Drowning Erin

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  Later, we’re lying in bed. The song we danced to at Will and Olivia’s wedding comes on and he pulls me to my feet to dance, though I’m clad in nothing but a T-shirt. God, I wish things had happened differently that night. I wish the deejay’s announcement hadn’t interrupted us. Though Brendan had been awful all summer, I’d somehow known there was more to it. For every shitty thing he’d said, he’d done something sweet—making sure I got to my car safe at night, changing the radio to my favorite station when I came into work. He’d even washed my car one day, although when I’d tried to thank him, he’d insisted it got wet “accidentally” when he was cleaning off the kayaks.

  I still remember the way I practically ran back to the reception to find him, once Will and Olivia had gone. When Rob told me Brendan had already left with the wedding coordinator, I felt my heart cracking so thoroughly I was sure it would never go back together.

  “We’ve danced to this before,” I tell him.

  He smiles. “I know. I wanted to kiss you so badly I'm still not sure how I held back until I got you around the corner.”

  "I wanted you to."

  “Sometimes I wish that night had gone a different way,” he admits. “I wish we’d had this before I met Gabi.”

  “So you were ready for a relationship then,” I venture, “but you’re not ready now?”

  “I thought I was ready then,” he corrects. “It all worked out for the best. I just would have hurt you.”

  “If I got hurt, that would have been on me, not you. How someone reacts to what you’ve done isn’t your responsibility. It’s not even your business.”

  “No,” he says. “It’s a pattern with me. Gabi’s not the only girl I ever hurt. There were girls in high school, in college. One of them left school because of me, another one freaked out and started doing meth. I just bring it out in people.”

  “You’re giving yourself way too much credit, Brendan. You didn’t bring the crazy out in those girls, you just chose poorly. Normal people don’t drop out of school over a break-up, or do drugs. Can you see Olivia reacting like that? Or me? Just allow yourself to consider the possibility.”

  He pulls me closer. “I’m trying. I really am.”

  It’s the first time in all the weeks we’ve been doing this that it feels like he’s offered me a sliver of hope.

  On Sunday afternoon, we return from kayaking, and he pulls me toward the hammock. We curl up together, a light blanket over us while the breeze from the French doors streams in.

  His mouth ghosts over my cheek, his nose brushing across my skin, as if he's trying to memorize me using all of his senses at once. "I like you best just like this," he says, his tongue flickering out to taste my neck before he lowers his mouth and pulls at the skin, drawing a small, needy sigh from my throat. "Just you, sunburned and sandy.” He pulls the blanket aside and slips my T-shirt over my head. The hammock swings and he puts a foot on the floor to steady us. “With miles and miles of skin to taste." His hand skates up the inside of my thigh, brushing lightly until it is exactly where he wants it, and then he draws a nipple into his mouth, pulling on it just enough to keep me on a tightrope between pain and pleasure. "So I can listen to you gasp." And then his fingers slide inside me, and I arch toward him, helplessly.

  "Brendan," I moan. "More."

  He rolls over so he's above me. "Is that what you need, Erin?" he breathes as he pushes inside me, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment as if it's just too much to keep them open.

  "Yes," I sigh. "That."

  The light glimmers and dances around us, and I hear only the sound of our breath and his quiet words. I wish we could stay here, just like this, for hours and days and weeks.

  I love him.

  The words arrive like something I've known all along. Just like when, as a child, I’d bury my feet in the sand. I knew exactly what was there, if I was only willing to look. But I didn't want to see it.

  I don’t want to feel this way. Rob hurt me, but Brendan—he could destroy me entirely, irreparably. And it seems almost inevitable that he will.

  58

  Erin

  Present

  It’s so early when I pull up to Harper’s house on Monday that the sun has barely made an appearance, yet it’s already warm. I climb out of the car, grabbing my bag with the weekend’s clothes shoved inside haphazardly, and jolt to a halt as if I’ve hit a glass wall.

