24. Tessa
24
Tessa
W hen he walked away from me, the sun was going down and I’ve been sitting here so long, the sky above me is fully dark. I can’t go home and I blew up my chance to stay at Beau’s tonight. He’d never turn me away, but I’d rather sleep in my car here in the orchard than face him right now. Making him understand I wasn’t keeping this from him on purpose is going to be a big enough job, I’ve got to have the right words ready. So I came to the pond because I didn't know where else to go.
Another lie . I came here to punish myself.
I told Beau off-handedly that I hate sunsets. And I do, but I didn’t tell him why. Sunsets are endings, I’ve always felt so. I hate the way they slide over me, oppressive and final. Whenever the light fades, panic simmers under my skin. Like there’s something I failed at or forgot to do, even though I know it isn’t true. I can ignore the lonely feeling in my stomach if I don’t have to watch one, but I knew there was nothing else to look at here. Nothing but peach trees as far as the eyes can see and a sunset as deeply orange as the fruit they bear.
I forced myself to sit here and stare at the sky until it faded from tangerine to midnight blue. It’s still not long enough to erase what I did to Beau. More than the sunsets, I hate that I always seem to hurt him, no matter what I do. It used to be that it was my indifference, he cared when I so clearly didn’t. But this time, it was the weight of all my secrets. I had to go and hoard them like a poker player hoarding the winning cards. But that’s the problem. Keeping everything so close to the chest doesn’t give me room to let anyone in.
When it gets too cold, I go to my car and move the seat all the way back. I stretch out for a good, long wait. It’s a weight lifted that the sky has changed color and the adrenaline of the last few hours has finally ebbed away. My body is loose and numb and I drift off to sleep thinking of how good it felt to be the one who made him smile.
I wake sometime later to headlights bouncing on the uneven ground. I wipe sleep from my eyes knowing exactly who found me. Beau gets out of the car and stares at me through the windshield, like he’s trying to decide what to do. When he slides into the passenger seat, every thought I had, everything I was going to say, empties from my mind.
We sit in a tense silence until he says, “Do you remember ruining my favorite shirt when we were seventeen?”
I remember the night immediately. “At a bonfire, I think. I spilled my beer on you.”
“Yeah. I acted like I didn’t care, but I was pissed as hell.”
“Kind of like tonight?” He doesn’t answer, just continues to stare through the windshield.
The memory is sharp. I have to move carefully through it to avoid slicing myself open any further. We went to a bonfire somebody from high school made in the woods. That’s always how things start in a place where there is nothing else to do. People were drinking and laughing in groups while someone played loud music from their truck speakers. I only went because Peyton wanted to meet her boyfriend there, but Beau drove us and stayed close the whole night. Wherever we went back then, he watched over us and I remember thinking often how we didn’t need a chaperone. He did his own thing, hung out with his own friends, but he never let us out of his sight.
I was particularly annoyed that night at his constant hovering at the edge of our conversation. When I passed him to get another drink or walked around with girls from school, he was always right behind me. I had just overheard him tell Nathan that I was playing hard to get while I could. That I was going to be his one day, I just didn’t want to admit it. His eyes followed me everywhere and it grated on my nerves that everyone knew he was watching me. Like I was his to look after. Disgust tightens my mouth at the memory of how I acted.
Beau and his friends were sitting with a group of us and I’d had enough of his staring. When he tried to put an arm around my shoulders, I conveniently turned and spilled my full Solo cup down the front of his favorite shirt. I remember the flash of anger that passed over his face before he grinned and shook what was left of his soaked shirt on me. Drops of warm, foamy beer flew all over me as he made everyone laugh with his wet dog impression.
At the time, I thought I’d won because he left me alone. No more comments, no more long looks, but I was the one who left the circle by the fire. I’m always the one who leaves first and I wonder if that’s what he’s getting at by asking me to remember.
“You gave me a ride home. You left a sure thing with Amanda Walker to drive me ten minutes home.”
“It wouldn’t have been safe,” he says softly.
