Twenty
I haven’t been on my phone at work this much since… never, maybe.
While Theo is in the process of decorating his new apartment, it doesn’t leave us a whole lot of time to meet up during the week. To make up for it, we’ve been texting nonstop. I’m smiling at the message under the picture Theo just sent me of his newly set up bedroom. The bed is centered against the wall, the morning light distilled against his navy-blue comforter, nearly the same shade as his eyes. A black nightstand sits beside it.
Theo: We have a new bed to christen
Me:
Me: Hurry up already so I can see you!
Theo: Patience, woman. Everything needs to be perfect before you can visit.
Me: Perfect schmerfect. I miss you
I stare down at the message before sending it. We’re long past boundaries, but something about telling him I miss him, even if it is via text message, doesn’t quite sit right. Like I’m showing him a side I haven’t allowed him to see yet. Be careful. Angela’s warning comes unbidden, but I fear it’s far too late for that now.
I shake my head. I’m just being paranoid. There’s no way Theo can possibly be that guy. And besides, it’s perfectly fine to miss someone in a friendly way, and that’s all this is. Friendly.
“Your cheeks are red.”
Andy is standing over me from the other side of the circulation desk, a stack of YA books under one arm. I quickly throw my phone inside a drawer and motion for her to hand me the pile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Were you texting your boyfriend?” Her brown eyes are sparkling mischief. “Did he send you something dirty?”
The photo of his new bed immediately pops into my brain.
“Fourteen.” I shake my head as she hands me her library card. “You are fourteen. Do I need to have another conversation with your mother?”
“No, ma’am.” She immediately shrinks. A smug smile tugs my lips up. “Does he make you happy?”
Her expression is sheepish, but there’s no hiding the hope shining in her eyes. The question is a simple one, but it twists up my insides until I can barely breathe.
“Yeah.” The admission makes me queasy, but I owe her the truth. I owe myself the truth, even if it won’t be true for very long. “He makes me happy.”
A grin takes up her entire face.
“None of my boyfriends ever made me look like that just thinking about them, Miss Ortiz.” I resist an eye roll, though I doubt she’d even register it. “You gonna tell him?”
“Shut up and read your books.”
“You should tell him.” She smiles cheerily. “Live that happily ever after we love to read about so much in books.”
I don’t have the energy for Ben right now, especially since it’s past ten at night, and I’m settling down for bed. But that doesn’t stop him from sapping it from me.
Are you avoiding me?
The message comes via Instagram DM after I left four of his most recently sent memes on read. I’m three episodes behind on The Undoing and don’t have the motivation to catch up, so the memes are gibberish to me. Leaving him on read was just me being petty for the way he treated Theo on our double date. Yes, I am avoiding him as a matter of fact. Though I am surprised he noticed in less than a week.
I leave him on read again, and he must decide our friendship is in need of damage control because thirty minutes later, my phone lights up with his picture. It’s a selfie of the
two of us from a few years ago at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. His arm is thrown around my shoulders, our cheeks almost touching as we smile into the camera. It’s my favorite picture of us, but now I’m mortified that I kept it as his contact photo for so long. We look so much like a couple, my stomach bottoms out just staring at it. At… us.
Before I can pick up the call the screen goes black, plunging my bedroom in darkness. Tomorrow. I’ll deal with him tomorrow.
The next morning, I wake up to a knock on my door. I flip over my phone for the time. It’s not even nine yet. A knock sounds again, and I groan as I lift myself up from the bed. My warm, comfortable bed that I already miss as I throw on a robe and pad down the hallway.
I almost expect Theo to be behind the door, surprising me with coffee and breakfast on my morning off. But he told me yesterday he’d be spending a majority of the week unpacking and buying furniture. He turned down multiple offers to help, reasoning that he’s asked too much of me already. I know he was trying to be a gentleman, but it’s been a couple days since I’ve seen him and I… I’m starting to ache from missing him. Way more than I should miss a rebound.
It could be Angela at the door, perhaps, since she still has an hour before she’s scheduled to go into work. But she would’ve texted first after the fiasco of catching me in bed with Theo last Sunday. In the end, it’s neither one of them.
It’s Ben.
My entire body deflates at the sight of him, probably for the first time. It’s not that I’m suddenly not attracted to him anymore. No, he still looks good, with his light brown hair swept back from his face and a hand buried in the pocket of his light-wash jeans. His hazel eyes are downcast, and I breathe a quiet sigh of relief that I’m not immediately pulled into them. I’ve forgiven far too many mistakes looking deep into those light brown eyes flecked with green. He’s carrying a carton of Starbucks drinks in his other hand, held out in front of his body like an offering.
