Page 82 of Drowning Erin
The idea has its appeal, but I still push him away. “Who says I plan to sleep with youagain?”
There’s a hint of a smirk around his mouth. “We both know you’ll sleep with meagain.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “You hurt me when you brought that girl to the table. Maybe this isn’t a real relationship, but if you bring me somewhere, you don’t let someone else hang all over you. How would you have reacted if I’d done that toyou?”
His jaw clenches. His mouth opens, then closes again. “I just—” he begins, and then stops himself with a sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He closes the distance between us, so close that I can feel the whisper of his breath over my skin. “I’m so, so sorry.” He presses his mouth to the corner of my lips, to my cheekbones, my eyelids. “Let’s go home, okay?” heasks.
I tell myself I’m forgiving him because he called ithome, as if his place is ours, and because he’s so full of regret. But the truth is I was probably going to forgive him no matterwhat.
56
Brendan
Three YearsEarlier
Icome home from a tour,and Gabi is crying. My shit is spread all over the floor—personal shit she had no business going through. Sitting beside her on the bed are pictures of Erin. Erin grinning ear-to-ear after a crazy bike ride. Erin in her bridesmaid’s dress with her head thrown back, laughing. Erin turning back toward the camera with that knowing look ofhers.
“Is this her?” Gabicries.
I grit my teeth. “You had no right to go through mystuff.”
“I was cleaning the closet,” she says. “Itfell.”
I don’t believe her, but I also feel like I’ve driven her to this—she’s insecure because I’ve made her insecure, because I told her I’m not going with her to California, and when she talks about leaving for Stanford, my words of regret sound as forced as they are. Because when I sleep with her, I am thinking of someone else, and even in our best moments, I know I’d be happier with someoneelse.
Only an asshole would ask her to move out at this point, when she has just a little over a week left in Italy and nowhere else to go. But God knows I wish that I could. I hate that she went through my stuff. I hate coming home to her at all, if I’m being honest. Sometime over the past week or so it’s like a light switched off inside her. Everything about her just seems dark now—she’s either angry or sad, every minute of theday.
She demands to know why I kept all of the photos of Erin. I tell her I didn’t remember they were there, that Erin and I are barely even friends. At least the last part is true. Erin and I aren’t friends. She’s hated me ever since the night of the wedding, and while I could never hate her, I hated being around her during those weeks before I left Colorado. I hate who I became around her and Rob, how bitter I felt, how petty and resentful. So Erin and I aren’t friends now, and we never will be. If it were up to me, I’d never lay eyes on heragain.
57
Erin
Present
Things feeldifferent with Brendan after our argument. All weekend he is gentler with me, as if it’s possible he’s changed his mind about what this could be. I still want the kind of future I once envisioned with Rob: stability and children and Little League games. A small piece of me has begun to hope, though, that I could have some version of that future with Brendaninstead.
We spend Saturday night inside. He convinces me to make him coconut bars and while I bake he sits on the kitchen counter with a map, discussing the first week-long bike tour he’s planning for next spring. I catch myself wishing I could come with him. It seems like he kind of wishes I could gotoo.
Later, we’re lying in bed. The song we danced to at Will and Olivia’s wedding comes on and he pulls me to my feet to dance, though I’m clad in nothing but a T-shirt. God, I wish things had happened differently that night. I wish the deejay’s announcement hadn’t interrupted us. Though Brendan had been awful all summer, I’d somehow known there was more to it. For every shitty thing he’d said, he’d done something sweet—making sure I got to my car safe at night, changing the radio to my favorite station when I came into work. He’d even washed my car one day, although when I’d tried to thank him, he’d insisted it got wet “accidentally” when he was cleaning off thekayaks.
I still remember the way I practically ran back to the reception to find him, once Will and Olivia had gone. When Rob told me Brendan had already left with the wedding coordinator, I felt my heart cracking so thoroughly I was sure it would never go backtogether.
“We’ve danced to this before,” I tellhim.
He smiles. “I know. I wanted to kiss you so badly I'm still not sure how I held back until I got you around thecorner.”
"I wanted youto."
“Sometimes I wish that night had gone a different way,” he admits. “I wish we’d had this before I metGabi.”
“So you were ready for a relationship then,” I venture, “but you’re not readynow?”
“I thought I was ready then,” he corrects. “It all worked out for the best. I just would have hurtyou.”
“If I got hurt, that would have been on me, not you. How someone reacts to what you’ve done isn’t your responsibility. It’s not even yourbusiness.”
“No,” he says. “It’s a pattern with me. Gabi’s not the only girl I ever hurt. There were girls in high school, in college. One of them left school because of me, another one freaked out and started doing meth. I just bring it out inpeople.”