He slipped into the circle of my arms and pulled me against his chest. He really didn’t seem to experience that huge surge of adrenaline whatsoever. This was rather incredible, how the gale-blowing wind in me seemed to stand in contrast to the calm beat of his heart. It was warm and safe-all that one is supposed to connect with that feeling. Yet, with me, it only seemed to build that suffocated feeling.
“Don’t worry about him, Natalie,” he said, his voice whispering into my hair like such a sweet melody. “Robin doesn’t understand what we have.”
I nodded mutely against his chest, not trusting myself to open my mouth; so many thoughts pirouetted in so many directions, each of them a tug in itself. The words replayed over and over in my head, something like this: “I hope you don’t regret this.”
Not the first time that Robin said these to me, something unusually heavy in the sentence today suggested the likelihood of tightness in my chest.
“Something wrong?” Brandon’s voice cut into my thoughts, a sort of quick shearing.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, drawing back with a tight smile as I looked up at him, or rather, I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to convince him or trying to convince myself. “I just didn’t expect Robin to turn up like this.”
The second the words “Robin” came out of my mouth, Brandon’s face shadowed over. His jaw flexed. “It’s just the way he looks at you,” he said honestly, his hand moving up to cup my cheek. “Like he thinks he still has a chance.”
My eyes began to slide away from his. “He’s just worried about me.”
“He doesn’t need to be,” Brandon said, emphatic. “You’re with me now. I’ll take care of you.”
There in his possessiveness, they need only to control everything. He smothers, yet the nerve within me couldn’t find the strength to push him away. Deep within his eyes, perverted as they were, lay that thing saying that he loved me or at least acted as if I were some kind of person who is not quite a person but-an object-to be actually prized and protected above all things.
“I know,” I whispered again, trying to ease him, “because I need time to get my thoughts straight.”
“Uh huh,” Brandon replied as he squinted his eyes a bit while pulling my cheeks a little more tighter, “so what’s there to sort out, Natalie? He is not part of your life anymore.”
His words bit-reminded me of the wall that had grown up between me and Robin. I hadn’t realized it was there until now. I swallowed hard, willing myself to hold his eyes. “He was my friend, Brandon. It’s not that easy to just cut him out.”
“Never f**king come over and try to f**k up this relationship,” he replied in an even, steady, firm tone. “More of the friendship, Natalie. It’s time you see it.”
He said it was so mean, with that tone in his voice that made it seem so black and white-that sent me flinching. Yet deep down, I knew he really wasn’t all that wrong. I didn’t really sort all those jumbled-up emotions about Robin deep inside.
One lets things simmer away, telling oneself that somehow they’re going to sort themselves out, but now the point gets clearer and clearer: I’m only delaying all that’s going to happen anyway.
I was quiet for a long, long time and gathered my strength to say after much wrestling, “I’ll talk to him-I’ll make him see from our point of view.”
When he ran his smooth thumb over my cheek, Brandon really relaxed his face a little. “All I mean,” he muttered to me, his face slowly lowering towards mine, “is I want you to be with me, Natalie. No one else.”
I shivered, felt my skin sort of twist at the possessiveness that bled through his words, and hissed in an attempt to temper it down; my arms came around him almost in silent agreement.
Yes, he was right. I needed to draw some line somewhere to make him realize that he couldn’t keep pushing me around just because the two of us had gone down in the past. Not to mention Brandon had become part of my life now. But there was that small part of me, somewhere in Brandon’s hug, wondering if I was trying to draw those lines with the wrong guy.
Brandon and I left the restaurant together and went straight home. After we had dinner, Brandon insisted I spend the night in his room, but I refused wanting to be left alone with thoughts.
I lay on my back in bed, staring at the ceiling, for way too long. Primarily, Robin kept gnawing at my mind: those words he said just really kept me turning over and over in my mind.
‘I hope you are not making a mistake.’
I rolled onto my side, trying to shake off the feeling of impending doom that was suddenly squeezing at my chest. It was like, I felt like talking to Robin, but even the idea of him seemed to make my stomach churn. How was I going to explain something that I didn’t get myself?
The thought was broken again as my phone buzzed a second time on the nightstand. Rolling over to reach for it, sure enough, there would be a text from Brandon checking in again, and when the name Robin lit up on the screen, my heart sank.
Sure enough, I hesitated; the answer button was green and kind of small, and I had my thumb over it. Hell, this couldn’t be put off forever, and I knew that. I took a deep breath and swiped to answer.
“Robin,” I said with my voice way steadier than I felt.
He signed, “Natalie,” in the same flat tone as before. Well, he was thoughtful in his response, and I could almost picture him looking at the other end of the cell, trying to find words.
“I’m really sorry earlier; I really didn’t mean to do that and stuff-to make things just all awkward for you,” I said quickly so that he wouldn’t feel bad. “Because I just… wasn’t prepared for you to come here.”
“I know. I just needed to see you, to talk to you.”
I bit my lip, unsure of what to say. That was so much of what we had to talk about that had barely even been brushed on. “Robin, I-”
He scissored my words with his; a straining voice. “Is Brandon who you really want to be with?”
That question: heavy between us. Smothering. My heart pounded inside my chest and it felt like it beat with the weight of indecision. “I don’t know,” I confessed, my voice barely audible. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
“I’m seriously really concerned about you, Natalie,” Robin finally said, and by his tone, I knew he really almost never joked. “He’s no good for you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as they would go, trying to shake all the roiling feelings from me. “There’s more to it than that, Robin. It’s just not that simple.”
“Then help me,” he begged. “Tell me what’s going on. Let me be there for you.”
I inhaled a deep, shaky breath, holding onto the release of tears threatening to come out. “I’m scared,” I said finally because the words had escaped my lips before I could reel them in. “I am afraid of making the wrong choice, afraid that I am going to throw it all away.”