Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

Clark

I FLEE TO THE comfort of an inbox full of emails. I settle in my desk chair on Monday morning with a fresh cup of absolutely awful coffee from the office’s free supply and sigh at my overflowing inbox.

I spent Sunday racked by doubt and anxiety. I cleaned my apartment top to bottom, but it only distracted me for a couple hours. Then my mind was whirling again, replaying that moment out in the forest with River.

Don’t run.

But I did. Not entirely. I promised him we’ll talk again, but in that moment, I needed to be away. His confession finally tipped things over the edge. The show on Friday night was fine. Staying the night was probably ill-advised but not a disaster. I could even explain away going on that hike. But those feelings he confessed to? That use of the word “relationship?” My barriers of self-delusion couldn’t deflect those things. A shot pierced my shields, a bullet of raw reality that left me reeling.

Despite my promise, I haven’t actually spoken to River after dropping him off at his place on Saturday. Partially, I don’t know what to say; partially, I’m scared I know exactly what to say. It’s past time I called this off, isn’t it? Surely, we can’t go on like this, however fun it may be. As I said on Saturday, we’re too different. Our lives are train tracks heading in opposite directions. Maybe we crossed each other’s paths at some point, but that’s purely accidental, and it’ll be better for both of us if we just move on.

That starts with these emails.

I dive into them, reading even the ones that don’t concern me at all. Most are threads others have already responded to, things I could delete at a glance if I wasn’t so desperate for a distraction. A couple actually require my attention, and I apply myself to the task of replying like I’m writing the next great American novel.

Emails can only last so long, however, and after that and my Monday stand up meeting, I find myself at my desk with several hours to kill — and far too little to distract my mind. The plight of most office workers could prove my downfall today. I need something to do, so I go over work I’ve already completed, combing through it for flaws. When I find none, I curse my own thoroughness. I truly don’t have much to occupy me. I don’t even have any meetings. The only thing I might look forward to is my lunch break. I can take a longer one than usual, walk around, try to stop thinking by moving.

I scoff when I catch myself. Stop thinking by moving my body. That’s the kind of advice River would give me. I can almost hear him telling me to “get out of your head and into your body.” I really wish he was right about that kind of stuff less often.

“Hey, Clark.”

I startle, swiveling in my desk chair to find Megan waiting at my cubicle.

“You have lunch plans?” she says.

“No, not really. Thought I might go for a walk.”

“Get food with me first.”

I peer around her. “Just you?” Megan might offer a welcome distraction, but I’m not up to dealing with Evan or any of the others right now.

She rolls her eyes. “You are so anti-social. Yes, just me. Come on, get up. We’re going.”

“Right now?”

“I know you’re not busy. Stop delaying.”

I give in, shutting my laptop and grabbing my wallet and keys before following Megan through our office and toward the elevator bank. We ride down in silence, flanked by co-workers similarly eager to step outside for a break.

When we reach the street, Megan heads down the block. Our office building sits in the heart of Seattle, with Indian restaurants and sandwich shops and coffee places clustered at its feet like hungry crows begging for treats. Megan ignores all of them, walking a couple blocks until we escape the immediate vicinity of our office building. The crowd thins, most people having chosen something closer.

“How’s a sandwich sound?” Megan says.

“Fine?”

It comes out as a question as suspicion builds inside me. There’s no reason to walk this far from the office. Usually we grab something close by, so this diversion is surely deliberate, but I don’t yet know what Megan’s aim is. She wants to get me away from the main bustle of the city and our co-workers, so this must be a conversation she means to have in private. Did something happen at the retreat? Has Hannah said something? My blood goes cold as I contend with the horrible possibility that my co-workers know what River and I did during the retreat and Hannah is preparing to fire me any moment.

I follow Megan numbly into a sandwich shop. She orders, then nudges me with her elbow to get me to order as well. I don’t recall what I say, but soon enough I’m sitting across from Megan with a roast beef sandwich my stomach can’t accommodate with my fears tying it in knots.

“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Megan says.

I blink. “Huh? Wait, you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what? You’ve been staring into space for the past fifteen minutes, Clark.”

“This isn’t about the retreat?”

I very nearly dared to relax, but Megan falls conspicuously silent at this, and my stomach plummets all over again.

“Does Hannah know?” I say.

“No,” Megan says. “No one knows. I think I’m the only one who even suspects, but even I’m only guessing. Tell me what the hell is going on with you, Clark. You never leave me in the dark like this.”

She’s right. I might be reticent, but I usually give Megan some version of the truth. I’ve held back this time because even I don’t know what the hell is going on. Besides that … how can I tell her I’m kind of seeing a guy who’s almost a decade younger than me? It’s humiliating.

