Anything Less Than Everything (18 page)

“When you
said I deserved better.”

Was he really
asking me this? I’d kind of blown off his supposed “flaw” of lack of
confidence, but apparently it wasn’t him just trying to give me an answer. And
it seemed this issue came up most where girls were concerned. “Just what I
said,” I answered him. “You are amazing, and only someone as amazing as you
deserves you.”

“I don’t
think that there are many amazing people out there, though.” I knew him well
enough to know he was putting himself in that category.

“Tell me
about it,” I said. “Remember Spencer? And Carson?”

“Yeah, well,
those are extremes. I just mean that most people--girls--seem to be okay, but
not enough.”

“Maybe that’s
good, though, I said.” This was all coming to me as I spoke; I hadn’t really
thought about it before. “If everyone you met was ‘enough,’ how would you know
when you met that one amazing someone?” It was true enough of me. Spencer had
seemed quite a catch, but I didn’t have much to compare him to. It was only
after I looked at him in comparison to Aaron that I realized how mediocre he
was and how incredible Aaron was. They were foils to one another, with each
one’s characteristics highlighting the opposite traits in the other. Not that I
could use that example out loud.

Aaron thought
about this for a moment before speaking. “You’re probably right. Maybe I’m just
expecting too much.”

“I’m
confident I have you beat on that one.”

“Meaning?”

“I have a
list.”

“A list,” he
repeated, trying to understand.

“Of qualities
I want in a guy. Fifty-seven of them, actually.” I had not planned to tell
Aaron--or anyone--about my list, and I had no idea where this conversation was
going to take me, but I had a feeling it would end with me revealing too much.
As usual.

“Wow. I don’t
know whether to be impressed or scared, or offended that you never told me
this,” he said.

“Well, I’m
just following the advice a good friend once gave me.”

“What’s
that?” he asked.

“To never settle
for anything less than everything.” He smiled a little, remembering his words
to me.

“And how’s
that working out for you?”

I paused,
thought. “Mixed results. It turns out I left something really important off the
list.” He didn’t say anything, but swiveled his float to look at me, expectant.

“I should
have added that he needs to be someone I can actually have.” I looked away,
unable to meet his eyes, which were on me intently, and afraid my sunglasses
weren’t dark enough to hide the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes.

Some kids
came crashing through the Lazy River right then, diving into the water, then
running a few steps. One bumped into me and upset my balance. I flipped out of
the float, and since my feet were on Aaron’s float, I threw him off, too. It
was a chain reaction of flailing arms, with both of us ending up under water.

I came up,
wiping water out of my eyes. Aaron was right there, not six inches from me. We
both just looked at each other for a few moments, serious at first, then smiling.
These moments were killing me. There’d be this undeniable connection, a charge
in the air, and then everything would go back to normal. Like on the hill, or
with the sunscreen, and even on the couch the day before, though that could
have been a result of his fever. Unless it was all in my head, and Aaron wasn’t
noticing anything at all. Maybe I was blowing it all out of proportion.

I had to make
a decision. I’d said from the beginning that I was going to be okay with being
Aaron’s friend, that I would ignore my feelings for him. And I
was
okay
with being his friend, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of putting my
feelings to rest. I just had to do it. To let him go and to open myself up to
someone else. And though it broke my heart to really, finally give up the idea
of loving Aaron that way, I knew it was the only way to really be the friend he
deserved.

S
unday morning brought a mix of
emotions. In just a couple of hours, Aaron would be driving me back into the
city and then making the five hour drive back to school. Then I’d leave and
start a new school year; Aaron would become involved with classes and football
and friends. I liked to think our friendship was strong enough to weather those
intense schedules, that we were more than just a summer fling, so to speak, but
the truth was that I was scared. Going our separate ways seemed as metaphorical
as it was literal. We’d talked about that before, of course, but now that it
was here my fears resurfaced.

There was
also a tiny bit of relief in my bag of feelings, strange as that may seem.
Relief that I would soon be able to escape the closeness of Aaron that drove me
crazy in all the right ways that were all so wrong.

My hope was
that by returning to the way things were before, to the friendship by phone, my
feelings would settle and I could get over him.

But the one
feeling I was not experiencing was happiness. Nothing about leaving Aaron made
me happy. I was going to miss him, and I was dreading the hole not having him
around would leave.

