Are You Mine

Chapter 21


Saige


A rule of life has been confirmed for me. Everything you want to savor goes by faster than things you’d rather not. Chocolate cake, a funny movie, hot showers, and time with the best guy I’ve ever met in my life.

The summer flies by. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing or if it’s fun or active. Whether it’s the second Avett Brother’s concert, tagging bridges with the leaf and fox, or just sitting around my apartment, it doesn’t matter; time moves quicker for the simple fact that I don’t want it to.

As the days become nights and the nights become days, I can feel that dirty little defense mechanism at work within me. I pull away from Fox. I don’t mean to, and at times, I struggle against it, but it happens anyway. At the concert in Camden, I don’t dance, even though he wants me to. I just watch him. When we work on the new graphic novel, I only halfheartedly come up with ideas for the next scene and give bland responses to his questions when he shows me his drawings.

Now there’s only a week until he boards a plane and heads off on his European adventure. I’ve been trying to fill my time by getting ready to move to New York, but I haven’t even given notice to my landlord. Thoughts of California invade my mind frequently now, but the shiny edges have worn off into something dull—something easy to see I won’t do.

“Last one ‘til I get back!” Fox says as he hoists himself back over the low concrete barrier. The joy on his face kills me, but I just grin back at him. There’s no reason to ruin that charming happiness he exudes after tagging a bridge.

“Not many left now,” I say. In the past few weeks, he’s tagged a lot of bridges. There can’t be many more between Pechimu and the city.

He takes my hand, and we start walking to his car. “Nope. Almost ready to put the big black check mark next to this one on my To Do list.”

Like a perfect gentleman, he opens the passenger door for me, and once I’m in, he fiddles around with his graffiti supplies until he’s finally in the driver’s seat. “What’s that look for, Saigey?”

“What look?”

Fox shifts in his seat until his whole body is almost facing me. “The one where this,” he says as he reaches out and touches a finger to the crease in my brow, “dominates everything else.”

I relax the muscles in my face and turn toward the windshield. His hand drops to the gearshift as he settles down into his seat. I try to savor the sound the vinyl makes, but the deep creaking evaporates like the light fog on the windshield once Fox turns his old VW on.

“Are we going to be okay?” he asks after a long silence.

I swallow hard and for a moment, the sound drowns out the noise of the pounding blood in my body. “What if you like it over there and stay?”

The breath he lets out is slow and steady, and it should comfort me but doesn’t. “How could that happen? I mean, think about it. It’s not like I have an unlimited supply of money. I don’t know the first thing about working in a foreign country. Sure, I speak the language, but it’s not like I’m going to beat out native born English people for—”

“You’re an adventurous guy. There are tons of books—memoirs, travel diaries—of adventurous guys heading off and never coming back. I’m not—”

“My dad lives here. My mother’s here. I’m not going to go live in England and never see my mother again. She might be a little crazy, but she’d recognize if I stopped coming.” The crinkle of vinyl sounds again, and I turn toward it. Fox cups my cheek in his hand. “And you’re here. I wish you’d believe me when I tell you that you’re enough reason to come back. You’ll be at NYU, and I’ll be in Pechimu and those two places aren’t that far apart.”

I don’t know what compels me to argue, but I say, “What if you come back and I’m not at NYU? What if I ditched college and started my own adventure?”

“Then I’ll drive to California and find you on the beach,” he says. I love the fact he knows if I was going to have an adventure, it’d be on the beaches of California. “There may be hundreds of pretty girls there, but you’ll be easy to find. You’ll be the gorgeous girl holding my heart.”

“I—”

“You can’t give it back, even if you want to,” he says as he faces forward again. “I’ve given it to you and until I take it back, it’s yours to keep.”

I’m speechless as he drives us back to my place. I can think of nothing to say to him as we get ready for bed. Even as he kisses my collarbone after we lie down, I am blank inside. He’s going to leave, and I don’t want him to. I hate that on so many levels. I hate how selfish it makes me, but I also hate that I’ve allowed myself to even get into this painful situation.

Even if he comes back from England like he says he will, he’ll be changed by the experience and I’ll be the same. Just like with anyone else, I won’t be able to hold onto him. He’ll move on. I fully expect him to, just like I expect Myka to make awesome new friends at college and slowly fade from my life. No one stays, even when they mean to.

