by S. Massery
“Is that what you drink, Elaina?”
“Yeah, any type of IPA is my go to!” She seems to be getting more cheerful by the second; I am getting grumpier.
I rummage in the fridge, whispering, “Hallelujah,” when I see a half-drunk bottle of white wine on the door shelf. I pull it out and pour myself a hefty glass.
Avery pops the cap off of a beer and hands it to Elaina, then sets about making dinner. We make small talk until the food is ready. Since she has been quiet, and Avery, in opposition, hasn’t been able to stop talking, I figure I should ask her something. “So,” I say while Avery is between stories and clear my throat, “Elaina. What do you do for work?”
She gives me a warm smile. Her previous bouts of awkwardness have fled, leaving a calm, confident person in its wake. “I’m a school teacher,” she says. “I teach at a public school. Seventh grade.”
“Oh, wow,” I say. “That must be difficult. What is that, twelve year olds?”
She nods and spins her fork in her fingers. “They’re actually on a little field trip with the sixth graders, and when they get back from Sacramento, there are some substitute teachers that will be covering for me.” She looks at Avery, swallows, and says, “There are two other teachers from my school in Boston with me. We’re taking a class at Harvard about special education, since it’s only offered every other year in the spring. It’s a pretty prestigious class that’s offered to teachers nationwide, and the fact that my school was able to send three of us was incredible.” I hear an unspoken, It’s more incredible that you’re here, too, Avery. Or maybe I’m just extrapolating.
“That’s…” I glance at Avery, and he’s… angry. I close my mouth. He trembles, and his lips are pressed into a thin line.
He bites out, “Can I talk to you alone?”
Elaina doesn’t look surprised at his temper. Every time it comes out, I draw back. She just glares and says, “Can’t it wait until we’re done eating?”
“No.”
We watch him slam his chair back and disappear into our bedroom.
“I suppose I should follow him,” she says, pushing her chair back. I shrug. The door closes behind her. It is such a definitive noise, it makes me wonder if I live here at all. Yes, because there is my favorite decorative pillow, and there is my face spread across ink on the walls next to Avery’s, and there is my painting.
Avery’s voice echoes through the space, muffled only slightly by the door. “What does that mean?” he yells. “Choose.”
I keep my eyes on the painting, whose colors and brush strokes soothe and aggravate me.
“You are here as a fucking fluke?” and then, “No, no.”
Things get quiet; only the clock on the wall is audible. I imagine them whispering furiously, or shocked into silence, or undressing each other with their eyes—or their hands. I imagine what he would do if she jumped forward and kissed him. Maybe would kiss her back. He would wind his arms around her and fist his hand in her hair and never let her go.
Maybe Elaina was right, and I predicted the end of the world with some acrylic paint and a brush.
As is the way with apocalypses, Avery exits our bedroom first. He looks at me with an apology in his eyes and leans down and kisses the top of my head. “You asked for this,” he whispers to me. He straightens, but stays behind my chair.
My heart picks up speed, because the last thing I expected was the blame for this. I haven’t even yet defined this, and it comes at me in the form of stones cast. My stomach does this weird flip, a form of anxiety, because whatever happened in our bedroom seems to have scared him.
When Elaina reappears, her eyes are bloodshot. She swipes at her nose and looks from me to Avery and back to me. “She’s leaving,” Avery says.
Elaina says, “Yes,” faintly, and although I hate her, I hurt for her. She touches my shoulder as she passes. “You have a beautiful home. I’m sorry for the way it turned out.”
I jerk my head up and down. My neck has forgotten how to operate smoothly, and nothing is working tonight. Avery practically vibrates with unshed anger, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. She takes forever to put her boots on, and then she opens the door.
I clear my throat and say, “It was nice to meet you, Elaina. Thank you for coming.”
When she leaves, I push my chair back. It forces Avery to take a step back, and I scramble up. He is seething, and I can’t even begin to understand why.
