“You have to go,” she repeated angrily.
“Clara…”
“Now.”
We stood there, watching each other for a moment. I didn’t dare take a step towards her, not while seeing her like this. My heart pounded in my chest, tearing apart with a wound more vicious than any that I could have received in combat.
Because those wounds – the ones you survive, at any rate – are just flesh deep. You lose an arm or a leg, maybe more. You take stray shrapnel to the chest, and with luck you survive it. It kills a part of you, it makes you weaker, but you learn to live on around it.
This was something much deeper.
This was the shrapnel that shredded your very living soul… because you can’t remove ghost shrapnel, even if it’s still cutting you inside, penetrating down to your core.
“Go,” Clara repeated through gritted teeth, her tears rolling freely down her cheeks now.
I’m not an English major, or a literary critic. My weapon was never vocabulary; it was always a knife in a holster and a rifle, slung over my back.
I say this to explain a point: I’m not equipped with the right words for this. I can’t properly express to you how my heartstrings strained in that moment. Every atom, every ounce of my very being was desperate to cross the distance to her, to wipe the tears from her face and sweep her back into my warm, comforting embrace.
The look in her eyes said Don’t you dare.
It said Stay back, I’m warning you.
No weapon could ever win this standoff.
Without a single syllable uttered, I silently gathered up my things and I left her.
Arrogant Brit
Chapter 17
No matter how many sleepless nights passed since that devastating afternoon, I couldn’t know for sure if I’d done the right thing… or made the biggest mistake of my life.
It had been over a week since Dalton left my apartment. Every night when my cheek struck the pillow, I wished that he were there with me.
Whatever the ex-marine had seen in my eyes that day, it had convinced him of what I knew was certain in that moment. Mission accomplished. The man had gone completely radio silent.
Dalton’s words had rattled me down to my inner being. Beyond all hope and reason, I didn’t dare let him choose to stay here because of me. I’d heard how much he loved that dream; I couldn’t let myself be the obstacle to his happiness.
But did I do the right thing?
My unfettered decision had grown uncertain.
Selfishly, of course I still wanted him. I logically expected to need some time to get over him, but I hadn’t prepared myself for how my heart had fractured. When the days continued and I still had to force myself to eat, or exert willpower into every smile, I realized the true depths to the pit of my despair.
My heart broke just a little more every day.
Perfect timing meant that I wasn’t scheduled a single hour for the entire week after Dalton left. Banquet season had apparently slid down to a grinding halt. That meant less morning shifts to go around, and I didn’t have the energy to fight for the scraps.
Natalie was a godsend. She’s probably the reason I climbed out of bed, made it to my classes, and turned in (most of) my homework.
Dalton apparently did not have a Natalie.
He hadn’t shown up in our class.
He hadn’t tried to contact me in any way.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” she reassured me one afternoon during a commercial break of some sitcom we both liked. “He’s probably just working through things on his own. The bastard will come around, and everything will be fine again.”
“He’s not a bastard,” I told her.
“Technically, he is!” She chirped up. “Guy’s parents never married, right? So that makes him a total bastard. It’s the textbook definition.”
“Fine. He’s a bastard, then,” I grumbled.
Natalie turned to face me with welling concern. Before she opened her mouth, I saw the impending, heartfelt lecture spring to life in her eyes. “Look, Clara…”
“Don’t.” I cut her off, backing the word up with a glare. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“We both know that I might be a bit airheaded sometimes, but even I can see that you two love each other. You’re desperate for him, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you! You can’t ignore that!”
I turned away, but she pushed the issue.
“Find a way! Reach out to him! You know that he wants that!”
“Would you listen to yourself?” I asked her bitterly. “What kind of person would I be if I asked him to set aside his dreams for me? I can’t do that to him.”
“What was it again that he asked you to do, right before you went all psycho on him?”
“I didn’t go psycho.”
“Clara, I know you. If he hasn’t tried to reach out to you at all, then you totally went psycho. Anyway, answer the question.”
I ignored her insult. “He said to let him make his own decisions.”
“And you didn’t. You made it for him.”
“He would have made the wrong one.”
“You know that for sure?”
I crossed my arms. “Yes.”
“And why’s that?”
I tried to turn away again.
“Answer me, Clara!”
I stood up and finally let loose.
“Because they’re both the wrong fucking decision! No matter how you look at it, either choice is wrong! Either I make him go and uncomplicate both of our lives… struggle to get over him… not daring to think what life would be like if we were together…”
“Or what?” She demanded.
Defeat filled my veins when I looked at her.
“Or… we get together, living some twisted double life around our parents and grandparents, unable to be really together without them judging or disowning us… until he inevitably resents choosing this life over traveling around the world.”
We were silent for a while. The sitcom had come back on in the meantime, and the laugh track occasionally clashed with the atmosphere.
“You can’t just let this go without trying,” Natalie pleaded quietly.
I didn’t have a response for that.
“Listen to me, Clara,” she continued. “So there are some
kinks. It’s not easy. I get that.”
I bitterly shook my head, and she ignored my response to get out her point.
“Yeah. It’s a total mess and it sucks that the two of you are stuck in this unfair clusterfuck. But you can’t just let this thing slip out between your fingers without a fight. You know he makes you happy, and it sounds like you make him happy too. Just talk to him. Who knows what’s going on with him? If he’s dropped off the face of the earth, he’s obviously in a dark place. Maybe he needs you.”
“I can’t,” I pleaded.
“Clara, talk to him,” she insisted gravely.
I slumped down into my sofa next to her, and my frustration broke down into sobs. Natalie held me close while I cried it out, and when I lifted my face she had a tissue ready.
“Don’t think for a moment that I don’t want to,” I replied, gratefully taking it from her hand. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he needs me right now. But this is short-term pain for long-term gain. He’s got a life, Nat, and he’s got dreams. Oh, if you’d seen the look in his eyes when he was telling me about them. I can’t take that away from him.”
“Even if he goes,” she whispered, “if you two haven’t made up, what makes you think he’ll be happy? What if his feet take him across the world, fueled from a place of anger and despair?”
“Then that’s his choice,” I answered.
“No, it’s not. That’ll be what you did to him.”
We sat in silence for the next episode, but the night was gone. That’s why I didn’t try to stop her when she picked up her purse and kicked her heels back on.
“Just think about it,” Natalie told me when she kissed my cheek goodbye. “You might be making a huge mistake here.”
“It’s a mistake either way,” I shrugged.
After a solemn look in my eyes, she was gone out the door, just like Dalton.
For the second time in about a week, I had driven someone away from the apartment – leaving me alone with miserable thoughts.
You will probably not be surprised to hear that solitude plus an abyss of depressing thoughts is not exactly a fantastic combination.
For the rest of the day I sat there on that couch, letting the TV mindlessly play in front of me. Maybe Natalie’s right, I found myself thinking. She hasn’t really steered me wrong yet…