Chapter 30
I can’t sleep on the couch and expect not to be woken up once everyone comes down, so I slide under the covers with Callahan.
He is fast asleep by the tell of his snores and doesn’t stir at the shift in the bed.
I want to curl into his arms like I did last night, but that feels cruel, so instead I just slide to the edge of the bed and curl in on myself.
When I wake up, he is already gone, and it’s well into the afternoon. I can hear people laughing downstairs. Seeing the date on my smartwatch makes it click that this is our last day here. We leave tomorrow.
After a quick shower and some pep talk, I walk in to see everyone in the kitchen but Sahara.
“Hey, Michael was just saying they are going to leave early, so we thought we would all get lunch before dropping them at the airport,” Charlie says, walking up to me.
Callahan is staring hard into his coffee cup with Rowan at his side. I don’t know if she is mad at this news or my presence. Errol looks like he is dying, slouched against a counter.
“Sounds good to me,” I say.
I want to walk over to Callahan and give him a kiss, but instead, I go to stand next to Farrah.
She is talking, but I can’t hear her past my beating heart.
It jolts with every sigh that Callahan makes, and picks up speed every time it looks like he is about to glance my way.
I’m staring at him so hard I know he feels my eyes on the side of his face.
But he doesn’t look. Not even when he walks by me to put his cup in the sink.
He just keeps his eyes down and leaves the room. After that, most of us disperse to get ready, but Farrah and I are just sitting there in silence. I feel her looking at me. It takes a moment for me to work up the courage to meet her eyes.
“You want to talk about it?” she asks.
“I think the person I have to talk to is him.”
“What are you going to say?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”
“Maybe I was wrong to say you shouldn’t break up with him. Maybe you aren’t ready.”
My heart squeezes at her words, hurt thrumming through every vein in my body. I don’t need her on top of Charlie telling me that I’m not the type of person who can love him the way he deserves.
“Thanks, friend,” I say, pushing off the counter to walk away.
She grabs my arm, stopping me.
“Monty, I want you to have this. I want you to keep feeling this type of love, but I don’t want you to do something you regret. I thought that would be breaking up with him, but now I’m worried it might be hurting him.”
I flinch because I know that is exactly what I’m doing, and I hate myself for that.
People start coming back and heading out to the vans. I step away from her and call out to Callahan.
“Can we stay here and talk?” I ask.
He looks me over, his mouth pulling down. Clenching his fists, he takes a step towards me and then stops.
“Rowan needs me to come, but after?” His shoulders are slumped.
I don’t know if it’s in relief or defeat, but it’s because of me that he isn’t standing as tall.
“Okay.”
Hungover and battling our own emotions, the car is quiet. Rowan practically ran to the one without Sahara, so it’s me, her, Callahan, and Charlie. As if things couldn’t be more awkward.
“So, it’s cloudy,” Charlie says, trying to break the tension. We all stare at him until he just turns and looks out the window. Then the rest of the ride, I watch while Callahan and Rowan hold hands.
Once at the restaurant, the silence continues until Michael, unaware of all the underlying problems, starts talking about movies with a half-dead Errol. Sahara won’t look up from her plate. Rowan constantly looks like she is about to cry. And I’m watching it all like it’s a Shakespeare play.
“Maybe today we should just watch something,” Farrah says, vetoing our original plan to continue our exploration of the island.
No one protests, so that quickly becomes the plan. I know that when we get back, I’ll be in a room with Callahan, too busy talking to be able to join in. Even though I still don’t know what to say.
The whole car ride back, I try to find the words I want to say to him. It’s not until I am staring at him sitting on our bed do I have a start.
“I know you’re probably confused.”
“No,” he says.
“No?”
“I know you, Monty. I’ve listened when you talked. I know why you are doing this. What I don’t know is how you could do this to me?”
I feel my legs shake under the weight of his disappointment.
“It’s always been clear to me that you are afraid of giving yourself to someone, which is fine. I thought we would work past that, but every day it seems like I’m fighting to keep you here.” He rubs his hands up and down his face.
All his usual exuberance and joy is seemingly sucked from his body. There are dark circles under his eyes, and the way he folds in on himself, it’s like he has been hollowed out.
“I want to be here,” I whisper.
“Do you? Because some days I can’t even get a text back. The last month and a half has been me chasing you.” He stands up and walks over to the window.
