Life is messy. Friends help you clean it up.
My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I could feel it in my throat. I stood outside Emil's condominium. I had called and left a message for him, and he had returned my call to say he was flying home to New York. He had finally reached me at my office earlier today, and we had arranged to meet. At first, I had suggested we meet for drinks. He had quickly derailed that idea and invited me to his place. I paused, but I accepted.
I smoothed my hands down my wide-legged black pants, I straightened my black sweater, and I tucked my hair behind my ears, and then I smiled to myself. Some habits really did die hard, and some just never died. Then I reached up and knocked lightly. I could hear him moving through the condo to answer the door.
"Lucy." He smiled at me, and reached out to take my coat. I walked into his condo, looking around, and thinking about the amount of time that had passed since I had last been here.
"Hi." I returned his smile, and stood a bit awkwardly, not knowing where to go. It was strange, to feel so awkward with him.
"Can I get you something? Something to drink?" He asked, and I watched him move toward his kitchen. I could see an empty highball glass on his counter, I thought that maybe he had a little something to steady-up, I thought that maybe he was feeling as awkward as I was.
"Sure." I followed him toward the kitchen, and stood on the other side of the high counter top that divided the kitchen from the main living area.
"Wine?" He asked, reaching for a bottle.
"Water." I replied, thinking the wine would either make my stomach hurt worse, or give me a headache. He nodded, and poured a generous amount of sparkling water into a large wine glass. I took a sip. "How was your flight?" I asked, and I could feel him looking at my hands, looking at my left hand. I had the rings in their box in my bag.
"Fine." He nodded, and I watched him pour himself two fingers of white tequila.
"Good." I replied, a bit lamely.
"How have you been?" He asked, taking a deep sip of his drink, placing the glass back on the counter, fiddling with it a bit as he studied me. I looked at him, not knowing how to reply. How had I been? Sick, was the honest response. My migraines were not going away, the medication made me nauseous, I was not sleeping well, and then by messenger I had received what he had sent, and things had just gotten worse.
"How have I been?" I repeated his question, not wanting to answer. "Why?" I asked softly, setting my glass of water on the counter beside his glass of tequila. "Why, why are you asking me?" I said, placing my palms face down on the counter, beside my glass, which was beside his glass.
"Lucy." He said my name, and placed his hands near mine, the high counter separating us.
"Why did you send that to me?" I swore to myself I wasn't going to cry.
"I'm in love with you, I want to marry you." He said, looking at me, his eyes holding mine. I looked at him, I could feel my insides shaking, feel them breaking.
"Emil." I said his name, and my voice broke. My brain was shouting, unfair, you're being unfair.
"Give me a chance." He said. "I meant what I said when I came to your house that day. I'm in love with you, only you, I want to be with only you. I'm tired of on-sometimes, off-sometimes, I'm tired of you pushing me away." He said, and at that, my mouth fell open.
"Me?" I said, "pushing you away?" My head was shaking in the no direction. "Me?" I asked. He looked at me perplexed.
"I let you. I let you push me away." He said, thoughtfully.
"I, um, I…" I couldn't figure out what to say. He pushed me away.
"You would withdraw from me, and I would try to figure out why, but in the end, I would simply give you the space you needed, until you would let me back in." He continued, my mind was reeling, trying to comprehend what he was saying. "But I don't want that anymore. So, I told you, I wanted only you. And, then you meet me for drinks one night, ask me where I see us, you don't give me a chance to say anything, and then you leave." Emil continued. "And, so I thought that was it, I had to let you go. I thought maybe that you had something with Goren. Maybe you don't push on him like you do with me. So I took the thing in California. But, I can't get you out of my mind." Emil continued, looking at me. I continued struggling, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "I can see it, you know, see it. When your dad died, it's like it broke your heart. So, you put some walls up. Then, your mom, she passed away as well. And, more walls, fewer risks with your feelings. So, each time I could feel us getting close, it was as if you couldn't take the risk, you couldn't take the risk of loving someone so completely, of needing someone so completely, of depending on someone, of letting someone in. So, you would push on me, and then finally I would officially call a break. Then, once you had some distance, you would open yourself to me, and I would come back again."
He was still talking, and part of me felt like he was talking a foreign language, but a growing part of me was thinking about what he was saying, the reality of what he was saying. It was easy for me to look at other people, to think about other people, to analyze their lives, their motivations, to understand their actions. And, at work, it was easy for me to encourage people to reflect on their thoughts, their feelings, their actions. But apparently, I wasn't so good at myself. First Bobby tells me I guard my heart, now Emil tells me the same thing.
"You, you pulled away from me. You were the one to say you needed space, you needed time." I said, I realized I was actually pointing at him, and I placed my hands back on the counter. "You, you were the one who would see other people." I said, looking down at my hands, unable to meet his gaze.
"I said those things in response to you. You wouldn't say them, you would simply withdraw from me. What was I supposed to do?" Emil tried to catch my eyes, but I wouldn't look at him, I couldn't look at him.
