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Gus reddens and works his jaw, adjusting to my sudden outburst. We’ve never thrown punches, but he steps back. “Yes. I’m asking you if you felt like you were making love instead of fucking.”
My legs, previously frozen, move on their own. I pace his kitchen, running my hands through my hair and tugging at it like pulling my own hair out will somehow make this right. If only an angry outburst and masochistic body harm would make her go away.
How fucked up am I? I need help. I need professional help with my attachment disorder, and I want help to make sure I never make the woman I love feel like that again.
Wait. Love?
“Do I love her?” I ask, my hands still clutching my hair. I probably look like a madman, and poor Gus can’t keep up with my conflicting emotions. I’ve never been so thankful for such a patient friend. “Is that the feeling of unease and inability to focus?”
He nods. “I think you love her, Wilder. You probably have for a couple of months, best I can tell. You changed around Christmas.”
“What do I do?” I ask, clutching my chest. “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do. Do I go try to get her back?”
“You need to go to her and make this right.”
“Do I take flowers?” This is ridiculous. “I’ve never gone back before, Gus. I just walk away.” I pace again, shaking my head and squeezing my eyes shut like the idea of taking her flowers and swooping her into my arms is asinine. And it is. “No! I can’t go back. I made her sign a contract it’s over.”
“Jesus Christ, Wilder. Fuck that stupid contract.”
“It’s signed by both of us. It’s binding in a court of law, and…”
“No, it’s not. Any lawyer worth their salt will get you or her out of it,” he interrupts, turning me around and gripping my shoulders. He shakes me a little like men used to do to women in old movies. If this were happening to another person, I’d find it comical. “The contract is ridiculous, and a judge would laugh it out of court. If you want her, go get her. If she’s like you’ve described, you don’t need flowers or grand gestures. She’s not going to sue you for breaching a stupid dating contract. You just need to show the fuck up and tell her you love her.”
“I can’t. My mouth won’t make those words. I don’t know how to love and give.”
Gus pulls back and smiles. “Yes, you do. You know. It’s what you wanted when you were a kid before your emotionally dead mother built a wall so tall that it took a librarian to scale it and break it apart like it was the Berlin Wall. You just need to love like you did back then. It’s still in there.”
I walk to the beer and down it in one go, swallowing to kill time more than enjoying the taste. I stare at Gus’s ceiling with my head back while I think. How do I even go back and apologize? Tell her I love her? The concept of me being in love is so foreign. It’s like someone telling me I need to suddenly start speaking German instead of English.
I sniff and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “How did you get so smart?”
Gus shrugs. “I watched my friend be an idiot for several years and cataloged everything he did wrong.”
“I hate you,” I laugh, a tear sliding down my face. I don’t worry about wiping it away now. He knows I’m totally gone for Savannah, and I pat my pants pocket, checking to make sure I have my phone out of habit.
I clap my hands together and roll my shoulders. “I can do this. This is totally crazy, but I can do it.”
Gus walks me to his front door, his arm around my shoulder. He hands me my hat and my coat, holding it out like I’m his date and he’s being chivalrous. “Go get your girl. Bring her over for dinner sometime, shithead,” he says, opening the door and giving me a nudge into the cold air. “And don’t fuck it up.”
Still February 15 - Savannah
There’s a tap at the door, and I clench my fists. Why did she come back? What the hell can my mother say or do that will ever make outing our monetary agreement in front of Wilder right? I confused her with my anger and lashing out at her. Hell, she may have been trying to hurt him as much as she watched him hurt her daughter. Part of me wonders if it was revenge on him for using me as just another year. If so, it’s not like she has room to talk, cuffing with a guy that can’t legally drink.
I pace at the door, debating whether I’ll accept her apology and wondering why she came back. She’s my mother. She grew me cell by cell in her body and pushed me out of her vagina. That has to count for something. Maybe she didn’t want me to be alone.
“Savannah,” a voice says on the other side, and it’s not my mother. The voice is deep and masculine.
“Wilder?” I ask, looking at the wood but not opening the door.
Something scratches against the doorframe on the other side, probably his fingers running up and down the wood. “Can I come in and talk?”
“No.”
“Please. I want to explain the year thing.”
“That’s why you have years in your phone contact list, isn’t it?” I ask, sarcastically chuckling. “Those are actual women that you’ve cuffed with. Slept with.” I lean my head against the door, and a tear drops to the carpet. “Did you share a bed with them the way you did with me? Did you put your mouth on them and touch them like you touched me?”
“What? No.” His voice sounds far away. “I mean, I had sex with them, but trust me when I say that it was absolutely not like what we had. We have something more.”
