The Edge of Reality

Chapter 16: Faulty Thoughts

After the events of the concert night, I took a couple sick days and stayed in my room alone. Des had just moved back in, deciding that she didn't want to stay at Eloy's house after all, but I neglected her entirely. My phone would buzz every so often, but I wouldn't look at it. I needed space to think without anyone else influencing me. I had cheated on the man I wanted to be with forever. It hurt to even think those words. There was no way I could tell him- or anybody for that matter- about this. In conversations we'd had before, we never talked about it directly, but he saw being with someone else as a defined end of a relationship, without any second chances or room for explanation. It would have been the right thing to do to be honest with him, but I was terrified of the consequences it would bring. I thought about Camm for a long time, too, trying to find the point where it had all gone wrong. I don't think I started out attracted to him, but he must have had his eye on me all along. He hadn't pushed himself on me, I had wanted him too, but I still felt manipulated. I didn't want to believe he had been working on our friendship all along in attempt to get into my pants, but I didn't know at this point. I was weak, I was lonely, and it felt like he had taken advantage of me. But I hadn't pushed him away, so I couldn't go around thinking that. This was on me. Maybe I even led him on, that was definitely possible. But he knew I was in love and had no intention of breaking it off.

Or did I?

Over the last month, Camm had slowly made his way under my skin to the point that I craved to be around him. It wasn't like that with Mareo anymore- the spark had left our relationship ever since I moved in with them. I didn't know why it happened. Maybe I had changed too much, maybe he was too distant- it was probably some combination of the two. Maybe we weren't meant to be together anymore. Both of us had been so unhappy lately, maybe it would be good for both of us to not be tied down to each other and be free to live in different directions. I wanted him to be happy again, but I had no way of telling whether I wanted that equally as much as my own happiness or if his would just be a bonus.

I had already made my decision by the time Des knocked on my door the evening of my second day isolated.

"Tesha?" she asked, opening the door slowly. "Are you okay? You've been in your room a lot."

I wasn't planning on telling her much, but I broke down and told her everything. Almost everything, at least. I laid out how close Camm and I had become, and how he was there for me so much more than Mareo. I told her my theory that Mareo might be happier without me, and that some space away from our relationship might be what I needed too. I left out the kiss; it had to stay a secret. "Nobody has to know," he'd told me. Nobody would know.

Des didn't seem very surprised by what I told her. Even though she'd barely been around recently, she could see the changing relationships between all of us. She hugged me and told me that she supported whatever I decided to do, and I let a few tears roll down my face. I was doing the right thing, but it was going to be unbelievably hard to push away the person who had meant the most to me. He was the first person to start me on this adventure, and had been the light of my life like no one else. I mourned the loss of the way it was before; that part of us had disappeared without us realizing it, but it was clear that nothing was the same anymore.

Des sat with me for a long time, and we watched sitcoms on her laptop to disperse lingering negativity that we needed a break from. At some point, Mara came up to my room and sat with us. She didn't say anything, but I could tell from her expression and tight body motions that she knew. Des must have been texting her from beside me. We stayed up like that all night, and in the morning I went back to work to pretend that everything was normal. I went through the motions all day, following the same routine as always with nothing at all in my head. Right as I was getting off, Mareo showed up at the door to greet me.

"Hey," he said, greeting me with a hug. "Do you want to go back to my place?" I rarely went to his house- he didn't usually like having people over.

"Yeah!" I said enthusiastically. My heart felt heavy, and I knew that tonight was not the night. I wasn't ready for the pain of the breakup, so I went with him. It felt cruel to drag this out, knowing that we needed to separate but waiting. I didn't know what else to do, however, so I went along with the flow.

It was weird being in his house. I knew that he lived with a few other people, but I only occasionally saw them or heard him talk about them. There was a middle aged woman, the one who took him in when he appeared, presumably. A young woman a few years older than us, and a couple younger boys. We sat in his living room, playing some sort of strategy based board game with his roommates. When it got intense, everyone came out of any peace they'd held before and we were all lively. There was a lot of yelling, cursing and gloating- but as bad as it sounds it was all good-natured. I looked at Mareo as he laughed over something I'd missed, and I felt a small spark in my heart. There was light in his eyes, he was with the people he cared about and he looked genuinely happy like I rarely saw him anymore. His guardian-figure and the young woman stepped outside for a smoke at some point, and Mareo and I took the time to go outside to take a walk. The sun had already receded past the horizon, and the sky was left a dim blue with the fading day. Shadows stretched across the neighborhood as we walked, and the colors of trees and plants began to blend together. We walked hand in hand, and glances I stole at him told me he was sincerely comfortable in the moment.

"I think we need to talk about something," I started, but lost heart in the middle of my sentence. I didn't really want to do this.

"Oh?" he replied, eyebrows raised. "What's up?"

"I..." I pondered where to go with this, and then my brain stopped and my heart picked up for me. "I think we've been going through a rough patch. But I think we're stronger together for it."

He stopped walking and took my other hand, looking between the ground and my eyes.

"I know, and I agree," he said. "We've both had some problems, but it's worth it. This is worth everything."

"I feel like everything is different now," I said, tears welling up in my eyes. "We've been drifting and I don't know what to do about it anymore. All I know is that I love you, and I really want to make this work." His expression filled with concern and he embraced me in an instant.

"I love you Tesha," he said into my hair. "So, so much."

"It's going to be better now," I said, more to myself than to him. Guilt burned in my stomach, and I would do anything to work past it with him. I didn't want Camm, I wanted the man who had been there for me all along. We stood there as the darkness of the night enveloped us, and thunder rumbled lightly in the background. The season was changing, and the rains were coming soon. I felt like it signified a new chapter of our relationship. He took me home much later that night, and I knew everything was going to be okay.