Bend (40 page)

P
uis-je avoir le menu? Je ne mange pas du fromage.

I try to focus on the words on my phone screen, but my brain feels fried and untethered. Giving up, I close the app and yank out my earbuds. Mia’s eyes are on the road, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of the music coming from the stereo, a generic and poppy song that I don’t recognize and would be grateful to never have to listen to again.

Then it hits me that if I do that thing tonight that I’ve more or less decided I need to do…then there would be a lot less of this kind of music in my life. Somehow that’s not a cheerful thought, though.

Outside the window, lights from strip malls and residential neighborhoods gleam in the darkness that only just descended. We’ve got about twenty minutes to go, and I’m feeling like that’s how much time I have left to make my monumental decision.

You’re not right for her. You know that.

He’s a pretty smart guy, Franklin Waters.

Since lunch, while we drove south along the coast, the car has been more quiet than not. Which has made it difficult to keep my thoughts from straying down dark alleys, paths with hidden dangers and plenty of dead ends.

It’s unusual for Mia to stay silent for so long. From the pensive look on her face, it’s clear she’s also got a lot on her mind, and that most of her thoughts are not happy ones.

She’s still angry. I get why. I do. But it feels like a slap in the face, regardless. I spent all morning knowing I needed to tell her everything before the end of the trip—and being pissed off about being forced into it.

Then sharing everything with her was…gut-wrenching. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

It was a relief to get it all out, though. Until she got mad.

Was it a betrayal of our friendship that I didn’t tell her sooner? She seems to think so, but I don’t know. Part of me feels her reaction is unfair, because why should I feel obliged to tell her? She didn’t really need to know. It wasn’t any of her business.

Another part feels she’s justified, however, because I know—
I fucking know
—that being afraid of her reaction to it was not a rational, logical emotion. She’s done nothing to deserve that distrust.

I can’t decide which part of the argument should win.

“Is that when you got your tattoo?” she asks out of the blue, taking her eyes off the dense freeway traffic for a split second to throw a dark look at me. “It’s a gang tattoo? Not a drunken mistake?”

Shit.
Yeah, I guess this was inevitable. I’m actually surprised it took her this long to realize it.

And now I know for a fact that she’s been dwelling on everything I told her and that it’s bothering her. So that’s definitely a point in favor of it being a shitty idea to let her know about it.

Feeling like there’s a weight crushing my chest, I grimly admit, “Yeah.”

A few seconds go by, and it’s as if her fury and her hurt is radiating off her and burrowing into my bones.

“You lied to me.” It doesn’t come out as an accusation. Just a bleak statement of fact.

“Yeah,” I repeat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She pins me with a tight-lipped glare.
You could’ve told me the truth,
that look says.

And I guess that cuts to the core of this, doesn’t it? She thinks I had a choice. But to me, it didn’t feel like a choice. I doubt that’s something she’ll ever understand. Mia’s closet is filled with wholesome and happy memories, not skeletons.

The staccato guitar intro to The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” jumps out from the car stereo, and it’s so apropos to my train of thought that it gives me a jolt.

I tried. I really did. And it was nice, pretending for one weekend that I could make this thing with Mia work. But in the end, nothing has changed—except, in acknowledging to myself how much I love her and how much she means to me, it’s become obvious just how far into my own grave I’ve dug myself.

And now I need to climb out of there, before the hole grows too deep.

I’m still silently searching for the right words and for the strength to say them out loud when she pulls up to the curb outside my house. Stopping a few feet behind my truck, she puts the car in Park and leaves it idling.

When she turns to me, she doesn’t look angry anymore. She just looks…worn down. Her eyes have a dull sheen to them, and her lips are thin and downturned.

“Thank you for coming this weekend,” she says quietly. “I know my grandma really appreciated it.”

But did
you
appreciate it, Mia?

“No problem,” I hear myself say as if from a distance. There’s a swishing, swooshing noise in my ears, and it feels like my intestines are trying to digest a handful of rocks.

I don’t have to do this. It’ll be fine. Right? Just leave things as they are, maintain the status quo, don’t question it, and don’t think about the future. I do not have to tear us apart. Especially not today, the day after she found out her grandmother is dying.

“I can’t do this, Mia.”

Where did those words come from? It’s like I’ve lost control over my tongue. My voice is echoing in my ears, and I’m clenching my hands at my sides.

“Do what?” she asks with a slight frown.

Swallowing hard, I meet her gaze while I search the recesses of my brain for the best way to respond. I still have time to change my mind, can still figure out something to say to backtrack the conversation.

In the bright red glow of the dashboard lights, her eyes appear large and round and vulnerable. She’s watching me expectantly.

It’s not all right. None of this is all right.

You’re not right for her. You know that.

“This. Us.” My heart is beating so hard I think it might burst from my chest. “I can’t do it. Not anymore.”

Her bottom lip quivers, and her voice goes up an octave. “What are you saying?”

I take a deep breath. “Look, I told you sex was a bad idea—”

“Oh, come on!” she snaps. “How has it been bad? Seriously. Tell me what’s been bad about it.”