  There, on Harper’s steps, sits Rob.

  I’m so stunned that I say nothing, just stand there staring, holding my weekend bag, undoubtedly looking exactly like I feel: as if I’ve been caught red-handed.

  It went without saying that if we broke up there’d be other people. I never doubted for a minute that he’d take Christina up on her generous offers, if he hadn’t already. But seeing me stroll in at 5 AM is the equivalent of having it said aloud.

  I’ve never seen Rob’s face as long as it is right now, and he doesn’t even know the worst part.

  “I guess I don’t have to ask if there’s someone else,” he says.

  There’s nothing accusatory in his voice. He’s just upset, which is so much worse.

  “I…didn’t know you were here,” I reply lamely. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “I came here straight from the airport last night.”

  That shouldn’t make me feel guilty—I didn’t ask him to do it, and I didn’t know he was here—but I feel guilty anyway. Especially when I consider what I was doing during those hours.

  “I thought you had six more weeks there.”

  “I did,” he says. “But I wanted to see you.”

  He stands, looking thinner and less sure of himself than he did before he left, and I'm struck by an intense wave of familiarity, homesickness. There are parts of our life that I miss, and seeing him reminds me of all of them at once. I could have been happier when we were together, but I also wasn't unhappy.

  He wraps me in his arms. This is familiar too, all of it. His smell and his size and the way we line up together, and suddenly I grieve everything that’s gone. With Brendan, I exist in a sick cycle of hope and panic—one day cautiously optimistic, and the next certain the end is coming. That was never the case with Rob, and it strikes me that there's a lot to be said for knowing where you stand with someone.

  He pulls back after a moment. “I don’t want any details. I never, ever want any details. I just need to know if it’s serious.”

  Serious.

  Could I possibly claim that it’s serious, when the end is imminent? When Brendan won’t even acknowledge me in public? Could I possibly claim that it’s not serious when it feels like Brendan is holding my heart tight in his careless fist?

  “No. It’s not,” I reply.

  The sun falls across the yard in a sudden stripe of muted gold. I tell him I’ve got to get work.

  “Can I see you later?” he asks.

  “How long are you in town?”

  He swallows. "I was hoping to talk to you about that. Do you think we could meet for lunch?"

  It feels too soon. It feels like I need a month before I hear what he might have to say. But that's just cowardice, so I reluctantly agree.

  He stares at me for a long second. "You're so beautiful, Erin. I know I've said it a hundred times, but I'm seeing you now, and I can't believe I ever let you go without a fight."

  He leaves, and I find myself fervently hoping he hasn't decided to fight for me now, either.

  As much as I want to call Brendan, I don’t. I want to talk to Rob first, as if there’s anything that might be said during our conversation that would keep Brendan from ending whatever this is we have going. Instead I sit at my desk all morning, so sick with nerves I’m barely capable of pretending to work.

  I’m sure it doesn’t escape Timothy’s attention. He’s been quiet since the incident that led us both to HR, but I suspect he’s documenting my every move—and on his best behavior so I have nothing to document in return. He doesn’t comment when I leave for lunch, bu
t he watches me go. I’d bet a hundred bucks that he scurries right back to his desk to make a note of it the second the door shuts.

  Rob is already waiting when I get to the restaurant. His face, as I approach the table, is wistful and hopeful at once. We chitchat at first, like business associates. He asks after my family, and I give him the high points. I ask after his, and he does the same, although I doubt he has to do quite as much selective sharing.

  “It’s so good to see you,” he says.

  He reaches across the table, his fingers twining with mine. I’d have expected to want my hand back, but I don’t. We’ve done this for so long, it’s almost muscle memory at this point.

  “I didn’t even want to go the house,” he says, “knowing you weren’t there. Except you never even liked that house, did you?”

  I shrug. "Maybe. But relationships are about compromise."

  "Yeah," he agrees. “Except you did all the compromising. And because you gave everything up so easily, I thought none of it mattered to you. But it did. You stopped even asking me for the things you wanted."

