“Please don’t cry,” he coughs gruffly, my emotional state clearly toying with his male sympathy, which, by law, is limited.
“But he hates me!”
“You know Justin says things he doesn’t mean when he’s mad,” Trace says soothingly, as he rubs my back gently. “Everyone does.”
“I-I know,” I hiccup, tasting the salty tang of tears as they ran down my cheeks to hit my lips. “I don’t even care about what he said, I just feel so g-guilty.” And just to punctuate the sentence in the same way that every love-bruised girl does, I let out a pathetic wail of sadness.
He remains silent; this isn’t really the situation where he can rush to my side and say that Justin’s overreacting, because he isn’t. “He’ll get over it, you two just need to talk,” he settles for eventually, after a few seconds of sob-interrupted silence.
“But he’s s-so mad at me, Trace!” I cry, wiping away a few tears with my fingertips.
“Well…” he trails off uncomfortably, propping his elbow on the arm of the chair. “What were you expecting?”
I burst into a fresh round of tears, evoking Trace’s awkward back-patting again. There’s not doubt that he’s still angry with me, but fortunately Trace, like Justin, is a sucker for crying women. He doesn’t have the heart to just up and leave me on my own without an at least feeble attempt at cheering me up, even if his comforting technique is a little unconventional. His words post argument have so far provided an invigorating mixture of consolation tainted by the occasional typical male comment, like, “I don’t know why you’re so upset, it’s your fault”.
“I’m so happy you’re okay,” he says after a lull of quiet. “I don’t know what we would do without you, Cat.”
Smiling weakly, I pat the back of his recently shaved head. “Thanks, that’s sweet of you.”
“It must have been great finding out and letting go of the worry, right?” he continues, grasping at straws.
“Yeah, it was a relief.”
An uneasy still falls between us once again and my mind travels upstairs to Justin, whose footsteps I can hear stomping about grumpily, before the melodic sounds of Coldplay at an entirely unnecessary volume meet my ear. He must hate me, abhor me, detest me. Why shouldn’t he? If Justin so much as lied to me about what groceries he had bought I would go crazy. And if he lied to me about something like this, something of such great magnitude…I don’t know what I’d do.
What can I do to make him see things from my point of view? My words are pointless; no matter what, he’ll still be furious with me. I know Justin, and I know he stubbornly refuses to forgive easily. Perhaps he’ll soften around the edges if he knew I genuinely had his best interests at heart, but how can I make him see that?
“Who the hell has been smoking in here?” I ask groggily, my throat thick with emotion as I try to focus on something other than Justin for a moment. “That smell is getting stronger by the second.”
Trace hesitates, before sheepishly tugging at the collar of his track jacket and holding it out to me. Staring at him cautiously, I lean forward and take a sharp inhale of his top, only to be drowned by the dirty stench of stale smoke.
“Jesus Christ, Trace. Were your clothes washed in an ashtray?”
He sighs and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a seemingly empty packet of cigarettes. “I had an urge,” he shrugs guiltily beneath my infuriated gaze.
“What? Do you have any idea what you’re doing to your lungs? Do you know that in younger people, three out of four adults that suffer from heart disease are smokers? Do you know that you could have bronchitis, throat cancer, lung cancer, emphysema--”
“Alright Cat, that’s enough,” he interrupts wearily, rolling his eyes at me. “I don’t need your second hand health class bullshit, I know what the consequences are.”
“Then why are you smoking?” I ask incredulously; I never really understood tobacco-users, how could they do to themselves? “I thought you had quit?”
“I had. I did. Just…not anymore.”
“Trace, that is barely an adequate response.”
“Cat, I don’t need your preaching right now, okay?” he says roughly, slipping away from the somewhat forced reassuring persona. “Your self-righteous attitude is really starting to piss me off.”
“I’m telling you for your own good!”
“Oh sure, like lying to Justin was for his own good too?”
“Exactly.”
“And we can all see how fan-fucking-tastic that turned out.”
“I did what I thought was best!”
“Oh Jesus, Cat,” he groans, turning away from me and agitatedly opening his packet of cigarettes as he mutters under his breath. “I don’t even think you realize how much you’ve fucked up.”
