Garrett (26 page)

Clearing my throat, I start with my biggest concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes,” she says softly. “I’m doing fine.”

“Why haven’t you returned my calls or texts?” I ask, and I can’t help the tinge of anger in my voice.

She doesn’t answer me, and the silence is deafening. My anger surges, builds hot, and fans into fury. “For fuck’s sake, Olivia. What the hell is going on with you? Everything seemed perfect, then you just drop off the radar.”

“I know,” she says in a quavering voice.

“What is it?” I prompt her, thankful she at least is talking. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she gushes into the phone. “No, of course not. You do everything right. I just…I just…”

Her voice trails off, leaving me hanging in frustration.

“You just what?” I ask, keeping my voice level…my tone patient.

For Christ’s sake, just tell me,
I scream on the inside.

Olivia takes a deep breath and lets it out on a soft whisper of sadness. “I overheard you talking to Stevie.”

My brain starts spinning…trying to remember every conversation I’ve had with Stevie and if something was said that would piss her off. I come up empty.

“Overheard what?” I prompt.

“That day we saw Dr. Yoffman…I came back from doing the deliveries and you and Stevie were talking at Fleurish.”

“Okay,” I drawl, because I don’t think we talked about anything that would make her angry.

“I heard you tell him how devastated you’d be if I died. How awful it was for you to watch Zack and what he’s going through.”

“That’s right,” I acknowledge, because again, I’m not sure why this would cause her to withdraw from me. I would be devastated, but surely that’s not national news to her.

“I can’t be responsible for that,” Olivia says, her voice sounding brittle, yet the weight of her words slams into me hard.

“Responsible?” I ask, dumbfounded. “What do you mean by that?”

Again, silence, but I know Olivia is gathering her thoughts, so I patiently wait for her. When she finally speaks, there is such finality to her tone my stomach bottoms out. “I’m a bad risk for you, Garrett. There is too much unknown, and you deserve to have someone in your life who is whole. Someone you can be assured will be by your side forever. It was selfish of me to even get involved with you, and by refusing to cut you loose…getting in deeper with you…that just made me even more selfish.”

“I don’t understand,” I croak, because fuck if any of this makes sense.

“It’s really simple,” she says. “I love you, Garrett. So much. But I figure the pain of a breakup is going to be far easier for you to overcome than the pain of potentially watching me die one day. Trust me, it’s better this way.”

My nerves are shredded and my heart is battered. I’ve been home for three days now and I don’t really know which way is up. I guess it depends on the time of day.

I want to see Garrett.

I don’t want to see Garrett.

I need him.

I don’t want to need him.

I love him.

I’m so selfish.

I’m miserable and lonely.

I wonder if Garrett is miserable and lonely.

These thoughts, and many more, keep rambling through my head. Making it impossible to sleep. Concentrate. Be happy.

It’s been almost two weeks since I last saw Garrett…at the airport when he hugged and kissed me goodbye. Telling me that he loved me, and I could only tell him I’d miss him.

Because I was breaking things off with him.

For his benefit, of course.

Keep telling yourself that, Olivia,
my conscience sneers at me.
Maybe one day it will make you feel better to believe that.

These past few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotion for me. My bitter plan to cut Garrett out of my life worked…sort of. I thought the phone conversation we had went as well as could be expected. Even though my heart felt like shattered glass, I held my resolve and broke things cleanly. Garrett tried vainly to get me to reconsider and he raged at me for a while, but nothing he said weakened me.

Hurt me, yes. But I didn’t falter.

I expected when the call was disconnected that Garrett was out of my life for good. The only thing left to do was try to heal our wounds and move forward with our lives…separately and unselfishly.

But he apparently had other plans.

Every day I got an email from him. He never mentioned our “breakup” and never once tried to talk me into giving us another chance. He was strangely quiet on that, but was quite chatty about everything else. His emails were long-winded, filled with newsy information and chatty gossip.

Garrett filled me in on what happened at his practices, and gave me replays of the games. He told me about hanging out with Alex and Sutton, and that on his off days whenever he was back in Raleigh, he’d taken to hanging out with Stevie, although he drew the line at going to one of Stevie’s drag shows. He told me about visiting Zack, and that he seemed to be coming out of his grief a bit and his wrist was healing nicely. Garrett told me everything about his life so I wouldn’t miss a single thing I had left behind.

Lines and lines of information, all designed to keep me firmly rooted in his life. He signed off on each email with four words…
I love you, Garrett.

He never asked me to write him back. He didn’t ask me to call.

At first, the emails hurt. I tried for all of ten seconds to ignore the first one, but then my heart demanded to be soothed. So I read it, and it was like pulling a Band-Aid off a scaly scab, ripping it open and causing more blood to weep.

Reading what Garrett wrote me…being privy to his life and thoughts. Knowing that at the end of each email, he still loved me. It soothed and tortured me at the same time.

