Page 23 of Wait For Me

I smile. “He was convinced, back when we were younger, that you had a thing for me. It was stupid; we were so young. But he was so… worried about you. And he knew… he knew I was no good when it came to love. I couldn’t hang onto a girlfriend. I ran away when they told me they wanted more than I could give them.”

Cora’s eyes are locked on mine now. She’s digesting all of this. “I was the reason you and my brother stopped talking? How did what happened between us have anything to do with him?!”

Except, her nostrils flare. She’s not digesting. She’s furious.

“Cora, I promised him I’d never do anything with you. I gave him my word. Then… he saw us, that night on the back steps.” He was inside, in the kitchen, and he saw me break my promise to him.

My stomach churns. That might have been forgivable on its own. Maybe.

Cora’s jaw falls open, as if I spoke the rest out loud. “And you didn’t tell him you were going until the day before you left. You didn’t tell him about the business?—”

“Until the night he saw me kissing you.”

She turns away from me, pulling her knees to her chest.

I feel sick, like my stomach is rolling around in the bottom of the Quince.

“Unforgivable, I know.” My voice is low with shame.

I don’t need to tell her the extent of my duplicity. How I didn’t tell him when I applied for arts school. How I didn’t tell him when I got in, or when I packed my bags.

How I thought telling him the night before I left was fucking courageous, because I wasn’t even going to tell him at all.

Cora’s facing out toward the Quince, her mouth pinched shut.

A few minutes pass. I want to ask her if she hates me. I wouldn’t blame her. Instead, after a moment, I decide, for once in my life, to be honest.

“I found my dad last year.”

Cora’s quiet, so I continue.

“He was with me and my Mom until I was six. We were a happy family, I thought. He taught me how to ride a bike. He put me to sleep, read me stories.”

A cricket calls nearby and I close my eyes, ignoring the thickness in my throat.

“And then one morning, I woke up and he was gone.” I swallow, opening my eyes again but looking down. “I hardly remember him. Just flashes. All I remember was good, though. All I remember was love. Then he took that love and packed it in that suitcase. Took it wherever he went. He disappeared, and my mom disappeared in booze right after.

When I finally worked up the nerve to look for him, he was surprisingly easy to find. And when I knocked on his door, he looked nothing like the man I remembered. No smile or faraway look. He just looked… old. He crumpled at his doorstep when he saw me. I thought I killed him. Part of me…” I swallow, forming my hand into a fist, then releasing it again. “Part of me didn’t care.”

I haven’t told anyone this. Not a single solitary soul. But it’s Cora I want to hear this.

It’s Cora I need to show every part of myself to.

“I left him there, slumped on the stoop. I didn’t help him up. I didn’t even check to see if he was okay once I saw he was still breathing. I just… left. It’s the one thing he passed down that stuck, I guess. Leaving.”

“What kind of person does that?” I tip my head down; close my eyes. “I don’t know how to love properly, Cora. Not at all. Sam was like a brother to me.” My voice cracks as I look at her, her eyes wide; mouth a pinched line. “And you… you’rewho I think of when I’m cramped up and hiding behind a wall, shells firing all around me, wondering if that night will be the last and I died for some fucking photos. I left both of you behind. Because all I know how to do is leave.”

A tear runs down Cora’s cheek, dropping on the top of her dress.

“No,” I whisper, my voice thick. “Don’t cry.”

“You’re leaving again,” she said. “Aren’t you? Sooner than you said.”

She knows.

“I saw you looking at your phone in the room, doing that hand in your hair thing.”

When I open my mouth to speak, she shakes her head. “It’s fine, Tristan.”

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