Before I Ever Met You

I don’t know what happens next. I’m caught in some kind of vortex, alternating between going numb and pulsing with rage. I’m at once a child, helpless and afraid, and then I am me, I am now, and I am the same. Angry, lost, and so fucking desperate.

When Kate comes in from reception, hours later, I’m sitting in the armchair and staring blankly at the wall, the wicker creating grooves into my sweating skin.

“Ron?” she says, appearing in front of me, hands on hips. “What are you doing?”

I can’t even look at her. I’ll have to say goodbye to her too. There’s no way I can do this to Logan and then stick around to watch our love collapse.

“Ron?” she says again and now her voice is higher, concerned. She comes closer and crouches down at my level. “Hey,” she says, putting her hand on mine and then recoiling. My hand is covered in sweat. “What’s wrong with you?”

I slowly bring my eyes over to meet hers, but I can’t do anything but blink.

I’ve never seen her look so worried.

“Are you having a seizure?”

“I need your help,” I whisper. That wasn’t at all what I was going to say. I was planning on saying nothing, on leaving her in the dark. But now I’m not so sure. I can’t do this alone.

“What is it?”

I lick my lips. My mouth feels like sandpaper. “Can you keep a secret? I mean a big secret.”

She cocks her head, unamused. “What do you think I’ve been doing this last month?”

She’s right. She kept me and Logan secret this whole time. No one knew.

I burst into tears.

Big, sobbing tears that spill from my eyes, tears that torment my body.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “What’s happened? Are you dying?”

It feels like it. Fuck, help me, it feels like it.

“I have to leave,” I say between sobs. “I have to go.”

“What, why?”

Somehow I manage to explain it, I explain everything my parents told me and everything that I know they’re capable of.

When I’m done, Kate is stunned. “I don’t get it. You sure they aren’t bluffing?”

I shake my head. “No. They don’t bluff. My mother is a politician.”

“A born bluffer.”

“Not when it threatens her career.”

“But I don’t get it. I mean, yeah okay I can see how bad it would look, but people get used to things, and really it’s not a big deal.”

“Kate. Believe me. This is a big deal. And this, what they’re doing, is nothing to them. It’s minor. But it will ruin everything we have. Kate, you’ll lose your job. We’ll all lose.”

“Fucking Charlie,” she swears. “I’m going to chop his perfect dick off.”

“Don’t get me started on Charlie,” I tell her. “Right now, he’s not important. What’s important is…”

I take in a deep shaking breath. I can’t say it again. I can’t do it.

“Just stay,” Kate whispers to me, taking my hand. “Stay and fight it. Maybe Logan has the money.” I shake my head, closing my eyes. More tears spill. “Maybe he’s ready for a change.”

“That’s why I can’t tell him what’s happening,” I tell her. “Because no matter what happens, he’ll give it up for me. I know him. He’s good. He’s too good for me. I have to do this or he’ll lose it all and I can’t be the one to make that happen.”

“So what are you going to say to him?”

“I can’t say anything,” I tell her. “About any of this. And neither can you.”

“So you’re just going to give him back his ring and leave?”

I nod, though my chest is aching from the sobs. “Yes. I have to tell him I don’t love him anymore and I’m not ready and I’ll have to leave a note and leave.”

She stands up. “A note?” she exclaims. “You can’t leave him a fucking note. You owe him way more than that. You owe him the truth. You owe him what’s going on. You’re going to destroy him inside, Ron. He loves you.” She puts her hand to her forehead and stares at me with a pained expression. “Please, please, don’t do this to him.”

I have no choice. Can’t she see this? “I have to!” I cry out. “If I try and lie to his face, he’ll see right through me. He’ll know. I can’t keep that lie up with him in front of me. It’s this or it’s nothing.”

“Then choose nothing, Ron, please, stay!”

I get up and hold out my pink finger. “You promised you wouldn’t tell, now swear on it.”

She stares at me with wild eyes. “Please, Ron.”

“Do it! Promise me. Let me be the bad guy here, let him blame me for leaving. It’s better than the alternative.”

She clamps her lips together until they are pressed into a thin, hard line and for a moment I think she’s not going to do it. She’s that stubborn. But then her finger wraps around mine and I know, pray, hope, her word is still good.

“I hate this,” she says, looking sick. “I hate that you’re leaving, I hate that you’re leaving him broken hearted. Don’t you think he’s gone through a lot with Juliet? Now you’re going to tell him you never loved him? Do you know what that’s going to do to him?”

“I can’t live with the guilt—”

“Did you ever think that maybe you should?” she questions. “That it’s a better sacrifice if he loses the hotel and you live with the guilt over that than it is for him to keep it and lose you?”

Maybe it is selfish. But I still think it’s the only way he’ll come out of it.

“What would you do?” I say to her. “If you were in my position. Forget Charlie, he’s a piece of shit. But think if you were in love. What would you do?”

“People don’t like having their life decided for them,” she says after mulling it over.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Because I don’t know.” She sighs. “I just want you both to be happy. And this way neither of you will be.”

“Yeah well, maybe it was a mistake that I came here to begin with.”

“Ron…”

I push past her. “I have to pack.”

“You can’t be going now.”

“My father sent me an email. I’m on the eleven-p.m. red-eye to Seattle.”

“What the actual fuck?” she practically explodes, following me into my bedroom. “You are fucking joking!”

“I need a ride to the airport soon,” I tell her. “Not Charlie.”

“Dude, no, no, no. You can’t just up and leave.”

“I have to! I told you I can’t face him, he’ll know and he’ll make me stay and he’ll give everything up for me when he shouldn’t. What the fuck am I supposed to do, just keep this a secret until the time is right? There is no right time, this is all horrible, it’s so horrible!”