Authors: Ever McCormick
And now that I had him back, there was one huge question I was dying to know the answer to.
"Why did you cheat on me, Michael?"
His eyes closed, but mine didn't. It was a hard question, but it needed to be answered. I needed to know what I had done to lose his love and faithfulness.
My eyes were wide open.
"I wish," he said and then paused. Did he know how much that pause hurt me? How many horrible ways my mind could finish that sentence while he fum
bled around for the rest of the thought in his head? "I wish I had met you ten years later." His eyes opened and his head tilted to his side. "I love you. I loved you since that first moment I spotted you freshmen year." He smiled at the memory.
I watched his face, his lips, waiting for the explanation to form and wishing it would happen faster.
"Then why?" I pushed.
"Because even though I loved you, I could feel something scary up ahead, something I wasn't ready for. I don't know what it was, or if it was even real. I knew there would be hard times, and I was afraid of them."
"Everyone has hard times," I said, not comprehending. "You'll have them whether you are alone or with someone you love, so why chase away people who love you?"
"It was more than that
. It was like staying with you meant moving on to this next phase of my life—this tied-down grown-up section of my life, and I wasn't ready for it. Meeting you early on had kept me from what all of my friends were doing. Because I was with you, I wasn't getting laid by two women at once after frat parties. I wasn't getting the quickie blow jobs my friends bragged about, and I don't know, Ina, I just started thinking, do I want to die without all that?"
I stared at him taking it all in. I mean on one hand I guess I was glad he could be honest with me. On the other, well, it didn't feel good to be told that the love of your life chose a quickie blow job over staying with you.
"I don't know what to say."
"Say that I'm a douche bag! It's the truth!"
My shock showed on my face. "Yes, it is." I shook my head and rolled my eyes, anything to show him how much he was frustrating me.
"T
he last few weeks, I've been doing the grown-up thing. I've been going to work every day, coming home to an empty apartment. Some of the guys from work go out for drinks regularly, and I've joined them." He shook his head and looked to the ground. "It seemed better in my head," he said. "Now I see it's empty. It's just a different kind of boredom—casual sex. Now I see that I am never going to find anyone nearly as good as the woman I once had and that realization is killing me." He squeezed my hand.
"Michael?"
He took my shaky whisper of his name as some sort of agreement. He began to lean toward me, shutting his eyes.
"Michael, how do you kn
ow?" I asked. His eyes opened. His face halted in its approach to my lips.
"How do I know what?"
I could feel his breath on my face.
"How do you know it won't happen again
? How do you know when you're thirty, you won’t start wondering in the same way?"
C
onfusion crossed his face. "Never, Ina," he promised. "Never again. I love you. I love you more than I will ever love another woman in my life. I know that now."
His lips moved closer to mine. I didn't shut my eyes. I watched his face, the smooth expanse of his flawless politician skin and the calm behind his closed eyelids. He came at me with
such confidence, as if there were no way he could possibly be resisted.
I realized I'd been holding my breath and I quickly exhaled and let fresh oxygen into my lungs. Then his lips grazed against mine and a flood of feelings and memories flashed inside of me. His arm came up and his hand brushed the side of my face, pushing my hair back. His other arm encircled my waist pulling me closer.
"I've missed you so much. I've realized how horribly I've fucked up. I'm back. I'm back." Between words, his tongue reminded me once more how well it knew my body and what it liked. A part of me wanted to strip out of my clothes and make love to him for old time's sake. When two bodies get to know each other so well, they learn each other's wants and needs and likes and just how to touch. But it was only a very tiny insignificant piece of me that wanted that. When two people trusted each other—
M
y mind clicked back on. I didn't trust him, and Adam trusted me.
He'd left here calmly because he trusted me.
"I don't want to do this," I said in a strong steady voice.
His lips smoo
thed over mine. "Never again," he promised. I knew he would try. I knew that he had so much determination that he might not fail. He might be able to will himself loyal.
But
I wasn't satisfied with him. I didn't want to be someone he compromised with himself over. I wanted to knock someone off his feet. I wanted to be the someone that the man I loved couldn't resist.
I pictured Adam saying that it killed him for me to be inside the cabin all night with Michael. I saw the raw frustration and anger, and the white knuckles on my porch as he struggled to keep at bay his wild emotions. He had felt that way. He had tried to keep me at arm's length for so man
y reasons, but in the end, he’d needed to give up because his feelings for me were unstoppable.
Michael let my hands drop and stared into my face until I met his stare. "What are you saying?"
"Thank you so much for coming here, for letting me know how you truly feel. And thank you for talking to your boss about a job for me, but I can't take it."
"Don't be ridiculous." He shook his head. "You're taking the job
—even if you don't want me. You deserve it." Hands on his hips, he stared at the floor as if he couldn't believe what I was saying.
"I don't even know if I still want to work in advertising."
His eyes met mine. I shook my head as he stared at me waiting for an explanation.
"But t
hat's all you ever wanted."
"Not anymore. Now, I
have no idea. I think I want to stay out here a while, figure things out before I—"
"N
ot this again." He walked up to me so that our bodies were so close they almost touched. He grabbed my face in his hands so I couldn't look away.
"A job is what you want, and I got it for you. Just take the fucking job. No strings attached. I owe you
that." He squeezed my face infinitesimally and moved closer to my face, but it wasn't a kiss he wanted. It was to reach me.
