Soon, not even I will fit in it.
I bring the phone back to my ear. “Chad, this isn’t going to work. You and me. We’re not going to work. I love you. I’m sorry. It was beautiful while it lasted. It’s over. I’m sorry.”
I hang up and drop the phone onto my bed, forgetting all the words I said the moment the call ends.
I take a deep breath, stretching my lungs. Though I might feel a thousand pounds lighter, I don’t feel good. Not at all.
Time will probably take care of that.
Chad will realize I’m right.
Everything is going to be fine.
I finish up my work in the studio for the night, flick off the light, then send myself to bed without a shower (again), and with nothing in my belly but a sad, sinking feeling of despair. Let’s face it, I’m not hungry, and I don’t need to look pretty for anyone.
Not today, at least.
It’s while I’m in the dead of sleep that my phone buzzes with a call on my nightstand and lights up the room. I peek an eye open, seeing it. My head spins with sleepiness as I lift it off the pillow, reach my lazy noodle arm toward the phone, silence the call, then roll over the other way and shut my eyes.
A minute later, it goes off again.
I sit up and swipe my phone off the nightstand.
Chad.
I answer.
Before I can even speak, Chad’s right on top of me. “What the fuck was that, Goodwin??”
I’m wiping sleep out of my eyes. “Chad …”
“‘Chad, this isn’t going to work’? ‘We’re not going to work’? What in the hell is that? That thoughtless shit ain’t what anyone wants to wake up to.”
“It’s …” I pull my phone away from my face to look at the time. “Fuck. It’s 4:15 in the morning.”
“6:15 here. And no, I don’t accept that shit one bit. You and I are still boyfriends. ‘See ya later’, remember? You ain’t callin’ quits on this. I ain’t lettin’ that happen.”
“Chad, I’ve …” I nurse a temple, feeling a headache coming on. “I’ve given this so much thought. What we’re trying to do. What’s going on. My needs here. Yours. How different our lives are.”
“I’m gonna stop you right there. You’re busy right now with a big project. Maybe your biggest. You’ve got stress up the kazoo.”
“It’s wazoo. The saying is wazoo.”
“So of course you’re losin’ your mind. And what was that one little part you snuck in there? That little ‘I love you’ bit?”
I open my mouth to speak, then freeze.
I said what?
“Yeah, I heard it,” he says, his voice soft suddenly. “I listened to your dumb message about thirty-eight times before I called. I heard those words thirty-eight times.”
“I … I don’t remember saying …” I stammer, then let out a sigh and gesture nowhere in particular. “Listen, I was really emotional last night, okay? Everything is getting to me.”
“So that’s all it was? Just a minor freak-out? You gonna go and blame your innocent little emotions? ‘I love you’? Really?”
“It was more than just ‘a minor freak-out’, Chad. It was me …” I lie back on the bed, then stare up at the dark ceiling with a huff. “It was me being … realistic about all of this.”
“Lance …”
“Don’t ‘Lance’ me. You know it’s true. This is way too painful. I just can’t do this long-distance thing. How can you? Aren’t you lonely at night?”
“Well, sure I am, but I got pillows. Don’t you?”
I sigh, annoyed. “Pillows don’t cut it, Chad, and you know it. Hell, I didn’t last two weeks before I broke down, and I—”
“You’re just freakin’ out over the show getting pushed a little earlier. Who cares? Just focus on your work, put your all into it, let me support your big dreams like your goddamned boyfriend I’m supposed to be, and we’ll let it be that!”
I close my eyes.
The anguish I felt yesterday rushes right back into me. I know the fury that raged within me when I threw my shears at that dress form, when I tore that sleeve asunder, when I screamed.
“There is a life I have here …” I start tiredly.
“And?”
“And there’s a week I had there with you.”
“And?”
“And it meant something, Chad, sure. I enjoyed my time in Spruce. But my life is here, and if I want to be the next big thing, if I want to reach the stars, I’ve got to commit one-hundred percent. I’ve had to make sacrifices … and I’m going to have to make some more. You know it, and I know it.”
“Don’t tell me what I know.”
“We missed our chance, Chad.”
The words cut a deep chasm between us over the phone line.
A chasm of daunting silence and fear.
I know without saying a word that Chad has the very same fears in his heart. He knows exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe he also had the dream where we stopped in the hallway of Spruce High and stared at one another knowingly.