12. Trevor

12

TREVOR

I wake up at the crack of dawn, not because the shades aren’t drawn and light is seeping through the window, but because the bed moves.

Iris gets out of bed.

Strange, because the last thing I knew, she was in my arms, and we were in a hot air balloon over some landscape that belongs in a Dr. Seuss book.

My dreams last night were crazy, laced with delusions of grandeur about all the things we’ll do together now that we’re a we again.

At least, I think we are.

I expect to hear her shut the bathroom door, but her footsteps don’t travel in that direction. They pad softly in a circle around the foot of the bed.

I turn over toward the empty spot she left behind, feeling her warmth, smelling her citrusy, jasmine scent. “Mmgh, where did you go?”

“I’m getting dressed.”

I squint my eyes open and try to focus on her form.

Her body is silhouetted against the window, clad in only her undergarments.

I watch as she pulls her dress from last night back on.

As much as I loved it, I’d much rather see her naked. “Why?”

Iris pulls her blue hair up out of the back of her dress. “I…have an early flight.”

My heart stutters in my chest. “Your flight.”

“Yeah, it’s at O’Hare, and I’m not packed and–” She steps closer to the bed, now with her shoes in hand. “If I’m going to make it, I need to go back to the hotel now.”

Iris sits on the edge of the bed, giving me the perfect opportunity to grab her.

“Move your flight.” I wrap my arms around her waist.

She giggles, falling back into bed with me. “Trevor–”

“Just until tomorrow.” I bundle her up in my arms, kissing every part of her neck and face I can reach.

She laughs all the while.

“Let me have one more day with you. And then you can stay the next day and the next day and the next too.”

I plant a kiss to her mouth. It lingers. Winds. For a moment, I think we’ll tumble back into bed and pick up where we left off last night, but no such luck.

Iris pats my cheek. “I’ve got to be at work tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?! That’s criminal.”

“Yeah, my hours are criminal,” she grumbles, then sits back up to pull on her strappy high heels. “But that’s the business. Overworked and underpaid. At least for now.”

I sit up, spooning her from behind, letting my legs drape off the side of the bed around her hips. “Why do you do it?”

“It’s my job.”

“Besides that.”

Iris looks into her lap, some hair falling her face. “I love it. I want to make games. You know how important that is to me.”

“I know it is, I just…” The competition in her industry has been stiff. I’m happy she got a job. I really am. Now that I can see through the haze of what I assumed was a betrayal. “What’s the plan?”

Iris shrugs and laughs. “I don’t know, Trevor.”

Something’s off. Or maybe I can’t read her the way I used to.

Last night felt like we hadn’t been apart for a single day. But maybe it was the magic of the night, the snowy Chicago evening, the ballet. Of course, everything is easier when life is beautiful.

Then you wake up the next day, and it’s still real life. It’s not Christmas. It’s the apartment you shared with the woman you loved until she walked away. Until you drove her away.

“Can I do anything to get you to stay?” I murmur into her hair.

“Trevor–”

“Just for another couple days.” I kiss her cheek. “I’m not trying to hold you back. I promise. I promise, I’ll never– I promise .”

Iris slides her hands over mine. “I don’t know if I should.”

“Of course, you should. Just three days. And we can–”

“I can’t, Trevor.”

My heart sinks. “Okay.”

Iris places her hand on my cheek. “Trevor, listen to me.”

I hold my breath.

“I want to be with you. So badly. That’s all I’ve wanted for the past six months. Wishing for things to go back to normal. To have what we had again.”

I’m waiting for the “but”.

Instead, she’s quiet. Swallows loudly.

“You didn’t say ‘I love you’ back.” It wasn’t lost on me. I’m not an idiot. It means something. I’ve been holding out hope, though. Maybe for that goodbye kiss. For her to sleep on it.

“Trevor–”

“You lost love for me? You never loved me?”

Iris shoots up to her feet. “Don’t you dare say something like that.”

“I’m just trying to understand.” It’s internal whiplash, the way I fluctuate from anger to sadness and back again.

“I’m sorry, that was dramatic.” I hold out my hand toward Iris. “Please, don’t… Be patient with me.”

Iris eyes my hand and takes it tentatively.

Thank god .

I kiss the back of her hand. “I lost you once. I don’t want to lose you again. I can’t survive it. Please.”

“Trevor. I can’t tell you I love you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I thought nothing could ruin what we had, and then I made a mistake. A big one. I know it was a big mistake.” Iris purses her lips and tears spring to her eyes. “But you cut me out. You acted like I did the most unforgivable thing, and it hurt me so bad.”

I clutch her hand tighter. “Baby, I know. I’m sorry.”

“We haven’t even had a week of liking each other again let alone love. ”

“I know how I feel. I know I love you.”

Iris is running. She’s standing in one spot, but she’s running far away. I can see it in her eyes, that focus on the horizon to get as far from me as possible.

It’s something I noticed about her in the beginning. Her wildness. Her need to be free. It’s embodied in the colorful hair, her love of her motorcycle, the daredevil in her.

I locked her down fast for fear that wild spirit would take her away.

I lost her anyway. My control came from a place of terror. It can’t be like that anymore.

“You live in Seattle, and I’ll live here. I’ll look for a job there, and I’ll move.”

“And then you’ll resent me.”

“I won’t.”

“Trevor–”

“I won’t . I want to be where you are. Don’t you want that?”

