Chapter 21 Wet Ted’s Name Is Ted Wetter #3
“Because it’s mine , Ethan.” I jab my fingers into my chest with each syllable. “Because I own it, and it’s not going anywhere. I’m sorry it’s not a van with wheels that you can drive off in whenever you get bored.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere, Chuck. Not really.”
“What are you talking about? Even right now, your big romantic overture involves flaking on the music career you’ve just rebuilt because you feel like it.”
He rakes his hand through his hair. Watching him scores my insides. “I’m sorry I couldn’t risk you getting married again. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to not be a walking red flag who’s already halfway out the door!”
“I’ve been here the whole time, Chuck! Waiting like an idiot—sending you candy, singing songs that become punch lines on late-night shows—because you’re never willing to try . I could change everything for you and you’d still be determined to see this as over before it starts.”
“Because I already know how this ends,” I shout through hot tears. I try to swallow down the heartache, but it tastes too much of salt and sunscreen and misery. I wipe my snot with the heel of my hand. I’m a mess. This is a mess.
“Why can’t we try ?” He directs his plea to the sky. He can’t even bear to look at me anymore. “When it stops working, we can try something else. We don’t have to have every part of our future mapped out right this second.”
“But I do, Ethan. I’ve always needed that, and being together means one of us is giving up everything, and I’m sorry, but I can’t just ‘try that on.’ I’m not built for it. I’ll never be able to do it, and you can’t either.”
He doesn’t respond. He just stares back at me, devastated.
“It’ll be Lewellen 2.0,” I say. “That life you couldn’t see yourself in?
The clocking in and clocking out at some job you don’t want?
Every day the exact same? That’s my life, Ethan.
I would’ve stayed in Lewellen forever, but you left and it ruined the only place I’d felt at home.
You were supposed to be my home but you felt trapped there, even with me.
That’s what it would be like with us. You’ll feel caged and restless, and it won’t be enough.
Maybe you won’t leave this time, but I won’t be enough for you, and that’ll be worse than being alone. ”
We sit under the weight of my declaration. Tears stream down my face. It’s so quiet that I can hear his staccato breaths, and when he looks at me again, a wave of calm seems to flow over his skin.
“You know what’s funny, Chuck? I just figured out why this has never worked. I actually want you , the real you. But you don’t think I want you. Even though you’re all I’ve ever wanted.” His voice is quiet. Kind. Matter-of-fact. It’s such an Ethan way of saying something so devastating.
He nudges my chin up with his knuckle so that I have to look at those magnificent eyes.
“It should be me. Us. I know you, and that’s what scares you so much.
You can’t put up a wall between us because I’m already a part of you just like you’re already a part of me.
We’re too far gone for each other. You love me too.
Even if you never say it, I know you do,” he tells me, vaulting us both into the unknown.
He knows I won’t jump, so he’ll jump for me. But it doesn’t work that way.
The issue has never been whether I love Ethan Powell. He’s right. I’ve loved him so completely without realizing it. It’s whether I can keep his love, and how much it will wreck me when it goes away.
I step back from his hand. I feel its absence on my chin like a brand.
“You’ll hurt me, Ethan. You won’t want to, but you will.
And then I’ll lose all of you.” Losing him after finally having him will taint everything beautiful that came before.
Memories with my best friend will turn to something rotten.
Surrendering our future is the only way to preserve our past.
His face is destroyed. Looking at it punctures my lungs, and I can’t take in enough air to say anything more.
“You don’t believe that.” Something about his words, the way his voice sounds, splinters off another piece of my heart, and I know I’ll never forget this moment. I’m in another Ethan Powell memory. A bad one, but they don’t all get to be good.
“You’re so infuriating. You know that? You’d rather be right than happy. Every time.”
I don’t say anything back. I don’t think he’s expecting me to.
It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. He can see my every thought on my face, and I think I can see his too.
There are no secrets or hidden thoughts.
He won’t do me the courtesy of providing plausible deniability as I break us.
He makes me see all of him. It’s as open-hearted as it is cruel.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. The truth is I’d love to be wrong about us. I just know I’m right.
I’m not sure he’s heard me until he shakes his head and says back, “I’m not.”
His stiff expression blooms into something gentle and warm.
Loving. It crinkles his face all the way up to his eyes.
I’m equal parts relieved and shattered just looking at it, and it occurs to me that this might be the last time I see it.
Everything about this weekend has been a series of firsts and lasts.
His hands shake, and I pull them into my chest on impulse. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. It’s so inadequate, I have to laugh, and it’s a sharp juxtaposition with the way I’m wiping my tear-stained face with the heel of my free hand.
I’m not sure who initiates it—I don’t think I can bear replaying it to find out—but our lips are touching in a heartbreaking kiss that’s sweet and slow and salty from our tears.
I let it linger, long after the ache sets in, knowing this is it—the last time I’ll ever be this close to my best friend.
The last time his hands will caress my cheek.
The last time I’ll breathe in his air. The last time I’ll savor the taste of him.
We stay this way for a good long while, clinging to each other, memorializing the press of our lips, my heartbeat slowing to match his steady pulse. It’s devastating. It’s everything. I don’t want it to stop, and, still, I pull away.
He holds my face, his thumb trailing across my lips like he’s memorizing them. Then he drops his hands and climbs back into the van.
I watch him drive away, admiring his profile in the glow of the sun beating in through the windshield—the slant of his nose, the point of his chin, the smile lines etched in his cheeks—how he looks both the same and different at the beginning and the end.
I don’t need a picture. I couldn’t forget it if I tried.
The van disappears into the horizon. When it’s gone, I walk straight to the laundry room without stopping and wash the weekend off my belongings.
And then I’m really alone.