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“Hey, it’s Evan. Sorry to call out of nowhere again. I just need to know if you’ve heard from Marcus lately and if he’s okay.”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the phone and I’m worried he’ll tell me to give him space again, as if eight months isn’t enough space.
“I don’t know, man,” Josh admits. “He’s barely answering me either. He does this sometimes, but never this long.”
The worry in his voice scares me more than anything else has all year. The one other person who might know anything is as lost as I am.
“I flew out there,” I admit now that it feels like enough time has passed. “Shortly after you told me he needed space. I went and he never opened his door. I ended up calling for a wellness check, but they claimed they didn’t have a reason to go inside because they heard the toilet flush and his neighbor saw him the day before.”
“Shit, he never told me any of that. I’ve got a key to his apartment so I’ll go this weekend and let myself in,” Josh decides.
“Will you tell me how he’s doing?”
“Yeah.”
When we hang up, I sit on my couch for a long time, staring at nothing. That phone call didn’t make me feel better, but hopefully I’ll know something soon.
September 6th
Our volleyball team rents a cabin for Labor Day weekend and it’s fun in the uncomplicated way most things with this group are. We have a fire by the ocean, too many drinks, someone’s playlist on a speaker. I let myself relax and enjoy the people I’m with.
Callie and I end up sitting apart from the group later, closer to the water. We’re both several drinks past the point of good decisions. One second we're talking, and the next, her hand is on my knee. She leans in, and I meet her mouth with mine. Her lips are soft, and it would be so easy to keep going.
But thoughts of Marcus slam into me, and all I can think is that she’s not him.
I pull back. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
I turn away without looking at her and make my way to my room, sitting on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands.
I kissed someone else.
It was only for a second, but I let it happen. And the worst part is, for that one second, some part of me wanted to. Wanted to feel something that wasn’t missing him.
Fuck. I pull up our text thread and remind myself that he hasn’t reached out once. I scroll through months of “thinking about you” and “I miss you” texts, all one-sided and unanswered.
Maybe there’s nothing left to betray. But I still feel sick, because even after eight months of silence, it’s him I thought of the second her lips touched mine.
I don’t sleep much that night and in the morning, I find Callie on the back deck with a mug of coffee, staring at the water. She glances up when I open the door then looks right back to the ocean.
“Hey,” I say sheepishly.
“Hey.”
I sit down beside her in the empty chair. “I’m sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have let things get that far, and I shouldn’t have run away.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “Evan, I like you. I have for a while now, even though I tried not to. But I also know you’re still not over someone else. You’re not exactly hard to read.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agree because she is.
“Do you want to talk about it? I’m a pretty good listener.”
I bite my lip because do I want to? But I think it might be nice to talk about instead of internalizing it all so I tell Callie what’s really going on. I tell her about Marcus, the three years of Thanksgivings, Chicago, the months of silence I still haven’t fully let myself grieve. I watch her face carefully while I talk, bracing for her to look at me differently once she understands what I’ve been putting myself through, but she just looks sad for me.
“So he hasn’t said a word to you in months? Do you think he’s ever going to reach out?” she asks, once I finish.
“I don’t know anything. I don’t even know if there’s an ‘us’ to come back to, or if I’ve been clinging to nothing.” I rub my hand over my face. “I like you, Callie. You’re cool. But yeah, I’m still clearly not over him.”
She takes a sip of her coffee and nods.
