Chapter 38 Larissa
LARISSA
Mike is so sweet,” Heather said, drying a casserole dish. “I love the planter he got you.”
“Yeah,” I said, not looking at her while I wiped down the counter.
We’d been at the cabin a full day. It was Christmas. We’d opened gifts an hour ago, the guys had cooked breakfast, and we were cleaning it up.
The men were outside getting the snowmobiles ready.
They were all supposed to go snowmobiling in a half hour, and the rest of us were going to stay behind and do puzzles or something.
I didn’t care. I wanted to leave. If I had my own car, I would have been gone yesterday.
I’d even pay for a rideshare at this point if they had drivers up here.
I’d barely spoken to Mike since last night, which was hard because we were sharing a room. We were both faking that things were fine in front of everyone else. I’d opened the gift he got me and managed to smile and look like nothing was wrong. And to be fair, I did love the planter.
Sometimes it felt like I was dating two different people.
I couldn’t reconcile the man who was blackout drunk in his own urine a few days ago from the person who got me the thoughtful gifts he always came up with.
Mike hadn’t had a single drink since we talked. He’d turned down eggnog last night and mimosas at breakfast.
I didn’t.
For once I wanted to be the one who got to be buzzed all day long.
I was so tired of always having to be in control.
I never got to rest my brain. I didn’t get to check out mentally.
I wanted to get wasted until I was completely useless.
I drank everything I was handed last night until I stumbled off to bed.
I completely regretted it. I felt like crap when I woke up this morning. I don’t know how Mike—or anyone—could do this regularly.
Chris came in from the back deck. Woofarine jumped up from his spot on the floor by my feet to bounce at his ankles.
“We’re about to take off,” he said, hanging up his jacket.
Heather set her drying rag down to go over to him and gave him a quick peck.
Maybe it was the hangover, but I felt a little sick.
I excused myself for the bathroom. But I didn’t go to the bathroom. I went to the den and shut the door.
I just needed to be alone. I shouldn’t have come to the cabin. The second I saw Heather in the car, I should have turned around and gone back inside.
I should have done a lot of things.
Move in with literally anyone other than a man I’d been dating less than a year. I should have locked down my credit when Dad stole Mom’s identity.
I should have gotten a ride with Chris after the concert instead of Mike.
I sat on the brown leather couch and put my face into my hands.
I didn’t know what to do. Mike was a good person, and I cared about him, but I was not built for this.
I would not be like Mom, a foster home for broken men.
I didn’t want to fix someone. I didn’t want someone who needed fixing, I wanted someone who wanted to fix themselves, and not because I called them on it.
Where would I go now?
Mom was in South Dakota with Phil. Lexi helped her sister with bills, so she couldn’t move out with me. There were already six of them in a two-bedroom apartment. I couldn’t even ask to sleep on the couch while I searched for a roommate who would overlook my credit.
I could rent a room in a cheap extended-stay motel.
It’s where we lived after Dad lost the house. Bouncing around from one dump to the next, two years with no address, getting our mail at a P.O. box, paying more for that single room than we would pay for a whole apartment but having no choice because of bad credit and no savings and lack of income.
I’d gone back in time.
I’d actually managed to reverse my fortune. And what would happen to my friendships now? Becca? Samantha?
Chris…
I’d like to think things with Chris wouldn’t change after this, but realistically I knew they would.
He was my boyfriend’s best friend, things would never be the same.
It would be weird if we stayed friends without Mike.
And what excuse would there be to hang out with me anyway?
We wouldn’t have our car ride to the cabin.
We wouldn’t have the BBQs and the birthday parties and the trips that everyone went on.
We’d have Woofarine, but that would probably stop too.
I didn’t even have a place to go, how could I have a dog?
If I moved to South Dakota, which I’d probably have to do, I’d never see either of them again.
We wouldn’t share books anymore.
We would never rate the bread.
The last time he’d checked my EpiPen would be the last time.
And that’s what finally broke me. I would lose Chris. And somehow this was worse than all of it. This is what finally made me cry. I put my face in my hands and broke down.
I wanted to talk to him. I felt like he could fix this or make me feel better that it couldn’t be fixed.
