Chapter Two Paul
Chapter Two
Paul
June
The Haunts neon sign glows bright orange against the night sky. This place smells just like it did when I was twenty-one, home on break from college: stale beer and cigarette smoke.
I walk in, spotting at least a dozen familiar faces. Parents of kids I went to grade school with, my parents' friends, even a couple of former classmates from Starling Cove High who never made it out—all nod in greeting.
Then I see her head of blonde hair. Elise.
She's at a high-top near the window, dressed to kill in a short black skirt.
Two beer bottles are on the table in front of her—my preferred brand.
She knows this because I always get the same drink at our work lunches, where I'd bear my soul, talking about everything, about Sophie, about the diagnosis.
I'd tell Elise about my insecurities, my hopes, and my fears.
I couldn't talk to Sophie about it, I felt too guilty, like I was making her cancer about me.
So, I played the strong, supportive fiancé: holding her and telling her the words she needed to hear when she asked how I'm doing.
I lied to Sophie, but it was just white lies; I was being tactful, not cruel.
I had to remain strong for Sophie, because inwardly I was falling apart.
But Elise—she was there for me. Over the months we worked together, she'd become a close friend, a confidant, someone I could vent my frustrations to. I talked to Brian and Chris about these things, too, but their responses were never quite what I wanted to hear.
Elise had become that for me.
At first, it's strictly work—sharing work documents through email turns into near constant texts, then light brushes of hands in the conference room that say I see you, I'm here for you.
"Hey," Elise smiles when she sees me, already handing me my beer. "How is she?"
The stool scrapes against the old hardwood, and my hand shakes as I reach for the bottle and take a sip, our fingers brushing, lingering.
"She's sleeping. We—" The word biopsy tries and fails to crawl out of my throat.
Elise waves the server over and orders us a round of shots before I can continue. "You don't have to say it," she says, a soft smile on her face. "You can just… exist here for a second."
The whiskey arrives, and we tap our shot glasses in a silent toast. Elise doesn't even flinch as she downs it, just waves the server for another round.
"It's like—" My throat is finally loose after the second and final shot.
I'm not drunk, not even really tipsy—I'm not in college anymore.
But as someone from an Irish Catholic family, drinking is our national pastime.
I feel good, a feeling I haven't had since the lump.
"—it's like the fucking floor just opened and there's no bottom, and I'm supposed to…
what? I've never had to deal with anything like this before.
My parents are healthy. My grandparents were healthy.
We don't—" I take a sip of my water, searching again for the right words.
"I hate that I even think about that. I hate that I'm thinking about myself at all."
"You have to think about yourself, too. You're only human, Paul," she says, laying a warm hand on my shoulder. The way she says it feels like comfort. "You can't pour from an empty cup. How are you going to support Sophie if you're not taking care of yourself?"
"Empty cup," I repeat the cliché, wanting to believe in it.
I picture Sophie's head on my chest this morning, stroking her dark, vanilla-scented hair.
Always vanilla. Her silent tears soak my shirt as she lets herself break in my arms. She always says she feels safe there, like I could shield her from anything.
"She's braver than I am," I say, the truth, because Sophie really is. Bravest woman I've ever met.
I feel lucky that I even have her—my sweet, warm Sophie, the woman who listens to my ramblings about work problems. Before I launch, she always asks what I need: "Do you want to just vent or would you like my advice?"
The woman who uprooted her life to move to my hometown with me, without complaint.
The woman who called my mom to get her homemade chicken noodle soup recipe to cook for me when I'm sick, because I mentioned once that it helps me feel better.
The woman who surprises me with little notes tucked in my work bag on her pretty floral stationery.
You're my favorite.
I can't wait to be your wife.
I love you, Paul!
"You're showing up," Elise breaks me from my thoughts, her tone soothing as she gently rubs my shoulder. It feels good. "You held her through the crisis earlier, and now you're here to refill so you can go back and hold her again."
She smiles at me, her bright blue eyes sparkling like a small lighthouse while I'm stuck in this storm. "And you don't have to talk about… all of that. We can talk about anything else."
Anything else.
So I talk about anything else, and we fall into easy conversation.
As time goes on, touches linger—her hand on my arm, my arm on the back of her chair.