Iris shakes her head. “I can’t even tell you I love you, and you want to follow me to Seattle?” Her hand drops from mine. “It doesn’t make sense. Besides, I’m not taking you away from your family.”

“I didn’t tell you that story to make you afraid to get between us. If anything, they’ve shown me what I want. What matters. It’s you. It’s us.”

“I find it hard to believe that after all this time, you can just flip on a dime.”

I try to swallow.

It’s not flipping on a dime; it’s been here all this time.

“But you don’t love me?”

She grabs her furry jacket off the ground and slides it on. “Trevor, don’t put me in this position.”

“You don’t.”

“I can’t say it.”

“If you did, you’d be able to say it.”

Iris balls her hands up. “That’s not how that works. I can love you and not be able to tell you, and now you’re forcing it out of me, so fine, yes, I love you! I love you, and that scares me.”

It’s a hollow victory. “Why?”

“Because you hurt me, Trevor! You destroyed me!”

“But I explained. Last night, I told you why I did it, I–”

Iris runs her hands over her face. “That doesn’t just fix the past six months! I thought I lost you forever.”

“And now I’m here!” I shoot to my feet. “And I’m telling you that we can do this again. I want to do this again.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

The world stops. I wouldn’t be surprised if outside people have stopped moving, the train has stopped running, clocks have stopped ticking.

“You don’t know if you want to?”

“We said it would be just sex. Why couldn’t we keep it just–”

“Because I don’t want just sex from you, Iris. You’re the love of my fucking life!”

She presses her hands to her eyes. “Trevor, I need more time to think this through.”

“You didn’t before. At the beginning. From the day we met, it was–”

“Well, it’s not the beginning! This would be a second chance, and that requires more time than just–”

I laugh. It just slips out. I don’t really mean to, but the second it rumbles through me, I regret it.

Iris’s eyes fill with flame. “Is it funny to you? That I have been in pain all this time?”

I step toward her. “Honey, no, that’s not–”

Iris backs away immediately. “Don’t call me honey.”

Pulling at my hair, I try to catch my breath. “How did we get here? We had such a beautiful night, and now we’re–”

“Because you’re rushing me! You’re trying to make up for lost time all at once instead of realizing that we are still a question mark, Trevor.”

“We’re not. To me we’re not.”

“Well, to me we are.”

I scoff. “Un-fucking-believable. Now I’m the bad guy here.”

“I admitted fault. I know I shouldn’t have taken the job without talking to you, and I apologize, but that was six months ago and if you don’t understand we have work to do if this is going to be a thing again–”

“A thing?! ”

Iris holds up her hands. “I just need more than an apology. I need time. I didn’t think that would be hard to understand, but–” She shakes her head and murmurs, “I can’t do this with you.”

Then, she storms out of the room.

I follow her, close behind. “Don’t walk away.”

“You’re purposefully misunderstanding everything I’m saying, and I can’t do this with you. I have a plane to catch.”

She’s walking away. Running . I can’t let this happen, I can’t, but I’m so fired up, so hurt.

I run up to the door ahead of her so she can’t escape without facing me. “Iris, if you leave, you’re making a mistake.”

She places her hands on her hips. “Is that an ultimatum?”

“As if I could ever get you to do anything with an ultimatum.”

“Drive me away, maybe.” She holds her chin high.

Perhaps we haven’t come as far as I thought we have this week. Perhaps the hate we’ve both been harboring has been here all along. “I made a mistake. You’re right. It’s not love.”

“Don’t be cruel, Trevor.”

“I’m not, I’m trying to make it easier for you to go. I don’t love you. Don’t need you to figure out how to love me. Because it’s over.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Does that make leaving easier?”

Iris shakes her head. “You’re the same. If it’s not your way, it can’t be anything. Why are you so fucking stubborn?!”

“Takes one to know one.”

Iris rolls her lips together and gestures to the door. “Let me leave.”

“Gladly.” I step aside. “In fact, I’ll open it for you.”

“No need, I don’t need anything from you.”

Both our hands race for the door handle and collide at the same time.

Iris yelps out like I’ve hurt her. “Let me do it!”

I back away a step, giving her the space to grab the door handle.

Iris gives me one last look, her mascara starting to run, and her eyes wild with fury. “You opened the door for me last time, and this time I’m leaving. You’re not making me leave, I’m leaving.”

She wants to leave .

“Have a nice life, Trevor.” She tears the door open, and then disappears out the door.

And the second she’s gone, all my anger dissipates.

What’s wrong with me? I’ve suffered all these months without her and it was my fault then and it will be my fault again.

No. No . I can’t let that happen.

“Wait! Iris, wait!” I call out following her down the hallway. I don’t even care that I’m only in my boxers.

Whatever. Fuck it. Let someone get mad at me, let someone call the cops.

Iris stops so suddenly I stop too. She gives me a scathing glare. “If you can’t wait for me, I can’t wait for you.”

And there’s the wall, the one that was up at the beginning of the week between us. The one I was so eager to keep up.

Now it’s hers.

“Don’t follow me.”

And I don’t. I watch her go to the elevator, press the button, and disappear inside.

Gone. She’s gone. My fault. Again.

This time, I know I’m an idiot. People hardly ever get second chances, and I’ve just blown it. I doubt I’ll get a third.

I trudge back down the hallway and lock myself inside. Alone. Like I’m meant to be probably forever. The rest of my life.

It’s better this way.

I crawl back into bed and stare at the blue strands of her hair on my pillowcase.