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Fourteen
Iheard a knock on my door almost as soon as I hung my keys on its rung. Looking at my watch and frowning, I opened the door.
“Babe,” Michael said. “I’m so sorry.” I grimaced but stepped aside to let him in. “Work ran late, and I thought I was going to get there, but I couldn’t get there in time. By the time I was done, it was late and I figured we could see the gang another day. Forgiven?”
I don’t know if it was the rehashing of painful memories, or Andrew’s insistence on vulnerability, but something in me snapped. “No, not forgiven.”
“What do you mean?” Michael frowned, too. “You know I couldn’t have gotten away.”
“I don’t know any such thing, Michael. It was important for you to be there tonight. It was important to me that you were there. When you didn’t show up, I was hurt by that.”
“Well, I don’t know what you want me to do. I have to make a living for us.”
“Yes, I get that.” I sighed and ran my hands over my head. “But it’s like it’s not a big deal for you to hurt me.”
“Whoa, where is this coming from?” He moved toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Of course it’s a big deal if I hurt you. I didn’t know this meant so much to you. I thought we were just hanging out with Cat and Jer like we do every week.”
“We were, but—” I sighed again, shaking my head. “We’re getting married, Michael, and it feels like you’re getting more distant instead of less. I need to know that you’re committed to showing up when you say you will.” I looked up at him. “Sometimes, it feels that you’re not really present. I want—I deserve—someone who can be my rock. Can you do that?”
“I can be that,” he said. “I will be that. It won’t happen again, babe, promise.”
I sighed, not willing to say it aloud but not quite believing him. Lately, it felt like I saw him less and less. I had already felt like I didn’t see a lot of Michael, what with a grueling football schedule and working at his family’s store. But now, the distance between us grew into its own entity, maturing from clenched jaws and agitated movements to excuses about working late. While it’s true that summer was the second busiest season for Michael’s store, and in football, it had never been so busy that he couldn’t call me to say he’d be late. A growing sense of dread and suspicion bloomed in my stomach as I started to put a timeline together in my head. Our distance started happening after Andrew and I reconnected, I realized. I didn’t want to say it aloud, because if it was said, it couldn’t be ignored. If it was said, I couldn’t ignore it. But it had to be said.
“Michael,” I said finally. “Do you have a problem with Andrew?”
“What? No, babe.” Michael shook his head emphatically and puffed his chest out in the way he does. “Our relationship is strong. I know I’m in love with you and you’re in love with me. Nothing will come between us, right?”
I nodded, even as doubt joined dread and suspicion deep in my belly. “Right,” I echoed. “Nothing can come between us.”
I didn’t know whom I believed less: me, or Michael.
* * *
“Confronting him is only the first step. Now, you have to learn how to deal with your hurt feelings.”
I rolled my eyes as I broke off another piece of my cinnamon roll. “Okay, Brené Brown.”
Andrew and I decided to meet up at “our” coffee shop the next day. Even though now I could see how uncomfortable Michael was with my relationship with Andrew, I needed validation that I wasn’t completely crazy, that I wasn’t imagining it. Cat was busy—with what, I couldn’t be sure—so I went with the next best thing. Unfortunately for me, the Next Best Thing was also partly the source of the issue.
Andrew put his hand over mine, waiting until I looked up. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make a joke when you’re feeling insecure.”
I pulled my hand away, delving into my cinnamon roll with a vicious bite. Andrew’s uncanny ability to look deep into my soul was disconcerting—even though, technically, that was the whole reason I wanted to meet up with him in the first place. Much like my feelings for Andrew, my desire to be understood by someone, anyone, played tug-of-war with my desire to be left alone.
I continued to look at my cinnamon roll, avoiding Andrew’s eyes as much as possible. “I wasn’t feeling insecure.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, so maybe I was feeling a little ‘out there’, but so what?” I picked up my tea and downed half of its contents. “I have a right to my feelings, don’t I?”
“Yes. But you might want to acknowledge them.” Andrew bit into his breakfast burrito.
“For what?”
“For yourself.”
