Page 52 of Rome
“No, I guess not,” she agreed quietly. “But just because those parties get wild doesn’t mean that you had to get wild, too.”
“You’re right.” I hesitated for a second before asking, “Why didn’t you ever tell me how you felt about my road name?”
“Because at the time, I was humiliated and so fucking hurt. There was no way in hell I was going to make it worse by telling you how I felt. I had too much pride for that. Besides, we were just friends, so I didn’t really have any right to complain about what you did with your dick back then. It just pisses me off when you try to rewrite our history like it was some epic romance when for me, it was anything but.”
“It was –is– an epic romance Abs. The fact that I was a stupid, selfish motherfucker doesn’t change the fact that I started falling in love with you the day we met. It doesn’t change the fact that I told Jagger that I was going to marry you three days later, the day you first called me Romeo. And somehow, despite the fact that I was a stupid, selfish motherfucker, I managed to get you to fall in love with me, too.”
“Yet here we are. So much for our epic romance.” She didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in her tone, and I didn’t try to hide how deeply her words cut.
Chapter 14
Abby
“Hearing what those bunnies said…that’s why you pulled away, wasn’t it? I remember that you started avoiding me. You didn’t call or text me, and you stopped responding to me when I reached out to you. When I wanted to take you out to lunch for your seventeenth birthday, you shot me down.”
“Yeah, that’s why, but why didn’t you ever ask? If you loved me, why didn’t you ask why I was pulling away? Why didn’t you ask about the Romeo thing? You knew it bothered me, Caleb. You admitted it at our session. So, why didn’t you ever bother, even once, to ask me what was wrong?”
“When you pulled away and avoided me, I hated it on one hand, but it was almost a relief in a way.”
I couldn’t help the pained gasp that escaped me at his quiet statement, and he rushed to reassure me.
“Shit, that didn’t come out right. Just, let me explain, please.” I nodded, and he continued.
“Seeing you and spending time with you without telling you how I felt, or acting on those feelings, was getting so damned hard, Abs. Every time I was around you, I had to fight myself. So, it was almost easier when I graduated and didn’t see you quite so much. Since Lucky was a year behind me, he kept an eye on you at school for me. He also gave me the heads up when guys started sniffing around you. I never thought about how that would make you feel. If I’d known what you were thinking back then – with the clothes and the diets and shit – I swear to God, I would have come clean with you, baby girl. I’m so fuckin’ sorry I did that to you. I’m so fuckin’ sorry for all of it.”
“OK, so why didn’t you ask why I stopped calling you Romeo?”
“I don’t know. I think in the back of my mind I was afraid of the answer. I’d heard jokes about my road name being appropriate, given the shit I was doing, and I shut those fuckers down every damned time. I’d worried that you’d heard that, too, but then I would have had to talk to you about the other women, and I didn’t want to have to do that. I was trying to protect you from what I’d done, but clearly that fuckin’ failed. Then, when you started calling me Caleb again, I liked that you were the only one not using my road name. It was special, just for you. So, I let the Romeo thing drop.”
I nodded, not surprised by anything he told me.
“I just wish to God I’d known – that I’d manned the fuck up and just asked you. I hate the idea that you’ve had to be reminded of that every day when you look at my cut. And I really fuckin’ hate the idea that I gave you a cut that said, “Property of Romeo.” I’m surprised you didn’t burn the damned thing.”
I snorted. “I thought about it a few times. I just finally stuck it in the closet and forgot about it.”
“That’s why you refused to get a property-of tattoo, wasn’t it?”
“Mostly, although you know my fear of needles is real.”
He nodded as he lifted a hand up and squeezed the back of his neck. I’d seen him do that same thing hundreds of times over the years, trying to ease the tension when he was stressed about something. He brought his hand forward and rubbed his close-cropped beard, another familiar gesture. My eyes followed the movement, then narrowed on that spot right above the neckline of his navy-blue T-shirt. There was nothing there now. The purplish mark had faded, but I could still see it in my mind. He caught me staring and stilled, then subtly shifted his body to angle the side of his neck away from my view.
Neither of us acknowledged the elephant in the room.
“Kim and I talked about my drinking during our session yesterday,” he offered, clearly trying to distract me from the memory of that damned hickey.
“She said binge drinking falls under something called Alcohol Use Disorder. She gave me a bunch of shit to read. From what I can tell, I think it covers all kinds of alcohol abuse and addictions. She went over an AUD checklist with me…I ticked off several of the signs. You were right, Abs. I should have listened to you.”
I just nodded again. There really wasn’t anything to add to that. I’d come across information on AUD last year when I’d put my foot down about his drinking. I’d done some research then myself, trying to figure out how to get through to him – how to help him. He hadn’t been willing to listen then.
“She also said that the drinks I had that night probably hit me even harder than usual, since I’d been abstaining for a couple of months.”
“So, how do you plan to deal with it?”
“We’re gonna work on that, come up with a plan that I can stick to. The first suggestion she had was to tell all the brothers, really, everyone in my life. She said I need to be transparent with everyone, so that nobody offers me drinks that I might be tempted by, and they can help hold me accountable. Kind of like my family has since that time last year when Ethan found me.”
“It sounds like a good start, at least. Are you comfortable doing that?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated a few seconds before he added, “It’s not like most of them don’t know by now anyway.”
