One Plus Two Minus One (27 page)

He looked at her for a while.

“
And I won’t
make anything obvious,” she said.
“I
won’t be mean. You won’t see him again unless you go looking for
it. I’ll go out of my way to make sure that doesn’t happen, while
we work all this out.”

“Thanks.”

She decided
she should be clear.
“So don’t push if
I’m being vague. Take a hint. Don’t come to my office without
warning me.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

She kissed
him quickly and got her shoes and coat and walked back to her
office across the playing fields.
On the
way she phoned Ethan and said everything was all right.

“Do you want to meet up?” he said.

She
thought.
“Better not.”

It seemed the
thing to do.
Like she should stay away
from Ethan, grieve for a day she what she was losing with Robert
before she got into bed with someone else.

“
Okay,” he
said.
“Call if you need me.”

“Are you all right?”

“
Yeah, I’m
fine.
Glad it’s out there,
now.”

“Me too.”

Silence.

“
Hey,” he
said.
“Can I ask what’s
happening?”

“With me and you?”

“Yeah.”

She
hesitated.
She wondered why she was so
hard and uncompromising with Robert, and so willing to work around
what Ethan needed from her. She didn’t really need to wonder,
because she knew exactly why. She didn’t like Robert very much and
she did like Ethan. It just didn’t seem fair.

“
I’d almost
promise you nothing changes,” she said.
“I’m that sure nothing will I’d almost promise. But I won’t
actually promise.”

“Okay.”

“Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Just give me a couple of days to get him out
the house.”

“And then?”

“
Then we’re
back how we were.
Everything is how it
should be.”

“Happy ever after,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“
Be safe,” he
said.
“Okay.”

“
I will,” she
said, and wondered what he was worrying about.
“Nothing like that’s going to happen.”

“Okay, but still be safe.”

“
Yeah,” she
said.
“Bye.”

*

Beth didn’t
see Ethan for a couple of days, while she waited for
Robert to do whatever he was going to do. She
missed Ethan, and got horny, but made herself wait. She called
Ethan a few times and explained she was trying to keep everything
calm, to let Robert have some time, and Ethan seemed to
understand.

She was
trying to give
Robert space, let him
decide things, and adjust, and be there to talk if he needed her,
too. She felt guilty. She’d hurt him, and she’d loved him once, and
she wanted him not to hurt more than he had to. She thought he’d
get over this fairly quickly, if he wasn’t left alone to brood. It
wasn’t like they’d been close the last year. It wasn’t like they
were much more than friends. Everything that was upsetting him now
was really just pride, not like a real partner had been caught with
someone else. She also didn’t want him running off to report her
sleeping with Ethan, wherever he might actually report that. She
didn’t know if he would, and it wasn’t entirely about that, but
part of it was.

Robert
was avoiding her, she thought, leaving early and
staying in his office until late and pretending to be asleep when
she was in the bedroom. He was drinking a bit. She could smell it
when he came to bed. It was something he’d always done, when he was
stressed or upset, and she didn’t really care. The silence was
starting to irritate her, though. She was making herself available
to help, and her help didn’t seem to be wanted. Worse, it seemed
like indecision as an intentional plan, a delay by avoidance. As if
he thought he could win her back by doing nothing until she got
over her little tantrum. As if he thought she’d change her mind if
he was just around. As if, since she was being polite enough to
wait and finalize things with him before she moved on too much, he
could just leave her hanging, indefinitely, making sure that if he
couldn’t have her, no-one else could either, because nothing was
resolved. He was probably just dealing with it all, she knew, and
trying to avoid a confrontation, but it was starting to get
annoying.

By the second
day of that she wanted to get on with things.
She wanted Ethan. She’d almost decided she was just going
to throw Robert out if he didn’t start talking soon, and then, the
third morning, he did.

He was sitting in the kitchen when she came
downstairs.

“Hey,” she said, and waited to see what he’d
do.

“We need to talk.”

“
Yeah,” she
said.
“I suppose we do. Let me wake up,
okay?”

She put on
the kettle and went back upstairs and got dressed.
She was a little surprised. She’d thought Robert
would stall longer. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she
thought.

She went back
down and made coffee, ate toast, and
Robert watched her while she did.

After a while she said, “Okay.”

“
Could you
tell me what happened?” he said.
“I don’t
understand this, and I really need to.”

“I don’t know.”

“
Please,” he
said.
“Just try.”

She thought
for a while.
“We’re a mess,” she said.
“We’re so much a mess I don’t even know if I care how fucked up and
distant we are any more. I think I’ve wanted to leave you for a
while, but I’m not sure, because you weren’t here, and we never
talked, so I never had to decide anything.”

Robert
looked like he wanted to cry. “Should I go?” he
said. “Move out?”

She shook her head.

“You’re sure?”

“
Yes,” she
said.
“Not right away. If I say you have
to leave, you’ll say you’ve only just started a job and have
nowhere to live and can I wait a month, and then it’ll be another
thing, and another, and on we go.”

Now he looked
like he wanted to hit her.
She held her
cup, got ready to throw it. He never had, had never hinted he
would, but she’d never completely trusted him. He got too calm when
he was angry, and he didn’t swear enough. Like he was holding
everything inside.

