The Long Winter #58
Previous Engagements part six
The floor was hard and the rug provided no relief but Delaney did not care. After failing to catch Penny she turned back inside to find Lin had vanished as well. The artist had not answered any of her texts over the next several days and Delaney worked through the rest of the weekend in something of a heartbroken stupor. A knock at her door made her heartrate blip up, but as she lifted herself up off the floor Nadine stepped through the door with Sammy behind her. She flopped back down and closed her eyes.
“Hey there, hermit-girl,” Nadine said. “We were wondering what happened to you.”
“Are you okay?” Sammy asked. “Did you get sick?”
“Nothing happened. I just want to be alone.”
“Something happened,” Sammy knelt down beside her. “Come on. Let’s have some dinner and you can tell us all about it.”
“Yeah,” Nadine rested herself on Sammy’s back and smiled down at Delaney. “You want us to cook? We’ll bring you back to my place, I have shit for spaghetti or something.”
“I’m not hungry.” Delaney closed her eyes and looked away.
“Did something happen between you and Lin?” Nadine asked.
“Who’s Lin?” Sammy asked.
“The art chick she had stay with her over break. What the fuck, dude? Did you not pay attention to that?”
“Sorry, I went home for break, I just got back on Wednesday.” Sammy’s hands went to Delaney’s shoulders and he lifted her up. “Come on, get up.”
“I’m not feeling well,” Delaney whined, but let them pull her upright regardless.
“So tell us about it,” Nadine said. “I know you’re not sick. What happened last weekend? Did you spend the whole time like this? Please tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. I worked.”
Sammy chuckled and they moved to her sofabed.
“So you worked and then you laid on the floor like a mental patient,” Nadine said. “I know you. I’ve never seen you quite like this, but I can easily imagine it.”
“Is this how you were after you and that Institute girl split?” Sammy asked.
“Not exactly,” Delaney said.
“Then tell us.”
Delaney sighed. She fell forward, her elbows resting on her knees, and she told the story. She told them of spotting Penny with the blue-haired girl. She talked about running into her in the kitchen, and about how nice it felt to talk to her again after all that time (and especially after how Delaney had left her). And she talked about Lin. Lin did not deserve to see her like that, giggling, almost flirting, with her preppy ex-girlfriend.
She had to pause there. What was she feeling, anyway? Was she more upset that Penny had walked back into her life only to be unattainable? Or was it more painful to be with Lin without being able to be WITH Lin? She had chased after Penny at Ash’s urging, after all. But that was only after giving the painter one more obvious chance.
Delaney told them about what she had said to Lin. They both, well, all three of them including Ash, knew that Becca was bad news. Something about the haughty way she walked, or the way she wore her clothes and hair, or all of it together, it shouted “PREDATOR” at her. How did Penny not see it?
“Because she “rescued” her after her public humiliation, right?” Nadine said.
“Right, probably…”
Delaney sighed and pulled her hair down over her face. She had told Lin she wanted a reason to stay at her side. She asked if Lin wanted her close to her, closer than they had been to that point, and for a moment their eyes met and Lin nodded, but halfway through she shook her head. That was all the time Penny needed to get away. Delaney ran down to the sidewalk and looked up and down the street, shivering, squinting against the frigid night air, but the PMer was gone. And after she went back inside Lin was gone, too. She shuffled back to the front, pulled her coat, gloves, and hat on, and limped home to cry herself to sleep.
“That is very sad,” Sammy said, his hand warm and comforting on her back. “There are other girls out there.”
“I know…”
“You’re an idiot,” Nadine said, giving him a shove. “She doesn’t want other girls, she wants Lin.” Her eyes bore into Delaney’s. “Penny was just a consolation prize that night, wasn’t she?”
“I don’t know. It was weird seeing her again. It almost felt like we hadn’t broken up, or rather, that I hadn’t left her. But maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe it was just a shallow relationship and we’d both end up disappointing each other again.”
“But that’s not what you were feeling about Lin.” Nadine’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, her words tender on Delaney’s ears. “I’m going to say something to her. I know you guys could have kept on being friends, at least maybe if Penny hadn’t shown up, but Lin should absolutely have never led you on if there was no hope of you getting together.”
“I never thought we would.”
“That’s not how you made it sound,” Sammy said.
Delaney sighed and fell back into her sofabed.
“What did you expect from her?” Nadine asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe, and now that I’m saying this out loud it sounds so stupid I don’t know what I was thinking, but maybe I thought she might want to be with me. Maybe she would see we make a great pair. Maybe she would want to kiss me as badly as I want to kiss her. It felt so good holding her hand. She was so beautiful sleeping. But I feel like such an idiot. She has her girlfriend and I am such an idiot for thinking I could take her away.”
Nadine and Sammy stroked her back as she fell forward and cried into her hands again. It was so stupid to put Lin in that position, so arrogant to think she could come out of it with the painter in her arms. The image of the two of them falling asleep entwined with each other was purely a fantasy, fueled by Delaney’s own loneliness. In the end, she had no idea what was in Lin’s head, nor any real right to know. And she cried and her friends stayed with her and, led on with the promise of pasta at Nadine’s, she started pulling herself back together, feeling lighter than she had all weekend.