“What’s all this?”
“A peace offering. Can I come in?” Finally, I’m met with those eyes in danger of blinding me to reality.
I let him pass through the threshold, if only because the caramel macchiato he brought smells heavenly. Even after the shit he pulled at dinner, I’d be a fool to turn away free coffee, right?
He hands me the paper cup, and I take a careful sip of the hot beverage. Then he takes a seat at my couch, and I flick on the lights so he’s not cast in the gray light dimly filtered through the darkening clouds outside my window. If it rains, I could spend my day reading through the new stack of books I brought home from work.
After Ben leaves, that is.
“I’m sorry about the double date. You were right. I was a dick,” he says when I take a seat next to him. “I just hate seeing you with my brother.”
A few weeks ago, I would’ve reveled in this admission. His words would’ve played in my head for days after, over and over, my heart full and my head drunk on those sweet, nothing words. Because that’s what they are, ultimately. Nothing. And now my first thought is Alice. How could he say something like that to me, when he’s with someone else? How dare he put the idea of jealousy in my head when he knows good and well he doesn’t mean it. He wouldn’t be with someone else if he did.
“You shouldn’t say things like that.” I don’t register the anger creeping up on me until after I’ve spoken. My tone is hard-edged, sharp enough to cut.
He has the good grace to look chastened, placing a hand on the back of his neck as he looks down at his shoes.
“You know I’m only trying to look out for you, right?” he asks quietly. “You’re my best friend, Marcela. I feel like I’m losing you.”
Guilt settles like a stone in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I was naive to think a rebound with Theo would help me stay friends with Ben in the long run. It only drove an even deeper wedge between us, but if Ben’s behavior has shown me anything, it’s one that was needed.
“I wanted to tell you sooner, but Alice convinced me not to.” He shakes his head, scoffing to himself. “I don’t know why I listened to her. You needed to know the truth.”
“As much as I appreciate you looking out for me, it’s not necessary,” I tell him. “He already told me everything.”
“You knew?” His brows crease in confusion. “And you’re still…” He shakes his head at me. “Why?” There’s so much accusation laced in that one tiny word.
“He’s been open with me from the very beginning.”
“You deserve so much better than what he can give you. I don’t understand how you can’t see that.” I have to look away from the concern brimming his eyes.
“We’re not serious.” But that doesn’t feel true anymore. The longer we go through with this, the more time we spend together, the easier it is to pretend we could actually be something real. Even when I should know better.
“Come on, Marcela.” His hand falls on my shoulder. “You know he’s just going to end up hurting you if you keep this up.”
It makes sense why he believes what he’s saying. He knew what I knew about his brother all along. Of all the red flags real and imagined in the men I’ve dated previously, Theo’s is probably the worst offense. But so is mine, and he doesn’t even know about my feelings for Ben. I knew what I was walking into when we started this. He didn’t.
Ben has a point, though. What Theo and I have won’t end well, for either of us.
But I’m also not giving in so easily this time.
“Look, Ben.” Our eyes meet. “I get that you have your own stuff with Theo. I even understand that you think you’re coming from a protective place, but you need to respect my choices, even if you think they’re the wrong ones. You don’t get to tell me who to date. So, you either have to be cool with my relationship, or…”
“Or what?” There’s something dangerous lacing his tone. I don’t answer, because I’m not sure I’m ready to lay such a huge ultimatum on him. He belongs to Alice. I don’t have a right to put this on him. Or we stop being friends.
But at this point, would that be so terrible? What good are we to each other when I can hardly stand to be around him without pushing a host of feelings down deep?
“Or what, Marcela?” His eyes narrow on me.
My mouth opens, but I can’t say the words. Not yet. Not when I’ve only just realized what I should have done a long time ago. If I have half a chance of moving on from him for good, I can’t keep spending all my spare moments with him. Thinking about him. Wishing our lives had turned out differently. I won’t allow myself to waste any more time appeasing him or following my own damned feelings for him.
When my father left, the greatest lesson to come out of it was to love the person who stays. Even though I was crushed when Ben broke up with me all those years ago, he still stayed. He said I was too important to leave behind, and in nine years, he became one of the most important fixtures in my life. He wanted to stay, and I didn’t want him to leave. Even if we couldn’t be together the way I wanted us to be.
