Weston
I lined up at the starting gate with the other racers. The red-brown track stretched out before me, divided into perfect white lanes. I glanced at my competition, a sneer and a joke ready on my lips.
But it was Connor smiling at me from the lane to my left. On my right, Autumn was beautiful in the morning light. One by one, Ma, Paul, my sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Drake—all took their places, crouching in their street clothes in their lanes as the announcer told us to take our marks.
Set.
The gun went off, and the runners ran. Except me. I fell to the ground, the strength sapped from my body instantaneously. I tried to press my hands to the turf and push up, but my body was made of lead. I could only crane my head to watch the other runners —everyone I cared about most—run ahead and around the curve until I couldn’t see them anymore…
I woke with my body heavy and my breath squeezed out of my chest.
Five a.m. and the apartment was empty and silent. Ten weeks of getting up at 4:30 had been ingrained in me and sleep wasn’t coming back. I thought about going out for my ten-mile morning run, but I’d done so much running in Boot Camp, the ritual didn’t mean anything to me anymore. Lots of things, I realized with a dull pang, didn’t mean anything to me anymore.
You’re letting things go.
“I have to,” I said to the ceiling. “I’m fucking shipping out for a year. That’s all.”
The nightmare clung to me as I sat at the dining table with a cup of coffee and the Object of Devotion poem in all its messy, unfinished glory.
Finish it, Professor Ondiwuje whispered. For your sake. Put your heart on the page and your signature at the bottom.
He was right. I had to finish it and put it in a drawer with the rest of my writing. Get it out of my system. Get her out of my system. Autumn wasn’t mine no matter how I’d pretended throughout Boot Camp. The longer I played this impersonation game, the greater the chance she’d be hurt.
The front door banged open and shut, making my pen stutter across the paper.
Too late.
“Jesus, man,” I said. “Scare a guy to death, why don’t you?”
Connor tossed his keys on the side table, put his hands on his hips and stared at me. His clothes were rumpled, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and I’d never seen his eyes so hard or dark.
I set the pen down. “What?”
“What?” Connor said with mocking imitation. “Yeah, what? As in, what the fuck, Wes?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The letters.”
I swallowed. “What about them?”
“Don’t play stupid. You know goddamn well what. I told you to write about news and weather, and tell Autumn I missed her.”
“I did,” I said, my throat dry. “I wrote that and made it pretty. I did exactly what you asked for.”
Pull the other leg, Einstein, Sarge barked at me, it’s got bells on it.
Connor shook his head, lips pressed together.
“Dude, what’s wrong?”
“Oh nothing,” he said with a harsh smile. “Everything’s great. My girlfriend’s in love with me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I could contain the sudden pain that clenched it. I expected it. I actively worked to make it happen. Yet the reality hurt more than I’d been prepared for.
Let them be happy. That’s all that matters.
“Well, that’s good, right?” I said, clearing my throat. “Isn’t it what you wanted?”
“Yeah,” Connor said, his voice hard, but pain swam in his eyes.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is my soul.”
“What?”
“She said she loves my soul. But my soul…” he said with biting bitterness, his index finger unfolding right at me, “…is you.”
I blinked. The two quiet words slapped my face, leaving my lips numb, then wrapped warm arms around me, whispering, she loves you.
“Connor…”
“She’s in love with the ‘words of my heart.’ The letters. The poems. The goddamn phone call in Nebraska. That wasn’t me, man. That was you.” His jaw clenched. “It was always you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not the only thing she loves. She loves how you make her laugh. How you take care of her—”
“Yeah, I make her laugh,” he said. “That must be it. That’s why she was in bed with me last night, tears in her eyes, saying she’s falling for me because I make her laugh.”
He crossed to the kitchen and popped a beer. At five in the morning.
You selfish ass, it was too much. You said too much in those letters and fucked everything up…
“I’m so tired of this shit,” Connor said, after taking a long pull. “So fucking tired of not being enough.”
“You are enough,” I said, firming my voice, desperate to fix this. “You have what she needs. Things no one else does.”
What I could never give her.
“What’s that, money? She doesn’t give a shit about money.”
