Page 76 of Crumbling Truth
I knew the answer. I had plenty of time to think about it, because Esther refused to speak to me in the days that followed. It all boiled down to a single night, the span of a few hours in the midst of my thirty-eight years.
It was fear.
Fear that someone else would be hurt because of me, that I wouldn’t be able to give her what she needed and tragedy would ensue. Fear that I might lose someone else I cared about.
I’d fucked this up royally. For twenty years, I let Michelle’s death keep me from living my life to the fullest, and now I’d hurt Esther in my own idiotic belief that I could somehow keep her from harm.
Though I tried not to bombard her, I texted and called at least once each day—to apologize again, to beg her forgiveness, to seek any sign that she didn’t utterly despise me now.
She never answered.
The roiling anxiety in my stomach grew with each passing hour of radio silence. Even Toni seemed to be glaring in silent judgment over my idiocy.
On Wednesday morning, Esther finally replied to my text, but it did nothing to assuage my guilt nor to reassure me that I hadn’t caused irreparable damage to our relationship. In fact, I was fairly certain the two word response only amplified those feelings.
I’m fine.
An icy fist clenched around my heart.What can I do to fix this?I texted back, desperate. The little dots bounced, then disappeared. Even after waiting half an hour, they never showed up again.
I wanted to lay my head down and weep, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Instead, I went to the corkboard in the kitchen, found my brother’s phone number, and called him. There were other relationships left to repair, and if I couldn’t make things right with Esther just yet, I could at least bury the hatchet with my brother.
If my future was here, I wanted to move forward with a clean slate.
“Hello?” he said, sounding distracted.
I realized that he didn’t have my phone number in his contacts and felt immediately like a jerk. “Alex, it’s me.”
His voice turned wary as he replied, “What do you want?”
The clock on the kitchen wall ticked loudly in the silence as I pondered that. I wanted to rewind it, go back to Sunday’s snowball fight, stop myself from becoming the kind of asshole who inadvertently wounded the woman he loved.
Loved.
The word hit me like a hammer striking an anvil, echoing into my chest.
“I wondered if we could talk.” My voice was hoarse from disuse these last few days. It seemed fitting that I would sound as terrible as I felt.
My brother was silent for so long I glanced down at my phone screen to see if he’d hung up on me. Just before I asked if he was still there, he said, “Okay. When and where?”
We settled on meeting at a coffee shop at the edge of town in an hour. I checked my texts again to see if Esther had replied, but there was nothing more. Since I’d been operating in lovelorn dumbass mode for three days now, I ran upstairs to shower, threw on clean clothes, and headed out to the cafe.
Alex was already seated at a table with a tall coffee cup in front of him like a shield. His cool gaze raked over my face, but he must’ve decided to take pity on me because his expression softened slightly.
“Go get yourself some coffee, you look like hell.”
By the time I returned to the table, my brother seemed significantly more relaxed, tipping back his chair so it balanced on two legs—I could practically hear Mom’s voice scolding him for it as she had throughout our entire childhood. Apparently my misery was disarming, but I’d take whatever advantage I could get if I was going to grovel.
Somehow, Esther had gotten past her comparisons between Steve and my brother. If she could find the good in him, I would try my hardest to do the same.
The apology I’d been rehearsing evaporated as soon as I opened my mouth. “How’ve you been?” I asked, wincing at the inanity of the question.
Alex puffed out his cheeks. “Good, actually. Really good. But I can’t imagine we’re here for small talk, Theo. Is Esther still pissed?”
“She’s not speaking to me,” I said miserably. “Well, she finally replied to a text today with two words, but that’s the first I’ve heard since she slammed the door on Sunday.”
“Tell me one thing, man. What difference does it make if she stops speaking to you now or in a few weeks when you leave town again without a backward glance?”
I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment. “I deserved that.”
