Page 51 of Well, Actually
“I wasn’t actually in love with you,” I cut in, embarrassment flooding me as I shoot a horrified look at Cooper. “It was just me being a dumb twenty-one-year-old with weepy post-sex emotions. I didn’t love you.” He flinches and I want to punch myself in the face for my harsh tone. Why can’t I say anything right?
“With all due respect, Eva, you had your time to share,” Roberta gently scolds. “And while I understand your desire to clarify the hindsight of your feelings and emotions—I promise I do—I think we already have a grasp that it was more of an infatuation than love. Now is Rylie’s time to speak.”
She nods at Cooper and he clears his throat. “Right. Well, uh, like I was saying, I don’t know that what I felt could be defined as love for you, but I did feel something strong and real for you. I really liked you. I was so excited to be with you.”
“Interesting way of showing it,” I mumble. They both (rightfully) ignore me.
“But, for lack of better phrasing, I had a ton of shit going on at home, and I handled it all horribly.”
I swallow, looking at my lap. Guilt churns in me so violently it could capsize a ship. “I am so sorry about your sister,” I whisper, meaning it. Cooper makes a harsh, fractured sound in the back of his throat but doesn’t say anything. I see his hand, still resting in the space between us, twitch. On instinct, I reach for him, curling my fingers through his and offeringa reassuring squeeze, an echo of his comforting touch for me just minutes ago. He sucks in a breath, but doesn’t pull his hand away.
Instead, he holds mine tighter.
“Losing Hailey was one of the worst things to ever happen to me,” he continues. “My world was changed in an instant, my little sister justgone. Do you know how fucking weird it is to lose someone? To never be able to talk to them again? I couldn’t comprehend how I could exist in a world where I didn’t hear her voice. Where she didn’t beg to borrow my car during the summers. Where I wouldn’t see her smile and I couldn’t ever make her laugh again.” His voice cracks, and I look at him. His head is tilted back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“A piece of me died when she did—the version of me that had the privilege of loving her, the version of me that watched her grow up and be a far better person than I could ever hope to be.”
The pain in his voice strikes me straight in the chest, the faces of my own siblings flicking through my head. An ache to hug each and every one of them grips me so hard, I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to whimper.
“There’s no way you can ever be prepared for losing someone that special,” Cooper says. “But you also can’t be prepared for the other things you lose too. My entire family fell apart. My youngest sister, Katie, stopped speaking. Stopped eating. She didn’t leave her room formonths. My parents stopped talking to each other. We all moved around like ghosts, like that’s all we were allowed to be if that was all we had left of Hailey.” His voice cracks again, and I watch tears roll downhis cheeks. With his free hand, he pushes up his glasses, rubbing his eyes. His other hand stays locked tight around mine.
“And I felt so guilty about it,” he says in a muffled tone, digging his knuckles against his sockets. “But by the time summer finished, I couldn’t wait to get back to school. I wanted to get as far away from my family and our sadness that was rotting us from the inside out. I wanted to be around people who didn’t know what it felt like to lose the best person in the world. I wanted to drink and get high and fuck my way across campus and not think about how much I missed my little sister. So that’s what I did. I went back to Breslin and drank every night and partied all the time and ignored my future because I couldn’t imagine one without Hailey.”
Cooper grinds his teeth together as he blinks at the white tiles of the ceiling. With a slow movement, he drops his chin, turning to look at me. His silver eyes fix on mine, and, for a moment, I wonder how I’m ever supposed to look at anything else.
“It wasn’t far into the fall semester when I started hooking up with one of my frat brothers,” he says. “I was deep in the closet and so was he. Since we were freshmen rushing we’d been toeing that line, but never crossed it. Not until senior year. We’d hook up in stolen, shame-filled moments, usually drunk or high or both, pushing each other into dark corners or sneaking down the hall like our lives depended on the silence of the floorboards. He’d tell me how much he wanted me, how much he liked me, while we were doing it, then treat me like a piece of shit immediately afterward, like I was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. It fucked with my head.Or maybe I was just fucked in the head. I guess both things can be true.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Roberta nod. I feel a surge of anger at the reminder of her presence, like this moment is a gift that Cooper is giving me, and she’s intruding on something sacred. Then I remember she’s his therapist, his safe outlet. I’m the only one intruding.
“He got a girlfriend right before winter break,” Cooper says, tone going flat. “I was supposed to go home with him and spend the holiday break there, but he was so freaked I would tell his family or his girlfriend about the things we’d done, he uninvited me. Pretended he hardly knew me. It was different, but it felt like a loss all over again, and I was devastated and hurt and angry. But I had nowhere to put those feelings. So I went home to my sad family and saw my sad dad drinking and my sad mom fading and my sad sister hollow-eyed and lost not only in the face of her own grief but the grief of the people who were supposed to take care of her.
“It was seeing Katie hurting so badly that finally woke me up, at least a little bit. She was only twelve—so young. Too young. And it made me want to change. It made me want to step into being human again just so I could be a real, stable person for her to rely on. I wanted to stop chasing after someone who made me feel like shit for liking them. I wanted to continue pretending I wasn’t bi. I just… I just wanted to feel like a normal twenty-two-year-old who didn’t have a gaping hole in his life.”
Cooper swallows, the movement painful looking, his expression wrecked. I lean toward him. I want to reach out, holdhis face between my palms, fold his body against mine, absorb his pain like heat through my skin. But I’m too scared, terrified, of doing the wrong thing. So I hold his gaze, squeeze his hand, scream in my head that I’m here and I see him.
“And I met you, Eva,” he says in a low voice. “I met you and I liked you and I wasn’t anywhere close to being okay enough to do anything about it, but you made me feel good at a time when all I felt was terrible. So I pretended to be okay. I pretended to be whole and normal and thought that was enough.”
He takes a shuddering breath, and I feel the ripples through my chest.
“I really did like you, Eva,” he says, eyes dropping from mine. The past tense doesn’t escape me, but it shouldn’t hurt like it does. “But I also felt guilty for feeling happy. I felt guilty enjoying my time with you when I knew that what remained of my family was breaking into pieces. I was hung up on a guy who made me feel like shit because feeling like shit was my new normal.”
Cooper lets go of my fingers, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes and shifting in his seat until he’s angled away from me. I don’t know why I notice that.
“Eva,” he says, looking in the general direction of Roberta. “I know how horrible it feels to tell someone your feelings and not have them say it back. Especially after sex. I know how embarrassing and crushing and consuming a moment like that is, and I am so, so sorry I did that to you. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you, I just didn’t think I was allowed to have you.”
There’s a long, weighted silence, and I realize I’m holding my breath.
“And sometimes, I wonder,” he whispers, still not looking at me, “if you would change anything. If you would take back meeting me. I know it’s selfish, but I don’t think I could ever take back meeting you.”
Silence ticks, incessant like a fly buzzing in my ear, my head swimming and my heart beating so hard my teeth ache with the force.
Roberta clears her throat, the sound loud and awful like a skip in a CD, disrupting the natural flow of things. “I’m sorry,” she says, the sentiment ringing true. “But that’s all the time we have for today.
Chapter 13
We walk out of Roberta’s office in a DAZE, silence lingering like thick perfume. The sun has disappeared behind some clouds, only a few weak rays breaking through. It still feels too bright, both of us too bare and exposed. Without looking at each other, we lean against the hood of his ugly car, staring at the asphalt, not ready to share a small, intimate space again.
Cooper’s voice plays a hushed loop in my head.I wonder if you would change anything.