  If he were Brendan, I could explain that this is how I was raised: you ask for nothing, you fight for nothing, you keep everyone happy—whatever the cost. But Rob knows nothing of my past. This is probably why he understands so little about me. Everything I am was created in that environment. And to reveal any of it would be to reveal all of it, so the girl he knows is basically just someone I’ve substituted for the real me.

  "I think maybe we just never had enough overlap, Rob. We're like a Venn diagram where the intersect is tiny."

  "I disagree," he says. "Because what I want most—more than my job or anything else—is you. I never put you first, Erin, but that's going to end now. I swear it."

  Suddenly this conversation feels like a train without brakes.

  I'm sleeping with your best friend. These are the words that could stop it, were I able to utter them. "Rob, you're still based in Amsterdam. I—"

  "I'm home for good,” he says, cutting me off. "I told them I either came home or I was quitting. I'll have to fly back once a month, but that's it."

  "Why?" I ask weakly. What I want is to say Why in God's name did you do that? And please don't have done it for me.

  "Every success I ever had was a success for us, was something I saw benefitting us as a couple, benefitting our kids. Without you, it's just money, and it’s meaningless."

  There was a time when I would have loved to hear those words, but now they simply bounce off my surface. He is a good man. He will make someone very happy. But that someone isn’t me.

  “Please don’t decide right now,” Rob says. “I know I fucked up, and I just want a chance.”

  He asks if we can go to dinner later in the week, just as friends. Because I can’t think of a workable reason why not, I nod, ruing the hours it means being away from Brendan.

  And then I remember: there is no more time with Brendan. Every single plan, every single hour we might have had, died the moment Rob’s plane landed.

  I drive back to the office feeling shaken. I could easily call Brendan on the way, but I don’t. I know what I want him to say—that he loves me, that he doesn’t want it to end, that we can find a way to make it work—and I also know he is not going to say it.

  I’m not sure I can be trusted to make this call with an audience, so I wait until Timothy leaves the office and Harper steps away from her desk. When Brendan answers, I suck in the rasp of his “hey” like I can taste it. I hear the sound of glasses in the background, the murmurs of a crowd.

  “Are you out?” I ask.

  “I’m at Beck’s place.”

  It’s only 3 PM. I’ve never known Brendan to be out drinking in the middle of the day, at least not since he came home. I don’t know why, but it feels like a bad sign.

  I tell him Rob’s home, my stomach tipping, lurching—that same roller coaster I've been on since he first kissed me weeks ago, only so much worse.

  “I heard,” he says, still distracted. I hear the unmistakable clink of pool balls crashing.

  I didn’t expect that he’d already know. I didn’t expect that he’d sound like he doesn’t give a fuck either.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “I didn’t tell him about us. Hang on. It’s my turn to break.”

  I’ve slept with him pretty much every day for six weeks. I have spent every free moment with him. But this conversation isn’t even important enough for him to pause his fucking game? I feel that infinitely small wisp of hope gasp and die in my chest.

  He comes back to the phone. "Are you going to tell him about us?" he asks. “I don’t want to be blindsided.”

  I wanted him to offer something, at least express a little regret at the ending, but instead he sounds like some cavalier dick who had other plans tonight anyway. "Is that all you have to say?" I demand, a lump in my throat.

  "What else am I supposed to say?” he says. “It was fun while it lasted. I hope it all works out for you guys, if that’s what you want."

  Already I'm crying so hard that my shoulders are shaking and tears are dripping down my face. I will not give him the pleasure of knowing he's responsible for them, so I just hang up the phone.

  59

  Brendan

  Three Years Earlier

  Gabi has only a few days left in Italy when we take off to lead a three-day tour of Tuscany. I’m relieved that Seb and Paolo are coming with us—I will need anyone who isn’t Gabi to talk to while we’re gone. My game plan is to make a point of hanging with the guys at night, talking about bikes or whatever until Gabi gets bored and goes to bed. I think it’s the only way I’ll make it through the the trip without losing my shit.

