Pieces of Perfect (22 page)

“Why?”  It was a simple question, but I had a feeling the answer would be more complicated.
 

Marjory continued rinsing dishes and placing them in the dishwasher, giving herself time to carefully construct her response.
 Then, once she had worked it out in her mind, she wiped her hands on the dish towel and turned toward me.

“You know how my son feels about you, don’t you?”  

I quaked slightly at her words.  Had Max talked to her about me?  How did she know how he felt?  
Maybe the same way I knew.
 I nodded, embracing what I had promised myself in the bathroom.  
Stay real, Lily.
 

“He would never talk to me about it, of course,” she said, answering my unspoken question.
 “But no one knows that man better than I do.  And I have a feeling that only two other people are even close to knowing him as well as me.  One is Bill, and I suspect that the other is you.  Do you think that’s true, Lily?”  Her question was kind and genuine. She obviously loved her son very much and her curiosity was based completely on ensuring his happiness.

“I don’t know much about Max’s personal life, in terms of friends . . . I don’t know if anyone knows him better.”  My words rocked me.  I really didn’t know much about Max.  Granted, there were some things I was intimately knowledgeable of, but nothing that truly mattered.  And here was his mother, thinking that I knew him better than anyone except for his parents.  
 

“It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t know any of Max’s friends.
 He cut a lot of them loose when his career started declining.  He spent time with a lot of hangers on and good time Charlies.  Once he really stopped and took a look around, he realized that he was essentially alone, except for Bill and me.  It changed him.  Made him more guarded and detached.  But then, he shows up here today with you," she smiled at me, “and I just hoped . . .” She paused in an attempt to quell the rising emotions.  Her eyes glistened as she turned her head and looked out the window that was above the sink.  “No mother wants their child to be lonely, Lily.”

“I don’t want him to be lonely either,” I admitted quietly.  No matter how confused my feelings were for Max, I knew this for absolute certainty.  “But, I can only help him in that regard as his friend.  It isn’t any more than that between us.”  I needed to say this almost as much as I wanted her to hear it.  I didn’t want to give her hope for something I couldn’t promise.  And I had to remind myself that I couldn’t promise anything.  
 

“I’m glad he has such a good friend,” she said, looking back at me.
 
 

I wanted to correct her.
 Tell her that, really, I was a pretty horrible friend.  He was much better to me than I was to him.  But I didn’t have the courage to tell any more of the truth to her.  “I’m going to go see what the guys are up to,” I said meekly, beginning to walk toward the doors.  As I was about to step through, I heard her again.

“Lily?”  I turned to face her.  “Just promise me . . .” her voice was an octave higher than normal, hopeful.  She exhaled slightly before finishing her sentence, effectively lowering her register, “just promise that you’ll be good to him.”

I nodded slightly, then stepped through the doors.  I could tell that she wanted me to give Max a chance, but taking a chance on him could cost me a lot.  And as I made my way toward the garage, I wondered if some things were worth the gamble.
 

*
              *              *

Max and I left a short time later.  His parents hugged us both and as we climbed into the Range Rover, Bill yelled that Max had better “bring his girl back for a visit.”  Marjory answered that with a sharp elbow to Bill’s ribs.

“They’re really great, “I told Max.
 

“Yeah, they are,” he said as he pulled out of their driveway and started down the street, offering one last wave to his parents as he left.
 

We drove the rest of the way back to school in silence, both of us milling the evening over in our heads.  It was dark now, and the darkness brought some winter chill back into the air.  I shivered slightly, and Max reached over and turned on the heat.  When we pulled into the Swift parking lot, Max parked next to my car.  
 

I wasn’t quite sure what to say.
 Things felt awkward and I didn’t know how to fix them.  “Thanks for tonight,” I said finally.  “It was a lot of fun hanging out with you and your parents.  Definitely improved my mood.”

He looked thoughtful for a minute, as if gaining courage for what he would say next. “Why were you upset earlier?”  He lowered his head and pulled his hands from the steering wheel and onto his lap.  “Was it because of him?”  Max looked over at me, his eyes pleading with me to confide in him.
 