I said my
goodbyes to Aaron’s family, thanked them for the wonderful time. Liz hugged me
and said to come back soon. Sara smiled (finally!) and shyly asked if she could
send me a connect request on BEsocial. Maggie hugged me tight, refusing to let
me go for several minutes. Liz eventually pried her arms from around my neck,
and Aaron and I walked out to his truck, him carrying our luggage, his family
following us.

Neither of us
said much as we drove out of the subdivision. Aaron kept both hands gripped on
the wheel, both eyes on the road. We passed the entrance to the park where we
hiked a couple of days earlier. I tried to burn the image of that view into my
brain, to hold onto the feeling of his arms around me when we hugged.

“Want to grab
some lunch?” Aaron’s question jerked me out of my thoughts. I nodded, but kept
my eyes trained on the window.

Aaron pulled
into a pizza parlor, the perfect place for our last meal. I could feel his eyes
on me, but I refused to meet them. I didn’t trust myself.

It felt like
he wanted to say something, but instead he sighed, and I followed him out of
the car and into the restaurant.

“This reminds
me of our first real day together,” he said as the waitress placed a pan of
pepperoni and mushroom on the table between us and took our glasses to refill
them with more Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke.

“Don’t say
that,” I snapped. Aaron’s smile froze, then faded, and only then did I realize
how short my voice was. “It just makes it seem like this is the end,” I said,
so softly I wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear. But I could tell that he
understood.

“It’s not,
though,” he said. “Maybe that could have happened at the beginning of the
summer, but now...” He was looking at me, but not really. More through me. “But
you’re way too important now. Besides,” he said, obviously trying to make me
smile, “who else would I find to share pizza with?” I gave him just the tiniest
of smiles. “There it is,” he said. “I’m going to miss that.”

Lunch was
over too soon. There really wasn’t anything else to delay us, and Aaron needed
to get back to school, so we headed towards the hotel where the conference
would be taking place and I would be staying.

Aaron waited
while I checked in, then while I went to my room to put down my suitcase. I
didn’t pay attention to the room size or the decor or the view or any of the
things that usually were my immediate concern. I used the key card to open the
door, rolled my suitcase inside, and left.

Each step I
took back toward him caused the feeling of dread in my throat to rise. My eyes
stung with unshed tears, tears I wanted more than anything to go away.

Aaron stood
up when he saw me coming toward him. When I reached him, the first tear fell, a
single drop sliding slowly down my cheek.

Aaron reached
for me and pulled me close to him. He held me, gently stroking my hair. He
didn’t breathe shushing noises into my hair or tell me everything was going to
be okay. He just held me.

We stood like
that for a long time. I wasn’t crying--the first tear was the only tear--but I
feared what would happen when he let go. When he finally said he needed to get
on the road if he was going to make it back in time for the captains’ meeting,
I pulled away. His eyes were soft, misty.

“Thank you
for this weekend,” I said. My voice was soft, but it worked. Aaron smiled at
me, a smaller, sadder version of the half smile I loved.

“No, thank
you, Brooke. It was...amazing. You’re amazing.” I pretended not to notice the
way his voice caught just a tiny bit when he said that, not for his sake, but
for mine.

“We’ll do it
again, soon,” he added. I nodded, both anxious for and dreading him leaving.

“Call me when
you get back?” I asked.

“You know I
will,” he said as he pulled me to him for one last hug.

I walked
toward the lobby doors with him, watched as he walked back out to his truck.

This is the
part in the movies where the guy comes back, unable to truly leave the girl he
loves behind, and they embrace in some wonderfully tangled kiss that takes them
to the final credits.

But this
wasn’t the movies, and Aaron didn’t come back.

T
he room was growing dim when I
finally stopped crying. I cried for my best friend, the only person who had
ever really understood me, leaving again. For the fear of what would happen to
that friendship. But mostly for the loss of the man of my dreams, the one whom
I had tried so hard not to love. I grieved him. And grieved him.

My Intro to
Psychology class in college had covered the steps of the grieving process. I
hadn’t paid a lot of attention, mostly because it was freshman year, and
Spencer was in the class, and we were in that “my boyfriend/girlfriend is so
wonderful and I just want to look at them all day” phase. But I remembered
enough to know you were supposed to deny the loss, and then be angry and/or sad
about it, and then accept it.

