16. Chapter 16
Chapter 16
As I wait for the knock to come, I work new marks into the hardwood floor and run to the window every time I hear a car door slam. My fingers bouncing between my mouth and leg act as both a chew toy and drum stick while I pace. My body vibrates with my unsettled nerves. They jump with equal parts excitement, sorrow, and fear. Having asked Monty for the house, regret sits heavy in my stomach as I wish for her to be here with me. Needing someone to guide me through this. I feel lost as I stand alone in the jungle of my emotions.
Just as I’m beginning to wonder if he flaked, I hear the subtle knocking at the door.
Throwing it open, I’m met with heavy eyes, swirling with panic and sadness. He is here, and he has brought with him all of the hurt I looked for last night.
“Hi,” Christian says, pushing his hands in his pockets.
I step to the side, allowing him into the living room, and shutting the door to the outside world. Quiet creeps across our skin as he stands looking around, fiddling with the hoops in his jeans.
“Should we sit?” he asks, walking over and pointing to the couch.
I nod, needing something solid to keep me from falling apart. We move to opposite ends, sitting on the edge, neither of us comfortable enough to scoot back. I feel his stare on me as I look at his chest, not ready to face him just yet.
He breaks the silence. “I know I owe you so much. I know I hurt you. I just don’t know what to do to make it up to you.” Holding his hand out to me, he looks ready to grab me into his arms.
“You can start by telling me why.” I look up at him, my gaze holding all the questions I’ve accrued over the last four months. “Why you cheated? Why you left? Why you’ve been ignoring me?”
I stare at him as he stares at nothing, like the air holds the right words.
“Do you really want to know?” His voice is raw and rough.
I nod, and he mirrors my action.
“We had that fight before I left.”
I remember. I felt like he wasn’t opening up to me the way he did when we were just friends, and he felt that I was pushing him. How that resulted in him sleeping with someone else, I don’t know.
“Okay?” I say, opening up the floor.
“I just left feeling like maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we weren’t meant to be together. I don’t know. It’s stupid, but I thought this was a sure sign that we weren’t going to make it.”
“So you cheated because you thought we were over anyway? I don’t get it.” I throw my hands up and sigh.
“I wasn’t thinking; I was just reacting. I was scared and upset, and I hit my self-destruct button.” His eyes are distant as that night replays for him.
I stare into them, wanting to see what he saw, feel how he felt in that moment. With his past, I know how close his fingers always were to that switch. I just never thought it would apply to us.
This one little fight was enough to rock the foundation of our relationship to the point of it crumbling. One disagreement, and he threw it all out the window.
He cheated, because that seemed better than facing the possibility of us failing on our own. At least this way he knew it wouldn’t work out.
“So all it took was one fight for you to call it quits?”
He looks up suddenly, as if my words pulled his head in my direction. I wait for the protest that sits clearly on his mouth. But as the seconds click on, all he can offer me is a lift of his shoulder, shrugging off my words.
“You aren’t going to like what I have to say.” He shifts in his seat.
I move a little closer, his words growing quieter as he carves them out from inside himself. Scraping together the remnants of an excuse, he lets me have it.
“I cheated because I don’t deserve you.” Barely above a whisper, the words still come out with such conviction that I reel back, pushed by the force of his belief in them. With the set of his jaw, he looks up at me, relaying this thought even with his stare.
“Wasn’t that for me to decide?” I ask as two parts of me go to war. The friend, the one who knows every story of every person who made him believe that about himself, wants to sooth this thought away. The woman, who broke at this betrayal and has slowly been picking up the pieces, wants him to forever think it’s true. Both wanted him to come to them before making the choices he did.
“I don’t deserve you,” he says again, disregarding the fact that I had chosen him. That I had thought him worthy.
Standing, annoyance pushes my legs into motion, and I pace around the room, tangling my hands in my hair, pulling at the roots.
“So you cheated on me because you were scared I deserved better? Is this some fucked up self-fulfilling prophecy?”
He stands too, coming over to grab my arms, forcing my hands into his.
“I let myself fall prey to my worst instincts, because I knew we weren’t going to work out anyway. I couldn’t give you what you needed.”
“Who are you to tell me what I need?” I yell.
“The man who knows you better than anyone else. I know I wouldn’t have been able to be the man you deserved, and you would have kept trying for my benefit.”
Shaking my head, I pull out of his grasp. Taking a step back, I try to put distance between his assumptions and me. One fight. One small fight, and he walked away with this deep belief that he wasn’t right for me. All it took was one misunderstanding.