I never wrote him back, but I didn’t discourage his communications either. And as it got closer to the time for me to return home for my treatments, my mind started wondering what it would be like to see Garrett. I knew I couldn’t, because it would take only one look, one touch, and I’d sink right back into him. I would throw out all of my steel and backbone, because I was still telling myself I was doing the right thing, and I’d let him back into my fucked-up life. I would give in to my own selfish wants and needs.

I decided to return home to Raleigh after staying ten days with my mother. While I very much enjoyed my time with her, I had a yearning to get back to the things that comforted me. My apartment, my job at Fleurish, Stevie and Sutton…Garrett.

No, not Garrett, I remind myself with bitterness.

On the day I flew out of Portland to return home to Raleigh, I eagerly booted up my laptop to read Garrett’s email, which I knew would be waiting for me. He always wrote to me late at night, and I started each morning off with his written words.

I sipped at my coffee as I pulled up my email, eagerly searching for his name.

And there was nothing.

For the first time in a week, he hadn’t written to me.

I checked my spam box, but it was empty.

Loneliness and disappointment surged through me, slapping me with the reality that I had come to rely on those emails. That even though I wasn’t giving anything in return to Garrett, he was still bolstering me by letting me know that I was still in his thoughts.

The mere fact I didn’t have an email waiting for me revealed one very cold truth.

He wasn’t thinking about me last night. And I’m betting that had everything to do with the fact that I never responded to him. He was without hope, because I gave him no hope. He had simply given up on me.

I got on the plane with a heavy heart and a confused mind. I had cut things off with Garrett, so why should this bother me? I should rejoice in the fact he was doing exactly what I wanted him to do…he was moving on.

But I couldn’t rejoice. I was sad and heartsick and completely perplexed over all these irrational thoughts running rampant through my mind.

Maybe, I remember thinking…just maybe something had come up and he couldn’t email me. Maybe it was a one-time-only thing and he would email me the following night. I let that thought lift my spirits slightly on the flight back home, and went to bed early that night, comfy in my own apartment, eager for the next day to dawn.

But there was no email the next morning.

Or the morning after that.

Or even the morning after that.

Pushing my body, I go through the motions of getting ready for my first day back at work. I’ve missed the soothing motions of making an arrangement, the subtle floral smells, and the way a creation comes to life before my eyes. I missed Stevie a great deal, but I’m a little hesitant to see him. He hasn’t said much to me about breaking things off with Garrett, but what little quips he’s dropped…he’s clearly not happy with me. I also know they’ve been hanging out together, not only from Garrett’s emails, but because one night I had called Stevie to talk and he brushed me off big-time. Told me Garrett had gotten him a ticket to the game that night and he was on his way out the door. He never called me back after, and I was stung by the way he seemed to be embracing Garrett over me.

When I arrive at work, Stevie meets me at the front door, his arms open wide and a light sheen of moisture in his eyes. As I step into his embrace, he coos at me, “Oh, baby…I’ve missed you so much. You can’t leave me again for that long.”

And just like that, my bruised ego over his connection to Garrett eases up.

“I missed you too,” I tell him as we rock back and forth, arms wound tightly around each other. When I pull away, I give him a critical once-over. The air has turned cooler since we’re in the last week of November, and Stevie is wearing a long-sleeved black turtleneck with black skinny jeans and black Doc Martens. He’s even wearing a pair of thick black plastic frames and his Mohawk is black.

“You’re looking kind of like a depressed coffee-shop poet,” I tell him with a snort.

“What do you mean? This is what I’m wearing to the game tonight. Cold Fury colors, and I’d rather be shot than wear one of those big, bulky jerseys. So unflattering. Of course, I’m going to wear a really nice silver belt. I’ve got to break up all this black.”

“The game?” I ask dumbly, and Stevie nods at me impatiently, turning away to walk back into the design area.

“Garrett gave me a ticket for tonight. Have to go cheer my boy on, you know?” he says in a singsong voice as he starts pulling the large buckets of fresh uncut flowers from the coolers so he can do inventory.

Something oily slithers through me, and I think it might be jealousy. “Garrett’s your boy now, huh?”

Stevie’s head snaps my way, and his eyes are wide. The tone of my voice was flat and filled with censure, because it didn’t seem fair that I’d lost Garrett but Stevie still had him. If Stevie was still friends with Garrett, that meant at some point I’d run into him, and I didn’t think I could handle that.

“Do you have a problem with me still being his friend?” Stevie asks quietly.

Yes,
I want to scream at him, but I don’t, because I immediately feel like shit for wanting to take away Stevie’s friendship.

Sighing, I slump down onto one of the stools and shoot him an apologetic look. “No, of course I don’t want that. It’s just…hard to think of you still seeing him when I won’t be. I guess it hurts a little.”

