He gives me a look that threatens violence. “You’re pathetic,” he tells me.
“No. No, I haven’t seen her. Not yet.”
“And?” He passes me a two by four and I take it from him.
“And I’m thinking about it. I don’t know yet.” Don’t know where I’ll see her. Don’t know what I’ll say. Don’t know if running away back to New York would be for the better or for the worse. “There are a lot of factors at play, here.” I buzz the plank of wood in half, holding the two together to make sure they’re even, and then I place both of them on the huge stack by the open double door leading out onto the loading dock. Shane is staring at me like I’m a space alien when I turn around. “What?”
“You’ve had over ten years to figure this shit out, Cross. You should know exactly what’s up by now. You were in love with her back then. You’re in love with her now. Simple.”
I hate that word. It makes me break out in hives and Shane knows it. “It’s not that simple. You know how she feels about me. It’s not like I can go hunt her down, give her a high five, ask her what’s up and all will be forgiven.”
“I know how she felt about you twelve years ago,” Shane says. “And yeah, she was mad at you. But she still loved you. You can’t just turn that shit off. You should never have let her leave.”
I stop milling the piece of wood in my hands, grinding my teeth together. I don’t get mad about many things, but the situation with Coralie…That’s one of the only things that will make my blood boil. Shane’s a friend, a fantastic, awesome, kick ass friend who’s put up with my shit far longer than he ever should have had to, but he has no idea what he’s talking about right now. I want to chew him out and give him hell, but like I said: he’s already put up with an unreasonable amount of shit from me. I need to bite my tongue. Behind me, he sighs.
“Okay. I’m going to assume from your complete and utter silence that you wanna tear me a new asshole right now, but haven’t you thought about it, Cal? Haven’t you thought about what your life would be like right now if you hadn’t let her leave that night?”
“Of course I have.”
“And? Wouldn’t it have been worth the extra fight?”
I stay silent, thinking about how much fight it would have taken to get her to stay. It would have been awful. It would have been brutal. I would have had to crawl on hand and knee, apologize until I ran out of breath, I would have needed to swallow my pride and begged. Eventually she would have changed her mind. She would have stayed. Shane doesn’t know anything about what happened that night, though. And he has no idea what it would have been like for the both of us if Coralie had remained behind in Port Royal. It wouldn’t have been sweet smelling roses and happily ever after, that’s for sure.
I take a deep breath, throwing aside more wood. “There was nothing to be done, man. It went how it was supposed to go. I fucked up, and she got out. The end.”
He says nothing, but I’m sure he disagrees with me. We continue to work in silence, and after a couple of minutes Shane begins to hum. This is a peace offering from him, an apology in a way. The song is Journey, Don’t Stop Believing—the song we would blast out of our car speakers, belt out at the top of our lungs whenever we were driving anywhere. He gets through the first verse and the chorus before I give in and join him.
Eventually our humming turns to lyrics, and then we’re belting out the song together, screaming our way through the final chorus and playing air guitar for absolutely no reason. Once we reach the end of the song, Shane tosses my shirt at me, laughing.
“Get dressed, you asshole. I’m sick of staring at your washboard abs. How the fuck does a photographer even look like that anyway?”
“It’s called working out, my friend. You should try it sometime.”
“I haul wood and build shit all day. I should be ripped if that’s your argument.”
I grunt, conceding. “Maybe you should stop eating double cheeseburgers every single meal then. And subbing out some of the six pack you drink every night with water would undoubtedly be a wise move, as well.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “I’m a married man now. Isn’t that punishment enough in my life?”
I nod, laughing, as I slide my t-shirt back on. “Yeah, well I guess you’re gonna have to put up with the keg you’re carrying around, then, friend. Let me know if you wanna come for a run sometimes. I’ll go slow for you.”
Shane growls at the back of his throat, shaking his head. “Whatever, man. How about this? I’ll come for a run with you when you figure out your shit with Coralie.” He winks at me, making a gun out of his hand and pointing it at my head. “I won’t rush out and buy myself some new sneakers, I guess, huh?”
CHAPTER SIX
CORALIE
Red Tape
NOW