“You cannot blame this one on me,” I say.
“Oh, can’t I?”
“No!” My voice comes out louder than I intend. “You’re the one who dragged your ex into our lives. Not me! How on earth can you blame me for this shit show?”
Avery grabs at his hair. “It is her fault, and your fault for inviting her to dinner.”
I growl. “I invited her to dinner because you were seeing her every fucking day. What else was I supposed to do? Just sit back and be like, ‘Okay, this stranger is pretty much stalking my boyfriend, I guess I’ll just twiddle my thumbs!’ Or, I don’t know, put up a fight of keeping you?”
Unexpected tears prick my eyes, and I have the heart of it: I’m so terrified of him leaving.
“Do you think love is a cure-all? Do you think love is enough to hold a relationship together?” He scoffs at me. “Come on, Charlotte, you’re sabotaging us!”
A sob bursts out of me, the pain of it so acute that I can feel it to my toes.
“I’m not the only one tearing this relationship apart,” I howl.
He softens at once and steps forward. I step back, although all I want is him to touch me. He stops following me. He just looks at me, and I see his own sadness, his own heartbreak. He wears it the same way he wore it a year and a half ago.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. His voice is hoarse, low, and it seems to reverberate in the sudden quiet. “Charlotte, it was never my intention to make you feel like you aren’t enough.”
“I know,” I whisper, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
52
Jared is coming.
Yes, it might be retaliation.
Avery didn’t react when I told him a friend would be visiting.
In truth, I think he is mourning Elaina. Since dinner, we haven’t heard from her. That hasn’t stopped me from asking him, tentatively, if she’s reached out to him. He always answers with a quick shake of his head, like he can’t believe it, either. I try to keep my words like feathers: any more weight than that and they’ll break our delicate truce.
Now, I’ve taken the Friday off of work—exactly three weeks since Elaina visited—and I stand at the door to my building. It has a few stairs in the front—which Jared is aware of—and then an elevator inside that will get us up to my apartment. His father had business in Boston and offered to drive him into the city.
These three weeks have been worse than I could’ve imagined. We haven’t had sex at all. We argue about anything and everything. And through it all, he casts the blame onto me. It’s my fault for working late, for picking fights about stupid stuff, for…
I sigh.
And through it all, the weight of that damn ring in his dresser presses on me.
“There she is!” Mr. Brown calls.
I jerk, embarrassed to be caught off guard. Jared climbs out of his dad’s car. I’m surprised to see him wearing the prosthetic leg and no crutches. His jeans cover it, and so, besides the slight limp in his gait, it looks like he’s whole.
That isn’t right.
Missing a leg doesn’t make him any less whole. Any less of who he was. He just is. He’s always been himself, even after the accident. Nothing changed, really. Not that I could tell.
“Hi, guys,” I say as I come toward them. They meet me on the sidewalk, and I get a hug from both of them.
“Lovely to see you, Charlie. What beautiful weather we’re having.”
The sun is out, the snow is gone, and it finally feels like the beginning of spring. “Yes, thank goodness. It raine
d the past week.”
“Hi, Charlie,” Jared says. He grins at me.
Inexplicably, this situation feels like we’re being dropped off at summer camp together. There is so much weight of promise, of excitement, behind this weekend.
“Jared,” I respond.
His dad lifts a small duffle bag out of the trunk. “Do you want me to carry this up?” he asks me.
I hold out my hand. “I can take it. Thanks.” I pause and look at Jared. “Is that discrimination?”
Jared rolls his eyes at me. “Any excuse not to carry a duffle bag is fine by me.”
Mr. Brown nods. “Well, I’m hoping to be on time for my meeting. I’ve got to get going.” He claps Jared on the shoulder. “Call if you need anything. We’ll see you Sunday.”
They say their goodbyes, and we watch his dad pull out into the street and disappear down the block. “Well,” I laugh. “Shall we go up?”
“Yeah.”
