Fifty Words for Embarrassment

I suppose when it came down to it, the decision I made was an easy one. I’m afraid that you won’t be very pleased with me. Perhaps you’ll even think that I cheated somehow. That morning when I woke up, though, I had realized two things. One: I was being completely unfair to Riley. Two: I couldn’t really choose Reed, could I? He didn’t seem to know what it was that he wanted. Far be it from me to interfere with that kind of dedicated indecision.

I checked the time on my phone and saw that I had a text message waiting for me. There are, again, two things I wish to tell you about this. One: I never wake up to text messages, making this kind of remarkable, no matter who it was from or what it said. Two: even if morning texts were a usual thing for me, I would have told you about this one. It was from Riley, you see, and it read "I'm sorry about last night. I overreacted." I, foolish girl that I was, smiled when I read this. I thought that it meant things could go back to normal between us. I failed to realized that normal for us was something that would just not work. Allow me to explain.

I met up with Riley that afternoon at the cafe. We sat at the same table as always, surrounded by most of the same regular customers. What was the difference? In fact, in keeping with today's theme, there were two: he was there waiting for me when I arrived, my favorite drink waiting for me at the seat across from him and we were alone. I felt a little weird about letting him pay for me, but I thought that maybe it was just a little apology. I could be okay with an apologetic purchase, since that meant it was a one-time thing. Now that I was certain that I didn’t want to be with Riley, the idea of anything more was quickly becoming repulsive to me. Don’t get me wrong, he was a really good person and it would have made me sad to not be able to call him my friend anymore. I shook off these thoughts and said hello to him.

“Rhea, I’m glad you came. I was worried.” His eyes were fixed on mine with such intensity that I felt uncomfortable.

“Don’t mention it. We’re friends.” I was hoping that he would hear the rest of that sentence, the words that I dared not say. His grin assured me that he did not.

“Good. That as some party, though, wasn’t it?” I rolled my eyes and laughed a bit. Not a very original thread of conversation, was it?

“Of course you have to say that, since it was your cousin’s party.”

“In fact, I think that that give me more reason than most to criticize it.” And then he did something that I just couldn’t forgive, he winked. Winked! At me! What on earth possessed him to do that? I shrugged and gazed out the window, snapping back to attention only until he said, “Oh, I know that look, Rhea. You’re thinking about something.”

“I’m always thinking about something,” I said. My tone wasn’t as friendly as it should have been, and I immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t his fault I was a little touchy today. “Really, it’s nothing worth mentioning.”

Riley leaned forward across the table, and a little of his drink sloshed out of its mug. “Now I don’t believe that for a second. Everything you think interests me.” Oh, no. This wasn’t even fair. He couldn’t go around expressing so much interest now, not as soon as I had decided definitively that that wasn’t where we were going.

And I, fool that I was, held onto some shred of possibility that maybe, just maybe, I was imagining it. Maybe he was just being friendly.

He wasn’t just being friendly.

Needless to say, things got more and more uncomfortable through our little hangout. By the end, I was scraping around for any sort of excuse to leave that wouldn’t offend him. I didn’t want to hurt Riley, really I didn’t. I just meant to put some distance between us before things carried on too much further. Surely that way no one had to be hurt. I couldn’t use just any excuse to leave, though, since he knew so much about me. I had already bragged to him on Friday about not having any schoolwork to do. He knew that Saturday practice had been canceled this week because half of the band was going up to Niagara Falls to raise hell. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to get going,” I finally said.

Riley shrugged. “Are you sure? I was thinking we could hit up the art museum today. You’ve been saying how long it’s been since you were there last...” His voice trailed off invitingly. I barely masked a grimace. Why did I so badly want away from him?

I caught sight of Reed. He was outside of the cafe, one hand gripping the door handle. He was frozen, staring at me where I sat across from Reed. He looked stricken. I scrambled to my feet. My purse strap pulled me back since it was still wrapped around the chair. I disentangled it and called an apology and a farewell to Riley, caring less and less each second whether he thought badly of me for it. Reed was still standing at the door when I reached it.

“Come on, this way,” I said, pointing toward a nearby park. Reed followed me wordlessly. In fact, neither of us spoke until we had seated ourselves on a bench some time later. It should have been strange, and with anyone else it probably would have been. The things that lay between us were so mangled, so heavy that they dragged us into silence. They squashed any awkwardness before it could really develop.

“Rhea. I feel like I don’t know you anymore.” As far as first words went, this was not what I wanted to hear from him. These words, they burrowed down into me, dug at my confidence and my resolve. It took a great deal of effort to keep me from getting up off of the bench and fleeing.

