Beautiful Oblivion (18 page)

Again, I had to wait several minutes for him to respond. When my cell phone pinged, I had to force myself to look at the words on the screen. Even if I deserved it, I didn’t want him to throw me away like the trash that I was.

M
Y FLIGHT WAS AT SEVEN THIRTY. I LEFT THE EMPLOYEE
meeting early to pack, and then tried not to let thoughts of Trenton sneak into my mind as I drove the Smurf to the airport. I glanced down at my left hand, which sat atop the steering wheel. Together, my fingers read
DOLL
. T.J. was not going to approve, and I hoped to God he didn’t ask why I’d chosen those words.

Parking, catching a shuttle, and getting checked in seemed to take forever. I hated being in a rush, but T.J. had booked me on the last flight out, and no matter what, I was going to get on that plane. I needed to know that I wasn’t just falling out of love with T.J. because of the distance.

I stood in the long line at security and heard my name being called from across the room. I turned to see Trenton running full speed toward me. A TSA agent took a step, but when Trenton slowed down next to me, he relaxed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his chest heaving. He put his hands on his hips. He was wearing red basketball shorts, a white T-shirt, and a worn, red Sig Tau ball cap. My stomach fluttered at the sight of him, more because I felt caught than flattered.

“What the hell are
you
doing?” I said, glancing around at all the people staring at us.

“You said I’d see you tomorrow, and now you’re getting on a fucking plane?” A woman several people ahead of me covered her young daughter’s ears. “Sorry,” Trenton said.

The line moved forward, and I moved with it. Trenton moved with me. “It was kind of last-minute.”

“You’re going to California, aren’t you?” he asked, looking wounded.

I didn’t answer.

We took a few more steps. “Because I kissed you?” he asked, this time louder.

“He booked the ticket, Trent. Was I supposed to say no?”

“Yes, you say no! He hasn’t bothered to see you in over three months, and all of a sudden he’s booking you a ticket? C’mon!” he said, letting his hand fall to his thigh.

“Trent,” I said quietly, “go home. This is embarrassing.” The line moved forward again, and I took a few steps.

Trenton sidestepped until he was next to me. “Don’t get on that plane.” He said the words without emotion, but his eyes were begging me.

I laughed once, trying to somehow make light of the situation. “I’ll be back in a few days. You act like you’re never going to see me again.”

“It’ll be different when you get back. You know it will.”

“Please stop,” I begged, glancing around. The line moved again.

Trenton held out his hands. “Just . . . give it a few days.”

“Give what a few days?”

He took off his hat and rubbed the top of his head while he thought. The desperate expression on his face forced me to swallow back a sob. I wanted to hug him, to tell him it was okay, but how could I comfort him, when I was the reason he was hurting?

Trenton returned his hat to his head, pulling it down low over his eyes in frustration. He sighed. “Jesus Christ, Cami,
please
. I can’t do it. I can’t be here, thinking about you there, with him.”

The line moved forward again. I was next.

“Please?” he asked. He laughed once, nervous. “I’m in love with you.”

“Next,” the TSA agent said, motioning for me to approach his podium.

After a long pause, I cringed at the words I was about to say. “If you knew what I know . . . you wouldn’t be.”

He shook his head. “I don’t wanna know. I just want you.”

“We’re just friends, Trent.”

Trent’s face and shoulders fell.

“Next!” the agent said again. He had been watching us talking, and wasn’t in a patient mood.

“I have to go. I’ll see you when I get back, okay?”

Trenton’s eyes fell to the ground, and he nodded. “Yeah.” He started to walk away but turned around. “We haven’t been just friends for a while. And you know it.” He turned his back to me, and I handed my ticket and ID to the agent.

“You okay?” the agent asked, scribbling on my ticket.

“No,” I said. My breath caught, and I looked up as my eyes filled with tears. “I’m a huge asshole.”

The agent nodded, and motioned for me to move on. “Next,” he called to the person behind me.

