I was still staring at the door in shock when Naomi ran toward it and practically tore it off its hinges. Shaking my head, I stepped forward to follow but Derek wrapped his hand around my arm, halting me.
“Derek, I didn’t—”
“I know.”
“What?”
He shook his head before letting go of my arm and walking into the kitchen. Seconds later he returned with two waters; he handed one off to me before running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Look, obviously I don’t know everything. But I know what it’s like not to understand. I love Alara. She’s as much of a sister to me as Naomi is. But I don’t understand this thing either. I don’t understand how the little girl who sat alone in the living room, laughing and playing pretend with her stuffed animals, grew up into a woman who sits alone in her bedroom crying at three a.m. I don’t understand what it’s like to be afraid of my own mind. And I can’t even begin to understand how hard it is to experience something this horrible while everyone around me tells me I’m overreacting or imagining it.” He paused and began peeling the label off his bottle. When he looked up there were tears in his eyes. “But… I don’t think she understands it either, and I don’t think she expects you to understand. I think she’s just looking for acceptance and is confusing the two.”
I nodded. “I didn’t mean any of it like that, I just—”
“I know. I’ve seen the way you look at her. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Not to get all cheesy but, you… you look at her like she’s saving you or something.”
“That’s because she is. Every single fucking day she saves me. And all I want is to do the same.”
“You do.” Naomi’s voice sounded from the open doorway as she walked back through it. She softly closed the door before coming to a stop in the middle of the living room.
“Did you catch up to her?” Sherry asked quietly.
“I did. She—” Naomi paused and blew out a heavy breath. “She just begged me to leave her alone.” She shrugged and began picking at her nails.
“So you just let her go?” I asked.
“No,” she spat. “I didn’t just let her go.”
“But what if…” I trailed off, not wanting to voice my fears and not wanting to think that something like this could trigger something.
Naomi must have known what I was thinking because her expression softened, and when she spoke her voice was sympathetic. “I think she’s fine. She, and I’m not saying this to hurt you, Gabe… but she didn’t seem more distraught than anyone else who just had her heart broken.”
“GODDAMMIT!” I shouted before launching my beer bottle from earlier at the wall. It shattered into dozens of pieces as the amber liquid slowly dribbled to the wreckage below. I fell against the wall behind me and when I finally made it to the ground, I buried my head in hands.
“Gabe, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean… she just needs some time,” Naomi whispered, and I’d have bet anything that if I looked up I’d find her crying.
I said nothing in response, and neither did anyone else. We all just stood (or pathetically cowered on the floor in my case) there not doing anything, all of us lost in our own thoughts.
I was exhausted by the time I pulled into my complex a little before midnight that night. I slowly ascended the stairs to our apartment as I thought about what might await me on the other side. When I opened the door I was greeted with silence and for a second I was relieved Naomi hadn’t come home. But that relief was short-lived when I looked toward my bedroom and found Naomi sitting directly in front of my door. She sat cross-legged with a half-knitted scarf dangling over her bouncing knee.
“Took you long enough. Where the hell have you been? I just started this damn thing tonight, and look how far I’ve gotten,” Naomi said as she lifted her knitting needles.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said as I approached her.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to.”
I slid down next to her until my butt hit the floor.
“So where have you been?”
“Just driving around.”
She nodded before replying, “And?”
“And what?”
“Aaanddd… are you going to go over and talk to Gabe?”
I exhaled loudly. “It’s almost midnight.”
She snorted and gave me a look that clearly said, Are you stupid? “I doubt he’s sleeping, and even if he were he’d gladly wake up to talk to you.”
“What’s there even to talk about? I think we said everything that needed to be said.”
“No, you said a lot—which, by the way, was awesome considering how timid you usually are about confronting people—but you didn’t really give him a chance to explain.”
Naomi shot me a brief glance before her attention returned to knitting. She always knew talking was easier for me when we didn’t make constant eye contact. My own eyes also fell to her hands and the rapid progression of her work.
