The Girl He Used to Know (Page 30)
No one knows what to say, including me.
While I’m still trying to decide the best way to handle this, Sherry leans toward Annika and squeezes her hand. “It’s okay, I’ve got a nephew who’s a lot like you.”
For possibly the first time in our lives, Annika and I share the exact same shocked expression. Hers soon gives way to mortifying embarrassment, and she gets up from the table and rushes from the dining room.
“I’m so sorry,” Sherry says. “Maybe I shouldn’t have had that last glass either. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. It’s just not something she talks much about.”
Not even to me.
“Let me know what I owe for the bill,” I say to Nate. “I’ll settle up with you tomorrow. It was nice meeting you, Sherry.”
I push my chair back, grab Annika’s purse, and take off after her.
She’s standing outside on the sidewalk, pacing and bouncing. I don’t try to still her. I want to comfort her and wipe away the tears that are rolling down her face, but instead I hail a cab and when it pulls up to the curb, I hustle us inside it and give the driver her address.
28
Jonathan
CHICAGO
AUGUST 2001
By the time the cab pulls up in front of her building, her tears have subsided and she’s taking lots of slow, deep breaths. Once we’re inside her apartment, she sits down on the couch and curls herself into a little ball. She won’t look at me. I sit down beside her and wait. It’s a full five minutes before she speaks.
“All I wanted was to show you that I’ve changed. That I’m not the same person I was in college.” She sounds defeated.
“Well, guess what? You haven’t changed all that much. You’re still the same girl I fell in love with at twenty-two. And here’s a newsflash: I like that girl and always have, and I never once said I wanted her to change.”
Annika turns her head toward me slightly, curious.
“Sherry should not have made that comment,” I say. “It was incredibly assumptive and it wasn’t the time or the place. But did you really think I didn’t know?”
Her face crumples. Oh shit. She did.
“I try so hard to fit in. I spend hours studying appropriate behaviors.” She makes little air quotes around the last two words. “I will never get it right! Do you know what that’s like? It’s the most frustrating thing in the world.”
“I can’t even imagine what that must be like,” I admit.
“It’s like everyone around you has a copy of the script of life, but no one gave it to you so you have to go in blind and hope you can muddle your way through. And you’ll be wrong most of the time.”
“My ex-wife could have written the script. She was an expert in navigating business and social situations. And if it was a mix of the two, that was even better because she was a goddamn superstar at playing the game and wasn’t about to be outshone by anyone, not even her husband.”
Especially not her husband.
“But you know what else? Liz would drive right by a wounded animal on the side of the road if stopping even remotely interfered with whatever she was doing at the time. No. You know what? She would never have stopped, not even if she had all the time in the world.”
“What!” Annika cries. Because of my insensitive analogy, all she’s thinking about now are hypothetically injured animals.
“I’m trying to explain that the way you navigate the world will never be more important than the type of person you are.”
“How can you want to be with someone like me? How were you able to fall in love with someone who acts the way I do?”
“It was easier than you think.”
She scoffs like she doesn’t believe me.
Annika has shared so many painful truths with me. Maybe it’s time I admit to some of my own. “There’s something about being with you that has always made me feel better about myself.”
“Because at least you’re not like me?”
“No, but when we met I wasn’t at my most confident. I figured I at least had a shot with you.” She looks shocked, and I rake my hands through my hair as I exhale. “But it didn’t take me long to realize I had greatly overestimated my chances and that I’d have to work hard if I wanted to make you mine because there was nothing easy about you. But that made it so much more special when you started to let me in. I watched you come out of your shell and I discovered so many great things about you, including how you loved me so fiercely. I never questioned your loyalty, even when I wished you’d show people how you really felt about me. I knew I would never hurt you.”
She’s back to not looking at me. “What if there’s a woman out there who’s somewhere between Liz and me?” Her question hits me hard, because it’s something I’ve thought about. I hate that I have, but she’s right.
“Maybe there is? But there’s no guarantee I’m going to find her and certainly no guarantee that she’ll fall for me, too.”
“You can have anyone you want.”
“That doesn’t mean I can make them stay. Liz cheated on me. It was when we were still trying to work things out, before we gave up on the marriage counseling that wasn’t helping and brought in the lawyers. It wasn’t like I found an email I wasn’t supposed to read or anything like that. She flat-out told me about it. It was some guy she worked with and the only reason she admitted it was because she knew it would hurt me. And it did exactly what she intended. That is one thing I’ve always known you would never do. I knew that if we reconciled there was a chance I might lose you again someday, but if I did it wouldn’t be because I’d lose you to another man. It would be because I’d lose you to yourself. To the things going on in your head. Can you let me in all the way? Can you tell me straight up what you’re dealing with, what you’re feeling? I’ve figured out most of it, and I want you to know that I don’t care if you need help sometimes.”
“Tina said I’m probably on the autism spectrum. High functioning, but still. I can get tested to find out for sure, but why? It’s not going to change anything.”
“I really don’t know what it would accomplish. Did she say what you might gain?”
“She said it might help me find peace.”
“Then I think you should do it.”
She hesitates. “What if it turns out that after going through the evaluation, I find out I’m not on the spectrum. That I really am just weird. I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“You’re not weird.”
“C’mon, Jonathan. All my life, I’ve been the poster girl for weird. It’s not that people like me don’t know how other people see us. But to us, you’re the ones who are weird, and we’re the ones who have to change if we want to fit in.”
“You’ve overcome a lot of hardships to get where you are today. The bullying. The people who tried to take advantage of you. It’s heartbreaking knowing that people treat others so horribly.”
“I don’t want you to be with me because you feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. I admire you. It takes incredible strength to do what you’ve done, and you deserve every bit of happiness that comes your way.”
“It’s hereditary.” She says it quietly.
“I’ve known that since the day you introduced me to your dad.”
“You’ll regret it. A lifetime with me. A family with me. You’ll get more than you bargained for the same way my mom did.”
It’s possibly the most intuitive thing she’s ever said to me. Annika may struggle to identify what I’m feeling, to empathize, but she is quite capable of understanding what it means.
“The only thing I’ll regret is passing up another opportunity to find out if we have what it takes to go the distance. I thought we were going to build a life together after college, but you changed your mind. Don’t you think it’s time we talked about it? Because if you’re going to avoid the hard stuff, no matter how unpleasant the memories, I’m not sure how we’re going to do this. And I want to do this. Very much. Do you?”
She nods. “I know I didn’t handle it the right way, but I was just so devastated.”
“I know. I was, too.” I pull her closer and press my forehead against hers the way I used to all those years ago. Our eyes are closed and we stay that way until her breathing slows and I feel her exhale in a sigh of relief. “But come on. It’s me, Annika.”
“It’s always been you,” she says as she presses her lips to mine.
We can talk later. We will talk later. But right now there’s only one thing I want to do. I’ve been waiting for ten years and I can’t wait any longer.
We open our mouths and kiss for real. The kisses are the kind of kisses you don’t exchange in public, and there’s a rawness to them that wasn’t there in college. Back then, everything I did in regard to Annika was conducted with care and caution, as if she were made of glass and might shatter. She’s stronger now. She might not think so, but she is. I can see her strength in so many ways. I can feel it as her hands grip my arms.