A month after the breakup, I was drinking with Amy and Elena at the bar where we worked. Since the bartender liked us, he was prone to giving us beer on the cheap. Considering it was Tuesday night, the bar was pretty full, though two-dollar drafts might have been the reason. I had the weird feeling someone was watching me, but I swept the room and didn’t see anyone leering.
The front door swung open; Max and Angus came in, distracting me from the odd prickle. I froze, pretending I didn’t see them, but Amy didn’t seem to register my reluctance. She leaned forward, eyes wide, as she tracked their movements through the bar. The place was packed enough that he didn’t spot me right off.
“Isn’t that your ex?” she whispered.
Elena smirked. “The irony of you asking her that.”
I wished I could hide behind the pitcher. Instead I nodded silently, watching him with hungry eyes. It was possible to pretend everything was okay when I couldn’t see him, but with him here, it took all my willpower not to run over and beg for forgiveness again. If I thought it would help, I’d get on my knees. But he’d made everything pretty clear before.
I hadn’t given up on us, exactly, but I wanted concrete changes to show him first. Then I could say, You said I don’t live in the real world, but I do. I’ve done this on my own. I’m someone you can count on. Really. There were no guarantees, even then. We might really be done. And if so, well. I didn’t regret the changes I was making.
From this distance, it didn’t seem like he’d regained the weight he’d lost working doubles so he could take time off to meet my parents. His jeans hung off his hips and when he shrugged out of his leather jacket, his shoulderblades jabbed the back of his shirt in like bony wings. I also noticed that he’d cut his hair, no more long, shaggy waves. In fact, it looked like he’d let somebody at his head with a pair of clippers, since he just had dark stubble left, and the new look made him look more ferocious, since he was all hard angles and sinewy muscle. His face no longer seemed sweet and handsome; there was an edge to him that hadn’t been present before, like he’d become a razor blade, capable of making people bleed. With dark ink twining around his arms, he looked...dangerous. Belatedly it occurred to me that he might be trying to live up to my parents’ bad expectations.
Heart aching, I watched him take a draft beer from the bartender. His forearms were bare, showing prominent wrist bones, and his hands were chapped from working in the cold. Even at this distance, I could see the redness of his knuckles, the raw spots where his skin had cracked. And there was nobody to make him take care of himself. My eyes stung.
“Are you going to talk to him?” Elena asked.
I shook my head. “Not now. He doesn’t look...friendly.”
As I glanced across the bar, I caught Angus’s eye. For a few seconds, I thought he’d cut me out completely, but then he lifted his chin in a silent hello. But that drew Max’s attention; when he spotted me with Amy, he froze. Even from here, I could see his teeth clench. With a faint sigh, I finished the beer in my glass and tossed down a few bucks to cover my share.
“I’m done for the night. I need to head out before the last bus.”
“You sure?” Amy asked. “I can run you home.”
She and Elena had hung out with us at Evan’s house a few times, but I wasn’t in the mood anymore. So I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Have fun, you two.”
Elena lifted Amy’s hand from where she was holding it under the table and kissed the back of it. “That’s a given.”
It made me smile to see both of them so happy, so I wasn’t feeling 100 percent horrible when I wove through the maze of tables toward the exit. I shouldered my backpack and pulled up my hood, as it was still fucking freezing. This winter, we were getting lake weather with damp, icy winds and I’d feel it down to my bones by the time I got back, between waiting for the bus and walking home from the stop. Evan would probably yell at me for not calling, but he wasn’t responsible for me.
But before I could take off, someone grabbed my arm. I glanced over my shoulder, unable to believe it. “Max.”
He dragged me to the bathroom hallway, the quietest place in here. Even so, it was still loud, between the music and drunk people laughing. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Leaving, until you stopped me.”
“Why are you with Amy?”
I could’ve said I wasn’t with her, but technically, it wasn’t his business. “You broke up with me, remember? You don’t get to have an opinion on my life choices.”
His teeth ground together. “No common sense. None.”
“Thanks for the input.” But it hurt too much to look at him. Before, his eyes were all melted chocolate and caramel, but now they were more like slivers of marbled agate. “If you don’t mind, I need to go.”
I turned.
His voice came as I reached the arch leading back to the main bar area. “Are you okay? Do you... Where are you staying?”
I could’ve said something sharp, but I didn’t want to hurt him. Really, I just wanted him to love me like he used to. But I understood that I’d wrecked it. Even if I spent hours on my knees, I couldn’t put it back together with regret and glue. Maybe in a few months, I’d have enough of a track record on my own for him to believe in me.
“I’m at Evan’s place.”
His intake of breath made me realize that the truth might be worse. That one night, just before we got together, he was crazy jealous when Evan brought me home. I turned around slowly, not wanting to see Max’s face, but I couldn’t resist. If it bothered him, it could mean he wasn’t really over me—that we weren’t done, as he’d claimed—but on more of a hiatus while he worked through the shit I’d put him through. Other than Eli, I had little experience with relationships, so I was feeling my way through a minefield, trying my best not to make it worse, trying not to cause a catastrophic explosion.
“Is that right? I guess that tells me what I needed to know,” he said roughly.
“What’re you—”
“Took you how many years to move on from Eli? But a month later, you’re already with someone else. That tells me a whole lot, Courtney.”
“He’s my roommate.”
“So was I,” Max said.
“Would it be better if I was staying with a girl? You can’t trust me that way, either.” That was painful because I’d heard people say it before, like it was funny. Oh, you’re more likely to cheat because you have twice as many potential partners. And there was so much wrong with that logic that I could die of old age trying to articulate it.