I screamed his name in my head. I wanted him here, in this room to tell me how to deal with Mike.
I hated that I hadn’t seen him in a month and that we didn’t get our car ride up and that he had a girlfriend he didn’t tell me anything about—and that I liked her.
She was actually great. And that made me cry harder and I didn’t even know why, because he deserved someone wonderful. I wanted that for him.
So then why did it hurt so much?
The door opened and my head jerked up. Chris peeked in.
“Did you call me?”
I stared at him for a second. Just blinking at him through tears.
“I thought I heard you call me,” he said. “Are you okay?”
I blew out a shaky breath and shook my head. “No.”
He came in and slid the door closed. “What’s going on?”
I wiped under my eyes. “Nothing. How did you know I was in here?”
“Trauma bond?”
He managed to get a laugh out of me.
He handed me some tissues and sat on the sofa next to me and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked tired.
So was I.
I had the strongest urge to put my head on his shoulder. I wanted him to wrap an arm around me. I wanted to close my eyes and breathe him in and feel safe, the way I always did with him.
Mike didn’t make me feel safe, I realized.
He didn’t make me feel unsafe, but I could never shut off my brain with him like I could with Chris.
When Chris drove, I could take a nap or be on my phone.
I didn’t have to keep my eyes on the road.
When Chris said he was going to drive, I didn’t have to watch to see how much he had to drink.
I didn’t have to put my own drink down in case I had to take over.
I knew there would be a safe place to eat on the route and the car would be peaceful and quiet.
Maybe heaven was just an infinite car ride with Chris. Him behind the wheel. Us leaving everyone and everything behind. Woofarine on my lap, Minnesota in the rearview. Starting over. Going back.
Picking right.
But you can’t go back. You can only stop making the mistakes you keep making.
We sat quietly while I dabbed at my eyes. “Heather’s nice,” I said, sniffling.
He grunted a reply.
“She’s not nice?” I asked.
“She is. I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”
“Why’d you bring her here, then?”
He scoffed. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m doing anything anymore.” He looked at me. “Can I get you something?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“How can I make it better?”
“It’s better with you just being here,” I said.
He studied me like he was trying to see if I was lying. I wasn’t.
“I got you some Dramamine for the ride back,” he said.
“I hate Dramamine.”
“Well, I hate that you puked. So. It’s nondrowsy.”
I rolled my eyes. “You throw up in a guy’s car one time—”
“Technically you didn’t throw up in my car. You threw up in my water bottle. You owe me a new one.”
I coughed, laughing, and he cracked a smile.
He would make me take the Dramamine.
I loved that he wouldn’t let me have my way. No, I’m not allowed to drive. No, I’m not allowed to pay. No, I’m not leaving you in a hospital waiting room while your mom’s in surgery.
Mike never told me no. That suddenly felt like a red flag now. Some people-pleasing impulse that kept him from letting me know what he truly thought or who he really was.
I hadn’t realized until now that his confidence was fake.
Underneath the bravado, Mike was fragile and insecure—and that was fine.
It’s okay to be vulnerable. But he was never vulnerable in front of me like he should be.
He never allowed me to help him or understand him.
He dodged the questions I asked and frosted over who he was and what he needed.
No wonder I never could be sure about him. I didn’t even know him.
Maybe he didn’t even know himself.
Chris stared out at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf full of games. “We used to watch movies in here when we were kids,” he said absently. “The adults got the living room. When I started coming up here, all they had were VHS tapes and only two movies: Faces of Death and Anne of Green Gables.”
“That’s quite the selection…” I said.
“Yeah. Then we got a Ouija board and summoned demons in Mike’s room.”
“Ha.” I peered at him. “So this place was the scene of the crime, huh? The deer assault that led to a lifetime of PTSD?”
He let out a sigh. “You’d think I would be over it by now.”
“Time changes things, it doesn’t change people. People have to change themselves.”
We sat in silence.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” I said.
He nodded, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Are you still doing the secret shops?”
“No, I’m too busy with the graze boards,” I said. “And you? What have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I work. Read.”
The reading thing stung.
