I wondered whether the door would be locked, but the knob turned freely when I tried. The bedroom door was halfway closed, light spilled down the hallway, and I debated whether to approach or stay in the living room. I didn’t want to face her anger, but I took a deep breath and made my way down the short hallway. I poked my head in. She was sitting on the bed in an oversize shirt, one that reached to midthigh. She looked up from a magazine, and I offered a tentative smile.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
I crossed the room and sat on the edge of bed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For everything. You were right. I was a jerk last night, and I shouldn’t have embarrassed you in front of your friends. And I shouldn’t have been so angry that you were late. It won’t happen again.”
She surprised me by patting the mattress. “Come here,” she whispered.
I moved up the bed, leaned against the bed frame, and slipped my arm around her. She leaned against me, and I could feel the steady rise and fall of her chest.
“I don’t want to argue anymore,” she said.
“I don’t either.”
When I stroked her arm, she sighed. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere, really,” I said. “Just walked the campus. Had some pizza. Did a lot of thinking.”
“About me?”
“About you. About me. About us.”
She nodded. “Me too,” she said. “Are you still mad?”
“No,” I said. “I was, but I’m too tired to be mad anymore.”
“Me too,” she repeated. She lifted her head to face me. “I want to tell you something about what I was thinking while you were gone,” she said. “Can I do that?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I realized that I’m the one who should have been apologizing. About spending so much time with my friends, I mean. I think that’s why I got so mad earlier. I knew what you were trying to say, but I didn’t want to hear it because I knew you were right. Partly, anyway. But your reasoning was wrong.”
I looked at her uncertainly. She went on.
“You think that I made you spend so much time with my friends because you weren’t as important to me as you used to be, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “But that’s not the reason. It’s really the opposite. I was doing that because you’re so important to me. Not so much because I wanted you to get to know my friends, or so they could get to know you, but because of me.”
She halted uncertainly.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“Do you remember when I told you that I draw strength from being with you?”
When I nodded, she skated her fingers along my chest. “I wasn’t kidding about that. Last summer meant so much to me. More than you can ever imagine, and when you left, I was a wreck. Ask Tim. I barely worked on the houses. I know I sent you letters that made you think all was well and good, but it wasn’t. I cried every night, and every day I’d sit at the house and keep imagining and hoping and wishing that you’d come strolling up the beach. Every time I saw someone with a crew cut, I’d feel my heart start beating faster, even though I knew it wasn’t you. But that was the thing. I wanted it to be you. Every time. I know that what you do is important, and I understand that you’re posted overseas, but I don’t think I understood how hard it was going to be once you weren’t around. It seemed like it was almost killing me, and it took a long time to even begin to feel normal again. And on this trip, as much as I wanted to see you, as much as I love you, there’s this part of me that’s terrified that I’m going to go to pieces again when our time is up. I’m being pulled in two directions, and my response was to do anything I could so I wouldn’t have to go through what I did last year again. So I tried to keep us busy, you know? To keep my heart from being broken again.”
I felt my throat tighten but said nothing. In time, she went on.
“Today, I realized that I was hurting you in the process. That wasn’t fair to you, but at the same time, I’m trying to be fair to me, too. In a week, you’ll be gone again, and I’m the one who’s going to have to figure out how to function afterwards. Some people can do that. You can do that. But for me . . .”
She stared at her hands, and for a long time it was quiet.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally admitted.
Despite herself, she laughed. “I don’t want an answer,” she said, “because I don’t think there is one. But I do know that I don’t want to hurt you. That’s all I know. I just hope I can find a way to be stronger this summer.”