Chapter 13
“A SERIES OF BAD MISTAKES”
St. John’s is not a city with a lot of taxis, so after a futile exchange with my Lyft app, I just walked the twenty minutes to Paul’s house.
He opened the door and gave me a hug. “I am so sorry.” The words were muffled in my hair.
“It’s okay. We were just worried about you.”
“I sat her down and told her I was cutting her off. She’s not allowed to see me again. At all. And she wouldn’t leave, so I ended up calling the police. She left before they got there. She just wanted to see if I’d do it, I guess.”
“Oh, Paul, I’m so sorry.”
“She said some things at the end, that…about how she wished she’d never had a child, that I’d ruined her life.”
“She was just lashing out. You know that, right?”
He shrugged. “I’ll probably call her at Christmas, but until then…”
I gave him another hug. He kissed my hair. “Thank you for sticking with me through this.”
It was the moment. I didn’t want it to be. But I couldn’t not tell him.
“Paul,” I said. “I’ve—I just found out that I—I can’t work remotely anymore.”
“So that means…” His face was blank, which made it worse.
“Basically I’ve been ordered home. I have to go into the office on Monday. I have to fly back this weekend and show up at work or I get fired.”
“Oh.”
“And I know this is the worst time to do this. I don’t want to go.”
“Well, it will make it easier to see your sister in Atlanta, won’t it?” he said gently.
“She’s moving back, too. To New York. She just told me.”
He nodded, taking this in. “Okay,” he said, more to himself than to me.
I continued, “But that’s not why—it’s a change in policy. I’ve been working from home for two years. I didn’t know this was coming.”
“And you found out…”
“Monday. After we—after we spent the night. I should have told you right away. You were dealing with so much, and I wanted to get through tonight. It was important to Lisette that I do this, and I thought…I was scared to say it. I didn’t want it to be real. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. He nodded and walked to his sofa and sat down.
I spoke quietly. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years. Maybe ever.”
He shrugged.
“I mean it, Paul. And I’m really proud of you for standing up to your mother.”
He was silent again. Then he nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “I have this tendency to go quiet when I’m thinking. Trish used to complain about it.”
“I don’t mind,” I said gently.
There was another long moment. He looked up. “When do you leave?”
“This weekend.”
He nodded again. “Saturday or Sunday?”
“Sunday.”
“And there’s no chance anything can change…”
“My boss has been trying. He’s trying to get them to reverse the policy, but I think first they have to drag everyone back into the office to prove a point.
And I applied—I did apply for a Canadian work visa.
” Paul glanced up at me. “But the lawyer put my chances around fifty-fifty, so I don’t want you to wait on that. Not that you would, but...”
“What a day,” Paul said.
“If it matters any,” I said quietly, “I want to stay.” It was true. I wanted to hug my sister and make her feel better. But I wanted this life. I wanted Paul.
“It matters,” he said. “But maybe this is good. We knew things would end, and I—I have so much to deal with right now, and I felt guilty dragging you in the middle of it.”
“Don’t. You deserve someone who can help you through all this. I want to be that person. You can call me anytime. I just can’t expect you to…” I trailed off.
“It’s good you’re going to be with your sister. She’ll need you.”
He moved over to sit next to me and took my hand.
It was a strange feeling. I felt like I was noticing for the first time how introverted he was, how much trouble he had with talking about things.
I thought of the way Lisette had explained their marriage, that Trish walked all over him, perhaps because he was like this, so quiet.
He could be loud and funny on stage, but in ordinary life, he retreated. I waited for him.
After a moment, he took a breath, pulling himself together. “So how was the rest of the show? Was there a rest of the show?”
“It went fine. Everything was fine. We got through the rest of the performance. We got a laugh or two, even. But it was awkward. I wanted to come after you, but I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“No, you did the right thing.” He shook his head a little. “You’re so amazing, Abby. To still keep going in the middle of all that. During your first show? You have to do improv in New York, you know. I hear they have some there. Not as good as ours, of course.”
“Of course not.”
“Can I…can I come over?”
I shook my head. In spite of my best efforts, I started to cry. “I don’t think I can handle it. I’ll be too sad.”
“Okay.”
My phone buzzed. It was Lisette.
“She wants to know how you’re doing.” I showed him the text.
“I’ll call her,” he said.
“I should get going,” I said, standing up.