“I know he didn’t mean to hurt me. I know he was just caught up in it all and wasn’t thinking. But…” I cleared my throat before voicing everything I thought earlier. “Isn’t that just all the more telling? Obviously, I want to know what he thinks without him censoring himself because he’s worried about me, and I thought he genuinely believed all those things he told me. I mean… this is a big deal. It’s not like he told me he hated caramel when he actually loves it just to appease me. I wouldn’t want him to wake up one day realizing how fed up he is with dealing with this shit.”
“I really wouldn’t blame him, not liking caramel is insane.” She smirked before carefully placing her needles on the ground in front of her and shifting to face me. “Look, I was there and yes, it didn’t sound great, but… I really don’t think he meant any of it like that. You have this blind eye where yourself is concerned. But I see the way he looks at you. And so do Derek and Sherry. We are so unbelievably happy for you, Alara.” She paused and looked behind me before giving me her eyes again. “When you left he looked destroyed.”
I grimaced and looked down at the ground between us. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but…”
“You needed to be honest too,” she finished for me. “And he knows that, Alara. That is why he was destroyed. Because he knows he made you feel that way. Just promise you’ll talk to him, okay?”
“I wasn’t planning on ignoring him. I just had to get out of there and get some space,” I said as I looked back up.
She looked at me for a long moment before nodding and turning back around to pick up her needles. We sat side by side for a few minutes before I remembered she was supposed to be having a date night with Caleb. “Hey, what’re you doing here? You normally sleep at his place on date night.”
“You really think I’d be able to go to dinner and stay somewhere else with everything going on?”
“Naomi, you can’t keep putting everything in your life on hold because I’m a mess.”
She sighed before dropping her needles again. “Caleb said the same thing.” She fidgeted for a moment before glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “Right before we broke up.”
“What?” I shrieked. “When did this happen?”
“A few hours ago.” She was still facing forward, so I quickly got up until I was seated in front of her. My eyes roamed over her face looking for signs of fallen tears, but she looked exactly the same as earlier.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked.
She shot me a sad look before pointing to my purse. “You turned your phone off, remember?”
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about—”
“Hey,” she interrupted as she reached over to squeeze my hand. “Don’t apologize. I would have done the same thing. You couldn’t have known. But I… I really should have seen this coming.” My eyebrows furrowed at her tone; she almost seemed… relieved?
“What happened?”
“Well that’s a loaded question, but the CliffNotes version is that I didn’t spend enough time with him. He said I spent too much time with my brother and friends and that I basically just kept him around because he was familiar.” I opened my mouth to speak but she raised her hand, effectively cutting me off. “Oh, I’m not done. That’s only half of the story. It seems that my lack of devotion led Caleb straight into the arms, or more accurately between the legs, of his lab partner.”
My jaw dropped and my eyebrows rose as I processed this. And out of everything I was thinking, the first thing I said was, “Oh shit, Derek is going to kill him.”
She laughed, and we both smiled for the first time since this shit storm of a day started. But she quickly turned serious when our laughter faded and whispered, “He wasn’t wrong.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Not about the cheating… that... well, that sucks. But about the neglecting him part? Yeah, he was pretty dead on. I mean even you just said so.”
“Yeah, but…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say because a part of me agreed. Naomi was an awesome friend and a dedicated sister to Derek, but Caleb was almost always a lower priority. I watched Naomi’s face fall further as she deduced my thoughts and immediately felt horrible for not being able to comfort her as she’d been comforting me.
“I know it’s true, you don’t need to say otherwise. I don’t want to be comforted with a lie.”
I nodded solemnly before comforting her with a truth. “Well it’s not like you ignored him out of spite.”
“I don’t think that really matters, and I don’t think he cheated on me out of spite either. He said part of him didn’t even think I would care, that I’d be relieved to have a reason to break up with him.”
I frowned as I heard her repeat the words I had been thinking only moments before. “How do you feel about it?”
