Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
FREYA
My head swims, everything blurring around me as Oscar guides me outside. It’s only when we’re out of the noise and I can breathe fresh air again, that I start to feel like I’m back inside my own body.
Girlfriend.
What was that? I’ve never seen Oscar that way, never that angry. He looked ready to start throwing punches. He’s not like that, not that kind of volatile. I know he was defending me, but that doesn’t mean I liked seeing it.
Girlfriend.
“Freya?” Oscar asks when we get a little further down the street. I don’t even know what direction we’re heading in. I’ve completely lost my bearings. “Can you say something please?”
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Girlfriend.
“I’m okay,” I say quietly. Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll actually start feeling it.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry about Justin.” Oscar stops, coming to face me. “Don’t listen to whatever you heard, he’s just being an asshole tonight.”
I pause, trying to shake myself out of the haze I feel like I’m stuck in. Oscar’s patient, running gentle circles over the backs of my hands. I look around, taking in the street lamps, the window boxes that are starting to bloom with flowers, now in the fullness of spring.
Girlfriend. The memory of the word rings like a death-knell.
He didn’t even ask.
“Freya?” Oscar prompts, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Please don’t let him upset you, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“I don’t care what he thinks,” I reply. It’s the truth.
People have been saying that kind of ableist stuff about me for as long as I can remember.
Maybe once, it would have bothered me, but I’ve hardened to it by now.
It’s easy to let it roll off my back, especially when it’s coming from the mouth of a drunk idiot that doesn’t know a thing about me.
“Then, what is it?” Oscar’s eyes look pleading, desperate.
“You called me your girlfriend.” I look down at the ground.
“What?”
“With Justin, you said I was your girlfriend.”
“Yeah?”
“Is that what you think I am?”
Oscar looks like I’ve slapped him. Part of me wants to take it back, but I need to say it.
“Of course, I do.” He steps closer, reaching to pull me into his embrace. I can’t let him. I step back, out of his reach, and I hate the way the pain on his face draws deeper. This is such a mess. Why couldn’t we just stay the same as we’ve been?
“We’ve never talked about it,” I say.
“I didn’t think it needed saying.” He’s getting defensive now. I don’t want this to turn into a fight, but I can’t figure out a way back.
It’s not that I didn’t know we were getting there, but hearing him say it, using the title that only one person has used before, it’s undone so much of the progress I’ve been trying to make out here since leaving Connecticut.
The last time I was someone’s girlfriend, I felt trapped, stripped of autonomy, like I’d let myself get lost in a relationship that was slowly pulling me apart.
I don’t know if I can go through that again.
I don’t think I’m strong enough. It’s not that I think Oscar’s like that, but how can I be sure?
He didn’t even ask.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” I say weakly.
“Frey—” He chokes, not able to finish the word.
“I’m sorry, I just…”
He runs his hands through his hair, giving a tug as he looks at me. What I see in his eyes hollows me out.
“Is it because of what just happened?” He looks desperate as he rushes out the question. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I swear, I’m not like that. I’d never, ever do anything to hurt you, Freya, please. You have to believe me.”
“I know, I know, I do.” I surge toward him, not wanting him to ever believe that I could be afraid of him like that.
I take hold of his jacket and pull myself close.
He responds instantly, wrapping me in the warmth of his arms. It would be so easy to just let him hold me, to put everything I’m feeling right now back in the box I’m used to hiding it in and carry on as normal.
But I can’t do it. I owe it to both of us to try and acknowledge the truth.
“Do you?” he asks, pushing back my hair so he can better read my face.
“Of course.”
“You don’t,” he says, almost as if he’s talking to himself, seeing something in my eyes that I wish he wouldn’t. “I don’t know what else to do here. I don’t know what you want me to do to make you believe that I’m not a bad guy. Tell me and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”
“I know you’re not a bad guy!” I protest.
“No.” He shakes his head. I don’t even know how much he’s listening to me, he seems completely lost in his own thoughts.
“No, you don’t. It’s like you do everything you can to keep your distance, even though I can see that’s not what you want.
You let me have these pieces of you, then you snatch them back and shut me down again. ”
“That’s not true,” I whisper, knowing I’m lying.
“I don’t know what you’re waiting to happen, if you’re waiting to see my true colors or whatever, but this is it! You’ve seen all of me, I’ve got nothing left for you to find, now you just have to decide whether you want it or not.”
I can’t stop the tears that escape as he speaks. Is that really what I’ve been doing? How I’ve been making him feel?