Her hair brushes my hand. My fingers twirl her hair.
Eye contact lingers, her bright blue eyes are the wrong shade from what I'm used to, but still beautiful.
I tell myself that this is okay, that I'm not doing anything wrong, that I didn't technically lie to Sophie because I am out with a friend, just not the friend I said.
We're just hanging out, having a couple of beers.
I do this all the time with Brian and Chris, so what's the difference in doing it with Elise?
She goes to the bathroom, and I down the beer I'd been nursing for the past two hours.
Go home, go home, go home...
I don't. I walk to the back corner where the bathrooms are and wait. Elise looks surprised but pleased when she walks out the door and sees me standing there.
A grin curves at her lips as she walks into my space. "What are you doing, Paul?"
I kiss her. Hard. I grab her hips—higher and narrower than what I'm used to—and kiss her.
Her tongue enters my mouth, and I welcome it with my own.
We stay in the dark bar corner because people know me here.
They know Sophie. They ask about Sophie—how's your little lady doing?
No one has to know. Sophie doesn't have to find out. This is just for me.
For me, for me, for me...
Her hand snakes down to my jeans, and I'm hard already, "Is this what you need, Paul?" she purrs against my mouth, and I groan, sliding my tongue against hers.
We speak about a hotel we don't make it to.
◆◆◆
August
"You… I'm sorry? Can you repeat that?"
"I..." My throat closes, and my mouth is cotton as I choke out. "I slept… I've been sleeping with Elise."
The gentle smile vanishes from Sophie's face. Her eyebrows pull together as she rapidly blinks her blue-green eyes—still the loveliest I've ever seen. She finally chokes out, "You've been sleeping with Elise?"
"Yes," I whisper, the only volume I'm capable of right now.
Sophie looks frozen for a long moment, before she whispers. "How long?"
Shame floods me as I admit, feeling like a fucking executioner, "Since your biopsy appointment."
Her eyes go wide and her mouth drops, like I just gut-punched her. Oh, God. She didn't look this devastated when the doctor said cancer.
"Since my..." She starts breathing fast, too short, and too fast. I move without thinking toward her, to do something to help her, but she freezes me with a glacial look. "Two months?"
I close my eyes. I should keep them open to witness the devastation, but I am a coward.
"Yes," I manage. That sting starts in my nose, crawling toward my eyes. Look at her, asshole. Look at what you did. I force my eyes open.
“You need to think about you too,” Elise had told me last week, the last time we had sex.
I had been staring at the ceiling of the hotel room we were in.
I had admitted to feeling guilty and selfish.
“You need to put yourself first sometimes, it can't always be about Sophie. Your future, your time, your energy matters too…”
Sophie is quiet for a full, awful minute.
I stand there, my heart slamming. Adrenaline—terrible and acidic—flows through my veins.
Her eyes flick left and right, her analytical mind racing.
I have never felt so low. She connects the dots—of course she does.
"So, when you were going to the bar with Brian and Chris, you were. .."
"With her," I whisper. Relief I don't deserve slips in—two seconds of air—followed by agony. Her face—oh God—Sophie's perfect little face folds in devastation.
The look breaks me, and the words shoot out of me unbidden. "Sophie... I was scared, and you were so—everything was so serious, and Elise—she... she let me—just—god—breathe for a second. Because I just... needed something easy."
The word makes me sick, and I force it out anyway. "She was... there. She listened and... with her, there wasn't cancer."
The betrayal cracks her face even more, "You were talking about my cancer with her?"
"Yes."
"Since the beginning?"
"Yes."
She nods, silent for minutes, her mind racing, before her lips curl in a bitter smile. "Did you two mock me? Joke about how I'll be bald and titless soon?"
"No!" I yell too loudly. I'm horrified at her words. "No! God, Sophie, I love you, I would neve—"
"You love me?!" she mocks, a sob mixed with an incredulous laugh. "Oh, were you thinking about how much you loved me while fucking her?"
"No, Sophie," I fall to my knees in front of her, gently grabbing her hands. Mercifully, she lets me hold them for a moment. "Please—please—believe me when I say I'm so fucking sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen—"
Sophie shakes her head and pulls her hands from mine once more.
"How could I even believe you right now?"
I don't answer because I don't have one.