35. Chapter 35
Torin
At Sea
Translation: Unsure, uncertain
Usage: To describe someone who is confused and unable to make up their mind
“Wait. You broke up with Beau?” Freya says. “Already? Why?”
Her confusion is justifiable, given that our last conversation had taken place a couple of hours ago and had been about Beau and I getting together.
After leaving his house, I’d wandered barefoot until I arrived at my blessedly empty flat.
After standing in the kitchen and staring at my frozen feet for countless minutes, I dropped my shoes in the middle of the floor and called my sister, opting for speakerphone so I didn’t have to look at her when I told her it was over.
Christ. It’s over.
“It happened again,” I say, my voice hollow, just like my insides. The hurt and anger and sadness have all run their course, leaving me feeling like an empty husk in their absence. Maybe whisky will help me feel something again.
“What do you mean, Torin?” Freya asks as I pull a glass out of the cupboard. “What happened again?”
“He was using me for my research,” I say with little conviction, pouring myself far more than a dram. “Just like James did.”
“How do you know?” she asks, voice full of concern. “What exactly did Beau do?”
“I told him what my research area was.” I sigh. “I was very specific about what I was studying and why.” I’d even had an emotional breakdown in front of him over it, fool that I was.
“And he’s researching the same thing?”
“Aye,” I say and take a gulp, letting the spirit burn its way down. “He told me he’d once considered a similar topic and had changed his mind, but today I found a proposal on his desk, along with a mountain of notes, and it turns out he hadn’t changed his mind at all.”
“No!” she says, but it’s more disbelief than denial.
“Aye.” I take another swig as I repeat the awful truth of it all. “He lied to me. He gained my trust, made me fall for him, and all along, he was planning to steal my life’s work right out from under me.”
“I’m so sorry, Torin,” Freya says, but there’s something in her tone I don’t want.
Pity.
I drain the rest of the glass, then top it up.
“Did you confront him about it?” she asks. “Is that why you hung up on me?”
“Aye”—I set down my drink, then immediately pick it back up—“and I told him he wouldn’t get any more help from me.”
“And what did he say?”
“He pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about, then he said some things about…” But I don’t want to go there right now. “He made it clear what he thought of me, and it wasn’t high praise.”
Freya hesitates before she says, “That doesn’t sound like Beau.”
The anger in my belly rises again as her words spotlight the full extent of his deception. He hadn’t just fooled me. He’d fooled my family.
“Are you on his side now? Did he charm you into thinking he was such a good person?”
“No, I—” she starts, but I’ll not be having it.
“Because he’s not! He’s a bawbag,” I shout before grumbling, “the bloody American bastard.” I pace the length of the kitchen, dragging a hand through my hair, heat building under my skin.
Then I remember something else. “You know, he even had the audacity to cry when I confronted him. Can you believe that?”
“Torin—”
“And now you’re sitting there telling me this doesn’t sound like him? What, you think I’ve made it up? That I just imagined the whole thing?”
“That’s not what I said—”
Another drink. I’m quickly running out.
“Well, it sounds like you’re defending him,” I fire back. “Sounds like you’ve decided he’s some perfect guy who can do no wrong and I’m—”
“Torin!” Freya says, the edge in her voice signaling trouble. “I’m your sister and best friend, and you know I’m always on your side. No one else’s. I understand that you’re upset, but I’ll not have you taking your mood out on me. Understand me, pal?”
The anger drains out of me almost as quickly as it came.
“You’re right,” I say. “That wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry.”
“Good,” she says. “Now, what I was trying to say is that until today, Beau has never given you any reason to mistrust him. He’s never lied to you before, has he?”
“No,” I admit, “but—”
“And despite his occasional confident swagger, he’s shown himself to be a kind and caring person.”
“I suppose.” Most of his confidence seems to be smoke and mirrors anyway. I hadn’t realized it at first, but his insecurities run deep.
“Then why, for the love of all that is gay in this world, were you so quick to jump to the conclusion that he was manipulating you, despite months and months of positive interactions and only one piece of evidence that he might have done something nefarious?”
This silences me. Beau hasn’t given me any reason to think poorly of him. Until today with the thesis proposal. And again when I was leaving. Though even then, he didn’t say anything that was untrue.
“So,” Freya continues, “when I said that what you described doesn’t sound like Beau, you understand my reasoning.”
“Aye, it’s well-reasoned.”
“I know. Because despite the fact I’ll have to call you ‘doctor’ someday, I really am the smarter sibling. That’s a low bar, mind, since my brother’s an eejit.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I say without any vehemence, taking another drink.
“Nah, you need me too much,” she says.
“So what do you think I should do, oh wise sibling?”
“I already know what you should do, but I don’t want to make it too easy on you,” she says, keeping things playful. “So I return the question to you. What do you think you should do?”
The problem with her query is that—unlike questions in class—I don’t know the answer to this one.
“Talk it out, Torin,” she says. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I sigh, and close my eyes. For a moment, I’m back there: Beau’s muscular arm draped over me, the first rays of dawn dancing across his golden skin, my whole body feeling light again at the memory.
“I woke up this morning to him holding me, and I thought, ‘What kind of beautiful cliché has my life become that this seemingly perfect man is cuddling me in his sleep?’ It didn’t even feel like real life.”
Then I think about that thesis proposal and the notes—so many notes—and am disappointed in myself all over again. I can’t keep doing this.
I tip the rest of the whisky back and set the glass down harder than I mean to.
“I should’ve known that a guy like that would never be with someone like me unless there was something in it for him.”
The silence that follows is so long that I check to see if the call dropped. “Freya?”
“Torin, did you already forget the conversation we had last Sunday?”
“No, but—”
“And did it ever occur to you that Beau just likes you? Likes being with you. That you make him happy, even when you’re rash, and frankly, a little unhinged?” Then under her breath, she says, “Like right now.”
“I mean, aye, I thought he did, but then this morning—”
“Then this morning you got scared and found a way out.” Her words are eerily similar to what Beau said about me pushing him away. Part of me believes they’re right, but then I remember all the other things he said to me on my way out.
My heart sinks. My walls go up.
“Look”—I sigh and refill my glass—“I appreciate what you’re doing here, Frey, but it’s over. Even if you’re right and it’s all some big misunderstanding, he isn’t going to have me back. Not after what I said to him.” And not after what he said back. “I broke us. It’s done.”
“Torin,” she says, voice soft.
“Besides, it was a terrible idea to pursue a classmate again, and I can’t afford the distraction,” I say, building my defenses, my words the brick and mortar.
“What happened with Beau… I was just relieved that midterms were over. I wasn’t thinking clearly.
It’s better that we part ways now before this gets any messier. ”
“You have to do what you think is best,” Freya says with a sigh, “but please think about what I said. I’ve never heard you as happy as you were this morning.
Not once. That kind of connection, that kind of joy.
They’re hard to find. And I don’t want you to throw away something great because you’re too hung up on the bad things in your past to try. ”
When we ring off, I take the bottle of whisky to bed with me, something I’ve never done before. I stare at the open books on the desk. And despite my insistence that historical research is my top priority, I don’t touch them at all.