Page 85 of Drowning Erin

He asks if we can go to dinner later in the week, just as friends. Because I can’t think of a workable reason why not, I nod, ruing the hours it means being away from Brendan.

And then I remember: there is no more time with Brendan. Every single plan, every single hour we might have had, died the moment Rob’s plane landed.

* * *

I drive back to the office feeling shaken. I could easily call Brendan on the way, but I don’t. I know what I want him to say—that he loves me, that he doesn’t want it to end, that we can find a way to make it work—and I also know he is not going to say it.

I’m not sure I can be trusted to make this call with an audience, so I wait until Timothy leaves the office and Harper steps away from her desk. When Brendan answers, I suck in the rasp of his “hey” like I can taste it. I hear the sound of glasses in the background, the murmurs of a crowd.

“Are you out?” I ask.

“I’m at Beck’s place.”

It’s only 3 PM. I’ve never known Brendan to be out drinking in the middle of the day, at least not since he came home. I don’t know why, but it feels like a bad sign.

I tell him Rob’s home, my stomach tipping, lurching—that same roller coaster I've been on since he first kissed me weeks ago, only so much worse.

“I heard,” he says, still distracted. I hear the unmistakable clink of pool balls crashing.

I didn’t expect that he’d already know. I didn’t expect that he’d sound like he doesn’t give a fuck either.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I didn’t tell him about us. Hang on. It’s my turn to break.”

I’ve slept with him pretty much every day for six weeks. I have spent every free moment with him. But this conversation isn’t even important enough for him to pause his fucking game? I feel that infinitely small wisp of hope gasp and die in my chest.

He comes back to the phone. "Are you going to tell him about us?" he asks. “I don’t want to be blindsided.”

I wanted him to offer something, at least express a little regret at the ending, but instead he sounds like some cavalier dick who had other plans tonight anyway. "Is that all you have to say?" I demand, a lump in my throat.

"What else am I supposed to say?” he says. “It was fun while it lasted. I hope it all works out for you guys, if that’s what you want."

Already I'm crying so hard that my shoulders are shaking and tears are dripping down my face. I will not give him the pleasure of knowing he's responsible for them, so I just hang up the phone.

59

Brendan

Three Years Earlier

Gabi has only a few days left in Italy when we take off to lead a three-day tour of Tuscany. I’m relieved that Seb and Paolo are coming with us—I will need anyone who isn’t Gabi to talk to while we’re gone. My game plan is to make a point of hanging with the guys at night, talking about bikes or whatever until Gabi gets bored and goes to bed. I think it’s the only way I’ll make it through the the trip without losing my shit.

It’s not until we arrive at the meeting point that I discover I’m completely fucked. Unlike our typical clientele—married 40-year-olds, active seniors—this tour group consists entirely of young, hot girls. Gabi’s looking from me to them, her smile long gone. I haven’t uttered a word to these women, and I’m already in trouble.

The best looking of them is Tatiana, a dead ringer for Selena Gomez. And although I avoid her, Tatiana does not avoid me. She talks to me, rides near me, sits close at lunch. Gabi has gone out of her way to make it clear I am taken. Tatiana doesn’t seem to care.

“You need to sleep with her,” Paolo insists. “It’s a crime not to sleep with her.”

“I can’t,” I say, glancing toward Gabi, who’s been watching me nonstop since the tour began.

I could have said “I don’t want to,” but it would have been a lie. I want to, and the clingier Gabi gets, the more I wish that Tatiana, with her tongue ring and the hint of a tattoo at the small of her back, was an option.

I am polite to Tatiana, nothing more, but Gabi is upset. Every night she wants to go to the room immediately, and because it’s not worth the fight that will ensue, I go with her.

On the last night of the trip, we all eat dinner together back in Florence. This is usually a celebration, but tonight it feels instead like a test of diplomacy, one I am failing miserably. On the one side of me is Tatiana, “accidentally” pressing her tits against my arm all night and talking about anal, and on the other is Gabi, sulking and unrelentingly bitchy to everyone at the table.

When dinner concludes, they all head to a bar down the street, while I return to my apartment with a pissed-off girl who will undoubtedly spend the next five hours crying, yelling at me, or both.

The door isn’t even shut before she starts.