I choose my words carefully, as if by doing that I’ll be able to piece all of this back together.
“Of course, I trust you, and I hate that I made you feel like I don’t.
But you have to understand how hard this is for me.
I have to be so careful with my feelings.
I’ve jumped in with the wrong people before, let myself get hurt.
I don’t always get it right. I need time to figure out what people’s intentions are. ”
“My intentions?” he echoes. “I think my intentions have been pretty clear, Freya.”
He doesn’t get it. I’m the only one who can keep myself safe, and if keeping my feelings guarded is the only way to do it, then that’s what I have to do. I can’t judge people the way he can, can’t get a read on what they’re thinking, what they want.
“You didn’t ask me, though,” I choke out. “You never talked to me about it. How can I trust you if you’re making these decisions for me?”
“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, frowning down at his shoes. “Fuck! I swear, Freya, I’m not trying to put any pressure on you. I thought that’s what was happening.”
His hands come to my elbows, touch light.
“Christ,” he hisses, stepping away. That movement shatters another piece of me and I can’t do a thing to hold back the rest of the tears that have been waiting to come. “It doesn’t even matter what I say, does it? I can’t do anything to get you to believe me.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded.
“Freya, I know everyone’s always made you feel like this shitty judge of character, and you think what happened with Aaron just proved their point.
” He takes a breath before continuing. I watch as his fingers flex, as if they’re reaching out, but he just shoves them in his pockets.
“But you’re not. You know me. You know I’m not a bad guy.
You know I’d never do a thing on purpose to hurt you.
But it’s not even about trying to get you to trust me, because you don’t trust yourself, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about that. ”
“Oscar.”
“I’m crazy about you, I think I’ve been pretty clear about that.
I’ve been crazy about you for almost my entire life, and that’s not about to stop.
” I stumble back half a step. He’s told me about his feelings before, but this is all so intense.
“I’ll keep showing up for you until you tell me to go away, that’s just how I’m built.
So, if that’s what you want, if you want me to go, then you have to be the one to do it.
If you don’t see this lasting, if you don’t think you’ll ever be able to let me in, to be all in with me the way I am with you, then you have to let me know.
Have some fucking mercy on me, because if we carry on, if I get more of you, only for you to take it away later, it’d just hurt too much.
” His voice is hoarse as he croaks out the end of his speech. “I don’t think I could take it.”
I feel dizzy, like I can’t get enough air in. There’s so much that I need to process, and I don’t know how to even start.
“I just…” I flounder. “I can’t read people the way you can.”
“Freya,” he whispers, pulling me into him, “you don’t need to read my mind. I’m telling you exactly what I’m thinking.”
We stand there, like two people clinging to a life raft in the middle of a storm.
Oscar’s warm breath ghosts over my face as he runs his knuckles up and down my arm, the motion doing little to soothe the roiling in my gut.
I can hardly think, can’t even begin to start piecing together everything he said, all the ways I’m feeling about it.
I’m just so tired, and all I want to do in stay in this moment, safe in Oscar’s arms.
“Okay.” He sighs, pulling back and taking my face in his hands. One of his fingers drifts down to tangle in a strand of my hair. He watches the motion and I have the awful sensation that he’s saying goodbye. “I’m gonna walk you home, then I’m going to head back to my place.”
“You’re leaving?” My voice cracks.
“Yeah, I think we both need some space.”
“Wait, Oscar.” I don’t want him to go, to walk away hating me.
“It’s okay, honey.” He strokes my jaw. “I think we just need to cool off for a couple days and figure some stuff out. I don’t want to put any pressure on you.”
“But, I—”
“I’ll call you this weekend, unless we’ve spoken sooner. I’m not ditching you. This isn’t over, we just need to get our heads on straight before we talk this out properly.”
He’s probably right, but I can’t help the feeling that I’ve messed this all up. It’s not fair to push him away when he’s done nothing to deserve it. I need to process everything that’s happening before I’m able to give him the answer he wants.
“Alright.” My voice comes out weaker than I’d like. “This weekend.”
It only takes us a few minutes to make the walk back to my apartment. We don’t talk, but Oscar holds my hand the whole way, giving me a squeeze every now and then, like he’s checking I’m still there.
At the bottom of my steps, he turns to me.
“This weekend,” he whispers. He drops a final kiss to my forehead, gives me a soft smile, and then he’s gone, stepping out of the pool of light emitted by the security light and disappearing into the night.