On Rotation(84)
“Where is it coming from?” I asked, aghast. “Ricky. You just told me that your ex is pregnant, and that you just spent the last week ‘helping her out.’ And now, you’re leaving me in bed so you can take a super sketchy phone call. Am I not allowed to feel some kind of way about that?”
“No, you’re not. Because you should know me better than to think that me just getting on the phone is ‘sketchy,’” he said, his voice saturated with frustration. “Come on, Angie. Don’t you trust me?”
Did I trust him? I thought about that question, watching his expression slacken with every second of my silence. If he’d asked me this same question a week ago, when we were still passing our days cracking jokes at my dining table, I would have answered with an emphatic Yes, of course. But too much had happened since then. We had regressed.
“I don’t know,” I said. I brought my knees to my chest, looking down at the crumpled sheets where he’d lain only a few minutes before. “I want to. But I don’t think I do.”
Ricky didn’t say anything for a long time. I could feel the frustration waft off him in waves, hear the crack of his knuckles as he stretched and flexed his fingers. When he finally did speak, it was in a hushed, strained tone.
“I don’t know what you want me to do about that,” he said. “Because the way I see it, I haven’t given you any reason to feel that way.”
I sputtered, taken aback.
“No reason? Not one? Really?” I said. “I never know what you’re feeling, Ricky. The last time I decided to trust you, you disappeared. And now, you can’t even stay in my bed for ten minutes after we’ve fucked in it before you’re running out of it.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, in a way that suggested that sorry was a generous term. “Next time I talk to my family, I’ll make sure I’m still naked in bed with you.”
Maybe if he’d been truly apologetic, I could have been assuaged. If he loved me, if there was nothing to hide, why the defensiveness? Why not just laugh, why not just hold me, why not say something like, “Why you bugging, girl?” and tell me stories about this “Auntie” of his? I wished Tabatha could stop being right all the time. She’d called it herself—if I had no doubts about Ricky, if he had no doubts about me, if we could come to my family as a clear, united, star-crossed front, then it would be worth it. If Ricky were stalwart, I could be sure that choosing him over a top residency program wouldn’t end in tragedy. If his affection was consistent, if it was predictable, I could give him the deed to my heart.
As it was . . . Ricky was too much of a risk.
I must’ve muttered the last part out loud, because Ricky wound back like he’d been stung.
“A risk?” he said. His eyes widened, and he laughed darkly, shaking his head. “Yo, what the fuck? Is that what you think, that I’m too much of a risk?”
I grit my teeth, not answering, knowing that would be all the answer he would need.
“Ah,” Ricky said. “No. Don’t bother. I get it.” His smile was acerbic. “I know your sister doesn’t think I’m good enough for you, right? And you don’t think I’m good enough either.”
I recoiled. “That’s not true—”
“Yes it is, Angie,” Ricky said. “That’s why you’re doing this, right? That’s why you’re making this hard for no reason. Because you’ve decided that I’m not, what, rich enough or something? Like you’re slumming it with me.”
“No! No. That’s not it at all!” I said, knowing that it wasn’t entirely the truth, knowing exactly what face my mother would pull if I told her about him—What does he do? Oh. What about his parents? Ay. “I just . . .”
I took in a deep breath. How did I tell Ricky the real truth: that my moments alone had been revelational? That they had forced me to recall the three and a half years between Sean and Frederick, and realize that they had been joyful? That I could count the number of times that I had cried in that time on one hand? I had felt like I needed romantic love to feel whole, but the truth was that every man I let into my heart took a chunk of it with him, made me feel less when I should have felt more. And Ricky had been the worst of them. The uncertainty, the anxiety, he inspired in me? I’d created a version of him in my head, then broken my own heart when he didn’t fit neatly into its mold. The Ricky who’d told me he loved me hardly an hour ago felt so different from the one standing in front of me now, teeming with fury because I’d dared ask him for reassurance.
“You realize I’m moving in a year and a half, right?” I said instead. “And I won’t be able to tell you where? I’m going to open an envelope and find out. Are you planning on coming with me?”
Ricky blinked back at me in shock, and I held back a snort. It’s not like this is the first time I’m bringing this up. Did you not think Match was relevant to you, Mr. Family Man?
“I don’t know,” Ricky said after a heartbeat. “Figured we would cross that bridge if we got there.”
If, not when. Ricky had never spoken about us in uncertainties, not since blanket fort. It had always been when you meet Abuela. When we take that pottery class. When we go to New Orleans. For someone who had just claimed to want to be sure about his next relationship, Ricky didn’t sound so sure about me. All at the first sign of conflict. The corners of my mouth wobbled, and I fought hard against the sob that wanted to break through and won.