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I hated myself, because I couldn’t quite believe her. Believe us.
We fucked till it was time for Rachel to pack. We laughed as she threw her clothes (new ones because I’d torn the old ones, new ones because the old ones weren’t who she wanted to be anymore) into her suitcase. We were all over each other like horny teenagers on the staircase. We were still in each other’s arms at the doorway when the cab pulled up.
“I won’t be long,” Rachel promised, her words muffled by my chest.
“I know.”
“Just some things to sort out with the show.”
“I know,” I said again.
“Then I’ll be back,” she said.
It felt stupid to say “I know” again. So I said nothing. I’d heard it all before. We’d been talking about the plan for days. We’d made our decision to be together. I knew that. I did. I knew. I knew, at least, what we’d said.
When we finally pulled away from each other, I told her to wait. I almost forgot. Rachel looked at me questioningly when I handed over the signed divorce papers which had been signed from almost the start. She pushed them away. I urged them gently into her hands.
“I don’t want them,” she said even as her fingers folded over the edges. “We talked. We forgive each other. We decided. We…”
When her words trailed off, I said with a smile, “Hey, a deal’s a deal, right?”
Rachel’s gaze was steady on mine.
“I’m coming back,” she said.
I know. I know that’s what you said.
“Will you be here?” she asked.
I told her yes. But I saw her searching my eyes long after the word left my lips. I saw her thinking the same thing: I know. I know that’s what you said.
Why couldn’t we trust each other? Why couldn’t we believe this was it? This was forever this time?
When Rachel stretched up onto her toes to kiss me, it was perfection. It was the Rachel who danced on diner tables and ran away from Elvis in a wedding dress that left her tits bare to be coloured with the Vegas city lights. It was the Rachel who held me in her arms, who held me tight. It was the Rachel I was sure, so goddamn sure would never let me go.
Her lips on mine were everything I wanted. And yet her “see you soon” sounded like a goodbye to me. The goodbye we never had.
I watched her cab disappear around the corner and went slowly back inside. I lingered at the base of the stairs, remembering her miraculous appearance. Going over our thirty days together, our “marriage”. Trying to convince myself that if it was all we had, it was enough.
The doorbell ringing made my heart leap. Because it was Rachel. Rachel came back. She’d felt the way I’d felt: that something was still off, something still not right. She’d demanded the taxi turn around. She’d run to the door.
We were going to fix what was still somehow broken. We were going to fight. We were going to yell and scream and curse one another long into the night. We would go at it all the next day if needed. We would hate each other for another thirty days if that was what it took. But we were going to do it because we loved each other. Because we believed in each other. Because we were done fucking leaving.
Except when I opened the door it wasn’t Rachel. Her cab wasn’t back. She wasn’t there to yank inside, to push against the wall, to shout at: “How could you have possibly left like that? Left us like that? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Goddammit, Rachel, I love you.”
It wasn’t Rachel.
It was a man. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Prim in a tan suit. He told me his name. American accent. I should have known then, American fucking accent.
“I’m looking for Rachel.”
“Who’s she to you?” I asked.
Maybe I already fucking knew.
“Her fiancé,” the man said, affronted.
I laughed darkly as I looked him up and down from gelled hair to shined shoes.
“So it’s you then,” I said.
“Me?”
I snickered. Because it was funny. It was really fucking funny. The man looked at me like I was mad. I probably was.
“You’re her big, new, shiny role.”
