Twenty-Seven
I decide the best thing to do is to get Mabel to come pick me up, when she asks if I need it. Because I mean, I can’t see myself coping well with a five-hour car journey next to the man I love but am not really right for. Five minutes in and I’m going to slip again. He’ll do something nice and I’ll read it as love, and try to convince him of things that aren’t possible. I’ll suggest that we should just be fuck buddies. Or worse: I’ll say that we could probably make it work, somehow. I know I’m not perfect-wife material, I’ll tell him. But I love you and care for you and am sure we would be happy together. I want to be happy with you, Beck. I don’t think friends is all we should be.
Then it’ll be an hour of him awkwardly trying to get out of it.
He’ll probably say something about different paths and journeys and how we need space away from all the hot sex, or something like that. And every word he speaks will just make me die a little more inside. I’m already dying just thinking about it – and so much so that I don’t realize at first that I haven’t seen him all day.
He disappeared after the basketball game, and what we did.
And he hasn’t been back. Like maybe he’s already gone, without even saying goodbye. Something about the whole thing messed him up even more than it messed me up, and that means no more talking at all. No gradual getting over the embarrassment, and being buddies again. No meeting in the hallway for a chat. No Quantum Leap marathons or pasta dinners or me helping him find someone.
Just silence, forever.
Or worse.
Fuck, it feels as if it might be worse.
Like I’ll get home, and find he’s moved out. Left his life, left his job, decided moving back to America is the thing to do. Beating Doug left a bad taste in his mouth. The position seems poisoned to him now. He didn’t mean to defend me, or have sex with me afterwards, and he’s realized it’s all just too much. He’s a better man than that. A better man than someone who would be with me.
Which sounds ridiculous, I know.
But by the time Mabel turns up in her silly old Ford Fiesta, it feels perfectly reasonable. I get in, thinking that’s all settled then , sure that my heart isn’t even a tiny bit breaking. Though maybe it’s breaking more than I think, because apparently she brought Alfie along, too, and the second I glance at him, and he sees my face, he doesn’t say nice to see you, love, like always.
He says: ‘Why the fuck do you look like your dog has died?’ Then sticks his head between the seats – seeing as he’s inexplicably sat in the back – and looks at Mabel. ‘You said this retreat thing would help her blossom or some cobblers like that, why is she making me want to punch whoever’s hurt her?’
So before Mabel can supply the person who did this imaginary hurting, I cut in. ‘Nobody has hurt me,’ I tell him, as I try to nudge him back into his seat. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time. And I have blossomed, or some cobblers like that. Here, look.’
I reach down to the satchel at my feet – Beck’s satchel, because he didn’t ask for it back, of course he didn’t, and I didn’t think, oh god, why didn’t I think – and get out the notebook I’ve filled, the pages and pages I’ve printed out. All of them stories upon stories, and every one as romantic as I’ve never let myself be before.
And though Alfie frowns that angry frown of his, Mabel claps her hands. She laughs, and throws her arms around me. ‘Oh, my sweet one, I knew you could do it. I knew you could get there,’ she says, voice as bright as a button, massive hair all in my face, and me wanting it no other way.
‘Well, you got me most of the way there,’ I tell her.
And only then does she pull away.
‘I don’t think it was me.’
‘Okay, Beck helped, too.’
More than helped, I think. He closed the other half of the wound in me, made by my parents. Now I don’t care at all what anyone might think of who I want to be. I know I can be this. I’m confident in it, instead of rusty and unsure. And I can see Mabel thinks so, too. She’s looking at me in this curious kind of way. Taking in my glasses, and my cardigan. It must be that, I think.
But then she puts a hand over mine.
Over the one that’s clutching all my stories.
‘Darling, I don’t think it was just me and Beck,’ she says. ‘I think you found your own way to the castle, beyond the goblin city. And you did it by letting yourself be open to it. To trusting people, with your whole heart.’
I don’t know what to do once she has finished speaking, however.
My eyes sting. I find myself looking back at Alfie, in the hopes that he’ll be rolling his eyes. But oh god, he isn’t rolling them at all. He’s only bloody tearing up, too. ‘That’s so fucking beautiful,’ he says, as he gets out a goddamn hanky. I could kill the pair of them, I really could.
And especially when they’re both so extremely wrong.
‘I can’t be that open. I’ve made a complete mess of things with Beck,’ I say, in a voice that sounds just a little bit strangled. But all Mabel does is laugh. She laughs at me. Like she thinks I’m bonkers.
‘You can’t possibly still think he’s not interested,’ she says.
‘Of course I do. He accepted the end of whatever we had. Then he left without saying goodbye.’
‘Come on, Haze. You know there’s no way he did. You’re just telling yourself that because you can’t believe someone you trust with your heart might trust you with his. But I’m willing to bet he does.’
