Page 83 of Drowning Erin
“You’re giving yourself way too much credit, Brendan. You didn’t bring the crazy out in those girls, you just chose poorly. Normal people don’t drop out of school over a break-up, or do drugs. Can you see Olivia reacting like that? Or me? Just allow yourself to consider thepossibility.”
He pulls me closer. “I’m trying. I reallyam.”
It’s the first time in all the weeks we’ve been doing this that it feels like he’s offered me a sliver ofhope.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon,we return from kayaking, and he pulls me toward the hammock. We curl up together, a light blanket over us while the breeze from the French doors streamsin.
His mouth ghosts over my cheek, his nose brushing across my skin, as if he's trying to memorize me using all of his senses at once. "I like you best just like this," he says, his tongue flickering out to taste my neck before he lowers his mouth and pulls at the skin, drawing a small, needy sigh from my throat. "Just you, sunburned and sandy.” He pulls the blanket aside and slips my T-shirt over my head. The hammock swings and he puts a foot on the floor to steady us. “With miles and miles of skin to taste." His hand skates up the inside of my thigh, brushing lightly until it is exactly where he wants it, and then he draws a nipple into his mouth, pulling on it just enough to keep me on a tightrope between pain and pleasure. "So I can listen to you gasp." And then his fingers slide inside me, and I arch toward him,helplessly.
"Brendan," I moan. "More."
He rolls over so he's above me. "Is that what you need, Erin?" he breathes as he pushes inside me, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment as if it's just too much to keep themopen.
"Yes," I sigh. "That."
The light glimmers and dances around us, and I hear only the sound of our breath and his quiet words. I wish we could stay here, just like this, for hours and days andweeks.
I lovehim.
The words arrive like something I've known all along. Just like when, as a child, I’d bury my feet in the sand. I knew exactly what was there, if I was only willing to look. But I didn't want to seeit.
I don’t want to feel this way. Rob hurt me, but Brendan—he could destroy me entirely, irreparably. And it seems almost inevitable that hewill.
58
Erin
Present
It’s so earlywhen I pull up to Harper’s house on Monday that the sun has barely made an appearance, yet it’s already warm. I climb out of the car, grabbing my bag with the weekend’s clothes shoved inside haphazardly, and jolt to a halt as if I’ve hit a glasswall.
There, on Harper’s steps, sitsRob.
I’m so stunned that I say nothing, just stand there staring, holding my weekend bag, undoubtedly looking exactly like I feel: as if I’ve been caught red-handed.
It went without saying that if we broke up there’d be other people. I never doubted for a minute that he’d take Christina up on her generous offers, if he hadn’t already. But seeing me stroll in at 5 AM is the equivalent of having it saidaloud.
I’ve never seen Rob’s face as long as it is right now, and he doesn’t even know the worstpart.
“I guess I don’t have to ask if there’s someone else,” hesays.
There’s nothing accusatory in his voice. He’s just upset, which is so muchworse.
“I…didn’t know you were here,” I reply lamely. “Have you been waitinglong?”
“I came here straight from the airport lastnight.”
That shouldn’t make me feel guilty—I didn’t ask him to do it, and I didn’t know he was here—but I feel guilty anyway. Especially when I consider what I was doing during thosehours.
“I thought you had six more weeksthere.”
“I did,” he says. “But I wanted to seeyou.”
He stands, looking thinner and less sure of himself than he did before he left, and I'm struck by an intense wave of familiarity, homesickness. There are parts of our life that I miss, and seeing him reminds me of all of them at once. I could have beenhappierwhen we were together, but I also wasn'tunhappy.
He wraps me in his arms. This is familiar too, all of it. His smell and his size and the way we line up together, and suddenly I grieve everything that’s gone. With Brendan, I exist in a sick cycle of hope and panic—one day cautiously optimistic, and the next certain the end is coming. That was never the case with Rob, and it strikes me that there's a lot to be said for knowing where you stand withsomeone.