“But it’s better with four players! Why can’t Elle play, too?”
Jonah stomps his foot. Madden wears a sulky expression on his normally angelic face.
“Elle’s busy,” I lie. My stomach hurts, not just from the untruth, but from the grief and anger that have settled under my ribs.
It’s five days since Elle walked out.
Sunday night, I watched, unable to speak, as she gathered herself, swiped tears back, and left.
I wanted to stop her, but I knew she was right.
I’d been so shocked when I came out of the bathroom and realized she’d read the journal. I felt sick, and sicker still when I realized why she’d done it. Because she didn’t trust me with her feelings, didn’t trust me not to be an asshole like Trevor.
And the thing is?
I was an asshole like Trevor.
Hadn’t I said it myself to Brooks? I’m not over Lucy. I’ll never be over her.
Why had I thought it was okay to offer myself in a relationship to Elle when I could still say those words out loud to my brother? Elle deserved a lot more than a guy who was emotionally two-timing her. And for me to be the second guy in a row to do that to her?
That made me an even worse asshole than Trevor.
So I let her go. I let her walk out of my room, out of my house.
I let her walk out of my life.
The boys are still staring up at me with small-man disgust. Madden says, “You didn’t even invite her.”
Jonah says, “You guys are just having a stupid fight and now we can’t play Catan all together.”
Both these statements are so true it startles me, although I’m not sure whether they know that or are just bluffing. Kids, man—they are the dirtiest brawlers. I shake my head. “Guys,” I say. “We can play a perfectly good three-player version of Catan.”
“It’s better with my mom there,” Madden says.
He is so not going to feel that way in four years, but it’s very cute right now. Or would be, if it didn’t make me feel like I’ve been sucker punched. Most of this week has felt like a sucker punch. I’ll just start to feel normal and then I’ll remember the look on Elle’s face as I came out of the bathroom.
I can feel my resolve wavering. What if I just texted her? Told her she’d misunderstood, asked her to come over so we could talk about it. Begged her to forgive me, for the boys’ sakes. Just thinking about it, about being near her again, the conversation and sex that would follow, makes me feel marginally less miserable. But then what? I still wouldn’t be able to promise her any of what she needs, what she deserves. I still wouldn’t be over Lucy.
No, we did the right thing. A little pain now to avoid a world of hurt later.
That doesn’t solve my three-player/four-player problem.
I have a stroke of genius. “What if I call Uncle Brooks?”
“Yeah!” they say in unison. I think they think of Uncle Brooks as an oversized kid friend. Which may not be so far from the truth.
Uncle Brooks, who maybe should also be called Saint Asshole, answers my call and hauls himself out to play Catan with us. He’s never played before, and he gripes a lot about how stupid and fiddly the game is, but he beats us all anyway. Vintage Brooks.
I thought I had the toughest part of the evening behind me, but it turns out I was wrong, as I discover when I head downstairs to square away Madden and Jonah in their sleeping bags.
“Isn’t my mom coming over to say good night?”
“Not tonight, bud.”
But it’s not the same without her, and all three of us know it. It feels…uneven. Like she should be there, on the other side of the sleeping bags, whispering to Madden, looking up to meet my eyes from time to time.
I miss her fiercely, and she’s right next door.
I trudge upstairs, feeling the weight of the day. Brooks has sprawled on the couch in my living room with a beer he’s lifted from my fridge. When I come in with a beer of my own, he lifts his bottle in greeting.
“How’s your neighbor? For that matter, where’s your neighbor?” And then, because he’s my brother and my best friend, even if he is an asshole, and can clearly see the expression on my face, “Oh, shit, Sawyer, what the hell happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Bullshit. You look like I hacked in and deleted your season pass to the NFL. Did she dump your ass?”
I hesitate while I try to figure out the answer to that—had she? Or had we reached a mutual decision that we were a bad idea? I honestly wasn’t sure.
“It wasn’t going to work out.”
Brooks squints at me, brow furrowed. “It wasn’t going to work out? Or it wasn’t working out? Because that’s two different things. You going to tell me what the actual fuck happened?”
I bring him up to date. I tell him how after I talked to him, I realized how much I did like her. I tell him about how we talked about giving it a try, how we went to the wedding together and it was—good. Better than good. I tell him about the book landslide and the journal and coming out of the bathroom to find her looking like she’d been kicked in the gut.
And then I tell him about Trevor. And what he did to her.
“And I can’t do that to her. What Trevor did.”
Brooks is shaking his head. “Man, some guys.”
“I know, right?”
“But you know it’s a totally different situation. Still having feelings for your dead wife and cheating on your actual wife—those are two totally different things.”
“Yeah, but to her, not so much.”
“Well, isn’t that more about her than about you?”
“I just—it’s probably for the best, right? It was getting complicated. Someone was going to get hurt.”
Brooks makes a short, harsh noise. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I know. Caramel, right?”
My words are light, but there’s a tightness in my chest. I’m familiar with it. I met it for the first time when Lucy was sick, when it took up permanent residence. It had eased for a while, recently—but I think it was just the distraction of sex with Elle. Now it’s back, maybe to stay.
“Hey,” Brooks says. “You want to go drinking with Chase and Jack and me Friday night? I could use a single wingman. Those two are no fun anymore.”
The thought of it—of getting drunk, flirting, picking someone up, hooking up—doesn’t appeal, but Brooks is looking at me with the closest thing he’s got to a hangdog expression, and I can’t say no. “Sure.”
“We’ll get you laid. Drown your sorrows. All that.”
I don’t even bother arguing with him.