Torment Me (Rough Love 1)

“What do you like to eat?” he asked. “Let’s get, like, twenty things.”

“That sounds perfect.”

We got margaritas and ordered a few dishes to start, fish tacos and watercress salad and some calamari thing. There were tiny beef sliders and crusty bread with tomato and olive tapenade. In hindsight, I was doing too much drinking and not enough eating, and he…he was asking so many questions. He genuinely wanted to know about me, and it was flattering, but it was difficult too, because I had to lie about so many things. And lying and drinking don’t go together well.

He finally caught me in a lie, because I’d told him I was born in New York when I’d really been born in New Orleans, and I said something about growing up in the south and blew that all to hell. I was so tipsy and nervous I started making up this extended story about my childhood and some step-family I knew I’d never remember, and I looked into his warm, deep hazel eyes and thought, why can’t I just be me? Why can’t I tell the truth? Why am I making up lie after lie?

Because if we were going to have a future, as friends, or maybe something more, we needed to start out with honesty, and move forward with honesty. I put down my margarita and stared at the tangle of fried calamari, and it looked to me like the disgusting tangle of my lies.

“I’m going to say something really honest,” I blurted out. “Because you deserve honesty.”

He smiled, and I knew I was doing the right thing, because he was a very on-the-surface person. An accountant, who liked everything to be in order.

“So…” I lost my nerve a little bit. “Don’t judge me. Please.”

He shook his head. “I never judge.”

“I know we’re just having a friendly dinner here, and God, I’m having a great time, but I think you should know that I have a boyfriend.”

His smile faded. His eyes narrowed a little bit, but then he shrugged. “Okay.”

“I didn’t know… I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a date or just a casual get together.”

“I guess it can be whatever you want.” Still, he looked unhappy, which maybe was a good thing. It meant he was interested in me as more than a friend. “What kind of boyfriend are we talking about?” he asked. “Long distance?”

“Kind of long distance.” I spread my fingers, forcing myself not to take another gulp of the margarita. “In the sense that we’ve grown apart. Things are really not good between us. In fact, they’re really, really bad.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Tony was so nice. He settled so smoothly into the role of concerned friend.

“How long have you been together?” he asked.

“Ten years.” I couldn’t believe it had been that long. “He’s an artist. He’s gotten into drugs and everything. He’s gotten really…flakey.”

Tony listened to all this, sitting still, staring down at his plate. He felt sorry for me.

“Drugs,” he finally said. “God, addiction’s tough. That’s got to be hard on a relationship.”

“I don’t use them myself.” It sounded like he thought maybe I did, and I wanted to set him straight. “I hate drugs. I hate what they’ve done to him, to us, to our relationship.”

“Is he at the stage yet where he’s willing to seek help?”

“No. But I feel like I need help. Like I need to let him go, but I can’t let go.” He looked so sympathetic, so kind, that all my shit came pouring out. “That night at the Gansevoort, when you came up and talked to me, I really needed someone to be nice to me, you know? I needed someone to be friendly and considerate. I haven’t had that in a while.”

He shifted pieces of the calamari around with his fork. “If you haven’t had that in a while, then it’s definitely time to let that relationship go.”

He was so right. His voice sounded deeper, almost reproachful. I didn’t blame him for disapproving.

“I’m sorry if you feel like I’m here on false pretenses, or to lead you along,” I said. “I should have told you the night we met that I was in a relationship. I just didn’t know how to explain everything. It’s complicated. I’m in that stage where I don’t know what we are, or what to do.”

“Can I ask you something?” He put down his fork and looked at me. “Does he know you’re here having dinner with me?”

“He’s passed out back at our apartment,” I said. “It happens a lot.”

“Is he the one you were supposed to meet that night at the Gansevoort?”

“No, I was there because…” No. Don’t say it. But you couldn’t build a future without truth. As for why I thought Tony and I had a future, I didn’t know. “I was meeting a client there,” I said.