“Not just money,” I said. “Who you are. You make people feel better just by being in your presence. Everyone loves you. She deserves someone who…”
“Who what, Wes? Is rich? And popular? Who doesn’t have the nickname, Amherst Asshole?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice hard. “Exactly.”
“So.” Connor slid into the chair opposite me. “How long have you been in love with her?”
“I’m not in—”
Connor reared in his seat and for a moment I thought he was going to throw the beer bottle at my head. “Tell me the fucking truth, Wes. Stop lying to me and yourself.”
“They’re just words,” I said. “Fiction. They’re—”
“You’re telling me you wrote all those letters and it’s all bullshit?”
“Connor, man. Listen—”
“She doesn’t love me, Wes,” Connor said, his voice thick with pain. “She loves you. Your words. Your soul. She said so herself. Rich or poor, popular or not, she doesn’t care.”
“Sure, she says that now,” I said, my voice low. “But she would care. Eventually, she would care a lot. What I am…it would wear her down. She’s luminous, and my ugliness and my mean streak would do nothing but dim her…”
My mother’s words from years ago, that all men were trash—hammered into me, over and over again—came back, along with my worry that I’d hurt any woman I might someday love.
So I vowed not to love anyone.
I shook my head and looked to Connor.
“Something’s fucking wrong with me. Broken or missing. Whatever it is, you have it.”
“Now you’re really talking bullshit.”
I loosed a frustrated sigh. “You know, man, you need to give yourself a chance.”
Connor’s eyes widened. “Me? I need to—?”
“The point is,” I said quickly, “I’d suck the happiness out of her while trying to figure my shit out. At the end of the day, love letters are just words on a page. You can’t live off them.”
“No?”
“No.”
Connor leveled a gaze at me. “We fucked with her heart. When she finds out, she’s going to hate us both.”
“She doesn’t need to find out.”
“You expect me to just go on being with her, knowing you love her?”
“I don’t—”
“Wes, for fuck’s sake,” he cried through his teeth.
“You said it yourself,” I said. “She’ll hate us. It’ll break her heart. You want to do that to her? For what? So I can fuck up whatever’s left?”
Connor turned his beer bottle around and around. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
“So don’t.” I leaned over the table. “It’s too late to tell her, and that’s my fault. I’m sorry I…got carried away. So fucking sorry. But we’re shipping out in a few days. Deployed to the goddamn front lines for a year or more. That’s scary enough for her. We don’t need to add to her pain. I took it too far, but I did it for you. And her. To give her everything I can’t give her myself.”
The best of both of us.
Connor slumped back in his seat. “I should call her.” He shot me a look. “Or you should. I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell her what you feel.”
“My best friend is in love with my girlfriend. How exactly, am I supposed to feel about that?” There was no animosity in his tone, only heavy sadness. “Maybe you could write it down for me.”
“Connor, just…” I rubbed my eyes. “Forget me. Forget this conversation. I’ll get over it. Her. I have nothing with her. You do. Love her back, man. It’s so easy.”
He shook his head, a wry twist of his usual smile on his lips.
“You know, for a second there, with her tonight, I was happy. No girl’s ever said she was in love with me. I’ve never said it. I’ve never felt it. I never thought to take things that far because it’s not easy. It’s fucking hard work. And work was never my thing. It’s your thing. You do the work and I reap the benefits.” He clinked his beer bottle to my coffee mug. “And I don’t know why you do it.” He rose to his feet. “I’m going to bed.”
“Connor…”
“It’s fine, Wes. I’m not going to tell her. Everything’s going to change once we step on that plane, anyway.”
“Yeah, it will.”
You and I are going to change. Maybe irrevocably.
Connor gave me a little salute with his beer bottle and took it with him to his room.
I slumped down at the table, my head in my hands. A few of my poem’s words swam into focus while three words screamed across my mind.
She loves you, she loves you, she loves you.
“She loves me.”
If I reached out and took that love, it would blow up three lives. Connor signed up to go to war to prove he was worthy of love. Autumn gave him her heart and body. I couldn’t see past next week, but I knew the truth of right here and now. I was the one who fucked with their hearts, and if I didn’t fix it, I’d lose them both.