5. Claire
CHAPTER 5
CLAIRE
I thought I’d misheard at first, or I was dreaming. What Blake was saying didn’t make sense. He had to be joking, or he’d made a mistake, because hadn’t he told me he’d matched right here?
“It’s Germany,” he said.
Static buzzed in my ears. His lips were still moving, but I couldn’t hear him at all. I didn’t want to. I wanted to wake up. This had to be just another bad dream, and I’d open my eyes, and I’d be in Blake’s arms. I’d snuggle close to him and he’d stroke my hair, and before I knew it, I’d drift back to sleep.
“Wake up,” I said.
Blake stared at me. “What?”
I pinched the back of my hand. My blunt nails dug in. I knew from class you could feel pain in dreams, but this didn’t feel like any dream. Everything was too detailed, too everyday — a stack of bills on the table. A scratch on Blake’s chin.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Did Memphis fall through?”
Blake toyed with his fork. “I never matched here.”
“So you knew this whole time? You knew, and you lied?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Or, I didn’t mean to. Or, no, scratch that. I’m making excuses. I wanted to tell you, but…”
“But? But what?” I hated the shrill note that had crept into my voice. I had to hold it together. Stay dignified. If Blake didn’t care, he couldn’t know how much I did. He couldn’t see what this meant to me, or how it hurt.
Blake shrugged in a way I’d once have found cute, all lost and helpless. Like this wasn’t his doing.
“You were so stressed,” he said. “You were having those nightmares. I wanted to wait till your match came through.”
“So you let me keep—” I felt my face crumple. My voice cracked, my lips twitched, and my eyes stung and watered. I blinked back my tears and took a deep breath. “You’re trying to tell me you did this for me? You let me believe we’d be working together, when you’ve known for weeks you’d be half a world away?”
“It sounds really bad when you put it like that.”
“How would you put it?”
Blake opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked like a goldfish. I almost laughed.
“You knew what I thought and you didn’t correct me. That’s the same thing as lying. You’ve got to know that.”
Blake sighed and deflated. “Yeah. Yeah, I knew. Sam kept on saying, you’ve got to be honest. I should’ve listened, but?—”
“Wait. Wait. Sam knew?” I held up my hand. “No, don’t answer that.” Every word from Blake’s mouth, his betrayal got worse. I didn’t want to know who else had known — just Sam, or everyone? Our whole group but me? No, Joelle would’ve told me if Sam had told her.
“I never could find the right time to tell you.”
A harsh laugh burst out of me. “So you picked my birthday?”
Blake sat up straighter. “I picked a good day. I wanted to show you it’s not about you. This has nothing to do with what I feel for you, or how I see our future, or what comes next. We still have a while until graduation, then I don’t ship out for another few weeks. We can talk this all out and come up with a plan. You and me together. Can’t we try that?”
I pressed both hands to my face, trying to gather my thoughts. Blake had kept this from me. Shut me out of his life. He’d let me plan my life around a damn lie — and not just for a few weeks. Right from the start. He’d have had to apply for this before we were us. Months before Thanksgiving, he’d applied overseas. He’d let me fall hard knowing, knowing — and why had he kept going once I did fall? He could have pulled out right up till he matched. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. Didn’t that say it all?
“There’s long distance,” he was saying. “And I’ll get leave. And you can come visit. It’s not in some war zone. You can come, and we’ll talk, and?—”
I covered my ears. The answer was simple, staring me in the face: I felt more for Blake than he did for me. I’d have withdrawn if I’d applied overseas, and the fact that Blake hadn’t, oh God. It hurt.
Blake took my hands and pulled them off my ears. “Hey. Hey. Don’t do this. We can work it out, right?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. Blake recoiled like I’d smacked him. I kind of wanted to, but then he’d know how he’d hurt me.
“Please, Claire. Please let me try to explain. I couldn’t risk not matching. I couldn’t?—”
“I get it.” I smiled, thin and taut, and kept my tone cool. “You’re moving on with your life, and you know what? That’s great. But I’m moving on too, and I’ll be busy. I can’t split my attention between work and long-distance. We’ve reached a natural endpoint, so no hard feelings, right?”
Blake’s expression would’ve been funny if it hadn’t been so tragic, a sort of floppy-haired kicked-puppy buh? I eased my hands free of his and I stood up.
