Page 89 of The Goat in the Bedroom
“Just... wrong.”
We sat there in silence, watching whatever was on TV without really seeing it. This felt more intimate than Vegas somehow. Vegas had been about physical sensation, about trust and pleasure. This was about the simple intimacy of existing together, of fitting perfectly into each other's spaces.
“Gryff?”
“Yeah?”
“In Vegas...”
His whole body went rigid. “Yeah?”
I lost my nerve. All the words I wanted to say—it wasn't practice for me, I'm in love with you, please tell me you feel it too—got stuck in my throat.
“We can't do practice anymore,” I said instead.
His voice came out hollow. “I know.”
“It's too...”
“I know.”
We sat there, still curled together, both afraid to move. Holly climbed into my lap while Vincent stretched across both of us, and we stayed like that, pretending to watch TV, pretending everything was normal, pretending we weren't both dying inside.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I stood up, dislodging Holly who bleated in protest.
“Goodnight,” I said.
Gryff caught my hand as I passed, his fingers wrapping around mine. He looked up at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to say something real. Something that mattered.
“Goodnight, Artie,” he said instead, letting my hand go.
I made it to my room before the tears came. Holly had followed me, and she climbed onto my bed, curling against my stomach as I cried.
“I'm in love with him,” I told her, my voice breaking. “Vegas wasn't practice for me. It was... it was everything. But I'm too much of a dumb butt to tell him.”
Through the wall, I could hear Gryff pacing in his room, the floorboards creaking with each step. Back and forth, back and forth, like he was trying to walk off whatever was eating at him.
We were so close. Just a wall between us. But it might as well have been an ocean.
“I think I ruined everything,” I whispered to Holly. “I think we broke something we can't fix.”
Holly made a soft sound and nuzzled closer, and I held onto her like she could somehow make everything better.
But she was just a goat. And I was just a girl in love with her best friend who would rather sabotage her dates than tell her how he really felt.
And tomorrow, we'd wake up and pretend everything was fine again.
Even though we both knew it never would be.
I TOLD YOU SO: A SIX-YEAR JOURNEY
GRYFF
Isat on my bed, listening to Artie's muffled voice through the wall as she talked to Holly. I couldn't make out the words, but the tone was enough, sad, confused, lost. Just like I felt.
She had curled into me on the couch like she belonged there, and then she'd stood up and walked away. Said we couldn't do practice anymore. And I'd let her go because that's what I did. I let people go. I made things easier for everyone else.
Even if it was killing me.
