The First Good Night

The First Good Night

There was a pattern establishing in the first month. Everyone was tired and everyone was laconic and everyone couldn’t be bothered to do anything except what they absolutely felt they had to do.

However, “what they absolutely felt they had to do” included me. “What they absolutely felt they had to do” included me particularly insofar as Craig was concerned. But it absolutely did not include me as far as Kyle was concerned, which I sort of enjoyed.



I mean, it wasn’t like I enjoyed being ignored. But I wasn’t being ignored, not really. He just wasn’t going out of his way to pay attention to me—more attention than I needed, anyway. It made everything comfortable, the way he acted like I was just this constant, not anything particularly incredible or novel. It made it feel like this might be a long-term thing. And when I was in Kyle’s presence, with him casually tracing a pattern on my knee while he listened to music, I felt like I might be okay with a long-term thing. When I was out of his presence, not so much.

Not to say, again, that I didn’t think of Ian when I was with Kyle. I did. I did every time. I thought about Ian all the time. But sometimes when I was with Kyle, I felt a little bit like, instead of being heartbroken forever, I would only be heartbroken for a long time. Which I figured wasn’t exactly a healthy position to be in. But it could have been worse.

On the first good night, though, Kyle paid attention. He paid more attention that I’d been expecting. But, unlike Craig, he paid it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

His exact words were, “So, Sloan, you feel like going to see a movie or something this weekend?”
It would have been inappropriate, I was sure, to touch my chest in a me? gesture. But that was what I felt like doing, to be perfectly honest. He had just said it so randomly.

“So, Sloan, you feel like going to see a movie or something this weekend?”

Only one notch down on the inappropriate scale, I asked, “Why?”

And so, yeah, maybe it wasn’t the most tactful thing I’d ever said. And maybe it was a stupid question. But it sort of popped out before I could stop it. Pop pop pop.

Naturally, Kyle looked at me like I was absolutely insane. “Because I like you?” He phrased it as a question as a form of playful mockery. He seriously thought I was a little insane, though. I could see it in his face. He didn’t understand.

So I just shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we can do something.” It was easier to say nothing than to say something. If my getting my stuff back had sent him into the little tizzy it had, my accusing him of not understanding was going to really make him mad. And seriously, I simply did not need that.

We were alone that night. I had been reading; a month had not been long enough for me to clear out all the new reading materials I found lying around here. Kyle had been dozing. And then he’d rolled over all of a sudden and grabbed my hand and asked.

Now that the pleasantries were out of the way, he rolled over more, so he was lying directly next to me, pressed against my side. I turned and looked down at him. He pulled me down and kissed me soundly. Similarly, I did tend to quite enjoy it when Kyle kissed me. He could make a girl feel wanted, that boy could. Make her feel as if she mattered for something.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” he murmured in that deep, rough voice he had, the one that always made him sound as if he were angry. Maybe that was how things had changed—I had begun to understand that his gruffness wasn’t necessarily anger. That’s just the way he was.

He seemed to want something from me with that. “I am, too,” I lied—or half-lied. Or wasn’t sure.

I just didn’t know.

Nonetheless, this was still a good night. I snuggled in close to his side. He was in a lucrative mood. “Seriously. Everything is better around here now that you’re here. And I know that I’m not necessarily the best boyfriend ever, but you’re really the best girlfriend I’ve ever had—don’t tell Keeley.”

I laughed. He was beginning to become a little too intense for my tastes, and the humor made me feel better. Shocking, wasn’t it, that the very thing I had objected to so strenuously in Ian had been exactly what made me so uncomfortable in Kyle. Of course, I was enjoying it too much at the moment to appreciate the fact. I would only catch on later, when I entered the unhappy portion of it all.

And sorry if I’m giving you too much information in advance. But that first night was a very personal night, and it was also the last best night. I just wanted to let you know that in advance, before you got your hopes up. I know it’s an unconventional form of foreshadowing, but I’m afraid I do want to please you. This story is all for your pleasure and amusement, after all.
So Kyle and I had a wonderful night together. We had been together for six, maybe eight weeks. I had stopped counting after the first month was over. I had gotten lost in assuring my mother that everything was fine—there had been about a hundred messages on my phone when I finally got it back. I didn’t include all of the sordid details of my breakup with Ian. I barely made it sound like we were on the outs, I admit.

So sue me. I’m trying to keep you up in the air about what outcome is coming, because you’ll probably be disappointed no matter what happens. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m a disappointment. Get over it.

Let’s find some further distractions:

Earlier that day, I had seen Ian. We had had a conversation. Yes. An actual, honest to goodness conversation. Pete had been there and Kay had been there and the meeting had been accidental and we spent the entire time with our friends trying to shuffle us away, to safe us the discomfort.
But that hadn’t stopped us.

