Fifteen minutes later, he brings us gin.
By this point, we have gone over that although Andrew and I are going to break up, we haven’t yet. Or more, this is how I have lied to him. I lie to people not by omission or by statements, but by varying degrees of confidence. I have acted like I am certain we will break up but I am not.
I have never been certain of anything in my life.
“He thinks I shouldn’t go and talk to people about my Dad. That it will fuck me up and that I need to get out of Toronto. That I have to think about my career.”
The gin and tonic hit the glass together and it’s all I care about.
“You always wished I was more supportive of your career.”
I’ve aged a hundred years since being with him. A thousand years. Roles shift through us. I feel like a fifty year old man, drunk, who waked shoeless to his high school football field that is still around the corner from his house, propelled by nostalgia. Pathetic. Sad, how did it go so wrong?
I want to be anywhere but here.
“I know.”
“You two didn’t break up, did you?”
“I don’t know.”
He puts on Cosmic Dancer by T-Rex. He holds me close to him and we sway, naked.
“We were dancing when we were twelve,” I say and he laughs.
We spend the rest of the night getting drunk and laughing until we cry about the summer I was sixteen and my Dad trapped raccoons. He caught thirty-two, released them into the wild, a ravine around the corner, convinced they wouldn't return. I’d never seen him happier.
“You know I see him, right? That I have visions like he did?”
Mike doesn’t move.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I ask.
“No. I think this is hard.” He loves me.
“They’re becoming more real.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Reckless.”
He takes my hand and places it on his stomach and then he puts his hand on my stomach. This scene is familiar and it fills me with dread.
“Do you think I should go talk to everyone I want to?”
“You should do what you want to. You need to do what you have to,” he tells me.
“What if I don’t like what I find out?”
“That’s a risk you take, I guess. Are you happy with him?” He asks like they are not two separate statements.
“I don’t trust myself to assess anything right now.”
“Is he happy with you?”
I don’t make him happy. I’ve ruined every man I’ve ever loved. What's haunting is that they are so convinced I am the cure.
“He wants to be,” I tell Mike.
“I heard a quote the other day. You’re only smart if you know how to make yourself happy.”
“I’m pretty fucking stupid, then, aren’t I?”
He shakes his head, and pulls me closer against him. He is so tall that I can feel my ribs digging into his lower abdomen. He is mine completely.
“Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person at once?” I ask him.
“No.”
He is so certain. I have a never felt worse.
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