“Wild party last night,” James says as he closes the front door behind him.
Now my brain is racing over every intonation in his voice. Did Kayla say something to him? Did he see something?
“Bloody fun though,” I tell him, heading over to the fridge with as much casual swagger as I can inject into my walk. Just another Saturday morning here, nothing to be suspicious about. My eyes scour the living room for a pair of red panties I know I ripped off of Steph just the other day.
“Yeah it was.”
I bring out a jug of orange juice and shake it at him. “Do you want to hit this?”
He shakes his head. On closer inspection, he’s not looking so good. He’s paler than usual and there is a ring of purple beneath his eyes. “You all right?” I ask him, quickly adding, “Hungover?”
He nods and looks up at me. His eyes are very grave, very dark. “Yeah. Hungover. I drank like a fish.”
“Who didn’t?” I say, pouring myself a glass of juice and gulping it down. “But you can’t get in the holiday spirit without spirits.”
James doesn’t even smile. He just stares at me and I can almost see the darkness swirling inside of him. My scalp prickles with unease.
“I broke up with Penny.”
I blink, surprised but not surprised. “What? Why?”
“I did it last night, after the party. We had a fight.”
I chew on my lip, thinking, and say, “Well, just because you had a fight doesn’t mean you should break up.”
“Were you in love with Nadine?” he asks.
I’m a bit caught off guard and immediately reminded of my conversation with Steph last night. She loves me. Baby blue loves me.
“Linden?”
“Sorry.” I shake my head and take a gulp of my juice. “No. I wasn’t in love with her.”
“And you knew it.”
“I did. I wanted to think it could change, grow to that, I guess. But no. I wasn’t in love with her.”
“And so you broke up with her.”
“Exactly.”
“Same thing then. I don’t love Penny.”
I can’t help but feel my face crumble a bit. “But you guys were so good together. She’s such a nice girl. She’s fun. She’s made you more fun.”
“I know, that’s what has made this so hard. You know, I’ve honestly been thinking about this for six months now.”
“Six months?” I exclaim. “You’ve been wanting to break up with her for six months?”
He shrugs and looks away, ashamed. “Like you, I thought things would change. Because she is fun and we have a great time together and I do care about her. A lot. In so many ways, she’s perfect. But I’m not in love with her. When I look at her, I don’t get that freefall.”
“Freefall?”
“Yeah,” he says softly and brings his eyes back to mine. “The way I feel when I do love someone.” He licks his lips. “Look, Linden I have to tell you something.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re in love with me, James. You’re not my type.”
“You’re not my type either. Fuckface.”
I smile but his face grows tense, his brows low. Please, please, please let him say some random girl’s name.
“I’m in love with Stephanie.”
No.
No. No. No. No.
My chest feels like there’s a vacuum inside. Black, dry, nothingness is all there is left.
“You what?” I’m barely able to speak but I should be able to speak. I should have known this was coming. I knew this was coming.
“I’m in love with her,” he says. While my voice has grown weaker, his has grown stronger. There is a steely determination in his eyes, as if telling me this he is making it more real to himself. “I’m surprised you never figured it out.”
“No,” I tell him. I clear my throat, trying to absorb it all. I can’t act hurt, I can’t act like there is this ice rock of utter fucking despair in my gut, the kind that keeps you from breathing properly.
“That’s good, I guess,” he says.
“So…” I begin. “I’m sorry. I just…how long have you been in love with her for?”
He sighs. “You know what, man? I don’t know if I ever really got over her. When she broke up with me, that really fucking did my head in. I was so in love with her and, looking back now, I can see why she did it. I was so fucking immature. We both were but I was acting like a real brat, you know? I guess because she was my first real love, you know, more than just a fuck. But Jesus, Linden, you have no idea what the sex was like.”
I bite down, my jaw strained.
He continues, “She’s so fucking good in bed. Back then, and recently too.”
“W-what?” My lungs empty.
He gives me a grin. It’s smug and I want to punch it off his god damn face. “Yeah. Her twenty-ninth birthday. Remember when you were in the hospital with Nadine?”
Yes. Yes. I do.
“Well, I didn’t want Steph to spend her birthday alone. So I went down to her shop. Things got a bit carried away. We ended up having sex right there in her store. How about that, huh?”
Black spots are appearing in my vision. Everything he said sounds like it’s coming from a dream, some nightmare. It’s not real. Stephanie did not sleep with James on her twenty-ninth birthday.
“Shocked,” James comments. “I rarely get to shock the great Linden McGregor. This must be a first for me.” He gives me a rather wicked smile and goes on. “Anyway, the sex was amazing. You know, that whole I-still-want-you-and-I-must-have-you. It got pretty fucking messy. Food everywhere, spilled drinks. Just took her right there on the floor, on her hands and knees and she was fucking loving it, Linden. She was fucking loving it.”
All I feel is rage. Red hot, sticky flames of rage. Angry, uncontrollable, hate-seeking rage just burning inside of me, eating away. I’m going to do something stupid, I know it, I know it. I can’t help it.
