Forever, Interrupted(43)

“Mmm-hmm,” I said, listening.

“I’m worried that my meeting you, meeting this fantastic girl who is perfect for me . . . ” he said, “I’m worried it will be too much. I’m worried she’ll feel left behind. Or . . . that I’m moving on too quickly or something. There’s nothing left in the house to change. And I feel like she’s about to”—he didn’t say it lightly—“crash.”

“You feel like you need to stagnate because she is stagnating? Or that you need to keep her at bay for now until she settles?”

“Kind of. For some reason, I just think, when I tell my mom I’m in a really great relationship, some part of her isn’t going to be ready for that.”

“I guess I don’t understand why it’s so dramatic. I mean, you’ve dated other girls before.”

“Not girls like you, Elsie. This is . . . you are different.”

I didn’t say anything back. I just smiled and looked him in the eyes.

“Anyway.” He went back to his sandwich, finishing it up. “When I tell my mom about you, it’s going to be serious because I’m serious about you and I don’t know . . . I’m worried she’ll take it as a rejection. Like I’m no longer there for her.”

“So I’m a secret?” I asked, starting to feel bothered and hoping I was misunderstanding.

“For now,” he said. “I’m being such a baby, scared of my mom. But if you don’t have a problem with it, I just want to be delicate with her.”

“Oh, sure,” I said, but then felt myself speaking up. “But not forever, right? I mean, you’ll tell her eventually.” I didn’t say the last part as a question and yet, that’s exactly what it was.

Ben nodded as he finished chewing. “Absolutely!” he said. “When the time is right, I know she’ll be thrilled.” He rolled up the wax paper from his sandwich. He pitched it toward the trash can and missed. He laughed at himself, walked over, picked up the ball of paper, and put it in the trash can. By the time he grabbed my hand and started to lead us back to my place, I had come around to his way of seeing it.

“Thank you, Elsie. For understanding and not thinking I am a gigantic douchey mama’s boy.”

“You’re not scared your mom will be mad at you,” I said. “That would make you a gigantic douchey mama’s boy. You’re just scared to hurt her feelings. That makes you sensitive. And it’s one of the reasons I love you.”

“And the fact that you understand that about me and it’s a reason you love me, makes you the coolest girl in the world,” he said, as he put his arm around me and kissed my temple. We walked awkwardly down the block, too close together to walk gracefully.

? ? ?

When we got to my apartment, we brushed our teeth and I washed my face, both of us using the sink in our own perfectly timed intervals. We took off our jeans. He took off his shirt and handed it to me silently, casually, as if it were now an impulse. I took it and put it on, as he turned on the one bedside lamp and picked up a book with a wizard on the cover. I got in beside him and put my head on his shoulder.

“You’re going to read?” I asked.

“Just until my brain stops,” he said, and then he put the book down and looked at me. “Want me to read to you?” he offered.

“Go for it,” I said, thinking that it sounded like a nice way to fall asleep. My eyes were closed by the time he got to the end of the page, and the next thing I knew it was morning.





JUNE


I tell Ana I want to go, and within seconds, we are headed for the door.

“What’s the matter?” Ana asks.

“No, nothing. I’m just ready to leave,” I say. Ana’s keys are in her hand, and my hand is on the doorknob.

“You’re leaving?” Susan asks. I turn to see her a few feet behind me.

“Oh,” I say. “Yes, we’re going to make the drive back to Los Angeles.” What is she thinking right now? I can’t tell. She’s so stone-faced. Is she happy I’m leaving? Is this all the evidence she needs that I don’t belong in their lives?

“Okay,” she says. “Well.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “I wish you the best of luck, Elsie.”

“You too, Susan,” I say. I turn around and catch Ana’s eye, and we walk out the door. It isn’t until my feet have hit the cement in her driveway that I realize why I am so bothered by what she just said, aside from how disingenuous it was.

She thinks she’ll never see me again. It’s not like I live in Michigan. She could easily see me if she wanted to. She just doesn’t want to.

When we get home, I run to the bathroom and shut the door. I stand against it, holding the knob still in my hand. It’s over. Ben is over. This is done. Tomorrow people will expect me to start moving on. There is no more Ben left in my life. I left him in Orange County.

I lock the door behind me, calmly walk over to the toilet, and puke bacon-wrapped dates. I wish I had eaten more in the past few days so I’d have something to give. I want to expel everything from my body, purge all of this pain that fills me into the toilet and flush it down.

I open the bathroom door and walk out. Ana is standing there, waiting.

“What do you want to do?” she asks.