Truly(112)
Sexy, confident, incredible May.
“Dan doesn’t understand her,” he said. “He made her sound like a—like a peanut butter sandwich. Or a decent bag of chips. She’s not a fucking bag of chips.”
“He’s not good with words.”
“He’s not the right person for her. She needs somebody who sees what she’s really like. Why don’t you get that?” He interlocked his fingers behind his head, elbows out, pacing. Unable to stop attacking this woman who didn’t really deserve it, because she loved May, but God, he wanted to shake her up. Make her see. “You don’t get it because you don’t know your daughter. You don’t know what she’s capable of. You never let her try. You keep trying to shove her into this box you built for her, and it’s cruel.”
Nancy crossed her arms. “Who are you to say that?” Her voice came out shaky. As rattled as he’d wanted her to be. “Who are you to—to accuse me?”
Who was he? Some guy who’d met May a week ago. A failed son and failed chef. A bum and a liar who’d insinuated himself into this woman’s good graces on false pretenses.
“Nobody.”
He took a step away from her.
I’m not any good to you, was what he meant. Or to her. Or to anybody.
“Forget it.”
His throat convulsed reflexively, and he swallowed in a futile attempt to keep the lies he’d told himself from coming up.
You just want to help May.
Bullshit.
She needs a bed to sleep in, a tour guide to show her the city, a shoulder to cry on.
Bullshit.
You’re only staying because the sex is great, and you’ve got nowhere else important to be.
Giant, steaming truckload of bullshit.
If his time with May had ever been an experiment, the experiment had ended days ago, long before May knocked him over and straddled him in his bed. Before she told him he didn’t want another restaurant.
Sometime between a rainy farmer’s market phone call and a perfect moment surrounded by bees and sunshine in a Park Slope backyard, he’d fallen for her. That was why he’d stuck around. To be with her, and to make sure that if he couldn’t have her, Thor wouldn’t get her, either.
Because he loved her.
Of course he loved her. She was May.
But love turned him into a human wrecking ball. He saved all his most destructive, outrageous, ridiculous assholery for the things he loved most. Look what had happened with Sardo. With Sandy.
Look what had happened with everything he’d ever loved.
He couldn’t do this.
“I need to go,” he said.
“I think that would be best.”
When he reached the door, all the muscles in his arms felt too heavy. May wasn’t in the hallway. She wasn’t anywhere. He didn’t even know where to look. He panicked, turned in a circle, kicked a stack of folding chairs and knocked them down. The noise was deafening.
Nancy came into the hall wearing a censorious expression. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I need to find May.”
“She’s in the bathroom.” Nancy paused. “What is this?”
This is love.
This is life.
This is me, fucking it up.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s almost over.”
When he found the cool handle of the bathroom door, Ben stood still, breathing too fast, too hard. He closed his eyes. He needed to be calm to do this, so he searched for the narrow slot inside his psyche where he used to hide.
There. Just there. He was no longer a boy, but he could still squeeze in if he kept his breathing shallow. He could crouch in a place where there was no color and no sound, and nothing could touch him.
By the time the door shut behind him, he felt perfectly calm.
May perched on the edge of the counter beside a sink, staring at the row of stall doors.
“Waiting for one to open up?”
She looked up in surprise. “I thought you were my mom.”
“No.”
“I thought she’d be barging in here to find out what happened with Dan.”
“What happened with Dan?”
“I told him there was another guy.”
Half a minute passed. She looked at the floor. He looked at her face, waiting for her to meet his eyes so he could do this.
She knew why he was here, but she wouldn’t help him. She would only sit there, passive, and make him hack apart whatever it was that tied them together.
He hadn’t thought this far ahead—hadn’t realized he’d have to tell her something. It had seemed obvious, before, that their relationship had a time limit, and when the time was up, he would go back to his life and let May get on with hers.
It was still obvious. He would cling to that obviousness. He would force May to acknowledge it, because otherwise …