Read Online Beating Heart by A. M. Jenkins - Free Book Online Page B

thinking to himself, Just let it go. This once, will you drop it and let it go?
    â€œSo. I’m almost afraid to ask. Do you love me, Evan?”
    Â 
    Â 
    lying together
    sweat cooling on his chest
    no whispers
    quiet and still
    Is anything wrong?
    No. I was just
    thinking we ought to
    be married soon, so I
    can go back to Pennsylvania with you
    in the fall.
    one arm behind his head
    We can’t get married
    I’m only seventeen
    But we love each
    other
    don’t we?
    Â 
    Â 
    he said
    nothing
    But I love you.
    Don’t you love me?

 
    E van digs his heels in. He is not going to ease away or change the subject. And he’s not going to say it, either; just this once he’s not going to go along quietly and try to fit into Carrie’s mold. “Why does everything always have to be about love?” he asks, impatient. “Why can’t it ever just be about…about being together and enjoying each other’s company and having a good time?”
    Carrie’s shocked into silence. Of course. He’s always broken down and said what she needs to hear. Always.
    Just not today. He feels like she’s attached to him, glued to his side, and it’s all pressing in on him.
    â€œIs that all I am to you?” she asks in disbelief. “A good time?”
    â€œGod,” Evan says, staring at the ceiling. “Sometimes it’s not even that.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThat’s all you ever say: ‘Do you love me Evan, do you love me Evan, do you love me Evan?”
    There’s that shocked silence again. And then he can’t believe it.
    She asks him again .
    â€œWell? Do you?”
    It all goes through his mind in a flash: how she used to be happy just being with him. How he used to look forward to seeing her, not dread it. How she always finds fault with him now, as if he’s not trying hard enough.
    Now he’s just tired. Tired of the whole conversation, of the whole thing. “I don’t know anymore,” he tells her, not bothering to pretty it up.
    â€œI never would have slept with you if I’d thought you didn’t love me.”
    Her voice trembles. But there’s no sympathy left in him; she drained the last bit of sympathy out of him when she asked it one too many times.
    â€œAnd I never would have thought I loved you,” he informs her, “if you hadn’t made it part of having sex.”
    It’s funny, this is one of those times that he doesn’t know what he feels until he says it out loud.
    â€œHave you ever loved me?” Carrie’s on the verge of tears—Carrie, who never cries.
    It stings Evan, makes him feel guilty. “How am I supposed to know? If you want somebody and you care about them and you like being around them and you’re used to being around them, how are you supposed to know if it’s love?”
    Carrie’s face is pale. “It’s a simple question. Did you ever love me?”
    â€œYou’re always saying it’s love, so I thought it had to be.”
    She sucks in a deep, shaky breath. When she exhales, she’s able to look at him steadily. “One more time, Evan,” she says. “Did you ever love me?”
    Â 
    Â 
    his answer:
    one embarrassed
    laugh as if
    his heart had
    snapped shut
    and I knew it had
    never been open

 
    E van rolls onto his side and props himself up on one elbow so he can look directly at Carrie. It occurs to him in a flash: Carrie says she loves him, but she doesn’t act like she does. Not anymore.
    She acts like she’s going to make him be the answer to her fill-in-the-blank question.
    He didn’t really understand till this moment that he’s been needing space, and he certainly didn’t know why. He didn’t realize that one or both of them had changed, or grown, or something .
    â€œNo,” he tells her. “I don’t think I ever did.”
    Carrie’s face goes white.