Swallow. Breathe. Don’t faint.
“But the more time that went on… I thought, maybe I was responsible. I feel like… like I’m the reason you two are no longer friends, because I didn’t trust him to figure it out with you, or you to be able to make your own decisions when you were so messed up from your mom leaving. I don’t know, like maybe if you would have been the one to tell me, and then sit Tyler down and tell him that obviously you guys couldn’t… you know… I don’t know, maybe then it would have all been okay.”
My stomach knotted, and I tried to swallow again, but came up dry.
“I’m sorry, Jaz. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, and I’m sorry I stepped in where I shouldn’t have.”
For the longest time, I stood there — frozen, not blinking, not breathing. Then, suddenly, I did all three things at once, pulling Morgan in for a hug that had her letting out a relieved sigh in my arms.
“It’s okay,” I told her, rubbing her back. “We were young. Kids, you know? It was a weird time for all of us.”
“Such a weird time.”
“And you’re right,” I said. “It was hard for me with my mom. I wasn’t in the best head space.”
She pulled back. “So, you’re not mad at me?”
I shook my head.
“Do you think Tyler and you will ever be friends again?”
I sighed at that, looking out the shop window at Main Street. “I think we’re trying.”
Morgan smiled. “That’s good. Trying is good.”
I nodded with a small smile of my own, and then, just like that, Morgan was off on flower combinations again, and I retreated inside my shell while she talked through her options with the florist.
Tyler told Morgan.
Morgan knew, all this time.
And it was her who told him he was wrong, that he shouldn’t have done what he did, that I wasn’t ready.
Was that why he took it back?
Was that it all along?
Did he tell me it was a mistake, that it didn’t matter, all because Morgan told him I wasn’t ready, that I wasn’t okay, that I wasn’t in the right head space to make decisions?
And he had a crush on me?
Why didn’t he ever tell me that?
How did I never see it?
Is everything I thought about what we were, about what happened between us, a lie?
Question after question assaulted me, not just at the flower shop, but all through the rest of the day, too. I was still wrapped in my thoughts when I had dinner downtown with Morgan and her mom, and when we got home, Tyler was locked in his old bedroom — just like he had been the night before.
I stood outside his door, watching the dim light that cracked through the bottom of it and splayed over my bare feet on the wood floor. I could hear the slight thump of music, though I couldn’t make out what it was, and over it, the distinct sound of typing.
Maybe he’s working, I thought, my hand coming up to rest on the wood of the door. I pressed my head into my hand next, listening, breathing, wondering.
That’s how it had been for years — watching, wondering.
Before I realized what I was doing, I had my podcast equipment in hand — USB mic, laptop, briefcase with my mixer and audio interface — and I made my way to the top floor of the house, holing myself up in a music room that only Robert ever used. It had a keyboard, electric guitar, and drum set in it — all of which he played.
Best of all? The room was soundproof.
I set up my equipment, hitting the record button and talking before I even knew what to say. It had been a long time since I’d done that — sat down to record unscripted, without a plan, without an agenda and an outline of everything I wanted to cover.
I just… spoke.
“What do you do when you find out something you always assumed to be true is completely and utterly false?” I started. “Have you ever had this happen? It’s the most disturbing and turbulent thing, like being on an airplane going through a hurricane. You just hold onto the armrests and try not to vomit as the plane jolts and dips, and you try to figure out what’s real and what’s not, your past flashing before your eyes, the possible future fading in the background.”
I paused, letting that sink in — the weight of that feeling.
“I think I found out today that I’m stubborn. I hadn’t realized it before — it was always something I attributed to my aunt, or to my best friend, but never to me. I’m not stubborn. I’m completely rational. I make decisions based on facts, on research, on logic — not on feelings.” I laughed softly. “Or at least, I thought I did. But the truth is that maybe I don’t want the truth. Maybe, I run from it instead of facing it head on because I’m so scared of what I’ll find.”
Why did I never ask him? Why did I just run? Why didn’t I go back to him, hold his face in my hands, and demand that he tell me why he was pushing me away?
Why didn’t I refuse to leave, refuse to accept that that night meant nothing to him when I knew it meant something to me?
Another pang of guilt found me when I realized where my thoughts were wrapped up again. Because I understood why Tyler did what he did, but it didn’t absolve him in my mind.
It pissed me off.
I was furious for him, for me, for what we maybe could have had.
And under all that was a muddy layer of guilt that I was even thinking about him at all when I had Jacob.
“I also discovered today that I am a terrible person,” I whispered into the microphone. “I guess we all are, aren’t we? At least, when we really break ourselves down to the molecular level. When we push aside all the sunshine and bullshit, and look good and hard at who we are, at the decisions we make, at the things we feel — things we would never say out loud or confess to anyone else.”
I shook my head, eyes losing focus where I stared at the shape of the recording, a flat line now that I wasn’t speaking, a little green spike when I began again.
“Maybe, at the core of every human being, there’s a dark, hidden world. Maybe it’s not what we do for a living or our hobbies or our background or our family that makes us who we are, but rather what exists in that dark little world that no one sees. And we can’t ever show it to anyone — not to our best friend or our family or our significant other — because we know in our gut that if anyone ever saw what truly existed there, they’d run. They’d run and curse us and scream at us to stay far, far away.”
My chest hollowed, breath sticking in my chest.
“Maybe we’re all monsters,” I whispered. “Just selfish, righteous things living in a nightmare, blaming our past for why we eat everyone around us alive, and feeling like we deserve something better, something holier — just because we’ve survived this long.”
My bottom lip trembled.
“He did it to protect me,” I whispered, knowing I would never use any of this for anything, that no one else would ever hear it — and yet still feeling guilt shred me from the inside as I confessed to the microphone priest. “He didn’t want to hurt me. I wasn’t a mistake. All this time, I thought… I thought…”
But the recorder ticked on, and I sat there staring — silent, speechless.
Because I couldn’t even remember what I thought, or what I felt, or what I held onto before Morgan’s confession.