“Wait, Claire, I?—”
“It’s really okay. You tried to spare my feelings. I get that. I do. Let’s not make more of this than it ever was.”
“But, wait, no, it was . But, weren’t we something?”
“I’m not saying we weren’t. But things run their course.”
“But…” He stood, looking lost, hands dangling at his sides. I picked up my book bag.
“I should be going.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you. More than you know. If I could go back in time and be honest from the start, I swear I would do it, no second thoughts.”
I wanted to snap it him, which start was that? Back at Thanksgiving, when he said he wanted to date me? Six weeks after that, when he gave me a key to his place? When exactly did he think he should’ve been honest? But I kept my lips zipped, my hurt buried deep. If I wasn’t worth staying at home for, then he wasn’t worth my anger or tears.
“Claire, please, at least can I call you tomorrow?”
“I’ll call you,” I said, and turned to go. I snagged my jacket off the kitchen chair where I’d tossed it, and didn’t look back as I marched out the door.
I stayed in bed a week after that, Zooming in for my classes in my PJs. I ate tubs of ice cream and crunched peanut brittle, and I packed up a “boyfriend box” of all Blake’s crap. I set it out on my stoop and texted Come get it , and ignored his volley of frantic replies. I ignored him, as well, when he knocked on my door, and I marked his email as spam in case he tried that.
My last day in bed was the last time Blake texted, only four words. Please talk to me . I wanted to, so bad, but not about us. I wanted to talk to him as I had before, about school and dumb stuff, and books we’d both read. I wanted to laugh at our stupid in-jokes, lean up against him as we dozed off to some movie. But he’d ruined all that. We could never go back. So I read his last text and then I hit block, and I got up and showered till my skin went all pruney.
“We’re over,” I said, when I got out. My face in the mirror looked blotchy and sad. I pushed my hair back and slapped on a smile. I was just me again, no more us. No more Blake. But that was fine, because my whole life was starting. Everything I’d dreamed of. Nothing could change that.
I repeated that mantra the rest of the night — my whole life is starting. All of my dreams . I whispered it when I sat down to write my exams. Whenever thoughts of Blake surfaced, I drowned him out with that line. He’d been a nice bonus for a little while, but college relationships were like college, a phase. You went and you learned something, and then you moved on.
I was mostly okay by the end of exams, and it helped that Blake didn’t show for graduation. I heard from Sam he’d reported for training. That he’d be shipping out in a few weeks. Part of me ached for a proper goodbye, the chance to hug him and wish him well, but I knew it would hurt too much if I had to see him. He’d smile in that way he had that made me feel loved, like I was the best thing he had in his life, and my heart would melt. I’d be back to square one.
I celebrated with Joelle the same day Blake shipped out, three months to the day from our big breakup. We started at my house, packing up for my move — I’d rented a new place closer to work — and from there we hit bar after bar after bar, gathering fellow graduates at every stop. It was a great night, fueled by relief and excitement, our exams all behind us, our next steps ahead. I remember I danced, and I sang karaoke, and I woke the next morning sick as a dog. Which, I guessed it made sense. I’d done three or four shots before switching to water. For someone who barely drank, that was a lot.
When I was still sick the next morning, I blamed the flu. There had been one lately making the rounds, and we’d been crowded in tight at the bar. I hunkered down with some Housewives and waited for it to pass, but by the end of the week I felt worse than ever, so wiped I slept through the day of my move. I flopped on my mattress in my new, empty room, and drowsed as the movers stacked boxes outside.
When they were gone, I got up and showered, and it was there in the bathtub I let myself face the truth. I’d been gaining weight, but most of us had, stress-eating as we boned up for exams. I’d been getting zits, which I’d blamed on junk food. But junk food didn’t explain the bag in my cupboard, the box of tampons inside with the yellowed receipt. I’d bought them three months ago, so why hadn’t I used them? It could’ve been stress, but I’d been stressed before. And I’d never been this late, not once in my life.
I took the home test the next day, then the day after that, I went to the doctor. Both tests came back positive. I wasn’t surprised. Blake might’ve been, but he hid it well. He hid it so well he never reached out at all. Never replied to my calls or emails, which, I supposed, was a response in itself. I’d shut him out, and now he’d shut me out. He’d shut us both out, me and his baby.
He’d never been the man I fell for at all.