But I Love Him (3 page)

“I’m not hungry.” He passes down the hall and disappears into the bathroom before I can respond. I stare after him for a moment, the front door still ajar behind me.

I follow him. “It’s not food, it’s—”

“I got fired, Ann. I’m not in the mood for chit-chat, okay?”

It’s hard not to step back at the sound in his voice. There’s a dangerous edge to it. An edge that tells me to stay away. Far, far away. If I were smart, I would leave. Right now, before it grows, before it simmers and stews and explodes.

It was bound to happen, of course. He was often so tired he probably didn’t work at all. Not on the nights he was up late, helping his mom. Not on the nights he tossed and turned, so tortured by his past he didn’t care about the future.

He missed some days. He was late. And yet somehow I didn’t see it coming.

Now what? Do I hide the heart? Save it for a better day? It’s sitting on the dining room table in all its shimmering glory, under the glow of the chandelier. I don’t know where I’d put it even if I wanted to move it. I could toss a sheet over it, maybe. Hope he doesn’t notice it.

When I hand that beautiful piece of art to him, I want him to smile. I want to see the impact it has on him as he stares at it, knowing how much I love him.

And none of that will happen if he’s in this kind of mood. All those hours and hours of work will be for nothing. I can’t let that happen. It has to be for a reason. I have to see the payoff, or the disappointment will just be too much to bear.

I nod to myself and head toward the hallway closet. We must have some spare sheets or something. Or maybe the whole closet is big enough. I could make a little area on a shelf, put it up there where it is safe. It’s not much bigger than a basketball, though oddly shaped and far more fragile.

I dig around in the closet, trying to move some towels and boxes, desperate to find enough room for it before Connor leaves the bathroom. He’s not in the mood for a gift. He might react strangely to it. I need to save it for a better day. A better opportunity. A better—

“What is this?”

His voice carries down the hall. He’s not in the bathroom at all. He’s in the dining room. My heart throws itself around in my chest. It’s too late to hide it.

I walk toward him, praying he’s happy, praying all those months were for something. When I round the corner and see his face, the nervous rigidity in my limbs melts away.

His face has softened, and his eyes are expressing a gratitude I’ve never seen before. They shine with it. He walks over to me, wraps his arms around me, and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Thank you. I needed this today. Really needed it.”

I nod and rest my cheek against his chest. I can hear his heart beat, calm and rhythmic, and it soothes me until we are both so relaxed we just sort of melt to the floor and keep hugging.

“I love you,” he says. “I’ll always love you.”

“So you like it?” I ask, pulling back to see his eyes.

“Yes. I love it. It’s beautiful.”

I grin. “I’m glad. I’ve been working on it for months. I collected all the glass myself, from the beach.”

“It means so much to me. You have no idea. I’ll treasure it always. Just like you.”

I smile and hug him again. I’ve done well.

Finally, I’ve done well.

August 30

One Year

Every piece of my body throbs. It pulses up and down my legs and arms and radiates outward from my chest. I sit up and try to shift my weight, hoping to find a part of me that doesn’t feel bruised and sore, but the glass scattered around me crunches under my weight, and I stop.

It’s shattered. The whole beautiful sculpture. It’s in a thousand pieces around me, littering the floor, each tiny piece symbolizing another hour I spent searching out the sea glass, painstakingly assembling it with all of its mates.

And now it’s nothing. Just like me.

I reach up toward the bed and pull the ratty orange quilt off the mattress, covering myself completely. Now and then, the lightning strikes and my cocoon takes on a russet glow. The room buzzes with the sounds of the pouring rain, but I welcome it. It fills the room and drives away the silence.

A burst of light comes from the window, and the flash glints off a piece of tumbled amber glass poking into my cocoon. I kick it swiftly away. I can’t ignore the ache in my chest as I watch it disappear. He knew how much that sculpture meant. He knew the nights I stayed up late putting it together.

He told me he would treasure it always.

Instead, he threw it in an explosion of rage.

The air inside the blanket warms, and I rock back and forth, back and forth, inside this bubble where nothing exists but me.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

I am alone.

Just as he intended.

July 16

Ten months, sixteen days

Why can’t you just hate me?” He’s not looking at me. He’s sitting in a chair, staring at his hands. I know he’s studying the white lines that criss-cross his skin. They line his knuckles like a road map, evidence of where he’s come from. “Why can’t you just see you’re too good for me?”

“I’m—”

“Yes, you are! And you know you are!”

I hate these times. I hate when he tries to convince me to leave him. He doesn’t want me to. I know he doesn’t. But I also know he feels guilty for what he does. It eats him alive.

I know there are days he wishes he would wake up without me and I would be gone forever, and he could imagine me happy. Some days I think that would do more for him than I can do when I’m with him.

But it’s too late for that, because I could never leave. I know the truth. I know he would never make it without me here, picking up the pieces, pushing him in the right direction. I have to fix everything. I have to tape it all together and cover up the cracks and hope no one notices that nothing is ever as good as new.

“Please,” I say. “Don’t do this today, okay? Just come here. Just hold me.”

Sitting on the bed, I hold my hands up, toward him, like a mother would to a child. But he doesn’t move toward me, and I just end up sitting there, my arms achingly empty.

“No. You need to listen to me this time. You need to just go and forget about me and never look back.” He looks down at me, his eyes shining with tears he won’t shed. “There are a thousand reasons we will never work and you know it. It’s time to face it.”

I stare back at him, at those thick lashes framing his intense blue eyes. His blond hair is matted with yesterday’s gel.

He can’t take my staring and turns away, rubbing his neck as he sighs.

