Page 81 of The Keeper
“Sorry you were out here so long,” I finally manage. “Charlie didn’t say you were still here until just a minute ago.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I step forward and sit next to him, wrapping my arms around my flannel covered legs.
Just as I’m about to ask why he’s here, I look up at his face and I’m startled by the look of sadness that has overwhelmed his features.
“This isn’t going to work.”
The words are out of his mouth for a good thirty seconds before I’m able to respond. And it takes every ounce of strength in my body to ask him this simple question in a way that is calm and collected.
“What do you mean?”
He exhales and drops his hands, grabbing my left with his right and twisting our fingers together.
“Us. We aren’t going to work, are we.”
It isn’t a question. It’s a statement. And I am shocked at the level of devastation that travels from the ears that received the words, to my brain that digests them, to my heart that breaks at their meaning.
“I can’t try to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t see the same things that I do.”
“What do…”
“Why did you storm out of my house earlier when Ronnie showed up?”
I shrug slightly.
“I was upset. I reacted. She was clearly there for yourplans.”
My reply is laced with sarcasm and tinged with bitterness.
“Myplans,” he says, more to himself than to me. “You really think that little of me? You think I would invite you over to talk about my past and the pain I experienced, with the plan of fucking Ronnie after you left?”
The disbelief in his tone hurts my heart, but it’s also the acceptance I hear that kills me. He can’t believe that I would think so poorly of him, but at the same time he’s already accepted the idea that I do. My mind is racing, trying to come up with a way to tell him what I really think. But the words I play in my head don’t sound right, because in all honesty, I’m not entirely sure what I think.
Do I think he would intentionally hurt me? No. Definitely not. But do I think he is capable of ‘double booking,’ as I so eloquently put it earlier? Maybe. And that’s a hard thing to realize. Because it says more about me than it says about him.
“I have a hard time trusting people,” I finally say, my words barely a whisper. “Sometimes it’s just easier to believe the worst than to give someone the benefit of the doubt.”
“Why?”
I shrug again, hating how immature it makes me look.
“I’m used to the people in my life letting me down. If I don’t rely on anyone, that won’t happen. If I believe they’ll let me down from the start, the sting isn’t so bad when it inevitably happens.”
“I swear that you are both the most and least self-aware person I’ve ever met. Sometimes you say things that make it so clear that you know who you are and what you want, that you’ve made life choices based on intentional decisions and well thought out plans. And then there are other times where you seem so clueless and so clearly ignorant about why you do things.”
I scoff and pull my hand from his.
“Excuse me?”
“You ever think that you might shut people out because of your dad?”
And that gets my back up. I stand quickly.
“I amnottalking about this.”
“Why not, Rachel?” he says, rising to block me before I can storm into the house. “Why won’t you talk to me about this? You have a fucked up dad who ruined the way you see men? No one would blame you for that! It’s actually a very common problem and you can probably find heaps of information online about it. But you can’t just continue to shut people out when things aren’t perfect. You have to talk about it.”
I try to push past him to get the door and he side steps, blocking me again, placing his hands on my arms and holding me still.
