AIMEE + JARED, pt. 9

The final installment of a serial short story

Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8.

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Cal wasn’t breathless and drenched with rain and sweat, but he might as well have been. He didn’t run a few thousand miles, but he did take a cross-country flight, which is the first thing he tells me, opening his phone for proof that he never blocked my number, that he’d never do that. Maybe I’m stoned, but I feel guilty, like I forced his hand toward a dramatic gesture, like, intentionally or not, I’d demanded something unreasonable from him.

When he tells me he loves me for the first time, and I’m skeptical but I accept it, because what else do you say to a man who’s shown up at your doorstep, unbidden, to prove his loyalty?

In the absence of his contact, I’d dreamt out my imminent, solo future. I would take some time to learn to be alone. I would only date through direct set-ups, then organically, and, only if things got really bad, through the apps—and I’m talking years in the future when I become convinced that the life and timeline I’d anticipated weren’t coming anywhere near to fruition. I knew I’d loathe being single at first, so much more comfortable with being a half of a whole, but that Aimee would know exactly what to do, how to twist it into something fun, exaggerate the absurdity in the way that only she can, taking everything so seriously to the degree that, in the end, nothing is.

I owe Cal some sort of apology, but I don’t know how how to parse it. Aware that I’m searching for something, he fills in a blank: “E.J. isn’t in the crew anymore; we kicked him out.”

Oh. That. I nod wearily and he thinks this means I want more.

“We all believe them,” he tells me. “We believe all of them.” Hah. It’s the least you could do, I think, but my apathy translates to a smile and nod like my gender has trained me to, thanking a man for the bare minimum.

He studies me as I go to the cabinet and pull out a glass. He takes it from my hand and heads to the freezer for ice, cracking the blue plastic. The chime ricochets like a splitting headache. He means well, performing this small act of service, but a performance is still a performance.

When he tells me how he feels about me, about us, how terrified he was by our momentary fissure, I can tell it’s practiced. Not fake—Cal’s inability to lie, I learned early on, is part of his charm—but it sits somewhere between intentional and calculated. He’s presenting a case; he’s defending a thesis that, as it turns out, centers around our partnership. He feels—strongly, he says—that our lives will only continue to converge. He also uses the word copasetic a number of times, unflinchingly.

As I sip, I want to tell him what I’ve learned about trust. What I know now.

I want to wonder aloud if Tabitha’s perspective and Cal’s can coexist—can Aimee and E.J. and Jared all find something worth having, by their own definitions, without wronging another? I want nothing but solitude right now. I want to tell him I’m tired.

Instead, I pull out a glass for Cal, and he watches, worried, having concluded his point without fanfare—an academic failure he’s never suffered until now. I hand him the water, nod at him to sip, and he obeys.

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before,” I tell him and, once again, he obeys.