Page 66 of Caleb
“What?” He almost shouts the word. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” I sit up straight on the edge of the bed, my elbows propped against my knees and my hands rubbing my face. “And please don’t say I told you so, or I swear to God Aaron …”
“Is this about—her?”
I nod, my hands still on my forehead.
“Fuck … and what’s this about?” He tosses the document on the bed beside me.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say, standing up and grabbing it. “I signed it, but I still need to read it.”
“You signed that blindly?” His eyes almost pop out of their sockets. I nod. He snatches the document out of my hands and starts reading it. “Are you insane?”
I’m not ruling that out.
“I don’t know, Aaron. What the hell do you want me to say?!” I shout back. He stares back at me. Stoic. I take a deep breath, brace my hands against the dresser and let my head hang. “I um—flipped through the thing, and he talked me through the general conditions, so to speak. And the consequences if I didn’t comply.”
I open my top drawer and stare at the vodka bottle. It stares back. The exchange goes on for a few seconds before Aaron’s voice makes me snap back to our conversation. I shut the drawer with an angry shove.
“Seventy-two to twelve-hour window,” Aaron mumbles, the rest unintelligible. “Can’t express, declare, make your feelings for her known to her in any way? Caleb, what the hell is this? What aren’t you telling me?”
Laughing, my hands fly up to rest on the nape of my neck. “Ridiculous, that’s what it is.”
“Is it?” he challenges.
“It is!” I snap back. I’m not going to talk this through with Aaron. Not when I need to go out there and lie to Red’s face, to make her believe I’ll be going to New York when I’m not, and then having to break the news to her about how I’m not accepting “the job offer” because “something better came up.” Fuck this. Maybe I should’ve let him send me back to Israel without saying goodbye. That would’ve been easier. Less painful.
You fell for the wrong girl.The words still reverberate inside my head.
“We’re just friends,” I say, annoyed, wanting to believe that’s true for me when I know a constant tug inside my chest keeps leading me to her. It’s always her. Her face and sweet smell are the last things I think about every night before I shut my eyes.
It’s hard to admit how my feelings toward her have transformed through the years while Aaron stares at me, his gaze heavy and inquisitive.
“Aaron,” I insist. “There’s nothing more to it. But her paranoid scumbag of a father thinks there is when there isn’t.”
“She’ll be devastated to know you’re not coming,” Aaron says after a brief moment of pause, his gaze lost as he stares blankly out the window.
“She relies too much on me and our friendship,” I admit. “I cannot be discarded like this! Shewillbe devastated!” I’m yelling now. And I need to get it together, even when I don’t know how. Someone might be listening in to our conversation. Ultimately that is how I got here—people listening and reporting back to him.
“I’m devastated,” I say, modulating my voice as best as I can, “but this isn’t about me. I can deal with myself. This is about her and what she needs, how her father doesn’t give two shits about any of that, and how he would rather keep up with the lying and machinations for his own sake.”
Aaron pulls me in and wraps his arms around me. I fight it for a few seconds until I finally give in to the brotherly embrace.
Managing to swallow back the massive lump in my throat that threatens to choke me to death, I finally find comfort in his support. Then, he holds my shoulder at arm’s length, taps the paperwork against my chest, and says, “Let’s read this motherfucker front and back.”
Portrait
March 13, 2009
“COULD ONE OF YOU SIT FOR A PORTRAIT?”Red says, her hands glued to her phone, her face etched with concern. Automatically, I look at Aaron with a raised brow because, at this point, I can no longer recognize right from wrong. Knowing I won’t be seeing her again in a month’s time makes me want to say yes to her every request without caring about the consequences. But I’d be stupid to think things can’t get uglier for me.
I can’t mess up. But at the same time, I want to make the best of the little time we have left, especially since she’s unaware that our friendship is on life support and her father’s pulling the plug very soon.
“Please?” She insists after neither of us replies. “I don’t have anyone else to ask, and the class starts in five minutes.”
“I don’t think it would be appropriate, Miss,” Aaron says, resolute.
At his refusal, Red shifts her attention to me, her eyes like saucers. “Caleb, please?” She begs. “You have to help me.”