That was the
problem: I’d jumped too quickly to acceptance, had tried to accept the fact
that Aaron was my ideal minus the fact that he was off-limits without really
allowing myself to be sad about the fact that I couldn’t--shouldn’t--love him.

And so I
cried. I cried until no tears came. Rather than it being cathartic, though, I
just felt worse. I stood in the too hot water of the shower, trying to wash
away the sadness, the hurt. No, it wasn’t hurt. Aaron had never done anything
to hurt me. He was ignorant of my struggle.

When I came
out of the bathroom, pink-skinned and a little more clear-headed, I saw the
flash on my phone that indicated a missed call. Aaron. As usual, he had not
left a message when the call went to voicemail, but hung up and sent a text
instead:
Hey Brooke. Just got home. call you later.
And, then, another
one, bearing the same time stamp:
I miss you.

I pulled out
my conference materials for the next day and read the agenda and session
descriptions with intensity. Anything to keep my mind off of Aaron. And how
much I missed him, too.

The sessions
had titles like THE PROBLEM OF BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE: SCAFFOLDING CLASSIC TEXTS
IN A MODERN CLASSROOM and TO TEXT OR NOT TO TEXT IN THE CLASSROOM? THAT IS THE
QUESTION. Despite their catchy titles, my research was not keeping my
attention, especially since all I could think about was how much fun Aaron and
I would have coming up with even stupider titles.

I pushed the
thick program to the side and instead pulled out my design notebook. In it I
jotted down ideas for Dwell as they came to me, sketching things I saw in the
room that caught my eye. My room was really pretty, with a black, white and
deep purple color scheme that I knew could be great for fall. I took some
pictures with my phone, wrote my ideas down in the notebook, finally finding an
activity to keep my brain entertained.

It was nearly
eleven when Aaron called. We had an understanding, ever since the night he
returned from the retreat, that too late was never too late when it came to
calling each other. We were under no obligation to answer, but we agreed to
never worry about waking the other up.

I wanted to
talk to him, needed to talk to him, but I was so afraid that my voice and lack
of intelligent speech would betray me, that I would spill my guts and make
things monumentally worse. But I missed him.
So much
.

“Hey,” I
said. “How was the drive?”

“Long,” he
replied. “How was your day?”
            “Long. Probably short compared to tomorrow, though.”

“Why’s that?”
he asked.

“Well, my
first session starts at eight o’clock and the last one doesn’t end until
four-thirty. And they don’t sound that interesting.”

“But I
thought you were excited about the conference,” he said.

“I was, but,”
the next words came out before I could stop them, “but I think it was really
just about coming here, seeing you. Now it’s kind of occurred to me that I
actually have to go to this stupid thing.” He laughed softly.

“And,” I
continued, “I don’t know anyone here, so it’s very likely that our
conversations will be my only ones for the next seventy-two hours.”

“I highly
doubt that,” he said. I didn’t.

“What about
you,” I said, shifting the focus off of me. “What does this week look like?”

“Two-a-days,”
he said. “I am not looking forward to it.”

“Isn’t it too
hot for that?” I asked, concerned.

“Yes. But
it’s reality. We’ll start early, like seven in the morning, then break until
four or so. We’ll have position meetings in between. Film study for homework.”

“Sounds like
a very full day,” I said. Aaron picked up on the sadness in my voice.

“Yeah, but
we’ll still find time to talk. Sleep is overrated, you know.” And something
about the joking tone in his voice as he said that lifted some of the pain that
had taken up residence in my chest.

“I don’t
know,” I said. “I’m not like you young college kids who can stay up all night
and still be ready to work in the morning.”

“Oh, yes,”
Aaron said, laughing. “You’re such an old woman.”

“Okay, maybe
not,” I said. “But I am pretty tired.” I knew he had to be, too.

“Then I’ll
let you go. Why don’t I call you at lunch? Maybe we’ll get lucky and our breaks
will overlap?”

“That sounds
good,” I said. “But if not?”
            “We’ll figure it out,” he said. And I knew what he meant, but I
couldn’t help but take his statement and apply it elsewhere. We’d figure it
out. I would figure it out. I would be okay.