Page 34 of Something Borrowed

“I did all this work on myself, you know? After Mel and I split for good.”

Carrie made a face, and Cal knew if they were outside, she would’ve spit. Literally. He had a lot of animosity and bitterness toward Mel, but his feelings were layered and complicated, shifting from time to time, and not without threads of his own guilt and regret. Heck, half the time, a huge part of him—that he hated and felt ridiculous for—still wished things could be different. That they could still be together.

Carrie’s feelings weren’t remotely so complex or ambiguous. She hated Melanie and made no bones about it.

“Okay?” she said. “You did the work and?”

“I thought that if I was ever ready to start dating again—and I have felt ready—that this time I’d do it right.”

“Right?” Carrie looked confused or skeptical, one or the other.

Cal wished he’d never opened his big yap, but he pushed on. “Yeah—not fall for someone with huge, clearly unresolved issues.”

“The mom!” Carrie said, like a lightbulb appeared over her head.

“At the very least.”

“Trauma.”

“Up the kazoo, I’m sure.”

Carrie chewed the side of her lip, then took a sip of wine, not saying anything.

“Anyway, yeah, I’m disappointed. In myself. Vic stirred something that felt like real interest or possibility for the first time in forever. I was excited about the what if, but now I think it was just me reverting to old patterns. Me being attracted to the push and pull, hot and cold.”

“Blech,” Carrie said, not unkindly. “That’s the problem with ‘doing the work.’ We overanalyze everything. We can’t just have a nice brainless time and a good screw anymore.”

“Truth.” Cal grinned, but the humor immediately fell away. “I was just surprised at how quickly I ignored my own gut and ignored things I learned in favor of . . . I don’t know.”

“A sweet smile, amazing eyes, a surprisingly big laugh, and great smell?” Carrie quoted one of his earlier descriptions of Vic back to him in a singsong.

“Yeah . . .” Great, he sounded like a big sad dope even to his own ears, but whatever. “I just . . . get lonely. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Something flashed in Carrie’s eyes. Old hurt, he thought. She shook her head. Not saying that she never got lonely, he understood, but more like she didn’t want to go there tonight. He sometimes worried because she never really went there with him. Maybe she told her girlfriends more? He doubted it.

“I just . . . I always looked at Mom and Dad and thought, why the hell can’t you just be nice to each other? Not fight about every little thing.”

Carrie nodded, eyes young and hurt, caught in the same place he was remembering back.

He shrugged. “And so I thought . . . I won’t be like that. I’ll just always be kind. Easy to be around. I’ll show love, and surely, the person I love will love me back. Then, when it didn’t work out with Twila, I tried again, thinking, okay, that was horrible—but I learned something.”

“Yeah, if only learning was enough,” Carrie said, voice sad.

“Exactly. So enter Eileen, who I thought was so different and yet, our relationship ended up being practically a carbon copy of mine and Twila’s.”

“I’m sorry . . .”

“Not your fault—not their fault. Not even really my fault. Like the beautiful words that are almost a cliché now… We don’t know what we don’t know. So years alone and I meet Melanie—”

“Ugh.”

Cal laughed a little despite how low he felt.

“No, seriously, I accept that you feel equal responsibility about things not working out with Twila or Eileen—but you were young and like you said, there was so much you, we, didn’t know.”

Cal nodded.

“Melanie, though? I don’t care how much trauma she had or what she went through as a kid or whatever you want to say to try to let her off the hook. People know cheating is wrong.”