“It was a lot of things.
 I feel like . . . ,” I sighed, “I feel like every time I try to make things better, I end up making them worse.  I don’t know up from down anymore.  It’s so . . . complicated.  And I hate complicated.  It’s like I can’t tell right from wrong.”  I looked out the passenger window, unable to let Max see my face as I asked my next question.  “Max, am I a bad person?”
 

He didn’t answer right away, which forced me to look at him to try to see what he was thinking. He smiled weakly at me and said, “I don’t think one bad person can always identify another.”
 

This wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but it was the answer I needed.
 It was honest.  Max was never going to be that person who told me the sun shined out of my ass just because it’s what I wanted to hear.  He knew that my actions had been questionable since I met him and he wasn’t going to try and convince me otherwise.  Instead, he let me know it wasn’t him I needed to convince.  He was in no place to judge me. If I had to ask whether or not I was a bad person, then I probably already knew my answer.  

Maybe that’s why I had always been drawn to Max.  The darker, baser parts of me found a kindred spirit in his demons. I could be whoever I wanted to be with Max.  He would like me anyway.  Suddenly, I needed to touch him.  I needed to feel the electric pulsing that ran through his veins when our skin connected?  I needed to feel loved.

I stretched out my arm toward him, allowing my fingertips to graze his jaw bone.  And as my fingers made contact, I felt it.  The warmth and acceptance radiated into my hand as he leaned slightly into my touch.  But then it was severed as he pulled away from me sharply.

I let me hand drop into my lap as I stared at him, unsure of what had just transpired.  He averted his gaze out the windshield, putting one hand on the ignition to turn the engine over and the other atop the steering wheel.  
 

“There is one thing I do know.
 Sometimes, doll, in our attempt to have everything, we find ourselves left with nothing.”  He then turned the ignition, signaling that the conversation was over.  I pulled the handle and climbed out of the car.  He waited for me to remove my keys from my purse before he drove off.
 

I watched him go, leaning back against my driver’s side door.
 And for the first time in a long time, I cried.

Twenty-Eight
 

             
By the middle of the day on Tuesday, I had no choice but to vent to Tina about the predicament I’d been facing lately.  Even if she didn’t have any solid advice to offer, I still needed to hear myself say aloud what I’d been contemplating silently for so long,
even if it would be difficult.  So when the bell rang for our lunch, I peeked my head into her room and told her we were going out for lunch, my treat.  I owed Tina a lunch anyway.  We’d made a bet about how many mandatory faculty meetings we’d have in February.
 Never take the under
, I reminded myself.   
 

             
“Yes, can’t wait!”  Tina looked more excited than she probably should at the prospect of getting a slice of pizza, and I suspected it was because she figured I had some juicy details of my Max escapades to share since we hadn’t gotten a chance to catch up lately.  We strolled silently out of the building, but as soon as we were out of earshot of young impressionable minds, Tina wasted no time.  “So, what do you have for me?  Let’s hear it.  Tell me you sucked him off in the parking lot or something.”

              “No.”  I couldn’t help but laugh, even in my despondent state.  “I think we were actually off of school grounds when that happened.  Though it
was
during school hours.”  I shook my head and let my posture reveal what
I struggled to expose through words.  And despite Tina’s typically light-hearted comments, she knew when to be serious.  
 

             
“Lil, what’s wrong?”

              “I don’t even know where to begin.”  I was thankful for the time and the privacy that walking to lunch provided me because I felt like I might start to cry again as soon as I spoke.  “Things with Max . . . they’re complicated.  It’s so hard to explain.  I haven’t told you about everything.”

Tina raised her eyebrows to prompt me to continue.
 

“Or I guess I should really say every
one
.”  I paused for a few moments to let my words sink into Tina’s brain.  

As we cut across the field like high schoolers, Tina stopped in her tracks.  I could see my words had clicked.  “Wait, what?  There’s someone else?”
 

I knew normally Tina would congratulate me on such a fine accomplishment, but she was considerate, careful of how her reaction might press a button in me that she knew I didn’t want pushed.
 “Yeah, I’ll start from the beginning, I guess.”  I began walking again slowly toward the hill, and Tina followed.  I did my best to explain the fucked up timeline of events and emotions that had transpired over the course of the last few months.  I had been right; hearing myself say what I’d done was tough to swallow.  But somehow I managed to hold my composure.

