Rob. No, no, no, no, no to all of it. To your stupid job and your three more months with Christina, to all of it.

  “You don’t want me to visit?”

  “I can’t do this. Us. I can’t do it. Not separated like this. Which you’re now telling me isn’t going to end until August. This is miserable, and you know what? I don’t even trust you right now. You kept something like that from me for six weeks, and as long as I’m here and you’re there, and we’re doing nothing but arguing, I’m not going to trust you.”

  “You’re breaking up with me?” he asks. He sounds like he’s been hit.

  I don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t possibly be ending this, can I? We’re engaged. I’ve been with him most of my adult life.

  “I don’t know. But I’m definitely not doing this bullshit anymore. I’m not listening to you tell me every night how much fun you’re having over there with Christina while I sit in our home alone.”

  I feel my voice growing choked. I’m just astonished by all of it. I really can’t believe she was there all along, that he just told me in passing he’d be staying another three months.

  “Five months, Rob. It’ll be five months by the time you get back. And that’s bullshit. You never once asked me if I was okay with it.”

  “You never acted like you even cared. I mean seriously, over Christina?” he asks. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “No, not over Christina. Over us,” I tell him. “I love you, but I am not happy in this anymore. And I don’t know if it’s going to work when you get home, but I know for a fact that it’s not working now. Every conversation with you is grueling these days, and I’m not listening to a single moment more of this crap. Tell someone else how much fun you’re having. I just can’t believe…” I have to stop or I will burst into tears.

  “Erin, come on, honey. Don’t do this right now. You’re upset. It’s not the time to be making big decisions. Look, I’ll call tomorrow. I’ll call before you leave for work, and we can Skype. I need to see your face.”

  I’m not doing that. The idea of seeing his face makes me want to weep. It will only make it harder to do what I know for a fact needs to be done.

  “No, Rob. We’re doing this now. I ask so little of you that it doesn’t even occur to you to tell me until now that you’re staying until August. All the things that make me want to get up in the morning are things you’ve crapped on. It’s my fault for letting you do it, but it’s also your fault for not caring enough about my happiness to ever try to correct course.”

  His voice is rough when he finally speaks. “Jesus, Erin. Where did all this come from? We’ve been together nearly four years, and you’re just telling me this now?”

  “I don’t think I even realized it myself until now. Until lately.”

  “I don’t want this to end,” he says.

  I don’t either, not entirely. I don’t know what I want. Rob is like family. I’ve certainly spent more time with him than my own family, and he’s been better to me than they have, at least until recently.

  “We’ll figure it out when you come home,” I tell him.

  “So you’re saying what? That we’ll start over then? What happens in the meantime?”

  “I’m not going to sit here every night wondering what you’re doing and if Christina is with you. So do whatever you want.”

  “What the fuck, Erin? I don’t want to be with someone else. I love you. I love our life. That’s what I want.”

  The right words, delivered far too late. “Then,” I tell him as I hang up, “you probably should have acted like it sooner.”

  32

  Erin

  Present

  I was so firm on the phone. But after the call ends, I desperately wish I could take every word of it back. This, with Rob, has been my home almost the last three years. He’s been my home.

  Telling him we could start over when he returns, that was my safety net. It was based on the assumption that what happens when he gets home will be my choice, but what if it’s not? He will sleep with Christina—I basically told him to, didn’t I? What if he chooses her and doesn’t even want to try when he comes home? I wanted to punish him, but it seems very possible that I’ll come to find I’ve only hurt myself.

  I wake the next day feeling blown, as if I haven’t slept. Crying most of the night will do that. Even though I’ve stopped crying by the time I get to work, it doesn’t feel that way. Apparently it doesn’t look that way either.

  “What’s up with you?” asks Harper, regarding me with suspicion as she walks into my cubicle. “Let me guess: Tim used the word stakeholders one too many times, and you stabbed him to death?”

  “You really think I’d cry if I stabbed Tim to death?” I ask with a shaky laugh. And then I do start to cry.