“I feel… sad, angry, betrayed, guilty, and yeah, a little relieved. You name it and I probably feel it.” She shook her head and let out a sad laugh. “I can’t believe I’m single. I haven’t been single… ever.”
“You don’t think he’ll grovel and try to get you back?”
“Alara, I didn’t break up with him, he broke up with me. He doesn’t want to work through it, he wants to be with her.”
“What?”
“Yeah. He told me he’s been having these feelings for a while and that she’s been in love with him since the first day of class. He said he didn’t want things to go any further until he talked to me.”
“So he’s been seeing her? Like full-on cheating on you?”
“No. I guess they got drunk the other night and slept together, but that’s all that’s ever happened. He said he was trying to figure out how to tell me, and when I blew him off tonight he just kind of lost it and told me everything.”
“I don’t even know what to say besides I’m sorry. And that just sounds lame but I am, I’m so sorry, Naomi.”
She nodded and continued looking forward. “I guess that’s what no one tells you about happy endings.” At my confused frown, she elaborated. “Technically this is a happy ending for Caleb and Amber. But happy endings aren’t really happy for everyone. Sometimes a happy ending is someone else’s nightmare, someone else’s tragedy.”
I moved a strand of hair behind her ear before shuffling back to sit beside her. “Yeah, I suppose that’s how it is sometimes. But someday you’ll get your own happy ending, and it won’t become anybody’s tragedy because you’re not the kind of person who goes after taken guys.”
She smiled briefly and rested her head on my shoulder. “I’ve met her, she’s pretty nice and we both know Caleb isn’t a bad guy. I’m not excusing this and it’s not okay, but I don’t believe they meant to hurt me. It’s not really black and white.”
I pulled back and looked her dead in the eye. “You might be right, but as your best friend it’s my job to trash talk both of them, so for the foreseeable future he’s an asshole and she’s a slut.”
Naomi burst out laughing and I quickly joined. “That’s ridiculous.”
I shrugged. “Just because it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be done. There’s a process to being cheated on and this is part of it.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
She was quiet for a few minutes before turning to me. “You know I don’t think you’re broken, right? I don’t think you’re exaggerating anything.” I frowned because I did know all those things. Naomi had always been in my corner, always ready to talk. Whether I needed someone on my side or needed someone to tell me things I couldn’t see. She was the kind of friend everyone deserved. “Of course I know that.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure because earlier you said…”
You made me feel important and… understood. No one had ever made me feel that way before. The thought was there instantaneously. Of course she would remember that part of the argument; she missed nothing. “Naomi, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Her smile was genuine. “It’s different. I just wanted to make sure you knew I still felt that way. That I’ll always feel that way.”
I nodded as a thought came to me.
“What?”
“Do I bring everything back to myself and my depression?” I asked, voicing Gabe’s comment from earlier.
She grimaced. “Sometimes.”
“Wow. That sounds incredibly narcissistic.”
“I don’t think narcissistic is the right adjective.”
“Neurotic?” I asked.
“That sounds a bit more accurate.” She bumped my shoulder to let me know she was kidding before continuing, “I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s just a word. Sometimes it gets you into trouble and can be a real pain in the ass, like tonight when you assumed everything he was saying was more about you and your insecurities, when in reality it could have been about whatever the hell was going on in his head.” I winced and she shot me a look of apology before continuing. “But sometimes, it’s a great thing.”
I worried my bottom lip, popping it out only to speak. “How so?”
“Since you think that what other people say and do somehow reflects on you, you always make sure the things you say and do won’t offend other people. You take care with your words, and you always over-explain things so there isn’t any way they can misinterpret what you’re saying.” She frowned slightly. “I feel like I made that really convoluted, but did it make any sense?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it is still a negative thing, and I don’t know how to change that part of it.”
She shrugged. “You don’t. Knowing you have a bad quality doesn’t mean you have to fix it. Some are embedded deep within us, and you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to divest yourself of them. Insert cliché about perfection here.” She chuckled to herself and I gave her a grateful smile in return. “You just have to find people who love you enough to look past your flaws.”
