Page 53 of Second Alarm
All the way. The plate I'm holding stays in my hand. The other hand stays on the dishcloth. My feet stay on the mat. My face, which I've been keeping still for weeks, loses a definite amount of its stillness.
"Hanna — "
"I know, I know — "
"I — "
"I know. That's not — I'm not — I'm too tired tonight to — don't — "
She stops. She closes her eyes. I put the plate in the rack, dry my hands on the towel, and turn toward her.
"Open your eyes."
"Ty."
"Open your eyes."
She opens them.
"I'm going to say one thing," I say. "And then you can say whatever you need to say, including telling me to leave you alone and never say it again. Okay?"
"Okay."
"I was never over you."
She's looking at me.
"I tried. You should know. I tried really hard. I dated other women. I took vacations with other women. I had a girlfriend for months, a good woman — an excellent woman, a smart funny woman named Jessica who worked in a hospital and who deserved to be loved by a man who was going to be able to love her fully. I broke up with her because I wasn't that man, and I knew it, and she knew it, and she told me so on the way out the door."
"Ty — "
"Let me just finish."
"Okay."
"I tried. I want that on the record. I didn't sit in Copper Ridge for a decade pining for you. I lived a life. A pretty good one. I was a good firefighter. A good friend to Cal. A good son. A good friend when someone need one. I did a lot of things."
"Okay."
"And I was never over you."
My hands are shaking.
I've said everything around the sentence and not the sentence itself. I look at my hands on the towel, watch them shake. I've watched these hands do a lot of things in fires and car accidents and in Mrs. Larsen's house and on the porch steps when I didn't get to say goodbye. I've never watched them do this particular shake.
"Ty — "
"I'm saying it." I look up. "I was never over you, Hanna. I'm not over you now. I'm never going to be over you. Whatever this is between us, it didn't go away. I waited ten years for it to go away, and it didn't. So, it's here. And I know the rules. I know what you need. I understand why we said what we said in the kitchen three weeks ago. But I can't keep making you coffee and pretending. I can't keep coming to Sunday dinner and pretending. I can't sit on a couch next to your brother in a — a t-shirt — "
She makes a sound. Laugh or sob. Both.
" — and pretend. I can't pretend anymore. That's where I am."
"Ty."
"That's what I wanted to say."
"Your hands are shaking."
