Once we’re inside, I kick off my shoes and flop down onto the couch, finding Duke asleep under my desk. I’m toasty drunk so the freezing apartment doesn’t give me immediate pneumonia. Ryan puts the pizza box on the kitchen counter and sits down in the reading chair across from me. He nudges his sneakers off as I close my eyes and sink back into the unbelievably comfortable cushions.
“Can I ask you something?”
I open my eyes to look at him. “Sure.”
He hesitates before going on. “The last time I called you, when you finally picked up...did you mean what you said or was it a lie?”
I think back to the call and a heavy weight starts to press inside me. I told him I used to laugh at him—that I was happier without him—that he was a waste of time. I wonder now if my words from that day stayed with him as much as his words put down roots in me.
“Of course it was a lie,” I admit. “After we broke up, all I thought about was going back to you.”
“I wish you would have. Or I should have come back for you.”
His statement almost knocks the wind out of me but I don’t show it.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I tell him. “Too much happened. It couldn’t have worked.” Ryan doesn’t say anything and I take his silence as an opportunity. “Were you lying back then, too? Or were you really cheating on me?”
Ryan looks at me for a long time. “What do you think?” he asks.
“I don’t think you would do that to me.”
“I wouldn’t,” he affirms.
His words sink in, leaving me relieved but also enraged. He never cheated on me. He made it up. That lie touched every relationship I’ve had since him. I thought every guy I dated had a hidden agenda, that I wasn’t enough for anyone. Why wouldn’t someone cheat on me? I tortured myself for years imagining Ryan with another girl while I pined for him. And it was all for nothing.
“When I moved back to North Carolina after graduation, I used to talk about you a lot to my dad. I’d tell him how smart and funny you were and how much I missed you. He would make fun of me and tell me how bad I had it, but after a while, the more I would talk about you, the less he’d say.”
I startle a little at his words. Parents usually love me. I’m shy and sweet and rarely a cause for concern. I run every interaction I had with Ryan’s dad through my mind, but can’t find any red flags.
“I could sense there was something going on with him, but I didn’t know what it was. He started telling me that I shouldn’t end up with the first girl I fell for. He said we were too young and it wasn’t fair to you since you still had two years left of school.”
I nod, not sure where he’s going with this.
“I brushed it off in the beginning. I thought he was wrong and that we’d be okay. He kept going at me, though, saying it every time I brought you up. And then when things got rough between you and me, I started to think that maybe he was right. That I wasn’t being fair and I was ruining things for you.”
“But you weren’t—”
“Yes, I was. You know I was.”
I want to argue but my case is weak. I remember how central I made him to everything. If it was a day when he called, I was walking on air. If it was a day when he didn’t, I was a mess. Good day or bad day, it was set by him. Not me.
Maybe that’s the cost of finding love young. Everything is new and overwhelming and chasing that sensation down is priority one. I think back to the girl I was then and I feel bad for her. I still have plenty of flaws, but I know who I am. I like who I am. I’m fulfilled by my job and my family and friends, and if love found me now, it would add to my life, not consume it.
“And all the time that my dad was giving me relationship advice, he was cheating on my mom. He convinced me to pull away from you and then he went and screwed us all over.” Ryan looks at the wall behind me for a while before refocusing. “I haven’t spoken to him since he told me the truth. Not for ten years.”
I sit up fully then, feeling the color drain from my face. “What? Are you serious?”
“I was left with nothing and it was his fault. I couldn’t just let that go.”
My stomach is queasy and my eyesight blurs. I have a million things to say and words fall out of my mouth in a trembling heap. “Stop. You can be mad about what happened between your dad and mom and how he lied to you, but don’t blame him for what happened between us. That was you and me. Just you and me. Your dad was clearly going through something, but I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing when it came to you. Don’t cut him out of your life. You’ll never regret the times you talk to your parents, only the times you don’t.”
Ryan shakes his head with a lazy smile. “You’re too nice for your own good.”
“You’re not listening to me!” I’m yelling now and his eyes turn nervous. I need to make him understand. I try to sound in control, but it’s so hard. “Believe me when I say that there are few things
