Spun Down

Tom wasn’t crying, but he looked pretty damn close to it. That wasn’t fair, I thought. We’d broken up already. He wasn’t the one leaving, in fact, he was the one who’d had his heart broken, but here he was, showing up and saying goodbye anyways. As if that would make it any easier.

“I told you not to come,” I murmured, but I didn’t mean it, and he reached through the doorway to pull me onto the porch and into his arms. We stood there for awhile before he started beating a dead horse.

“We could make it work, you know, if you’d give it a chance.”

It was what he’d been saying all along, and call it the straw that broke the camel’s back, but Tom was really starting to piss me off. “Is that what you actually think? Or is it what you want to happen? Because you’re too much of a romantic for your own damn good and we’re sixteen and I’m going to be two thousand miles away, with no money to visit, and you’ll be here without me and with every other girl who’s ever liked you, which is a lot of girls, shut up, yes, it is, and if you haven’t noticed it’s already way too hard for me to say goodbye to you and we’re not even dating anymore.” Damn it. I was crying by the end of it, and he was hugging me again. Damn it.

“Cassie…”

“Shut up, I have to, and you should stop trying to convince me otherwise or I’ll give in.” I closed my eyes. I knew I was being a bitch. I couldn’t look at him.

He released me again, grimaced, pursed his lips, and said, “I get it, okay? I just don’t think you’re giving us enough credit.” He thought we could make it. Survive the distance, as he put it. Survive. If I was around him for too long, I stopped thinking it was bullshit.

“Well, I think you’re giving us too much credit.” Ouch, his face said. That one hurt. “Sorry.” I really meant it, I hoped he knew that.

We stood in a silence so thick I almost though it would break me until he broke me with something worse.

“I’ll miss you.” His eyes were sad, and he still wasn’t crying. Why was he the one comforting me? This so wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t have come.

“Me too,” I whispered, because I couldn’t help myself, and I shouldn’t have said it but it was the truth and at that point I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him to make it easier. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything.

He hesitated a moment and kissed me on the lips, but neither of us got into it because we were both way too sad and it ended up just being wet and miserable and hopeless and it hurt too much. We broke apart and I kissed him again because I just wasn’t ready to let go, and he knew that, and it was a little better with less sadness and more other feelings, but I had to stop because if I let myself get carried away it wouldn’t end well for anyone. So I stopped.

“I’ll see you again, Cassie, I promise I will.” His eyes bored into mine, our foreheads pressing against each other, and he was finally starting to tear up like he should, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

And here I was, making this all about me.

“I don’t want to Skype or anything, okay? I know I said we would. I know I’m a bitch. It’s too hard. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not a bitch,” was all he replied with. He was too nice for his own good. I never got over it.

“I really hope you’re right. About everything.” Another truth slipped out. Yes, I really hoped we could give it another try. Yes, I hoped we could make it work. Yes, I hoped I would see him again. I hoped I actually wasn’t a bitch. And I hoped that once I left and everyone started talking about me they wouldn’t disease his memory and twist us into something he couldn’t recognize, and I really, really, really hoped he wouldn’t hate me like he should.

“I hope so, too.” His hand was on my face. He lingered. He didn’t want to turn around, and I didn’t want him to, either, but I also didn’t want him to stay. And I was making myself sick with how conflicted and selfish I was being but I couldn’t fucking help it and I thought about how I was a teenager and teenagers are allowed to be shallow idiots, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow your conscience and make other people feel like shit, at least for me.

Don’t kiss me. God. Instead, his lips touched my forehead, and somehow, that was worse. His nose brushed against my hair, and he inhaled deeply, and I was doing the same thing, trying to soak up all of him that I could in the shortest amount of time possible.

In the end, he was the stronger one, the better one, the one who finally took a step back, and took another deep breath, and promised, “See you later, Cass.” Then he pressed his lips together in a hard line and stared at the ground, and fuck I could not stand to see him cry so I looked at my feet, too, and I almost missed watching him walk away.

“Goodbye,” I called out, and it was so ugly, so strained by my voice straining against tears, so sharp it tore through moment, and he didn’t turn around.

He didn’t turn around.

Why should he? Why didn’t he?

I kept reminding myself that I was the one who broke his heart as I watched the sun rise while standing on my porch, rooted in place. My feet felt freezing even though the temperature rose with every passing second, and I briefly wondered how in God’s name that was possible.