              “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”  Her tone was not accusatory. She was clearly concerned.

“I guess a couple reasons, really.  The first is probably that I didn’t want to seem like a whore.  I mean, I was worried that fucking Max would make me seem like a one.  But Christ, what would I look like if I was fucking Max
and
someone else?”  I breathed in deeply and expelled a loud sigh, preparing for what I was about to say next.  “The second reason
is that the other guy is Adam
Carter
.”

I could tell by Tina’s puzzled expression that she had no idea who that was.

“Eva Carter’s father.  She’s in my first period class.”  I pulled my phone out to show her a picture.

Tina did her best to temper her reaction, but her body language revealed her true shock.  “He's hot.  Seriously?"

“Seriously.”

We arrived at Lupi’s and ordered a few slices and fries to split, then quickly
sat down to resume our conversation.  

“So what are you going to do?”  Tina asked.  “I mean, you said that the time in Atlantic City was your last time with Max, right?  And you told Adam you loved him.  So that’s who you’re picking?”
 

Her last question lingered in the air like a dense fog, making it difficult for me to see straight.
 Somehow, during all of this, I had never thought I was making a choice.  I had never considered that this was actually a voluntary decision that I had control over.  So much of what I’d done had been based off of deeper feelings: reflex, sexual desire, fear.  I had told Adam I’d loved him because I was afraid he’d leave if I didn’t.  That he’d see me for who I really was: an indecisively selfish and promiscuous fraud.  And I’d reached out to Max again because I didn’t know how
not
to.  He was an addiction I just couldn’t get over.
 

“I don’t know.
 That’s who I
should
pick.  He’d give me a wonderful life, full of family dinners and flowers and—God, sex like I’ve never experienced before.  He’s so loving and so commanding at the same time.  But I can’t see myself without Max.  I try, and I just can’t.  He’s a temptation I can’t resist.”

Tina listened carefully before constructing her response.  “If you want my opinion, and I don’t even know if you do—”
 

“Yeah, any opinion could help right now,” I interrupted.

“This may seem like a surprise coming from me, but you can’t pick a good lay over a good life.”
 

Something inside me battled with her last line, and I couldn’t help but get defensive.
 For the first time, I understood what Max had come to realize weeks ago.  “The thing with Max—it’s more than just a good lay.”  I put my pizza down, needing all my energy to process my new epiphany.  “It’s like, I can’t give up our friendship because it’ll leave me with no part of him at all.  But if we stay friends, I have this undeniable attraction for him that goes beyond something physical.  I saw that yesterday at his house.  There was something more, and I am just now starting to let myself acknowledge it.”  

Tina studied my expression, and I thought her own probably mirrored mine.  “Wow, I had no idea your feelings for Max went that deeply
.
 And I obviously had no idea about Adam at all.  You have to do what is best for you.  You have to do what
you
can live with.”
 

“I’m just so conflicted.
 Max is really no good for me. He’s impulsive.  And wild.  I know that.  But he brings out a side of me that I feel I need to hide
from Adam.  And Adam is . . . he’s just so good.  He makes me a better version of myself.  He’s everything I should love.  But somehow I can’t seem to love him.  At least not yet.”  Finally, I let a tear stream down my cheek before wiping it away.  “And if I keep doing this, I’m gonna fuck everything up—with both of them.”
 

“I think you need to see what things can really be like with Max.
  Let yourself open up to him a little now that you realize it could be something more.  You owe yourself that.  And truthfully, maybe you owe it to him too.”  Tina’s eyes welled before she was able to conjure up her innate sarcasm.  “Love whoever it is you’re gonna love.  I mean, do you really think I planned to fall in love with a 250 pound insurance salesman whose idea of adventure is eating Indian food from the new place down the street?  No.”  Tina shook her head and laughed quietly before making her tone more serious again.  “My point is that even though you may feel torn, you should take comfort in the fact that this isn’t really your decision at all.  Love finds
you
.  It’s not the other way around.  The only choice you really have is whether or not you want to be found.”