Rachel always got a major case of dry mouth when she was nervous. Before her SATs she said she felt like she’d eaten a bag of cotton balls. When she was going to take her driving test for her license, she drank so much water she had to pull over at the Gas N Go to pee during the middle of the test.
“Water would be great.”
I grabbed a glass out of the cabinet and filled it from the water cooler. I’d always assumed if and when we had this conversation, I’d be angry, upset, or best-case scenario, numb. But I didn’t feel any of those things.
As I sat the glass of water down and took a seat across from her, I realized that all I was feeling was that I wanted her to feel safe to say what she needed to say and most of all, I wanted closure. Once and for all.
Every second that I hadn’t spent with Sasha or been working this past week, I’d been playing and writing. I’d worked a lot of things out in the process. Music was truly my therapy and I wanted to kick my own ass for denying myself for so long.
She took a big drink and set it down, before taking a big breath.
“First off, I need to apologize for the other night. At The Cow. I don’t even remember talking to you, but I know I did because Tami Lynn said that you were the one who asked her to bring me home. I have no idea what I did or said, but I’m so sorry.”
“We’ve all been there, don’t worry about it.”
“Oh…” She blinked several times, once again seeming to be taken aback by my response. “Okay, thanks. Um…wow…I don’t know where to start.” She chuckled nervously. “To be honest, I didn’t actually think you’d agree to speak to me.”
She took another drink.
A week ago, I wouldn’t have felt bad at all seeing how nervous she was. But today, today was different. Today I knew that while I didn’t take responsibility for her infidelity, I knew that I hadn’t been blameless in our relationship.
“Do you want me to start?” I asked.
She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, then nodded. Her fingers spread out as her hands flattened on the table and I could tell that she was bracing herself for me to blast her.
“What happened between us wasn’t just on you.”
Her eyes flung open and she looked at me like I’d just grown another head.
“Yes, you cheated on me,” I said calmly. “With my best friend.”
She winced at my words but that is what happened and although I was going to own up to my side of things, I didn’t plan on sugarcoating her side.
“There’s no excuse for that,” I continued. “But I wasn’t blameless. I ignored the issues we had for years. There were problems in our relationship and instead of addressing them, I put Band-Aids on them. I thought that we could fix everything by getting engaged, and then getting married. The truth is, I knew that you had some serious insecurities about my career, but I wanted to pursue it so I pretended that you didn’t. I thought that ignoring it and putting a ring on it would make everything better. But that’s not how insecurities worked.”
Rachel sniffed, her lips pursed as she nodded her head. My heart, the one that I thought would never be open again, had cracked this week and what I found inside was that I would always have a special place in it for the woman sitting in front of me. Or should I say the girl that I had known, because the truth was, I never knew the woman.
Tears began to fall down her face and I reached across the table and covered her hand. “I should’ve listened when you tried to talk to me.”
She’d tried so many times to tell me that she was unhappy, that she was lonely, that we didn’t talk the way we used to, and she didn’t feel the same way about me. But I’d dismissed her feelings, thinking it was just normal relationship stuff. I’d bulldozed my way through, ignoring all the issues she brought up.
“Thank you for saying that, but it’s not an excuse for my behavior. I should have made you listen to me and I should have told you that I was starting to have feelings for Neil.”
“We were young. We both made mistakes.”
“That’s nice of you to say.” She smiled.