Chapter Twenty-Two
Phoebe
Crazy clamor from the kitchen wakes me. I look at the clock and see it’s already 10 AM, so I throw on my house robe and wander to the source of the noise.
“Morning, Curls.” Andy winks at me, and I yawn in response. “You still like sunny-side down on rye with avocado and a pinch of chili flakes?”
“Yes.” I stretch and let out a contented sigh. “Couldn’t resist cooking me breakfast?”
“Nope.” He grins. “Go brush your teeth, I’ll fix you a cup of coffee.”
“Are you trying to play house?” I cock an eyebrow at him.
“No, I’m being a gentleman,” he declares, pointing his spatula at me. “This is a conversation for a full stomach.”
“Yes, Sir!” I salute him and turn back toward my room, brushing my teeth and washing my face before pulling on a pair of black yoga pants and a big sweatshirt. Once I return to the kitchen, I start setting the small table for two.
“Here you go.” Andy places a plate in front of me, and I take a hefty bite.
“Yummy,” I declare with a full mouth, and he smiles, chewing on his own breakfast of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and bacon as we fall into comfortable silence filled with chewing noises.
“We should probably talk about last night,” he says after we’re done eating and sit with our coffee on the porch swing.
“Yeah,” I agree, taking a sip.
“Are you okay?” He gazes my way with worry in his eyes.
“I’m okay.” I smile at him. “It was good that I came back here alone, had time to mull things over quietly.”
“You always were like that.” Andy sips his coffee. “Always needed to get your head straight and figure it out alone before you could share. I hated it, waiting for you to talk to me about stuff that bothered you.”
“I remember.” I laugh. “You were always the chattier one.”
“What can I say, I like the sound of my own voice.” He grins at me in that special way that makes his eyes twinkle with mischief, and I feel my heart skip a beat.
“I didn’t need a lot of thinking this time, though.” The twinkle is replaced by hope as he waits for me to continue. “We have so much to learn about the people we’ve become. I don’t know you the way I used to or you me.”
“Okay.” I see the hopefulness slowly dissipate.
“But even though we’ve changed, everything about us still fits.” A relieved sigh escapes his lungs, and I place my coffee mug on the table, sliding closer to him. “You still know exactly what to do to make me happy.”
“All I want is to make you happy.” Andy places his mug next to mine and pulls me close. “Are you giving me another chance to do that?”
“I’m not sure I know how to make you happy back,” I admit and turn to face him. “I know you saw things you’d rather forget, but it’s eating you from the inside, and I need you to let me in, Andy. Show me how to help you.”
“Just knowing you don’t hate me is all the help I need.”
“Stop, Andy. Just stop,” I snap with exasperation. “What’s sitting so heavy on you that you can’t talk to me? This isn’t about what you saw when you were deployed if that’s the reason you keep shutting me out. It’s about you and me.”
We sit there, still embracing even as we stare each other down, waiting for the other to be the first to break.
“Why didn’t you try and make me stay?” Andy finally asks in almost a whisper.
“I begged you to stay,” I shoot back, as steel climbs up my spine to my eyes. “I told you I didn’t care, I didn’t care about lugging around the country, I didn’t care that I’d be alone all the time, I didn’t care that you suddenly didn’t want children.”
“But you did, Phoebe or you would have never let me go,” he retorts, his voice laced with desperation.
“All I ever wanted was you!” I explode, jumping from the swing and storming into the cabin.
“You could have found me if you really wanted to. You knew my mom was in Glassmont Grove, you could have asked her when I was on leave, you could have written me, any one of those would have had me running back to you.”
“That’s not fair!” I argue. “You don’t get to pin all the blame on me, not when you’re the one who up and left after four years together without caring how I felt about it or what I wanted.”
“You’re a fighter, Phoebe, and you barely put up a fight when I left, that says something!” he yells. “You had two of the star players on the football team, both singled out as the kids that took our high school to nationals, kicked off the team for sexual assault when the entire school was trying to cover it up. When you really want something, you fight windmills if that’s what it takes, and we both know you always win.”
“No, we always win,” I remind him, stomping after him to the kitchen. “I couldn’t have done that alone just like I couldn’t save our relationship alone, but at least I tried. You gave up on us without so much as a shrug. You took your goddamn ring back, Andy!”
“It was a plastic ring from an automatic machine, I never actually proposed.”
“It doesn’t matter.” My voice cracks under the weight of my emotions. “That ring was a promise, and you broke it.”
“I was a scared kid who lost his dad and just came back from war. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, I couldn’t carry us as well. I couldn’t!” Andy’s face is contorted in pain. “I needed you to do that, just for a while, I needed you to fight for me as well.”
“Then why didn’t you say that?” I yell out in frustration. “I was just a kid, too. I was scared out of my mind for you, and then you came and turned my world upside down, telling me all our plans, everything I thought you wanted in life, was gone. You seemed so determined to break up with me ‘for my own good’ without even giving me a chance to adjust to this new reality you dropped on me. I didn’t know what you needed, Andy, I didn’t.”
“Because I was terrified you’d leave!” he blurts out and sits with a heavy thud, burying his face in his palms. “I came back, and you had that look in your eyes like my mom always had, and it all came crashing down on me. All the things we planned, the future we wanted to build together, the way we imagined our life would look like.” Andy’s breathing is as strained as the muscles in his back and neck. “It was only a matter of time before you would have left.”
“You don’t know that,” I sob through the tears that finally burst out. “You never gave me a chance to prove you wrong.”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry for that.”
“Give me that chance now, Andy.” I kneel in front of him and pry his hands from his face, locking my watery gaze with his. “Let me in. Let me carry some of your weight. I’m strong enough now.”
“I don’t want you to have to live with my demons, Phoebs,” he replies, brushing the tear stains off my cheeks with his thumbs.
“Please, just tell me, please,” I plead with him, tears welling up in my eyes again.