Lauren Blakely - Every Second With You

Deny . That is all I know. It is all I can rely on. It is my only recourse. I have a fucking master’s degree in it. It’s been a daily practice of mine. “I didn’t, Harley, I swear. Jesus, I just wanted to do it against the counter. You act like it’s such a big deal.”

She parks her hands on her hips. “It is a big deal. Us. This. You and me. It’s the biggest deal. Sex between us is a big deal and if you can’t handle that, then sorry, Trey. But it’s a big deal for a million fucking reasons, not the least of which is this,” she says, pressing her hands to her belly. “Everything matters.”

“You are seriously overreacting and you need to calm down. Is this preg—”

She holds up her hand. Her palm could stop a truck right now. “No. Just don’t, Trey. Just don’t.”

She turns around, grabs the door handle and pulls it open. She looks back at me one more time. “I need a break. I don’t want you to show up tonight saying you’re sorry. Or tomorrow. Or Sunday.”

This is the real bullet, and it shoots straight through my chest. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, my voice wobbly.

“I’m saying we need a break right now. Goodbye.”

Then she leaves. She doesn’t slam the door. She closes it quietly, and walks away, leaving me alone with all my terrible loneliness.

And I don’t feel an ounce less pain. I feel everything, all the weight of my stupid decisions, and it hurts so much, because my trick didn’t work. I didn’t fool myself. I didn’t fool anyone. She is gone, and the memories and the images play on a reel in my head. Each one. Each brother. Each death.

It’s on a punishing loop that I deserve.

Trey

Michele would kill me if she knew what I’d done. Okay, maybe not kill me. More like wallop me verbally. So I don’t call her the next day. I don’t crawl on my hands and knees begging for her to solve this problem the day after, either. I made the mess. I fucked things up. I need to fix my shit.

I give Harley the space she needs, though it takes all my resistance to do what she asked. I become a zombie, clunking to my history class, to No Regrets, to the gym, to hang with Jordan. But the whole time there’s this persistent ache in my chest, a hollowness that longs to be filled with her. That can only be filled with her.

At work one night, a punkish-looking girl comes in to plan out a tat she wants on her shoulder, and I’m shot back in time to the night I first inked Harley, to all the things we shared in the coffee shop, on the train, at my place. Then when I redid her ink and made it ours.

“I was hoping you could do a cherry blossom tree,” the punk girl says, showing me a photograph she took of a tree in Japan, then running her hand from her back across her ribs and to her belly. She explains her vision, and the tat will be huge and incredibly intricate.

“Give me a few days to work on the design,” I say, and when she leaves I tell my boss, Hector, about her request.

“It’s way more complex than the stuff we usually do,” I tell him.

“Hell yeah. That’s going to take hours. I hope she can sit still for that long,” he says, shaking his head in admiration.

“I hope I can do it,” I say.

“Of course you can. You’re my best artist. Just sketch it out. But you should see my buddy, Ilyas, at Painted Ink in Brooklyn. He can give you some pointers. He’s a real artiste .”

Hector calls Ilyas and sets a time for me, and I’m grateful for the potential guidance and the fact that I just passed another hour without Harley.

But she’s never far from me. She’s a part of me, and when I leave the shop and walk home, my neck is bent the whole time as I scroll through pictures of Harley on my phone. Harley on the Staten Island Ferry this summer, leaning over the deck railing, her long blond hair wild in the sea breeze. Her at the Jane Black show we went to at the Knitting Factory, singing along to her favorite songs from the rock star. Then, this one where she’s all tucked up on my futon, wearing only a long, clingy shirt as she’s reading a book, a worn and tattered paperback about characters in a play that come alive.

Our summer together.

I nearly cave one night when I walk over to her block, stare up five flights to her window, and will her to sense me, to fling open the window, and joyously call me up. Throw her arms around me and tell me I’m forgiven for being a dick. That doesn’t happen, so I sink down to the stoop and park my ass there for a few minutes, drawing in my sketchbook, mapping out the cherry blossom tree.

But I feel like a stalker, so I stand, glancing one more time at her window. The pangs of being near her but not near enough stab like little knives.

I walk away, leaving her alone like she wants, and I wander around Chelsea, stopping in a bodega, grabbing a bag of chips and munching them on my way home. But I don’t want to go home and be without her, so I head for the gym, even though it’s midnight, and I work out for two hours until my body is so tired I have no choice but to crash.

My arms feel empty all through the night. And even though I’m tempted to knock on Sloan’s door to say hi, only to say hi, just to prove I can resist because I’d never ever cheat on Harley for real or in my head again, I know this isn’t about Sloan.

This is about my brothers.

I go to see them the next night.

To their tree.

A delivery truck backs up along Eighth Avenue, ready to unload food to the all-night grocery store near the park, its persistent beeping mingling with the sounds of cab horns that never stop, cell phone conversations that flood the sidewalks, and music filtering out of bars. I cross the street and reach the park on the next block, stopping at the entryway. Abingdon Square Park is tiny, a triangular patch of greenery that straddles the top of Chelsea and the bottom of the Village. There are benches and a circular walkway, and trees and flowers that line the grass. There are no playgrounds or swings, so it’s a park for contemplation. And, to be honest, for late-night drunk pissing, and the homeless, because this is New York, after all. There’s no purity in the city; even a park like this could never be a place of respite.

I head for the tree I planted four years ago for my dead brothers – to remember them. I’ve visited it many times. I even took Harley here a few months ago and she kissed the tree, and I think that was the moment when I knew I was wildly in love with her, and that the love would never stop; it would only grow. And now it’s really growing, and I’m a fucking mess.

I touch the tree. The bark is rough against my hand. But I run my palm along the small trunk, remembering how awful I felt when Will died. How hard it was to tell Harley. How much I miss three people I never knew.

It makes no sense sometimes; how could I miss a baby? But they were my blood, they were the brothers I never knew, and I miss the lost chance. I miss the chance to have been a family.

I grip the branch harder, and then I sink to my knees, the grass cool against my jeans. I lean my forehead on the branch and close my eyes, flashing back to the best piece of advice Michele ever gave me. “ You can shut off and shut down, but none of those reactions are ultimately going to heal your heart. What will help you is speaking your truth. But don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t make assumptions. Say only what you know to be true. ”

I bite my lip, as if I can hold it all in. But it’s simmering inside me, bubbling up. The ground feels uneven, like it’s swaying and ready to crumble under me. I grab harder onto the branch, trying to hold on. But it’s no use. I can’t hold on. I have to let it out. A thick giant tear that rolls down my cheek. “I’m so fucking scared,” I whisper. “I’m so scared the baby is going to join you, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through this in one piece. Because if I lose someone again, I don’t know that I can handle it.”