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“Okay, I love you, Hanna. I’m here. Call me as soon as you can.” We embrace; she wraps me up tight. It’s the kind of hug you get when you experience a loss. And today, I was finally able to mourn my grandfather and the bed of lies my parents sold him.
Separating after some time, she leaves us. I watch her go, and once she’s out of sight, Theo turns me and pulls me in with his hands on my hips.
“Talk to me.” He guides me to straddle him, and once settled, I drop my forehead to his, cupping his face.
“I hurt, deeply. But not as much for me as I do for my grandfather. They sold him so many lies. He died thinking I hated him, Theo,” I sob, those tears returning, blurring my vision.
“I know. That’s the cruelest thing they could have ever done, second to leaving you behind. You see now though that clearly you were never the problem.” He rubs my thighs.
“I do.”
“How does that feel?” he asks.
“Foreign, it makes the guilt stronger. When you spend your whole life thinking you were so unlovable that even the ones programmed to love you couldn’t, it seems like it still belongs to you. The blame, the pain. It’s so hard to explain. It’s too heavy to explain.”
“You know when I was growing up, I had a friend. He was amazing. Hilarious and smart as hell. He always knew how to make me laugh. I swear I don’t laugh that often, but he could always make me do that.”
I wonder where he’s going with this, but I don’t interrupt.
“Our senior year, we were supposed to ditch school on the last day. We were going to get wasted, and I almost went, but Brenda found out and was so disappointed.” He smiles. “I could never stand letting her down. She always had a way of making me feel like absolute garbage when I acted out or broke the rules. She’s the only person I care enough for to let that matter.”
A slight sting hits. I would like to think that just maybe I could mean something to him, and though we have talked about it and made it clear it will never go past sex, it sure seems like this could be something. This is a glimpse inside him he hasn’t shown, and he asked me to call him baby, to need him and lean on him.
Lovers do those things. Not friends with benefits. That’s what lovers do. But I could never be his. And I have to keep reminding myself of that, or I will fall head-first into it and won’t be able to be pulled out.
“So I told him I wasn’t going. He called me an ass and that I let him down. Told me he would go get fucked up while I stayed in class like a little bitch.” We shared a laugh, and then he went, and I stayed. Two hours later, he was gone. He was hit head-on by a drunk driver.” He scoffs. “He wasn’t even drunk himself. He was on his way to get wasted, and his life was taken by a drunk driver.”
He looks over at the floor-to-ceiling windows to the left. “I lost my best friend, and I lived with the guilt for so many years. Still do sometimes. So I know that guilt, puppet. You know it’s not your fault, but it somehow feels better to take on the guilt. The idea of never feeling the blame or feeling guilty makes me feel worse. But at the end of the day, we both know it’s not our fault.”
I don’t realize how emotional I was over his story until a tear lands on his hand on my leg.
“That’s exactly how I feel. If I say it all makes sense and my parents were the ones who made these bad choices, I feel like I’m a selfish person. Guilt sometimes makes you feel better. It makes you believe they are worth forgiving, that they could love you. That’s all we want is to be loved.”
He looks back to me, and I stare deep into his honey eyes, and it’s too much. For him and me.
For me, it’s too much, because I know what I’m feeling and wouldn’t be afraid to chase that and give it a chance. But for him, it’s too much, because he wants to run so damn far. And just like that, he starts to let me in, but when he sees a side of himself that could change the person he has always been, he pushes me out again.
“Listen. I think we need a night out. I won’t tell you what we are doing, but I want you to get dressed in your favorite outfit. Do your hair your favorite way and your makeup, whatever you like. I’m going to go grab some things and change.” He stands, placing me on my feet.
