Caine
I didn’t have the heart to tell her after she’d broken down—at least that’s what I told myself. I was keeping it from her for her own good, not because I was a selfish prick with no balls.
But after a week of being half in and half out, I realized I was doing the same thing to her that I’d done when she was a kid—stringing her along, week by week, and not taking any action because I was unsure of myself.
Only back then I was a confused teenage boy, and now I was supposed to be a man. I sure as hell wasn’t acting like much of one. I’d avoided Rachel almost every night this week, except in class when I had no choice but to face her. She knew something was off.
“What’s going on with you?” my sister asked as she took my plate. She’d had another doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I’d been babysitting. Evelyn must’ve been pretty desperate to use me again, considering I almost killed one of her kids last time.
“Nothing much.”
She went into the kitchen and put my plate in the sink before returning for her interrogation. “Bullshit. I can tell when something’s wrong.”
“How?”
My sister leveled me with a stare. “For starters, you’re still here. Normally when I ask you to babysit, you dart out the door the minute I get back, as if having a family is contagious or something.”
I guess she had a point. I tried to play it off as nothing. “I was hungry, that’s all.” I shrugged.
She scrutinized me. “Where’s the woman you had here with you last time? The girls talked about her for a week. Rachel, wasn’t it?”
“How would I know?”
“Don’t give me that crap. Your face changed as soon as I said her name.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Really?” She leaned in. “Rachel.” Her voice grew louder. “Rachel. Rachel. Rachel.”
“I think you should add a shrink to that list of doctors you’re visiting.” I stood and began to clear the rest of the table to put some space between the bulldog and me.
My nieces had already disappeared with a box of elbow macaroni and Elmer’s glue, and they were unusually quiet as they stuck food to construction paper in the living room. Where were the little motor-mouths when you needed them to interrupt a conversation?
My sister and I cleaned up from dinner, and surprisingly, she was quiet. I should have realized she was busy reloading.
Pushing the dishwasher closed, she turned and leaned against it, cornering me in the kitchen as I put away the last of the plates.
“What did you do?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Either she dumped you, or you did something wrong. I can tell. You’re moping around. And since you generally get fired up when someone screws you over, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you screwed something up.”
Damn. She’s good. I sighed. “I got myself into a mess.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Okay. So how do you get yourself out of this mess?”
“Without hurting her, I can’t.”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“It’s nothing like that. ”
Evelyn contemplated me for a minute. “Listen, little brother, you carry around a lot of baggage for things you think are your fault that aren’t. You take responsibility. Are you sure you actually did something that bad?”
My sister was always biased when it came to me. When I didn’t respond, she shook her head and continued. “You’re a good man. Whatever’s going on, I know you’ll make the right choice. I can’t imagine you ever caring about someone and intentionally hurting them.”
My sister was right about one thing. I never intended to hurt Rachel. Or Liam, for that matter. But I’d made a lot of bad choices over the years, and other people suffered the consequences. I’d missed doing the right thing for Liam—didn’t see that the pressure was too much, that the band and the label contract were more than he could handle until it was too late. With Rachel, I should have told someone what I suspected the day she walked into that confessional. But instead I lied to an innocent girl, pretending to be a priest for months. She had scars left by my mistakes. I’d done enough damage to her.
I hated that her eyes brightened when I asked her to go for a cup of coffee after class the next day.
“So, according to Cosmo, I like you,” she announced.
We’d ordered two coffees and sat at a quiet table in the back of the coffee shop. Rachel was attempting to act like nothing was wrong, but I heard the shake in her voice and noted the way she twisted her watch back and forth.
“More quizzes?”
“Yep. Question nine was iffy,” she teased. “It asked if I’d still be physically attracted to you if you gained sixty pounds, went bald, and suddenly became unemployed. My pen was hovering over a certain answer, but then I remembered you like to blindfold me anyway.” She smiled and fuck, it hurt.
When I didn’t respond, Rachel thought I was offended.
“I’m teasing, you know,” she said.
I nodded and cleared my throat. It felt like my balls were stuck in there as I attempted to get out the words I needed to say.
“Listen, Rachel…I can’t do this anymore.”
Her smile wilted. She knew what I was saying, yet still found a way to cling to hope.
“What? Hang out on campus? No one thinks it’s odd. I see TAs and professors together all the time.”
“I didn’t mean spend time on campus. I meant spend time at all. We can’t see each other anymore.”
“Why? I don’t understand?”
I’d decided after talking to my sister last night that there was no use in telling her anything about the church, about us fifteen years ago. Why hurt her by dredging up more shit when I didn’t have to?
“You’re my student. What happened between us shouldn’t have ever started.”
Sadness transformed into anger on her face. “That’s bullshit. You don’t care about that. And besides, the semester is halfway over.”
“I’m sorry.” I looked down because it was too hard to lie to her beautiful face. “It should have never happened.”
“Screw you.”
“I’ll stay on as your thesis advisor. This is my fault and shouldn’t affect you in any way.”
“It shouldn’t affect me?”
“Rachel…”
She stood. “You know what, Caine? For a long time I felt unworthy of love, ashamed of things that happened in my life, regretting my choices. It wasn’t until the last few weeks that I started to realize I’m not my past. I don’t ever want to be someone’s regret. So go fuck yourself.”
On instinct, I grabbed her arm as she brushed past me. Tears filled her eyes, and I knew she wanted to leave before I saw them, didn’t want me to see her upset. God, I wanted to rewind and erase everything I’d just said. But instead, I released her arm and let her go. It was the best thing I could do for her, even if it didn’t feel that way in the moment.
I couldn’t turn around and watch her walk out. Squeezing my eyes shut, I listened to the sound of her footsteps become more and more distant until I couldn’t hear her at all anymore.
Rachel was right about one thing—she was my regret. Just not in the way she thought. I’d always regret letting her go.