"Where is my Ina who knew exactly what she wanted?"
I flinched and his eyes flicked to my lips. I licked them and he began to move in for another attempt at a kiss.
"Why won't you listen to me?" I stopped him. "
I’ve told you what I want."
"You don't know what you want! Nobody does!" He let his hands fall away from me. He walked away, punched a wall, and came back. "Jesus, Ina, what the fuck! This is everything you wanted two weeks ago! You're telling me that I lost you in two fucking weeks?"
"I don't know when it happened," I told him, "but, yes, you lost me."
21
He stared at me in disbelief. The tables had turned. He was the one living in mystery about what had happened to us. The decision for us to no longer be together wasn't solely his anymore. Now that I had a chance to back awa
y from the situation and reflect on it, I realized maybe I had grown away from him too. Only, maybe I'd been so hurt by his betrayal that I hadn't allowed myself to be okay with it. I'd been too focused on what I could have done differently to keep him to see that I may not even want him.
We didn't speak much in the ensuing hours of the morning. We had our coffee outside, rather amicably, surprisingly. It was like now that all of the pre
tense of a possible reunion had fallen away, we could be comfortable around each other. At least that was my point of view. I caught him staring at me as if I were an enigma a few times. I sympathized with him then and had to look away. I was afraid if I looked at him too long, I could have slipped back into old comforting routines. I knew how bad it hurt to stare at someone and wonder how you had dismantled their interest in you.
When there was nothing left to say, I walked Michael back to his car. He kept darting his eyes around on our walk, and I knew he was looking for Adam. I didn't search our surroundings though. I'd been here long enough to know that if Adam wanted to watch from afar, he could do it without being seen.
Nothing could stop him.
I also didn't get the feeling that Adam
was
watching us. The expression on his face as he last left us haunted me. He had been so crushed. It hurt my heart to think about it now. As soon as Michael left, I needed to go to Adam's cabin and apologize. The need was foremost in my mind.
"If you need me," Michael
said while getting situated in his car, "don't hesitate to call. I will always be here for you."
"Thanks, Michael." I leaned in the side window and kissed his cheek. He grinned.
"Bye."
I stood still in the parking lot, watching his taillights disappear into the darkness of the woods in the direction of the main road. Soon he'd be back to civilization. As his car noi
ses became lower than the buzz of the woods, my body calmed, however, one niggling bad feeling wouldn't let me be in peace.
I kept picturing Adam's face as he le
ft. I walked to his cabin to make things right.
*
The clearing in front of Adam's cabin was cheery and empty as usual. The truck had been moved elsewhere and the front door was wide open. I could hear Adam playing a sad wordless song on his guitar. I knocked and opened the door.
"You'r
e back," he said simply in an unpleasant tone.
"Y
eah. I just saw Michael off." I sat down gingerly on the couch next to Adam. I tried to get his attention with my eyes, but he stared down at his hands on the strings as if he needed to watch in order to play. "I thought you would have come out of hiding," I said, "when you heard Michael's car leave."
Adam grinned, but it was a sarcastic angry grin. "You think I'm in hiding?" he asked.
"No, I didn't mean it like that. I thought you'd come out and meet me as I was walking. I thought—"
He sighed. He still didn't meet my eye. "You thought when you were done with one guy, the other should be waiting fo
r you?" One of his eyebrows raised in a questioning look.
"No," I said,
showing the hurt in my voice. "Adam, what's wrong?"
"I laid it out this morning
. I said choose him or me, and you chose him." The expression in his eyes told me I was more right than I realized about his feelings as he walked away this morning. He was beyond hurt. He’d gone back into the defensive stance.
"I didn't choose him. I asked him to leave."
He set the guitar down and I hoped he'd bring me into his arms and carry me into his bedroom or hell, even outside in the grass. The more he wouldn't come to me, the more I needed him to.
"I was there, Ina."
"Then remember better because I didn't choose him. I asked for time. That’s all. You were so angry. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt." I shook my head voraciously and stopped myself from grabbing his arms and forcing him back to me.
He closed his eyes,
trying to downgrade his tornado of emotions before speaking. "I have not cared for someone in a long time, and I have good reason. Damn you! Damn you for coming into my life and reigniting my feelings—and then being so careless with them!"
I saw an angry tear
fall from his eyes, and felt so conflicted. One side of me wanted to run back to my cabin and lock myself inside. The other wanted to run to him, to throw my arms around him and tell him I loved him and beg him to love me back. I didn't want to leave the mountain when my rental ran out. I never wanted to leave Adam.
I tried to speak, but couldn't. I didn't
know what to say to get him to understand. I wasn't completely sure of anything in my entire life. I’d been wrong too many times to be sure. According to him, I shouldn't say things when I wasn't absolutely sure of them.
"I love you," I
blurted. Both of our gazes snapped up to meet each other's. The surprise in my eyes outdid the surprise in his. My hands flew up to cover my mouth, but the words were already out. I pulled my hands away and repeated, "I love you. I don't love Michael." I swallowed and searched my head. I didn't regret it. It was true. The words felt even truer as I said them aloud.
Adam stammered a lit
tle. I couldn't blame him. This was quite an admission. It seemed like I waited forever for a response. And when one came it wasn't in words. Adam shook. He couldn't bring the words out. He kept stifling them. Searching my face, he seemed to be waiting for me to take my statement back.
"What are you doing
?" he asked.