EVOL Page 20

  Gavin has this loud confidence about him, armed with words, always ready to charm. Meanwhile, Efrain is more subdued. His charm is in his smile, not his words.

  “Gavin, this is Efrain. Efrain, this is Gavin.”

  Efrain has the advantage of not knowing anything about him or that he’s the ex I referred to on our date last week, so he doesn’t seem very concerned.

  Gavin, on the other hand, looks like he doesn’t know whether to shake his hand or punch him in the face. The latter would be unwarranted, and I want to say as much but Paige says my name again and I turn on my heel without a second thought, taking the phone from her.

  “Yes?” I ask, a little out of breath.

  “I think I messed up,” she squeaks out.

  “What did you do?” I turn and look at the men standing near the entrance of the store.

  “Gavin called. And I’m feeling so emotional that, after a very long talk, I told him where he could find you. Then I forgot that Efrain stopped me yesterday to ask me where you’d be today so he could surprise you with flowers.” She groans. “Pregnancy brain. Anyway, just thought you should know.”

  “Yeah, they’re both fucking here right now.”

  “Ohhhh. That’s too bad.”

  And this was Sabrina around clients. Not a curse word in sight.

  “I’m going to kick your ass when I see you.”

  “Love you, too. Have a great day!”

  She hangs up and I’m staring at the phone like I could crush it with my own two hands.

  “What the hell is going on over there?”

  At Paige’s mention, I look up and catch Gavin with his arms crossed and his legs spread. Meanwhile, Efrain is as relaxed as the shoppers in the store. They aren’t speaking, both looking around the store like they’re remotely interested in purchasing something.

  “Long story,” I mutter. Too long, if you ask me.

  I march over to the men, determined to make some sort of peaceful solution.

  “These are so beautiful. Thank you,” I tell Efrain, stepping into his personal space with a smile that comes naturally.

  I give him a hug and ignore Gavin completely when I take the daisies. Efrain squeezes me a little harder than usual, but I go with it.

  “I have some work to finish up here and then a chat with an old friend of mine. Mind if I call you later?”

  Efrain looks at Gavin and then back to me.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll have my phone on me if you need me.”

  As he walks away, Gavin mutters, “She won’t.”

  “And what the hell gives you that impression?”

  I ignore the shoppers staring at us and pull Gavin outside.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His arms are down by his sides and he glares at the flowers in my hand.

  “I already told you, Denise. I needed to apologize.”

  “And you have.” I lean against the building, waiting for whatever else he feels he needs to say.

  “That can’t be all—”

  “Oh, it is. Believe me, there was a time when I felt like I needed to hear this. Now? I had to forgive you. You didn’t give me a fucking choice.”

  I refuse to be the same woman he left behind, screaming at him in the street, begging him to hear me.

  Before he can respond, I turn on my heel and stomp all the way to the back, where my things are. Paige meets me back there and I tell her I’m leaving.

  “All right,” she says, in a questioning tone. But I’m not in the mood to answer anyone’s questions, so I grab my things and go. It’s only when I’m outside that I realize I left the flowers. I shrug it off and head toward the nearest entrance to the T.

  I’m about to board when I feel someone’s eyes on me. I look around and, sure enough, Gavin is a few feet to my right.

  I groan and get on, finding an empty seat and praying he doesn’t follow me.

  My typical luck, he does. He scans the car just as it starts to move and when his eyes land on me, he maneuvers through the now crowded car, toward me.

  As soon as he’s close enough, I tell him not to bother speaking to me.

  “You waited too long. I accept your apology. Anything more than that, I’m not interested.”

  It hurts me not to look at him. But to look at him would be like looking at Medusa at this point. Or falling for some sort of siren’s call. In this moment, I have to be Odysseus and tie myself to the mast.

  He has power. And like he did me, I need to strip him of his power.

  “Denise . . .”

  I ignore him and the old woman beside me chirps, “I believe the young lady said she’d like to be left alone.”

  Gavin stands there quietly for a moment and then slinks off to the other side of the train, his head down.

  I only know because I watch his back as he disappears among the others.

  My phone vibrates.

  Gavin: It was too hard to stand there and not speak to you.

  I turn my phone off as the little old lady next to me offers me a sad smile that I return in kind.

  Everywhere I go,

  I’m not safe.

  You’re there.

  Later That Day

  Banging on my front door wakes me from my nap.

  With a groan, I sit up and wipe my eyes. My apartment is dimly lit and there’s a dent on my couch cushion where my head was. I almost expect to hear Carlos padding toward the front door in my sleepy haze and my heart hurts when I remember he’s gone.

  Another round of banging has me yelling out specially crafted insults.

  I get up and stomp over to the front door. As soon as I see who’s on the other side through the peephole, I groan and yank it open.

  The person behind the shittiness today.

  “What do you want?”

  Sabrina stands in the doorway with a box in her hands.