God, she sounds so sure, I think.
But what surprises me is how much her surety shakes me. The way it makes me open that door in my head, labelled this is how things really are . Instead of leaving it closed, and thinking only of the way things seem to me. The way they’ve been shaped by all my fears, and everything I’m used to.
‘Can you guys wait a second,’ I say.
But I don’t need to. They’re both already pushing me out of the car. And then I’m running around in a panic, searching for him. I go through the lodge, calling his name. Find his car still out back, but cannot let myself take any real comfort from it. And when I run into a confused Meera, I can’t tell her why I haven’t gone yet after already giving her my goodbyes. I’m too busy asking if she’s seen him. ‘I think I saw him down by the little dock,’ she tells me, then instead of explaining, I run down there.
I spend twenty minutes tramping through the undergrowth, alternating between shouting Beck, and not shouting Beck, in case shouting Beck makes him hide from me. He’s so disturbed by something you did that he’s currently crouched behind some bushes, waiting for you to leave , my mind tells me.
And I’m starting to be able to shake it.
But not entirely.
Because when I see him, he looks like something is very wrong. He’s staring out over the lake, in the scrap of woods by the dock, with this hauntingly wistful expression on his face. As if he’s already dreaming of some other life, away from here, away from London, away from everything.
So now what, I think.
But I don’t know, because I’m not equipped to deal with things like this. I don’t know how to be raw and real with someone, to talk through emotional things. I’m supposed to be cool and poised. Then he turns suddenly, he looks right at me, gaze so tender and caring despite everything I’ve probably put him through, and I realize: I really don’t care if I am, anymore.
Nothing else matters but being who I want to be.
And who I want to be is someone like him.
‘I couldn’t find you. And I just... I wanted to see if you were all right,’ I blurt out. Then more tumbles after it, like I’ve pulled some kind of emotional rip cord. ‘I wanted you to know that you can tell me if you’re not, and we can talk about things and make them better. Like, you can tell me things and I’ll try to make them better. You don’t have to leave without saying goodbye.’
But he just frowns.
He gives this little soft laugh.
‘Oh gosh, I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye,’ he says, in this gentle way. Like he knows I’m all in my feelings, and doesn’t want to just make me feel like a fool about it. Then he seems to hesitate, before finally adding, ‘I just wanted to drag this all out a little longer.’
And the thing is: I think I know what he means.
I feel it so keenly for a second it stops my breath.
But it’s too much of a left turn for me to really believe it. I can’t just believe it. I have to tread carefully, because I’m treading on all my own hopes and dreams. So I say: ‘It is a really nice view. And a lovely place.’
Like the completely ridiculous person I am.
Then I get the first evidence of just how ridiculous that is.
‘Come on. It’s not the place.’
‘Then it’s running the retreat.’
‘That was fun. But no.’
‘So what is it?’
Don’t answer me , the fake me thinks at him.
It’s going to be okay if he does , the real me calmly says.
And the real me is right. The real me is right.
‘Well, when we leave I won’t be your husband anymore,’ he says, in so plain a way I can’t mistake what he means. I don’t mistake it – my heart stops and restarts anew to hear it. It beats like I’ve always wanted it to, with belief in love and sincerity and sweet, happy endings.
Though still, there’s one more thing I have to know.
‘But you said...’
‘I said what?’
‘That you thought it was a good idea to stop.’
‘Because it is, when I can’t really be what you want.’
‘I’ve never said that you’re not. I just said that you, that we—’
‘Hazy, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I get that you like a different sort of guy. A more assertive, take-charge sort of guy, who has all the experience and worldliness that you need. And frankly, deserve.’
He says the words as if he thinks I already know all of this. Like I’m just going to receive the information on why he reacted the way he did after I banged him up against the door in a calm, reasonable manner. Instead of what I actually do, which is put my head between my knees briefly, as the realization sinks in.
And when I straighten back up again, I say things very loudly.
‘Oh my god . Are you saying this because of my reaction to the game?’ I ask, but he does not say no. He does not say no.
‘Well, I mean, you did seem super happy about how I handled things.’
‘Yeah, but not because you were all aggressive.’
‘So then what made you want me again?’
He looks genuinely puzzled, I think.
Because apparently he’s just as big of a fool as I am.
‘Beck, I never stopped wanting you, never,’ I have to patiently explain to him. Though even as I’m saying it, I’m going over how everything must have looked to his mind. Not like someone waiting for him to argue that we should be together.
More like there was no argument to be had.
He’s not the type to imagine you secretly hope he cares enough to overlook all the ways you aren’t perfect and want him to tell you it will be okay. He’s the type who already doesn’t care that you’re not, who doesn’t even understand that you might not know this, who isn’t interested in playing games and withholding, and just sees things as they appear to be. You said no. He respected that, my mind calmly informs me.