***
Lin walked around campus several times that weekend. She scowled at the ground in front of her when she walked up University Blvd, the road separating the University from the Institute. She scowled at the Institute itself. But mostly she huddled into her heavy winter coat and tried to pretend her nose would not fall off in the wind.
She buried her stupid, buzzing phone in the bottom of her top drawer as soon as that first message from Del came through. Del, who had left her to chase after that fascist girl from a supernatural fairy land. Del, who had flirted with her ex right in front of Lin in a way she had never flirted with Lin herself. That stupid, evil cow could rot in the dungeon of her filthy, ugly, too-small apartment, far away from Lin.
I hope she’s miserable. I hope she hates herself the way I hate myself. She can go right on ahead and go back out with that fucking Institute girl. I don’t care. I hate her. I hate her so much. I hate her nearly as much as I hate myself. I…
Lin made it back to her room. Laurie greeted her with a cool “hello” and she nodded at the mousey girl and grabbed her things and locked herself in the shower. The hot water felt good as it poured on her head, and she let herself feel her misery. Tears spilled out and washed away. She leaned against the wall and sobbed silently.
I love her. Del, I love you. I wish I could tell you. I wish I wasn’t the coward that I am, and I hate myself so much for it. I shouldn’t have let you go after her, after that airhead from the Institute.
The minutes dragged on and her tears ran out and she wondered how much time she had wasted. Ten minutes? Twenty? She shampooed her hair. At least fifteen... Rinsed. Squeezed liquid soap onto a loofa. Perhaps getting close to thirty. The water was not her concern, the University would not run out. She finished rinsing the rest of herself and turned it off, glad she was no longer sniffling and prepared for bed, emerging from the shower a new woman.
“Hey, you’ve been gone a lot this weekend. Do you already have a big project this semester?”
“Huh? Oh. No. Just moseying around, doing some thinking.”
“Oh. What kind of thinking?”
“The life-changing kind.”
“Really?” Laurie turned towards Lin.
Lin walked to her dresser and pulled out her phone. Over a dozen messages from Del, pleading with her to message her back. Each one increasing in desperation, but ending before her night shift started on Saturday. Lin felt her heart hammer back up into her throat and her shaking fingers were not quite up to the task of locating her faraway girlfriend’s name.
“Hey. Find Andi’s number for me and dial her.”
“What?”
Lin flung the phone into Laurie’s lap and she complied, handing it back as it started ringing. Andi’s annoyed face filled the screen.
“What do you want?”
“I want to…” Lin swallowed hard. It was so much more difficult with an audience. “I want to break up.”
“Break up?” Andi rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll never make it without me. We’ve been over this.”
“You’re not the boss of me. You’re mean to me every time we talk. Maybe it’ll be different again later. But right now it doesn’t work for me.”
“Oh yeah? Well, if that’s how you want it go right on ahead. Go ahead and fail at the rest of your life, you fucking loser! I have plenty of people here to keep me busy and I’ll forget all about you. But in two months or two weeks or two fucking days, however long it takes your life to fall apart, I’m not going to be available to help you pick up the pieces!”
“Good. Sayonara.”
Lin dropped the phone into Laurie’s lap as Andi began shouting. Her breath fogged up the camera lens and her words were incoherent. Laurie hung it up and stared up at Lin with something approaching awe.
“Holy shit.”
Lin collapsed onto her bed.
“Yes,” she said. “Holy shit.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
Laurie let out a baffled guffaw. “You just broke up with your girlfriend!”
“We’ve been broken up for months. It’s best that we both now know it.”
“But why?”
Lin sat up. “Well, you see, there comes a point in everyone’s life where they have to make a decision, the sort of decision that can impact the rest of her entire life.”
Laurie frowned at Lin. “You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m not. It’s impossible for me to stay with Andi.”
“Are you going to go out with that Delaney girl you were hanging around with?”
“No.”
Laurie laughed and rolled her eyes.
“Really.”
“You’re definitely going to go out with her.”
“I can’t even contact her. My hands won’t stop shaking.”
“Oh my gosh.”
Laurie’s eyes widened as Lin held up her trembling hands. Lin fell backwards again and closed her eyes. Her breathing was short and shallow. Laurie stood up and stepped over to the bed and pressed her hand to Lin’s forehead.
“Well, you don’t have a fever, at least.”
“Maybe I’m hungry.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday. The day before yesterday. At breakfast.”
“You’re going to waste away! Come on. Let’s get you some dinner, they’re probably setting it out right now. Then we can talk about how you’re going to call your friend and tell her about how you broke up with her girlfriend and the two of you will start going out.”
“Okay. Take me away, Laurie.”
Laurie laughed and heaved her upright and the two of them stumbled down to dinner in a fit of laughter together.
Follow The Long Winter into #59 Previous Engagements part seven here.