In the morning Fox gets up to go to work, and I pretend to sleep. He places a single kiss on my temple and it sears into me. Yes, it’s sweet. Yes, I love it, but deeper than that—in some little black box of negativity within me—I hate it.

I hate it because I won’t have it this time next week. Hell, I won’t even have him this time three days from now.

When he has gone to work, I spend my morning and afternoon trying to convince myself that all those damned poets are right. It’s better to feel something than to not, and while most of me is convinced of this, there’s that vocal minority screaming at me, telling me off for letting Fox in at all, because this shit hurts.

When he knocks on my door around four in the afternoon, I don’t bother getting up and letting him in. I just bellow, “It’s open!”

I can’t look at the smile I’m going to miss as he enters the living room. He’s always so damned happy. It’s annoying. “I know it’s early, but I’m starving,” Fox says. “Do you want to be like a couple of old people and get some early bird specials?”

“Not hungry.” I flip through the pages of some book I picked up but haven’t read.

“Okay.” He says it slow, and I know he can tell something’s wrong. Despite what I thought before the summer, I know how smart he is, and beyond smart, he’s intuitive and emotionally connected. “Do you mind if I order something to be delivered because I’m—”

“Starving. I heard you. Do what you want.”

He says, “Okay,” again, but doesn’t move from his spot. I can feel him looking at me. I swear, five minutes passes, and I can no longer keep myself from glancing up at him. As soon as our eyes connect, he asks, “What’s going on, Saigey?”

“Nothing. Just order your food.” I toss the book on the coffee table and grab my laptop.

“If I get Chinese, will you eat some?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Again, he doesn’t speak for a while and the quiet tension almost becomes too much. “Do you know how to make an egg roll?”

It’s one of his jokes, and as much as I want to hear him tell me the corny punch line, I can’t let him. I almost cringe as my harsh voice kills his fun. “You push it. It’s an old joke, and it’s not even funny.”

I look up at him. Fox sits across from me with his phone in his hands. He looks like a kicked puppy, a little lost boy, a guy who can’t believe his girlfriend is going to do this to him. But he knows. I know he can feel what’s going to happen and no matter how much neither of us wants it to happen, we both know it will.

“Today’s the day, huh?” he says. I don’t say anything because the way his eyes get all watery takes my breath away. His voice is a whisper. “Don’t do it.”

We’ve been through all this before, but unlike before, I need to protect myself because Fox leaving isn’t just something that could happen, it will happen in a few days. I have to change my tactic because he’s so good at getting me to concede. I can’t play this soft. He’ll see through that and will use his charm and charisma to change my mind again, which will only lead to more harm and heartache for both of us.

I harden myself by squashing down any emotion. “I won’t do it.” The relief in his expression is short lived as I go on. “If you stay.”

“I have plane tickets. I have hotel reservations. I have the ticket to the football match. I can’t just—”

I don’t even need words to cut him off. Just by pressing my lips together, I silence him. He runs his hands through his hair several times until he takes a deep breath and looks me in the eyes again. “You want me to give up something I’ve worked for since I was fifteen? You have no idea what it’s like to work hard for something.”

“That’s not true. How the hell would you know—”

“You haven’t even finished one thing you’ve worked on beyond graduating high school.”

“What about Myka’s Metal Valentine?”

Fox taps his hand on his chest. “You finished that because of me.”

Everything about this conversation is wrong, but I can’t figure out how to maneuver it until it’s right again. “I’ve worked hard for us. Stay with me. Don’t go to England so I can finish our—”

“Oh, my God. Are we doing this? Are we really fighting about England?”

“Yes.”

He licks his lips as he shakes his head. It’s painful to watch, but I know if we just go through this pain together right now, it’ll kill the pain that’s out there waiting for us at some unknown place and time. If I just push through this, he’ll be better off and so will I.

“I already have my tickets,” he says again. “I’ve been saving for five years. That might not mean anything to you, but that’s a hundred warehouse shifts above and beyond what I worked just to help out with the mortgage, food, and the hospital bill.”

