Chapter 34
34
Dexter
“This is the number to the hotel,” I explain to Janet, who’s distractedly scanning over the screen of her laptop. I thrust the piece of paper in her direction, which she takes without even looking at me.
“They have parasailing! Please tell me you’ll try it when you get there.”
“Janet, are you even listening?”
She huffs, rolling her eyes at me. “I heard you,” she whines. “I told you to stop worrying.”
I sigh. “Maybe I shouldn’t go. Hayden would understand. He knows what’s going on with you and?—”
“No! Dex, I’ll be fine. My infusion session is scheduled for Friday. By the time you get back, I’ll be recovered, and you can tell me all about swimming with the dolphins.”
“I’m not swimming with any dolphins. I’m not parasailing,” I say, standing from the seat next to Janet on her couch. I walk to the kitchen to help myself to a bottled water. “I’m doing my part as the best man at my best friend’s wedding, and I’m coming home. ”
“You aren’t even going to go on an ATV tour?”
“No.” I plop back in my seat and take a long, refreshing chug. It’s warm and humid outside, but because Janet’s been running cold, shivering at the smallest breeze of air, the AC in her home has been set at a higher than acceptable temperature. But I don’t complain, even as the small beads of sweat gather along my brow and my shirt clings to my back.
It’s Tuesday evening, and Lucy and I leave for Honolulu in the morning. I stopped by Janet’s place after work. Mainly to say goodbye before our trip but also to check on her and make sure she can reach me while I’m gone. She already saw Lucy over the weekend. It was Lucy’s request that she see Janet, though sad goodbyes weren’t exchanged. In fact, we didn’t even tell Janet it would most likely be the last time she sees Lucy, and I feel like it was because neither one of us wanted to discuss Lucy’s departure. Instead, we met up for dessert at The Lunch Car, where we sat for a few hours, along with Charles, and Janet gushed over the pictures Lucy sent her from the gallery show. I refrained from pointing out how much she looked like our mom in the pictures and instead let her gab on about how Avery was going to love them.
“How’s Lucy been?” Janet asks, interrupting my thoughts on Lucy waiting for me back home. This is our last night together in my apartment, and while I can’t wait to spend it with her, a part of me is dreading it.
I nod. “Good. I think she’s ready to go back home. I’m sure she misses her own bed. And her roommate’s cat.”
A furrow fissures between Janet’s brow, and she rolls up the thick sleeves of her sweater. “When is she leaving?”
“We’re going to Hawaii, and then she’s going back to Seattle from there.”
“So she’s not coming back here after the wedding?”
“No.”
She stays quiet, her hands running over the edges of her laptop .
“What?” I ask.
“Are you okay? With her going back home?”
I shrug. “I don’t really have a choice.” I fidget with the water bottle in my hand. “She lives all the way across the country. I can’t just ask her to move here on a whim. And I can’t move over there, at least not without us discussing a future.”
“So then discuss it.”
I turn to face her, my face deadpan.
“What?” she says innocently.
“I can’t have that kind of talk with her.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“‘Because’ is not a reason, loser.”
I sigh. “Because we already did.”
“When?”
“A while back,” I explain. “We decided we’d hang out and just let things happen, and when she leaves, we’d go back to how things were before she moved out here.”
“So what were you guys? Friends with benefits?”
“Jan, no. We aren’t even…It’s not…” I stumble over a few words, letting the ambiguity of my silence do the talking.
“You two aren’t having sex?”
“You know, it’s really weird to have this conversation with you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Stop being such a baby. We aren’t talking about sex; we’re talking about you and Lucy.”
I rub a hand over my face and pause. This has all been sitting on my shoulders for a while now, weighing on me, with the load growing heavier and heavier each day. I wanted to talk to Lucy about it, maybe revisit our talk and see if we could renegotiate our terms or discuss an “after” once the wedding is past us. But then the other night happened, when I thought for a second maybe she wanted the same thing, and it was obvious she had no intention of revisiting anything. She’s going back to Seattle, and I’m going to stay here in Brooklyn.
“She hasn’t given me any kind of hint or clue or anything that she’d want to continue this beyond what we already discussed. I don’t think she wants to complicate things. She’s already talking about finding work when she gets back home. And what if…”
“But what if?”
I look at her. And what little pragmatic reasoning I have left dissolves. Because what if? What if I asked her to move out here permanently or I considered moving out to Seattle for the sake of being near her? What if the future of Lucy and Dex could go beyond the next few weeks? It could go on and on, indefinitely.
But then the whispers of that what-if start to fade away, making my heart fall while I picture my life without Lucy in it, imagining the fallout from the mere mention of a future. I couldn’t bear it, her shooting me down while reminding me this was never meant to go beyond the days we agreed upon. This is how it was always meant to be. “She’s going home after Hawaii, and I’m coming back to New York. That’s it.”
Janet leans forward, placing her hand on mine. “And you can tell me how snorkeling went when you get back?” she jokes morosely.
I shake my head. “I’ll go to a luau,” I reason.
She makes a disgusted look. “Lame!”