I didn’t want to move, just in case it was a dream. As a child, when I visited the homes of my friends, I began to realize that other dads weren’t like mine, and that a lot of other families were happier than mine. From that moment, I dreamed about moving out on my own, if for nothing else more than to just have a little peace. But even adulthood seemed more like a source of constant disappointment than adventure, so just to be sure this moment of happiness wasn’t some dirty trick, I stayed still.

This immaculate and minimalist town house was exactly where I wanted to be: wearing nothing but a satisfied smile, tangled in white Egyptian cotton sheets, in the middle of T.J.’s king-size bed. He was lying next to me, breathing soft and deep through his nose. He would have to wake up in a few minutes to get ready for work, and I would get a great view of his tight backside as he crawled out of bed. That, of course, wasn’t the problem. The next eight hours left alone with my own thoughts would take this staycation from nirvana to nerve-wracking.

A plethora of doubts had crowded my mind during the flight, making me wonder if this time was the last time. Months of built-up nervousness continued right up to the moment I saw him in baggage claim, but then I saw his smile. The same smile that made lying there with him feel like the right kind of wrong.

Maybe I’d serve breakfast in bed to celebrate our first twelve hours together in months? Maybe not. That was me trying too hard again, and I was done being that girl. I would never be that girl again. Raegan had said it perfectly while I furiously packed the evening before:

What happened to you, Cam? Confidence used to radiate off you. Now you’re like a whipped puppy. If T.J. isn’t it, you can’t control it, anyway, so you might as well stop worrying about it.

I didn’t know what happened between me being that amazingly confident girl and now. Actually, yes, I did. T.J. walked into my life, and I’d spent the last six months trying to deserve him. Well, half of that time anyway. The other half I spent doing the opposite.

T.J. turned his head and kissed my temple. “Morning. Want me to run to the corner and get breakfast?” he said.

“That sounds amazing, actually,” I said, kissing his bare chest.

T.J. gently pulled his arm out from underneath me and sat up, stretching for a few moments before standing up and giving me the view I’d been fantasizing about for over three months.

He slipped on the jeans that were folded over the chair, and pulled a T-shirt from the closet. “Everything bagel and cream cheese?”

“And orange juice. Please.”

He slipped his sneakers on and grabbed his keys. “Yes, ma’am. Be right back,” he called out before closing the front door behind him.

Obviously, I didn’t feel undeserving of him because T.J. was an asshole. It was the reverse. When someone this amazing walks into your bar and asks for your number before he’s had a single drink, you work your tail off to keep him. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that I’d managed to snag him in the first place. And then I’d forgotten about him altogether.

But the moment T.J. wrapped his arms around me in baggage claim, I immediately compared the way he held me with the way Trenton had. When T.J. put his lips on mine, his mouth was just as amazing as I remembered, but it didn’t feel like he needed me the way Trenton did. I was glaringly aware that I was making unfair and unnecessary comparisons, and tried not to the moment it happened, but I failed—every time, on every level. Whether it was fair or not, Trenton was what I knew, and T.J. had become unfamiliar.

Ten minutes later, T.J. jogged back in, placed the bagel on my lap, and the orange juice on the nightstand. He kissed me quickly.

“They called you?”

“Yeah, early meeting. I’m not sure what’s going on, so I’m not sure when I’m coming home.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. I’ll see you when I see you.”

He kissed me again, quickly undressed, put on a pressed white shirt and a dark gray suit, and slipped on his shoes before jogging out the door with a tie in his hand.

The door slammed.

“Bye,” I said, sitting alone.

I lay back down, looking up at the ceiling and picking my nails. His town house was quiet. No roommate, no pet. Not even a goldfish. I thought about the fact that Trenton would probably be sitting next to me on the love seat at home, watching anything with me while I prattled on about work, or school, or both. How nice it was just to have someone that wanted to be around me, in any capacity. Instead, I was staring up at a white ceiling, noticing how nicely it stood out against the clay beige walls.