She’s missing the point—on purpose, I’m pretty sure. But it works, because now I’m having flashbacks galore. Mia, naked and wet in the shower. Mia, smiling seductively and then laughing at herself. I can hear her sexy little moans, can feel the softness of her lips and skin as I’m tasting her.

Going down on Mia.

My cock inside her.

Just like that, I start growing hard.

Fuck.

There was absolutely nothing bad about having sex with Mia. It was sheer ecstasy, every single moment of it. And she knows that.

“I was perfectly happy just being friends,” I grind out.

She scoffs and laughs, her eyes glittering with disbelief. “Were you? Were you really?”

Clenching my teeth, I turn and look out my window. The neighbor across the street is dragging his trash can from his garage down to the curb, and in the driveway of the house next to his, a couple of guys are working on an old Mustang, flood lights clipped to the open hood.

To them, it’s just a normal Sunday evening.

While I’m sitting over here, about to tear my heart out of my chest.

Still avoiding Mia’s gaze, I say, “I don’t know what we are anymore. And I have no idea where this is going, and I have no idea where you want it to go.”

She’s silent so long that I’m forced to turn back to her, finding her looking down at her lap as she says nothing.

“What I do know,” I continue, “is that the last thing I need before I leave to work for Relief International is to get caught up in a messy relationship.”

She looks at me then, stares at me long and hard while chewing on the inside of her cheek. “You don’t have to do that,” she says. “You know that, right?”

I’m blinking at her. Yeah, I do know. So what? “I’m not doing it because I have to. It’s because I want to.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She shakes her head slowly. “How long are you going to do penance for your past, Jay? Because your dad took away those people’s lives and because you lost your way for a short while, that means…what? You don’t deserve to be happy? You don’t get to do things for yourself, to have a life of your own?”

Her words sink into my stomach, where they twist and coil and nauseate me, and I can’t immediately figure out how to respond. Is she right? And if she is, does it matter? I’ll be working for one of the foremost relief organizations in the world, providing medical care in war and disaster zones. I’ll be devoting my life to helping, to doing good. And I’ll be doing it alongside my uncle, who I’ve longed to be able to spend more time with.

If there’s some underlying reason other than that, it seems entirely unimportant.

“It’s what I want,” I repeat, and I don’t voice the thought that follows, that it’s what I
need
to do.

With a nod and pinched lips, Mia breaks eye contact. Gripping the bottom of the steering wheel, she stares out the windshield. “So what now? We go back to being just friends?”

I swallow hard. Fuck this. I don’t want to do this. But what choice do I have?

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I tell her. “Do you?”

“What are you saying?” She’s looking at me again, her head tilted, eyes big and blinking. “We’re done? You don’t want to see me again?”

It’s like a vise clamps down on my chest, squeezing the air out of my lungs. “I told you it was a bad idea—”

“No! No, you don’t get to—” She cuts herself off, and a gasping whimper escapes from her throat, her breath hitching. “This is
not
my fault.
You’re
doing this.
You’re
making this choice. For no fucking reason!”

My head starts pounding. To hell with doing this gently and nicely. She doesn’t get to lay all the blame on me. She just does not.

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want a relationship,” I snap, pointing a finger at her. “You said that. Well, guess what? I don’t, either. And I especially don’t want one with a woman who can’t get over her asswipe of an ex—”

“I am not—” she argues, raising her voice above mine.

“—who even acknowledges he was an asswipe,” I interrupt her in return, raising my voice, too, so that I’m on the verge of yelling, “so why the fuck can’t she just let it go and move on?”

She clenches her mouth shut, nostrils flaring as she stares daggers at me. I could go on, push her further, push her until she snaps. And it’s really tempting, because I can stomach her rage, and it’s kind of a relief to have her be so mad. It’s much easier to deal with than her heartbreak.

“Takes an asswipe to know one, I guess,” she says coldly.

Okay. I won’t argue with that. I’m a weak-minded ass who should’ve been strong enough to resist the temptation of her in the first place. So she can keep slinging that shit at me, and I’ll take it like a man.

Making a quivering fist, she puts it up to her mouth. And then she gives a bitter laugh. “You picked the perfect time to do this, didn’t you?”

Something inside me shrinks and turns icy cold. Yeah, I deserve that, too. But if I’m going to be the asshole here, I might as well go all in, right?

“And when would’ve been a better time?” I ask, hardening my tone.

Her snorting laugh is full of disbelief, and her eyes look glassy and watery as they meet mine. “Tomorrow would’ve been better. The day after that even better. And the day after that, and the day after that…just better and better.”

Her voice cracks, and tears spill over, dripping down her cheeks. In a choked whisper, she says, “Best of all? Never.”

My gut is cramping, and it’s like a black hole opens up in my core, absorbing everything. I want to apologize and take it all back. Jesus Christ, I love her. I love her, and why the hell am I doing this to her?

You’re not right for her. You know that.

I expel a heavy breath, run my fingers through my hair. “We have no future,” I say, acknowledging that I’m starting to sound like a broken record. “I didn’t want this. You—”

“Get out of my car.” She sounds hoarse and agitated, like she’s on the verge of flipping the fuck out.