We always shared what we read. We buddy-read everything. Now he was reading without me? I guess I just thought if we weren’t reading together, that part of his life ceased to exist. But it didn’t. He didn’t need me for anything apparently. Not even that.
He cleared his throat. “There was this one book I think you’d li—”
“No,” I cut him off.
He looked bewildered. “No?”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
He blinked at me. “Why?”
“I just don’t.”
His face fell. He looked wounded. I didn’t care. He wounded me first.
Knowing that he was reading things without me felt like a betrayal. He’d lost the privilege to discuss books with me. At least those books.
“Are you punishing me?” he joked.
“Would that be a punishment for you?” I asked.
He studied me. “Yeah. It would.”
“Then, yes, I am.”
I felt a crackle of… something. Tension.
This was the closest thing we’d ever had to a disagreement. Not one of the little back-and-forths we got into sometimes, but a real disagreement.
Good.
I wanted to fight with him.
I wanted to accuse him of all the things I was holding against him and make him defend it and explain it.
Demand he tell me why he was suddenly too sick to go shopping with me.
Make him admit he was ignoring me the last month, while simultaneously thinking enough about me to drive to my apartment and clear snow off my car.
I wanted to lay evidence at his feet and dare him to deny it, poke him until he couldn’t lie to me anymore.
“Did you clear the snow off my car?” I asked.
He looked at me blankly.
“Did you?” I asked again. “And if you did, why did you do it? And why didn’t you tell me?”
I watched him swallow. Then he looked back over at the bookshelf.
“I can’t,” he said quietly.
“You can’t what?” I said to the side of his face.
He was quiet for a long moment.
“You owe me two truths and a lie,” I said.
He glanced at me.
“From that day in the park,” I said. “You never gave me yours.”
He gazed at me, his eyes sad. “And I never will.”
We looked at each other and I swear his eyes flickered to my lips.
Why?
Why hadn’t I picked him when I could have? What was it about Mike that eclipsed Chris? Because I couldn’t for the life of me see it now.
“Do you ever think about why we’re attracted to the people we are?” I said quietly.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just chemistry and you can’t explain it at all.”
“You can’t explain chemistry?”
“Not really. The thing with chemistry is that we just don’t know much.”
“How is that possible?”
He stared out at the bookcase. “We have theories but very few things have been proven. We know that things ‘are’ but don’t really know why they are.
We know that opposites attract—protons attract electrons—but we don’t know the reason.
Most of chemistry is based on sound evidence and data, not proof.
We have some general rules, but”—he shrugged—“that’s the problem with chemistry.
” He looked at me. “You can’t explain it. It just is.”
It just is…
Even if you wish it wasn’t.
We gazed at each other. I studied his handsome face. The soft way his eyes took me in. The cupid’s bow at the top of his lip. How his hair was always just messy enough to look like he hadn’t done anything with it, even though I knew he did.
But the most beautiful thing of all was his heart. He was a good person. Kind. Considerate. Gentle.
And not mine.
He did not belong to me. He never would.
I got up without another word and left him sitting there.
I went to my room. Running now from them both. But when I opened the door, Mike was sitting on the bed. He was in his snow pants, his helmet next to him on the comforter. He stood when he saw me. “Babe…”
“Mike, I don’t want to talk right now.” I edged past him to the bathroom.
He followed me. “Larissa, please.”
I spun on him. “Please what? What, Mike?” I shook my head at him. “You can’t even give me a full twenty-four hours?”
“I just need to know—”
“Need to know what?”
“If you’re gonna stay. I can’t… I can’t stand not knowing. Just please, tell me either way. It’s killing me and I can’t stand it.”
His eyes begged me.
I didn’t want to do this. Not here. Not now. Not trapped in this cabin, not with Chris and Heather kissing in the kitchen and doing things in their room—and why did any of that even fucking matter?
But it did.
Maybe Mike wasn’t the only one lying to himself. Maybe I’d been doing it too. And I didn’t want to do it anymore, didn’t want to do any of this.
I shook my head. “No, Mike. I’m not going to stay.”
I watched him shrink. This tall, strong, virile man withered in front of me.
“Larissa, I can change…”
“Good,” I said. “Then change for somebody else.”