He’s my best friend and I want to kill him
Just fucking kill him.
But somehow I swallow down my fury, gulp it, until it burns my throat and I plaster on a smile. “Sounds pretty cool.” I breathe in, breathe out. “Just that one time?”
His eyes drop with disappointment. “Yeah.” The rage slips from me, slightly. “But what it made me realize is that I’m still not over her.”
“That’s a long time to be pining over your best friend,” I tell him, then busy myself with the rest of my juice. I’m trying to think how I should act about this, how he expects me to. Does the Linden he thinks I am – the one that sees Stephanie as only a friend – does he care about this scenario at all?
I guess he would a little.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” I ask. “You broke up with Penny but as long as you’re just harboring these feelings, it’s never going to go anywhere. Aren’t you worried about messing up the friendship? Do you know if she feels the same way about you? Because, I don’t know man…she’s got a pretty full life at the moment and from my end, she doesn’t really seem to think of you that way. No offense or anything.”
A cold, calculating gleam comes into James eyes as he looks up at me. “Typical Linden.”
“Typical Linden?” I repeat.
He taps his fingers on the table. “You know what really pissed me off? When you made that pact with her. That stupid shitty little pact.”
“Why would that piss you off?”
He gives me a look. “Obviously you know why now. But there you go, telling the girl that I’m in love with, my ex-girlfriend, and our friend, that you’ll marry her if you’re both single when you turn thirty.”
“I didn’t know you were in love with her,” I admit softly.
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Yes!” I say. “Of course it would have.”
He squints at me warily. “Oh, I’m sure. You always have to go after what’s mine. You can’t ever let me have something for myself.”
&nbs
p; “What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, slamming the carton of juice back in the fridge. “It was a harmless pact.”
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it. But that kind of pisses me off even more.” His gives me an acidic smirk. “You know, I thanked my lucky stars that I saw her first. That I hired her. That I asked her out. I wasn’t about to let you have something else you didn’t need. You get everything Linden, just handed to you, all the fucking time. But you didn’t get her.”
I ball my hands up into fists and then release them. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
“And there you go with your devil may care attitude, like you don’t give a shit, because you don’t give a shit. Not about anyone but yourself.”
“Did you come all the way here to tell me you’re in love with Stephanie or was it just an excuse to tell me every grudge you’ve always harbored?”
He sucks on his teeth. Then his shoulders relax a bit. “No. I came here to tell you about her. Everything else…kind of slipped out.”
I fold my arms tightly over my chest, feeling an intense mix of anger and hurt rolling inside me. “Anything else then? Come on, I can take it. Obviously, I don’t care about anything except myself.”
“You just have no idea what it’s like to be me. To have to work so hard through life to even get the slightest bit ahead. I grew up poor. I had a drunk fuck for a dad and a helpless mom. I struggled to get everything I have. It’s not easy being your friend Linden when you just get everything handed to you. That’s why Stephanie is so special to me. She’s more mine than yours.”
“That’s not true,” I say through grinding teeth.
“What?”
I swallow hard and take a deep breath. “She’s been friends with both of us for years.”
“But I’m the only one who’s fucked her, who really knows her.”
Not true. But I clamp my lips shut. Part of me wants to tell him, wants to hurt him for all the resentment he’s spewed my way. But the other part agrees with his resentment. That part sees his point.
That part knows I’m guilty.
“You haven’t been with her, have you Linden?”
The question startles me. I never thought he’d actually ask me that.
“With Stephanie?”
He nods slowly. “Uh huh. Seems silly to ask, but judging by the kisses I saw – oh you can say it was a dare or it was for the cameras, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you were the type of guy to take it a step further.”
But I am that type of guy.
Holy shit, I am a terrible person.
“Because,” he continues watching his fingers as they drum slower, “if you were that type of guy, I’d have the right to know. And I’d never speak to you again. It would be like you never existed. You know that saying, bros before hos? There’s truth to that. You don’t screw over your friends. And you don’t lie about it either. So, Linden. What type of guy are you? A friend? Or the other guy?”
I have to answer. I have to say something.
I have no time to weigh the right option. I can only buy time.
“I’m your friend James,” I tell him. “I’ve never been with Steph. She’s all yours.”
The biggest, brightest smile slowly appears on his face. He looks like a kid on Christmas morning. It doesn’t make me feel relieved at all. It makes me feel absolutely sick to my heart.
I just lied, flat-out lied to my best friend. I just destroyed something beautiful with my other best friend. Because now I know I can’t be with Stephanie, not after what I just said. We can’t continue sleeping with each other like we have and we can’t come out with the truth anymore.
I have to break it off with her.
My chest feels bereft, like the bottom dropped out. It has dropped out.
I can’t break it off with her. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
“Sorry if I was a little bit harsh,” James says, still smiling. I’m smiling back now but it’s the phoniest, stiffest smile that has ever crossed my face. “Friends go through shit all the time. I guess I harbored a few grudges against you that I didn’t really know about.”
