4. Blake
CHAPTER 4
BLAKE
FIVE MONTHS LATER
I glowered over at Sam. “Stir my sauce, would you?”
Sam made a show of stirring the pot, swirling the spoon in slow figure-eights. When I didn’t smile, he grabbed it two-handed. “Oh, no, it’s sticking. No, wait, it's stuck! I can’t get it out of here! What do I do?”
I ignored him and went back to frosting my cake. He pulled out the spoon and dropped it on its plate.
“How does sauce even stick? It’s liquid, not solid. When liquid heats up, it evaporates. It doesn’t glom onto whatever it’s poured in.”
“Mushrooms are solids. So is ground beef. Just keep it stirred, would you? Claire’ll be back.”
Sam grumbled, but he went back to stirring. I’d known him since undergrad, when we’d been roommates. Now, we were study buds and pretty good friends, though I was regretting enlisting him for Claire’s birthday dinner. He’d dripped sauce on my counter and on my floor, nibbled Claire’s chocolates, and spilled my salt, and now I could feel him watching me work. Watching me, judging me, getting ready to meddle.
“I don’t get why you’d wait,” he said. “Why you just wouldn’t tell her.”
“I am going to tell her, like I said. Tonight.”
He sampled my sauce, frowned, and pinched in more salt.
“It doesn’t need salt,” I said.
“You’re going to ruin her birthday.”
I lost my grip on my frosting pipe and blobbed buttercream on the counter. “Can’t you just help? Look what you made me do.”
“ I didn’t make you lie to Claire for a month.”
“I didn’t lie.” I wiped up the mess. “She assumed and I let her. That’s not a lie.”
I didn’t need to look at Sam to gauge his reaction. His shadow on the counter shook its dark head.
“She was stressed out,” I said, without looking up. “I couldn’t add to that. She’ll understand.”
Sam didn’t say anything. He pinched the bridge of his nose. But no way had I fucked up as bad as he thought. Claire had asked me a month ago, had I got my match. She’d meant the one stateside we’d both hoped I’d get — a posting right here in Tennessee — and I’d told her yes, because yes , I had matched. And because she hadn’t yet, and she was stressed. Military match day came ahead of civilians’, so it’d be weeks till Claire knew where her residency would take her, or if she’d matched at all. Some people didn’t.
“She’ll understand,” I said again.
“I’m not sure I would.” Sam stirred my sauce. “If it was Joelle, and she’d kept this from me — something this big, something life-changing…”
“You don’t get it,” I snapped. “She’d barely been sleeping. And I’m telling her now, so what’s the difference?”
Sam surveyed the kitchen, the feast I was cooking. His brows drew together and his lips went tight. “If I saw all this, I’d think you were proposing. You get that, right? How this all looks?”
I scowled. “She won’t think that.”
“I’m just saying, what else would she think? As far as she knows?—”
“She knows I’m a soldier. I told her that from the start. Even if I had matched here, she knows what comes after. I’d get shipped out some day.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t know I won’t, and neither does she. She signed on for that.”
“Yeah? She enlisted?”
I rolled my eyes. Sam was trying to goad me. And maybe he wasn’t wrong, or not entirely, but Claire knew I’d never set out to hurt her. She might get mad, but she’d understand.
“All I’m saying is, maybe ask yourself this: did you lie for her sake, or for yourself?”
“I didn’t lie.” I hated how I sounded, all sour and butthurt. “And what are you talking about, lie for myself? What would I get out of lying to Claire?”
“A few more weeks before she decides you’re not worth it?”
I dropped my frosting pipe. It bounced off my foot. When I bent to get it, my vision went gray. I caught myself on the counter so I wouldn’t keel over.
“I’m not saying she would.” Sam came up behind me. “But, man, you must know you’ve got abandonment issues. Remember when we were roommates and I’d go see my parents, and you’d call to make sure I got there safe? Or I’d hang out with Matt and you’d get all jealous?”
“I wasn’t jealous,” I groused. “Matt drank too much. You drank as well when you were with him, and then you dragged ass through our study sessions.”
Sam snorted. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. Just… be real with yourself. You owe yourself that. You owe Claire as well, if you want to be with her.”
I reached for my frosting pipe. My hand was shaking. Abandonment issues — Sam wasn’t wrong. You couldn’t say all the goodbyes I’d had to say, goodbye to my parents, to my childhood home, my first foster mom and the mom after that, sisters and brothers, teachers, best friends, coaches and classmates and friends from work — tearful goodbyes and ones ripe with resentment, expected goodbyes and the bolt-from-the-blue kind, goodbyes and goodbyes stacked hundreds deep — you couldn’t live on goodbye your whole goddamn life and not get a pang at the thought of another. But Claire wouldn’t do that. We’d work this out. Long-distance was hard, but some couples did it. And she could visit, and I’d visit her.
“Call me,” said Sam. “Let me know how it goes.”
I nodded, dry-mouthed, and hauled myself to my feet. Sam squeezed my shoulder a little too hard.
