Still can’t get my friend’s sentiments out of my head, though.
13
CALLUM
Level C, one of the bars in the Commons, is so crowded that I can barely move my body.
I’m crammed up against the bar, attempting to buy a beer but failing miserably as girls stick their tits on the bar and the sleazy male bartender shoots right toward them.
“Come the fuck on!” I slam my hand down.
My friends are nowhere to be found and I kind of just want to go home, but what would I do when I got there? Listen to Bevan cry again? Because she certainly didn’t come out with us. She claimed she was going to the library, but who knows. I try not to keep tabs, not that I’m not thinking about her every second of the day.
And at least our exchange on the back deck seemed more cordial than icy, which has become our preferred setting. I do keep seeing flashes of blond hair and wondering if my date from last week is going to show up to this bar.
Gretchen texted me after our pizza dinner, and I haven’t texted her back. I remember what Scott said about me being selfish and ghosting her, but I can’t seem to cut it off. What if I just give it one more go? Maybe I can force myself into feeling something. Maybe these things just take time? The only relationship I’ve ever had was because I fell head over heels the first time I saw Bevan. Maybe that’s not how dating or love works for a lot of people. Maybe it’s a slow wade into feeling all those feelings.
My whole internal system just feels in flux, like I’m living in some kind of limbo I can’t seem to get myself out of.
Taya pops up beside me and relief floods my body. At least this is a familiar face, even if she did take the side of our other best friend in the breakup. Everyone often forgets that I love Taya and Amelie like sisters, and that we were extremely close throughout the time Bevan and I dated.
“Was I an asshole when Bevan and I dated?” I can’t help the thought that pops out of my mouth.
Taya turns to me, chewing the straw of her gin and tonic between her teeth. “Um, random?”
I sigh. “Yesterday, Gannon and Scott told me I was selfish. I guess I just never saw that.”
She studies me and when someone in the crowd jostles her, she brushes up against me where I have to hold her upright for fear of both of us being swallowed by the mob. When the craziness dissipates a little, we wander over to one of the big windows up front and she gets right down to the point.
“Do you remember the time Bevan’s car broke down? She was stranded a town over from Talcott and called you to pick her up. You were in the middle of some video game tournament with the guys, and it took you an extra half an hour to go pick her up. She was pissed by the time you guys got back and your usual fighting ensued. She acted like a bitch, ranting, and slamming doors, but you were the one who fucked up. She called you for help, and you put her on the back burner. For video games. She had a right to be mad. Especially considering her abandonment issues, you left her stranded in an unknown place. The guy she loves the most on earth, and you let her down. That wasn’t the first or last time either, Callum, and we both know it.”
The scene comes back to me. It was shortly after we moved into the off-campus house, a warm day in October maybe. I’d been winning at our Call of Duty competition and hadn’t wanted to bow out. I thought Bev would be fine with waiting in the sunshine until I went to pick her up. I’ll never forget how she chewed me out. I thought she was going to slash my tires and leave us both stranded for longer.
“Fuck. I mean, I didn’t really even think twice about that.” I just brushed it off as Bevan being a crazy girlfriend.
“The fact that it didn’t burn you just a little that she was so upset about that? I’d be rethinking whose fault it was that you guys had so many problems.”
“You’re saying I got lazy?” I guess because the idea started to form in my head.
“I’m saying you got complacent. You and Bevan were together for a very long time, and you grew up with each other. She was a constant that would always be there for you until the fighting got too bad and you didn’t want to take the time to sort it out with her.”
“But you’re the one who told me to break up with her!” The music pulses over our conversation, but it might as well be Taya and I alone here, it’s so intense.
I remember the conversation vividly, of her telling me that we were destroying each other and I needed to put everyone out of their misery.
Taya blanches. “Listen, I was in a shit place at that moment. You know everything that was going on with Austin back then. But don’t get me wrong, I think you two needed to break up. You were in a very toxic place, you know that. I saw what no one was going to admit, and I pointed it out to you. Which was that Bevan would never be able to love fully if she didn’t resolve the issues from her past, and that you were not the person who was committed enough in the mental sense to trudge through that shit with her.”
It’s a hard truth to hear, and it almost feels like a slap in the face. But I nod, because she’s not wrong. “It needed to happen.”
“I’m just saying, don’t forget that it wasn’t all her. And … shit, I shouldn’t tell you this.”
Taya glances around as if she should keep her mouth shut, but she really wants to open it. “Tell me.”
She sips her drink and I see the battle going on behind her eyes of whether or not she should spill.
“Bevan is in therapy. She’s been going for a few weeks now, to the office on campus. And I think it’s helping.”
The beer bottle in my hand nearly drops to the ground. She could have told me pigs were flying over this bar and I would have been more likely to believe her.
“Therapy? She’s really going? After all this time, after we begged her for so many years?” I barely think it’s true.
Taya nods emphatically. “Yes. She’s going, sticking to her sessions. I couldn’t believe it either at first. But she’s really trying, Callum.”
It takes me one deep breath to compose myself, to not freak out in the middle of this club because something I’d been yearning for since I met Bevan has finally come true.
“Good. I’m glad she’s trying.” I refuse to show any hint of emotion.
But inside, my thoughts are going haywire. I’m so proud of her. I’m hopeful that this will unlock some of the emotional trauma, and at the same time, scared to address the part of me that seems to be opening like a chasm. For almost two years, I put chains around my heart and dared not to open it back up. Just the mention that Bevan is in therapy has a key in the lock, and I’m fucking terrified.
Because if she can fix the parts of her that caused our relationship to grow toxic, if I can address my guilt in why our relationship went south …
There is chance for us.
For so long I said I’d never go back, that I wanted to graduate and never see her again. But who the hell am I kidding? Taya makes one mention of Bevan fulfilling a wish I’ve had for so long and I’m rewinding everything I’ve said, every decision I made.
I thought moving back into the house with Bevan confused me. Little did I know, it was only the tip of the iceberg.