He just sat
there, though.
Strike two for not knowing
him as well as she had thought.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

“
You don’t
need to say anything.
We’re talking. To
see if we feel better, I suppose.”

“
Are you
going to keep seeing him?” he said.
“That
kid?”

She shrugged.

“You don’t know?”

“It’s not your business.”

“How’s it not my business?”

“It just isn’t.”

They sat there for a while.

“
It feels
like I don’t know you any more,” he said.
“Since you moved here. That being apart has broken
us.”

They were quiet for a while.

“
You’ll
always be close to me,” she said.
“This
is about the worst conversation anyone can have and we’re having it
together. That means something.”

“Worst for me.”

“
I mean
it.
You’re closer to me than anyone. That
isn’t going to change.” It was already changing, but she couldn’t
tell him that either.

“
So we can be
friends?
You want to be
friends?”

“If you want us to be.”

“Why?”

“
There’s a
lot I like about you.
About us. But I
think I was starting to lose myself in us. I needed to get me back.
So I need this to end.”

“I don’t want us to end.”

“It has.”

“
I want to
try again.
Try harder.”

“
No,” she
said.
“It’s done. We’re over. You can’t
have me back.”

“Keep you,” he said.

“What?”

“
I don’t want
you back.
I want to keep you. As far as I
know you haven’t left.”

She shrugged.

“
Would you
have sex,”
Robert said, “With
me?”

She thought
about that.
About how it might make him
feel better, patch his ego a little. About how she still did
actually like him, somewhere inside, and wanted him not to
hurt.

“
Yeah,” she
said.
“If you like. Now?”

Robert
shook his head. “I don’t want to. I just
wondered. If you said no then he’d have more of a claim on you than
I did, and that’d mean I’d be losing you.”

“Or I just didn’t feel like it…”

He didn’t
answer.
So just some competition thing,
Beth thought. Proving himself. Not trying to make himself feel
better, or anything else involving feelings. She thought a little
more, and decided she wasn’t actually that comfortable sleeping
with Robert after all, so perhaps Ethan did have that claim. Or she
had that claim, and no-one else did.

Everything was getting confusing.

“
Actually,”
she said.
“Um…”

“Don’t tell me.”

“
Okay,” Beth
said, and decided this was just getting awkward.
“I think I’m done,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you
about who I’m sleeping with.”

“
Yeah,” he
said, sounding bitter.
“Of course
not.”

“
You can stay
a while if you want,” she said.
“I mean,
it’ll be a bit weird, but stay if you need somewhere. I’m not going
to throw you out.”

He nodded, and didn’t answer, and after a
while she went back upstairs to brush her teeth and get ready for
work.

*

Beth stayed
out late, saw Ethan in the afternoon in her office, but didn’t let
him feel her up like he wanted to.
Because it felt wrong, somehow, before Robert was sorted
out, and because she was a little wary of who Robert might have
told, and someone bursting in to catch her all sweaty with her
student.

She waited
until after dark to go home, but
Robert
still wasn’t there. She went to bed, wondering if he’d be back at
all.

He woke her up about two, fairly drunk,
crashing around downstairs.

He came up
the stairs, and seemed to be trying to be quiet.
Slid into bed next to her, smelling of whisky and
beer.

“How much have you had?” she said.

“
Not
much.
You were serious this morning? This
isn’t a joke?”

She lay there
for a while, irritated, but she supposed she’d have wanted to check
too.
Maybe. “I’m serious,” she
said.

“Shit.”

Silence for a
while.
She wondered if maybe this would
be easier. If talking in the darkness, unable to see each other’s
faces, would make it hurt a little less for him. She reached over
and took his hand and squeezed it.

“
I love you,”
he said.
“That hasn’t
changed.”

“
I
know.
I love you too.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

She didn’t answer.

“
But I have,”
he said.
“Haven’t I?”

“You have.”

He started to
sit up, clumsy and drunk.
“I’ll sleep on
the couch.”

“
Don’t.
Just stay.”

“I should sleep on the couch.”

“
Robert, just
fucking stay here. I can hug you or something if you
want.”

“No.”

She stroked
his back instead.
He turned a little so
she could reach.

“
We both
fucked up,” he said after a while.
“I
should have tried harder too.”

“I know.”

He turned
over, seemed to be groping around.
She
wasn’t sure why until he put his hand on her breast.

He
squeezed.
She lay there for a
moment.

“Don’t,” she said.

He took his hand away.

Silence
again.
His breathing changed fairly
quickly, and he went to sleep. Too drunk to stay awake very long
being upset, she thought.

*

Then next
afternoon she sat with Ethan in one of the cafes near the student
services building.
He’d wanted to come to
her office, but she said no, knew they’d just fuck if she saw him
somewhere with a closing door.

And right now
fucking was dangerous.
She didn’t know
what Robert had said.

“How’s it going?” Ethan said, and seemed
worried about her.

“
Shit.
The whole thing’s shit.”

“I imagine.”

They sat a while.

“I miss you,” he said.