As if my mind was smart all along, and just had to work its way out of ten tons of trauma from a million men who pull this shit all the time. Who make you think you’re not enough, and will only give you the slightest clue that you are when you’ve finally made yourself strong enough to leave.
Whereas with Beck, you don’t have to.
You’re not waiting for crumbs.
He’s already made ten loaves and is just waiting to see if you want them.
Like a really hot Jesus, who doesn’t understand he’s awesome. ‘Of course you stopped. You did it right after we had sex. Which to be clear I don’t blame you for, I wasn’t annoyed by it, I mean, I know full well that I’m probably not nearly the kind of lover you’re used to,’ he says, and he doesn’t even sound crushed about it. He sounds like that makes sense.
So now I’ve got to impress upon him how little sense it makes.
He needs feeding seven thousand bready things, right the fuck now.
‘Yeah, you’re better . Like massively, hugely better. And I’m not even just talking about on a technical-mastery-of-fucking-someone level. I’m not even talking about the fact that you’re so good you made me cry over emotions I didn’t think I could feel in the middle of sex. I am saying just as a human being. I mean, you didn’t do one horrible thing to me. You actually cared that I had a good time. And even when I did have a good time, you worried that I didn’t. And that’s all just so much more amazing than anything I’ve ever had before,’ I tell him. As fiercely as I can manage, while feeling choked up and emotionally thrown.
Yet he still starts shaking his head. He still wrinkles his face up, incredulously. ‘But there must be some men who weren’t so unspeakably awful that I kind of want to murder them right now.’
‘I told you there aren’t. I told you there wasn’t. They were all like that.’
‘Well, maybe they just had certain qualities that you like. And it briefly seemed like I had them. But of course, could never maintain. I don’t like losing my temper or being aggressive like that.’
‘Beck, for god’s sake,’ I burst out, more out of horror that this is what he really thought than anything else. And the need to drill into him the opposite, immediately. ‘It wasn’t temper or aggression that made me want to kiss you and hold you and have you hold me again. I didn’t think wow, what a jackass, and then immediately change my mind and need to fuck you. It was why you did those things that made me need it. That made me so desperate for you that I didn’t care, in that moment, whether things could ever work between us or if we could really be together.’
‘And what was the why, exactly?’
‘ Justice , Beck. Your sense of justice . Your sense of what’s fair, so keenly honed it overrides all of your gentleness and amiability and just smashes out of you the second you think someone else has been wronged.’ I take a breath, shake my head. Mostly because I have to somehow put into words that it’s actually more amazing than this, in the worst way. ‘And it is only when someone else is wronged, too. You don’t even register the injustice when it’s you.’
‘I do register it. I just... it doesn’t seem as bad, then.’
‘As what? Some insult he aimed at me?’
‘It wasn’t just an insult and you know it, Haze.’
‘That’s hardly the point.’
‘It is to me. He tried to make you feel bad about something precious to you, something you’ve struggled with and frankly heard more than enough horrible things about throughout your life. It wasn’t right that you had to hear it again, just as you’re starting to feel confident and better about who you are inside,’ he says, and I can hear him getting fiercer and fiercer as he does. I can see that same sense of justice bursting out of him, before he even has to think about it.
But it’s not this that takes me out.
It’s realizing just how strongly he understands me.
And then somehow I find myself applying it to everything he did. Everything he said to me, all the way back to the start. All the stuff about wearing my glasses and my flat shoes and writing if I wanted to – it wasn’t about wanting me to seem like his wife. It was because he knew I wanted those things for me .
Somehow he knew.
He knew so much and so well and did it so carefully, that I can’t help it. I sob into my hands. ‘Oh my god,’ I say, from around them. ‘Oh my god. Did you suggest I do all those dorky things because you thought I would like them? Because you thought I wanted to be this way, and I’d be happier if I could just go ahead?’
‘And by that you mean you’re only just guessing that.’
‘Jesus Christ, Beck, of course I am. I thought you were just suggesting ways to be the kind of wife you wanted. I didn’t know that you imagined – that you were thinking about how – that you thought—’
‘That you already are, honey.’
Honey , I think. Already , I think.
Then somehow I’m crying harder. Me, a person who long ago vowed to never cry in front of a man. Just full-on blubbering, to the point where he steps toward me, and gets out a whole handkerchief, and tells me, ‘Don’t be upset.’ As if I could really be anything else in the face of this.
