I had been nervous food shopping for Cameron. You never knew these days who was dairy-free, or gluten-free or whatever the hell else. Cameron didn't seem to have any food aversions though, luckily. I turned the heat down on the stove to simmer the chili I had going. Turkey, my mom's recipe. He was in the bathroom. It would probably be done by the time he came out.
My phone vibrated on the counter. I looked over at it, then at the bathroom door. I grabbed it and walked out to the deck before picking up. It wasn't that I didn't want him to hear what I said, except that it totally was. It was Kasey. She'd ask about him, and there were things I'd say to her that I wouldn't necessarily want him to hear.
"Hello?"
"Hey. What's up?" I asked.
"What's up? Where the hell are you?" she asked. It had been how long now? Right. Too long.
"Same place I've been for the last five days."
"No, I mean why aren't you here yet," she complained.
"Something specific you needed me to do?"
"There's no way the snow was that bad," she said.
"Do you really think I'd still be up here if I had the option to leave?"
"Snowed in with your boyfriend? Yeah, I do." I cringed. That one hit a little too close to home. What I wanted wasn’t important. I would have loved to be doing what she thought I was doing up here, but the guilt had given way to confusion and that had just led to frustration.
"I won't be coming back ‘til we can get a plow or something up here."
"So he is your boyfriend? You're not going to deny it this time?" she asked.
"He isn't, but it doesn't matter to you, does it?"
"Whoa, what the hell did I do?" she asked.
"Sorry, I snapped at you. I've been up here way too long."
"What's going on with the two of you up there?" she asked.
"I fucked up," I told her, sighing. I came clean, telling her what had happened the night I had asked Cameron to come to the bed with me. Hindsight was twenty-twenty apparently, and with each passing day, I still couldn't figure out what I had been thinking telling him to come sleep with me. I hadn't been thinking. I had been horny and trying to give him the green light.
God, you're a mess. Kasey listened as I told her everything: what happened that night, then the disaster the morning after when I had tried to take my car out. Starting to date and becoming sexually active in college, I had had some memorable mornings-after with people I liked a lot less than Cameron. I had been hoping though that at age twenty-eight, I would be past the point where I was trying to sneak out while the guy was still asleep. I had just felt overwhelmed by everything. The shame, the embarrassment, the thought that since that barrier had been breached, there would be no keeping me away from him, so I had run.
&
nbsp; Didn’t make sense now and hadn’t made sense then. I wasn’t defending it; it was just the truth. I had found someone I liked, like really liked, but I couldn’t have him, and it was more frustrating than I knew how to deal with just yet.
"Wow," she said when I was done. "And nothing since?"
"Nothing," I said, unfortunately. "It's for the best. We can't... I can't do this with him."
"Do what? You're leaving in a couple days, right? Have fun while you can."
"Kasey, you know I can't do that," I said. That was one of the main differences between us. She could do flings, hookups, the fuck-buddy thing. I couldn't. I had learned that about myself shortly after college, after over a year with a guy who I allowed to call me his 'friend' even though we were practically living together. He had wanted to keep it loose, and I had agreed just because I hadn't wanted to lose him. I had of course, and it had hurt more than if I had just told him at the beginning that I had been uncomfortable being his back-up. I hadn't made that mistake again, and I wasn't about to now.
"Why not if you're going to leave? This has a set expiration date. No expectations, no disappointment."
"I don't just want to have sex with him, Kase. I actually like this guy. The more time I spend with him, the more I feel like... I don't know."
"You have feelings for him. Of course, you do. I almost forgot who I was talking to for a second." Kasey teased me for being so serious, as she called it about relationships. She didn’t understand how I had grown up with four brothers and somehow managed to still turn out to be a romantic. It wasn’t that I was serious; it was just that dating wasn’t just a fun social activity for me. I fell hard, and when I did, I wanted to see where things went, not just have fun. In this case, though, she was right in her disapproval.
"I know it's bad."
"It's more than bad, Nat. I know how you get. You're going to want a relationship. This guy just moved to a cabin in the mountains after losing his parents. I don't know him, but I'm going to say he isn't the most stable person right now. Not the kind of person who could show up for you in a relationship."