I recoil slightly, frowning at his severity. “What?”
He sighs, closing the rectangular packet upon seeing it empty. “Listen, your best bet right now is to just lay low and wait for Justin to cool off, before doing the groveling of your life. There’s no point in sitting here feeling sorry for yourself, because that’s not going to help anyone.”
Ah, I see his strained consoling air is now truly abolished. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself!”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“I am not!”
“Fuck this,” he mutters, steadily approaching the door . “For once in your life Cat, just stop being so fucking proud and admit you’ve done something wrong. Do you think Justin’s going to say, ‘Oh, it’s okay, baby’ the second you bat your pretty eyelashes at him? Wake up and smell the coffee, sweetie. Things are in a bad way.”
“Why are you being so mean to me?” I whisper, my voice unable to mask my hurt. Trace has always been on my side, whether I’m teasing Justin, arguing with Justin, playing with Justin. Those two are the best of friends, of course, but Trace is like the big bear of a brother that I never had. He never turns his back on me.
His hand pauses on the curve of the door handle and he glances down at the floor. “If I screw with my common sense enough, I can understand why you did what you did.” He looks over at me, his brown eyes a whirlpool of disappointment. “But then I think to upstairs, where the best friend I’ve ever and will ever have is doubting everything abut himself because of what you’ve done.”
My head drops to my hands in shame, the tears spitefully prickling my eyes.
“And I have to be the one stuck in the middle of all of this, not knowing who’s side to take,” he finishes softly.
I nod in the cage of my hands wearily. “I know, and I’m so, so sorry.”
He remains silent for a moment, looking down at the carpeted floor again. “It’s just like….you never get it wrong, Cat, but when you do…it’s so wrong.”
As much as I would love to stand up and argue my case, little voices inside of me are vehemently agreeing with him. “I know.”
He glances over at me and sighs, before crossing the room and gently kissing the top of my head. “I need to leave, okay?” he says, locking our eyes in contact. “You guys have to sort this out between yourselves without my interfering.”
“But--”
“Don’t even ask me to stay, you know I can’t. There are supposed to be two people in a relationship, not three.”
“Where are you going to go?”
He shrugs. “I’ll just go to a friend’s house, maybe Pamela’s.”
Before I can try and match the name Pamela to the numerous faces that filtered through our kitchen after a night with Trace, he stands up and pulls his jacket closer around him, glancing out of the window at the somewhat cloudy skies.
“Okay, well text me or something, let me know where you are,” I sniffle, running the back of my hand over my eyes.
“Sure thing,” he replies, taking his keys off the top of the stereo and throwing them in the air. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, running my hands through my hair.
“Cutie, you know I love you, right?”
I laugh and nod. “Love you too.”
He smiles and heads out through the living room door, before doing the same through the front.
It’s just me and Justin.
---------------------------------------------------------
After deciding that forty five minutes was an adequate length of time to have had Coldplay banging loudly from my sound system, I knocked the volume down a few notches. Not that the people in the apartment beneath us would ever have the balls to come up and tell me to keep it down, but it’s the principle of the matter.
Just as I was contemplating a CD change (perhaps some women-bitching Eminem), a gentle knock at the door makes me look up in surprise. Trace? Doubtful: he would never have the manners to knock, especially gently. Cat? But surely she would have realized I’m still in the fuming stages post-argument? I can’t speak to her yet.
“Come in,” I call out, tossing the Encore to the side, letting it land with a soft thump on the made bed.
The door slowly opens to reveal a white plate balanced on a pale hand, followed by the whole body of the plate-carrier.
Cat stands in the doorway awkwardly, looking at the sandwich innocently laying on the plate. “Hi,” she says to the sandwich.
“Hi,” I reply, sitting up a little straighter.
“I er…made you a sandwich,” she says, holding out the carefully cut triangles with ham peeking out the sides. “We haven’t used that ham and it’ll go bad in a few days, and I thought you might be hungry, so…um…here you go.”
Raising an eyebrow, I take the extended plate from her hands and set it on the table to the side of my half of the bed. “Thanks.”
"Its got the butter spread right to the edges, just the way you like it.”
“I’ll eat it later.”
