Sarah
So Frank didn’t cheat on me.
The knowledge is validating. An Aha! I told you so! moment of epic proportions.
I knew it. Even when his words hurt the softest part of my soul, I knew he didn’t sleep with Bree. He was trying to pull some fucked up version of loving something enough to set it free.
Well, that’s the thing about me.
I’ve always been free.
I’ve never let anyone make me feel like I had to do something I didn’t want to do.
I fly through the streets of Denver, dialing and redialing Frank’s number. I leave messages the first couple times he doesn’t answer, and then I realize his phone must be off and give up. He can not answer all he wants. I’ll drive right over to his apartment. Stride up the walk. I’ll pound on his door until he lets me in. I’m not leaving until he talks to me.
Except I knock until my fists hurt.
Place my hands against the door and call his name.
Lean against the damn thing and beg and plead until desperation swallows my words.
But the jerk never answers.
Either he’s not here or he doesn’t want me here. Regardless, I still have more questions than answers. Or rather, I have answers I don’t want to acknowledge.
Frank let days pass without reaching out. He won’t answer his calls. And now, he’s not even answering his door.
Maybe I was wrong this whole time. Sure, he didn’t sleep with Bree, but that doesn’t mean he wants to stay with me. Maybe he didn’t lie because he was trying to set me free. Maybe he lied because he was trying to set himself free.
A weight settles on my shoulders.
Maybe I had this whole thing wrong from the start. Maybe I was nothing more than a distraction for him. A short-term solution to loneliness who wasn’t ever going to stay in Denver more than a few weeks.
I lean my back against his door and slide down, tucking my knees against my chest. Now would be an appropriate time to cry. Leaning against the door of the first person I’ve let myself love, realizing he never saw me the way I saw him.
But the tears won’t come.
I poke and prod and search for the sadness that should be squeezing my poor heart senseless. The more I push, the less sad I feel.
Turns out, even when all the evidence is stacked against me, I’m too stubborn to believe what I’m seeing. Frank was falling in love with me, the same way I was falling in love with him. Maybe I was wrong about a lot of things, but I’m not wrong about that.
I’ll stay right here until he gets home. And when he gets home, I won’t leave until we’ve had an actual discussion about what’s been happening in the last couple days. I settle in to wait, pleased with myself, smiling and nodding as Frank’s neighbor clomps up the walk, grocery bags rattling in his hands.
The man stops when he sees me. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I heard Frank threaten to call the cops on you last week. The whole damn complex heard him.” The man drops his bags and grabs his phone out of his back pocket. “It’s probably best if you leave.”
I smile and try to tell the man that he has the wrong woman, but he’s not listening.
“Listen. If you don’t leave, I’ll call the cops myself. Frank’s a decent guy.”
I stand, holding out my hands. “Really. You have the wrong person. It’s not me he’s trying to avoid.”
“Sure, lady. Like I’m gonna buy that.” The man unlocks his phone and let’s his thumb hover over the screen. “If I were you, I’d get going sooner rather than later.”
I try to explain one more time, but the man still isn’t listening. While he jams his thumb on the screen, I take the hint and get a move on, scurrying to where my car is parked on the street, thanks to some work being done on the parking garage.
Unsure of where I’m going, I hop behind the wheel and navigate the streets of Denver once again. After aimlessly taking turns on whims rather than decisions, I end up in front of Derby’s, staring at the intersection where Frank came to my rescue. I try calling him one last time, and when he doesn’t answer, decide to park and stretch my legs, taking in the sights and sounds of the place we first met.
I wander through the crosswalk where I ran the red light. Where the Mercedes planted itself in my passenger side and Frank rushed to my rescue. Oddly enough, I find myself smiling.
Isn’t it strange how such a stupid thing could lead to something so wonderful?
And then, in the blink of an eye, that wonderful thing is gone.
Everything in life is so damned nebulous. The good. The bad. Each moment is a puff of smoke. There and then gone in an instant. If only there was a way to know when you were in the best of all the moments. To pause and experience the infinity between each second. To close our eyes and inhale the vastness of the world.
