Page 62 of Not That Kind of Icing

“I’m not stuck anywhere.” She also didn’t exactly give me a chance to tell her anything prior to the story breaking or talking to Bob, but that’s not the important part right now. This isn’t about being right or wrong. This is about the look of betrayal on her face.

About the fact that she didn’t give me those three little words right back.

Everything I did in Vegas and since we came home has been about giving this woman what she wants. What she needs. My every action has been carefully calculated to cause the least damage. To protect. And yes, it’s all exploded in my face like a nuclear warhead. But I’m not sure that, given the chance, I’d have done anything differently. Are mistakes less regrettable when they happen for the right reasons? Except maybe, just maybe, if I’d known how off-kilter she actually was that night, how she was going to wake up with gaps in her memory, I’d have pushed to take her back to the hotel.

“Tristan.” I hold my hands out, palms up. No threat, nothing to hide. “I know you’re angry—”

“You lied to me.” Her voice is eerily calm and fuck, I’d rather have her yell, scream, throw things. Anything but look at me with cold, dead eyes. Like the fight has gone out of her.

It’s not the time to split hairs about omission versus outright untruths. I kept this from her. I might have been pushed into it at first, but it was a conscious choice I made for the last few weeks. My only excuse is that I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t want us to end up here. I wanted us on solid ground before this detail came to light. I wanted us to be in a place where a fight was a relationship adjustment, not an automatic end. The truth is, I was scared. No matter how I try to justify it, I was afraid to lose this woman.

“Yes,” I say, swallowing down bile as my stomach heaves.

She blinks once, twice. Arms loose at her sides, and I want her to glare, to spit, to hiss, to fight. Something. She’s looking at me like I’m a stranger. The calmer she gets, the more I panic. I might actually throw up right here on her welcome mat.

“Are you even going to tell me why?”

I want to.

I want to give her every single reason this went on as long as it did, but she’s not ready to hear it now. She’s ready to get the answers to the questions shethinksshe should ask, to get some semblance of closure, and then pack me neatly into a box and act like this never happened. And god, that thought is terrifying, because I know she’d succeed. Even if she shattered both our hearts in the process.

“Would you believe me if I did?”

She looks away from me. The only sign that she heard what I said is the white lines bracketing her mouth.

“I don’t know if I can,” she says, and that’s that. My heart is careening through my body, slamming down through my stomach, my intestines, my legs. It’s crashing through her hardwood floor and shattering into grains of sand that slip and slide into the cracks between the boards.

“I’m sorry Tristan.” I owe her at least this much. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. And…” the organ in my chest stutters, stalls. “None of it changes the fact that I lo—”

“Stop.”

I swallow the rest of the words back.

“I think you should go,” Tristan says, but her calm is cracking. She’s not meeting my eyes anymore. And suddenly hope is blooming in my chest again, like those tiny sponge animals that expand when wet. The kind we put in Spags’ water bottle during his first week of practices. Every time he filled the thing, the sponges expanded, soaking up all the liquid until there was nothing left for him to drink. The hope is there, expanding into every space between my atoms, because I can’t crack indifference, but hurt means she still cares.

“I’ll go because you’re asking me to.”And I’d do anything for you.“But I’m coming back for you, Tristan. I’m coming back for us. Okay? What’s between us is real. It’s important. You and me, kitty cat. I’m going to fix it.”

She can have all the space she needs. Now that I know she cares. She was originally terrified I was leaving. Scared at the prospect of losing this. She’s mad. She has a right to be, but I’m not going anywhere.

And when the door shuts in my face, and her eyes flash with threats of my dismemberment, I try not to smile.

Maybe it’s a trauma response, but my siblings descend on my apartment late the next afternoon. I don’t call them, or text, but I know they know something’s up because they’re all piling out of Palmer’s eco-friendly sedan and cramming onto my couch. I’m used to them showing up unannounced, but it's rare to have all six of us in the same room when it’s not a birthday or a holiday. They've also cut back on their unannounced visits after Joey told the group chat that she saw Vic doing unspeakable things to their sister-mom.

That’s how I know it’s some form of sibling ESP. Madison comes loaded with face masks and it takes thirty minutes for everyone to be coated in sage green goop, Max included, as we sip hot cocoa doctored with a heavy dose of amaretto for most of us. I pretend to look away when Joey and the twins add the liquor to their cups, too. After getting high and drunk and fake married in Vegas, I’m the last person who has a leg to stand on about underage drinking. Although I didn’t break any laws. Just saying.

I haven’t heard from Vic since I sent him away yesterday, and my phone is locked in my bedroom so I’m not tempted to check it every five minutes. I know it’s ridiculous to be mad at him for giving me the space I asked for, especially when I was already mad at him, but I can’t help but feel abandoned and pissy. I don’t know what I wanted, but leaving when I told him to wasn’t it. Is it too much to ask for him to read my mind? Anticipate my every need?

And maybe he’d have a chance of doing that if I knew whatIwanted.

“So are we going to talk about where Golden Hubs went?” Joey asks, wiggling her toes on my coffee table. She picks up the nail polish and swipes another coat of lime green over her big toe.

“Maybe he’s just giving us space to have sister time.” Hayley looks at me, brows raised.

“Hey,” Max protests from my fridge, where he’s sourcing one of the local beers Vic brought with him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, suck it up, buttercup,” Palmer waves him off. “Except we didn’t tell them we were coming.”

“They have a game tonight.” Mads says, looking up from her phone. She waves the device in the air, team schedule outlined in blue. “Is he already at the rink?”

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