Page 73 of Trophy
“No! Yes. I don’t even know. It’s about everything!” She was clearly about to lose it completely. “I just know where this thing between us is going. I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to keep not trusting me with who you really are, pretending you’re always strong and in control. And I’m going to let you because I want to be with someone like that, because I’m so used to being dependent and going along with what a strong man wants.”
He suddenly knew exactly what she was saying, and he knew why she was saying it. She’d tried to tell him before. She’d tried to tell him last night. And she wasn’t the only one who had tried to tell him that he could never let himself feel vulnerable or risk humiliation with a woman again.
He had to clear his throat over the pressure of guilt and knowledge in his throat. “I know we both still have issues to work through, but that doesn’t mean we have to break up.”
“Yes, we do. Because we might say we’ll work on them, but we won’t. And we’ll just go along the way we’ve been going. It’s exactly what happened to me before with Arthur. And it will just keep happening to us, until I’m just another trophy on another man’s shelf. And I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”
Rob couldn’t even move. “I don’t think…” His voice didn’t sound anything like his own. “I don’t think of you like a trophy. I don’t.”
“It’s not something you’re doing, Rob. It’s what I’m doing—trying to be the person you want me to be. And it’s just wrong.”
He couldn’t even speak anymore. The world was spinning around him far too fast, making him dizzy, making him sick. Because something was happening here that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t fix, couldn’t make better.
“I’m so sorry, Rob,” Allison concluded in a hoarse whisper. “But I want out.”
“You… want out.”
“Yes.” She was wiping away the tears as they fell, but she didn’t lower her eyes.
She meant it. She’d seen him for who he really was, and she didn’t want him anymore.
He’d been humiliated enough in his life. He wasn’t going to do it to himself by begging her to reconsider, by spilling out how much he loved her, how he was going to be miserable without her, how he’d change anything about himself if it meant she’d be happy and stay.
If she didn’t want him, then he would accept it. He’d done just fine before she’d moved in across the street and disrupted his entire existence.
“Okay, then,” he mumbled, taking a few ragged breaths. “Then I’ll go.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, but he could barely hear her.
He was walking out, walking away, leaving her behind.
Eventually he made it all the way across the street.
The hot, humid day and his messy house seemed no different than they had an hour ago—except that the whole world had changed.
24
The next dayAllison was so upset that she called in sick to work and drove to Charlotte to spend some time with Vicki.
She hated to be weak like that, but she couldn’t stand the thought of serving tables at Dora’s, seeing Rob at breakfast, catching all the curious looks aimed at her, pretending like everything was all right.
She didn’t regret what she’d done, but it still felt terrible. She wished she could just skip over the next few weeks and be done with the grieving period for her almost relationship.
Instead she drove more than an hour to the city and went to Vicki’s apartment. Russ was at work, and Vicki didn’t have any commitments today, so they went shopping and then to lunch.
Allison was surprised but relieved that she didn’t get an immediate interrogation from her friend, who must have been able to tell that something was wrong. It wasn’t until the server had brought their salads at lunch that Vicki finally broached the topic.
“So obviously you’ve made a mess of things with Rob,” she said. “Tell me about it.”
That was all it took for Allison to pour out everything that had happened, everything she was afraid of, everything that was tearing her apart as she looked to the future. Vicki didn’t interrupt, and at the end of Allison’s story she was frowning down at the table, as if she were thinking hard.
“You understand, don’t you?” Allison asked, wiping a few tears away. She hadn’t fallen apart, but she couldn’t talk about all of this without getting emotional.
“Yes, I understand.” Vicki finally looked up, her beautifully made-up face still frowning thoughtfully. “But I wonder if you had some other options.”
This wasn’t what Allison had expected, and her spine stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud. I can see that you and Rob had some issues that were getting to be problems, but I wonder if it was the kind of thing that could have been worked out together.”