It had happened at the mess hall, of course. That was where everything happened. Kay and I were enjoying a leisurely, laugh-filled lunch when Ian sat down next to her (next to her, lucky thing)pulling along Pete, who had a world of agony on his face.

Now, I didn’t know what game he was playing, and I didn’t think Kay did, either, but Ian gave me his best smile and gestured that Pete should sit down next to me. I really thought Pete was going to have an embolism. I really, really did.

“Hey, Sloan.” He smiled at me again. Not that I didn’t notice that he had greeted me first.

“Hey, Ian,” I said back. Kay and Pete exchanged an uneasy look. What did they know here, that I didn’t?

“What’s up?” he asked. “How’s it been?”

Kay and Pete kept making these wide eyes at each other, a panicked, worried glance. Jesus Christ, what had their panties in a twist, anyway? It wasn’t as if anything heinously bad could happen—if nothing else, both of us were with other people. And what the hell did it matter that I still had feelings for Ian? Obviously he didn’t feel the same, if he was comfortable enough to come up to me here as if nothing had ever happened. Unfortunate, but true.

“Well enough,” I lied. Ian’s simple presence was a brutal reminder of just how agonizing the past few weeks had been. I loved him, okay. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him and it sucked because I’d blown it. Everything had been fine until I’d gone and fucked the whole thing up.
Not that I haven’t been over this again and again. I’m not really distracting you from the fact that I’m making out right now in the narrative and I’m not letting you hear about it, am I?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Return your attention to the dining hall, if you will.

“How’re you doing?” I shoved a mouthful of my sandwich into my mouth to stop myself from saying anything stupid.

Ian had this cavalier attitude that made me really believe him. Maybe I was bad at reading people and maybe he was a good liar, but maybe he wasn’t lying. And that basically just sucked.
It went on like that for a solid half an hour, us chatting casually, me wondering fretfully both what would happen if Kyle happened to come along and see this exchange and where in God’s name Rae was.

But then Kay pulled out all her stops, and insisted that we absolutely had to go—my feeble protestations did nothing to dissuade her. And maybe I wasn’t mistaken in saying that Ian looked a little sad to see me go. But I probably was entirely mistaken. But a girl can hope. A girl can always hope.

I had, you see, thoughts of Ian on my mind when Kyle made his move that night. And thoughts of my estranged husband still lurked in the back of my mind when Kyle said, “I love you, Sloan.”
I’m sure you can imagine my reaction: I froze.

This time understandably, he seemed to want something from me after that. But, really, what was there for me to say? I didn’t love him. I simply did not. And I knew it was really no answer at all, but I didn’t say anything. I just half sat, half lay there and pursed my lips together, as if words were fighting to escape. They were not. If nothing else, it would have been a trial to find words.

After a few moments of silence, Kyle prompted me for an answer. “Sloan?”

Maybe I should have lied. I hadn’t had any problem lying to Ian earlier that day. But I couldn’t make myself open my mouth and tell Kyle that I loved him, too.

Honestly, it would have been a worse deception than cheating had been. And maybe that didn’t count for anything, because Ian had never known I’d loved him and not Kyle. But it made all the difference to me. It was an important, discernable difference, and I had to go by my feelings.

“Sloan?” Kyle sat up so sharply I was afraid he was going to his hit head on the ceiling. I merely stared up at him miserably. “Say something,” he demanded. This was not the demand of happy Kyle. This was a demand of angry Kyle. He was nigh on furious because he was figuring it out.

“Say something!” he yelled.

I said nothing. He pushed himself away from me, as if being close disgusted him. “I can’t believe you,” he kept muttering. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe this.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled eventually. That was all I could manage. But still I slithered out of bed, to put some distance between me and Kyle’s blistering anger. I was so impressed by his tortured anger that I wanted to put physical distance between us.

“You’re sorry?” he thundered. This was a hundred times worse than the whole clothes retrieval debacle. I ought to have realized that that was a sign of jealous. I ought to have recognized it.
But I didn’t and now I had this to face. “You’re sorry? You really are a nightmare, you know that, Sloan? Because maybe I thought for just a second that because you left him for me, you loved me and not him. But no, you don’t.”

“I don’t,” I said with more confidence. Again a manifestation of my insanity, I was growing more brash the more irritated he became. It didn’t make sense, but then again, nothing I had done in months made any sense. Nothing I had done had made any sense at all.

Kyle strode toward me and for half a second I was sure he was going to hit me. But no—he wasn’t quite that far gone. “Say it,” he hissed, his face mere inches from mine.

And I could have pretended not to know what he wanted me to say. But that wouldn’t have helped the situation any. My eyes began to water and I started to cry just a little. I mean, yeah, maybe I loved Ian. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t care any about Kyle. I liked him and I didn’t want to see him hurt. If I could have, I would have loved him. It would have been much, much easier if I had loved him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

The tears were flowing freely when I said, “I love him.”

