No. Solitude was so much safer, so much less risky. I went to the guest room closet and dug out the binoculars, and turned out all the lights and prowled to my spot by the window. I trained the lenses on her apartment. All the lights were on, and her drapes were open. There was a rectangle of paper in the center window. I focused on the words.
There’s always a way, it read, in her swirly, girly-shit writing.
I put down the binoculars and sat on the couch with my head in my hands. I should never have told her that, because there wasn’t a way. My dungeon would remain as empty as my heart. She was right, there was nothing inside me.
Without Chere, there was absolutely nothing at all.
Chere
“Chere, baby. You need to get out of bed.” Andrew nudged me, checking for life. I’d been hiding under my covers for about a week now, because I didn’t want to face the world.
“Chere,” he said again. “You haven’t eaten all day. I brought cookies.”
“Don’t want cookies.”
Andrew’s eyes widened. “You always want cookies. I’m calling a mental health hotline.”
I sat up and tried to hit him with my pillow. And missed. Maybe I did need to eat something. “I don’t need a hotline,” I said, to make the worried look go away. “I just can’t believe…”
I can’t believe he left me again.
I’d tried to call. I’d tried to write to him, but my emails bounced back. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d told him he had nothing inside him, which was so awful and wrong. His expression when I said it…
Now I was the one who felt empty inside.
“I have to go apologize,” I said to Andrew, huddling deeper in the bedsheets.
“You know what’s going to happen if you go to him. More sex. More confusion. From what you’ve told me… I don’t know.” He touched my hair, brushing it back on the pillow. “He’s warned you he would be bad for you, that he can’t give you the relationship you need.”
“You’re the one who said he loved me.”
“But if he can’t express that love…” He gave me his worried-best-friend look. “What has he brought to your life besides a bunch of drama?”
Oh, I don’t know. Everything. He’d bought me a place to live. He’d supported my dreams and given me the nudge to make them happen. If he hadn’t left me the first time, maybe I wouldn’t have gone about my coursework with so much focus. Everything he’d done had benefitted me, except this idea that he couldn’t give me love.
“He told me that love lies,” I said. “That’s what he believes. He doesn’t know how to trust.”
“You didn’t know how to trust either, six months ago.”
“Yeah, but I still wanted to trust at some point in my future. I wanted someone to prove trustworthy.”
“You think Price is trustworthy?”
“Maybe,” I said weakly.
Andrew frowned at me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Price had said. I can’t be what you want. I don’t have it in me. If that was true, why had he done so many generous things? Why all the help? Why all the kisses and poetry?
“He doesn’t realize he’s a good person,” I said softly.
“He can be a good person, babes, and still not be right for a committed relationship.”
“I think other women have made him believe he’s shitty and cruel. But he’s not. They didn’t understand him.”
“And you do? You’ve been a wreck these past few weeks, feeling freaked out and confused all the time. It shouldn’t be that way. Since I’ve met Craig—”
“Oh, Craig. Perfect, well-adjusted Craig,” I snapped. “We can’t all be so lucky. Before you had Craig, you used to gush about Price. Ooh, he loves you so much. Ooh, he’s so hot. Ooh, I want that.”
“That was before I knew how, uh, complicated he really was. And I’ve changed now. I have higher standards because Craig has changed me for the better. Can you say the same about Price?”
Yes, I could. He’d changed me. He’d made me see the potential in myself. Now I had to do the same for him.
“I need to go see him,” I said, throwing back the sheets. “I need to explain that I was wrong, that he has plenty of love inside him, that he’s not this monster women have made him out to be.”
“Oh, Chere.”
I could see Andrew was torn between supporting me and trying to protect me, the same way I’d been torn when he’d decided to start escorting. But in my heart, I knew Price and I were meant to be together. We’d been drawn to each other even when we were apart. He’d said himself that I was the only one who ever understood him, and I understood that he’d run away now because he wasn’t okay with himself. He’d held me off all this time because he didn’t believe he was good enough. He was afraid because women had lied to him and betrayed his trust. Love lies.