say hello wave goodbye

45: counting the steps to the door of your heart (1997)

October 1997

"Stevie," and fuck, he's got to tell her, even at the risk of ruining everything. She's just poured out her heart to him, so what kind of guy would he be if he hid this from her? Even if there's a good chance that she'd never find out otherwise, he reckons that it would be worse if she discovered that he had been lying by omission on top of everything else. Fuck! "Before you...there's something you should know."

"Oh? Okay," she says, curious as he lets go of her and sits up straight.

"And I know that however...you have every right to be mad at me once you hear what I'm saying. Whatever you decide, however you feel, I'll respect that." She looks even more confused, so he gets right down to it. "Last night I went by my house to pick up some stuff, and I got a call from Kristen."

"Young Kristen?"

"Erm. Yeah. And I mean, I hadn't talked to her since- the night you met her, actually. That was the last time. But she called, and...I just needed to get out. The last four days, if I wasn't on a plane or at the venue, I was by myself in my room. I couldn't take another night of that. So we went out for drinks. That's all I wanted. Just someone to talk to."

He wasn't prepared for her face to look so horrified at this point in his tale, before he had even gotten to the part where he fucked someone else. "About...the baby?"

"No. God, no," he says, and she shakes her head in relief. It's not like she alone owned the story; it was his loss too, but the idea of him sharing it with some ex that she barely knew felt like a betrayal. "I wouldn't. Especially not so soon after...anyway. We talked. I had some drinks. I had a lot of drinks," he corrects himself. "I hadn't had any since before, uh...everything, so I guess I was saving it up. And then it was time to leave, she said she'd drive me home because I was clearly in no state to do it, but I kinda forgot the name of this place here."

"The hotel?" He nods and she rolls her eyes.

"She said she was too tired to drive all the way back up to my house, so I could crash at hers," and she's no longer amused, closing her eyes for a beat too long. "I honestly just wanted to sleep. I thought that's what I had been doing, until I woke up and..."

"I get it," she says, holding up her hand to ask him to stop.

"I'm serious, I blacked out. I don't remember anything and I never intended to-"

She makes the same hand motion and he obeys this time, giving way to silence. And more silence. In the suite next door, he can hear someone turn the tap on, and then off. Silence again. He's too afraid to make eye contact with her, so he doesn't have any advance warning before she finally speaks.

"You don't have to apologize." She shrugs, looking down at her lap and insisting to herself that she will not cry. "I told you that we were done and I didn't forgive you, so...I guess I should've expected this. You never were good at being alone for long."

He raises his eyebrows at that last little jab but really, she wasn't wrong. "It's not like that, though, I didn't -"

"So are you two back together, or?" She feels so stupid now, showing up here and telling him all these things she's been keeping inside for a decade, only for...what? And why would he say that he loves her, that he hasn't lost her, if he's already moved onto someone else?

"No! Not at all." Shit, his shrink's head would probably be exploding if they were, given all the time he'd spent talking about boundaries. "I told her that I was sorry if she got the wrong idea, but I'm really not in the headspace for a relationship, or even something casual...I just can't."