I nod. Not feeling anything but deep, stabbing loss.
“Anyway, this makes me feel better. You have no idea how hard it was not to tell you earlier, to keep this a secret, but I wanted to make sure it was real. It is.”
It’s like he’s changed from night to day. “Are you going to tell her?” I ask, my voice a bit rough.
He ponders that for a moment, tilting his head. “I don’t know. I think I have to play my cards right.” Suddenly he snaps up, his eyes flying to mine. “But you can’t tell her Linden.”
“I won’t.”
“No,” he says and he sticks out his pinky finger. “This is the gayest shit but I know you don’t break these. You cannot tell her anything. Ever. This is just between you and me, as friends, as brothers. This is that fucking bro code, you got that? You promise? Pinky swear? You will not tell Stephanie anything about what we talked about today. I don’t even want her to know that you know about us fucking, okay?”
I slowly stick out my hand. Pure, unadulterated guilt forces me to curl my finger around his. He shakes it once.
“Good,” he says, exhaling loudly. “Now I can breathe. Man, Linden I was so afraid to tell you all this, that you’d think I was crazy. But I feel so much better now. I thought I would have my heart broken all over again but now I feel that maybe, maybe we have a chance. I mean, with Penny gone and Steph single again and the fact that it was only last year that she slept with me…I really might have a chance.”
I mumble something in agreement, feeling dazed and disoriented. My kitchen swirls around me and the aching feeling in my heart won’t stop. It won’t fucking stop.
“So,” James says, getting out of seat. “What are your plans for the day? Want to head to Union Square? I need to do some Christmas shopping. We could get some Blue Bottle coffee.”
I don’t want to spend a second longer with him. But I don’t think I can be alone either. Stephanie is at her store so I can’t even talk to her about this.
“Can we get some beers instead of coffee?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Hair of the dog, sure.” He goes toward the door and then looks me up and down. “You should put on a shirt, you don’t need a mob of women chasing after you. Or maybe you do. Who the hell have you been screwing lately?”
“No one you need to worry about,” I tell him. I slip on a shirt and a cargo jacket and head out the door.
No one he needs to worry about anymore.
***
I don’t know how I get through Christmas shopping, with James of all people and today of all days, when my whole fucking world seems to crumble around me by the force of my own two hands, but I do. He goes back to being his mostly chipper self, save for a few well-placed swears he hurtles in the direction of the holiday shoppers.
I don’t say much. I can’t. I don’t dare. I’m lost in my thoughts and the guilt, of not only lying to James but what I’m going to have to say to Stephanie. I’m at a crossroads I never wanted to be at, the one where you have to choose between two people you love.
James is more of a brother than Bram is. James, for all his faults, is loyal and I’ve never had that kind of loyalty. James has been a great friend to me over the years and he’s never once screwed me over.
But I’ve screwed him over. He may not know it, but I did. I did when I went after Stephanie even though I suspected he might be in love with her. I did it because I wanted her and my wants were more important than his. He would never do that to me. But I would do that to him.
And then there is Stephanie. And when I think about her, my words fail me because she has my heart. She makes it so easy to be that guy who screws over his best friend. She makes me feel like I don’t need anyone else in the world but her. She is my world and I told her I would hold on tight, that I wouldn’t let go.
But here I am, heading to her sto
re after I say goodbye to James and I’m about to let go. I can only hope she holds on. I can only hope that we can get through this, that we don’t have to lose each other. The fact that she slept with James on her birthday, that she didn’t tell me, is a major blow but even then, I know how she feels about me. The way she looks at me. She loves me. I’ve never felt anything more true.
And because of that, I know she won’t go for James. I know she’s not interested, that I won’t lose her to him in that way. But I still might lose her because of him. I need her to understand but I don’t even know what to say because I swore I wouldn’t tell her how James’s felt.
Which means I’m just going to have to end it. I’m going to have to play that god damn friends card and hope that we can go back to that.
Because I don’t know what I would do if I really left. If she removed herself from my life.
I just don’t know. But I do know I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t survive it. How do you survive when your whole world ends?
It’s six in the evening when I get to her store. All the lights are off, except one in the backroom, and I think maybe she’s already gone home. Then I see her shadow.
I take in a deep breath and knock on her door. A few moments later she comes to it, smiling like an angel.
I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.
She unlocks it and opens it and I come inside along with a rush of cold, wet air from the street.
“Brrrr,” she says, shivering as she closes the door. “It’s finally feeling like Christmas now.” She looks down at the Nordstrom bags in my hands. “Ooh, are those for me?”
Actually they are. Despite everything, I still ended up buying her something, plus presents for her family. I guess there’s some optimistic jackass inside me who thinks maybe the world will go on.
“Yeah,” I tell her.
“What’s wrong?’ she asks, peering at me. She stands on her tip toes and kisses me on the cheek. “You seem…brooding.”