Page 51 of My Unfinished Heart

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“You know, at first I did blame you. Because I knew if you’d been around, you wouldn’t have let it happen to me. You’d have seen it and called me on it, and I would have quit just to shut you the fuck up. But that was just an excuse. One of many.”

I swallow hard, not wanting to add to the pile of things I feel guilty about, but metaphorically picking up the shovel to do it anyway. “How much does forgiveness cost?”

“Hey, brother.” He leans forward and makes sure he’s looking me in the eye. “We’re gonna move on now, okay? Because I want to, and fuck knows you need to.”

“How?”

“We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Now tell me something. Have you seen Jayne Beck again?”

Out of the frying pan… “She spent the night last night.” The memory has become a regrettable one.

“Nice.” West drops his head back, smoke streaming from his mouth to the ceiling, billowing out like a mushroom cloud. “What's she like?”

“Well, it wasn't her first time.”

“You can stop there. I'll let my imagination do the rest. How is she to talk to?”

“You talked to her,” I remind him.

“I wasn't paying attention.” He pours us each another whatever.

I laugh. “And that doesn't answer your question?”

“She's not cool?”

“No, she’s all right. She talks a lot actually.”

“What about?” he asks.

“Her friends…” My thought process breaks off there. It derails at the thought of Tristan. No whiskey in the world is strong enough to make me forget his face this morning. “But there’s someone else…” I stop talking. I swallow hard. Even I can hear how weird my voice sounds.

He lays a heavy gaze on me, which I feel more than see. I squirm in my seat. “What?” I ask. If he were a sniper there would be a red dot on my forehead. All these years, and he can still nail me to the wall after one vague hesitation.

“You sound different,” he says.

“Than what?”

“Than before.”

“Before six years ago or before two minutes ago?”

“Before, ever.”

I shrug him off. “I'm drunk. So are you, by the way. What are we even talking about?”

“Who’s the other girl?”

“It’s not—nobody. Just a friend of my brother’s.” As close as we used to be, I’ve never come out and told West I’m bisexual, and even now, I’m not sure I want to get into that with him.

“She have a name?” he asks.

“West, who gives a shit?”

“I just asked what her name was.”

“It’s Tristan.”