Page 15 of All That We Are Together
“Ignore what?”
“Her. Everything that happened. That itdidhappen, goddammit. I can’t keep talking to you through this fucking wall between us and pretend nothing happened, that everything’s the same as it used to be.” I didn’t realize I was almost shouting.
“What are you trying to say?” Oliver asked. I think he was actually surprised.
I ran my hand through my hair and tried to carefully weigh my words. “Why’d you come back? Why’d you just show up at my house one day?”
He was still surprised, but this time it was because of the question that had changed the course of what looked like an imminent conflict. He leaned his head toward the porch and I followed him out there. I gave him a cigarette and took another for myself. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. But I wasn’t about to retreat this time.
“I’m getting married,” he finally said.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
Not that I wasn’t happy for him, but still…
“When Bega asked me who was going to be my best man, I realized it couldn’t be anyone but you, that we weren’t just friends, we were family.” He looked at me. “And family’s forever, Axel. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and me and all that happened, all that went wrong…”
I took a long drag from my cigarette. I’d been asleep for three fucking years, numb inside my routine, and now, all at once, everything had exploded, and I wanted it to, I wanted the dams to break once and for all, because I couldn’t bear this indifference anymore, this monotony that held me stagnant in the present, spending my days remembering the past, the better times before the color had drained from everything.
“Damn, Oliver…”
“I was thinking about you for weeks, about everything we’ve been through together, and finally I decided to just come here one day. I didn’t even think it over. And it was easy to just not talk about uncomfortable subjects, to just pretend nothing had happened.”
“But it did happen,” I whispered.
“I wanted to forget. To leave it behind.”
Sure. The problem was, that wasn’t what I wanted. Time hadn’t cured me. I hadn’t managed to forget her. Leaving Leah behind was like forgetting the best thing I’d ever known, and I couldn’t. I shook my head.
“I’m sorry, Oliver. I can’t…”
“You can’t be my best man?” He scowled.
And I felt like a part of me shattered.
“I can’t be that; I can’t be your friend. Not like before.”
Oliver was angry, shocked, and he exhaled loudly.
“What is your fucking deal, Axel?”
“Things just can’t be the way they were before. It’s not you, it’s that…when I saw her…”
Fuck. I was about to say something stupid. I turned around, but he grabbed my shoulder before I could walk away.
“Wait. Tell me. I want to understand.”
“When I saw her the other day…when I saw her…”
“You still love her? After all this time?”
That almost hurt more. Him thinking Leah had been a fling, him never once facing the truth: that I’d fallen in love with her, that what I felt was real. I asked myself how he must see me: cynical, impulsive, a coward.
“I’ll love her for the rest of my fucking life…”
“But Axel…” He seemed confused.
“I know. I know I fucked up; I know I did things wrong, not telling you and all. I know it wasn’t the right time, and I know you thought it was a passing infatuation.” I was trying to decide whether to be completely sincere or cover things up. I decided on the first, maybe because everything was so screwed up, I didn’t have anything to lose. “You’re important to me, but she’ll always mean more; she’s different, and we can’t be friends because she’s your sister, and I thought I could deal with it, but I can’t. The only thing I could think about when I saw her in the gallery was taking off her dress and dragging her off to a corner and fucking her.”