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So I knock on my own front door and wait. When the door swings open, it’s Lena on the other side, and fuck, it just hits me all over again. She’s still every bit as beautiful as she was when we were eighteen, and for an instant, it’s easy to imagine that the last six years had gone much differently.
She looks a little disheveled, blonde hair a bit bedraggled and her clothes slightly rumpled, but there’s a glow to her, and despite my momentary fantasy, I know I’m not the one who left her looking like this.
It feels like a knife straight in the chest, but I remind myself that this is the way things should be. This is what I wanted…right?
“Sorry,” I say, “Kinda locked myself out when I gave you my key.”
“It’s fine,” she steps back, widening the door, “Elliot and I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
I lift my eyebrow in a bit of surprise. I’m not sure what could be left to say, but I just nod and step inside, lugging the moving boxes with me.
Elliot’s coming down the hall just behind Lena, and he furrows his brow when he sees all the boxes. “What’s all this?”
“I told you I was going to remove myself from the equation,” I said simply, “I haven’t found a place yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll be gone.”
To my surprise, neither one of them looks relieved by this. Elliot looks stung, and even more shocking is the fury on Lena’s face. “So you’re just running away again?”
I reel back, stunned. “I’m not-”
“You are. If you hadn’t loaned me your key, you were just going to slink in here with those without saying a word to anyone, weren’t you?” she demands.
I grimace, but I don’t answer. I wasn’t planning to take off completely without a word, but she’s not wrong, either, I was planning to announce my exit once I had a place to go and at least most of my stuff boxed up.
“You don’t just get to keep running off any time a feeling scares you, Shaun,” she presses, “You did it to me, you did it to Elliot, and now you’re trying to do it to both of us all over again, but it’s not fucking happening.”
“Lena, I told you, I’m sorry about disappearing on you, I know I was a coward and it was wrong. But-”
“But nothing,” she counters, “If you’re about to run again, your apology means nothing.”
I look at Elliot, and he simply nods. “We’ve been sweeping this shit under the rug, Shaun, but you can only stuff so much under there before something’s got to be dealt with.”
“What do you want me to say? You want me to just stick around and be reminded of all of this shit every day?”
“You really think we’d stop thinking about you just because you aren’t here?” Elliot asked, “You think vanishing just means you take all our memories with you and we won’t feel pain anymore? Because that’s bullshit, and you know it is.”
Lena nods in agreement. “All you’re doing is leaving behind unfinished chapters, Shaun.”
“You could stay and work shit out, and you know what we’d see when we look at you? We’d see you, Shaun, not some collage of every mistake you’ve ever made. You’re a human being, and yeah, you’ve made mistakes, but so have we. For every bad memory each one of us has with you, there’s a dozen good ones. But when you take off in the middle of something shitty, nothing’s solved for anyone and everyone’s left to dwell on what went bad.”
I fall silent, the words cutting deeply. He’s got a point. With both of them, things had been blissfully happy…until they went wrong and I shut down.
By avoiding the problems, I’ve turned them from hurdles we could overcome into fucking mountains we’ll have to scale to get past.
“I just thought a clean break would be easier,” I whisper, “I convinced myself it was.”
“But that’s just the thing, Shaun, it wasn’t a clean break,” Lena replies, “You didn’t close the door, you just walked out it and left it open.”
“And just like leaving any other door open, you left room for an infestation,” Elliot adds, “But resentment’s harder to kill than roaches.”
The words hit home, and for a long moment, I’m silent, staring down at the floor. “Ok, so I stay, and we talk, but what then? I’m just supposed to stick around and watch Elliot live the life I gave up?”
I can’t say I don’t deserve it, and I have to admit, karmically, it seems like a pretty just punishment. But fuck, the idea of hanging around to watch the two of them fall more and more in love is almost more than I can take.
“I don’t know,” Lena admits, “I don’t know what happens next, Shaun, all I know is that Elliot loves you, and so do I, and we don’t want you to leave again.”
I look from her, to Elliot, who slowly nods. I step over to Lena and take her chin in my hand, tilting her face towards mine. “You…still?”
“I told you forever, and I meant it,” she says, her voice trembling, “Did you?”