I’d known that he has never let any woman get close to him in a relationship. He always avoided their love and affection. The damage of his past was too much to overcome, as he battled with the heavy belief that he wasn’t good enough. Not only is he telling me he isn’t, he took the extra measure of showing me.
“Why couldn’t you just try? Why did you have to destroy us before we ever had a chance?”
“It was the only option I could see at the time,” he says, hands thrown wide open. “It was the only out I could see. No matter how much I showed you I didn’t deserve you, you would have stayed.”
“Is that why you broke up with me? Because you thought I would have kept trying with you?”
He nods, and my world explodes. For months I have been toiling away, waiting for these answers, and he refused to give them because he thought I would take him back. Because he thought I would keep fighting.
“I would have never stayed with you!” I scream, unable to fathom how weak he thinks I am.
He stares me down, eyes lined with determination to make me see where he is coming from. I take a deep breath, trying to calm the rapid pace of my heart.
“I wouldn’t have chosen you over me, no matter how much it hurt.” My voice cracks more from heartbreak than rage.
“I know you, Farrah. I know how kind and understanding you are. You wouldn’t have given up on me, and I never deserved you.”
The words are quiet, but they ring loudly through my heart as they settle in the soft spot reserved for him. I push the urge to comfort him to the side as I do what I need to in this moment.
“So that’s it then? You cheated and then walked out of my life because you thought you were doing what was best for me, not even allowing me a conversation? Well, you were wrong. I wouldn’t have taken you back. I would have moved on from you if you just gave me the closure I deserved. But here we are having the conversation months later. So what now?”
Resignation takes hold of his face. “Now I say I’m sorry.” He steps a little closer.
Like a magnet with matching poles, I instantly step back.
“You aren’t, though.” I rest my hands on my hips. “You’re still defending your actions.”
“Look, I’m sorry I cheated. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I ever tried dating you in the first place.” His hands fall together in a pleading motion. “I’m sorry I broke the heart of my best friend and couldn’t be the one to help her mend it. I’m sorry for every single tear you ever cried over me. I’m sorry, Farrah.”
Having waited all this time to hear him say something along those lines, the words hit me in my ducts. I tilt my head back to keep the tears from coming.
“I am sorry,” he says again.
Pulling me into his arms, he strokes a hand down my head as he repeats the words over and over again. Like a mantra, they beat out the sound of repentance until they settle into my chest.
I stay in his arms, letting him hold me the way I’ve wanted him to for so long. Stroking me as all the sorrow bubbles up and pours down my face. One hand caresses my head, while the other wipes my tears. I cry until I am emptied out, left raw and wanting, unsure of what it’s going to take to fill me up again.
Looking into his eyes, I can see this conversation has not just hollowed me out with it’s requirements.
With a step out of his grasp, I wrap my arms around myself in comfort.
“What’s done is done.” We ease back on the couch, a sense of finality coming over me.
“All that is left to do is move on.”
“How?” he asks.
I look inside for the answer, searching through the rubble of my broken heart for the first two pieces to put back together. Clicking them into place, I turn and let him see the clarity that has come over me.
“I forgive you.”
“Farrah—” he starts.
“Not because I want you back, but because I don’t want any of this.” I lay a palm on my chest, pointing out the part of me that I’m slowly putting right. “I want to be happy, and I can’t do that if I am still mad at you.”
He nods, understanding clear in his eyes.
“So I forgive you, and it’s over.”
I will never know how things would have turned out if he gave us a chance. I will never know how we could have worked out if he just believed in himself. All I know is that one little fight and his self doubt was enough to blow us up.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. I’m lost in the sentiment of those words, trying to work out how best to apply them as a salve. When a calm rushes over me, I know I have found a way to start to patch myself up.
With nothing else left to say, we have come to an end. Was it any better or worse than the first one? I now know why he cheated. Why he threw our relationship away on one night. But it doesn’t change the outcome.
“What happens now?” he asks
“We heal.”
After a couple more minutes of silence, I walk him to the door, ready to let him go from my life.
Before he leaves, he looks down at me one more time.
“So this is goodbye then?”
His voice is hesitant, like he is scared of what I might say next. What I might do. I can’t help but think of all the memories we have. How all of them amounted to this wrecked relationship. There is no rectifying this, so that we can be in each others life. I feel like I’m losing him all over again.
I don’t want to say it, but I have to.
“This is goodbye.”
He nods once in resignation, and even though this is what he wanted, I can see it taking its toll on him. I will be able to recover from this and move on, but I don’t know if he will.
I watch him go down the stairs and head to his car. I’m relieved to finally have the closure I’ve been searching for. When he finally gets in and drives away, I close the door on that chapter of my life.