“So? I’ll give you the money to cancel the trip. I’ll repay you to—”

“You can’t buy every goddamned thing in the world, Saige! You can’t buy my dream. I don’t want your money, and I don’t want to give up England. I’m going to sit in the stands of Anfield and sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” with the rest of the Liverpool fans and know I’ve earned my place there.” Fox stands up, but immediately sits back down. “Instead of being scared and pissed off and wanting to use the money to buy my dream, know I love you and use the money to come to England with me. Please.”

I push my laptop off onto the couch and cross my arms. “And then what? It’s not like you have life all planned out.”

“No, but at least I have a road map. You don’t have any plan. You’re just content to sit around and let life push you this way or that.”

For most of my life, I’ve tried to avoid confrontation, but when I can’t avoid it and I’m in the thick of it, something within me kicks in, and all I can do is fight. “A road map? To where, Fox? Pechimu’s finest fast food chain and a warehouse? That’s not life. That’s—”

“You’re being so selfish. I would never ask you to give up your plans for me.”

“Then don’t. Stay here with me or we can go to California and—”

“Absolutely not. You and I both know you’re not going to California. At least not right now. You have to actually take steps to accomplish a goal, Saige. You can’t achieve things you don’t work for. And all we ever do is hang out in this damned apartment. Get off your ass and go to England with me.”

I stand up and glare down at him. “I do not just sit on my ass all day, thank you very much!”

Fox laughs. It’s not malicious, but it still cuts into me. “Yes, you do, and I love you for it, but come sit on your ass in England with me.” As he stands up and steps around the coffee table, I can see a little gleam of hope in his eyes. He thinks I’ll see the logic in his proposal. There’s no room in this conversation for hope. I’m ending it for his own good and for mine.

I move two feet to the side to keep my distance. “Whatever.”

He stops. “That’s what you’ve got to say? Whatever?”

I shrug and wrap my arms around my belly as I try to keep the pain within me. I won’t cry in front of him. I won’t be a wounded little girl in front of anyone anymore.

Fox shakes his head as he takes a step back. “You won’t even try? You won’t even try to maybe meet me halfway?”

I don’t know what to say, and even if I did, I doubt I’d be able to say it.

“Jesus. Do I even know you, Saige? I thought you had passion and fire within you. I adore the girl who finally breaks free of all the shit that chains her to—”

“Well, you must’ve misread me. You’ve known before we even started hanging out who I was. Your friends have told you how toxic I am, so why you had hope for anything beyond—”

He motions to me but then lets his hand flop down to his side. “You can’t even give me a real expression. You’re so trapped in your little protective box. You like it in there.”

“Sorry,” I say without much feeling.

“See? You’re so cold, Saige,” he says as he looks away from me. “Fine, I won’t go to England then. Does that make you happy? Can we be together? Can you finally open yourself up to me?”

Things happen in slow motion. I almost float down to the couch. I recognize I’m sitting on my laptop but make no motion to pull it out from under me. Fox walks slowly back to the chair, but doesn’t sit down. “Do you love me?” he asks.

“I think we’re over, Fox.” My words surprise even me. They’re as definitive as it gets.

“I just said I’d give up England for you. Choose me like I’ve just chosen you and we. . .” He doesn’t finish his statement as he drags a hand down his face. “It’s not complicated. It should be simple.” He’s missing the part where I already said we’re over. “Do you love me or not?”

I stay silent because I think it’s the best way to get him to understand, but like always, Fox fills the void. Unlike usual, it’s not a joke though. “You want me to give up my dream for you, but you can’t even tell me you love me?” Fox looks around my apartment. “What am I even doing here?”

Without anything else, he turns and walks to the hallway that leads to the foyer. Panic rises and I blurt out the only thing I can think of. “What about the book?” I ask as I reach for it on the coffee table.

Fox stops, but doesn’t turn around. His shoulders are slumped forward and his head hangs. I’m the world’s worst person for hurting him like this, but what’s done is done and now he can go on with his life free and clear of me and my toxicity.

When he does crane his head enough to see all of his work for the gods and demons novels stacked in my hands, I can see the pure anguish in his eyes. “Pitch it,” he says before he walks out of my apartment.

As soon as I hear the door close behind the best guy in the world, the gut-wrenching pain stabs at me. I curl into a ball and try to convince myself that this is for the best; this pain has to be better than the pain that would have surely come at some point if we would’ve stayed together.

But I’m not sure I’ll ever be certain of it. My only hope is that time and seclusion will bring relief.