But what good has his staying done for me, if for nearly a decade, I’ve been stuck in the same place he left me, waiting for him to change his mind? I should never have held on to the secret hope that when he said no guy is good enough for you, he really meant I’ve finally realized I’m the only one for you.
Like that was ever gonna happen.
“Maybe we need some space from each other,” I finally work up the nerve to say.
The anger fades from his expression. His brows smooth out and then raise into his hairline, eyes wide as saucers. His mouth falls open in shock. He blinks once. Twice.
“My relationship with Theo is clearly a problem for you,” I say. “I understand you think you’re only looking out for me, I do, but it’s like you don’t trust that I know what’s best for me. I know the risks. I walked into this… relationship willingly.” I slip over the word relationship. “So, until you can find it in yourself to be supportive, I think we need to take a break from each other.”
He’s silent for a long time, eyes shifting away from me. I’m a second away from asking him to leave when he says, “You’re really choosing him over me?” His voice is so small, tentative in a way I haven’t heard it in years.
“No,” I say, already hating how easily I’m giving in. “Ben, I just—”
“Need space.” His voice goes hard all of a sudden, a wall closing over his features. “Yeah, I got it.”
I take a breath and hold it. “Please try to understand where I’m coming from. I’m just trying to have a normal relationship with—”
“You’re deluded if you think what you have with my brother is a relationship.” His response knocks the wind out of me. He’s closer to the truth than he realizes. But his tone calls up the anger building in my gut, and it takes everything I have to hold on to it. I won’t be able to get through this if I don’t.
“Okay, if you’re gonna be like this we might as well call it now.” Something in my voice makes him look up. I cross the room to the front door, whipping it open so hard it bangs against the wall with a loud crash. I cross my arms over my chest, eyes pinned on Ben. His eyes widen again in that deer-in-the-headlights way.
“Go on,” I say, not buying his expression for a second. “You don’t want to support me? The person you’ve called a friend for nearly ten years? Get out.”
“Of course I support you.” His voice is softer as he crosses the
living room to me. He reaches for my hands, but I step away from him. “You’re right. Of course, you’re absolutely right. I haven’t been supporting you the way I should be, but it’s only because I don’t want to see you get hurt. Not when he’s just using you.”
Angela said something similar just a few days ago. “I know what we are, Ben. You don’t.” But I still have the strangest feeling I don’t know everything. There’s still something missing.
“Maybe you do. Or at least, maybe you know more than I think,” he says. “But what scares me is that he’s only using you to get back at me.”
“Get back at you for what?”
It can’t just be Alice.
He takes in a breath. Exhales. “We were shitty brothers to each other. I know that. He knows that. There are things I did that I’m not proud of.” He looks away from me. “The point is, he knows how much I care about you. He knows what turning you against me would do to me. And look at us”—he raises a hand at the space between us—“it’s working.”
I’m not sure how much is truth and how much is manipulation. Theo isn’t the reason I’m pushing Ben away. It’s something I should’ve done a long time ago.
“I need time.”
“How much?” he asks, resigned.
“I don’t know.” I let out a breath. “But I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk to you again.”
He nods. Rakes his brown hair back from his face. “Okay. Just please don’t make me wait forever for you. I will, but don’t make me.” His mouth lifts in a sad smile. Something about his phrasing strikes a chord with me.
Don’t make me wait forever for you.
Isn’t that what I’ve been doing since the moment we broke up?
“I can’t lose you, Marcela,” he says, and I melt all over again. “I can’t.”
My smile is tired, and probably a bit hollow. When his arms wrap around me, I can’t help but sink into his familiar warmth. That love for him is still inside me, but it’s dimmer than I remember. There’s still a pull between us, one I’ve tried to convince myself is only in my head. Or something friendly I confuse for romantic.
His chest brushes against mine, his hand closing over mine for one brief moment. One brief, supercharged moment where our eyes meet and lock. His lips part slightly as his eyes flick down to mine.
What the hell is happening?
A surge of energy floods my veins when his head bends closer to mine. My heart thumps wildly beneath my rib cage as I snatch my hand back and take two quick, leaping steps backward. It isn’t until I’ve escaped his range that I’m able to breathe properly again.
“Sorry,” I blurt, though I’m not entirely sure what I’m apologizing for. Or that I’m even interpreting what happened correctly. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t…
“Go ahead.” Awkwardly, I motion him toward the open door.
He hangs his head, unable to meet my eyes. I can’t quite make myself meet his, either. He leaves with a rushed goodbye. When I close the door behind him, I’m more confused than ever.
What the hell was that?