And yet, beyond all reason, I was surprised.
Wade stood on the stoop in his uniform again, his face alive and eyes on fire, and I stood in the doorway, frozen to the spot with no idea which version of him I would get.
"Is everything all right?" I asked quietly, not knowing what else to say.
"I need to know why," he said, something on the edge of his voice that made me feel like I was wrong, as if he were accusing me of something.
I had no idea what he meant. "Why what?"
"Why didn't you choose me?"
I blinked, pulling away from him in shock. "Wade, I would have always chosen you—"
"But you didn't. You didn't choose me, and I want to know why."
"You know why," I offered gently. He was wild, distraught; there would be no reasoning with him.
He shook his head. "Why didn't you come with me? Why didn't you leave your family? If you had only come with me, everything would have been okay."
"Please, come inside—" I said, but he spoke over me, his eyes wild.
"I need to know why you're still here. Why did you have to be here through this? I can't … I don't …." His chest heaved, and I said nothing as my heart broke again for the thousandth time, the porcelain pieces so small that I didn't know how I could keep putting it back together. "Why don't you want me?" he asked in agony, voice sharp. "For seven years I've perfected this mask, pretended to forget, pretended to survive, and now everything's ruined. I'm ruined. All I ever wanted was you, but after I came to you, you showed up to the funeral with him. Every time I wanted to speak, he was there. So tell me, why did you choose Jack?"
Anger filled me like creeping smoke, filling me up, my face and my heart on fire. "No."
He blinked at me. "What do you mean, no?" he spat. "You can't even answer—"
"Stop it, right now." The words were low, the warning clear. "You don't get to do this."
"You owe me an answer—"
"I owe you nothing," I shot at him, my back straight and breath shallow. "You did this to us, Wade. You put us here, but you're asking me why? When I've given you everything I have, you ask me why? Three days, and I heard nothing from you, and now you come here and accuse me of being the ruiner? I have questions of my own. Why don't you tell me? Why didn't you answer my letters? Why didn't you give me more time? Why have you treated me the way you have since you've been back, through everything with your dad?"
He said nothing, the shock written on his face at my anger, and I realized he didn't think I'd fight back. He'd expected me to bear his pain, shooting me down with his words. No more.
My heart hardened at the thought, forged by my pain at remembering what he'd done, how he'd hurt me. "Why did you come here that night, Wade? Why did you take without giving? And why do you presume to know what I feel, what I think? No one cares to ever ask me anything, you all assume and push and take until there's nothing left." I shook my head at him, finished being a rubber band for him to stretch. I'd finally snapped, and clarity found me with the sting. "I can't keep doing this with you. It's killing me, Wade. You're killing me."
He shook his head. "You don't understand. You never understood."
"I understand just fine, and I'm not participating in it anymore. I'll love you forever, but that won't stop me from telling you that I'm through. It won't stop me from telling you that I don't know the man who would do what you've done. I refuse to be hurt by you again." I stepped back into the doorway with my heart a jackhammer, and he panicked, eyes flying wide, stopping the door with his palm.
"Just tell me why," he begged.
"You first."
But he said nothing, his eyes searching mine as if he'd find courage there. In the end, there was none, only the war behind those eyes I loved so much.
I swallowed hard and nodded. "That's what I thought. Goodbye, Wade," I said gently and moved back, leaving him, closing the door to the vision of him standing there in the cold in his uniform, strong and weak, broken and begging me once again to acquiesce without saying a single word.
But I'd already bent as far as I could go.
21
Displacement
Displaced by the weight,
The excess of what we believed
Spilling over curling edges,
Kissing the floor sweetly
As it crawls away,
Lost to the cracks,
And gone.
* * *
-M. White
* * *
Wade
I stood there on her step, staring at the door in the freezing cold, the madness that had consumed me ebbing as the wall I'd built so carefully crumbled, falling to the ground.
Her questions had hit me in a burst of explosions, each one ripping me apart a little bit more. She was right — I couldn't answer her. I couldn't give her any answers because I was broken. I couldn't be honest because the truth hurt too much to speak. I'd piled up that truth like sandbags and had been hiding behind them for protection.
I'd given her nothing, but expected her to give me everything. But she didn't owe me a thing, and I owed her everything.
I turned slowly and walked down the stairs, my jagged thoughts needling me from the inside.
The whys tormented me, all the whys I'd pointed at everyone else like weapons, holding them in front of me for protection when I should have turned the barbs back on myself.
Why had I done this to her? Why did I keep hurting her when all I wanted was to love her?
Why was I so broken? Why couldn't I do the right thing?
Why couldn't I be who she deserves?
The whys had been on me the whole time.
The truth of the circumstance was a relief and a regret. I'd pushed her to this, forced her to fight, backed her into a corner. All she'd ever done to deserve it was give me everything without condition, without expectation.