My stomach rolled and my palms felt a bit sweaty. I swallowed nervously and twisted my hands in my lap. “Do you think Gabe loves me enough?”
“Yeah, sweetie. I do.”
I took a deep breath as I thought of everything that happened over the last twenty-four hours, and I realized I was just too exhausted to think about this any more tonight. But one thing I did realize as I went to sleep that night was that I didn’t regret any of it.
We always talked about protecting our hearts, but that wasn’t what they were made for. It was like buying new furniture only to cover it up, or designing the perfect room but not being able to sit it in. Our hearts were made to feel, to break, to love, to grieve. And all mine ever did was beat.
After I told Gabe about my depression and I committed to him, I did it completely unguarded because I didn’t want to protect my heart anymore. I wanted to bruise and batter the hell out of it. I wanted to feel everything, and if it needed to break just so I knew it was beating, then so be it.
Maybe it broke me in ways I’d never be able to fix, but wasn’t that the point of all this?
Of life?
So even though I cried myself to sleep that night with my bruised and battered heart, I still couldn’t bring myself to regret any of it.
I woke up three different times last night before finally admitting defeat. Rolling over and swinging my legs to the ground, I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. 7:16 a.m. The brutal hangover I should have had was nonexistent, and I couldn’t help but feel like the ache in my chest was to blame. I was too focused on that pain to be able to feel anything else. You could have pushed me off a cliff and run me over with a car, and still all I’d feel was the heartache.
When I looked at my phone and saw no missed calls or texts, I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t tried to contact her last night because Naomi was right when she said Alara needed space. I didn’t want to talk to her again until we had both cooled off. But damn, it was hard not to call her.
By noon I had cracked. I quickly dialed her number before I could think better of it. My knee was bouncing up and down in such a flurry it looked like the Energizer Bunny on a pogo stick.
Again, I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt.
When my phone rang ten minutes later, I practically broke my leg in my haste to answer it. My shoulders slumped when Sam’s name flashed across the screen.
“Hey,” I answered as I rubbed a tender spot on my forehead.
“You sound like shit.” She laughed before whispering to someone in the background. I didn’t respond, and her voice became slightly panicked when she said, “Gabe?”
“Do you think you could come over?” I asked without preamble, but she never needed any. Her response was instantaneous.
“Yeah, of course. Give me about twenty minutes?”
“Thanks,” I whispered into the phone long after she hung up.
…
After the clusterfuck that was last night, Derek left the apartment. Whether to blow off steam or give me space, I didn’t really know. But since he still hadn’t returned, I was beginning to think he was angrier with me than he let on. So I was more than a little surprised when thirty minutes later he walked in right before Sam.
“Uhh… hey guys?”
Derek nodded and then jerked his head toward my sister. “I ran into her out in the parking lot.” They both seemed a little nervous and my gaze traveled between them. Sam was avoiding my eyes before she stepped forward and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, an embrace I gladly returned. “Hey. You okay?” she asked, and I completely forgot about their weirdness.
“I will be,” I assured her.
Derek looked on from the kitchen, clearly uncomfortable, before clearing his throat and pointing toward his room. “I’m just gonna…” He trailed off and quickly made his exit. As soon as his door closed she pulled back and looked me in the eye. “What happened?”
“I’m a fucking moron.”
“Well, you do have the Y chromosome and that does correspond with being a fucking moron from time to time.”
Somehow, despite my shitty mood, I burst out laughing. “Wow, I must really look bad if you’re willing to resort to cussing to make me feel better.”
“I’d do anything for you,” Sam said in earnest as she squeezed my arm.
“Alara and I got in a fight. Maybe it was even a breakup, God, I hope not… I honestly don’t know.”
“What happened?”
And then I told her everything, from getting drunk to making the mistake of going home while drunk to throwing my bottle at the wall.
