Even after he’d left, I couldn’t get up off that park bench. If he was going to smirk at me and lie that blatantly, then I had nothing to say.
We didn’t speak to each other after that, and he finished the canned coffee he assumed I had bought for him. He muttered his “See you” so quietly that the wind nearly drowned it out, then quickly left. Maybe he couldn’t handle the embarrassment.
So here I was, alone in the park.
I really do hate him. I honestly can’t forgive myself for having wavered over a remark like that, even for a moment.
After my umpteenth sigh of that night, I checked the phone in my hand again. Frankly speaking, I didn’t feel like being the one to call.
But I had to check, or I wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, she wouldn’t be able to move beyond this. If I were to go along with that first-class heap of BS, I would say I have my own pride as a man, too.
The wind had been blowing through here for a long time, leaving my fingers entirely numb with cold as I pressed the Call button—all the while praying she wouldn’t pick up.
But that’s when she always answers. Right as I became certain of that, the ringing cut off, and I heard her drawn-out voice. “Helloooo.”
I said the sentence I’d decided on before talking to him. “Could we meet now?”
“…Yeah. Sure.”
In that short silence, she seemed to catch something. She’s always so sharp, I really don’t know what to do with her. I’ve never been able to hide anything from her. I’m sure she’ll always be like that.
While I had the same bad feeling about this I always had, we had a businesslike exchange of just a few remarks, and then she quickly hung up on me.
✦ ✦ ✦
The café she’d indicated was a place she’d gone to a lot in the past.
I finished the Blue Mountain, which was not cheap for a teenager, and then after ordering a second, I checked my watch. She was already late, but she hadn’t messaged me at all.
If I was even a couple of minutes late when she asked to meet up suddenly, she’d call and tell me to hurry up, but when she was late, this was how it went. But I was used to it, so I wasn’t going to make a point of calling her or anything.
Just once, I’d asked her if she was like that with other people. She’d proudly said she was, but that’s not true. She’ll be pretty faithful with time and appointments. When she’s meeting with her friends, she’ll sometimes come too early. Even when they make her wait, she won’t rush to chase them down.
But she has a tendency to be rougher with certain people.
You could take it as an expression of affection or trust. I could actually see a trend like that with him, and her sister, too. She reveals a sort of innocence with them, like a cat toying with its prey.
But there are exceptions. Those who have failed even as toys, she only values as a scratching post.
As I was lost in my thoughts, my second Blue Mountain came. When I brought it to my lips, it tasted more bitter than the one before.
Eventually, the sound of a cowbell mingled with the standard jazz number playing on low. At the door, her rouge caught the eye against the noir background of the café interior. She ordered at the counter as she stripped off her coat, then came straight toward me without even turning her head and sat down opposite me.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, and I shook my head, waiting for the Guatemala she’d ordered to come.
Cup in hand, I paused before finally broaching what I’d called her for. “You told him…it was codependency?”
I asked it without any preamble at all, so maybe that was why she seemed a little surprised. That was rare for her, and I couldn’t help but break into a smile.
As if in response, she smiled back. “…You heard? Surprising. I wouldn’t expect him to tell you about that.”
I found myself wondering what I should take that smile to mean. Was she purely amused by the unexpected nature of what he’d done, or was she thinking with contempt, Oh, so he’d tell someone like you?
Whatever the case, whichever it was, her target wasn’t me—it was him.
So then she should be talking to him, not me.
“No, he just mentioned the term when discussing something else… But I could think of someone who would choose to use that kind of language to provoke him.”
“Not bad, ace detective. You’ve cracked the case.” For how jokingly she’d said it, deep in her eyes was an icy coldness. She was clearly saying to stay out, to stop while this was still half-teasing.
I chose to ignore it, dropping my gaze to the coffee cup in my hands. “Why would you say something like that?”
“I mean, ’cause it’s true,” she said without any shyness—gleefully, in fact.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her lacing her long fingers together, and I sighed quietly. “They were fine like that. Doing it bit by bit…”
“It’s fake. I only want to see something real,” she interrupted. Her tone…must have been chilly. I was probably the only one who felt it sounded petulant. I just thought so because we’d known each other for so long, but only I would be able to tell.
While that feeling was still clear and warm in my chest, I lifted my chin and looked her in the eye. “I think feelings can grow out of that, too.”
“Nope. It was never like that before, was it?” She narrowed her eyes slowly, piercing me with her frozen gaze. Her remark reminded me of the words said on that summer day.
Her gaze, her voice, always caught me. Ultimately, I couldn’t move forward, and she was stopped there, too.
She never changed. In order to keep what she treasured from being wounded by anyone any further, she got the jump on them and caused the injury herself. And she wouldn’t let anyone else do the same.
“Do you…feel that much hate over it?”
I didn’t ask who she hated.
She blinked, as if she was taken aback. But then she immediately grinned with satisfaction. “No, this is love.” Leaning her chin on her hand, she gazed up at me with dewy eyes, her painted lips shaped into an enchanting smile.
This is a curse.
I would never be able to atone.
So I forced it on him and hoped that maybe, if they could…
Oh, I really do envy them.
If you can need each other and fall to hell together, there’s no greater joy. Maybe it was some twisted counterfeit, but if it was the only one in the world, then nobody would be able to call it that. If I’d had that in my grasp, I’m sure I would have been able to give this crooked shape a name.
That’s why I still regret it, now.
If I’d given everything I had to saving her then.
If I had, then…
…would you have forgiven me?