Truth
I am too stoned for this.
I am way too stoned for this.
The first thing that occurs to me is to cover my junk, as though that won’t make it even more obvious just what’s happening here. There’s a lot about me that Kate hasn’t figured out before, but she’s not dumb. There’s no way she can look at me and Carrick right now and not figure out exactly what’s going on between us.
Carrick coughs loudly and I turn around to see him giving me a pointed look. While I’ve been panicking, he’s been pulling his clothes back on, and there’s a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He holds up his lighter and says, “I think it’s time for a smoke break.”
It’s a ridiculous statement considering the fact that we’re still surrounded by a cloud of pot smoke, but I know this is more about giving me and Kate space than actually needing a cigarette. Then again, after the way we were updated, a little nicotine doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea. He nudges my shoulder lightly on his way to the door, then hugs the door frame to avoid touching Kate, who is still standing rigidly in the door way.
I step back to let her in the apartment and for a moment, she still stands frozen, and I’m not sure she will accept my invitation at all. Finally, she does, but she still remains like a statue, in the middle of my living room.
“Katie, I…” I begin, but I can’t finish the sentence. It’s stupid to worry about incriminating myself when I think she’s got all the evidence she needs to reach the correct conclusion.
“You know,” she says, her arms wrapped around her body like she’s trying to hug herself. “It makes sense. In a way. I guess I should have seen it before now.”
“I don’t… what do you mean?” I stutter out.
Kate gives me a withering look and sighs. “Are you going to deny it? Really, Zac?”
“I had considered denial,” I admit, and to my surprise and relief, Kate lets out a weak laugh.
Rather than immediately speaking again, Kate takes a few steps farther into the room. She stares at the couch for a moment before finally getting over whatever has kept her from sitting down, although she still remains just on the edge of it. I take a careful seat next to her but not too close.
“You know I came over here to see if maybe…” she trails off and laughs again, but it’s not a pleasant sound. “It’s just, you know, everything at home, and I thought maybe we could… I mean, I knew you were buying some for Carrick…”
“You wanted to smoke again?” I offer.
Kate nods and swallows hard. “Yeah, I… I did. I guess I should have realized, umm… what I would walk in on.”
“I really, really didn’t mean for—”
“Me to find out?” She cuts in. “Yeah, I figured. Too late now.”
I sigh. “That’s not what… I mean, not like that, anyway.”
“For the record, I’m not enjoying this,” Kate says, picking up my pipe and turning it over in her hand. “But like I said, I guess it makes sense in a way. I should have seen this coming.”
“Why?” I ask. “I mean, I guess I did… try to hide it, but did I not hide it well? Was it obvious?”
“Yes, because I’ve always been on the lookout for signs that my husband is actually gay,” Kate deadpans, then waves the pipe in my face. “Can we at least smoke this if we’re really going to have this conversation?”
“I’m not—” I begin, then think better of arguing that point. “Yeah, okay. We can smoke.”
While I help Kate light the bowl and take the first hit, carefully showing her how to hold it, I consider what she just said. Am I gay? It seems stupid to be nearly twenty-seven and asking that of myself but here I am, with no answer. The way I feel about Taylor has been a part of me for so long that I never even question it; it simple is and it has nothing to do with my sexuality. The way I feel about Carrick, though, is something different, something that suggests maybe I am just attracted to men.
Somehow, I’m aware that this shouldn’t be such a huge revelation to me, but it is.
I take a huge hit to help myself digest this new knowledge about my sexuality, and Kate takes the opportunity to drop another bombshell on me.
“In a way, I’m not even upset,” she says.
I cough and sputter, sending out a cloud of pot smoke. “Y-you’re not?”
She shakes her head. “No, not really. It’s kind of a relief to know that maybe there was nothing I—or we—could have done to make this marriage work. Maybe we’re just not… right for each other.”
“Maybe not,” I manage to squeak out.
Kate leans against me while I take another hit. “I don’t mean anything bad by that. It’s just that I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out why we couldn’t have a normal, happy marriage, when maybe it isn’t anything we did or didn’t do.”
I decide not to point out that I have been cheating on her. I’m sure that thought has occurred to her, but it’s getting lost in the more shocking part of all of this—namely, the fact that I’m cheating with another man.
“I guess this is what Natalie meant,” Kate mumbles.
“What?” I cough, the pipe nearly flying out of my hand.
“Well, she keeps saying you’re not worth being upset over, that if I really knew you…” Kate trails off, staring wide eyed up at me. “This is what she meant, right? She found out about you and Carrick.”
For a moment, I’m speechless. She’s taken the evidence in front of her and arrived at a completely logical, but completely wrong, conclusion. I can only hope I haven’t been speechless too long and that I can still convince her that this was the secret Natalie keeps hinting at. If I can, maybe somehow I can save my own ass.
“Yeah,” I finally reply, praying I sound believable. “Yeah, I… I guess Taylor let it slip.”
