Page 38 of The Lovers
The groundskeeper is an older man with a silver beard named Han. His gentle stoking of the bonfire has turned it from a whimpering, spitting bit of embers to a roaring blaze in the time since I stormed out here to get some space. I take a sip of my beer, some local brew that’s extra hoppy, as I watch the flame eat through a branch.
The wordlovecoming out of Piper’s mouth sent me reeling.Love is a special occasion, she always said.Like a diamond necklace, like the best restaurant in town for Valentine’s Day.With Piper, love was something to bring out as a contrast to the mundane, not a normal, everyday thing. Those tarot cards may indicate our breakup was a turning point, but nothing could move the needle enough for me. She could be reborn as the girlfriend of the millennium, and I still wouldn’t want to dip back into her shark-infested waters.
“Hey.” Speak of the devil.
I take another swig. Piper sits down, near enough that I can smell her perfume even with the fire burning. There was a timewhen the scent of bergamot and clove drove me crazy in the very best way.
“Remember Big Sur?” she asks.
“I remember you threw up on the drive,” I reply. The windy roads of PCH did a number on her motion sickness.
“You held my hair back.”
“Because you refused to put it up.” She didn’t want a crease in her hair, so she needed me to stand behind her instead. I didn’t mind doing the job of a scrunchie—I was in love with her. Tenderness and affection made me take care of her, but those are traits she managed to snuff out of me in the course of our relationship.
The tug-of-war for power in our relationship led me to hold on even tighter everywhere else in my life. I could never win with Piper, but I could win at work. I could micromanage weddings and staff and my own self until there was no wiggle room at all.
“That was our first vacation together.” She gives her hair an aggressive toss over her shoulder. “You told me you loved me.”
There’s that word again. I said I loved her and she just smiled back.
“Sure, that happened,” I say, turning to look her right in the eyes. “Then you called me yourfriendon the phone to your mom.”
“Youweremy friend.” Her cheeks flush pink, flaring up in her own defense. “I wasn’t going to say girlfriend over the phone. I wasn’t going to just drop it on her like that.”
“Then when they visited, after I’d moved in with you, you made me stay in a hotel. Hid all my shit, asked me to make myself scarce.”
“I said to act normal.”
“You meantact straight.”
Her lips pinch.
“I gave you two years,” I say; now that I’m talking it’s hard to stop. “You shoved me back in the closet every chance you got.” I stand, she reaches for me. Piper gets this look when she’s called out. All emotion drains from her face; the expression drops into a low gear, like the tank just emptied. She clasps her hands on her lap.
“That’s an exaggeration.” She barely inflects. “But I understand why you would feel that way.”
There’s no exaggeration. We could quietly be a couple in the few spaces she was out, but if I acted too gay, looked too much like a woman who didn’t play by the misogynistic rules, she would clench up. Tighten her hand around my heart until I softened into a palatable shape.
“You don’t get that it isn’t an exaggeration at all—but how could you? That would require empathy.”
She givesstunned deer on dark road at nightbetter than anyone. “I understand what it’s like to feel trapped, and I’m sorry I treated you the way that I did, but I wasn’t ready—”
“As you said, all the time, and if it had just been that then maybe I could have stuck it out until youwereready, but you know that wasn’t even the worst of it.”
I want to drop it, but every word out of her mouth is like Han’s poker stoking the bonfire. Only it’s my anger flaming up instead. Also, I’m a little bit buzzed from the beer (possibly that cacao, who knows) so I keep unloading.
“You made me question the things I value—my own value, actually. You wanted me docile, malleable, so I became clay.” I tap the now empty beer bottle against my thigh in frustration. “And you didn’t flinch as you molded me.” Tears prick in my eyes.
“You can’t deny how much I helped you.” Her jaw clenches.She stands, getting in my path. “You can’t deny the growth in your career, the acceptability of you as a person—”
“Do you hear yourself?” I snarl.
Too bad she’s also not wrong.
Piper Cunningham’s touch is Midas. She shaped me into a ladder-climber. I became sought-after, the best at my agency, with success written all over me. I became what everyone expected me to be. I became the obvious choice to make the most important day in a couple’s life a dream-come-true event. I’m still rigidly adhering to the mold, only now I’m beginning to wonder if the success within my reach would still be here if I weren’t stamped with Piper’s seal of approval, if there were more Julia Kelley essence left on my skin.
“I don’t want to do that anymore. I want you to be you andIwant to be with you.”