An hour after Christian is gone, my phone rings. Lost in the daze of my depleted emotions, I answer it without looking.
Hoping it’s Monty, I mentally prepare myself to explain everything that happened. With a deep breath in, I settle my nerves a little, getting ready for the talk.
“Hey.”
It’s Errol. I sit up a little straighter, as if he can see me, smoothing down the edges of my hair.
“Is something wrong?” I ask.
My mind races with all the possibilities of why he would call, quickly narrowing it down to one. Having made a scene the night before in front of the producers, the obvious conclusion is that he’s firing me. Calling to let me know there was no need to return to film, he is giving me the courtesy of not doing it in front of everyone. Resting against my headboard, I wait for the words to come.
“No, nothing is wrong. I was just calling to check on you.” Sincere concern laces through the sentence, tying it up in a considerate bow.
I lift my head shocked, looking for the loophole.
“Oh.” I bite down onto my bottom lip.
“Look, you don’t have to tell me what is going on or anything, but you were clearly upset, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay today.”
Pulling my legs up to my chest, I hug them as I press the phone closer to my ear. Fighting the tears as they push against my eyelids, I exhale into the line.
“I’m okay.” Stuck somewhere between a truth and a lie, I give him the answer he most likely wants to hear.
“You don’t sound okay.” Pushing past the customary response, he digs deeper into the emotion behind the words.
“No, I don’t, and I probably won’t for awhile. But I’m actually okay.”
Or at least I will be. Trust won’t come as easy, but I have to let go of the anger. Just like I’ve let go of all that Christian and I could have been.
“Okay, good.”
The line goes quiet, and I wonder if he is going to end it there. For some reason, I don’t want to hang up. Despite the fact that we were screaming in each others faces a week ago, we have now come to a truce that borders on friendship. I mean, he did stand up for me last night, and now he’s calling.
“Are you mad at me?” I ask, needing to confirm this is a friendly call. “It’s okay if you are. I know I fucked up.”
He sighs, and it comes through the phone so strongly I feel as if his breath is on my cheek. Pressing into it, I sort of wish it was.
“I’m not mad. I get it, stuff happens. After I got you home, I went back and made up excuses, and everyone seemed okay. So no harm, no foul.”
I swear I can hear the smile in his voice as he speaks. “Some people actually thought you were method acting, playing up the role as Fiona. So it even won you some points.”
I smile too, imagining people thinking I’m that good of an actress.
“They still approve of you, so it all went as planned.”
“Okay, good.” The tension eases out of my muscles, allowing me to slouch. I expect him to say goodbye, but as he lingers on the line, I take that as my opening to continue the call.
“How was your day?” I ask.
He sounds surprised, as he answers his voice light.
“Why? Looking to critique how I spend my personal time?”
“It’s probably filled with inappropriate behaviors and annoying tendencies.”
His voice rumbles through the line as he chuckles.
“My day was good. Just been going over the script. We start filming next week, so I’ve been thinking about that.” His voice hitches on filming, like the idea is stuck in his throat.
“You’re nervous,” I say, catching the stutter.
“No. Why would you say that?” Instantly on the defensive, he recants my observation.
“It’s okay if you are. I am too.” Trying to make it clear this isn’t an attack, I speak the words lightly while offering up my own truth. The lines goes quiet and for a moment I think he hung up. “Hello?”
“I’m here. I just—” He takes a deep breath in. “I just wasn’t expecting you to notice.”
But I did. I seem to notice everything about him these days.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“No, but I’ll be fine, I have my ritual.” He sounds more confident.
Interest pulls me forward, and I fold my legs underneath me as I sit up.
“Tell me about this ritual.”
He goes on to talk about how pulling an all-nighter the evening before filming happened the first time because of nerves. He had paced around his hotel room wired with all the anxiety about how the next day would turn out. He hadn’t been able to sleep even when he tried, and by the time his alarm had gone off, he was already ready to go. It hadn’t seemed important at first, but after a great day, he had determined that focusing all his energy on the script that night made it magic.
Now he tries not to sleep on that evening under the belief that it brings him good luck. He has done this on his last two projects, and both went off without a hitch. Knowing that he planned on doing it again soon, I picture him sitting in his house meditating on the film and wonder if he has to be alone.
“Do you want company?” I ask reluctantly, sure he’s going to say no. The silence coming from his end only helps solidify this thought. “I mean, if it’s something you do alone, I won’t be offended, I just thought—”
“I would love company.”
I can’t help but smile again.
“Okay great, so I will see you then.”
“See you then.”
I let him go, throwing myself more into my bed, lost somewhere between joy and grief.