  “Figured I shouldn’t come empty-handed. You look like you stuck your finger in a socket.”

  “And you look like you had one too many cheeseburgers.” It’s a low blow since Sabrina was already complaining about the fact that she was only so far along that there was a small bulge that could be mistaken for a food baby.

  “You’re feeling extra cunt-y,” she announces as she struts past me and sets the box on the counter. “Please eat. Goodness knows I need to.”

  I open the box to find freshly baked chocolate chip walnut cookies. They smell like heaven and perfection.

  “Are these from—”

  “The Albanians downtown? You know it.” She grabs two and sits on a stool. Her mustard colored pencil skirt hugs her little belly tightly.

  “Fuck you for earlier.”

  I grab a cookie and take a bite, watching her as she smiles around the one she stuffed in her mouth like the damn cookie monster. She at least has the decency to wait until after she chews and swallows to respond.

  “You had to know Gavin wouldn’t stay away forever.”

  “Yeah? Since when are you the expert on all things Gavin?”

  She shrugs as we finish our cookies; my first and her second.

  There’s something weighing on me, despite pretending to feel so certain about not wanting Gavin in my life again.

  “How can I choose between what could be and what has been?”

  “You’re a fucking idiot, Denise.” She licks the chocolate from her fingers and I fight the urge to correct her.

  But she’s growing a human being and all that jazz, so I let her lick herself like an animal in peace.

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  “It isn’t one!”

  “Well, no shit. You’re no help!”

  “There’s no choice! Once you open your fucking eyes and stop trying to fight what you feel, what makes you happy, then you’ll know.” She leans forward, her small belly poking out. “You don’t owe either of them jack shit. But you owe yourself happiness. Find it, protect it, and do it for your whole damn life.”

  “Atta girl,”
I tell her as I reach forward to rub her little belly.

  She smiles under the praise and squeezes my hand.

  “Gavin said a whole fuck ton of things that all sounded great. About love and forgiveness and he had a massive pair of balls to approach me. I admire him for it and hope you’ll hear him out. But, at the end of the day, if you didn’t, I’d understand. You owe it yourself to love and let go and do whatever the hell you want as long as you’re happy.”

  My smile feels too big for my face. Sabrina’s sentimental spiel is everything I need to hear, even in my confusion. There would be no judgment from her . . . for once.

  “You only brought the cookies so I didn’t kill you,” I tell her.

  “I know you well, shorty. Empty-handed, you’d be looking for a place to hide my body.”

  We sigh together, hands still joined. After all, we’d gone through so much of our lives this way.

  “Love you most.”

  “Impossible,” I say.

  I love you and I hate you and some days,

  They feel the same.

  I never understood how you meant that;

  To feel so trapped in something so beautifully unmovable that . . .

  It’s an exhilarating claustrophobia.

  Day 382 Post-Gavin

  It’s three in the morning when my phone vibrates.

  I spent most of the night thinking about me. And Gavin.

  Even Efrain from time to time.

  But I’m not surprised or angry when I see Gavin’s name on my screen.

  Gavin: Are you sleeping?

  I smile, despite myself. Regardless of how I should feel, his name on my screen excites me, as does his pursuit.

  Gavin: I feel like you aren’t. I just want to talk to you.

  Most people will never do us the favor of being only good or only bad. I’d been given the best and worst pieces of this beautiful man.

  And I’d given him much of the same.

  Band-Aid, I tell myself as I call him.

  “I’m surprised,” he says, his voice sounding deeper from fatigue.

  “As am I.”

  “I’m so tired but…is it okay if I come over?” He clears his throat. “I really hoped we’d have this conversation in person.”

  My chuckle is short and dry.

  “No,” I say. It’s strange to be stern with him, but I was sort of seeing someone else romantically and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the moment I let my guard down with Gavin, in the same apartment we’d made love in many times before, I may as well kiss all of common sense goodbye.

  “Okay. I get it.”

  Silence stretches, and it feels like I’m in a home I once lived in. It’s been redecorated but . . . it’s still part of me.

  “My mother died,” he whispers.

  My gasp is involuntary. “I didn’t know.”

  “How could you?”

  “Are you okay?”

  He takes a deep breath.

  “I wasn’t. Because she was dying, and I couldn’t be a man and tell her how I felt. So, I told her everything. About you. About the pregnancy. She called me a coward and said I didn’t deserve you.”

  I wasn’t brave enough to call him a coward. But what else could he be? To have loved me and then lost me.

  I shouldn’t still have tears left in my eyes after these past few years. My eyes should be the driest, but they fill and then tears fall.

  “It was hard to hear that from my mother. Especially given the circumstances.”

  “I bet.”

  “Yeah,” he whispers.

  “So—”

  “I’m—”

  We both chuckle nervously as we try to tell each other to say what was on their mind.

  Gavin goes first.

  “I just have to know. Are you with that guy?”

  “Uhhh . . .”

  “I know it isn’t any of my business,” he starts, “but I just want to know if I still have a chance.”

