A few moments later, he says, “I wanted to call you, Vi. I’ve been wanting to contact you for ages now but I didn’t know what to say after the way I behaved. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk to me or what. And when my dad asked me to call you, I freaked out on him too. And I’ve already been acting like such an asshole to him –”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I stop him, all kinds of confused.
We’re both breathing hard now and even though I don’t want to, I still take a few seconds to calm down before launching into questions.
“Your dad asked you to call me?”
I hear him swallow. “Yeah, he did. He said I was punishing you and that I shouldn’t.”
“When was that?”
“About a week ago.”
As soon as he says it, I know. I know exactly when. It was the day I came over to ask him to quit drinking. It was the day I cried in front of him and it felt like I shouldn’t have.
Because it felt like he couldn’t see that.
He couldn’t see me cry and this is what he did. He called up his son and told him to talk to me. To not punish me anymore.
Gosh.
I feel a tear roll down my cheek, hot and thick. “He never told me.”
He never said anything. Not one thing.
Why didn’t he say anything?
Why didn’t he tell me after he did the nicest thing anyone’d ever done for me? A thing that I never even dreamed of someone doing for me. Let alone a man who hates me.
He does, doesn’t he?
Why am I getting more and more convinced that he doesn’t?
“Do you guys… talk?”
Brian’s question brings me out of my thoughts, and I fist the sheet covering my body. I fist it so hard that I’m almost sure I’m this close to tearing it apart.
“Yeah.” I scrunch my eyes shut. “Brian, I… I looked you up on Facebook and I saw your posts about traveling and not going home this summer and I… I came to Colorado. I came to see your dad, Bri. I’m here.”
Although, his dad is not. Today was supposed to be his first day of summer camp and from the looks of it, he’s already left while I was sleeping.
How strange that I could never sleep back in Connecticut but here I don’t realize what’s happening around me while my eyes are closed.
“Do you know where I am right now?” he asks, breaking the tense silence.
I swallow. “Yeah. California.”
He chuckles.
Although there’s no happiness in it. It sounds broken and I feel so guilty for doing this to him again.
Why do I keep hurting him?
“Bri, I’m sorry. I came to apologize to your dad. I swear to you. There’s nothing between your dad and me. I –”
“You knew where I was but instead, you went to him.”
“What?”
I don’t understand what he means. I really don’t and before I can ask him, he speaks. “I like you, Vi.”
I still don’t understand and maybe my silence alerts him of that because he explains, “I wanted to ask you out that night. On the night of your birthday.”
“You wanted to ask me out?” I ask in a squeaky voice.
“Yeah, I did.”
He wanted to ask me out.
Like, on a date?
“You mean, on a date?” I ask him, out loud.
“Yeah. On a date.”
“But… How’s that…” I lick my lips. “How’s that possible? I thought you were always dating someone and… I… We were… We were friends.”
“Yeah, we were. But I wanted more. I wanted to ask you out a million times but I never had the courage. You were always so busy in your own world and… When I saw you with my dad, I fucking lost it.” He sighs. “I just wanted you to see me, you know.”
He wanted me to see him. See him.
God, isn’t that what I used to think myself? Despite all my avoidance of him, I used to think that I wanted Mr. Edwards to see me.
And Brian, his son, wanted the same thing from me?
He wanted me to see him the way I wanted his dad to see me.
Oh God.
God.
All the while I was waiting for his dad to see me, he was waiting for me to see him?
I think I’m gonna… I think I’m gonna throw up.
“I didn’t… I had no… idea.”
He chuckles again but it’s rueful this time. “I know. I know that.”
I press a hand to my chest, trying to smother the pain in there.
“Brian, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Believe me, it is,” he tries to calm me down.
“It is?” I ask in a tear-thickened voice.
“I don’t feel that way about you anymore, Vi.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. I don’t, sorry. I think it was the whole moving away thing, you know. You were going somewhere else and I was going somewhere else and I just felt… sad about that, I think.”