XIV

Eric and I shared a cab from the airport. When we got to my apartment, he walked me to the door, meter running and all. He kissed me on the forehead and said just one thing.
“Don’t worry.”
But it wasn’t that easy. I was worried. Partly, it was my nature to worry, so nothing that Eric said could have assured otherwise. When I got back up to my apartment, I put my bags down in the living room and crawled into my bed in my clothes. When I woke up it was dark. That was always very disorienting. This was no exception.
I stumbled into the living room and squinted at the clock. It was only six thirty. I looked down over the back of the couch to where Carrie was curled up with a book.
“Hey stranger, how was London?” She gave me the “I know what you’ve been doing all week” look, and I gave her an “oh if only that were true” look in response. I took a deep breath.
“He’s seeing someone.” Her jaw dropped.
“You’re kidding.” I shook my head to indicate that I was indeed, not kidding. A half an hour later we were both in pajamas sitting cross-legged, passing two containers of Ben & Jerry’s back and forth.
“Do you realize how fucked up that is?” I didn’t even look up from my spoon.
“Car’, we didn’t mean for it to happen. It just happened. I know it’s fucked. It’s not like he’s doing me any favors right now though. What in his mind thought that bringing her to meet me before actually informing me about her would be a good idea?”
“Valid point J, but let’s take a look at the facts: you fucked his best friend. Several times, and won’t return his calls.”
“You didn’t tell me he called.”
“This afternoon while you were asleep. You going to call him back?”
“Nope.”
“Told ya. Now what are you going to do about the Eric situation?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. It’s a bad idea and I know that. We were just both there. It’s like we’re each other’s Adam replacement.”
“He wants to fuck Adam?”
“Not like that. But I think it’s some concrete way for both of us to pretend that Adam’s not missing from our lives right now.”
“Do you guys talk about him?”
“Not very often. We kind of don’t bring it up.”
“So what now?”
“I don’t know.” Something was knocked over behind Carrie’s closed bedroom door. I raised my eyebrow in a questioning manner.
“Promise you won’t be mad.” There’s something about the phrase, ‘promise you won’t be mad,’ that automatically makes a person think that they’re most likely going to get mad. I braced myself for the anger-inducing facts about to be revealed to me.
“James is here.” I must have looked at Carrie like she had four heads right then.
“James? Crazy James? He’s here, in our apartment? In your bedroom?”
“Ssh. He’ll hear you.” I dropped my voice to a whisper.
“Are you insane? What about Jack?”
“Jack doesn’t know he’s here.”
“How long has he been here?”
“About three days. He called from Logan and wanted to know if he could come see me. Said he was looking at school’s out here and wanted to visit while he was in town.”
“What schools is he looking at?”
“He’s not. He lied. He came out here to see me. He was just discharged last week.”
“That doesn’t seem a little strange to you?”
“Janie, you don’t just stop loving someone. I care about him, and I think he’d hurt himself if he weren’t here.”
“Then you need to call someone. It’s not fair to hurt yourself to protect him.”
“Janie, you don’t understand.” I realized that she was right. I really do honestly believe that I loved Adam, but I found myself questioning what love was, and if I was even capable of feeling it. How could I love someone and sleep with his best friend? How was I so incapable of feeling anything but numb about everything that had happened since I ran out of his apartment less than a week ago? I called him back that night.
“Hello?” I was relieved to hear Adam, and not Keira’s voice.
“Hey.” I had experimented with the tone of that ‘hey’ several times before dialing the overseas number, and am not sure now which one I ended up using in that moment.
“Janie? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said softly, “It’s me.” I had crouched down in the corner of my too big room that only four months ago we had been sharing. I realized now that the comfort we’d always had was gone. Nothing was going to be the same. There was no going back. This wasn’t Brady and Muffin this was the end. There was no more Adam and I. We weren’t quite grown up enough yet to understand that then, but something clicked in my head that day, and I know now that it was me giving up.
“I wanted to apologize about the other night. I didn’t know any other way to get a hold of you, and I knew you’d be getting home today.”
“Yeah, we got back this morning,” I was being very short with him, but I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t in the mood to bullshit right now.
“I know the other night was stupid of me… I should have told you about Keira before that. I just didn’t know how, and it wasn’t serious, and I didn’t think it mattered. And I hadn’t told her about you, and so when I said I had friends from home coming over she wanted to meet them, and it was hard to explain and I backed myself into a corner. I’m sorry that you got hurt because of it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on Janie. It’s okay to be hurt. If you were seeing someone else, I’d be hurt. I’m not ready for that.”
“But you’re ready to be seeing someone else yourself? That doesn’t make any fucking sense at all.” Suddenly I wasn’t feeling so guarded.
“I told you it’s not serious.”
“Are you still with her?”
“Where did you go when you left? I called the hotel in the morning, they said you’d already left.”
“You called the next day? I guess you weren’t that concerned.”
“You were with Eric. I figured that you were in capable hands.”
“Yeah, well…” I wanted to hurt him so badly. I had a pair of Aces, and I knew that if I pulled them out, he was done for. Something, though, something was still there, and I kept them tucked up my sleeve. “We went to Paris early.”
“How was it?” It was a forced question. He was making conversation- didn’t know what else to say.
“It was great, but it rained and we were stuck in the hotel for a day. But listen, I have to get going. I have a lot of work to do before classes start back up. Send Keira my love.” That was uncalled for. As soon as I said it I felt childish, but it was already too late. There was silence for a moment.
“I will. If you see Eric, have him give me a call. I left a few messages, but he hasn’t called back.”
“Sure. Good luck with the rest of your semester.”
“Janie, don’t be like that.”
“Adam, I’m not ready to be your friend. Please don’t try and make me.” I hung up the phone, and when I got home that night there were two messages from Adam. I threw away the number so that I wouldn’t be tempted to return them.
After I hung up with Adam I called Eric. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew that we needed to talk. Clearly, he was avoiding Adam, so I knew he hadn’t told him, and probably was just as conflicted as I was. Fifteen minutes later we were at Major Tom’s in a booth at the back.
“Adam called me today.”
“He called me too.”
“I know, he told me.”
“You talked to him?”
“Yeah…” I played with the matchbook on the table. I had just finished the last cigarette that I’d rolled in preparation for this inevitable confrontation. He offered me one of his and I gratefully accepted it.
“What did he say?”
“Wants you to call him.” I exhaled and took a sip of my Malibu on the rocks. He stubbed out his cigarette and gulped his Rolling Rock.
“Fuck. I don’t know what to say to him. Janie, what are we doing?”
“Drinking. Illegally. And smoking.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We are talking about what we’re going to do… and I really don’t have an answer beyond that for you.”
“Is this crazy?”
“This, you mean us?”
“I mean us.”
“Probably.”
“But it feels right.”
“It feels nice.”
“Is it too quick?”
“Eric, Adam is your best friend. No amount of space between now and then is going to change that. You have to understand and be okay with that.”
“I don’t know how to tell him.”
“Then we have two options.”
“Which are?”
“One, we don’t tell him and accept that this is a fleeting thing. We don’t expect to be together for any extended period in any kind of official capacity and understand that this is all we can ever be to each other.”
“Or?”
“Or we accept that things go where they go, and if they get to a certain point, Adam is inevitably going to find out.”
“You’re right.”
“I know. I’ve thought about this quite a bit in the last three days.”
“Me too.”
“And?”
“Let’s just go with it. Accept that it could go anywhere, and that if it does, we may have to tell Adam.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“So are you going to call him when you get home?”
“Fuck no, I said we may have to tell Adam. I’m not prepared to deal with that shit just yet.” I smiled. Neither was I.