Chapter 37 Chris
CHRIS
Mike hadn’t cleaned out the pantry. Again.
The women were all in the hot tub. The guys were in the living room having drinks by the fire and I took advantage of the empty kitchen to make sure Mike had tossed the nuts. He hadn’t.
I felt so tired. Worn to the bone.
I took a box of peanut butter Clif Bars and dropped it into the trash. I checked the fridge and freezer next. Changed out the sponge. I was wiping down the counter when Mike came up behind me. “Hey.”
“What,” I said flatly, not turning around.
“You have a second? I want to show you something.”
My stomach dropped at the conspiratorial tone of his voice.
Maybe he was going to propose to Larissa. Maybe he wanted me to see the ring. We were going to be here for New Year’s, so it made sense. Everyone was here, people get engaged during the holidays.
I didn’t want to see the ring. I didn’t want to go to the engagement party. I didn’t want to be in the wedding.
The idea made me feel physically ill.
The self-loathing I felt for feeling this way was eating me alive. I hated myself. And a small part of me hated him too.
I followed Mike to his room, braced for the news. But when we got there, he closed the door and pulled out a Christmas gift.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“I wanted to show you what I got Larissa,” he said. “You know how she loves food? Like, specialty stuff? I got her these French cookies.”
He opened the top of a pink box. There was a clear package wrapped in a red bow with two dozen rainbow-colored sandwich cookies in it.
“I had them shipped,” he said proudly. “It was expensive as fuck. What do you think? Good, right? She’ll love it?”
I blinked. “Mike…” I said. “These have nuts in them.”
He looked confused. “No, they don’t. They’re lemon and vanilla and stuff. I didn’t get anything with nuts.”
“These are Parisian macarons. They’re made with almond flour.”
His face fell.
Something stirred inside of me. A tiny spark of rage.
Ten months. They’d been dating for ten months. They lived together and he still didn’t know how to not buy her things with nuts in them?
I felt my jaw go tight.
“You need to ask,” I said, trying to keep my tone level. “You specifically ask, anytime you get her food. You ask for a manager to double-check.”
“I know, man. But I mean look at them. They don’t look like—Fuck.” He slammed the lid back on the box and dropped it on the dresser. He put his hands on his head. “What am I gonna do? This shit’s tomorrow morning. I can’t get anything by tomorrow. Nothing’s open.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost 7:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve. We were in rural northern Minnesota. We didn’t have a big box store, nothing.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” he said under his breath. “So stupid.” He squeezed his hair. “We’re not good right now.”
I drew my brows down. “What do you mean?”
He looked stricken. “She’s mad at me. It’s dumb. I just… I can’t mess this up.”
“Why is she mad at you?”
“I ruined the carpet,” he said.
“How?”
“It was an accident.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything more.
That didn’t sound like Larissa. She didn’t get mad about accidents.
It occurred to me that if I hadn’t brought Heather, I’d know this story already. Another thing to kick myself over.
“Go drive around,” I said. “See what’s open.”
“I can’t leave. She’s gonna know what I’m doing. She’s gonna think I forgot to buy her a fucking Christmas gift and now I’m that guy running out at the last minute to get her something.”
“I’ll come with you. Just tell her I need to go shopping,” I said.
“She’ll want to come.”
“Maybe not. She’s hanging out with Becca and Samantha.”
“But what if she does?”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
So now she wasn’t going to have anything to open. Everyone else would have their gifts, except her.
“Fine. I’ll go on my own,” I said. “I’ll see what I can find.”
He gave me a grateful expression. “Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver.”
I nodded at the box. “Give those to Donna—when you get home. Don’t let anyone have them here. It’ll get almond crumbs all over the place.”
He nodded. “Right. Good call. Seriously, thank you.”
“Yeah.”
I snuck out the back so nobody could ask me where I was going and nobody could see my face because I was pretty sure I was about to have a panic attack. I got in the car, backed out to the end of the drive, pulled over on the shoulder along the highway, and parked.
My breathing was getting shallow, and I cracked the window and wrenched off my seat belt, gasping.
He didn’t keep her safe.
She was in danger with him, her boyfriend, out of his own fucking carelessness.
What if she didn’t know macarons were made with almond flour? She was always really good about checking, but what if she trusted that Mike had checked and she ate one?
He could have killed her.
EpiPen or no. It could still kill her.
I hadn’t checked her EpiPen. Did she even have it?
What about Benadryl? I’d been trying to create better boundaries for myself around her and now all I wondered is whether her pen was expired or if she accidentally left it at home.
We were in the middle of nowhere. It was an hour-plus to a hospital.
How fucking stupid did you have to be to—
I doubled over and tried to steady my breathing.
If this had been Becca, if the allergy was hers and Jesse had done this, I would have been disappointed. I would have shaken my head and told him to be more careful. But I wouldn’t have felt the unbridled fear and bubbling rage that I felt when it was Larissa.
When it was Larissa, something primal in me came out.
I had no control over how I felt. None.
Love is self-sustaining. It doesn’t get weak and die when you don’t feed it. Even when I put it away, locked it up, shut in the deepest recesses of my heart, I still loved her in the dark. I could love her from a distance. I could love her in silence. I could love her without even wanting to.
And I did.
I would spend my existence silently cherishing a woman I’d never have. Someone I’d never kiss or even hold hands with. This was my curse. The future I was condemned to. To never truly be happy—or to be happy for him. Because he did not. Fucking. Deserve. Her.
I scrambled from the car, leaning on my knees trying to catch my breath.
The cold air stung my face and made tears squeeze from my eyes and the whole time all I could think about over the doomsday scenario of her getting hurt was that tomorrow was Christmas and she was going to have nothing to open if I didn’t get my shit together and go look.
This is what finally brought me back around.
After a few minutes of deep breathing, I got in the car. Turned on the engine, drove all over the small town.
Eventually I found a hardware store with a nursery that was still open. In the indoor garden section I found a hydro planter for herbs and cherry tomatoes. She liked to cook. She used basil and dill on her boards. I knew she’d like it.
I bought it. Got some wrapping paper at a gas station. Smuggled it into the cabin and wrapped it myself since by the time I got back Mike was already in the hot tub with everyone. I didn’t join them.
I was enabling him. I knew I was, I could accept this now.
It wasn’t helping him, wasn’t changing his behavior.
I was doing nothing but cleaning up his fucking mess, and I didn’t know how I was going to stop, because stopping meant letting her get hurt, and I couldn’t bring myself to let that happen.
I’d have to move. Leave Minnesota so I wouldn’t know what was going on because if I did, I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand any of it—not being here watching it or not being here at all.
I went to bed without telling anyone. I couldn’t face Heather after wasting her time, or Xavier, who knew my deepest secret, but most of all I couldn’t face Mike and Larissa.
Or the thought that I was failing them both.