“What are you going to do?” she asked a few minutes later.
“Besides say I’m sorry, I don’t really know. I guess I have to finally put everything on the table.”
“That’s usually good in a relationship.”
I nodded before diving in. “What scares me is I won’t be enough for her. This is such a serious thing and”—I paused, swallowing my nerves—“I love her, and she deserves someone whose track record for helping people isn’t 0-2.”
Sam sighed before turning toward me. “Is that honestly what you think?” When I didn’t respond, she began fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. “Mom’s situation was not the same thing.”
My head snapped in her direction. “What do you mean, ‘Mom’s situation’?” I held my breath as I awaited her response.
“You think I didn’t know what she wanted?” She gave me a sad look.
“She told you that?” I asked in disbelief.
Her eyes watered as she nodded, and I looked down at the table before she started talking. “She just looked so tired one day and when I asked her about it, I don’t think she had the strength to lie anymore.” She paused and tapped my chest to get my attention. “Her getting cancer was not your fault—I know you’re smart enough to understand that much. But what I don’t think you understand is that her wanting to die was also not your fault.” I began shaking my head, but she powered on. “No. Listen. You think too much with your head, you always have. That’s one of the reasons Dad is so hell-bent on getting you to work for him.
“Everything is always A plus B equals C to you. And sometimes that’s okay, but most of the time that’s not how people work. You’re always the B in the equation, thinking that you always have to do something. It’s an admirable trait, trying to fix everyone. But sometimes there isn’t anything you can do other than just be there, to just ride out the storm with them instead of trying to stop it. But you don’t see it that way; you see that as failure on your part, and it’s not,” she said earnestly.
I nodded as her words began to sink in. I finally smiled and let my gaze drift adoringly over my sister’s face. “When the hell did you get so smart?”
“I’ve always been smart, you were just too far up your ass to notice.”
I laughed before reaching over and pulling her into a hug. “Thanks, Sam.”
…
My palms were sweaty as I waited outside of Alara’s final class on Monday evening. It had been the longest four days of my life as I waited for her to contact me. Unfortunately she never did, and despite everyone telling me to be patient, I couldn’t keep my distance any longer.
I had just looked down at my watch when the doors burst open and students came streaming out. Standing immediately, I wiped my hands on my pants and began searching for her. When I found her I almost wished I hadn’t thought to surprise her. Her posture was stiff and slow as she walked down the steps, unknowingly coming closer to me. She kept her outfit simple with dark jeans and a black sweatshirt that fell loosely around her body, while her hair was pulled into a sloppy bun that showed off her makeup-free face, revealing dark circles under her eyes and a paler than normal complexion.
The air left my lungs as I thought about how absolutely beautiful she was, even with her wrecked and ragged appearance. I could be blind and still know she was beautiful. Because she was so much more than what everyone else saw. And as I stood there watching her walk toward me with her head down and her arms tucked around a binder she clutched to her chest, I couldn’t help but worry it was all about to disappear.
When she was close enough, I cleared my throat and called her name.
She looked up and jumped back a little, clutching her chest. “Jesus.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” I raised my hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She nodded warily before looking over my shoulder. “It’s okay, but I, uh, I don’t have time for this right now,” she said distractedly as she started walking around me.
Panicking, I wrapped my hand around her arm to stop her. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t leave. I just… we need to talk. Please.”
She let out a breath before turning around and facing me. Her eyes immediately went to my hand on her arm as she gently pulled it free. Reluctantly I let her go and tried to bend down so I could catch her eyes. When she saw what I was doing, she sighed and looked up into mine. “I know we need to talk, but I really can’t right now.”
“Okay, when?” I asked earnestly.
“I don’t know, Gabe. But I’m late for something right now and I need to go. I’ll call you later, okay?” She turned around and briskly walked away without even waiting for a response. I didn’t try to stop her again or point out that just a few minutes ago she had been sluggish, looking like she was headed home. I blew out a breath and hung my head before slowly trailing behind her.