“But I love you,” I say, the first tears brimming. One finally rolls down my cheek.

“You can do so much better than this.” His voice is nearly a whisper, but it’s still full of conviction. He believes what he is saying, and he wants me to believe it too.

“Please,” I say.

“No,” he says, louder. He looks down at me again, stares straight into my eyes. “I’m going. I’ll just get in my car and drive and I’ll end up wherever I end up, and I’ll start over. I won’t miss you. I won’t think of you. And you’ll be so much better without me.”

I’m shaking my head so fast the tears land everywhere.

“Stop crying,” he says.

“I can’t!”

“It doesn’t fix anything.”

I bury my face in my knees and sob, big choking gasps that rack my body. I can’t breathe. The tears are stealing the air and life away from me.

I can’t live without him. I don’t know who I am anymore if I’m not Connor’s girlfriend. Doesn’t he see that’s all I am now? Doesn’t he see that I’ve given up everything for him? That I didn’t apply to college, that I gave up my friends, that I picked him over my mom?

Doesn’t he get that I exist for him?

“How can you do this to me?” I say. I try to look up at him through my tears, but I can’t see him. He’s swimming in them. “Why do you always do this and hurt me? I don’t do this to you.”

“I have to. You have to leave. You don’t understand this. I’m never going to be the person you want me to be.”

“But you are the person I want you to be!”

“That’s a lie,” he says, practically spitting the words.

And it is. I know it is. I know the person I see only exists in tiny little scenes. I know it’s not the whole Connor. He’s still ruled by things his dad has done, by the past he has lived, by his anger. It will be a long time before he’s really the person I know he can be.

I gasp for air. It’s not coming fast enough. My lungs are inflating but it’s not enough. I can’t breathe.

He seems to realize what I’m doing and all at once he’s beside me on the bed, pulling me to him, into his lap, until his arms are around me. I turn to him and bury my face in his shoulder. His shirt is wet with my tears.

“I need you. Please, I need you.” I don’t know if he understands my words. I can hardly hear them through my tears. The lump in my throat makes it too hard to speak.

“I’m sorry. Don’t cry. It’s okay. Just don’t cry.”

I don’t know how long we sit like that, him rocking me and whispering in my ear. My sobs continue until I’m empty of them.

“Shh. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t cry. I love you. Please, please don’t cry.” He rocks me and rubs my back, and I can finally breathe again. His other hand is stroking my hair, soothing and soft. “Please, shhh. I love you. I love you I love you I love you.”

I inhale several long, slow breaths, and my tears slow enough that I can blink them back. “I need to blow my nose,” I say, my voice bloated and raspy.

He reaches over to his dresser and hands me a big fluffy white towel. I blow three times before I can get any air in through my nose. Even when I do, it rattles through the snot.

We fall back against the bed and he pulls me closer to him, wrapping himself around me until I can’t tell where I end and he begins. I don’t want to know anymore. I want us to be the same person.

His room is dark, like it always is. The sounds of the radio fade away until all I hear is his breathing mixed with mine.

It’s just us again, calm and quiet. He grabs the blankets and pulls them up around us, and I nestle closer.

I’m so tired of this. I’m exhausted to my bones. The pain is even deeper. The fear that one day he will truly leave. That he will think he’s doing me a favor. I feel as if I’m falling down a mountain, clawing at anything I can grab, and I’m missing everything and picking up speed, and eventually there will be a cliff, and I will have nothing.

“I’m sorry I do this to you,” he whispers.

“Yes,” I say, because that’s all I can manage. I have no energy for more words. My eyes are closed and heavy.

“I don’t want to be like this anymore. I want to be happy.”

I don’t respond because I’m falling now, sleep is coming. He doesn’t seem to mind, he just turns his face into my hair and breathes deeply. The smell of his cologne washes over me like a lullaby.

And we fall asleep like that. Holding on so tight our arms ache.

July 6

Ten Months, Six days

There was a note on my windshield today. I saw it as I walked up to my car. It made me grin. He used to leave me notes everywhere, in my jacket pockets and on my car and inside my books. But it has been weeks since his last one.

You’re so beautiful to me.

I smile and tuck the note into my pocket. I keep them all. They fill a box in the closet, and I often take them out and filter through his words.

When I arrive at his apartment I know he’s in a good mood. I used to make him this happy all the time. He could be a ball of stress and nerves when I showed up, and I could soothe him. It’s what made me special. And I’m not like his mom—I don’t have to be there like she does. I choose to. And that’s what makes a difference. I choose him and I love him, and he knows it.

But that rarely works anymore. I don’t know why. I don’t know when I stopped mattering to him, and I don’t know how to undo it. I want it to be like it used to, when all he needed was me.

Today he cooked me dinner and bought me flowers, and we eat in front of the television as an old Tom Hanks movie plays out on the screen.

It’s cozy. He laughs at the movie, his voice bubbling up, a smile breaking through and lighting up his eyes. He is the Connor I fell in love with. I want to laugh with him, but I don’t have it in me. I think my laughter might be broken, like everything else inside me. If he looks at me, I will fake it, because I want him to stay happy.

He sets his fork down on the edge of his plate and slips his arm around me, and I melt into him. I rest my face against his chest and hear his heart beat steadily.

If I close my eyes, I can lose myself and slip away from everything. These moments are like islands in a stormy sea, and I take them and hide and hope that no one ever finds me. I want to be the castaway, like Tom Hanks, forgotten on my private little island.

He rests his chin on the top of my head. “I love you,” he says.

He says it a lot. I think he worries that I will forget.