(Blakey and Claire canceled for the cabin, Merri told him the next day, disappointed, mystified. They’d been vacationing together most summers for a decade. Any idea why? She’s been acting so weird. They’d tell us if they were having problems, wouldn’t they?) Wolf had been pissed, knowing that Blake had told Claire that Wolf was fucking around, breaking the sacred man code.
Now, Wolf inched toward the door. He didn’t move fast anymore, which is one of the reasons he needed to leave soon. The city that he used to navigate with the arrogant ease of the young and healthy was now a painful obstacle course of stairs and uneven sidewalks, crushing crowds, and uncomfortable subway rides where suddenly younger people offered up their seats—seeing at first his crutch, then his obvious limp. Even the kindest touch could hurt when you were a raw and bleeding open wound, which he was.
He was healing, but not quickly. But he was glad for the almost constant pain. He deserved it. He deserved a lot worse. The bullet had just missed the major artery but broken the bone, lodging itself into his femur. (In dark moments, he’d wished it had killed him.) The doctor had opted to leave it in, rather than risk nerve injury. The bone would heal around it, apparently. Wolf imagined that he could feel the cold bit of metal inside the knitting flesh and bone, a hard, icy reminder to carry with him forever, to remind him how he had failed his beautiful Abbey. How he had failed them all. Ever since they’d been kids, Wolf had always wished he were more like Blake. Nothing like this could ever happen to his friend; Blake wouldn’t allow it.
“You know, Wolf,” Kristi said now. “I’ve been suffering, too.”
He almost laughed. A young, pretty, childless woman of privilege did not know suffering.
“Did you just say that?” he asked. “Do you have no idea what we have been going through?”
Of course, she didn’t. She was a spectator, had no skin in the game. He didn’t want to blame her. Everything rested cleanly on his shoulders. But deep down inside where he might hold a little bit of love or affection for her, there was only a cold, angry feeling. If it hadn’t been for you—
But that was the old Wolf. The Wolf who had not yet been harshly punished by the universe. The new chastened Wolf was trying to be there for his sundered, shattered family. He was trying to wade through the deepest, most unimaginable mire of horror, grief, and regret possible for a human to endure. And he only kept moving because of his beautiful, damaged boy who needed him to get whole again somehow. But Wolf was still fucking Kristi. How could he excuse this? He couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said. This time she looked sincere. “I know how hard it is. I can see that.”
He waited for it.
“But we had a plan. You made promises to me. Do you remember? I can’t put my life on hold forever.”
Here was what he should have said:
Kris, you’re right. I can’t string you along anymore. For a moment, a brief blistering moment, I thought that what we had was love. But I don’t love you. I never did. It’s only now, sifting through the debris of my life, the one I didn’t appreciate, that I realize what I’ve lost. You should just find a nice guy your age (yeah, she was only twenty-five). Find a nice guy with a blog and a Facebook page, maybe even a fat publishing contract. Someone who is young enough to confuse lust with love, someone who is shallow enough to never notice that you have the emotional depth of a kiddie pool. I have been sleeping with you because you are simply the only easy pleasure I have had in my life for ages. Now that you are no longer easy? You are just not worth the effort.
Instead:
“Look, Kris, my mom and dad are coming to spend time with Jackson tonight. I’ll come over, okay? We’ll talk more.”
She wiped her tears, that bright smile coming back a little.
“And we’ll figure it out?” she said. “We’ll make another plan?”
“Yeah,” he lied. He lifted her bright red wool coat from the hook on the wall and handed it to her. “We will.”
“You promise?” She stretched up to kiss him softly on the lips. He let her because honestly she was the only person who kissed him anymore—other than pecks on the cheek from his mom. Jackson endured Wolf’s kisses to the forehead. Merri wouldn’t come near him; she actually recoiled from physical contact with him. Who could blame her?
“I promise,” he said.
As they exited the building, she had that little bounce in her step again. She had no idea that they were never going to see each other again. He had always been an excellent liar.
*
Uptown, Wolf got off the train a stop early to force himself to walk the extra distance even though his leg screamed in protest, and his physical therapist told him that he might be overdoing it.
“For injuries,” the physical therapist said, “rest is as important as the right exercises.”