CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Chip
Acupboard closing in the kitchen woke me. Van was lightly snoring, so I slid out of bed and crept out of the bedroom. I wanted my chance to speak my mind.
“Good morning,” John mouthed, offering me a mug from the cabinet he was in front of.
I nodded, stepping past him to get the half and half from the fridge. “How’d you sleep?” I asked, handing him the creamer. I sounded nicer than I’d wanted to.
“Been awhile since I’ve slept in a loft,” he replied, appearing out of sorts and unsure how to act. “Strange to be back here, actually.”
“You could say that,” I stated. “No one is more surprised than I am.”
My plan was to be polite, but not too friendly, until he got the hint to get the fuck out. I joined him at the table, holding the sugar jar up even though I knew he didn’t take sweetener in his morning coffee. He shook his head.
“Pretty shitty move on my part,” he owned up. “But I had nowhere else to go.”
“So you figured you’d be welcomed here?”
“No. I knew I wouldn’t be welcome here,” he replied. “Truthfully, I’m amazed you agreed to it.”
I shot him a nasty glare. “I didn’t,” I stated flatly, jacking my thumb over my shoulder. “Van is too nice to folks. That, and he has an inability to tell people to fuck off.”
“Is that what you wanted to say?”
“Amongst other things.”
“I met Van before last night,” he revealed, smartly shifting away from the topic I wanted to discuss. “It took a year for us to meet, even though we were just down the hall from one another. Did you know that?”
“I heard some of the story. Crappy thing you two made him endure,” I said. “Van deserved better.”
“You’re right. He did.”
I wanted to ream John a new asshole. The desire to make him understand how much I hurt consumed me with rage as he sat in my home, speaking bullshit in his casual conversational tone.
“You’re a real gem, John.”
John fixed his eyes on me and then heaved a sigh. “Go on,” he whispered. “Give it to me, Chip. Remind me of every horrible thing I did to you. Let me hear what an asshole I am. What a spineless fuck I was to you. I’m right here in front of you. Now’s the time. So go ahead. Let it out.”
I stood up scowling. “You aren’t worth it.”
“You’re right.”
I stepped closer, towering over his seated position. “Then why the fuck are you even here?”
“To tell you my truth,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back in the chair. “I know you, Chip. You need reasons for shit. You can’t let go of anything until you have the reasons.”
“Bullshit!” I hissed, walking to the kitchen window.
“See?” he asked. “You don’t wanna talk, so off to the kitchen window you go. Just like always.”
I spun around. He stared back at me, appearing as smug as fuck. “Fuck you, John.”
“My point exactly. Shut down when you don’t wanna hear the truth.”
“Go ahead and enlighten me then,” I hissed, yanking a chair from under the table and plopping my pissed-off ass on it.
“Remember when your folks were killed?”
“Just shut up about that,” I stated. “You don’t know shit.”
“You needed a reason back then, too. And then your grampa died of old age. You needed a reason.”
“Of course, I fuckin’ needed a reason. I was devastated, John.” Waking Van up with my yelling was not on my agenda until I spoke my mind with John, so I scooted the chair closer to him. “Go on, wiseass,” I hissed. “Give me a fuckin’ reason to throw your ass out of my house.”
“An accident killed your folks, Chip. They adored you and were great parents, so I get your grief. And Grampa died because he was old. That’s all it was.
He was old. Christ, you were barely an adult and instantly thrust into a family business that there was no way you’d allow yourself to fail at.
You busted your ass while your life got put on the back burner. ”
“Of course, I busted my ass. What does that even mean?” I hissed.
“You already know,” he rebutted.
“The hell I do.”
“You forgot about me,” he whispered, choking up and pausing before continuing. “All you cared about was how the town felt about your response to the awful shit that happened to you. You had to be the hero. You would not fail the memory of your family…. or that goddamned mercantile.”
“No,” I murmured. “That’s not true,” I insisted. “You were my fuckin’ life, John.”
He shook his head, tears streaming down his face. “No, Chip. I wasn’t. The mercantile was and is your life. Look at you. You’re still doing the same shit.”
His words may as well have slapped me across the face. “That’s not how I felt, though,” I resisted. “The town needed the mercantile. Folks depended on me, John.”
“Listen to yourself.”
“What?”
