All You Could Ask For A Novel - By Mike Greenberg Page 0,44

a look of cautious optimism on his face. I remember that look. He would use it in debates when his opponent was attacking him. It was a look that indicated that no matter what was said, Robert was ready to respond. I could see it in his face; he knew I was going to take him back.

“Robert, I just want you to know that it did help a lot that you came here. More than I would have guessed. If you’d asked me yesterday if it would make any difference for you to come, I’d have said ‘no,’ but I’d have been wrong, for a couple of reasons. The first is that it makes me feel less stupid. All this time I’ve wondered how I could have fallen in love with such a complete asshole. And now I see that, at the very least, you aren’t a complete asshole. There is something redeemable in your character, and that’s good news for me. It means I can trust myself again. So that helps.”

I don’t know why, but I stood up and started pacing as I spoke. I wasn’t looking at Robert. I was staring down at the floor, carefully considering every word.

“In fact, in some strange way I have more respect for you now than I did before everything happened. I don’t know how many men would have done this the way you did. I think a lot of men would have stayed away because it was easier.”

“Let’s not make me out to be a hero,” Robert said.

“Don’t talk,” I said. “You said everything just right. I want to remember it that way.”

He smiled and did that thing where you twist your finger in front of your lips, like locking your mouth and throwing away the key.

“You are most certainly not a hero,” I continued, “but you may actually be a decent human being, or at least one with a shred of decency. If you hadn’t come here I would never have known that. So I’m happy for that as well.”

A sense of calm was washing over me as I spoke, an unclenching. And I realized that, as focused as I have been this month on relaxing, in actual fact I haven’t relaxed at all. But I was relaxing now.

“I’ll also tell you that it really seems to me you came here with no ulterior motive, no self-serving motivation, for your career or otherwise. I didn’t believe that when you started talking but I do now, and I am impressed by that as well. You really did do this for me, and that matters to me. And the things you said and the way you said them were perfect. You apologized for exactly the right things in exactly the right way, which leads me to believe you really understand what you did and you really are sorry. And that’s the best part of it all. So, thank you, as strange as that seems. Because you made the effort and it helped, and it is going to keep helping. This makes everything that happened a whole lot less awful, and under the circumstances I really couldn’t ask for more than that.”

And with that I was finished. Those were all my thoughts. I was suddenly tired, maybe for the first time since the day I arrived at this hotel and started training.

Robert was off the couch and walking toward me. I recognized his expression again: he was in serious seduction mode now. He walked right up to me and looked soulfully into my eyes. He raised his hand and brushed it softly against my cheek as though he was wiping away tears. But I wasn’t crying.

“So,” he said, “I guess the question is, where does that leave us?”

I stared right into his eyes. “It leaves us in a much better place than we otherwise would have been,” I said. “And that’s all.”

He flinched a little. Our eyes were locked, and I could tell he was trying to see if there was any crack, any room at all for negotiation. I stared at him for all I was worth. There was no room for anything.

“Can we at least be friends?” he asked.

“There really isn’t any point in that,” I said. “This is not a time in my life I’m going to want to remain in touch with. I will learn from it, I will always remember it, but I will not treasure it. And while I don’t hate you or wish ill upon you,