"Um, sure, I just got back from a run."
"Ok, see you in a few, Tom."
"Ok, bye."
Tom shuffled out onto the porch, all the possibilities swirling through his head. 'Did Richard find out about us? Did I say something wrong, or do something wrong at the picnic? Is she just tired of me? Was she really just using me for sex, faking everything else? She said she'd faked it before, she knows how. Fuck. So much for making the pitch she leave him for me. What were you thinking, dumb ass?' He thought of more possibilities, all of them bad. He paced back and forth, watching for her, every second seeming an eternity. Finally, she pulled up. Tom set his phone on the railing and walked towards the Jeep.
Kelli's heart was pounding as she got out. "Oh, god, this is going to be so hard on both of us.' Their eyes met and she took his hand and led him to the porch. 'He knows, I can see it in his eyes.' "Let's sit." They did, and they kept holding hands. She'd planned out what she wanted to say, but forgot every bit of it as she looked into her Gym Buddy's eyes, seeing them dark, and sad, for the first time. She just lurched into it.
"Richard and I had a long talk last night. He realizes he's been neglecting me, not being with me, not loving me, and he says he wants to change, be a good husband, be close to me, not be gone so much."
'Oh, god.' Tom's throat started to constrict, his stomach clenched.
"He really seems sincere, that he wants us to be close." She paused. "I promised him, I made a vow, that I'd be his wife."
Tom turned his eyes away, looking down, not knowing what to say.
She squeezed his hand. "Our relationship, our friendship, is so important to me -- I can't bear the thought of losing that. But I can't be your lover and try to make it work with him. I'm hoping we can go back to being just Gym Buddies, maybe having dinner at Brewster's, sometimes hanging out?"
For Tom there was just blackness, anguish, a crushing sadness that consumed him. Kelli reached over to touch his chin, turn his head towards her -- but he let her hand go, pulled away, still not looking her in the eye.
In a second, everything had changed, the closest intimacy replaced with cold rejection. 'Oh god, what have I done to him?'
He said nothing for a good minute, then started to look at her, and couldn't. In a hoarse voice he said "I can't do that. Can't just be friends with you. It's all or nothing." Bracing his elbows on his knees Tom covered his face with his hands.
Kelli's eyes teared up and she felt sick to her stomach. 'Oh, god, Patti was right. What have I done?' She laid her hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Tom." He didn't respond, didn't move, didn't look at her. 'Better go -- he doesn't want me here, doesn't want to be with be. Why would he?' She got up, walked to the Jeep and paused, looking back at him, the tears now running down her cheeks, her stomach in a knot. Finally, she got in and drove away, leaving her shattered friend sitting on his front steps, hands still covering his face, tears streaming from between his fingers.
*****
Kelli, consumed with sadness and anguish, would have forgotten that her sister was waiting for her if Patti hadn't flagged her down from the sidewalk. She pulled over and parked. Patti opened the door to find her sister in tears, her forehead leaning against the steering wheel. She pulled Kelli out of the Jeep and big sister held little sister for a long time as she cried. "He said he couldn't, couldn't just be friends. Now I've lost him forever."
Patti knew there was nothing she could say, so she just held her sister and best friend for a long time.
*****
Tom just sat there for a good half hour before he got up and slowly shuffled into a house full of memories of the woman who he thought might be his, but had chosen another man. He wandered around in a daze for a while, then, without thinking, picked up his car key, then his phone off the porch rail, got in his SUV and drove off, with no destination in mind. 'Gotta get away from this house, clear my head.'
He ended up in the state park north of the city, parked, and walked, all day, for miles and miles. He came back home after dark and, not able to even look at his own bed that he had shared with Her, wandered into the front bedroom, laid down on Alan's single mattress on the floor. It was after midnight before he finally fell asleep.
