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She bows her head and takes a breath. “Yeah.”
I hang my coat near the door and help her fold the bed back into the sofa version. It’s a familiar task, and we move through it efficiently without speaking. Once it’s put together, the apartment feels minutely larger, and she sits first. I sit near her, but not up against her like I normally would. We face each other. She leans back on the arm of the couch with her legs crossed beneath her. I lean sideways, my elbow on the back of the sofa, propping up my head. “I owe you an apology, too.”
Her gaze drops, and she grimaces.
“The thing is, I like you so much. It’s been really hard to think about not having you in my life.”
“Same,” she says.
I frown. I can’t tell if she’s making this easier or harder. Not that I deserve easy. “I have such a long explanation, but I’m not sure you want to hear it.”
“I don’t need to hear it,” she says softly. “I get that you’re depressed. I know living here wasn’t what you expected or wanted, and you’ve been unhappy for a long time. And I know I can’t fix that for you no matter how much I want to.”
I rub my hand over my face, the bad memories flooding in now. Pretending to be asleep when she came over. Her seething irritation when I got too drunk and mean at her last work party in the Hamptons, somehow managing to offend everyone who dared to speak to me because I was pissed they were all better off than I was. The humiliation of not being able to get or maintain an erection when she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Shutting her up when she suggested I needed professional help, and her slinking out of my apartment like an abused animal.
“I should have let you go,” I say.
“I wasn’t ready.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I never told you this, but I love you, Drew. Like, it’s a big love.”
God, my fucking heart. The crack Olivier put in it tonight breaks wide open with Jericho’s words. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I say, my voice cracking, too.
“I didn’t think it’d make a difference, so I kept it to myself. I mean…” She lets out a soft laugh. “My friends know. Chris knows.”
Jesus. No wonder Chris is hightailing it to some temporary basement apartment and hanging me out to dry.
“I’m seeing someone,” I say.
She sucks in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry?” Her voice is high and airy.
“It’s Olivier,” I say. “Ollie—the guy you hated on sight.”
“You’re—wait—Drew, what are you saying?”
I can’t look at her. I have no desire to see the expression on her face and have it instantly etched into my memory, which is one of the only things about being depressed that still functions on all cylinders. I remember everything. And ruminate on all of it. “It’s what it sounds like. I’ve been fucking a man.”
“Oh.” She sounds like she got the wind knocked out of her. “Oh.”
“So, if you needed a reason to hate me…”
“I didn’t know…that you’re…”
“Bi? Gay? I didn’t either. I don’t know what I am besides a complete piece of shit.”
“Drew…”
“Look, I’ve known you deserve better than me for a long time, and I kept hanging onto you hoping one day I’d measure up to the guy I thought you should have, but I’m so far from him, we’re not even on the same continent.”
She shakes her head. “First of all, you don’t get to decide what I deserve. I know what I’m worth, and I know where my soft spots are, too. You’re like catnip to me. I couldn’t stay away, and did I want to fix you? Yes. Did I want to bury my face in you and never come up for air—definitely. Did it hurt when you stopped wanting me? I think you probably know the answer to that.”
“I still needed you, though,” I admit.
“I know.”
We’re quiet for a while. I feel like I’m drowning in her heartbreak, and I don’t think I’m reading too much into this—making myself feel more important to her than I was because she’s straight up telling me I really was, and even if I didn’t deserve it, even though I might never understand it, it seems to be her truth, and I have no right to dismiss it.