Beige was so T.J. He was safe. He was stable. But anything could look good from a few thousand miles away. We never fought, but you don’t have anything to fight about if you’re never around one another. T.J. knew what kind of bagel I liked, but did he know that I hate commercials, or what radio station I listen to, or that the first thing I do when I get home from work is take off my bra? Did he know that my dad is a grade-A asshole, or my brothers were both endearing and intolerable? Did he know that I never make my bed? Because Trenton did. He knew all of that, and he wanted me anyway.

I reached over and checked my phone. An email from Single in Your Area Now, but that was it. Trenton hated me, and that was about right, because he asked me to choose, and I didn’t choose him. Now I was lying naked in another man’s bed, thinking about Trenton.

I covered my face, and cussed the hot tears as they ran down my temples and into my ears. I wanted to be here. But I wanted to be there. Raegan had asked me if I’d ever been in love with two men. I didn’t know at the time that I already was. Two men who couldn’t be more different, and yet were so alike. Both lovable, and insufferable, but for completely different reasons.

Dragging the sheet along with me, I climbed from the bed and walked around T.J.’s tidy town house. It looked staged, as if no one really lived there. I suppose for the most part, no one did. A few silver square frames sat atop a narrow table that stood against the living room wall. They contained black-and-white photos of T.J. as a child, with his siblings, his parents, and one of him and me on the pier during my first visit.

The television was black, the remote control sat perfectly straight on an end table. I wondered if he even had cable. He’d rarely have enough downtime to watch it.
Men’s Health
magazine and
Rolling Stone
sat on top of the glass coffee table, spread apart like a hand of cards. I picked one up and flipped through it, suddenly feeling restless and bored. Why had I come? To prove to myself that I loved T.J.? Or that I didn’t?

The couch barely gave when I sat down. It was light gray, tweed, with brown leather piping. The fabric felt itchy against my back. The space had a completely different feel to it compared to the last time I was there. The musky yet clean smell wasn’t as appealing. The view from the large windows, with a glimpse of the bay, wasn’t as magical; T.J.’s brand of perfection wasn’t as mesmerizing anymore. Just a few weeks with Trenton had changed all of that. Suddenly it was okay to want messy, and flaws, and uncertainty, so much of what Trenton embodied . . . everything I saw in myself that I thought I didn’t like. Because even if we were struggling, we had goals. It didn’t matter that we weren’t there yet. What mattered is that we both experienced setbacks, and full-blown failures, but we got up, brushed ourselves off, and kept going—and were making the best of it. Trenton didn’t just make all of those things acceptable; he made getting there fun. Instead of feeling ashamed of where we weren’t, we could be proud of where we were going, and what we would overcome to get there.

I stood and walked over to the long windows, looking down at the street below. Trenton had found out what I was up to, raced to the airport, and begged me to stay. If I was the one on the other side of the security ropes, would I forgive him? Thinking about him feeling rejected and alone on his drive home made tears sting my eyes. As I stood in the perfect place owned by the perfect man, I wrapped his sheets tighter around me and let the tears fall, wishing for the struggling tattoo artist I’d left behind.

I had spent my childhood craving my first day of freedom. Almost every day for the better part of eighteen years, wishes were spent on tomorrow. But for the first time in my life, I wished that I could go back in time.

I
SAID I WAS SORRY,” T. J. SAID, STARING AT ME FROM UNDER
his brow.

“I’m not upset.”

“You’re a little upset.”

“No. I’m really not,” I said, rolling a piece of my Marinated Steak Salad around on my plate.

“You don’t like the salad?”

“No, I do,” I said, acutely aware of my facial expressions and every movement I made. It was exhausting trying to prove I wasn’t pouting. T.J. didn’t get home until after eight thirty, and he didn’t text or call the entire time. Not even when he was on his way home.

“Want to try some of my fish?” He was within two bites of finishing his Alaskan Sea Bass, but pushed his plate forward. I shook my head. Everything smelled wonderful, but I just didn’t feel like eating, and it had nothing to do with T.J.