Page 95 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
I want him to be mad at me. I want him to scream.
But Bram is focused on the road ahead. His mouth is pressed into an unmoving line, and it’s not until we are parked at the back of the driveway next to the shed when he unbuckles his seat belt and turns to me.
“I can understand,” he says, his words slow and steady, “if what you told Veronica Balentine about us being physical was just words. I can understand if you didn’t actually mean it but needed something in the moment to say to her. I know what my reputation means to the donors she works with, and I understand the position it puts you in. We can set this aside and move on.”
I am desperate to tell him that I didn’t mean it. That what I said to Veronica meant nothing. He wants to hear it, and in so many ways, so do I. But I can’t continue to hurt Bram like this. I can’t make him believe in something that we can’t have. “And then what?” I ask quietly. “And then I’ve lied to her and she either ruins me, or we have to exist in the shadows for how long, Bram? That’s not fair to you. Or the girls. Or me.”
The rise and fall of his chest has become more rapid. “Is it just physical, Madelyn? Answer me that, at least.”
“I know what you want me to say, Bram. I do. And there’s a version of me who wants that too, okay? A version of me who wants to be yours to keep. But that’s just the problem. That would be only one version of me. One version among many.”
“And I’m pretty sure I love every version of you,” he says, and it’s the kind of thing that you would die to hear spoken to you, but his words are dripping in sorrow.
“You can’t love me, Bram. You can’t love something you don’t know, and I don’t even know myself.”
“Learning yourself isn’t something you have to do alone.” His voice turns stern when he adds, “And don’t you dare tell me I can’t love you, because I do and I have and I will. If you’re changing and growing, I want to be there to witness it. Can’t you see that? I don’t want to stifle you. I want to be the one who creates the perfect conditions for you to flourish. I want to be there to watch you germinate as much as I want to be there to watch you bloom. Those aren’t different versions of you. Those are stages, Maddie, and each one of them requires specific circumstances and conditions. But above all, it is you at the heart. You are Maddie in every form.”
My eyes are burning with tears. I hadn’t cried in years until that day when Bram caught me getting out of his shower, and now the threat is there all over again.
I count to ten and swallow back the sting in my throat. I can’t cry, because if I cry, he will comfort me, and if he wraps his arms around me, I will never allow him to let go.
“I can’t give you what you want. You need someone to be there for you too. You need someone who can giveyouthe environment that you need to grow. You can’t just be the gardener. You can’t just give and give until you have nothing left, Bram. And selfishly, I cannot join your life at a time when mine is so uncertain. Because the world you’ve created—this beautiful fucking life of yours—is too big for me to not simply be consumed by it. I will never know what could be if I’m absorbed by the life you’ve spent years nurturing. It’s a life, by the way, that you should spend with someone who deserves you and can give you what you deserve in return.”
He grips the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “You never answered my question. Was it just physical? Is that what we were to you?”
The difference between Bram and me has been and always will be that I understand just how crucial it is for someone to be the bad guy. I understand that sometimes the road of truth is paved with lies.
It takes sitting on my hands to stop myself from reaching over and touching him.
I want to be greedy. I want to live in this bubble for just a while longer, but I know that the longer this goes on, the more it will hurt for the both of us.
And so, once again, I decide to do the hard thing. The thing no one wants to do. I break Bram Loe’s heart with one single word.
“Yes.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bram
Inod, as rust creeps up my throat and fills my mouth with the bitter taste of metal and heartbreak.
How foolish I am. How very old and besotted and ridiculous and selfish, selfish.
And how greedy, I add to the list.To want more when your life is already overflowing with plenty.
It’s a bad person who wants more than enough. Isn’t it? Who looks at their perfect kids, at the job of their dreams, at nosy, messy, loyal friends who’ve stuck with them for years and years, and thinksbut I want more?
Not everyone has a day in their life that they can point to and say that was the day they chose to be a good person, but I do. Sara and I emerged from our hiding places in that field, covered in burrs and mud and scrapes, and we decided.Idecided. I chose rules and logic and consent and equanimity. And this version of Bram right now, trying not to cry inside the cab of a truck that might as well be an oil spill, his ribs cracking open like dry, termite-eaten wood over someone who has been more than clear from the beginning...
This is everything I’ve chosen not to be.
I’ve chosen to be a good man. And I need to act like it.
“If you’ll go inside with the cactus, I’ll put everything else away?” I say, careful to frame it as a suggestion and not as an order.
Which doesn’t matter. Maddie shifts to look at me. I don’t look over, keeping my eyes on my hands instead.
“If we’re going to fight, then let’s fight,” she says. Her voice is steady, pointed. Fighting is where she feels the safest; to her, conflict is clarity, and clarity is relief. Funny to think that ten weeks ago, she was a complete stranger to me, and now I know this indelible thing about her.