Without the porcelain plate to occupy the actions of her hands, she nervously starts to twist them and looks to her right, through the open window to the towering gray buildings surrounding us. Oddly, seeing her feeling so uncomfortable and nervous has lessened my anger somehow. Maybe I just know I’m the one with the power in the room and it has made me more relaxed, as obsessive as it sounds.
“Perhaps we should talk,” I suggest, sliding up to rest my elbows against the pillows cushioning the bed so there’s room for her to sit down. “And I mean talk rationally, like the adults that we are, and not shouting.”
“Okay.” She gingerly leaves her prop against the wall and walks apprehensively to the bed, delicately sitting down a few feet away from me at the foot of the bed.
“I’m not going to apologize,” I tell her, firmly but not harshly. “I know some of the things I said downstairs were out of line, but I don’t think they were unjustified.”
“I completely understand.”
I take a sharp inhale. “You have to see things from my point of view, Cat. Do you know how I felt down there? Finding out that my girlfriend didn’t deem me a reliable confidant?”
“I do! I just--”
“Cat, let me ask you this,” I interrupt calmly, making sure to capture her blue eyes in a steady gaze with my own, “if you could turn back time, would you have told me in the first place so that we wouldn’t be in the mess that we are right now?”
She looks down at the comforter, biting her lip unsurely. “I…I don’t know.”
I lean back and suck my breath in. I suppose I have to appreciate her honesty on this occasion, and yet... “But why the fuck not!” I shout suddenly, my calm manner shattering.
She jumps and looks at me doubtfully, her eyes already having a thin sheen of moisture. “You said no yelling.”
Shaking my head, I ruggedly run my hands over my face. “Okay, fine, I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s like you’re only sorry because you got caught out. How do I know you would have told me if I hadn’t already found out from Trace? Would you just have kept it to yourself forever?”
“Justin, I don’t know what you want from me,” she says weakly, rubbing her forehead. “I’ve said I’m sorry, do you want it in blood?”
“I want to know why you didn’t tell me the first fucking moment you thought you could be ill. Jesus Cat, you could have had cancer and I wouldn’t have known!”
“I didn’t want you to worry about me!” she replies desperately. “I just wanted to deal with it on my own and not drag anyone else into it!”
“Then why the fuck did Trace know?”
“It just slipped out!”
“Oh yeah, because things like that just ‘pop up’ in every day conversation!”
She drops her head and stands up, pacing the floor despairingly. “We’re shouting again,” she reminds me gently, coming to a stop in front of the window and once again staring out at the sky scraper scarred landscape.
“I just don’t understand why you did it, I really don’t,” I mumble, cupping my face with my hands and resting my elbows on my lap. “I thought we were doing good.”
“To some extent, I don’t either,” she says quietly, keeping her back to me as her curvy silhouette forms in the window. “I mean, I know you’ve probably concocted some completely erroneous idea that I don’t love you enough or something like that…”
I look up guiltily, glad she can’t see me. Of course that’s what I thought.
“Oh God,” she chuckles darkly. “If only you knew how much that wasn’t the case.” She pauses for a moment, speaking in a way that sounds more as if it’s to herself rather than me. “I’m not cut out for this love thing, Justin. I never expected it, never wasted hope on it, never thought I’d have it. Do you have any idea what it’s like to suddenly be with something who makes the whole world pale in comparison?”
I frown at her back, wishing I could see her face to see the emotions running across it.
“I’d give you my life, I honestly would, Justin. Maybe I don’t tell you it enough, and maybe I don’t always show it, but I do love you, and there’s no one in this world that I would trust more.” She taps the window sill before shaking her head and slowly walking around the room aimlessly. “But this was something that neither you nor I had control over. They say love can move mountains, but how can it stop cancer? I had to be realistic; I couldn’t just depend on you saying something nice and making believe that everything was going to be okay. I needed something more solid than that.”
“But I would have helped you,” I insist, putting a hand to steady myself on the comforter and turning around to look at her meandering figure. “I wouldn’t have just fucked around; I do have the ability to act responsibly.”
She turns to me, a raised eyebrow etched on her tired face. “Justin, you would have freaked out and acted anything but responsibly.”
