Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
B
With my ice cream in one hand, I unlock the door to the apartment with the other. I walk in and find Fia, Lou, and Iris all sitting on my couch.
“Nope.” I walk backward out the door and close it.
Iris’s sweet voice barely carries through the thick door. “B, wait!”
I don’t know why, but I can’t move. I just stand there facing the door, my hand still on the handle.
When Iris pulls the door open, the handle is ripped away, and my arm falls to my side.
Iris is startled that I’m standing right by the door.
She likely expected me to be halfway down the stairs by now.
I would be, if my brain could tell me feet to move.
But if I’m being honest, since sleeping with Fia last night, my brain hasn’t been firing on all cylinders.
I mean, I accidentally ordered Oreo instead of Butterfinger ice cream. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re just hanging out.”
She’s the worst liar.
“The three of you were hanging out without me?” One of my eyebrows is raised in questioning, my tone is flat but sharp as a knife. They’re all friends, but I’m the one person they all have in common. They’re never hanging out without me.
“Well…no. We were waiting for you.”
I walk past her, into the living space, to find Lou sitting there with a sheepish look on her face. Fia is avoiding eye contact.
“Is this supposed to be some sort of sad intervention? Because I swear to God—“
“No. Please just sit down. We’re just here to make sure you’re okay.” Iris reaches out her hand and rests it on my shoulder.
“I’m fine. Jeez, you guys are so dramatic sometimes.”
I walk past Iris and toss my purse on the bench beside the door, spitefully.
I look at Lou’s face to see her body tense.
She wants me to hang my purse up on the hook where it’s “supposed to go” instead of just throwing it where I please.
Not gonna happen. I’m too mad to accommodate someone else’s issues right now.
As I walk past Fia, I scowl. “I’m guessing you called in the troops?”
“I may have.” My strong Fia is acting suspiciously timid for once. Is she afraid of me right now?
I pass the open seat they left for me on the couch and sit in a chair off to the side instead. “Alright, let’s hear it. Throw your worst at me. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m broken. Tell me that I’m making a huge mistake.”
“Do you believe any of those things?”
I stare at Lou, who hasn’t said a word until just now. She sits between Iris and Fia with her arms crossed over her chest.
“No.”
Lou nods, like that's exactly what she expected me to say, but she doesn’t buy it.
“How much did Fia tell you guys?” I turn my attention to her. “How much?”
"Only that I thought you might want some friend time." She holds both hands up in surrender, like that's going to get her off my shit list.
She fucks me and takes a very vulnerable moment, like the peak of an orgasm, to throw words at me like love. Now, she sits here all innocent like she didn't just put me in a horribly uncomfortable situation on purpose.
Fucker.
“Well, you were dead wrong.” I take a big bite of my ice cream and get an instant brain freeze.
The ice cream I got as an excuse to leave the apartment because I wanted to avoid having a conversation with Fia about last night.
“Ow.” I stuck my thumb on the roof of my mouth to try to smooth the ache. It only helps a little.
“Feigning ailments isn’t going to get you out of this,” Fia deadpans.
“Oh, fuck off.” I flip her the bird, making everyone laugh despite themselves.
“Fia, Iris…could I actually chat with B alone for a few minutes?”
Oh shit, Lou means business.
“Sure.” Iris stands. “Fia, we can go to my place. Text us when you want us to come back.” Fia and Iris make their way to the door. Before she exits, Iris turns back to me. “Be nice, okay? We’re just trying to help.”
I give them a little wave before they head out the door.
“Please spare me the lecture.”
“I’m not going to lecture you.”
“Okay?”
“I was thinking about something the other day, and I wanted to run it by you.”
“Wedding stuff?”
“No.”
Lou and Sam got engaged this past summer, and their wedding is coming up in the fall. That’s still about six months away, but my sister—the most type A person I know—has had the whole thing planned for months, sparing no details.
“Then what do you want to run by me?”
“Can you promise to listen to my whole question before you jump down my throat?”
“Oh god…what is it?” I rub my fingers over my temple.
“If you’re not going to listen, then I’ll just leave.” She starts to stand.
“Fine.” I groan because I fear I might regret this once she starts talking, but she’s my sister, and I know she has my best interest at heart. “Sit down. I’ll listen.”
“Promise?”
I zip my lips and throw away the imaginary key before gesturing to her to begin.