At that, Kyle did actually raise a hand to hit me. And that was when I knew. Even though he didn’t actually hit me, I knew that this was wrong. I had been lying to myself, if I was being perfectly honest, now. I had stayed with Kyle even though I was in love with Ian. And that wasn’t fair to anyone. I should have cut it off when I’d begun. I should have cut it off when I’d lost Ian. But I never did. I’d thought that sticking it out would make things better.

Now was the time to cut my losses. I could go back home. I could enroll in community college. I could make the steps to really figure out what would happen next to my marriage. I had to stop acting like a child—nobody was going to hand me the answer. I had to suck it up and deal with what was happening.

“Get out,” Kyle ordered me. It was the most unnecessary command ever given. I was already grabbing my things and shoving them into my backpack. Luckily, most of my things had stayed in my bags. We hadn’t really had too much room for unpacking.

Kyle watched me like an overseer, a hard look on his face, as I went. I didn’t bother to be hard.

I cried.

I went quickly. It was raining outside. I paused at the door. “Goodbye,” I said. It was important. It had to be said. He didn’t reply. He was already done with me.

And really, I understood. I may not have liked it—or maybe I did; maybe I knew I deserved it well enough that I sort of did like it—but I understood where he was coming from. I had hurt him. I had deceived him.

But I didn’t know what else to do anymore.

And then I had to leave. The mud was deep, around the fields in which we were parked this week. There was a town about five miles up the road. I could walk that far, jump on a bus, and be home in two days, tops. It was a good plan. I had money on me. I knew what I was doing. I was eighteen, not twelve. I could get myself home in a pinch.

Slogging through the mud, getting my sneakers and the bottom half of my sweatpants soaked, I had not counted on three factors: One was the dark. The second was that I did not necessarily count on the fact that the layout of camp changed frequently. The third was that I was not necessarily alone, out at night.

After a solid twenty minutes, I came across a single streetlamp. I hurried to stand underneath it—I confess, I was a bit spooked by walking around by myself at night. I had never been the nighttime adventurer type. It made me feel a little bit better to stand in that tiny pool of light even though, logically, I knew it only made me a better target to whatever was out there.

The only sign there to reveal I was not alone was the dim glow of a lit cigarette, some thirty feet to my left. The only sign, that is, before the mumbled question, “Sloan?”

I screamed. I confess to it. I was really, really, really freaked—the only thing that stopped me
from running in absolute terror was that I recognized the voice. “Ian?” I asked, squinting into the darkness. Of course I wouldn’t be able to see him, not standing in the light as I was. I stepped forward, and his shape became dimly outlined, leaning against one of the massive tires of the trailer, the lit cigarette dangling between his fingers.

“Yeah.” His red hair was plastered to his forehead, and he had to likewise squint to see me through the rain. “What’s the matter, Sloan? Why do you have all your stuff?”

My mind, however, would only focus on one thing. “You don’t smoke,” I accused. I couldn’t understand why he was out here smoking. Ian simply was not the smoking type. Like I’ve said before, he was a straight-edge. He simply didn’t do those things. “Why are you smoking?” Not to mention that this wasn’t precisely the prime weather for smoking, what with the torrential downpour and all.

“Are you okay?” he demanded again. “Did he hurt you?”

Ah, but there was a pretty bit of irony. That was what Kyle had asked me, that first day. There had been many tears more, that day. That, if nothing else, should have been my answer.

“I’m fine,” I assured Ian, shifting the weight of my backpack to my other shoulder. Physically, I was fine. Emotionally perhaps not so much. “Why are you smoking?” I asked again.

He shrugged ruefully and I took a step closer, if only to make conversation a little easier. “I’m not,” he admitted. “I just told Mark and Pete and Adnan that I picked up the habit so they’ll leave me alone when I go outside to think.” He beckoned that I should lean against the wheel with him.

Honestly, I was so excited by the idea that I had no problem dropping my backpack, which contained all the clothes I owned—not to mention a water-sensitive cell phone—into the mud. Ian looked at his lit cigarette as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.

For a few moments, we just stood there. The trailer provided a small amount of shelter. I should have left. I should have told Ian that I was leaving. God only knew what Kyle was thinking. Knowing him, he was probably freaking out that he’d sent me God knows where in the middle of the night, not repentant so much as irritated that he couldn’t do anything, no matter how much he may have wanted to. That was what always killed Kyle—lack of control.

“So,” Ian asked eventually, as if we had all the time in the world, “what are you doing out here in the rain?”

If I hadn’t told him after that point, it would have been lying. And I was done with lying.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he wouldn’t find out eventually. I mean, it would be pretty obvious pretty soon when I vanished off the face of the earth, for all intents and purposed. Besides, Molly would hear from Hank and Jenna would hear from Molly and Pete would hear from Jenna and Ian would hear from Pete. I wasn’t stupid. I may have made a lot of stupid mistakes, but I wasn’t stupid.

