Page 138 of Falling Backwards
All of it was so special.
Only to me, though,my old pain mutters.None of it was special to him.Iwasn’t special to him.
It echoes through me, cold and aching, that pain.
But so does…
…uncertainty.
I didn’t let him say much after I learned he asked me out because of some bet—indeed, all he got out before I shut him down with everything I had was that it was astupidbet, and he begged me to let him explain because he cared about me.I didn’t want an explanation, though.Didn’t want to hear the details of what had led to the most humiliating and heartbreaking thing I’d ever experienced.I was the butt of a joke and had no interest in hearing the setup.
Now, however, I wonder.
I wonder if somehow, on some level, by some twist of plans that he didn’t see coming, he really did care about me—before I chose revenge, that is.
When we were dating, he never pressured me physically or in any other way.I recall that well.He never ignored me or disrespected me, never made me feel small or stupid.He never sat uncomfortably with me.
And he never again tried to apologize or explain himself after I spread those flyers around.I wanted him to know I hated him, and the way I chose to show it made him hate me too.
But is that because Ihadturned out to mean something real to him?Did it hurt him so much because he’d put real trust in me, because he did start to connect with me, because he wasn’t as fake as my humiliated heartache believed?
Should I have given him a chance to tell me what happened and how he felt instead of…?
I inhale deeply and drop my face into my hands, not needing to finish that question even in my own head.I already know the answer; it’s been creeping up on me for some time.
After another minute of standing here with all this circling me, I lift my head again.Locate my robe so I can go shower.Try to shake the questions off and send them back into that corner of my mind.
This time, though, they don’t go.
They follow me into my hot shower and make me think not just about the way Lukeused tofeel to my heart and body, but also about the way he feels to them now.
L U K E
I stand in my shower with hot water streaming over me and Maggie ruling my thoughts.
The texts I woke up to….
Falling asleep last night was hard enough because the quiet truths we shared on the phone wouldn’t quit ringing in my head.Then I woke up to those texts.
My heart races now at remembering it all, just like when it was fresh.
I hadn’t meant to say that stuff about myself last night—some of it hadn’t even occurred to me before, only right then.It poured out of me before I could stop it.This morning, though, there was no longer anything surprising about those self-aimed slights.There was no,‘Where did they come from?’anymore because I recognized the hollow feeling they left me with.It’s been years since the last time I paid attention to it, sure, but it wasn’t unfamiliar at all.
The last time I felt it?When I cried in Maggie’s arms about my dad choosing a new family over me.
The girl I hadn’t meant to fall for held me and gently sank her fingers into my hair while I let out how much it hurt that my own parent had replaced me with two kids my age that he liked better than me.
It has dawned on me that both back then and last night, I….
Felt like I wasn’t important.
I stare at the condensation building on my shower wall, and I swallow at the tension overtaking my throat.
I think again about current-Maggie’s words.Last night I told myself, by way of telling her, that I’m not anything special…and she disagreed.
Her encouragements were a comforting embrace all over again.
Now I want a real one so badly it’s making me feel crazy.And my craving for it is so strong that it has set off a chain reaction of other things I want her to give me more of.
