Page 66 of Drowning Erin

“It wasn’t a bootycall.”

I shake my head. “Please, Brendan. Who else calls thislate?”

He stares me down. “Do you trustme?”

Maybe it was Gabi on the phone, but the truth is I’d be upset by that too, so I don’t want to contemplate his question. What I want most of all is to end this now, immediately, before it does me real damage, though I suspect it’s already toolate.

I fold my arms over my chest. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I need togo.”

“Look me in the eye and answer the question, Erin. Do. You. Trust.Me?”

I meet his gaze reluctantly, and almost immediately feel something seep through my blood. I don’t want to believe him, but I doanyway.

“Yes,” Iwhisper.

“Then when I tell you it wasn’t a booty call, do you know I’m telling thetruth?”

Whether or not it was a booty call is irrelevant. He’s going to break my heart, and I should not be here. I want to weep for the moment when it will officially happen, as if I can dilute the pain ahead oftime.

I nod and he moves closer to me, pressing his mouth to my ear as his fingers go to the button of my jeans. “Then get back in bed,” he says, “because I’m not done with youyet.”

45

Brendan

Three YearsEarlier

The schedule gets sobusy that Gabi and I can’t always lead tours together. I’m okay with that. I’m finding she has these little habits that grate on my nerves if I’m around her for 24 hours straight. She employs the wordsamazeballsandawesomesauce, for instance, more than the correct number of times, which iszero.

All these small irritations fall away when she gets undressed, however…and Gabi is always getting undressed. The more we have sex, the more she seems to want it. I guess that should be flattering, but at times it almost feels like she’s trying to prove something to me or to herself, though I have no idea what that would be. Or what she possibly could need to prove: other than Erin, I’ve never seen a girl get as much unsolicited maleattention.

The guys at the tour company make no bones about their desire to sleep with my girlfriend. One of them says something about her ass every time she walks out the door. It doesn’t bother me, but occasionally I wonder if it should. It bothered me when guys evenlookedat Erin, much less commented. It makes me wonder if I’ve made a mistake, letting this thing with Gabi go as far as it has. Especially because it’s starting to seem like we have different expectations of where it’sheaded.

“You know,” she says over coffee, “there are lots of places to do bike tours near Stanford—Big Sur, the redwoods,Napa.”

“I thought medical school was pretty demanding,” I reply. “Are you going to have time towork?”

“Not me, silly.” She laughs. “You. Wouldn’t that be amazing, leading tours along thecoast?”

Yeah, it would be amazing. Except I’m already someplace amazing, and I’m nowhere near being ready to move for Gabi. Sometimes I wish I were. Sometimes I wish I could be in this thing with both feet, instead of constantly missing what this is not, but there’s a hole inside me that I’m increasingly sure Gabi can’tfill.

“I was planning to go to Bali next,” I tellher.

“Will you at least consider it?” shepleads.

I tell her I will. I want to be someone who considers these things. I tell myself I want the things Rob has at home. Except I’m still pretty sure I just want one specific thing Robhas.

46

Erin

Present

Ilearnfrom Olivia that Brendan and Will aren’t speaking. Will is somewhat pissed that Brendan didn’t tell him about Dorothy’s cancer, but mostly he’s pissed that Brendan is hooking up withme.

Olivia wants details, but I really have none to give, since I don’t even know what’s going on with us myself. I know that I hear from him every day. His texts are always funny and frequently dirty, but what they never are issweet. I wait for them to evolve, for him to sayI wish you’d stayed over, orI’m sorry I didn’t get to see you last night, but those words nevercome.

I know that I’m with him more nights than I’m not. I know that we’ve fallen into a sort of haphazard domesticity—he’ll make us dinner, I’ll bake. I start staying the night and he doesn’t seem to mind. But we are not dating. We don’t go out, we don’t hold hands. And I don’t know where he is on the nights we’re nottogether.

---