  So much time has passed. But is it too much?

  “Gavin . . .”

  He’s quiet as he waits for my response.

  “If you did or didn’t, it wouldn’t be because of anyone but yourself.”

  “I don’t . . . what does that mean, Denise?”

  I shift in bed so I’m facing my window and I stare at the moon and the stars. And I remember secrets told under those stars as they witnessed me falling deeper and deeper in love.

  I figure, what’s one more secret while the stars are watching.

  “I still love you, Gavin. I will always love you. But . . . I need time.”

  “Time? I can give you time.”

  He makes it sound so easy, like he has any idea what life has been like for me. Without him, without my dreams, without what I thought would be.

  “I need it because I’m so willing to go to war with myself for you. Do you understand how fucked-up that is? To believe in you so much that I have to fight myself to stay?” The words choke me up and I take a second to breathe. “This is what my life has been since you left me. Fighting to not give in and beg for you back, fighting to find the woman I once was. I had to do that by myself.”

  His quiet apology frustrates me further.

  “I slept in someone else’s bed and dreamed that I’d married you instead.”

  A quick inhale on his end, like he hadn’t wanted to hear it.

  Those words burned, and these ones would soothe.

  “No one else will own me quite like you did. No one else makes me feel quite as alive as you do.”

  This turned into confessions under the stars. And I wasn’t the least bit apologetic for it.

  And, like I hoped, he follows suit.

  “No one feels like I do. I know. It’s okay. No one’s come close to you, either.” He stretches with a small groan and is quiet for a moment. “Missing pieces is what it comes down to. Either I’m missing something with them or they’re missing something. Something that doesn’t make them you.”

  I know something about missing pieces.

  “I have missing pieces. And I can feel you, running your fingers over their curved edges.”

  His breaths are short, giving way to his sudden long-windedness.

  “I know I’ve apologized but there’ve been moments when I didn’t know how to forgive myself. For letting you go through something so difficult without my complete support. I was there, but I wasn’t there in anyway other than handling a burden.”

  Silence stretches as I cry with my mouth away from the phone, even going as far as covering it with my hand.

  His confession hurts. Because he hadn’t been a burden to me, even in my grief.

  “My father stayed in Pakistan and I told him what my intentions were, coming back here.”

  Only silence is offered from me.

  “I came back to make things right with you and to live the life I’ve wanted to live. If you and I can be together someday, that’s what my wish is. But if I can only have your forgiveness, I’ll take that and let you be happy with someone else.”

  I exhale slowly, thinking about everything he’s said. I don’t offer him much, other than a confirmation that I’d heard him.

  “Okay.”

  For the next few hours, we tell each other how much we’ve missed each other without ever even saying the words.

  And when I wake up to my phone still on the call with him, I know anything with Efrain is impossible.

  Somewhere along the way,

  I changed my way of thinking.

  I was no longer missing you.

  You were missing out on me.

  Day 385 Post-Gavin

  I’d agreed to dinner with Efrain, unsure of what we were doing after last night’s confessional with Gavin. We’d started doing them every night.

  Text messages between Efrain and I weren’t as frequent after I’d explained to him who Gavin was.

  Dinner wasn’t filled with as much conversation as usual, with neither of us bringing up the one
thing that was on both of our minds. The third person who hadn’t been invited to dinner but was still there in spirit.

  So, I wondered . . . is this purgatory?

  Still, we were friendly and there were moments where the guy I’d met on my sister’s stoop peeked out, reminding me why I’d even given him my number.

  It’s strange to sit here with this man on our way back to my place and connect in a real way with Gavin so close by. The streetlights pass, dark then light, then dark again.

  With every illuminated moment, I’m a little terrified.

  Please don’t try to kiss me, I pray to anything listening.

  I recognized the look in his eyes tonight whenever I’d speak.

  All night, he gave me big eyes, the kind that he’d widen as much as he could without looking strange, just to take in as much as he could of me.

  He’d steal glances at me, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  I was always paying attention. I’d learned to do that when my heart had been stolen from me. My hands had been outstretched, willing to give him my love.

  He took it.

  And never gave it back.

  All my love was with Gavin, when he was in Pakistan, and with him now that he was here.

  And so, this very nice man who often reminded me of Gavin, had no chance.

  I have no love left to give, even if he deserves it.

  Because just like there are ways that they’re similar, there are so many ways that they aren’t. And those differences only frustrate me further.

  I’m looking for one man in the eyes of another.

  It’s a losing game.

  He fumbles with his wording and I pretend not to notice.

  “So, ah . . .”

  All the while, in my head, I’m filled with poisonous thoughts.

  I’m so very easy to fall in love with.

  Men, they fall for my passion.

  They love the fire in my soul.

  They love it so much that they try to control it.

  They try to harness it for their own gain.

  I’ll burn to ash before I give my power away again.

  Before these thoughts leave me, I type them into my phone.