A weird sense of peace washes over me. I tell him, “You look good.”
“Because it looks like I have my left leg?”
I frown at him as we step into the elevator. “No. You just look healthier.” I poke at his stomach for emphasis.
He grins again. “I’m excited to be here. I haven’t been to Boston in forever.” His smile fades when he says, “My therapist made me promise to treat my body better so I could physically handle the trip. Ever since you invited me in February, I’ve been trying to be better.”
My cheeks turn red. “I’m glad I helped?”
He nods. “You did. Don’t doubt that.”
He’s slow on the new leg, but not as slow as the crutches. He sighs once we get to my door. I unlock it and hold it open for him. As he enters, he whistles. “Wow.”
“Yeah, it has a good view,” I laugh. “It’s a lot better than my old place. I was supposed to live here alone, but—”
“Yeah. Your boyfriend decided at the last minute to move in,” Jared says.
I press my lips together. Jared continues a slow tour of the place, even peeking into my bedroom and the bathroom. “You have your choice of an air mattress or the couch,” I tell him.
He plops down on the couch, sighing, and I move to sit in the chair adjacent.
“This couch doesn’t seem so bad.”
I smile. “Is it me, or are we being awkward?”
That gets Jared to laugh. “It’s definitely a little weird.”
“Okay.”
“Did I tell you that our moms got into an argument?”
My eyes widen. “What? When?”
“Just the other day,” he says. “Your mom is apparently under the impression that I’m going to break up your relationship.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m doing that just fine on my own. You won’t be thrown under that bus.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, my mom was obviously Team Jared. She said that you and Avery were just a fling.”
“A fling? We aren’t—”
“Relax, Charlie.”
“Does your mom think so little of me?” I continued. “Seriously, Jared?”
He just leans back. He used to enjoy our arguments, and him relaxing just seems… like I know him. He isn’t predictable by a long shot. But, from what I can tell, the same boy that I grew up with is sitting in front of me. At the same time that it makes me sad—we missed so much of each other’s lives—I’m so grateful that we’re here. Now.
“Charlie. She loves you. She hasn’t met this Avery fellow.”
I roll my eyes. “It isn’t even like you’re competition. We’re friends. I love Avery.”
He raises an eyebrow, and I scowl.
I say, “I do.”
He says, “Okay,” like he doesn’t believe me.
I scowl again.
“You’re single-handedly the most… bored in-love person I’ve ever met.”
That makes me laugh, because he hasn’t met Avery yet. Avery would win that competition.
“Avery should be home soon. He said he’d leave a little early and we could go to dinner.”
Jared smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead, he reaches over and covers my hand with his own. “Charlie, I hope you’re happy.”
My own smile wavers.
“I can’t tell anymore. Sometimes I am.” I clear my throat, because talking about this stuff is hard. I haven’t put it on anyone except Georgia, who already loathes Avery. But the truth is, I have this feeling of utter exhaustion. At some point, I started treading water and I lost track of the shoreline. I’m stuck. “Can we talk about you?”
We stare at each other for a minute, so long that I can tell he’s trying to read my mind. I wonder if he’s successful. Eventually he says, “Yeah, we can talk about me.”
“How are you?”
“How am I?” He sighs and rubs at his jaw. “Honestly, it’s tough. I’ve been working through it with my therapist, Dr. Sayer—”
My jaw drops. “Shut up.”
“Charlie?”
My laugh is bitter. I cannot believe that he’s talking to someone who… practically already knows him. Shit. “Seriously? What, did my mother recommend her?”
“How did you know my therapist is a woman…?” He closes his eyes. “Oh, no.”
“Yep. I saw her all through high school. She probably remembers more about your childhood from my perspective than you realize.” I am going to kill my mother.
He starts laughing. It’s wildfire: uncontrollable, contagious. He’s right to laugh. Only fate would be this ironic. I start laughing, too, so hard that my ribs hurt and tears pool in my eyes.