So I just shrugged. “I’m leaving,” I told him. That felt kind of good, to be able to say that.

Maybe I hadn’t even know quite how toxic this thing was until I’d washed my hands of the whole affair. I was leaving Kyle. Sweet.

Suddenly Ian didn’t seem at all disinterested. “You’re leaving him?” he demanded, a shocked expression on his face, as if he’d just found out that his favorite superhero was real and not just a comic book character at all.

“Yep. Well,” I amended—now that this honesty thing had started, I was sort of enjoying it, “I half left and he half threw me out.”

“I’ll kill him,” Ian vowed, peering into my face. “Seriously, Sloan. I’ll kill him.”

That was the first thing, the thing that made me sort of suspect.

I laid a hand on Ian’s arm. “Not worth it,” I told him with a cavalier shrug of one shoulder. Really, it wasn’t. I wasn’t mad. I would have left anyway. This way just gave Kyle a little bit more closure.

But Ian still seemed agitated. “No, seriously. I mean, I always thought he was a son of a bitch, but he fucking threw you out in the middle of the night with nowhere to go? Who the hell does he think he is? I’ll kill him.”

“Really,” I assured him. “Not worth it.”

And he seemed to calm under my touch. We stood there together for a few minutes more. I knew that this was probably it. I couldn’t even know if I would ever see Ian again. It wasn’t like we had any assets to split, or anything. Maybe twenty years from now we’d run into each other in the supermarket, each with a kid in his cart, and exchange pleasantries, not mentioning how we were once married. That was, after all, too embarrassing to even talk about, an indiscretion of our youths.

But then Ian seemed to want to keep the conversation going. “Why did he throw you out?” He was striving to keep his tone light, but he was angry. I could hear it in his tone. He was mad on my behalf.

I loved him so much in that moment. Probably more than I had ever loved him before.

Which is why it wasn’t hard to say, “I didn’t love him.”

“You didn’t?”

“Never did.”

Suddenly my face was between Ian’s hands and his nose was only an inch or so from mine, an intense look burning in his eyes. “You never loved him?” he demanded.

“No.”

“Then why?”

Why. Ah. The question hung between us like a bubble, waiting to be popped, so shower little pieces of enlightenment all over both of us. Why had I done it? All along, I’d been citing loneliness. But that was a feeble excuse, I knew.

“It was a mistake. I really big mistake.”

If my life had been a romance movie, that would have been the part where Ian kissed me passionately, in the rain, in the style of The Notebook. But instead he let go, leaned against the tire again and said, “Well. Well, fuck. I sure look like an asshole now.”

“Why?” I asked. I was fighting a losing battle to keep emotion out of my voice, my mind, my heart. It was hard. This was a hard conversation.

He didn’t answer my question. At least, not exactly. “I think you shouldn’t leave,” he told me. I lost finally against the emotion. The thoughts won. Things were looking up.

“What about Rae?”

I hated her. I hated her a lot. But I had definitely hated her more than I did at that moment.

Ian sounded sheepish as he answered. “I think I was only with her to piss you off,” he admitted. “To say that I could get over it if you could. Is that terrible?”

“Seeing as you’re saying it to the girl who cheated because she felt really, really lonely, absolutely not.”

“We both made mistakes.”

“Some of us made worse mistakes than others, Ian.”

“Some of us are prepared to forgive, Sloan.”

“I love you. I always have.”

“I love you, too. I always have.”

And maybe the timing was a bit off, but then, true to the romance movies, Ian kissed me. It was
not passionate by any stretch of the imagination. But it was sweet, and it spoke of time and time and time for passionate kisses. We didn’t need to do it while we were soaking wet and muddy and while there were still words to be said. No, we just kissed because we could. Love.

However, there were still several other things that had to be said. “I still can’t stay here, Ian,” I told him. I couldn’t. I wanted to be with him—I loved him, I really did—but I could not stay as a part of this travelling cavalcade. “I want to be with you, but I can’t be here.”

“Because of him?” Ian’s tone did not become absurdly hostile when he mentioned Kyle, the way Kyle’s always had when he’d mentioned Ian. I appreciated that.

“No. I’m going to go to college. I’m going to do something. I just can’t be here. It’s boring. I’m sorry if that sounds shallow, but doing nothing was killing me.”

Ian nodded, as if he understood. “I want to be with you,” he told me seriously. “As soon as this madness is over, I’m coming home. We can make a record. Maybe I’ll take a few classes with you. But I’m going to be where you are.”

“I’d like that.”

And then we kissed some more. I really don’t want to talk about that, though. Honestly, it’s
none of your goddamned business. So I think I’ll just talk about what happened next.