My smile slips from its place as I step onto the sidewalk. And now, while I’m surrounded by people, the tears finally decide to make an appearance. I swipe at my cheeks and duck into Derby’s as I come to the conclusion that I’m running out of options.
I have nowhere to go.
Frank doesn’t want to talk to me.
It doesn’t matter if he didn’t sleep with Bree if he doesn’t want to be found.
I wander through the mostly empty restaurant, step up to the bar, have a seat, and put my head in my hands.
I could stick around in Denver, burn through the little bit of savings I’ve built back up in the hopes that somehow, I’ll manage to find Frank and figure out what’s going on.
Or…
I could go back to Brookside and put my life back together there.
Neither option sounds particularly appealing.
“Sarah?”
I look up and find myself face to face with Frank. Not the mean, dirty Frank I met at his apartment, but the Frank I know and love. The one with the perfectly messy hair. The light behind his eyes. His glasses slipping down his nose. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt hugging a body that belongs on billboards.
“Frank?”
I start to stand, intent on rushing into his arms and wrapping myself up in the safety of his strength, but catch myself. I don’t know if he wants me anymore.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
For one second, I consider playing it off like I don’t care. Hiding from the truth. Giving him some nonchalant answer that lets me keep my dignity and then turning around and walking right back out of this place.
But I don’t do that.
I can’t do that.
What Frank and I had is worth way more than my old bullshit.
“I was looking for you.” I swallow and cross my arms. “I waited at your apartment, but your neighbor told me he’d call the cops if I didn’t leave, so I ended up back here. The first place I ever saw you.” I shrug, not sure what else to say now that I’m finally staring Frank in the face. “You?”
Relief softens the space between his eyes. “I’ve been looking for you, too.”
I hold myself tight, unsure of what to do or say next. The past few days have been so confusing, so filled with doubt and a million different reasons for different sides of the story to be true. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to try better than that. I’ve been calling you all morning…”
Frank steps closer as his eyes beg me for something I don’t understand. “I broke my phone, being a douchebag. Or I would have called you the minute I got myself under control. I tried to come see you at work,” Frank says. “I wanted to meet you out front first thing this morning, but I didn’t know they were repaving my garage and my car got towed. By the time I got to McDougan & Kent, you were gone. Jason told me you went to my place, and there’s an Uber on the way to take me there, but I came in here to wait. Because it’s the first place we met.”
I widen my eyes and stifle a laugh. I’m supposed to be mad at him. I think. Or maybe I’m supposed to be understanding, because lord knows we all make mistakes, me most of all. But really, all I feel is thankful that he’s standing here in front of me. “Your car got towed?”
“Yeah. Talk about a shitty day, you know? No phone. No car. No way to find the woman I love.”
His words launch fireworks in my heart.
The woman I love.
Be still.
Be patient.
Hear him out.
But my heart has heard all it needs to hear. The woman I love. And it rejoices.
“I didn’t sleep with Bree. I told you that because I needed you to leave. Because I thought…” Frank shakes his head. “That’s the thing. I wasn’t thinking. I was caught up in self-destructing and couldn’t think around my own self-pity. I thought I was doing you a favor…”
“I see…”
“And I know it was low and I know it hurt and I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m going to ask you for it anyway because damn it, Sarah. I love you. You’re everything I ever needed and I know I don’t have anything to offer you…”
I place a finger over his lips and then pull him onto the stool next to me. “You keep saying that and I have no idea what you mean. Of course you have something to offer me. You’ve brought me so much more than I ever knew to hope for and it all came from right here.” I tap his temple. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want your things. Or your fancy apartment. All I want is you. I love you, so damn much. And sure, things are up in the air right now. For both of us. But we’ll figure it out. Together.”
“I’m done with drinking. I never want to be that person again. I thought I had it all figured out, me and my one drink limit, but it looks like I gave myself too much credit.”
I cup his face in my hands and then smile as his glasses slide down his nose. “I’m here for you,” I say, “in the same way you were here for me. I’ve never fought for anything. Every time things got hard, I ran away in one form or another, but damn it. I’m going to fight for us.”