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The car slows to a crawl. The odometer reads far below the already-low speed limit. No one drives like this on my street. The neighbors have been complaining for months, petitioning the city for speed bumps. Even I’m guilty of driving a little too fast on the tree-lined straightaway. Hell, Erik pulled out faster this morning, although we were running late. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’s stalling. Does he not want to say goodbye?
When he drives right past my house, I’m sure he’s stalling.
“Erik?” I place my hand on his thigh, feeling the muscles flex under my palm.
The tiny pool of hope drains away. This is more than nerves. Something is very wrong here.
Well, if he wants to murder me, he’s had better opportunities. I’m pretty sure he’s about to give me “the speech.” The “we’re better off as friends” speech. The “it’s not you, it’s me,” speech. The “I’m not looking for anything serious right now,” speech. The thought hurts more than it should because a) Erik has every right to tell me any of the above, and b) I don’t need it spelled out for me when I already know this isn’t going anywhere.
It’s my fault for muddying the waters. Not with sex, but by tagging along this morning. He probably wants to remind me logistics aren’t in our favor, but he doesn’t need to. We’ve both been pretty clear about not looking for anything serious, and it’s not his fault that maybe I’m fantasizing about more. I know he hasn’t offered it. I’m not stupid, and I wouldn’t have time for it even if a relationship was on the table. I’m focused on my dad…
Except my dad wants me to have a life beyond him and cancer.
Maybe that’s why this hurts so much. Erik giving me a brush off that doesn’t need to be given…it rankles. Even if he hasn’t said anything yet.
Overshooting my house is dramatic. He could have dumped me in my driveway. What am I supposed to do now? Ride back with him? Get out and walk? Call an Uber? He couldn’t have thought that part through. Erik isn’t cruel, even if he’s about to dump me. Does it even count as being dumped if we aren’t together?
Erik pulls the car into the parking lot of a small playground. Kids litter the plastic and metal structures, ignoring the snow as they play in the cold winter sun. Most have fluorescent colored snow gear and even from inside the car I can imagine the swish swish swish of nylon as they run. Next to the playground is a battered tennis court, the net sagging and full of holes, and a wide green space where a couple is throwing a bright yellow ball for a brown and black speckled dog.
I don’t notice Erik leaving the car until the driver’s door slams shut. I jolt in my seat, choking when the seatbelt cuts into my neck, and struggle to climb out too. Erik is already halfway up a small hill, moving toward a metal bench. He doesn’t look relaxed or comfortable. He fists his hands on his knees, his throat bobbing as he swallows. Suddenly, he bends at the waist and tugs on the length of his dark blonde hair. It isn’t gentle. It looks like he wants to pull the individual strands out from the follicles.
I’d rather be almost anywhere else, but I can’t leave him like this. I move closer, sliding onto the end of the bench. I leave a good foot between us.
“Everything is not okay,” I say, barely resisting the urge to touch him. “I know I don’t have the right to ask things of you, but—”
“You have the right,” his voice is guttural, clawing its way out of his throat. “Fuck. You have all the right and I should have told you this sooner. A lot sooner.”
Well shit.
A girlfriend? A wife? A kid? Something he’d hidden until he saw me with his mother? In his—no, his brother’s—space? My mind is spinning out, trying to figure out what his secret could be. Something his mother wouldn’t have blown wide open. So probably not a family back in Chicago… except he and his mother don’t seem to be close, so maybe she doesn’t know either. What could he have held back? He told me about his leg within hours. Maybe I’m wrong and his prosthetic isn’t a deeply personal part of him. I’d assumed it was.
My stomach pitches and the palms of my hands are clammy with sweat despite the freezing temperatures. We’re only a block from my house. In theory, I can stand up and walk back home. There is nothing stopping me other than morbid curiosity. If this news tears him up inside, well, he deserves every painful second of explaining it to me. And then I can walk home and rage clean. Or something.
“I didn’t intend for this to become some big secret.”
Okay, so probably not a secret significant other? To be fair, I’d ruled that out, anyway.
“I should have told you after meeting your dad.” Erik is still talking and I try to still my rampant thoughts and focus on his words. There’s no need for me to speculate. He’s telling me now. If I miss it, that’s on me. “But then that was it. We’d agreed not to—I still should have said something.”
“So say something now,” I’m not about to close the space between us, but my brain is no longer whirring painful and muddled thoughts around like dirty laundry.
Erik nods. He pushes back off his hands and leans against the back of the bench. He surveys the park, his attention drawn to a group of kids who’ve started a pickup game of something with a ball, despite the snow pants and the foot-tall drifts.
“Do you like sports, Quinn?” Erik asks and I frown, tempted to unravel the thread of where this conversation was going.
“I’m not the biggest sports fan. I played volleyball and basketball in high school since the coaches practically forced me to. I’m learning to enjoy hockey.”
“But you’ve always liked art, right?”
Always.
I’d been the girl with the tiny watercolor set and a notebook I carried everywhere. The set of graphite pencils was stored lovingly in my backpack. Dad gave me an easel at three and I never looked back.
“Yes,” I say.
Erik relaxes enough to let his arm fall along the back of the bench and I lean back so his fingers can brush the edge of my shoulder.
“I loved sports. Soccer, baseball, basketball. I played everything, but hockey was supreme.” He clears his throat. “Vic, Anna, and I had a babysitter that skated. Her boyfriend drove the Zamboni, so she took us down to the rink a lot and he got us free skate rentals. Vic and I didn’t start until almost seven. That’s late for kids.”
