“What about the money?” I asked. The hotel must have been a few hundred dollars at least.
“Money doesn’t matter,” Charlie said. “You being happy matters.” Sometimes it was like Charlie read the manual on stuff boyfriends should say, or maybe wrote it. So we drove from Montreal all the way along the Saint Lawrence River until we reached Quebec City. Along the way we stopped in a park and lay in the grass and wrapped our coats around us until there was just a tent of coats and us and some geese squawking in the background. “A coat taco,” Charlie said. “We’re the filling.” And I laughed and thought about how perfect it all was, sans grandeur, because in this way I could be myself: I could bring a little of me into his world instead of leaving myself behind.
When we got to Quebec City, we stopped in a roadside dive and ate poutine until we felt sick, our fingers coated in cheese and gravy. Then we found a cute little place to stay, a mom-and-pop B&B that didn’t even ask us for ID, and we were so tired from the day that we curled up atop the mattress and fell asleep with all our clothes on, his arms wrapped around me.
The next day we got under the covers, and some of our clothes came off. We didn’t sleep together, but everything we did do was on my terms. “There’ve been a couple of times that I’m with you,” he whispered, “and it’s like, there’s no air in the room.” I smiled. That time, I didn’t tease him. Our heads were nearly touching on the pillow. He moved forward, closing up those last inches, and placed his lips on my forehead. I woke up happy that morning and stayed happy all through the rest of that perfect weekend. It was one of a handful of times we really got away, just the two of us, for an entire weekend. Each time it took all kinds of finagling on my part—lots of lying to my parents. Back then, I thought it was worth it.
So many mornings, I woke up happy that Charlie was in my life.
Then one morning, I stopped waking up happy.
I haven’t been in many long-term relationships—only two—but here’s what I think: For a while, you wake up happy. Then other things happen, small things—misunderstandings like the one in the hotel. And they accumulate, and one day you wake up with a weight on your chest, one that takes all day to shake. And that’s when you know: happiness with that person is only fleeting. That person, that thing—it feels for a while like it might be right, until you realize it isn’t, not quite.
I tell Adam to leave, even though it’s the last thing in the world that I want.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he wants to know. “I don’t like her, Aubrey.” He glances back through the warped glass windows of the café where Lena sits, her blond hair draped around her shoulders, concealing her face. The expression Adam gives me when he faces me again is protective. This whole time, Adam has made me feel cared about in small ways. It was something Charlie never did. It’s given me so much comfort as everything around me has started to fall apart.
“You don’t like her because she wasn’t afraid to call us out,” I remind him. “You don’t really know her. She’s my friend . . .” I trail off, my cheeks burning. It’s just so weird to talk about Charlie with Adam, after everything. It was true what we told Lena; we only saw each other that one time. I only cheated that one time. But all the letters, phone calls, flirty texts, over the next eight months . . . those counted for something. It was unconscionable. And yet, I cared about them both. I didn’t exactly let myself fall for Adam; I always felt like it happened despite everything, like I didn’t have a choice.
“So I guess people can tell,” he says, smiling a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I guess we have some sort of invisible yet obvious bond, huh?”
“It seems like it.” I reach out to him, burying my head in his chest and wrapping my arms around his back. I pull him to me in a tight hug.
“Aubrey.” He rests his chin on my head. “I’m just so sad for you.”
“I’m sad for both of us. Charlie, too. And Lena. We’re just a huge, sad mess.” I don’t have to say why I’m sad for both of us; he knows. We can’t be together, not yet, and not this way. Probably not ever. We never talked about it until last night.
“Last night can’t happen again,” he says, more like it’s a question.
“You know it can’t.”
“And you’re sure you want me to go?”
“I don’t even know how much longer we’ll be in Bombay, Adam. Knowing Lena, she’ll want to hop the next plane to Kerala. Track Charlie down there.”