“That’s not for you to worry about,” she responds, not rising from her chair. Like the last time, she sits there and just watches me turn into a nervous wreck before her eyes.
“I can’t help worrying about you,” I say, my voice low as I try to hide the desperation I feel.
“You didn’t seem to worry about me before.” There’s no emotion behind her words. Just monotone and her distant demeanor makes me feel worse.
“All I ever do is worry about you,” I go for honesty.
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” she says, her voice louder as she rises from her chair. High enough to show me she’s angry, low enough to prevent anyone outside these four walls from hearing her.
I like that she’s angry though because it means she still feels something for me. She hasn’t given up on me altogether.
“I can explain everything better to you if you let me. You might even understand me.”
She looks at me like I’m the worst person on the face of the earth. To her, I may very well be. “There’s nothing left to explain.”
“Yes there is!” I argue.
She sighs. “You should’ve explained yourself to me long ago.”
“You left!”
“You asked me to leave! You begged me to leave. You broke my heart. You left me first.” She’s right.
“I didn’t want to,” I tell her, bringing my hands to my hair, I pull on their ends as I try to keep my voice low and my emotions at bay. I know they say it isn’t manly for men to cry, but I can’t help wanting to.
“You didn’t want to… seriously? No one put a gun to your head. No one told you to leave me behind. No one told you to break my heart in the middle of the hall in front of everyone.”
The emotion behind her words, the broken look in her eyes, the way her hands grip her desk makes me feel like shit all over again. I hated doing that to her then, but I thought that was the best choice. I thought it was my only choice, the only way I could stop myself from ruining her life. “I told you not to fall in love with me.”
“You did… You were right. I should’ve listened.”
I nod. “Your mistake was falling for me. You shouldn’t have.” Loving me was the only mistake she ever made. Giving me her heart, her laughter, herself, that was her mistake because I didn’t deserve it. But she gave it to me anyway, despite my warnings, and I tried my best to protect it. I changed the course of my life for this girl, this woman in front of me. Too bad my past caught up with me and the new changes I’d made didn’t matter. The past doesn’t care about your present.
“Too late to go back and change it,” she replies, all emotion leaving her voice.
“I didn’t want to leave you,” I repeat, my voice breaking.
Her eyes water and her voice betrays the coldness she’s tried to portray. “Then why did you?” she asks and I understand how confusing this all is for her. I don’t even know how to begin to explain it.
“Because what could I have offered you, Amari?” I ask her, instead hoping to make her realize that I made the right choice. But I feel like I’m just trying to convince myself of something I no longer believe.
“What do you mean?” she asks. Amari always had a bigger vision for me than I had for myself. She thought I was better than I actually was.
“What future did you have with me?” I wasn’t good enough for her. I’m still not.
“The future we talked about. We were both supposed to go to college together. You could’ve played football. I…”
“You what?”
“I didn’t care what I did as long as I was with you.” Her words confirm my fear. She would’ve dropped her dreams for mine. She would’ve let her goals pass her by while she dealt with the consequences of my actions.
“You’re doing what you’ve always wanted to do,” I tell her. She’d always talk about how much she loved education. She was a teachers’ pet. I noticed that the first day I met her, but with her it didn’t bother me. She was inspired by the teachers, wanted to be them someday. I knew she’d be whatever she wanted to be and I didn’t want to get in the way of that.
AMARI
“We could’ve both achieved those dreams together,” I tell him. Yes, I admit I loved him so much that I would’ve followed him to the end of the world if he’d asked me to. But our goals weren’t mutually exclusive. It wasn’t one thing or the other. We could’ve followed our dreams together.
“You really think that?” he asks and for the life of me I can’t figure out why he thought our pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit together back then.
I shake my head knowing every second I spend talking to him, I’m reopening wounds that have not fully healed. “It doesn’t matter now,” I tell him, my voice cracking once again.
“I had to leave you. I didn’t have a choice,” he says those words like he truly believes them. Like someone forced him to leave me that day.
“Everyone always has a choice.” Even if the cards are stacked against you, even if the choice is harder, even if the choice isn’t fair, there’s always a choice.
“I found out Ari’s mom was pregnant senior year of high school.”
I don’t react to his words. I already knew that, he already told me. “You broke up with me because you cheated on me…” I tell him again the accusation he’s denied before.
He rounds my desk and stands face to face with me. “How could you say that?”
“It’s true,” I tell him, my voice wavering once again.
“How could you think I’d be capable of that?” he asks and his tone makes it sound like he’s offended that the thought would even cross my mind.
I look at him in the eyes and don’t hide what I’m feeling. “I didn’t think you’d be capable of breaking up with me the way that you did… but clearly I didn’t know you very well.”
He brings his hands to my cheeks and everything inside me melts. Externally though, I try to keep it together. “You knew me better than anyone else in my life. You were the only one who actually knew me.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he speaks.
A tear escapes me and I’m angry at myself for not kicking him out the moment he walked into my office. For letting him drive me home last night. For not running for the hills the moment I realized he still lived in this town. For letting him get this close to me again.
“I would never cheat on you, Amari,” he adds.
“You’re a liar,” I tell him my, words holding no confidence because I don’t know what to believe anymore.
“You met me when I transferred into your school. You knew that I had a bad past,” he starts.
“So what? Now your past is responsible for the choices you made while you were with me?”
His hand doesn’t leave my face and I don’t know that I want it to. Oddly enough, I appreciate the comfort it brings me. “That’s exactly it, Amari. It wasn’t a choice I made while I was with you. It was a mistake I made before you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask confused and frustrated. A million emotions running through me but none strong enough to push my feet to move away or get my hands to remove his from my cheeks.