David Policar 1993
That's it, he thought fiercely, I've had it.
The room was dark and loud and full of moving bodies... a typical college party. Daniel had arrived an hour ago with his girlfriend, but there she was lying on a table in the corner with three or four guys rubbing her belly, and here he was fuming silently on a chair by the window. Some party!
So OK, her stomach hurt. He understood that. But she didn't want to go home. She snarled at him when he tried to help. As far as he could tell, what she wanted was to lie there and be helpless and get lots of attention from other guys. Well, fine. She doesn't want me around, she'd rather flirt with half the campus, that's fine. I'll go.
Outside, the grass was still wet from the rain. The benches and the picnic table were all occupied by couples making out, and he stormed past them with no destination in mind. He stopped briefly at a computer cluster to read his mail, but was too wound up to sit still for very long; soon he was walking aimlessly through corridors again.
By the time he became aware of his surroundings he wasn't entirely sure how much time had passed, or where he was. A basement somewhere, or maybe he had ended up in one of the steam tunnels. He had walked most of the bite off of his anger, and was ready to go back to the party and see if she was ready to go home... but which way was the party? After some agitated prowling, he concluded that he was lost.
Oh, great. That's all I need.
"It's OK," came a voice from behind him, and he whirled to face it. About ten feet away, sitting cross-legged in a corner, was a bearded man with green eyes, who looked to be in his early thirties, wearing jeans and a shapeless sweater.
"It's OK," he repeated. "You'll find your way out soon. But while you're here, I thought we could chat."
This was a little too wierd. "Um... well, to be honest, I do have to be going. There's this... well, I have to meet someone."
"Yes, I know. Maybe it would be best if you waited a little longer. If you go back now, the way you are, you'll just make things worse."
"What? Who the hell are you, mister? What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you, Daniel. You, and the girl you just walked out on, whom you are finally thinking about going back to. Good for you... but you're going to storm back into that dance feeling as if you're the injured party, and frankly, that isn't going to play well to a woman who is lying there sick, wondering where the hell you disappeared to."
Daniel was pretty sure he opened and closed his mouth a few times... perhaps words even came out. He wasn't sure. Who the hell was this guy, anyway, and who did he think he was making blithe pronouncements about what he was or wasn't going to do with his girlfriend? Where does he come off making me into the villain of this piece, anyway?
"Well, fine, then," Dan finally shot back, sitting against the wall. "I'll just sit here and let her flirt with her admirers some more. If she's so damned worried about me, why'd she..." he paused for a while, and decided he didn't want to get into the issue of what she had or hadn't done. He didn't even want to think about it. "Never mind," he finished lamely. "She can do whatever the hell she wants, but what gives her the right to expect me to sit there and watch like some kind of emasculated lap dog?"
"Well, that's not a bad question, Dan. Maybe the fact that you keep telling her how much you love her?"
Dan could feel the rage building up again, forcing the words out. "Dammit, I do love her. But... " he paused again, while phrases he didn't want to say came bubbling through his mind. But why doesn't she love me? was one, and But it hurts too damned much was another, and But I don't want to be in charge was a third, and a few dozen other thoughts milled around in his mind looking for words to clothe themselves in. After a while, he realized the silence had dragged on too long.
The bearded man was laughing quietly. "OK, Dan, let's cut to the chase, shall we? She was sick, you tried to make her feel better, she snapped out at you, you ran into a corner to sulk. A bunch of guys came out of the woodwork to flirt with her and you decided it was her job to chase them off and come find you, never mind how she was feeling, rather than your job to run interference for her. When she didn't do all the work herself, you decided to make it even harder for her by leaving altogether, so even if she got up the energy to leave with you, there'd be no way for her to find you. And now you're sitting here feeling unloved and abandoned when you're the one who walked out in the first place. Is that a reasonable summary of the night's events?"
The rage built up again, but popped like an overfilled balloon, and Dan could feel the tears pouring down his cheeks. He felt removed from the whole thing, as if it were someone else sitting there having this conversation.
"So once you had gotten most of the steam out of your system," the man continued, "you were going to walk back into the party, hoping to find her happy and alone so you could just pick up the pieces without doing any work. Of course, instead you would find her surrounded by the same group of guys, and you'd blame her for it yet again, and you'd tell her you were going home. Not ask her if she wanted to go home, not tell her you wanted her to go home with you, certainly not tell her you loved her and wanted to help her feel better... no, that would mean being honest with her. No, you wouldn't even give her the chance... you'd just snap 'I'm going home.' and disappear, leaving her hurt and confused and feeling like she was at fault somehow for being sick."
Daniel was silent. He felt more and more distanced from himself, from the corridor, from the man speaking. He shut his eyes tight against the tears.
"Go back to her, Dan. Now, you can go back to her. But be honest, and don't make her do all the work. It's OK to be hurt, but right now, she needs you more than you need her. Don't screw it up."
After a long silence, Dan opened his eyes. The man was gone. The corridor didn't look quite the same, either, and all of a sudden he knew where he was. Slowly, thoughtfully, he walked back to the party.
Wierd, he thought. Must have been dreaming.
When he got back to the party, she was sitting down, and a tall blond man was rubbing her shoulders. Dan sat down in front of her, crosslegged.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
"A little. Where were you?"
"I... went out for some air.... that is, I thought you didn't want me around, but I was wrong. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you alone here while you were sick, but I saw all these other guys around you and I got jealous. It was stupid... I didn't know what I was doing."
There was an awkward silence that lasted a long time. The blond man muttered something and wandered off. Dan reached his hands out to her and she took them, and they stayed that way for a while.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked, knowing he meant a different question altogether.
"Yes," she replied, and it seemed to him that she had answered it.