Turning Point

 

I slipped into the booth across from Bryan, where he sat nursing a drink.  At his half smile I said in a stiff voice, “Hi.”

“Hi. You’re early.”

“So are you.”

“I’m always early,” he returned. “Do you want something? Iced tea?”

“No thanks.”

Bryan lowered his gaze to his glass. “How are you doing at Bob’s?”

“Fine.”

“You’re registered for school.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

A waitress approached our table; Bryan waved her way. “It’s no problem,” he told me. “But you wanted to talk about something, and I don’t think it was school.”

I took a moment to steady myself. For some reason, having Bryan squarely under the heel of my shoe felt a lot less rewarding than I’d thought it would. “Bob said when I went to live with him that I would need to do something with you once in a while,” I answered. “I guess we need to set something up. If you want to.”

Bryan just looked at me.

“If now isn’t the time-”

“It’s as good a time as any.”

“We don’t have to do this,” I said, but he replied, “Just tell me what you had in mind.”

“I don’t know. Maybe dinner every couple of weeks.”

“Dinner every couple of weeks,” Bryan repeated. He laughed a little. “Wonderful.”

“If you don’t like it-”

“I don’t think I have a choice. Fine. We can do that.”

Bristling now—how was it that I kept coming off like the nasty, horrible person, when our reality was his fault?—I snapped, “Everything is difficult enough. You don’t have to make it worse.”

 “I’d like to know how I could possibly make it worse than it already is.”

“What did you think was going to happen?”

Bryan’s faint air of amusement vanished. “I have no expectations anymore. I just have how it is.”

“And how is that?”

“Exactly what you’re proposing. That you’ll spend an hour with me once every two weeks. And then, when you turn eighteen, you’ll tell me to fuck off and it will all be over.” Bryan pushed his now empty glass to the edge of the table. Wordlessly the waitress scooped it up on her way to the bar. “So,” he said, “let’s just get on with it, shall we?”

“This is how you wanted it,” I reminded him, but he was quick to answer, “This is not how I wanted it. This might be how I made it, but this was never how I wanted it.”

“Are you saying I should just forget what you did?”

“I’m not that delusional.”

Frustrated, I demanded, “Then what is it you do want?”

“For you to come home. For you to go to Northwestern after you graduate. And,” he concluded, in a voice so low I could barely hear him, “more than all of that, I want you to stop treating our relationship like some kind of fucking nightmare that you can’t wait to be rid of.” 

The waitress deposited his refill on the table. Bryan moved to take it, but I was quicker. Holding the whiskey well out of his reach, I asked, “What are you trying to do, drink yourself to death?”

“What do you care if I am?”

“Oh, that’s fucking great.”

“You don’t need me. You don’t even want to see me. How I choose to live my life shouldn’t make any difference to you.”

“That doesn’t mean I want you dead!”

“I’m dead to you now, anyway.”

Infuriated, I shot back, “If you are, it’s your own fault.”

“And let me assure you, I’ve beaten myself up for it far better than you ever could.” Bryan held out his hand. “So, if you don’t mind, I’d like my fucking drink now.”

“You were the one who didn’t want me around anymore!”

“We all know what I said and did, Katie. I can’t keep begging for you to understand. You’ve made your decision. Now let me make my own fucking decisions.”

“But all I want is to know why. You can never tell me why.”

“I did tell you,” Bryan retorted, and for the first time I noticed that his outstretched hand was shaking. “Maybe you don’t understand this,” he said, “but I thought all I’d become to you was some kind of fucking obstacle that you were stuck with and that you couldn’t wait to unload at your first opportunity. I’m sorry if this isn’t a good enough reason for you, or if it sounds trite, but I felt rejected, all right?  Like I meant nothing to the one person who meant everything to me.” 

He turned his head, his embarrassment almost palpable.

“I’ve been told I have an abandonment complex because of what happened with my mother,” he said. “That I don’t want to be left again, so I leave first. If you can believe that recycled, fucked up psychoanalytical bullshit.”

I could believe it. And because I did, I forgave him.