When we got to the door, he turned to me. He took a deep breath and pulled me into his warm embrace. I held him tight, welcoming the comfort of it—it was almost enough to wash the guilt away.
“I Wish It Would Rain,” he whispered. I snapped my eyes shut to keep from crying, but a tear fell anyway. I pulled back, and he wiped it away with the pad of his thumb.
I offered a sad smile. “Just My Imagination.”
He grinned a small half-grin that mirrored the ache of it all, and with the deepest whisper and the strongest eyes, he said, “I need you, Syd.”
His hand cupped my face, and his eyes poured into mine before he leaned his forehead against mine. I shuddered at the violent strike to my heart as it split open with a hard crack.
“I can’t…” was all I could say. Because it was true.
I couldn’t be there for E the way he wanted me to be, and it wasn’t the time to try. He had a void in his life fromthe loss he had suffered, and if I tried to fill it, we’d be destined for failure. I knew it in my soul. I think he knew it too. Because he didn’t argue or plead his case. He just nodded, kissed my forehead, and walked out the door. He left, knowing we couldn’t handle being friends, just as we couldn’t handle being more.
I lay on the couch, unable to think. Unable to sleep. I just… existed in the time and space I wanted so badly to escape. In the mess I had created, once again.
Jake deserved better than me. He deserved a girl who loved him back enough to say no to another man. But I couldn’t say no. I didn’t. Again.
If I were a better person, I would have walked away. I would have let Jake find someone who loved him the way he deserved to be loved before I ruined him further. But I was selfish. I loved Jake. Not the same way as E, but enough. Too much to let him go. Too much to live without him. But not enough to stop myself from chasing the ghost I ached to burn with. I had to do better. Iwoulddo better.
I chose not to tell Jake. I rationalized the dishonesty, convincing myself it was only a kiss. That it didn’t mean anything. That Jake didn’t have to know because it wouldn’t happen again. It was a twisted way to think, but when you’re used to lying to yourself, the truth becomes too blurred to see.
The shame I felt hearing Jake’s voice on the answering machine is what I held on to most. It’s what solidified what I already knew—I had to let E go. I think E saw it too. He saw how much I didn’t want to hurt Jake. He saw how much I hated what I had become. And I think he knew what would happen next, even though it’d pierce his soul.
I knew it was going to break me, but some goodbyes aren’t about strength; they’re about survival. And I had to survive. When you’re stranded in the ocean, you need a raft to keep you afloat. Something steady and buoyant to carry you above the waves. Jake was my raft. Jake was my chance at survival. I loved him with all the heart I had left. I’d have to keep my head to the sky and turn my back on the wreckage, so I could have a life. So that I wouldn’t end up like my mother—drunk and alone and unable to love after the one who tore her apart.
I’d have to let go of E.
As if he knew the war in my mind had settled, E texted me a link to a song.
I shouldn’t have opened it. I shouldn’t have listened to it. But I did.
It was John Wayne by Cigarettes After Sex. And it almost killed me:
He’s got so much love for her, but he doesn’t know what to do. Sitting in the car, waiting outside of school. He’s in for a heartbreak if it’s all been blind faith from my point of view. Baby, he’s got to be crazy, living like he’s John Wayne. Always facing the world, chasing the girl… Baby, he’s got to be crazy.
The melody. The lyrics. It was everything I didn’t need at that moment.
For the first time in my life, I understood addiction. I understood why a drug addict can’t say no. Why don’t they just “go to rehab” when everyone begs them to? It’s because quitting your drug of choice is like saying goodbye to the love of your life. Saying goodbye to the thing that makes you feel whole. The thing that fills the void, no one ornothing else can. It’s impossible to imagine life without that substance, even if it’s killing you.
Having E in my life was killing me—killing the version of myself I thought I knew—and like a full-blown addict, I would have let it.
But I had Jake. I had someone to be clean for.
My heart begged to hang onto the strength I found for him. My head wanted to move on like that night never happened. Deep in my soul, I wanted to live a life unlike my childhood. I wanted something steady, something safe. Something where I couldn’t end up hurt, if only because my whole heart wasn’t in it.
My mind screamed to be mad at E. It told my heart to hate him and call him selfish for the way he always came back into my life. For the way he didn’t let go. I did call him selfish. And maybe he was. But I couldn’t hate him for it—he was driven by something too powerful to resist. Forced to be irrational by a love so overwhelming. He was desperately fighting for the future he was sure we were supposed to have, and he wouldn’t let me forget it.
It wasn’t fair. Not to him. Not to us. Not to all the people in between. It wasn’t fair. But it was war.
Andallis fair in love and war.
Track 17
“Evil”
-Earth, Wind & Fire, 1973
I NEVER TEXTED E back that night, or any of the nights that followed. And he didn’t text me either. The next several months went by completely silent—they had to. Because for the second time in my life, I changed my number, and didn’t tell E.
