Strong Enough

“Oh, really? What difference? Are you ready to love each other for real? Or do you want to keep it hidden?”

“I’m—I’m protecting it! If we put it out there in the open, it will be ruined, Maxim. Right now it’s something beautiful and extraordinary and special. It belongs to us. If other people know, they’ll fucking vilify it. They’ll make it ugly. They’ll say it’s crazy and wrong. If we keep it for ourselves, it stays safe.”

He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. You’re the one making it ugly, Derek. Not anyone else. And I won’t be part of it.”

“But—”

“You should go now. You said what you came here to say.”

Frustrated and helpless, I ran a hand through my hair, feeling my eyes go damp. “I don’t know what to fucking do. I’m being torn apart from the inside out. I don’t want to live without you in my life, but I can’t bring myself to change my mind.”

“Then this is goodbye.” His voice shook. “I want nothing more than to be with you, to take care of you and let you take care of me. I’d even begun to imagine a future for us—a family. To me, that’s what’s crazy about this. You’re turning away a chance at your dream because it doesn’t look exactly like you wanted it to. But I can’t make it into anything else.”

He was right. And he was so much smarter and perceptive and stronger than I’d given him credit for.

“Go,” he said firmly. “I have work to do.”

But I couldn’t leave. “Tell me first. I want to hear the words.” I’d never hated myself more than I did at that moment. But I needed him to love me.

“I love you.” His eyes held mine, his voice was calm. “Now go punish yourself for it.”

With a sob caught in the back of my throat, I turned away and stormed up the stairs, back through the kitchen and restaurant and out the door.

He knew me too well. He saw me.

It was painful, like the desert sun on skin already burned and blistered.

I didn’t sleep at all.

Thirty-Four

MAXIM

Days went by.

I fixed up my apartment. I worked long hours. I invested in an old laptop I found for sale on Craigslist. I researched immigration law.

I enrolled in an online English class I could afford. I inherited a bicycle that needed work from a regular at The Blind Pig and repaired it, so I wouldn’t have to pay for the bus all the time.

And I missed Derek every fucking minute.

I tried to put on a smile at work, but it was hard. Finally, a week after Derek had left me in pieces in the basement at work, Ellen approached me toward the end of a shift.

“Come on, my friend. We’re checking out early and we’re going to get a drink somewhere. I’ve had all I can take of this miserable silence.”

I didn’t have it in me to argue. And I needed a friend.

We walked down the street to another bar, and slid onto stools next to each other. She ordered a glass of wine, and I asked for a beer, and while we waited for it, she propped an elbow on the bar and he chin in her hand.

“Spill it.”

“Spill it?”

She nodded. “Spill it. It means talk. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. It would mean betraying a confidence.”

“Okay, then I’ll guess.” She put her hands in her lap and sat up taller. “This is about you and my brother. You have feelings for each other. He’s being stubborn and won’t admit it, so you had to walk away.”