“You’re still on about the mercantile. What the town needed. What the people needed,” he began. “I depended on you. I needed you. Our relationship hinged on your participation in it, Chip.”
Resignation of what I’d done swept over me. “Jesus!” I exclaimed.
I hadn’t noticed what was happening to John and me because I was blinded by my need to be a savior for the community, all the while killing my relationship.
“But what happened isn’t entirely your fault.” He placed his elbows on the table, resting his chin in his hands. “Instead of talking to you about how I felt, I went in search of something else.”
I grimaced. “You mean someone else.”
“Unfortunately, yes. The first online stranger who showed me attention.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You just admitted your actions, like what we had meant nothing.”
“I couldn’t cheat on you, Chip, so I left,” he clarified. “And boy, did I pick a doozy of a guy.”
I held my hand to him. “Spare me the details,” I insisted. “I don’t wanna hear shit about Evan.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed. “I ruined my reputation, and what we had here, but don’t worry, I’m not staying in Missile.”
His news caught me off guard. “Why?”
“Because I never wanted to stay in Missile when we got back from college.”
“That’s not true,” I argued. “Like me, you were born here. This town is in our blood,” I reminded him. “That, and we had the store to worry about after Mom and Dad were killed and Grampa passed. We had a future here.”
“You had the store. You had your future mapped out. Not me,” he explained.
“When your folks died, I knew you’d never leave.
And after college, I wanted a life somewhere else.
I felt stuck because of that goddamned mercantile, so, like a chickenshit, I blew our relationship up, and looked for an out. ”
“So you just chose some random guy you could leave town for?” I asked, feeling seriously nauseated.
“Look, I won’t attempt to make myself look good, or make excuses, but I wanted out that bad.”
His admission stung. Stung real bad. His desire to leave town was bigger than his love for me? The truth being spoken out loud hurt almost as badly as the day he walked.
“Thanks for making me feel so awesome about what I meant to you.” I jumped up and paced back and forth while absorbing his cruelty.
His experience wasn’t entirely how I remembered the love we shared.
“Hearing you wanted out so badly makes me sick to my stomach. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough for ya. ”
“You’re not listening, wiseass. You were too good for me,” he corrected. “I understood that and then planned my escape from here. The reason I left had very little to do with you, Chip. I knew you’d never leave, so I decided to choose me over us.”
“So you said fuck Chip and our relationship and hooked up with a stranger? Am I hearing that correctly?”
“I’d like to say no, but that is exactly what went down,” he confirmed. “The rest of my life cannot be lived in this place. After a taste of Seattle, I can’t live in a town this small, so I’m outta here after Christmas and not looking back.”
What should’ve been relief over the true reason he left didn’t make me feel all that great. “We could work on being friends, you know,” I said, suddenly pained at the thought of him being gone forever. “We can try harder. You never know what might happen.”
“I’m the one who can be better, Chip. I betrayed us and what we’d built when I should’ve simply spoken up.”
“I doubted I would’ve heard you,” I admitted, realizing both of us were trying now.
“About that,” he began, moving his head toward the bedroom.
“I’m no expert on the man in your bedroom, but I did witness him from a distance while we lived in Seattle.
” John paused for effect, making sure I was listening.
“Van’s amazing, Chip. The way he is with people.
The kindness that drips from him like honey.
Shit! He even treated me with kindheartedness when I finally met him in the garage where we all lived. ”
“Trust me, he swept me off my feet.”
John nodded, seeming to understand. “Evan painted him as a dreamer and a person who believed in fantasy and childish things. As it turns out, that’s actually funny. After spending a year with Evan, I’m amazed Van’s spirit wasn’t crushed.”
I wished I’d felt bad about John’s experience with the guy he left me for, but I didn’t. His admitting Evan was a creep only validated what I’d managed to squeeze from the very little information Van revealed about his ex.
“Van is all the things Evan told you he was,” I shared. “Plus, he’s loving and smart. He sees the world differently than most of us, and at first… well, I wasn’t sure what to think.”
“And now?” he encouraged. “How do you feel now?”
“I’m not sure I feel comfortable telling you.”
My unexpected desire to show respect to John found me cautious in explaining what had happened to me in two short weeks. I wanted to be protective of Van while also not sounding boastful to John.
“Go ahead,” he urged. “Sing your praises. I’m a big boy.”