We go on and on, until our giggles subside and he says, “That’s… Well, that would explain the expression on her face when I told her about you.”
I snort. My hand flies up to my mouth, but I manage to get out, “I’ll bet,” before we start laughing again.
Jared is the first to sober. “You know what that means. She takes her doctor patient confidentiality seriously—I never would’ve guessed she knew you.”
Well. That makes me feel a little better.
“You were saying how you were,” I prompt when he doesn’t say anything else.
He grunts. “Yeah, yeah. It’s been hard. My whole life changed.”
I remember a question that had come to me, randomly, a few days ago. “Hey. You never said how you went from living out west, with a torn ACL, to the hospital in D.C. What happened in the middle,” I clarify.
“Right. I moved back to D.C. because they didn’t require as much rigorous physical strength. After my ACL was pretty much healed, I started picking up jobs and when I was able, started to go on calls. It was only my second call when the roof collapsed on me.” He runs his hand down his right leg, massaging his knee, before stopping on his thigh.
“You were badly burned?” I whisper.
He jerks his head to the side and stares out of my window for a minute. “No, Charlie, compared to how bad it could’ve been… It was mostly on my left leg. It’s a lot better than it was.”
I stare at him. The protective part of me wants to strip him down, to see how bad the damage is, and how much he’s been minimizing it.
My phone vibrates, making both of us jump.
“Hey,” I answer.
Avery answers, “Hey. I just got out of work. Do you want to meet at Legal Seafood in the Pru?” The Prudential Center restaurants, and almost anything on Boylston or Newbury St., are our go-to places. “I can meet you there in fifteen.”
I glance at Jared. “Sure,” I tell Avery. “We may be a few minutes late.”
Avery agrees, and we hang up.
Jared watches me. “Just out of curiosity, how much did you tell him about me?”
I bite my lip. In truth? Nothing. I can’t shoulder all the blame; Avery didn’t even ask me about him. Our conversation went like this:
Avery, my friend wants to come visit. The one I went home to see a month ago.
He said, When does she want to come up?
It was my fault that I ignored the pronoun. Next weekend. I’m thinking about taking off Friday.
He pats my leg on his way by me. Sounds great. She’s staying with us?
If you don’t mind, I hedged.
No. That’s fine.
So… No. He didn’t really know anything, at all.
“Great,” Jared mutters.
I call an Uber on my phone. “It’ll be fine,” I say. I hope.
But really, if it isn’t? That’s fine, too.
“You’re playing with fire.”
I cringe.
He eyes me as we make our way out the door and to the elevator. Once we’re in, it’s like our world shrinks to just the two of us. “Are you still having those dreams?”
I shrug. “Dreams?”
He just watches me.
Finally, I look up at the mirrored ceiling and whisper, “Sometimes.”
“How often?”
“The burning one? Not too often. Thank god. Although I do have dreams about being raped. Those are new.” I force myself to laugh. “I don’t know which one I would rather have.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. It’s too easy, how he pulls me into his embrace. My front hits his side, and I wrap my arms around his waist.
I try not to focus on how good he smells.
Or how his arms feel like home.
No, I don’t think about any of that. I just smile into his shoulder and stay there until the doors slide open.
“Avery, this is Jared. Jared, Avery.”
I should’ve known this wasn’t going to go well.
Avery’s eyes look like they’re going to bug out of his head.
“Charlotte,” Avery says. It sounds pained, like he swallowed glass. I haven’t heard his voice that rough in a while. I don’t think he’s cared about anything I’ve done in a while.
Jared holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, man.”
Avery stands and shakes his hand. “Same. Although, I’ll admit, I didn’t know you were a man.” He glares at me.
I shrug and slide into the booth. Avery sits next to me, boxing me in, and Jared takes the opposite side. My skin is prickling. It takes Jared a second to get in, and I realize: Avery might not see that Jared is wearing a prosthetic. His jeans cover everything, and he has shoes on both feet. I gulp.
