“You do?”
She nods. “I was expecting you to show up tonight.”
I’m suddenly regretting coming over here and confronting it, because confronting it means action will be taken, and it might not be an action I want. Shit. Now I’m scared. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask her.
She rolls her head and looks at me sincerely. “No, Daniel. Don’t be a dumbass. Why? Are you breaking up with me?”
“No,” I say immediately. Convincingly. “Dumbass.”
She laughs a little. That’s a good sign, but she looks away again, back to the ceiling, and offers up nothing else.
“Why are things weird between us?” I ask her.
“I don’t know,” she answers quietly. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
“What am I doing wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“But I am doing something wrong?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“What can I do to be better?”
“I don’t even know if you can be any better.”
“Well, if I’m not the issue, what is?”
“Everything else? Nothing else? I don’t know.”
“This conversation isn’t going anywhere,” I say.
She smiles. “Yeah, we’ve never been the best at deep conversation.”
We aren’t. We’re shallow. Both of us. Our conversations are mostly shallow. We like to keep things fun and light because everything under the surface is so damn heavy. “That doesn’t seem to be working out for us too well, so tell me what you’re thinking. Let’s dig a little and figure this out.”
Six rolls her head and eyes me. “I’m thinking about how much I hate the holidays,” she says.
“Why? They’re the best. No classes, lots of food, we get to sit around and be fat and lazy.”
She doesn’t laugh. She just looks sad. And then it hits me why she hates holidays, and I feel like an idiot, and I want to apologize but I don’t know how. So instead, I slip my fingers through hers and squeeze her hand. “Do holidays make you think about him?”
She nods. “Always.”
I don’t know what to say to that. While I’m trying to think of a way to make her feel better, she rolls onto her side and faces me.
I let go of her hand and reach up to her cheek, stroking it with my thumb. Her eyes are so sad and I want to kiss her eyelids, as if that’ll make that look go away. It won’t. It’s always there, hidden behind fake smiles.
“Do you ever think about him?” she asks.
“Yes,” I admit. “Not in the way you do, I’m sure. You carried him for nine months. Loved him. Held him. I didn’t know about him until I already knew the outcome, so I don’t think it left as big of a hole in me as it did you.”
A single tear rolls down her cheek and I’m glad we’re talking about this, but also very, very sad for her. I think this has affected her a lot more than I realized.
“I wish I could make it better for you,” I say, pulling her against my chest. I always try to use humor to fix the sad things, but humor can’t fix this and it’s all I know. “It scares me because I don’t know how to make you happy.”
“I’m scared I’ll always be sad.”
I’m scared she’ll always be sad, too. And of course I would take whatever version of Six I can get, whether that’s happy or sad or mad, but for her sake, I want her to be happy. I want her to forgive herself. I want her to stop worrying.
It’s a while before she starts talking again. And when she does, her voice is shaking. “It feels like…” She sighs heavily before she continues. “It’s like someone took a huge chunk out of my chest. And there are two parts of me now that don’t connect. I feel so disconnected, Daniel.”
Her painful admission makes me wince. I kiss the top of her head and just hold her. I don’t know what to say that’ll make her feel better. I never know what to say. Maybe that’s why I don’t ask her about him, because I feel like she carries all the burden and I don’t know how to lift it off of her.
“Does it help you to talk about it?” I ask her. “Because you never do.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to know.”
“I do. I just didn’t think you wanted to talk about it. But I do want to know. I want to know everything if you feel like telling me.”
“I don’t know. It might make me feel worse, but I do sometimes want to tell you about it all.”