“That’s not true!”
“Look at how you reacted just an hour ago downstairs! It was a perfectly normal response, Justin, all I’m saying is that with all that I was going through, I really didn’t need that on top of it.”
“Did you ever think of my feelings throughout all of this? How it would effect me?”
She rolls her eyes. “Well excuse me if I was being a little selfish at the time, Justin. Funnily enough, I was sort of concentrating on my own well being before anyone else’s.”
“But we’re supposed to be in things together!”
“And Justin,” she says, walking over and kneeling on the bed in front of me, clasping my hands in hers, “we always are. But in that ‘we’, are two different people who both lead two separate lives. We’re as close as we can be, and yes, in many ways we are one, but I’m still Cat, a woman in my own right, and you’re still Justin, a man in his.”
“I don’t understand.”
She groans in frustration. “I’m trying to make you see that in every relationship there has to be independence, I have to do things myself.”
“Sure you do, but those ‘things’ are stupid crap like buying tampons or brushing your teeth; that’s all you. But this, Cat…do you even realize the enormity of what could have happened?”
“Yes!” she snaps forcefully, snatching her hands from mine. “But here’s the big thing--it didn’t!”
“What are you trying to say?”
She sighs and stretches her neck muscles. “I’m saying that we’re moving in circles here. We can go over it a million times; I held something from you that, okay, maybe I shouldn’t have, and you’re angry. Why can’t we just forget about it?”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to brush over this!”
“I’m not, I’m just stating a fact: we can debate and argue and talk and cry as much as we want, but we’re still going to reach a pointless conclusion.”
“And that is?”
“That I’m sorry,” she says softly. “Justin, you can’t possibly imagine what this whole fucked up journey has done to me; I can’t have you against me right now. If there was any time that I needed your help, it’s now.”
“I would have given it to you before, if you had given me the chance.”
“But I didn’t, and the only thing I can say is that I’m sorry. Why can’t you just forgive me?” she whines desperately, looking at me distraughtly.
“But how can I do that? It’s not as though this has just affected me, this has spread to every part of our relationship like a freaking infection. Even our sex life if fucked up, for God’s Sake.”
“Look, last night was…”
“Insane?” I supply spitefully. “How could you let me do that to you, Cat?”
She shakes her head and glances down, hastily wiping away at the tear the dared to escape her eye. “I was scared and I didn’t know what else to do. It was a mistake.”
“I just…I just can’t believe you would do that. Even thinking about it makes me want to vomit,” I spit disgustedly, casting an angry glare towards The Goody Drawer, whose name I’m seriously considering changing.
“The only thing I can say is that I will never do anything like that again, I promise,” she whimpers as she rubs at her eyes with her hands, withholding the last of her tears.
“Why should I believe that?” I ask, eyeing her with trepidation.
“Because I honestly can’t bear the thought of having to lie to you again,” she chuckles slightly. “It was like lying to my mother; I couldn’t do it.”
“I can’t just let things go this easily, you know,” I say carefully. “There’s still so much stuff…anger, hurt…just stuff that needs to be sorted out.”
“And we will, over time,” she reassures quickly, staring at me sincerely. “But right now, I just want to put everything behind me. Never think about it again. It’s all in the past.”
“That doesn’t mean we can just forget about it.”
“But it means we can just try our hardest to…to move on, as cheesy as it sounds. What happened, happened, maybe you can see my way of thinking, maybe you can’t. Why can’t we just put it behind us?”
Lazily reaching forward and gently linking our fingers together, I smile at her. “Promise we’ll be completely honest with each other from now on? No secrets, no lies, no hidden feelings?”
She returns my smile happily. “I promise.”
Giving her fingers a squeeze, I accept her hug as she collides into me, gripping me tightly.
“And I didn’t mean what I said about you and Trace.”
“That’s alright,” she murmurs into my chest as she nestles comfortably against me.
“I mean really, where would you even get a thermometer?” I say with as much seriousness as I can muster, before Cat’s snort finally escalates into a laugh and I can’t help but follow suit.
And just like that, it’s almost as though things are back to normal again. Or, as normal as things ever can be for me and Cat.
Almost, but not quite.
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