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“You’re getting absolutely everything out of this that you want?”
And she couldn’t say yes. She couldn’t look Fia in the eye and lie to her like that. Even though she wanted to. She wanted to say yes, because she wanted to believe it. Because she wanted to be able to tell herself that she was getting what she wanted.
Yeah. She really wished that were true.
“Not everything. But some people don’t get everything, do they? I mean...we don’t get to have our parents be normal people. We get to have what they’ll give. I can’t go back and make a different decision about...well...this,” she said, putting her hand on her stomach. “And Gus was there for me and...”
“Is he a compromise?”
“No. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Except in love with you. I know you, Alaina. You like romance novels. And you want that for yourself.”
“But I don’t get to have it.”
“Says who?”
“If Gus won’t love me, then I don’t get it. Because no one else will do.”
“Maybe you should ask him for more.”
“But I offered him this for nothing.”
“That’s great. It was a free trial. Having a bright, wonderful, perfect woman in love with you for a while. With no expectation. Now maybe you need to set one.”
Her sister patted her on the hand, and Alaina didn’t quite know what to do with any of it. And it was something she couldn’t get out of her head, the whole way home. Something she couldn’t let go of, when she and Gus went back to the house that night.
And it wasn’t about the words, actually. It was about the distance she could feel, and the things that he held back from her. Like the issue with the bedroom, and the other things he decided were closed doors.
It was that she thought the more she felt for him, the more she became aware of the wall in him, the more she felt lonely even when she was with him, that she could feel the distance between them even when they were sitting right next to each other.
*
WHENTHEYGOThome from the evening of working at the farm store, Gus was beat.
He went into the kitchen, conscious of the fact that he had a hitch in his back, opened the door and took a beer out. Then he leaned against the refrigerator door, opened up the bottle and took a long drag on it.
He didn’t know where Alaina was, but frankly he could use a little bit of distance.
He was feeling...tired. Old.
He was feeling like he was on the edge of some things falling apart and he couldn’t even say why. Because she loved him.
And that was perfect.
He was going to be a father.
His throat felt tight.
And somehow, everything felt like boxes, stacked up inside his soul, precarious, on the edge of collapsing.
“Hi.”
He looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, wearing a white nightie that barely grazed the tops of her thighs.
“Shit,” he said, nearly choking on his beer as he set it down quickly on the counter.
And he would’ve said that he was hoping she’d gone to bed. That he didn’t have the energy for all of this. That he wanted the distance. But she was here. Standing right there looking like an angel, and he wasn’t going to be able to deny that.