  I tell her about the break-up, split, break—I’m not even sure what to call it. I tell her how Rob extended his trip again without even telling me, that I’ve been realizing of late how much I’ve given up because of him.

  And I tell her about Christina. That seals it.

  “Good riddance,” she says.

  “I thought you loved Rob.”

  “No, I love weddings,” she says. “I barely know Rob because he’s always at work. He never comes out and he only made it to one of our holiday parties. So good riddance.”

  “He didn’t cheat, Harper.”

  “Hanging out with that girl for six weeks without mentioning it to you? Going to Belgium with her?” she scoffs. “You seriously believe he didn’t cheat?”

  “I do.”

  She looks as if she feels sorry for me, which I hate.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He should have told you, and he shouldn’t have been taking you for granted all this time. So good riddance.”

  It should reassure me that I’ve made the right decision, but it’s always easy to sum up another person’s life as black and white: a bad, inconsiderate boyfriend, who may have cheated. Things are rarely that clear-cut.

  Maybe he did things he shouldn’t have. Maybe I encouraged him to do those things. Maybe I should have been a little more assertive and forthcoming all along. And also, most importantly, we were happy. Not mind-blowingly happy, but I’m not convinced anyone is. And it’s sure not like I’m mind-blowingly happy now. So maybe I just gave up a relatively good life for nothing at all.

  I get home, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by my own uncertainty and the decisions I have to make—like finding somewhere to live, when this has been my home for nearly three years. I chose every paint color, every piece of furniture in this house. There’s such finality to moving out. I text Rob, asking him to give me a week to get my stuff out since I’m leaving for Squaw Valley in the morning, and he calls immediately.

  “Babe, don’t move. It’s your house too. Come on. At least stay until I get back. Please.”

  I don’t know. It seems like a slippery slope, claiming independence and still living in the lap of luxury, just waiting to get seduced back into all the ways being with him made my life better.

  “Rob, maybe I need to be on my own, completely on my own, so that if we try this again we’re making a clean start.”

  “We are doing this again. It’s going to work out. I know that for a fact. You’ll see when I come back. So don’t leave.”

  I tell him I don’t know. And then I realize after I get off the phone that he’s already back to ignoring the things I want. So I text him to say I’m moving. And I ask him not to call me again until he’s home for good.

  33

  Brendan

  Three Years Earlier

  Gabi is amazing. And it’s not just her looks, although in a country full of beautiful women, people still stop on the street to stare at her. She
’s fun, easygoing, and fucking brilliant—heading to medical school at Stanford next fall. She can keep up with me on a bike as easily as she can keep up a conversation. In the months before she got here, I was basically fucking my way through Italy. Now I’d legitimately rather spend time just hanging out with her than sleeping with someone else.

  Being around her makes me realize that I’ve maybe been a little homesick, too. There’s just a certain ease when you’re talking to someone who has all the same cultural references, who shares so much of your background. I can quote Talladega Nights, for instance, without her looking at me like I’m insane. She fills a void I didn’t know I had, and I don’t even mind that we haven’t slept together yet—although when she looks up at me under those lashes of hers I sometimes wonder if I’m not going to explode waiting for it to happen.

  I find myself talking about home a lot. Nearly every high school story I have involves Rob—drunk nights out, hung-over mornings eating burritos at King’s Chef—reminding me of a time when I didn’t resent him the way I have of late. Gabi has fewer stories to tell because she was a much more driven student than I ever was, and being pre-med ate up all of her free time. She tells me she’s had two serious relationships that ended badly, but hasn’t done much casual dating. She asks about my relationship history and I’m reluctant to answer—if she’s looking for reassurance, I doubt the truth is going to offer any. I’ve never dated anyone longer than a month.

  “So you’ve never been in love?” she asks.

  “I think I was, once,” I admit.

  “What was so special about this girl?”

  I don’t know what to tell her, because it was no one thing. It was Erin’s looks, but it was also just her—her laugh and the way she tilts her head when she’s listening intently, the way she sings when she’s doing something mindless and how her eyes light up when something excites her.