“He’s hurting too,” he reprimands, and turns back to the flowers. “How about coming and giving me a hand with these?”

I roll off the stool and walk with slumped shoulders over to the cooler, methodically dragging each of the flower buckets out into the open area so we can count our stock. We work quietly, which is unusual, because Stevie always keeps up a running banter of gossipy goodness. He’s miffed at me and probably confused, but I just don’t know any other way to explain my actions to him.

After about twenty minutes, we have the flowers counted and our order forms completed for when the truck will arrive this afternoon with fresh stock.

“Go ahead and get started on the orders,” Stevie says distractedly, and heads for the front of the store to unlock the door for customers.

“Hey,” I call out to him, and he turns to me with inquisitive eyes. “Is, um…is he seeing anyone?”

“Seeing anyone?” Stevie asks curiously.

“You know…back to his man-whore ways, or maybe…dating someone seriously?”

A tiny glint of a smile forms on Stevie’s face, but he doesn’t let it loose. Instead, he casually shrugs. “I’m not sure. He doesn’t discuss his sex life with me.”

“His sex life? He has a sex life?” I practically screech, and I know it’s ludicrous even as the words coated in razor wire escape my mouth.

Stevie’s smile widens and turns positively evil. “Slip of the tongue,” he says blandly. “No clue what Garrett does in his personal time. He’s been quiet about it with me, but then again…do you think he’d really tell me if he was seeing someone? Knowing that it would get back to you?”

My stomach drops, rolls over, cramps painfully. My heart constricts just as hard within my chest, and it feels as if all the oxygen in my lungs dissipates. Garrett definitely would not tell Stevie if he was dating again. And the fact he hasn’t said anything leads me to believe that he has, indeed, moved on from me and is seeing other women.

Anger flushes through me, followed by despair and longing, because I have no right to be angry. I have no right to expect anything of him, because not only did I break up with him, but I ignored his emails that he sent to me in a last-ditch attempt to keep me connected to him. When I didn’t do anything, it took away his hope, and he’s clearly moved on.

That thought is so painful, I double over and cross my arms over my stomach.

But I deserve this…I deserve this pain. I deserve to feel it, because I know Garrett has felt it. But I need to keep my resolve too. I need to seek comfort from knowing that eventually this pain will recede, and then Garrett can move on with his life and find someone better suited for him. That has to be my balm.

That has to keep me strong, and I’m grateful that Stevie isn’t pushing at me to let Garrett back in.

The morning goes by quickly, and I get immersed deeply in the soothing motions of creating various arrangements. Stevie is conspicuously silent, and his message is clear as he handles the customers up front. He’s not happy with my choices, he’s completely sympathetic to Garrett, and he’s letting me know it.

So be it…I don’t answer to him and I didn’t make these choices with any thought other than saving Garrett potential heartbreak and misery down the road.

The front doorbell rings and I can hear Stevie talking to someone in a low voice. I tune it out and sink back into the simple vase of red roses and baby’s breath I’m putting together.

“Hey,” I hear, and my head raises, my eyes widening in surprise when I see Alex leaning against the door frame.

“Hey,” I say hesitantly, completely flummoxed why he would be standing here. While Alex is engaged to Sutton, and I’m extremely close to her, I’m not necessarily very close to Alex. He’s always friendly and engaging, and I know he cares about me, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why he would come to see me. “Are you here to buy some flowers?”

“Um…no…I’m actually here to see you,” he says with a short smile as he steps in through the doorway to the design area and shuts the door. I glance through the window to the front and see Stevie with his head bowed over some receipts spread out on the checkout counter.

Alex walks over to my design table and leans over, sniffing at the roses. “Nice,” he says as he pulls back, and then sits down on the stool beside me.

I swivel my body toward him and just look at him in curiosity. He’s dressed in a pair of well-faded jeans and a long-sleeved black thermal tee. His dark hair is choppy and wavy all around his face and his pale eyes watch me with intensity.

“So, what’s up?” I ask, again for the life of me just not understanding why he’s here.

“I wanted to talk to you about Garrett,” he says simply, his voice firm and in control.

My voice, however, shakes when I ask, “What’s to talk about?”

“Oh, there’s a lot to talk about, Olivia. Mainly I want to talk about how you broke my best friend’s heart.” He’s angry and feels warranted in giving me a piece of his mind. I get it and I accept that anger. I’d feel the same if I was in his shoes.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I didn’t make this decision lightly.”

Some of the anger drains from Alex’s face, and he reaches out to place his hands on my shoulders. Leaning in, he looks me dead in the eye. “He’s hurting a lot. I know you are too. That’s what happens when two people who love each other and don’t have any sane reason for being apart keep themselves apart.”

I bring my hands up and clasp them onto Alex’s wrists. “It’s not that simple. I
had
to cut Garrett loose.”