Deep End

When he wakes up the next morning, Kris knows it’s coming. Today is the day that it ends. The moment when it’s not just some crazy weekend anymore, but it’s real life again and they have to figure out how everything is supposed to fit together. Today is the day where he has to admit to himself the very real possibility that maybe nothing will fit together at all. But first, he thinks as he pulls a clean t-shirt over his head, first he’s going to eat breakfast with his girlfriend.

“Ow!” he puts a hand up to his forehead and pouts dramatically across the table at Skylar, who has just launched a grape with amazing precision at the center of his head.

“So you are still alive in there?” she asks, “I thought maybe some invisible alien life form had snuck in and sucked your brain out your ears, living you an empty human shell.” She’s smiling, her tone teasing, but something in her eyes tells him she’s worried.

“Sorry.” He smiles, “I was distracted by your other worldly beauty.” She shakes her head, blushing softly, the corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. Tension cloaks them in silence, until finally Kris has to say something before the weight on his chest crushes his lungs.

“So you are leaving?” he asks it while he stares down at his plate intently, cutting into a waffle with more intensity than he’s ever had before. He can hear her intake of breath.

“Yeah, I guess I am. We both knew I couldn’t stay forever Kris.” He finally looks up and she’s staring across the table at him, her palms face down on the tabletop. He nods.

“I know. So you will go home to Lion’s Head.” It’s not a question.

“And you’ll go home to Pittsburgh.” She returns with a sad smile.

“And we...” he trails off because really, what can he say? What will they do? There is a very long moment in which they stare at each other in silence across the table, eyes sparkling with hope, like maybe some solution to their problem will drop out of the sky and land on their plates. And then, as Kris tries to count the flecks of soft brown in her bright green eyes, the answer comes to him.

“We’ll stay together.” He says and watches her shoulders droop in what he hopes is relief.

“Is it really that easy?” she asks in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Well, I don’t know about easy.” He says, “But remember when we first met and you told me I had three options, only one of which didn’t make me look pathetic? Well right now, we have two options. Be apart or be together. Only one of which doesn’t make us look pathetic.” When she laughs, he beams.

“Well, we came this far in less than a week, why let a little distance scare us off, right?” And just like that, the problem is seemingly solved. They spend the rest of breakfast in a silence pretending that it is comfortable when it’s not. Kris can’t shake the uneasy feeling that Skylar is uneasy. Skylar can’t shake the feeling that Kris’ solution to their problem is just all too easy, something will have to break.

After breakfast, Kris goes out to play a last game of golf with the boys, mostly because as much as he doesn’t want to let Skylar out of his sight, it would be too hard to sit and watch her pack. When he gets back, all of her things are packed neatly into her blinding duffel bag and she has already called a cab to take her to the airport.

“I was afraid if I waited to call until you got back I wouldn’t call at all.” She tells him softly from where she is sitting cross-legged on the bed, fiddling with the edge of the duvet. Kris watches her as he kicks off his shoes and it pains him to think that tomorrow he will wake up and she won’t be there. And then, quite suddenly, he realizes there is an even better solution to their problem. He wonders how it was possible that he didn’t think of it earlier.

“Don’t go.” He says it with an air of confidence, strong in his belief that she wouldn’t possibly say no. She stares at him for such a long moment that he can feel his confidence ebbing.

“I have to go.” She finally says.

“But you don’t.” He insists, pulling a chair up in front of the bed and sitting close enough that their knees are touching, taking her hands in his. “You want to be a writer. You can write from anywhere, from Pittsburgh. You don’t have to go.” He smiles encouragingly.

“I have to go.” She repeats softly, pulling her hands away. “It’s my home Kris. I can’t just leave everything I know behind and move to a new city to be with a guy I’ve known for less than a week.” Kris reels back, his eyebrows furrowing low.

“Is that what I am? Just some guy you’ve known, someone you have to leave everything for? I have nothing to offer you?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” she’s glaring at him, it only serves to fuel his own anger further. “God damn it Kris, be reasonable!”

“I am being reasonable. I thought we had both agreed we didn’t want to be apart, I found us a solution, but apparently you don’t give a shit.”

“Of course I don’t want to be apart from you, but this isn’t puppies and rainbows Kris, this is real life now. I cannot drop everything I know, the only family I have, to move to Pittsburgh. Kris, as crazy and wonderful as these past few days have been, you have to admit that we really don’t know much about each other in the bigger picture. I need that, I need more, before I can make that kind of decision.” The rational part of Kris’ brain knows that she’s right, that it’s too much, too soon. A far bigger part of his brain is flashing the word ‘rejection’ in neon letters.

“What else do you need to know?” he demands, “My salary? How big my house is?” Even as the words roll off his tongue, he is regretting them, trying to reel them back in, but it’s too late. She rears back and glares harder to stop the tears, shoving herself to her feet and stomping across the room. She stops by the door, bags in hand.

“You’re being an ass.” She tells him flatly, “And if this is the way you act when you don’t get your way, it’s pathetic and I can see why Bridget left you.” She swings open the door and slams it shut behind her; Kris can hear her stomping down the hall to the elevator.

In the elevator, Skylar bangs her head back against the wall a few times. That was a low blow and she knows it. This morning, leaving Montana and staying with Kris had seemed like a tough, but doable situation. Now, she’s beginning to think it might just be impossible.

Kris gets up off the bed after several long minutes, takes from the mini-fridge every stupidly tiny bottle of liquor they have and proceeds to empty each one into his mouth, tilting his head back so the liquor slides in an effortless burn down his throat. For a few glorious hours, Kris had had it. Sure, she would be in another country, but she would be his and eventually, they would figure it out. But, in typical Kristopher Letang fashion, he had to move too fast, try to do too much all at once. He’d been doing it all his life and one would think that by now, he would have figured out that it never leaves him anything but broken.