Upstairs at His Engagement Party

The next morning, he brought coffee he knew I wouldn't drink yet.

"Habit," he said, looking at the second mug.

"You've brought me coffee exactly zero times."

"Then I'm a quick learner."

He put it beside him and gave me water instead.

I was well enough to sit at my desk, wearing an old sweatshirt and feeling as though my bones had been replaced with wet string. Nate stood by the window until I pointed at the chair.

"You're making this look like bad news."

He sat.

"My mother had been dead nine months when Dad told me he was getting married."

I knew the interval. I hadn't known he counted it that way.

"He'd spent months telling me he couldn't bear being in the house. Then suddenly he was choosing curtains with Rachel."

His gaze went to the door.

"I thought he was replacing her. And when you arrived, you kept asking me things. About my room. My books. Whether I'd play basketball."

My face warmed. "I can see how unbearable that must have been."

"That's not what I mean."

"I know."

He took a breath.

"You wanted something from me, and I could make you stop asking. I couldn't make Dad stop being happy. I couldn't make my mother come back. But I could close a door."

For a moment, I was eleven again, looking at polished wood and wondering which question had been wrong.

"You were very good at it," I said.

"I know."

I didn't reassure him. It cost me more effort than I wanted to admit.

"Rachel didn't deserve it either," he continued. "She kept making room for me. I treated that like an insult."

"You should tell her."

"I will."

He looked directly at me.

"I'm sorry, Elliot. You didn't take anything from me. I just behaved as though you had."

I pressed the sleeve of my sweatshirt between my fingers.

I'd imagined this conversation for years. In some versions, I cried. In others, I said something devastating and left him to regret everything.

Instead, I asked, "Do you still wish we hadn't come?"

"No."

The answer was immediate.

I looked at him then.

"No," he repeated, quieter.

It didn't repair ten years. It changed where I stood inside them.

When Mom came home Thursday, Nate met her at the door and took her suitcase. That evening, I heard him ask whether they could talk.

I went upstairs. Whatever he owed her, she deserved to receive it without an audience.

Later, she knocked on my door with suspiciously bright eyes.

"Did something happen while we were away?"

I thought of rain, a blue blanket, a man asleep in a chair.

"We talked."

She touched my cheek. "I'm glad."

I almost told her.

Not everything. Just enough to stop being alone with it.

Then she said, "It'll be wonderful to have everyone getting along before the engagement."

And I swallowed the words.

The Whitmores came Saturday. Claire wore navy and brought flowers for Mom. She asked about my classes and actually listened to the answer.

I wished she were cruel. It would have simplified things.

Nate sat beside her. When Victor suggested holding the party in three weeks, he glanced at me before saying, "Fine."

I spent a long time deciding whether I'd imagined that glance.

During those three weeks, he became difficult in new ways.

He asked about my research application. He remembered which day I presented. Once, when I came home soaked from an unexpected downpour, he handed me a towel before Martha noticed I was there.

We watched half a film in the living room. I fell asleep sitting up and woke with his jacket over my knees. He was gone.

At breakfast the next day, he moved the raspberry jam toward me without looking.

Each kindness was small enough to deny. Together, they were ruining me.

The engagement party took over the house on a Friday.

White flowers appeared in places usually occupied by things people could sit on. The lawn filled with hired furniture. Victor became a man who said "the lighting people" as though he'd always had lighting people.

Ben came upstairs while I was fixing my cuffs.

"We can leave," he said.

"It's my house."

"Exactly. You've seen it before."

I laughed. He didn't.

"Ell."

"I can do one evening."

He looked at my face in the mirror.

"You don't get a medal for being useful while somebody breaks your heart."

I turned away from the mirror.

"He hasn't done anything."

Ben's expression softened in a way I hated.

"That's part of the problem."

Downstairs, Nate stood beside Claire under a string of warm lights. She was laughing at something a guest had said. His hand rested lightly at her back.

I learned that evening how many different shapes congratulations could take.

Wonderful match. Beautiful couple. Your father must be delighted.

I stood where Mom needed me. I helped an elderly guest find the bathroom. I took a photograph of Nate and Claire because the man holding the phone asked me to.

"Closer," he said.

I looked at the screen while Nate stepped nearer to her.

For a second, his eyes met mine through the camera.

I took the picture.

After Victor's speech, I found the bar. I had one glass of wine, then left the second untouched. The ache had nothing to do with alcohol, and I didn't want to give anybody that explanation.

Ben found me beside the stairs.

"I've got a cab in ten minutes. Come with me."

"I just need a minute upstairs."

He studied me. "Call me. Even if it's three in the morning."

I nodded.

My room was dark when I entered. I left it that way.

From the window, I could see the party reflected in the glass: a garden full of people congratulating the wrong future.

A knock came before I'd taken off my jacket.

"Elliot?"

I closed my eyes.

"Go downstairs, Nate."

The door opened a few inches. "Are you sick again?"

"No."

"You disappeared."

"You have guests."

He stepped inside and shut the door against the music.

"Look at me."

I turned. He stopped whatever he'd been about to say.

I hadn't realized I was crying until I saw his expression.

"What happened?"

I laughed once, without any humor. "Nothing. Everything's going exactly as planned."

He came closer.

"Don't," I said.

He stopped.

That nearly undid me more than if he hadn't.

"Elliot. Please tell me."

I wiped my face with the heel of my hand.

"I can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Pretending your kindness doesn't mean anything to me. Pretending I don't wait for you to come home."

The music downstairs changed. Somebody cheered.

He stood perfectly still.

"I have feelings for you," I said. "I know what that sounds like. I know who you are. I've tried to make it stop."

His eyes closed briefly.

When he opened them, he looked stricken.

"Elliot, we're family."

There it was. The word I had spent ten years trying to earn.

I nodded, because for a moment I couldn't speak.

Then I looked at him properly.

"If that's all I am to you, why do you keep pulling me closer every time I try to leave you alone?"