"Not see other people." I whispered.
"I love you. I'm in love with you." Emil said, he moved his hands closer to mind, and I stepped away. I could feel the tears in my eyes. My life was not making sense, but I knew, I knew part of what he was saying was right.
"Two of us. There are two of us." I said, standing a few steps back from the counter looking at him. "You say I pushed you away, why didn't you say something?" I tried to make sense of this.
"You're right. Maybe it was easy for me or convenient for me at the time. So, I made it easy. And I did, I did see other people, you told me to see other people. You said you wanted to see other people." He replied, and I watched him walk around the counter toward me. "But not this time. I'm not letting things go so easy this time." He said. "I'm in love with you. You. I love you. I want to be with you. I want to marry you." He said the words, softly. He was standing in front of me, so close we should have been touching, but we were still a breath away. "I know you love me." He said "Please, just let yourself love me."
"This is too much. This isn't what I thought. I didn't think…" I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I had never envisioned the conversation between us going like this. I had it all laid in my mind, I had things all figured out. This was so far from what I had thought, that I couldn't respond. "I have to go." I finally said.
"Lucy." Emil stepped sideways, following me.
"I'm not running away. I heard what you said. I feel what you said. Please, just let me come by in the morning. I will come over in the morning." I said, and took a step toward my coat, a step toward the door. He caught me, gently with his hands on my arms, and looked at me. For a moment I thought he was going to say something, but he didn't. Instead, he leaned in slowly, and kissed me ever so softly, that this time I did feel my insides break.
Emil was right, I loved him, I was in love with him, madly, unreasonably, and it scared the hell out of me. I thought it had scared me because he did not return those feelings, but perhaps it had scared me because what he said was right, I couldn't stand the thought of loss in my life. I thought about my mother's words to me, you can only take the sting out of death by removing the love from of life. If you take away the sad, you take away the good. I felt so mixed up, I couldn't think straight. I knew that Emil was a part of all of this to, but I realized that he was not the only part.
"I will see you in the morning." He said, and he let me go.
I had asked the cab driver to stop about a block away from my home. The stuffiness of the cab was making me feel claustrophobic. I had to get out in the fresh air. So, I planned to walk the last block and try to clear my head. For a moment, after I left the cab, I simply stood gulping in the cold night air.
My mind was almost frozen with everything Emil had said. Perception was such a powerful thing. Emil was right; I mourned the loss of my parents. I was in my 20's when my dad died, in my 30's when my mom followed. Not as young as many people, but probably younger than most. And, maybe he was right, that I did push on him, I did withdraw from him. But he was also right when he said he withdrew as well, that maybe it was convenient.
I realized as I walked the block that I still carried the rings he had given me. I had planned to give them back. But what he had said to me sent me so off balance that I hadn't given them to him. I knew something now that I hadn't known before, and I knew it with absolute certainty, he did love me, he loved me completely.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost stepped on Bobby Goren as I neared my front door.
"Earth to Lucy." Bobby smiled up at me, his cheeks a little red from sitting outside in the cold night air.
It struck me, for the second time in as many days that Bobby Goren was like some kind of cat, maybe a stray cat. You know, the kind that shows up at your door, a little hungry, a little disheveled, wanting to sleep on your couch a bit, soak up the warmth of your home a bit, then when all is restored, it goes back off in the world again, only to return a different day and repeat the process.
"Bobby." I gave him my keys so he could get the door.
"Are you going to marry Emil?" He asked, as we walked through my front door together. I irrationally thought about something Jake had said the other day – you can pick your friends, your can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends nose. I thought, funny thing - social boundaries, some people have them, some people don't. Bobby was the type of guy who didn't always respect them, or maybe he just didn't have them. So, if there was something he needed to get to, or something he needed to know, he would probably try to proverbially pick the other guy's nose, ignoring boundaries, not seeing the inappropriate nature of his actions, or his questions.
"I don't know." I said, speaking the truth.
"Did he hurt you?" Bobby asked, and I knew that he didn't mean physically.
"Not any more than I've hurt him." I surprised myself with what I said. It was the first time I could see my relationship with Emil from a more complete perspective.
"Do you have anything to eat?" He asked, and I smiled. I actually was a little hungry.
"Feed a mess?" I said to him, as I followed him into the kitchen. "That's my advice right? Take care of the basic needs, when someone is a mess, feed them, tuck them in to bed…"
"Something like that." He admitted. But I didn't care he was using my own advice against me, I simply followed him into my kitchen.
Author's Note: So, aspiemom sent me the …you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose… made me laugh thinking about. Tzeitl mentioned that she identified with my protagonist Lucy. And I thought – "wow I have a protagonist". In as much as I enjoy reading just about everything, sometimes I think it is hard to post non-Alex-Bobby ship on this board and keep people reading. So, I hope you are still enjoying reading.