Once at the restaurant, the silence continues until Michael, unaware of all the underlying problems, starts talking about movies with a half-dead Errol. Sahara won’t look up from her plate. Rowan constantly looks like she is about to cry. And I’m watching it all like it’s a Shakespeare play.
“Maybe today we should just watch something,” Farrah says, vetoing our original plan to continue our exploration of the island.
No one protests, so that quickly becomes the plan. I know that when we get back, I’ll be in a room with Callahan, too busy talking to be able to join in. Even though I still don’t know what to say.
The whole car ride back, I try to find the words I want to say to him. It’s not until I am staring at him sitting on our bed do I have a start.
“I know you’re probably confused.”
“No,” he says.
“No?”
“I know you, Monty. I’ve listened when you talked. I know why you are doing this. What I don’t know is how you could do this to me?”
I feel my legs shake under the weight of his disappointment.
“It’s always been clear to me that you are afraid of giving yourself to someone, which is fine. I thought we would work past that, but every day it seems like I’m fighting to keep you here.” He rubs his hands up and down his face.
All his usual exuberance and joy is seemingly sucked from his body. There are dark circles under his eyes, and the way he folds in on himself, it’s like he has been hollowed out.
“I want to be here,” I whisper.
“Do you? Because some days I can’t even get a text back. The last month and a half has been me chasing you.” He stands up and walks over to the window.
Looking out of it, he doesn’t speak for a moment. His chest moves, so I know he is breathing, but he is as still as the dead.
“Callahan, I’m sorry.” I walk towards him, and by some sort of miracle, he lets me wrap my arms around him.
The way he holds me back feels like he is expecting to have to let go.
“I feel really stupid right now,” he says with a sigh. “I thought if I showed up and was patient, you would give yourself to me. I thought I would eventually be worthwhile to you. Despite it never being true, I thought I could be enough. But I never am.” He lets his arms fall, and when I step back, I see that his eyes are red.
Like he is admitting to some sort of shame, he bows his head. I do too, choking on his words.
How could I?
How, after everything he has told me, could I let myself be another person in his life to make him feel this way? How am I going to live with myself knowing I did this?
Callahan, good, sweet, reliable Callahan should be enough for any person. He is all the best parts of the world, and somehow, he doesn’t think he is deserving of anything in it. I made him feel that way. After everything he has done to hold me up these months, I let him fall when he leaned in.
The walls made by my mother crumble as my heart explodes. It finally broke because it couldn’t take seeing that I broke his.
“No, baby, please don’t think that. It’s not true.” I try to hold his face, but he pulls away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I let my bullshit make you feel this way.”
I wipe the tears that rapidly fall down his face, hating the look in his eyes. I try to hold him again, but this time he won’t let me. More and more, he seems to wilt until he has to lean against the wall. His hands shake, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he fights to swallow.
“I have never loved anyone the way I love you, and it scared me. It made me pull away. But I do want this. I do want you.”
I don’t know how I let myself fight a truth that is embedded in my soul now. I don’t know how I thought I could ever walk away from him. All I want is him. All I need is him.
I pull his arms until I can place him on the bed. Still holding his hands, I kneel on the floor in front of him.
“Callahan, the way I rely on you is something I haven’t done since I was a teenager. I have been so afraid of being let down the way my mother let me down. I didn’t think I could take it.”
This finally gets him to look at me.
“She was racist, and she became more conservative, but I still loved her. Even when she left us for a white man, I still wanted to be in herlife. But when she got the kids that looked like her and fit into her ideal life, she slowly pulled away from me. By the time I was twelve, she wasn’t in my life at all. She wouldn’t even call me back.”