  It’s not until we arrive at the meeting point that I discover I’m completely fucked. Unlike our typical clientele—married 40-year-olds, active seniors—this tour group consists entirely of young, hot girls. Gabi’s looking from me to them, her smile long gone. I haven’t uttered a word to these women, and I’m already in trouble.

  The best looking of them is Tatiana, a dead ringer for Selena Gomez. And although I avoid her, Tatiana does not avoid me. She talks to me, rides near me, sits close at lunch. Gabi has gone out of her way to make it clear I am taken. Tatiana doesn’t seem to care.

  “You need to sleep with her,” Paolo insists. “It’s a crime not to sleep with her.”

  “I can’t,” I say, glancing toward Gabi, who’s been watching me nonstop since the tour began.

  I could have said “I don’t want to,” but it would have been a lie. I want to, and the clingier Gabi gets, the more I wish that Tatiana, with her tongue ring and the hint of a tattoo at the small of her back, was an option.

  I am polite to Tatiana, nothing more, but Gabi is upset. Every night she wants to go to the room immediately, and because it’s not worth the fight that will ensue, I go with her.

  On the last night of the trip, we all eat dinner together back in Florence. This is usually a celebration, but tonight it feels instead like a test of diplomacy, one I am failing miserably. On the one side of me is Tatiana, “accidentally” pressing her tits against my arm all night and talking about anal, and on the other is Gabi, sulking and unrelentingly bitchy to everyone at the table.

  When dinner concludes, they all head to a bar down the street, while I return to my apartment with a pissed-off girl who will undoubtedly spend the next five hours crying, yelling at me, or both.

  The door isn’t even shut before she starts.

  “You want to sleep with her, don’t you?” she demands.

  I know I should say no, but the answer seems so obvious—as if she’s asked if I want to continue breathing oxygen—that I don’t say anything at all.

  This is apparently not the correct course of action.

  Her face sags, waiting for a denial that does not arrive. “Go sleep with her then.”

  I’ll admit it. I feel hopeful, like I’ve been offered a chance at parole. Some stupid voice in my head suggests
that maybe Gabi sees this the way I do—that she only has two days left in Italy, and we’re not getting along anymore, so how could it really matter?

  “You don’t mean that,” I venture.

  “You would, wouldn’t you?” she cries. “You’d totally sleep with her right now if you could!” She grabs my backpack and hurls it at me. “Get the fuck out.”

  “Gabi—”

  “Get out!” she screams. “Get out get out get out get out! I never want to see you again!” She throws a book and barely misses.

  I’m about to point out that it’s my apartment we’re in when she picks up a knife. I decide that discussion can wait.

  I wander down the street, uncertain at first where to go. And then I realize I’m free. Gabi kicked me out. She said she never wanted to see me again. Which means, for the first time in months, I can do whatever the fuck I want.

  I go to the bar where Tatiana awaits. I tell her Gabi kicked me out, and she informs me, tongue piercing flashing in the light, that she has a hotel room to herself. And then her fingers are in my hair and she’s dragging my mouth to hers.

  I didn’t realize just how stifled I’ve actually been until this moment. I’m free again. I can go home with anyone I want, I can spend an entire night without listening to someone cry, without having to offer assurances I don’t mean. Tatiana climbs into my lap and I swear, as she does it, that I am never going to be trapped again.

  And as soon as I swear it, I hear the unmistakable sound of Gabi, crying like I’ve just broken her heart.

  60

  Erin

  Present

  How could it mean so little to him?

  And how did I ever convince myself it was otherwise?

  I think back to the way he looked at me in the hammock yesterday. The night we danced in his apartment. Everything I thought I saw in his face…could not have been real. Losing him would have been hard enough, but now it feels like he’s taken all of my memories and crushed them underfoot too.