“Will you give me a minute?” I ask, squeezing her hand. “Just a minute to think?This is coming out wrong, but I don’t know how to say it right and—I just need a minute.”
Emily nods. She hasn’t turned on the lava lamp. She doesn’t seem angry, just desperately sad, folding in on herself in a way that devastates me.
I’m hurting her. I never want to do that, but I’m hurting her, and I don’t know how to stop. I’m not sure how much longer she’ll put up with this before she realizes I’m not worth it.
I set my glass down next to the log and stand up, walking away from the warmth of the fire. It’s getting chilly out here, and while I live in cargo shorts even in the winter, I kind of wish I’d brought a windbreaker. I run my hands up and down my arms, working my way further up the trail in the dark. I stay close to the rock wall, feeling it brush roughly against my sleeve.
Damn it, I need to get it together. We didn’t fight that time, and no one turned on the lava lamp. Emily didn’t tell me how I feel, and neither of us lost it with the other. With all of those problems set aside, I feel like the real problem is completely exposed.
It was me. It was me all along.
I’ve never deserved Emily, have only barely been able to give her enough to keep her with me this long. It’s true, what I thought that first night we fought in the tent—I’ve been wasting her time, and I’ve been doing it intentionally, trying desperately to avoid the way she’s going to wreck me when she goes.
Maybe it doesn’t matter how much we work on this. Maybe it doesn’t matter how well we communicate, how much therapy—real or otherwise—we do.The problem, despite what she says, is thatI’mnot good enough. Emily might believe otherwise, but maybeshe’sthe one who’s subconsciously avoiding the truth. My dad may be an asshole, but you can be an asshole and be right. Maybe he’s the only one cold and distant enough to see me clearly.To see that I could never be good enough for someone like her.
To see that this was inevitably going to end. I lean back against the cliff, looking up at the stars. Here, away from the firelight, there are so many. I love that about getting out of the city, all the millions of stars, the whole vast universe, which makes my petty life seem so small and insignificant by comparison.
Except Emily. She could never be insignificant, not to me, not to anyone. She’s as beautiful and precious as all the stars I can see put together. She deserves someone who doesn’t disappoint her, who loves her so well she never finds reason to doubt.
I’m starting to choke up, and I wish now she’d followed me, even to yell at me. I hate being alone; I always have, and that peace I felt earlier is gone. I told Emily I needed a minute to sort through my thoughts, but they’re more tangled than ever out here. Emily is my clarity. Emily is my light. I need her, and I’m going to lose her, and after that I have no idea what I’m going to become.
I grip my forearms, trying to get a hold of myself.
I can’t do this. I can’t sink into despair; I can’t ruin this. I have to keep trying, even if I can see everything we are together slipping through my fingers like a sieve.
I take a deep breath. Emily must be panicking. I can’t stay out here. It isn’t helping, anyway.
I’m going to take one more minute, then I’m going to go back and try as hard as I can to explain to her what’s in my head.
I take a couple more breaths and slip down off the path a few feet to take a piss. I look up at the stars again, trying to get myself under control while I relieve myself.
Then I hear a noise. A rustling, down in the brush where I’m peeing.
All at once, there’s a soft hissing sound and a warm liquid squirting up on my junk. I swear softly, thinking I’ve somehow caught myself in the rebound. I really don’t want to head back to camp with piss all over my pants like I don’t know how to take a leak in the woods—
Then it hits me, an overpowering stench so deep I gag and fumble in my pocket for my Maglite. I switch it on to see the black and white—and is that a spot of gold?—tail slipping through the scrubby bushes. I open my mouth to swear again and choke instead.
Holyshit.
I just peed on a goddamn skunk.
Seventeen
Emily
When Jason leaves—flees, practically—I’m left sitting there surrounded by wine and s’mores and a low-burning fire. Pieces of a romantic evening and maybe an entire relationship. I feel the open sky pressing in on me, my chest a hollowed-out cavern.
He doesn’t want to move in together.
He doesn’t want to move forward at all.
He said “maybe I don’t,” but it felt true, in a way him saying he wanted these things never quite did.
It also felt like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to breathe again.
What do we do now?
What doIdo now?
