Useless. Helpless. Just like I always was, whenever it actually mattered.
“Eli?” she said after a long time—too long—had passed. She sounded tired, on the threshold of sleep.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I did. That much, at least, I knew how to say.
Her voice grew faint as sleep pulled her under. “I really am sorry.”
The change in her breathing told me she was already asleep.
I stood up, feeling miserable. I made it to the doorway and paused. “I know,” I said under my breath, so quietly she couldn’t have heard me, even if she’d still been conscious. I swallowedmy shame and grief, shoving the emotions down where they couldn’t hurt either of us. “Me, too.”
* * *
I stepped out onto the back porch and lit up a cigarette, pilfered from my emergency pack. I don’t smoke often—maybe a few times in a bad week. Which is good, given that it’s one of the best and fastest ways to torpedo your long-term health. But tonight, I needed one.
Sam was still passed out upstairs, snoring softly. And I had already tried watching television, but nothing could hold my attention for longer than a few minutes. I couldn’t focus enough to read.
Though exhaustion stole through every fiber of my being—it was well past three in the morning, that eerie, liminal stretch of night when nothing seems quite real—I still felt far too unsettled to go to bed myself. And I knew that the moment I fell asleep, I would dream of him again. The mysteriously vanishing dream man who was apparently very, very real.
But even if I ever did cross paths with him again, he would invariably turn out to be just as bad as any of the other delightful gents I’ve dated. He’d turn out to be a serial cheater. Or so commitment-phobic that it was pathological. Or he’d have a substance-abuse disorder. Or he’d be emotionally—and perhaps, at least occasionally, physically—abusive. Or he’d be all of the above. Like my ex.
The ex.
Eric Jensen.
I had met him junior year of college. We’d dated off and on for two years. I had thought I loved him. I had thought he loved me. And then, four months into our relationship, right around the time the honeymoon wore off, he changed. It was subtleat first—suggestions that we blow off family stuff. My family stuff. My friends became our friends. Then just his friends. And slowly, they stopped returning my texts. Until it was just me and him.
And then he got darker. Meaner. Every problem in our relationship was my fault. When he ran off and got fucked up on drugs the first time, vanishing for three days without a word, it turned out I hadn’t been nice enough to him, understanding enough. We’d had a fight right before that, and he thought I didn’t love him anymore. And then, when I discovered he had been cheating on me, it was because I wasn’t fucking him often enough. He had needs, didn’t he? Of course he did.
We broke up after each event. And I even stayed away from him—sometimes for days or weeks at a time. Then he’d come crawling back to me, begging me not to leave him. Didn’t I know how much he loved me? Didn’t I know he loved me more than anyone else ever could?
And though I hated myself for it, I caved every single goddamn time.
Sometime after our sixth breakup, he shoved me into a wall hard enough to crack the plaster. He cried most of the night, even though I was the one who probably should’ve gotten stitches. But I forgave him. And then he did it again.
After the third time, I finally woke up. I left him. He called me every day for three months after that.
He was the reason I eventually left Los Angeles in the first place, even though Sam had already started spiraling, her drinking problem getting far worse right after our mom died.
And Eric was the reason why.
He was why I chose to do medical school four hundred miles away, in San Francisco. I would’ve gone farther if I could have, but I needed the in-state tuition. Becoming a doctoris expensive enough without paying out-of-state rates. I quite literally couldn’t afford to run as far as I wanted to.
I hadn’t told him I was leaving or where I was going. Even though we’d been broken up for months at that point, I knew he’d still try to stop me. He’d try to drag me back in, even if it meant messing up my plans. Especially if it meant messing up my plans.
But I had been lucky, all things considered. He was an abusive, narcissistic fuck, but he had only wasted a few years of my life. And I’d gotten away from him relatively unscathed. A lot of people in similar situations weren’t so lucky.
That had been a long time ago. I’d sworn off dating for years after Eric, burying myself as far as I could in schoolwork, right up until I started my residency. Then, encouraged by one of my well-meaning college friends, I took a chance on another resident who seemed perfect for me. We dated for two months. Then it turned out he was a junkie. And just like that, another couple of months down the drain.
It could have been worse. It could always be worse. But dating anyone right now—especially the literal man of my dreams who may or may not have been some kind of hallucination—was off the table. My last mistake with two legs and a cock—the married one—had reminded me that there’s nothing good waiting out there for me.
Only more liars and assholes.
