Roomies by Christina Lauren
twenty-six
I’ve done a lot of crazy things in the last four months, but calling Brian and quitting before tonight’s performance might be the craziest. I couldn’t tell if he was speechless from glee or shock, but his silence on the other end allowed me to get the words out, even as my own realization that I was quitting rather than just calling in sick unfolded over the phone:
I’m not coming in tonight.
Actually, I really need to find something else to do.
I’m not happy working there anymore.
I think . . . I’m quitting.
Jeff and Robert I have to tell in person—I owe them that courtesy after everything they did to get me the job in the first place. But Lulu—bless her heart—replied with a string of hearts and eggplants and smiley faces and rocker-hand emojis before typing the actual words It’s about fucking time. Within ten minutes she sent me a list of restaurants where I should apply.
So while the fire of mania and heartache and terror and regret still burns me up inside, I update my résumé, planning to take it to a dozen places this week.
I worked at the dining hall when I was at Yale—that’s about the extent of my food industry experience. But I’m hoping that my days at the Levin-Gladstone will cash out here, because it is hard as hell to get a job there, and archivist and customer relations looks pretty bad-ass on paper. I get now that what Robert gave me wasn’t a great job, but a great investment.
And then I come home and open my article on Calvin, and the production, and my hunt for talent in New York, trying to Rumpelstiltskin my black angst into golden prose and do everything I can to avoid thinking about how it’s going to feel when Calvin gets home and I realize we’re really over.
I’m hammering away at my keyboard, high on word count and two glasses of wine, but my righteous resolve melts when Calvin walks into the apartment and hangs his coat up on the hook.
He stands by the door, expression somber, and then pulls in a deep breath, stepping into the room.
Taking a perch on the corner of the coffee table, he says quietly, “You weren’t even out in the lobby.” He looks exhausted: blue circles bloom beneath bloodshot eyes, and his normally smiling mouth is a grim, flat line.
I slide my laptop onto the table beside him. “I called Brian and quit.”
He doesn’t seem at all surprised by this. He just nods, staring down at his interlaced hands. Seeing his wedding band glint in the lamplight is enough to suck the air from my lungs.
“Where are your mom and sister?” I ask. A glance at the clock shows me that it’s well past midnight; the show ended at least two hours ago.
“Back at the hotel.”
“Did they have fun?”
He nods but doesn’t answer aloud.
“I’m sure they were so proud of you.”
“I think so,” he says.
I tink so.
This is nothing like my breakup with Bradley, where it felt like all we had to do was put a lid on a box. Right now, my heart hurts. It’s squeezing and squeezing and squeezing, trying to keep me moving through this moment where I’m pretty sure I’ve decided that in order to get myself back, I’ll be losing him.
“I told them about Amanda.” He scratches at a fleck of white on his black dress trousers. “They’re peeved. They’ll get over it.”
I don’t know what to say to this. All that comes out is a sympathetic hum.
Calvin looks up at me. “Will you?”
“Get over it?”
He nods.
“Maybe,” I tell him, “but not right away. I mean, I think I understand why you lied to them—you didn’t want them to worry about you out here. But then you didn’t tell me, either, and it all just seems very . . . convenient. I had a hard time trusting that this was real at the beginning, and it doesn’t exactly help that you wanted me to lie about my name to your family.”
“I’ll explain whatever you need me to,” he says. “I did a shite job explaining this—I was panicked. I realize it all looks so bad from where you’re sitting.”
“Yeah.” I look up at him. “And although we can hash out the Amanda thing, I’m not sure you can explain away Natalie.”
He leans forward, taking both of my hands in his. “There is nothing happening with Natalie. When she called at the restaurant, I told her I was starting a new relationship. That’s what I said. I didn’t give her an expiration date.” He bends, kissing my knuckles. “It was cowardly to not tell my parents about Amanda. Plain and simple. And yeah, I married you at first to stay here but my love for you isn’t a lie. It was shite to expect you to lie with me. I just . . .” He shakes his head, and looks to the window. “In the moment, it was all a swarm in my head. I’m so sorry, but I’m here now, and I’ll do whatever you need me to do to fix this between us.”
I study his face. His smooth skin, dancing green eyes, the full mouth I’ve kissed thousands of times. He looks positively miserable, and I don’t even know what to say.
“I fucked this up,” he whispers, and his eyes fall closed. “I really fucked it up.”
God.
This hurts.
I hate this,
I hate it. I hate it.
When he opens his eyes again and looks at me, I don’t want him to leave, but I know I’m going to make him go. We are such a mess.
“Well, anyway, I told you I’d come back later and get my things,” he says, trailing off.
I try to swallow around the clog in my throat, my chest, my gut. “Yeah.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“I don’t want you to, no. But right now I need you to.”
He directs his next quiet question to the floor: “Do you want to stay married?”
My heart screams yes. Most of my body, in fact, screams yes, yes, yes. But a tiny fragment inside, a spark that’s turned into an ember, whispers no. I know we could talk through Amanda, or Natalie, or all the secrets we’ve kept from our families, the way we talked through Lulu’s Insane Stalker accusations. But in the grand scheme of life, those are all small things, and the big things need to happen with a clean slate. Before this, I had nothing going on in my life. This man was presented as an option, and I was willing to marry him just to have something to do, some victory to claim.
My willingness to jump into a fake marriage seems depressing in hindsight. The fact that he lied to me feels terrible. The fact that—over and over again—I’m not sure whether or not I can trust his feelings to be genuine is gutting.
But the worst feeling is the deep confusion inside me about why he would love me at all; I feel stale and tiresome. No matter what my uncles say, Calvin and I aren’t Robert and Jeff—we didn’t start out with clear intentions and unequivocal declarations of love. I can’t be the Jeff, working on the sidelines while Calvin takes off like a comet. I need to fill my life with accomplishments I create, not just witness.
“I love you,” I tell him earnestly, and swallow a few times so I don’t cry when I get through the rest of it. It’s the first time I’ve said it. In every book I’ve ever read where the protagonist does what I’m about to do, I hate it, I yell at the pages . . . but I get it now. “And part of me really does want to stay married and work through this, and have the unexpected perfect ending. But I’ve been really good at letting other people take care of me, and making my decisions based on what other people need. I’ve been scared of figuring out my own shit, or trying something and failing. And now I’m sitting here thinking, ‘I wouldn’t even be in love with me. How can I believe him when he says he is?’ ”
Calvin moves to interrupt me, but stops when I hold up a hand. I know he wants to reassure me that he honestly loves me, but he’s only alluded to the fact that we should know we’re in love because of how good the sex is.
“We could work on us, but I’m not happy with me right now. I want to do something, not just watch you do everything.”
He stares at me, murmuring, “I get that.”
Of course he does; he’s got music, and he’s put that first nearly his entire life. He was a complete mess in how he handled this, but now, looking at him—he’s got it all figured out.
Calvin moves his gaze over my face—my forehead, cheeks, nose, mouth, chin, and last, my eyes—before slowly leaning forward and pressing his mouth to mine. “Okay.”
I smile quizzically once he’s pulled back. “Okay?”
“I can wait.”
