How to End a Love Story(92)
Helen stares at him mutinously. “You shouldn’t drive when you haven’t slept for that long.”
“I took a fucking Uber.” He gives her a disgusted look, as if unable to bear the sight of her. “You know what I figured out on the ride over? All that talk about me being grateful in a few months, and finding someone else, and being happy and healthy, all of that—it’s bullshit.”
Her breath catches at the despairing look in his eyes. A memory suddenly comes online, of meeting eyes with him in that church at Michelle’s funeral, all those years ago. It seems to reach across time and space, reminding her who they are and why they’ve been leaving each other for so long.
“You could keep me your dirty little secret, come to me tasting like other men, I’d still take you back every fucking time,” he says, a muscle ticking violently in his jaw. “I’d rather have a fraction of you than all of someone else.”
Helen swallows. “I don’t want that for you. For either of us. It’s not—it’s not healthy.”
“I don’t want to be healthy,” Grant says, and his chest is heaving as if he’s just run a marathon. “I just want you.”
She stares at him and knows if she told him she loved him back, there would never be any hope for either of them. They’d keep coming back here, over and over, holding on to less and less of each other each time, until they had nothing left but a lifetime of regret and resentment over old heartaches and missed chances.
“I’d like you to leave now,” she says quietly.
“What’s wrong, getting too honest?” Grant murmurs softly.
“Please,” she says.
“You’re a coward, Helen.”
She’s crying now, she realizes, and he sees it too. He doesn’t move to comfort her (she hates being comforted), but he doesn’t leave either. He stares at her, and folds his arms across his chest.
“Am I dismissed?” he asks bluntly.
“Yes,” she says, and wipes her face. “You should go.”
“Yeah, I’m going,” Grant says, his voice low and dark. “Have a nice life, crackerjack.”
“Grant,” she says, and he stops in the doorway. He turns and watches her with shuttered eyes. She misses him so fucking much already. “I hope you’re wrong. I hope you’re able to . . . to get over this someday.”
He stares at her for a long beat, and it feels like he’s memorizing her.
“You can keep hoping for both of us. I won’t be,” he says grimly, finally, and leaves.
Helen asks a nurse to take her to the bathroom and uses the time to clean herself up. She wipes the tears from her face and reminds herself she can cry more later, every night for the rest of her life, if she wants. She just has to keep it together long enough for her parents to see she’s going to be okay—maybe a little scratched and banged up, but nothing time and bed rest won’t fix. She has the terrible thought just then that Mom will probably insist on staying longer, maybe even move into her condo to take care of her until she deems Helen healed enough, and Helen tries wildly to think of the best arguments to deter her. I have friends who’ll come take care of me, the building’s security keeps an eye on entries and exits and it’s only my name on the sublease, if you move in, I’ll jump out the window.
She’s only darkly amusing herself with the thought of saying that last one out loud. Maybe there are mothers out there who could hear that and laugh or at least tut dismissively and move on with the conversation. She knows her own mother would stare back at her, ashen-faced, and ask, Why would you say such a terrible thing?
Helen knows the hospital staff probably think she’s a terrible person, that she doesn’t care about her own parents, that they’re treating an awful, unfeeling robot. As she looks down at her hands, which were shaking when she came into the bathroom yet seem oddly calm now, she wonders if she is.
She used to think it was her superpower, her ability to identify her upset emotions and set them carefully aside. This anger isn’t serving us right now; put it aside and deal with the facts. This sadness isn’t helping; turn it off and look for solutions. It made her effective, productive—powerful, even.
But she’s found lately that she’s much more emotionally fragile than she used to be. All it takes is a hug while she’s trying to keep it together and the dam breaks, and the tears flow. No one’s going to hug her now, though.
So she steels herself against the emotions that aren’t helpful in this moment, practices the right kind of it’s okay, it looks worse than it is, I’m fine, really smile in the mirror, and hits the bell for the nurse to help her back to her room. And finally she says, “I’m ready for my parents.”
Her father enters wearing a grim expression, her mother a drawn, glassy-eyed one. She can tell Mom’s been crying and she feels a stab of guilt. Mom holds out Helen’s iPad and a bag of chips.
“They said you might be hungry,” she says, and drops the bag on Helen’s bed.
“Thanks,” Helen says. She takes the chips but doesn’t open them. She tries out the best I’m fine smile in her repertoire. “So obviously something happened. Ha. But I’m fine now. Sorry I kept you waiting. I didn’t realize so much time had passed.”