Megan sighs as I pick at my sandwich. “Is this about River?”

I jerk my head up, which is answer enough judging by her expression.

“So it did happen, didn’t it?” she says. “At the retreat, right?”

I open and close my mouth several times, attempting to grope for an answer, but I come up empty. She knows, if not everything, then the most important parts.

“Yeah,” I say, studying my sandwich instead of meeting Megan’s probing eyes.

I flinch when she reaches across the table to set her hand atop mine. “You can tell me about it, you know. You’ve been out of sorts ever since we got back from the retreat. Are you still seeing him? Talk to me, Clark. You aren’t yourself lately.”

I deflate as I sigh, all my resistance crumbling.

“Yes, kind of, I think,” I say.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I saw him on Friday. We went to a show. So I guess I’m still seeing him, but…”

When I dare lift my gaze, I find Megan patiently waiting for me to continue. Best to get this over with.

“We talked on Saturday,” I say. “I think he … I think he really likes me, but I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s way younger than me? Because he’s a yoga instructor? Because he lives all the way out in Tripp Lake? Take your pick. There are plenty of reasons why this is a terrible, terrible idea.”

Megan withdraws her hand to sit up straighter and fix me with a stern glare. “Those sound more like excuses than reasons.”

“They’re not excuses. He’s twenty-three, Megan. Twenty-three. I’d have to be some sort of creep to date a twenty-three-year-old.”

She rolls her eyes so hard I’m afraid she might hurt herself. “You don’t need to be a creep. He’s an adult, Clark. How about you let him make his own choices, huh? You’re the one who’s reluctant, not him, so I think it’s pretty obvious you’re not pressuring him into anything. Why don’t you try trusting him to make his own choices about his life?”

“But…”

I want to argue, but I can’t find a hole in Megan’s argument. River is certainly an adult. He has his own apartment. He obviously pays his bills and works and takes care of himself. He doesn’t need me; he wants me.

“Shit…” I mutter.

Megan hides a chuckle behind her hand. “You are way out of your depth here. Go back to the start. How did this all go down? Tell me everything.”

I take a steadying breath, then give her the whole story, starting at our first yoga class at the café and going through the whole retreat and the date afterward. I cut out all the more graphic details, but Megan gets the gist of things. I haven’t explicitly ever told her I’m gay, but she’s also known me long enough to figure it out on her own, so I let her draw her own conclusions about what it means that I spent the night at River’s house on Friday and saw the inside of his cabin at the retreat.

“Clark,” Megan says when I finish, and I realize I’ve been rambling down at my sandwich for several minutes.

I look up. Megan smiles gently and reaches for my hand. This time, she clasps it in hers.

“You like him,” she says. “And he likes you.”

It’s such a simple statement, but it hits like a punch to the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs.

“You’re definitely different, but you obviously have a few core things in common,” Megan says. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have connected like this. Besides, your differences work . They compliment each other. Look at you. You’re going out, you’re doing things, you’re having fun. I’ve been trying for years to get you to do that, and River manages it in a couple months. This is real , Clark, and I think you should let yourself have it.”

I swallow hard. My sandwich sits untouched before me as my stomach flips over itself. “What if you’re wrong?”

“Then you’ll sort it out. You’re adults. It’s not the end of the world if a relationship doesn’t work out.”

There’s that word again. Relationship. River said it as well, and I ran almost immediately afterward. It’s not a word I’ve applied to my own life in a long, long time.

My mind flashes to my father. If he hadn’t met my mother, if she didn’t have the same mindset as him when it comes to work, what would have happened to him? Would he have been alone, married to his work instead of a partner? Is that the kind of life I want for myself?

You sound like Dad sometimes.

Is that the kind of life I’m barreling toward? My parents are endlessly proud of my accomplishments at work, but River doesn’t have that support. Still, he’s gone into this completely fearlessly. I’m the one holding back, even though I have something to fall back on.

Guilt tunnels through me, leaving me hollow and shaky. I cling to Megan’s hand to steel myself.

“I might have already ruined it,” I say. “I ran away from him. It all became too much. I don’t know what to do, even if I wanted … even if he was willing to give me another chance.”

“You didn’t ruin it,” Megan says. “Life isn’t that black and white. You might have some apologizing and fixing to do, though. You’ve never given yourself a shot at this, let alone him, and it might take time to repair that.”

Normally, I’d attack a new task immediately, but for once in my life, the path forward lies obscured by a fog of uncertainty. If I want to pierce it, I’m going to have to do something I’ve never done. I’m going to have to be brave.

I’m going to have to be selfish.