“Now it’s coming back to me,” I say.
“We’re still talking about it,” Leila rejoins and my devious plan to get out of having this conversation falls on its face.
“All right,” I tell her. “Do you understand why I might be a little uncomfortable with that? Of the two times I’ve met the guy, the first time, I walked in on the two of you making out, and the second, he ignored my existence while engrossed in looking for a place for you to live.”
“I get why you’d feel that way, but it’s not what you think,” she says.
She explains how he was feeling self-conscious about the way he kisses and that he badgered her into giving him a capsule review. I just happened to walk in at the wrong time.
The story, despite its vague familiarity, doesn’t do much to ease my concerns.
“Let’s not fight about this,” I tell her. “I get that he’s your friend. I’m uncomfortable with it, but I’ll just have to deal with that for now.”
“Yeah,” she says, “you will.”
And with that, we’re about to have our first fight.
“How would you feel if I told you I wasn’t going to stop hanging out with Wrigley, despite your feelings?”
I think it’s a pretty fair point.
Leila disagrees.
“It’s not the same thing and you know it,” she says. “I never had sex with Mike. That was the first and only—”
“You’ve never had sex with him, but I guarantee you have stronger feelings for him than I ever did for Wrigley.”
“I don’t find that hard to believe in the slightest,” she retorts. “I’m surprised you have any feelings at all the way you treat women.”
“The way I treat women?” I seethe. “In what way have I ever treated you poorly?”
“I’m not talking about me,” she says, “I’m talking about all the other ones that you drug in here in the middle of the night, never to return with the same one twice. Do you really think women appreciate that? How deluded are you?”
“I never brought anyone home under false pretenses,” I snap. “Everyone involved knew exactly what it was before it ever happened.”
“Yeah?” she asks. “Well, what is this?”
I take a breath and steady myself.
There are two options here. I could go for the quick, sharp response and I have no doubt it would feel pretty great right about now, but on the same token, that approach would probably blow up the relationship.
My other option is to try to calm this whole discussion and tell her that, despite how angry I am right now, I see my relationship with her as the most promising thing I’ve ever known.
What I really need to do is say something, because she’s just staring at me now, forming her own opinions on how I really feel and the longer I go without saying it, the less she’s going to believe whatever comes out of my mouth.
I’m still not talking.
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” she says, getting up from the couch and trying to make a break for her bedroom.
“I love you!” I shout. “But you’re leaving and it’s not like we’re talking about some far off possibility, you’re leaving next week. How is that supposed to work? I don’t even know if I’ll be able to swing this place on my own. I want us to be together. Even sloshed out of my mind I was begging you to stay. That’s where I want this relationship to go. How about you?”
The bad news is that she’s crying now. The good news? There is no fucking good news.
“You’re right,” she bawls. “We should just end it.”
And shit just got real.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I tell her. “I want to make this work. More than anything, I want to make this work.”
“But you’re right,” she says, “it can’t. I’m taking that job. I have to. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. You’re here, doing what you’ve always wanted to do.”
“Leila, don’t do this. We can’t just give up on everything now. We’ve only been together for a couple of days and we’ve already fought more for this than most people do in an entire relationship.”
She pushes past me and slams the door to her room behind her.
I don’t know what else to say.
I don’t know that there’s anything else I can say.
I’m starting to wonder if I just conjured up my feelings for Leila as a way to distance myself further from Wrigley.
Even though I know it’s not true, the thought takes its toll and by the next breath, I’m walking back to the freezer.
* * *
Okay, so I’m not drunk, but I’m sure as fuck not sober either.
I’ve been lying on my bed, pissed off and torn up for I don’t know how long.
This isn’t how I want to spend what little time I have left with Leila, but I don’t know if there’s another option. She’s closing me out.
I get it. Really, I do.
It’s easier to leave if things aren’t going so well, but that doesn’t mean this has to be the end of anything.
That’s when it hits me: I should probably be talking about this with her.
I get up from the bed and take a moment to find my balance. I may be a little more inebriated than I thought.
At least I’m nowhere near as drunk as I was last night.
I set the bottle which, up until this point, had been welded to my hand, on my dresser and I open the door to my room.
Guess who’s sitting on the couch, talking to Leila as she wipes tears from her eyes.
I’ll give you one hint: it’s not me.
“Hey, Mike,” I say. “Leila, are you all right?”
“Maybe I should give you two a few minutes to talk,” Mike says and gets up from the couch.
“Thanks, Mike,” I tell him. “I appreciate that.”
He nods and walks to the kitchen. He’s hardly giving us privacy, but now really isn’t the time for me to say anything about it.
“I know what we’re both doing,” I tell her. “We’re finding reasons to be mad because we’re afraid of losing each other.”
“It doesn’t seem like either one of us have had to look very hard,” she says, wiping her nose on her shirtsleeve.
I smile at her.
“I guess you’re right,” I say. “A lot is happening with both of us right now. Maybe this wasn’t the right time to start a relationship, but I don’t regret that we did.”
Her eyes are so wide as she looks up at me.
“I don’t regret it either,” she says. “But how are we supposed to keep going when we both know it’s all going to be over in a week?”
We keep going because we care about each other.
We’ll find a way to make it work.
We keep going because we make each other feel things we’ve never really felt.
“I don’t know.”
Of all the possible combinations of words that could have come out of my mouth, that was one of the worst.
“So what are we doing?” she asks, the tears again forming in her eyes.
“We’re getting to know each other,” I tell her. “That sort of thing takes time.”
“Yeah,” she says. “But that doesn’t solve anything. We don’t have time.”
“We have a little,” I tell her. “If you’re not sick of me by the time you move, we can have more—I know I would like that.”
“Why don’t you move with me?” she asks.
And there’s the possibility I didn’t want her to realize.
“Things are only just starting to turn around at l’Iris. Wilks is still finding himself as a chef. I can’t just up and leave Jim without anyone to help,” I tell her. “He gave me a chance and kept me on when anyone else would have just fired me on the spot. I can’t walk out on him.”
“Then you’ll commute,” she says. “I found the place I want to move to. It’s got two bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths. It’s in a really good neighborhood and the rent is a fraction of what it is here.”
“I don’t have a car,” I tell her.
“I don’t have a car either,” she says. “How else are we going to do it, though?”
“I have a car,” Mike says from the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, Mike, but do you mind?” I ask.