‘How can I not be? I’m standing in front of the first man who’s ever valued me for who I really am. And I have no way to doubt it. No way to wonder about it. I know completely and utterly that you do. God, you do so much that you defended me over it, more than I’ve ever had anyone defend me in my life. No man has ever liked me enough to go to bat for me the way you did,’ I say, as he fusses over my wet face and my wet hands. One hand on my back, rubbing and rubbing. Expression so full of caring and concern I could live in it, forever.
And that’s before he seems to hesitate.
Then finally just goes ahead and says whatever he was keeping in.
‘Honestly I do more than that.’
‘More than what?’
‘Liking. Hazy, I do more than liking. I love who you really are. I love every sign of it I ever saw and all the ways you tried to hide it. I love the softness of you, the sweetness, and the sharp brittle over the top. I love that you doubted when you thought I was a liar and opened up when you realized I wasn’t. I love all of those things, and always have, right the way back to when you opened the door one morning and saw me across the hall, and hid your copy of a book you didn’t want me to see you reading inside your robe,’ he says, and as he does he gets out that little notepad he always keeps in his pocket. The one he writes all his little reminders in, his hints on how to be normal. Then he adds: ‘And just in case you’re still doubting, here’s what I wrote about it, all the way back when.’
And he hands it to me, open to a page somewhere at the beginning.
Under no circumstances should you try to say to your neighbour that whoever she really is seems wonderful, and that she should go ahead and live her best life, because she will guess immediately that what you mean is that your heart longs for a secret twin, to spend the rest of your whole life loving.
Because he’s smart, and I’m not.
He knew then, he knew everything.
And he was just waiting for me to catch up with the story we’re supposed to have. Not pretend, not always getting foiled at the last fucking second. Or me fucking it up. Just love, plain love. Passion. Sincerity . ‘God, that’s so lovely,’ I say, without even trying for caveats or hedging or anything other than my real feelings.
But I still don’t think I’m doing it quite right, because he says:
‘Yeah. I’m always better on the page.’
Which is nonsense, it’s nonsense.
‘I don’t know, Beck. You seem to be doing pretty awesome in person.’
‘Maybe you’ve just made it easier to be. Maybe I can be more me, too.’
‘Honestly I don’t even know what I’ve done to have that happen.’
‘Hazy, honestly. You talk about no man ever defending you before me. Well, who do you think did for me, before you? I didn’t even imagine anyone would ever notice I was suffering, until you did. And so easily, too. Like it took you nothing at all. A couple of glimpses in the hallway and you had it. Then instead of finding my whole situation funny or looking at me with pity or contempt, you seemed to think more of me for it. And hate anyone who didn’t,’ he says, so marvelling about it.
Even though it makes all the sense in the world to me.
I guess I just have to explain to him how it does.
‘Because I don’t like it when people try to crush something good in the world. There’s too little of it as it is. Too much horrible stuff that people could hate instead. Why don’t they just hate that instead?’ I say, even more passionately than I said the other stuff. This one really bursts out of me, and it makes tears come again when it does. I don’t know why it makes tears come when it does.
Though he doesn’t make me feel embarrassed about it.
Because he understands what I don’t. He sees what part of me I’m talking about. ‘Better to make their daughter like them, cruel and shallow and judgemental, than face the fact that their daughter is a better person than they could ever be. Because you know that now, right? That you are,’ he tells me, soft, so tender about it. He strokes my cheek as he does it.
And this time I don’t hide my face when I cry. I tell him – through tears of relief that someone sees, and wants me to be free of it, ‘I’ll accept it if you will.’ Then when he asks what I want him to accept, I tell him that, too. ‘That you’re the best man I’ve ever known, and I love you, I love you, love you. My sweet Sam Beckett, brought to life. Setting everything right that once went wrong.’
Because he has.
He does.
He takes me in his arms. Kisses me, kisses me. And when he pulls away he’s laughing. He looks lighter, like he’s glad he can be himself, too. No more pretending, no more words to hide behind, in his notebook. All out, all here, all in a tumble as he strokes the hair back from my face. ‘I should have known when you said you loved that show, too, that you could never possibly not want to be with a man like me. That you were just afraid of yourself, and what I thought of you. Honestly I think I did know, sometimes. I knew how loved you made me feel, even when it wasn’t supposed to be real,’ he says, so now I’m laughing, too.
‘Well, it is real now. So get ready to feel even more loved than that.’
‘I’ve never been more ready for anything. Feels like I’ve waited my whole life to find this. To find someone who can love me, and let me love them to the ends of the earth in return. To find you, my sweet whatever you want me to call you now.’
You sly thing, I think. Making me admit it.
Though honestly he doesn’t have to make me do anything.
‘I think you know I want you to call me your wife, Beck.’
‘Yeah, I do. But I had to hear you say it.’
‘And what do you say in return?’
He smiles that perfect, sunny smile.
Dimples, moustache quirk, and all.
‘For as long as we both shall live, I do.’