“Hey, man. I’m here for you. Don’t forget that. But I’d best not be here- here when Claire gets back.”
I swallowed. “Right.”
“Just tell her,” said Sam. “No more excuses.”
“She’ll understand, right?”
“She’ll be mad as hell. But when she cools down, maybe.”
Sam gave my pasta sauce one more quick stir, then he scooped up his jacket, and he was gone. I stood in the middle of my hot little kitchen and tried to picture my life without Claire. We’d only been together coming on six months, but somehow in that time we’d become something great. She slipped books in my backpack to read on the bus. I made her dinners on study group nights. Little things, boring things, but it felt like… a life. Or at least like the start of one. A foundation to build on. I’d never had that, not like with Claire.
I heard a key rattle in the front door. The key I’d had made for her just a couple months ago.
“Hello? What smells good?”
I breathed deep through my nose. I’d tell her. I would. But she deserved her cake first. Her special day.
“Oh, my God!” She ran up to the stove. “Is that your spaghetti sauce? Mm, it smells great.”
“It’s, uh—” My voice cracked. “Happy birthday,” I said.
“This is for me?”
“Yeah, uh, you’re early. I’ll get you a plate.”
Claire touched my arm. “You okay? You’re all sweaty.”
“Yeah, it’s just hot.”
“Then, you go sit down. I’ll get our plates.” Claire scooped up her cake with its not-quite-done frosting. She popped it in the fridge and gave me a push. “Go on, you sit. You’ve done enough.”
I blundered through to the den and plopped down on the couch. I didn’t think I’d be able to eat. Maybe Claire wouldn’t notice if I pushed the food around my plate. Like actors on TV, pretending to eat.
“This is perfect,” said Claire, and set down my plate. “The pasta, the garlic bread, even the salad. Have I told you today that you’re the best?” She planted a kiss on my clammy forehead. Somehow, by some miracle, I managed a smile.
“There’s wine too,” I said. “By the breadbox.”
Claire went and found it, and she popped the cork. I heard her pour my glass, then a half for herself. She didn’t drink much, so that was enough.
“I’m so proud of you,” I said, when she came back. “Not that I doubted you’d get your match. Any hospital would be lucky to have you on staff.”
“You too,” she said, and raised her glass. “To us.”
“To us.” We clinked, and I smiled. “Happy birthday, and happy match day.”
“I’m nervous,” said Claire, and reached for her fork.
“About what? Exams?”
“No. I mean, yeah, but I’m good at exams. But I’m going to walk out of here Claire Everett, MD. Patients will come in, and they’ll call me doctor. If I mess up with them, it’s not like on a test. It won’t be a red X and a point taken off. It’ll be life and death.”
“It won’t be just you. It’s not like they’re just going to turn you loose.”
“Still.” She leaned back and licked sauce off her lip. “I’m glad you’ll be here.”
I choked on my wine and covered it up with a cough. Claire passed me a napkin and I wiped my mouth. She took a bite of spaghetti and sighed with delight.
“You always say anyone can make good spaghetti. But I’ve never met anyone made it like this.” She took another bite, then tried her salad, and washed it down with a neat sip of wine. “I kept having these nightmares you matched out of state. You were packing up boxes. Going away. And all I could think was… how can I do this?”
I made a strangled sound. My throat felt too tight. Claire frowned at me.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “And you got this far yourself. That’s one of your strengths, your independence. You don’t need anyone for anything, so being in your life… Well, it’s an honor, to be wanted there.”
Claire’s frown deepened. She set down her fork. “Okay, you’re being weird. What’s going on?”
Sam would’ve told me what I already knew: this was my moment. Time to fess up. But she hadn’t had her cake yet, or finished her wine. We hadn’t done presents or made a wish.
“Blake? You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
I tried to swallow and couldn’t. My breath wouldn’t catch. Fireflies danced in my vision, like I might pass out.
“It’s, uh…” I grabbed for my wine and took a huge gulp, but when I tried to swallow, I nearly gagged. I coughed wine through my fingers and all down my front, all over the new jeans I’d worn for tonight.
“Shit,” said Claire. “Sugar. No, salt. It’s salt, right, for wine stains? I’ll get you some salt.”
I sat like an idiot while she went for the salt. She sprinkled some on my shirt sleeves and over my knees. I watched it pink up from my spilled wine.
“It’s my match,” I said. The words hurt my throat. “You asked me last month — you said, did I get it. And I told you I did, but it wasn’t…”
Claire dropped her napkin. “It wasn’t what?”
I didn’t think I’d be able to say it, but now I’d started, the truth came by itself. “It wasn’t the one you meant, in Memphis.”
Claire sat down so hard her breath went whoof . I couldn’t look at her, so I stared at my knees.
“It’s not out of state, is it?” She reached for me. “ Is it?”
I forced myself to look up. “Well, the truth is, it’s…” I closed my eyes, and I saw a bomb dropping. I saw it plunge down through miles of blue sky, glinting and dwindling as it hurtled to earth. Then came the mushroom cloud, then the shockwave, and I opened my eyes to face the fallout.