“You told Taylor?” Kate asks, and I almost wince at how hurt she sounds.
I shake my head. “N-no, he… he saw us… talking at the office and figured it out for himself.”
When did I become such a good liar? There’s no hint in Kate’s face that she doesn’t believe me, and in a way, I hate myself for it. But she nods, like everything I’ve said makes sense, and I have to look away to hide my shame.
“I don’t know why she thinks I’m so close-minded,” Kate says. “It’s not like we don’t all know about Taylor, we just pretend it never happened. We pretend a lot of things didn’t happen where he’s concerned and—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk about your brother like that.”
“It’s fine,” I practically whisper, because I don’t trust my voice right now.
Kate’s expression turns more serious. “I’m not happy that you… that you’re cheating on me. I don’t really want to know when this started. But if this is… what you need, and I’m not, I can’t change that, can I?”
“You’re being so much nicer to me than I deserve,” I say honestly, even though Kate has no way of knowing just how much nicer.
She shrugs. “I’ve seen what anger and resentment can do to a marriage. To a person. I don’t want to be like that.”
Like Natalie, she means. She doesn’t need to say it.
The buzzer sounds again and this time I’m reasonably sure it’s the pizza. It better be the pizza—both because the delivery has been slow and because I don’t know what else to say to Kate. This time, I actually give whoever is pressing the buzzer a chance to talk, and sure enough, it’s an incredibly apologetic delivery guy. Once he’s on his way up to the apartment, I spin back around to see that Kate has stood up.
“I should… I should probably go,” she says. “I’m umm… I guess I’m interrupting, and Carrick has probably gone through half a pack while we’ve talked.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Last month you couldn’t stand him, and now you’re practically apologizing for interrupting us?”
“Well,” Kate replies, almost smirking. “Last month I didn’t know why I was jealous of all the time you spent with him. Now I do. And somehow, knowing makes me less jealous. Now I know I’m not crazy for feeling that way, at least.”
Before my brain gets the message that my body is going to do it, my arms are outstretched toward Kate, inviting her in for a hug. She accepts the invitation, and while we embrace, I try to remember the last time we were this close. I can’t.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble into her hair. “It’s not that I… never meant for you to know about this, but definitely not like this. Not while it’s still all so… so messy. I know I fucked this whole thing up really badly.”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head. “I mean, yeah. You made some mistakes. I’m sure I have, too. But we’ll get through this, okay?”
“Okay,” I reply, just as someone who I really hope is holding a pizza knocks on the door.
Kate reluctantly backs away from me and allows me to open the door. I’m still only in my underwear, but I feel much less exposed now, somehow. While I’m paying for the pizza, she promises to call me in a day or two and slips away before I can do more than mumble goodbye.
Carrick slips back into the apartment nearly as soon as she’s gone, the move so seamless that I wonder if he somehow planned it that way. Even with the truth out there, it feels wrong to have them in the same place. I can only imagine what it must have felt like, the air full of tension and awkwardness, when they passed in the hallway. I don’t like that thought, and I shake my head to force it out.
Even though I hate being lost in my thoughts like this, I don’t really mind that Carrick doesn’t speak until we’re back on the couch with a slice of pizza in each of our hands. After a few bites, he finally speaks.
“So,” he says. “You’re alive; that’s good.”
I almost smile. “Yeah, she didn’t even try to kill me. She was really calm and I don’t think… I don’t think it was an act.”
“She’s cool with this?” Carrick asks, an eyebrow raised.
“I would say understanding, not cool,” I reply. “I think a lot of things about our marriage make more sense to her now. Like, why it’s over, for one.”
Carrick nods. “She’s not so bad, you know. I never thought she was, even if I thought you two were the strangest couple I’d ever met.”
“The strangest, really?”
He chuckles. “Okay, second strangest. But at least you two were just mismatched. Taylor and Natalie… I could see why they ended up together, and it wasn’t because they stubbornly thought they were in love, like…”
“Like me and Kate,” I offer, and he nods again. “Yeah, I know. Although I do love her for the way she’s handling all of this, but I know what you mean. At least she and I wanted to be married and happy together, even if we could never achieve it. At least we tried.”
“You did. Maybe you two are more like than I gave you credit for,” he replies, smirking a little.
“For all that it matters now,” I mumble, setting my pizza back down and flopping back against the couch, suddenly feeling defeated.
Carrick drops his pizza too and leans against me, an arm casually draped across my shoulder. “Hey, what’s up? I thought it went well with Kate.”
“It did, I guess,” I reply. “Better than I expected. It’s just… this is just one step, you know? None of this is over yet. Nothing is really okay or fixed or anything.”
“But even one step gets you closer,” he says, then nudges my cheek with his nose. “You don’t really know how strong you are, do you? To have gotten this far. You’ll get through this. We’ll get through this.”
Those are the same words Kate said to me just a few minutes ago, and I really hope they’re the truth.