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We’re nothing in the long run. I know that. I see you laughing with her, teasing her, smiling before taking your shot at the cue ball and the sound that rivets from that one motion rings through my whole body as I watch you. Sebastian and Abigail.
I daze while staring at the table, pretending to be endorsed in the match. Every now and then, I remember I should actually be watching the balls shooting across the table. I shake myself when that happens, force my eyes to follow them. But I don’t dare look up.
I must attract attention sitting there doing nothing because Sam comes and sits beside me, concerned. He asks if I just had a long day at the farm, if I’m tired. Yeah, that’s it. It’s been busy lately. I’m just tired. I smile. He smiles, unconvinced. But I don’t have the energy to convince him much more. He asks if I want a drink and I say I think I’m gonna actually go back early. Try to sleep soon. He offers to walk me back, standing when I stand. I smile, touch his arm to reassure him. It’s okay. I’ll be fine.
I’ll be fine.
Sam still walks me to the saloon doors, all the way outside. I don’t really look back at Abigail and Sebastian because I’d rather feel empty than the sour feeling I get when I see them. Sam pulls me in for an awkward one-armed hug and I take advantage of his warmth to try to feel even just a little better. He tells me it’s cold. I tell him I’m fine. But he gives me his sweater and I leave, trying to keep the warmth he gave me. But as I walk home, it fades. It’s cold. The sweater’s heat dissipates.
I walk to my cabin and before I make it in, I start to feel myself cry. I’m almost embarrassed for a moment before I remember there’s no one here. There’s never anyone here. I’m so aware of it and yet, it still manages to slip my mind at the worst of times. Strange how that works.
I still don’t really let myself cry until I’m inside, flopping on my bed, clinging to Sam’s sweater. It doesn’t smell like Sebastian. It doesn’t smell like pine and wood and comfort. It doesn’t smell like the person I stupidly fell in love with who’s obviously in love with someone else. I think back to the beginning of the night, when the energy between Sebastian and Abigail seemed different. Abigail was standing with him at his end of the pool table. He put his arm around her waist and he smiled, in such a rare way. A beautiful smile. I don’t think I’d seen it before.
Sam asked them before I could (or would). What’s going on with them? Abigail just shrugged and smiled and Sebastian looked at her knowingly. Sam pressed, smiling. I sat on the couch, stunned. I smiled. I teased. I looked away. It’s not exactly surprising. They’ve always liked each other, clearly. There was something there before I could even exist to them. Some childhood, teenage passion. A familiarness. A comfort. I left anything like that behind to be here. I wonder for a moment if it was just a fluke, if they’re not really together now. It’s not like they exactly confirmed it. And why wait all this time to shift from friendship to more? But then, in those moments, I get flashes of him touching her, looking at her, smiling at her. All over again.
And it shifts to our moments. The moments when Sebastian and I got caught in the rain, bundled up to watch movies in the dark, felt each other’s warmth. When he ruffled my hair, smirked at me, laughed at my jokes. When he looked so earnestly as I talked, eyes fixed only on me. When he told me about his dad, his step-dad, his mom, his half-sister. When he told me about how he feels the darkness of loneliness seep into him, alone in that dark basement. And I told him the same. I told him everything. Everything but how I wanted him. And how I wanted to take his loneliness away.
But maybe all that never meant anything. It was after Abigail, anyway. They’d probably already done all that years before I could. I flash to their moments again, agonizing over how he touched her waist. And here I was, still thinking about the time our shoulders touched while we watched a movie, shared a blanket, breathed the same air. I’m the childish one.
Someone comes and I know it’s Sam. It couldn’t be anyone else. I hear the footsteps and wish they were Sebastian’s. I wish this were his sweater. I wish it was his voice calling out to me from the cabin door. I wish I had the voice to call back to him.
It’s not anyone else’s fault but mine.