Page 97 of Faithful

I feel stupid and vulnerable, and he keeps on smoking cigarette after cigarette while Type O Negative serves as background music.

Halfway through the trip, he reaches over and seeks out my hand.

I allow him to entwine our fingers together.

* * *

I don’t know what to do after he drops me off.

The apartment is empty and silent and void of life, and I desperately need to talk to someone.

Turning on the TV to create the illusion that I’m not alone is a bad idea because the first thing that comes on when I switch to the news channel is a story on Gavin Watson’s good deeds this Thanksgiving, which he spent giving out food at the homeless shelter near some church he visits for exposure from time to time.

Fucking hypocrite,I think as I watch my father explain to the reporter that while his family is everything and he would love to spend his holidays with them, he feels that it’s important to bring some light into the lives of those less fortunate, those who have no families to turn to this holiday season.

What a load of crap.

I shut off the TV and end up calling Leigh.

“Hey… umm… Everything okay, Watson?” she slurs into the phone.

“Sorry I woke you up. I hope you don’t need to get up early.”

“You know I don’t do Black Friday. So nope. But what’s up? Why you calling me at three in the morning?”

“Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving?” I almost regret not going with her. The Farleys are overkill, but at least I wouldn’t be alone and licking my wounds like some fucking reject.

“Okay, stop pussyfooting, Watson. What the hell happened? I thought you two were going steady.”

I sit up in my bed and stare at the muted outlines of the paper shapes on my shelf. “I think I fucked up. I told him I loved him, and he didn’t say it back.”

The silence that follows is literally deader than dead, to the point where it sucks all the air out of my room.

“Ahem.” Leigh clears her throat and suddenly she sounds very much awake. “You told him you loved him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Since when?”

“Don’t know. A while?”

“Why did you never tell me you felt that way about him? I’m your best friend. I get dibs on this kind of information.”

“Can you stop being butthurt for a second and empathize maybe?He didn’t say it back. I repeat,he didn’t say it back.”

“Well, that’s not optimal.”

“No fucking shit, Farley.”

“Whatdid he say?”

“Something along the lines of needing time to process it. And he tried to shut me up when I attempted to get an explanation.”

“Oh my god, Dylan. You don’t ask for an explanation if a person doesn’t return the sentiment, especially if he wants to process it. Maybe it’s just not something he expected from this relationship, and he needs to think about it before saying the wrong thing. It’s not necessarily bad. I have a feeling you ambushed him with your declaration of love, and he doesn’t want to hurt you by lying to you.”

Leigh’s logic is sound.

I want to believe that’s what happened.

---