"I was going to take a cooking class," Wes cried, shaking his hands at me like that meant something. "And I was going to do this for a lot longer than a minute."
"That's lovely but you've made it clear you're not willing to live openly," I replied. "This isn't about your parents. It's about you and how you haven't decided who you are." I shoved my phone in my pocket and grabbed my coat. Carrying on this conversation wasn't going to improve matters. Beyond that issue, it was also becoming self-injurious to hear this. I couldn't do it any longer. "That's the difference between us. I've known and I've paid the price for it, and I haven't run away from myself. I deserve someone who does the same."
"You're—what? You're leaving?" Wes asked as I stood. "Because I'm not ready for the precise sequence of events you've planned but never thought to share with me? I can tell you right now this conversation would've taken a different course if I'd known you were holding me to a relationship growth chart instead of springing it on me like this."
I shrugged into my coat and took an excess of care to arrange my scarf. My life might be a fresh mess but that didn't mean I needed to look like one too. "You're upset because I'm saying things you're not ready to hear—"
"Yeah, Tom, marriage is kind of a big step," he argued.
"This isn't about marriage." I had to dig for the calm, even tone I used when Patrick went full-on ballistic grouch. It was that or show Wes how he'd ripped me open. If not for the aggressively slim cut of this suit, I was certain my internal organs would've spilled onto the floor and I'd be nothing more than skin and skeleton. "This is about you not being absent from your own life. You're missing in action and you aren't ready to recognize the shell you've forced yourself to live in, the shadow life you've forced yourself to lead. This is about us being in wildly different places, and yes, I've ignored that but I can't ignore it any longer. You're not ready to make changes and you're bound to leave soon—"
"And what if I wasn't?" Wes asked, kicking the chair I'd vacated.
The audience we'd acquired sent up a gasp and turned their collective gaze toward the chair before pinging back to me. I almost stopped to explain Wes wasn't violent—not socially, as it was—and they needn't concern themselves. But this was overwhelming for me. I couldn't handle this kind of confrontation and the fact it was happening in public filled me with a kind of shame I'd sworn off.
"Then…then you're still in a different place than I am," I said eventually, shaking my head. There was no sense speaking in hypotheticals, as I'd learned on the sidewalk earlier. "And it's clear you have no intention of catching up to me."
"Wow, you are really fucking stubborn, aren't you?"
"I'm telling you what I need," I replied, working hard to keep a quiver out of my voice. "It's not outrageous for me to explain to you the things I need for emotional safety and love and the validation of my personhood. It is outrageous, however, for you to think you can sustain a relationship with someone while ignoring those needs. Think about that. Think about your outsized response to me saying I do want to get married and I also want to marry someone who is out to his adorable, loving family. Think about why all of this is so uncomfortable to you."
When Wes didn't respond, I turned and exited the café. I left him there but an enormous part of me expected—hoped—he'd follow. Chase after me, run up and ring his arms around me, begging for another chance. Or he'd beat me back to the office and I'd find him sitting in my desk chair and he'd drag me into his arms. Swear he was wrong and I was right because I was obviously right. Promise we'd figure this out. Promise we'd make this right. Promise this wasn't the end.
But he didn't follow.
That spoke as loudly as anything else he'd said.
20
Wes
I slumped backin my chair, blinking and gaping as if I'd been hit by a flashbang grenade. The force was the exact same. I was disoriented and shaken, and couldn't hear myself think. It would've helped if all the people staring down the table at me went back to texting and typing and living their happy little lives.
What the fuck just happened? What the actual fuck happened here?I wasn't certain but it seemed like I was dumped. And provided a detailed summary of my issues and flaws in the process.
What happened now? What was I supposed to do? I wanted to cry and yell and throw things, and run after him and swear to be better and do better and also tell him he was being demanding and stubborn as fuck. He was wrong. He didn't know my parents or my world. He didn't know the first thing about military life. Hedidn't know. And I would've told him that but he was too busy running the fuck away because it was so much easier to exclude things from his life than it was to adapt.
I was his rice, the starchy carbs in his way, and I was a fool if I thought he'd change his mind about my place in his life.
I stared down the street in the direction he'd gone. There were hundreds of reasons why Tom was wrong about everything and I embraced each one of them. He was being impossible to please and I was…I was doing the best I could with my circumstances. Right? Right. That was it. I wastryinghere and he was making outrageous demands. If I didn't want to get married right this fucking minute, I wasn't worth his time? What a crock of horseshit. And I liked pretending? Iwantedit this way? Oh, that was unreal.
I wasn't sure how long I watched that street but the lunch crowd was gone when I glanced back at the café. I hadn't touched my food. Big, fluffy snowflakes fell from the gray clouds and formed a thick crust on tree branches and parked cars.
Again, it was cold and dark, and I was alone. Stuck once again.
21
Tom
Avoiding Shannon Walsh-Halsted was impossible.Many tried, none succeeded. She scented shifts in mood and energy as if she'd been a bloodhound in a past life. Back-to-back late season snowstorms saved me from driving up to her house for our check-in meetings on Friday but she didn't have to see me in person to know something was off. She knew the same way she knew everything—she felt it.
Those storms fucked up my contractor scheduling and project timelines and that disaster allowed me to plow the bitter sting of Wes's stubborn bullshit into furious, focused work. I kept my head down and ignored all of Shannon's inquiries by complaining about Patrick refusing to work with the carpenters I'd staffed on his Cape Cod restorations.
I didn't want to talk about Wes or his stubborn bullshit but I really didn't want to talk about it with Shannon. I loved her, I really did, but she was his sister-in-law. He lived at her house, at least for now. I wasn't putting her in the position of choosing sides. It wouldn't be fair to her, but more than that I didn't think I could bear to watch while someone decided I wasn't their priority. Logically, I knew I was a priority to Shannon. It wasn't an exaggeration to say she saved my life. But it would break my heart to make her choose.
I didn't want to talktoWes either. Not unless he approached me with a promise to enumerate all the ways in which he was wrong and planned to make it right. That was my hard line on the matter and I was allowing none of my people-pleasing instincts to get in the way of that.
A younger, more frantic, fragile version of me would've gone to Shannon's house using the pretense of business and I would've lingered long enough to put eyes on Wes. I would've played it aloof and uninterested, and I would've let him take me to the garage apartment where he'd make promises to try. I would've accepted that too. I would've tolerated the half-baked gesture oftrying, even though I knew it would amount to nothing more than some good intentions.
