Beck
Hey. I hope you’re not going to get sick. You should have stayed away.
For once, Forest immediately starts typing his reply.
Forest
Hey! Look who’s up! I’m glad you’re feeling more lucid. Will you take your temperature? I left a thermometer on your bathroom sink. And some orange juice in your fridge.
I take a deep, shaky breath. He must have spent some serious hours at my house. And I repay him with emotional vomit?
He must have hated that.
Beck
Thank you. But I have to ask. Did I say anything weird last night?
Forest
Isn’t that a loaded question? Weird is a strong word. I heard a lot about your views on bowling.
I groan in the silence of my bedroom. Then I bite the bullet and call him. “Hey,” I say when he answers. “I don’t mean normal weird. I mean…” I take a breath. “Sometimes I get emotional and, uh, clingy when I’m sick. You shouldn’t take it seriously.”
There’s a deep silence on his end of the call, and then I hear a sigh. “Beck,” he says. My heart drops a mile. He’s using his dad voice again, and I brace myself. “It’s all valid…”
Oh God.
“But I’m just not in a place…”
“Stop,” I break in, exasperated. “Just… Don’t, okay? I get it. Promise. So long as I don’t have another fever above 103, we can go back to the way things were, right? With me being the guy who loves bad jokes and your beard, and you pretending not to notice when I’m needy.”
“Beck,” he says, his voice strained. “That genie won’t go back into the bottle.”
Distress shoots through me. “So? What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me we’re done?”
There’s hesitation on the other end of the line.
And, fuck, that pause tells me everything I need to know. “Fine,” I say tightly. “I get it. So I guess this is it. Thank you for not letting me, like, die alone in my own sweat. But I’ll let you get back to your life now.”
Then I actually end the call before I start begging, and I set my phone down with a shaking hand.
Except. Except. I stare at it for a few long minutes, willing it to ring again, with Forest saying, No, Beck, we’re not done. That’s not what I want at all. And then, I need you. And maybe even, I love you.
But it doesn’t happen. The phone remains silent. And the truth starts to sink in: I gave him an out, and that gutless fucker took it.
I’m crushed. Really crushed. But I guess it’s better to know where I stand than to keep waiting for a sign that will never come.
Thirty-Seven
You’re the Problem
Forest
I don't call Beck back.
I could. My thumb hovers over his name.
Instead, I shut off my phone and toss it onto the coffee table like it’s radioactive. Then I sit very still on my couch and stare at nothing for a long time.