Looking out of it, he doesn’t speak for a moment. His chest moves, so I know he is breathing, but he is as still as the dead.
“Callahan, I’m sorry.” I walk towards him, and by some sort of miracle, he lets me wrap my arms around him.
The way he holds me back feels like he is expecting to have to let go.
“I feel really stupid right now,” he says with a sigh.
“I thought if I showed up and was patient, you would give yourself to me. I thought I would eventually be worthwhile to you. Despite it never being true, I thought I could be enough. But I never am.” He lets his arms fall, and when I step back, I see that his eyes are red.
Like he is admitting to some sort of shame, he bows his head. I do too, choking on his words.
How could I?
How, after everything he has told me, could I let myself be another person in his life to make him feel this way? How am I going to live with myself knowing I did this?
Callahan, good, sweet, reliable Callahan should be enough for any person. He is all the best parts of the world, and somehow, he doesn’t think he is deserving of anything in it. I made him feel that way. After everything he has done to hold me up these months, I let him fall when he leaned in.
The walls made by my mother crumble as my heart explodes. It finally broke because it couldn’t take seeing that I broke his.
“No, baby, please don’t think that. It’s not true.” I try to hold his face, but he pulls away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I let my bullshit make you feel this way.”
I wipe the tears that rapidly fall down his face, hating the look in his eyes. I try to hold him again, but this time he won’t let me. More and more, he seems to wilt until he has to lean against the wall. His hands shake, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he fights to swallow.
“I have never loved anyone the way I love you, and it scared me. It made me pull away. But I do want this. I do want you.”
I don’t know how I let myself fight a truth that is embedded in my soul now. I don’t know how I thought I could ever walk away from him. All I want is him. All I need is him.
I pull his arms until I can place him on the bed. Still holding his hands, I kneel on the floor in front of him.
“Callahan, the way I rely on you is something I haven’t done since I was a teenager. I have been so afraid of being let down the way my mother let me down. I didn’t think I could take it.”
This finally gets him to look at me.
“She was racist, and she became more conservative, but I still loved her. Even when she left us for a white man, I still wanted to be in her life. But when she got the kids that looked like her and fit into her ideal life, she slowly pulled away from me. By the time I was twelve, she wasn’t in my life at all. She wouldn’t even call me back.”
I’m still crying, but these tears feel like a release from twenty years of build-up.
“My dad thought he was helping when he told me that if I didn’t expect anything from anyone, I wouldn’t be disappointed, but all he did was solidify a belief that I can’t need anyone in my life.”
He grabs my face and strokes his thumbs across my cheeks. The fact that he is comforting me even in this moment of my apology makes everything I have ever thought about him true.
“I have spent my whole life being so independent, I sometimes feel alone. Even when I got cancer, I thought I could do it by myself, but then here you come. You refused to leave, you fought to take care of me, and slowly you showed me what being loved unconditionally feels like.”
He slides onto the floor with me. I crawl into his lap as I keep his face in my hands.
“I have Farrah and my dad, but I’ve had them since before everything happened. You are the first person to get past my barriers and fill the emptiness I let grow.”
I rest my forehead against his and just brush our lips against each other. Then I say the words against his mouth.
“The first time we hung out, you told me that things thrive around me. But baby, I’m alive because of you. I’m living because of you. You don’t know how much of a requirement you are for my happiness.”
He closes the gap. His lips are explorative, gentle, and questioning. I press back so thoroughly that I feel my entire being sink into him. He grips me back like he will never let go, and now I won’t try and make him. Now, I’ll never let go, too. When we come up for air, he is finally not frowning.
“I want to believe you, but…” he says, trailing off.
“I know. I know this past month I have cemented this belief you have, and I know it’s up to me to undo it. But just give me time to show you how damn much you are everything anyone would want.”
His chuckle is dry, but it’s still there, and it’s my first sign that I can turn this around.
We lie down, and he holds me tight against his chest. Our breathing falls into sync just like our hearts always are. Without the restrictions I had in place, I know I’m going to lose myself in him, but I also know that it will be okay.
Except right now, I’m not okay. I thought telling him about my mother would be the release I needed to make it all better.
But it’s not just her. It was both of them, and it’s time I really do face it all.
I need to confront my father about the damage he’s done, because staying when she left was not enough.
And breaking open the dam around my heart to let Callahan in lets everything else I’ve buried for years come pouring out.