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “Not as true as when I say that I don’t think I ever knew you at all.” Oh, this was all wrong. Why had that ever come out of my mouth? I couldn’t mean that, surely I couldn’t.

But I didn’t apologize, didn’t recall my words. I desperately needed to hear his response to that.

Reed took my hands and brought them to his lips, held them there for a long, silent moment. The turmoil in me stilled. Of course I knew him. Of course he knew me. We were just all mixed up right now. Adrift. I squeezed his hands. He squeezed back and we gave each other wary smiles. “I don’t think you mean that, not really. But you’re right, I think. I wasn’t honest with you, Rhea.”

I frowned, pulled at my hands. He did not release them. Instead, Reed pulled me closer. “I’ll explain, Rhea, just give me a minute. I don’t know how mad you’ll be when I’ve finished. I don’t know how you’ll feel about me. It’s been so long. Can we just have a couple of minutes where you sit here next to me and we talk like before? Can I keep hold of you, at least until I’m done?” I inched away from him but did not try to pull away again. He let our hands fall onto the bench between us. “I know, it’s too much to ask.”

I stayed silent. I didn’t want to believe that he had lied. What was untrue? I believed that he cared for me. How else did you explain the contact that he was insisting on keeping? I believed that Lionel was his brother. I believed everything I had ever figured out about his personality, everything I had witnessed that made up the picture of Reed that I carried around inside me. I very well might hate him if he tried to pull any of those things away from me with claims that they weren’t real.

Reed sighed. “I was stupid. When I came to New York looking for you, I knew where to find you because Lionel told me. I bet you figured that much out. He told me something else, though, when I was already on my way. He said that I was being foolish. He told me that he was almost certain that you were seeing someone. Lionel said that he had seen you together and that you seemed happy. Well, I was about to arrive in the city. I was so close to finding you. I had already imagined the things that we would say, the way that I would talk you into dancing with only me all night. I was going to charm you. I was going to make you fall in love with me.”

I frowned. “But your girlfriend-”

“I don’t have one. I didn’t all those months ago either.” Reed looked at me for a long moment. “I only said that to hurt you.” As he said these words, his eyes were latched onto mine and I knew that he saw the instant that they sank in. I wrenched my hands away from him.

“It worked,” I said. I felt like winking out of existence. I felt like flying, like being swallowed up into the ground, like sinking into unconsciousness. Anything to get away from this moment. It took all of my strength not to leave him on that bench. This was, I decided, the last time I would ever see him. Band practices would have to be moved. I would find another cafe to go to, one that Reed and Riley both didn’t know about. I would make Lionel ban him from coming to our shows. And since this was the last time that I would see him, I was determined to get all of the answers I felt I deserved before either of us left.

“I know it did. I’m sorry, Rhea. I thought that you had been leading me on, that I was a game to you. I felt humiliated. Then you kissed me and I was already so hurt, had already been planning on telling you that I had a girlfriend before you could tell me about your relationship so that I would at least look like I had come out on top... Well, I just kind of blurted it out. I thought it was part of your game. I don’t know why I ever believed him, but Lionel’s my brother. You know that he wouldn’t tell me something like that unless he really believed that it was true.”

“No. Something’s wrong with your story. Lionel couldn’t have seen me with anyone he mistook for a boyfriend, because there was no one like that at the time. No one but you, Reed. The only people I had seen other than at school and group things were you, Florence, and the boys in the band. Lionel wouldn’t have lied, you’re right.”

Reed frowned. “Are you certain?” I inhaled sharply, managing barely to keep from saying something nasty, something I would regret. “I’m sorry. I believe you, Rhea. Just... can we please agree that I was a moron and get on to the part where you forgive me? I regretted hurting you the instant that the words were out of my mouth. Then it seemed too late to take them back. I could see on your face that everything you had said to me before, all of the times I saw you looking at me like... like you cared. I knew that it wasn’t a lie. I just didn’t know how to take my own lie back. I’m sorry.”

I shifted a little closer to Reed. The air had definitely picked up a chill. How long had we been sitting here? “What about after, then? Why didn’t you ever fix things?”

Reed looked down. “I didn’t want you to hurt me again.”

“I never did, Reed! You were hurt, yes, but not by me. It was what Lionel told you.” Were guys always this dense?

“I know. Like I said, I’ve been stupid. Please forgive me.” I wanted very badly to tell him that everything was forgiven now that he had come clean, but I still felt sick to my stomach, knowing that he had lied, remembering all of the time I had spent agonizing over his fake relationship. If I told him now that I forgave him, it wouldn’t be real. Instead, I took his hands, stood, and pulled him off of the bench.

“Come on, it’s getting cold. Let’s head over to my place. I just checked The Mummy out of the library. We could watch it.”

Reed let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around me. “Thank you.”