“You don’t have to go yet.”
“I do…I can’t…” I took a deep breath.
He gave me a sad little smile and nodded, once.
I got up to go, and he gave me a hug good-bye at the door. “You’ll call me before you go?”
“I’ll come by,” I said. “Saturday. I’ll bring you back all your books. Okay?”
“I would say you can keep them, but I want to make sure I see you again, so okay.”
I wanted to kiss him, but I couldn’t. I left. I wondered if he was thinking that he had burned bridges with his mother and his ex-wife because of a woman who was leaving him a few days later.
The next day was Friday, and someone rang my doorbell at 9:30 a.m. Lisette stood there, her face bright red like she had been running.
“Hey.”
“I left work in the middle of my shift,” she said. “And I never leave work in the middle of my shift. So you’re leaving Sunday? Paul had to text me because apparently you weren’t going to tell me.”
“I meant to tell you last night, but all the stuff came up with Paul…I just…”
“So when were you going to tell me?”
“After you got off work tonight.”
“So you would text me at six, we would hang out tomorrow, and you would leave on Sunday?”
It was the first time I had seen Lisette really angry.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Everything was so messy at the show. I’ve only known since a couple of days ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me right away?”
“I wanted last night to be perfect for you. I thought I would tell people afterwards.”
Lisette nodded, her face flushed. I stepped back for her to enter the apartment. It took her a long moment to speak. “I am so tired of everyone treating me like I’m fragile.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You didn’t think I could handle it if I knew you were leaving so you lied to me.”
“I was just sad, okay? And I didn’t—I wanted you to have one thing—this improv show—go perfectly.”
“And look at how that worked out,” she said. “Perfect show.” Her nervous energy transformed into a different state when she was angry. She was at once perfectly still and also vibrating.
“Listen—”
“But even if…you could still have told me afterwards. You told Paul. In the middle of that total mess with his mother. But you didn’t tell me because you don’t think of me like a real friend. You think of me like a pet.”
“No!”
“I’m not a charity project!”
“You’re my friend.”
“You don’t treat me like a friend! You didn’t tell me when Paul asked you out.”
“Because I was scared. I was scared it was doomed, or that he’d change his mind.”
“Just admit it. You don’t take me seriously.”
“I’m not used to being important to anybody!” I said at last. “In New York, I was important to my sister, but everyone else treated me like this cool friend they brought along with them to make funny remarks. I’m not used to mattering to anybody.”
“Of course you matter!” she shouted. “You’re one of my best friends and one of the only people who gets me. And I’m going to miss you, but I guess you won’t miss me. I’m just some abuse victim who lives in a basement.”
“Not a basement,” I muttered. “A sex dungeon.”
She shook her head. She was not ready to laugh.
“Lisette, can I tell you something? The last relationship I had was with a married man. And I knew he was married. I thought he was going to leave his wife for me. And I am so ashamed of that I couldn’t even tell my sister.
I am not looking down on you. You’re like me, in a lot of ways, but you’re better.
You’re positive and funny and somehow you don’t let life get you down.
And I didn’t tell you I was leaving because I knew my friendship with you was going to be ending and I couldn’t handle how sad that made me.
And I couldn’t handle making you sad. Or the rest of our time together being sad. I was a coward.”
Lisette stared at me. It was hard to meet her gaze, but at the same time I felt lighter. I had told my secret about Colin to someone, and she hadn’t recoiled in horror.
“And you think I won’t want to be friends with you if you’re in New York?”
I said nothing. My friendship with Jasmine and Lucas was affectionate but conditional on my presence.
I may have assumed all friendships would be like that.
And I wondered if my own fears were the problem.
I didn’t tell Lucas or Jasmine the really dark stuff about my life.
I had assumed all my friendships were conditional on my never being sad. “I’m a mess,” I said finally.
“You? I had to sleep on a stranger’s sofa this past month. A woman from Brooklyn had to take me in because I had nowhere to go.”
“She got lucky.”
“She was a rock star, actually. But she doesn’t respect me.”
“I do. I love you.” I smiled, tears in my eyes. “If you want me to, I will keep texting you. All the time.”
“I don’t need pity.”
“Do you pity me?” I asked.
“Only for kissing Paul. That must have been terrible.” Lisette grinned a little.
I laughed a little. “Well, maybe this way if he wants to work things out with Trish…”