Danny shrugged. “And, the thing is, you weren’t playing games or trying to impress me. You just genuinely wanted the beer.”
He looked right at me.
“I tried a million times to get you to see what you were doing, to get you to understand what the cost was. Putting us to the side. The c
ost to you.”
“So I wasn’t supposed to change at all?”
He shook his head.
“That’s not what I’m saying. I didn’t expect you to stay like you were at twenty-one.”
“Sounds like that’s exactly what you wanted.”
“You were the most honest person I’d ever met. That’s why I chose you. And it’s why I wasn’t particularly weirded out about the fake cooking videos or you playing make-believe. I didn’t think you could lose what defined you. But that’s exactly what got lost,” he said. “I couldn’t reconcile the woman you turned into with the person I know you are. Or were . . .”
My heart started racing. “So you should have just left.”
“But it’s my fault too. You would ask me, all the time, It’s not a big deal, right, if I lie about this? Or if I fake it a little?” He shrugged. “I gave you permission to give yourself away. And the worst part was when you stopped even asking. I became someone else you would try to spin.”
I put my hands up to stop him. “I can’t listen to this.”
“Why? Because you don’t want to hear it?”
“Exactly.”
He nodded. “So ask me again why I did this.”
I stared at him, feeling like I might explode. Was he seriously looking right at me and telling me that he did this to save me? That he did this for love? Even if I believed him, who wanted love if this was what it looked like?
I hadn’t taken off my wedding ring, not the entire time we’d been apart, but I took it off now. I took it off and put it on the sofa between us, the soft sofa that looked so wrong in there.
Then I stormed out the door, trying to ignore a tugging on my insides as I headed down the stairs.
It wouldn’t go away, no matter how fast I moved, this tugging, like a despair I didn’t want to feel yet, that I still thought I could outrun if I just got as far enough away from him, as quickly as I could.
41
I don’t remember the drive home. I vaguely remember stopping at a rest stop, trying to catch my breath, trying to make sure that I arrived in one piece.
I finally got back to Montauk at 6 A.M., the sun rising up over the ocean and the dunes, the roads still empty.
Rain opened the door. She was already dressed, ready to start her day.
I was still in my dress from the night before, tears and mascara running down my face.
She looked me up and down. Then she turned to the couch, to a tall guy with a baseball cap on, extra-long crutches by his side, a ragged scar on his knee.
Thomas. Her boyfriend. He was looking at me with a far more sympathetic expression than my sister was.
Rain met his eyes. And she turned back toward me.
“What makes you think you can just show up here?” she said.
Then she moved out of the doorway and let me inside.
August