“I was talking with Sam the other night about the time he and I spent apart after we first met. I was telling him about how sad I was and how even though I tried to move on, I just kept comparing everyone to him.”
I take another bite of my ice cream as I listen.
“You remember how I was.”
I nod, holding back my comment about how she actually did a good job hiding it from me, which made me feel awful later when I found out how much she was struggling. After I found out what she had done to herself because of it. The thought makes me set my ice cream down, unable to finish it.
“That whole time, I watched you go off on your adventures and have fun with strangers. I had a hard time understanding how you could do such wild and fun things with people, how you could give them your trust temporarily, then completely detach without a care in the world. I tried to do that with other guys, but it just left me feeling empty.”
Being the avoidant person I am, I try my best to keep things casual. "I thought you enjoyed being single."
“I did. But I envied you, B.”
I truly have no idea where she’s going with this.
“Do you remember me asking you how you’re able to do it?”
I genuinely don’t, so I shrug. That seems like a conversation we would have, but I don’t know what I said to her in response.
“You told me that you always go into it knowing it’s going to end.”
Yeah, that sounds like something I’d say.
“You said that you embrace whatever it is for the moment and enjoy it while it lasts, then when it’s over, it ends exactly how you planned it to. No disappointment, no heartbreak, if you already know it’s not going to last.
I was so jealous of your ability to detach. That is, until Sam and I got back together and I experienced what it’s like to have a partner who’s always there to love and support me.
Now I feel sorry for you, B.
I think it’s so easy for you to detach because you’ve never known what it’s like to have someone like that.
And I get that some people are built differently and thrive on their own, but how would you know until you experience the other side of things?
How do you know that you’re happier like this, pushing people away before they get too close? ”
Silence fills the room as Lou’s words echo in my mind.
“May I speak now?”
She nods. “Yes. Thank you for listening.”
“I don’t think I need to experience the other side, as you so call it, to know that I’m happier like this. Being heartbroken fucking sucks. I’ve watched all of you go through it. I’ve seen how miserable you all were. Why would I want to put myself in that situation again?”
“Again?”
Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.
Do I go there with her? Do I remind her of the one time I gave my heart to someone? We haven’t spoken about him in years, since it happened. I watch her as the pieces start to click together.
“Is this about…”
“Harlen.”
More silence falls between us.
“Ohmygod.” Her eyes start to fill with tears.
“What?”
“Sorry. All the pieces are falling into place now. I’m just processing it all.”
“There’s nothing to piece together, Lou.”
“That’s why you’re able to detach so easily.
It’s because of Harlen. In a similar way to how I couldn’t move on after Sam, you can’t move on because of how you felt after losing Harlen.
I never put it together because you seemed to have moved on after him.
But what I thought was you moving on was really just you shielding yourself from feeling that kind of pain again. ”
I shake my head at her. Leave it to Lou to make connections where there don’t need to be any.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
“When was the last time you talked to somebody about this, B? I know you went to therapy for a little bit after the accident, but you haven’t talked about him since.”
I contemplate telling her the truth. If I do, she won’t let this go. If I lie, she still might not let this go.
“I talked about it with Kass.”
Her mouth opens like she’s going to say something, but then she closes it. She drops her face into her hands and grumbles something I can’t understand.
“B," she whines.
“Lou,” I mock her tone.
“He’s gone. You have to let him go.”
“I know that,” I snap at her.
“You can’t let that be the reason you don’t let people in. I get that it was hard and that you were in a dark place after that, but trust me, you have to let it go. You’re not going to lose every person you let in. You’re not broken, you’re just scared.
You know how to love. You love me, you love Iris, you love all your friends. You protect us with your whole heart because that’s what you do for the people you love.
It doesn’t have to be him, but you have to eventually let someone in. If anything, just to prove to yourself that you can. Or to prove that you don’t need it.”
Her words hit me hard. I spent so many years forcing down the pain of losing Harlen that I didn’t even realize it might have been preventing me from connecting with other people. I’m not admitting that she’s fully right, but she’s not completely wrong.
“I hear you,” I whisper.
“Okay. I’ve said all I need to say. I’ll drop it now.” She stands up and silently walks to the door. “I’m gonna go grab Iris and Fia, let them know they can come back.”
“Hey, Lou?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
She gives me a pained smile, the sadness she feels for me overtaking any amount of superiority she might feel for being right. “That’s what sisters are for."