Worth Saving(65)

I drive through the residential area, knowing how close I am to his house, and my nerves start to kick in. I don’t even know if he’s home, and even if he is, I don’t know if he’ll actually talk to me. If he sees me at the door, he probably won’t even open it, in which case I’ll just have to come back another day. Regardless of what he does, I’m not giving up until I know I’ve done everything I could—until he hears everything from me and has time to think about it. I’m not giving up because I care about him too much, and I think he cares about me too, and that’s worth saving.

I pull into his driveway and park the car. He only has one car, and he parks it in the garage, so I can’t tell if he’s home or not because the garage is always closed. I take a deep breath and open the door, trying to use the cool breeze to calm myself down, because I feel like my skin is on fire. I’m hot all over; from my ponytail all the way down to the soles of the white tennis shoes I decided to wear. The nerves are almost unbearable, but I press on and knock on the door.

At first, I don’t hear or see anything. I give it a good thirty seconds before I knock again, but again, there’s nothing. Maybe he isn’t home after all. I wait another thirty seconds and knock one last time. Still, there’s nothing. So, I turn on my heel and start towards the car, and that’s when I hear the door opening up behind me.

The man I see standing there isn’t Austin. I mean, it is, but he’s obviously not himself. He looks tired and defeated—like his soul has been snatched out of his body and there’s nothing left but an empty shell. The look on his face hurts me to my heart and I instantly want to cry, but I push it back down. Even though I feel terrible, I know I’m not the victim here, he is. So, I fight off my tears and focus on him.

I take a step closer to the door, but he lifts one hand, signaling for me to stop right where I am.

“What do you want?” he says. His voice is ragged and low, like he’s been screaming all night and his vocal chords are shot. After he speaks, he just stands there staring at me, his eyes cold and devoid of happiness.

“Umm, I uhh,” I stammer, unsure of what to say first. “Umm, I just really need to talk to you. I was calling you all night, and you didn’t answer so I got nervous. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I needed to see you were okay.”

“Well, here I am,” he replies. “Obviously I’m not dead, so you can quit worrying about me. I’m sure there’s other guys out there for you to be worried about.”

I close my eyes for a second and allow that shot at me to sink in.

“Okay, I deserve that,” I say after a loud exhale. “Look, I know you’re upset, and you deserve to be . . .”

“Did I deserve to be lied to?” he interrupts.

“No, of course not. Austin, please just give me a minute.”

“A minute? A minute to do what? Lie some more?”

“No, a minute to explain.”

“You had over a month to explain!” he bellows. His voice echoes into the street and I hear a dog start barking in response. He’s furious, but he takes a second to breathe and gain his composure before he speaks again. This time he’s quieter. “You had almost seven weeks to explain, so what good is another minute gonna to do?”

He steps back and starts to close the door, but I rush over and place my hand on it.

“Austin, wait, please!” I say, now the volume of my voice is starting to go up. “I know you’re upset. I understand. I’m not here to try to convince you to not be upset. You have every right to be angry with me, because I know how much I hurt you with this lie. All I want is the chance to explain how all of this came to be—how all of this developed from beginning to end. I just need you to listen to me for a few moments so I can give you all of the information, and then you can take all the time you need. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want me to do, but I really hope it’s not. Please, Austin. Please let me explain.”

Everything in his eyes is saying no. I can see it written on his face that he wants nothing more than to slam this door so hard it breaks my hand, but he doesn’t. He holds it back, and instead, he swallows hard and steps back from the door.

“Fine,” is all he says, then he walks into the house and leaves the door open for me to follow him.

He walks in and sits down at the dining room table while I close the door behind me. When I make my way over to the table, I look down at him, but he doesn’t look up, he just stares at the floor. I sit down on the opposite end of the table and clear my throat.

“Okay, umm,” I begin, but he still doesn’t look at me. It’s awkward, but I continue anyway. “First of all, I really just want to say I’m so sorry for lying to you, Austin. I know that was wrong, and the right thing to do would’ve been to tell you right from the jump what I did for a living. I know that, but truth is when I met you, I liked you. I liked you right away, and that felt very different from the times I’ve met other guys outside of . . . work. You were so genuine and sweet, and I could tell you were hurting inside just like I was, but you were still going out of your way to put a smile on my face. I was drawn to that. So, I lied to you and told you I was a bartender, in the hopes that maybe you’d like me, too. When things between us started to pick up, I was too afraid to tell you the truth because I didn’t want to lose you. I liked having you there to make me smile. So, I kept my job a secret, hoping I’d find the right time to tell you.”