“You were always trying to show me how good you were, even when I didn't deserve it.” There’s a long pause and I make myself say what I’m thinking. The urge to keep it all in is strong and familiar, but not showing him my hand is what got me into this mess in the first place. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
“How long have you known?” he asks quietly.
“Since Tuesday.”
He nods. “So when you fucked me that night, what was that? A goodbye?”
“No, of course not!”
“Sure felt like it.”
“That’s not what it was, Beau, and you know it.”
“The only thing I know is that it was different. I made love to you because you needed something to hold on to. I don’t know what happened that day, but I could see that something wasn’t right. I trusted that if it was important enough, you would tell me what was bothering you. But you didn’t. You don’t trust me at all.” There’s a roaring in my ears that makes it hard to hear and I wonder if that’s the sound of my heart breaking. I almost miss his next words. “Why couldn’t you have just told me, Tess?”
The breath I’ve been holding comes out slowly. “I don’t know.” I look up at the sky through the sunroof like the words will be there waiting for me. “It didn’t seem likely after so long and you’d just started to trust that I was in this with you. You don’t know it, but there was a wariness I would see sometimes in the beginning. Like you were scared of me going back to the way I used to be, when I didn’t care.
“But I woke up one day and realized I hadn’t seen that look from you in a long time. If I told you that I was still trying to find a job somewhere else, the distrust would have come right back. You’d never trust me again and I liked feeling like I had changed. Like I was better because some of your goodness rubbed off on me. It doesn’t make up for the way I treated you back then, but it made it easier to deal with.”
He digests this and looks at me for the first time since getting in the car. “Why do you hold back?”
“I don’t know, Beau. I really don’t.” I thought I wanted him to look at me, but I look down at my lap instead, hiding from his searching gaze.
“That’s a cop-out. Try,” he orders. “What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know,” I say again. “I don’t know why I’m this way.”
He gets annoyed and scoffs. “You want to know what I think?” When I don’t answer, he leans across the armrest, crowding into my seat. “I think you’re afraid of disappointing everyone. I think you want everyone to think you’re dutiful and respectful and sweet, but you aren’t. God didn’t make you that way and when you don’t line up with everyone’s opinion, you hide those parts of yourself so you’ll fit into their mold. You lie and you keep secrets because you want to be what they expect, but you aren’t.
“But what fucking gets me, is that you thought you could hide from me too. You thought I couldn’t see everything you are. You thought I didn’t know you well enough by now? I’ve been watching you for years, Firecracker.”
When Beau grabs the back of my neck and pulls me to him, I gasp at the fierceness of the longing that rises up inside me. That’s the thing about him. He calls me on my bullshit, he never treats me like a child. He doesn’t sidestep conversations I don't want to have. He’s all the things I wish I could be. Unafraid. Genuine. So fucking self-aware. He hits everything head on, including me. It astounds me that he could know me so well, down to my bones.
His kiss is savage. His mouth dominates mine. His lips, his tongue, his teeth all force me to feel everything he feels. He kisses with rage and pain and grief and I understand completely that I broke us with my greedy heart and my stupid insecurities.
His hands are in my hair and all I can think about is how good it would feel to have him hurt me back. I want him. I want him to take out everything he’s feeling on my body, the pain of this last time could be my penance. My pulse is hammering and I reach out to unbutton his flannel shirt, but he stops me.
“No. Not like this. You don’t get to fuck me to feel better.”
“Ask me,” I say, desperate to hurt. “Ask me to stay and I will.”
“No. If I do that, you’re going to end up hating me. I’d never ask you to give up on your future. You’re just stubborn enough to think it’ll be enough, but it won’t. Not for you.” He pulls back and brushes his lips over my forehead and the gesture brings tears to my eyes. “Your independence is one of the reasons I love you, I just wish you had relied on me enough to know you don't have to do everything on your own.”
Beau gives me a soft, sad smile and gets out of the car.
I stay there all night. In the morning, I drive straight towards the choices I’ve made.