The spoiler, p.17
The Spoiler, page 17
“You don’t appreciate it enough—just getting to be. There’s no performance, no audience… nothing to… to fix.”
I sighed at this. It was easier being in my comfort zone, but it wasn’t something I needed highlighted for me. “Shhh. I love this part.” Mercutio turned to Romeo on the beach and I spoke as he did. “If love be rough with you, be rough with love.”
“Of all the lines you could like, that’s the one?” he asked.
“It isn’t the one. It’s one. But I think it’s perfect, especially for us.”
“I thought there was no ‘us’.”
“There is no ‘we’.”
“And that’s different how?”
“You’re basically proving my point now. The line fits and I like it. Now, do you want to watch or argue?” He shook his head at me with a little smirk as I tucked myself closer to the alcove beneath his chin. He’d done something different tonight. He smelled… different. It was an even sweeter scent, like he’d prepared for my closeness in some way. I couldn’t help but turn my face in to brush my nose up to his skin with a deep inhale that I only hoped he didn’t notice.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Extremely.”
“Have I mentioned how much I love platonic movie night?”
“Not since yesterday.”
We stayed in our very close embrace, his arms around me, keeping me tied to his chest as the movie went on. Soon, the party started and Romeo spotted Juliet through the fish tank; a scene that always made me giddy.
“I like how the separation of the tank is so important. They’re seeing each other through the glass that keeps them apart. It took me a long time to start seeing these little things.”
“That’s why I love this version. You notice more every time you watch. It seems like everything has a purpose. Their clothes, the elevator, the stairs. The things that keep them together and the things that keep them apart.”
I sat up a little as Romeo and Juliet fell into the pool together. “My life were better ended by their hate / Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” It was another favorite line.
“He’d rather die than continue on without her love. What a line.”
“You don’t like it?” I asked.
“Of course I like it. If I could speak in flourishing language without being made fun of, I’d be just as emotive.”
I’d never heard him mention being made fun of, nor could I imagine it. “Instead, you recite lines from movies.”
“With hope that they are effective, although I have yet to elicit much of a response.” He tipped his chin toward me with a tiny smile.
“And what response are you looking for?”
“I… I’ll let you know when I see it.”
“Or feel it?” I asked.
“Or feel it.”
My head nestled closer to his chest, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure if it was just a part of my mission or if I was really feeling it. Beneath my hand, his heart was fluttering. It was faster tonight, accelerating as my fingertips pressed harder to his chest. The wedding scene started and the sudden inclination to look up at him was strong. I wanted to see his face, to look at his eyes and consider what they were really seeing. But I didn’t. I swallowed every urge to know what made his heart beat so fast and kept my eyes on the screen. It only quickened, though, when Mercutio died and Tybalt followed. I kept my hand above his heart, measuring its beats, feeling them seep into the skin on my palm. They were fast, a perfect pace that continued to ebb in time with the music.
My focus on his heart and not the movie only broke when Romeo stumbled down the aisle in the church and saw Juliet’s body on the altar. Now it was my heart racing and hoping, as always, that the end would be different this time. That she’d wake up just a second sooner, and he’d see her before the poison touched his lips. Of course, it didn’t happen that way, and as he spoke his final words and died on their final kiss, a tiny cough burst through my lips and a tear fell from my lashes. It was an instant strain on my chest as Juliet cried out, then took her own life.
My face burrowed into him while a few more silent tears slipped from my eyes. His arms braced me harder to his chest, and I felt his mouth pressed to the top of my head.
“What would you do?” My question came out as a shaky whisper. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in asking him, but I waited and wondered, just as I’d wondered what he had been feeling as his heart quickened. His face tilted down to find my eyes. His were heavy and dark in the low lighting of our very perfect night.
“These violent delights have violent ends.” Slowly, his forehead met mine, and he closed his eyes for just a second, then opened them with a smile. “I’d do exactly as they did. No question, no hesitation. A quick end to the agony of knowing that the embodiment of my love has died.”
“I can’t imagine it… not that I really want to.”
“What can’t you imagine, taking your life for love?” he asked.
“No, not that.” A flare of heat found my cheeks as I realized how pathetic my next words would sound. “Just… the idea of someone dying because of me. It’s, well, never mind. I don’t mean to say—”
“Roslyn Maraczek… For all the disbelief you have in yourself, I match it in disbelief that you don’t see what I do.” We’d moved apart to look at each other, but now his fingers hesitantly slid around my jaw while his eyes searched my face. “What… what I wouldn’t give to… to have the words I—” He swallowed, then shook his head at me with a sigh.
His pause and unfinished sentence still dangled in the air as he got up and said goodbye to me, the night ended. I stood in the living room, wondering what to make of it all. The goal was always to build him up, then watch him crash, so why was it all getting harder? And if he was telling me that he was feeling something, why did it bring more shock and concern than a feeling of triumph?
Still standing in the dark, my phone lit up and buzzed against the table.
Tristan: “I've loved you as a man loves a woman. As a hero loves a heroine. As I have never loved anyone.” “... neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.”
Two movie lines this time; together, they were perfect. And perfectly confusing.
The more I thought about trying to bring Tristan down, the more it bothered me that I was still struggling to do so. In striving to spoil movies for him, I’d only made him give in to the idea of something that would release him from the guilt of having hurt me. In trying to tease him into a frenzy and leave him high and dry, I’d instead made myself start craving contact with him. Of course, the phone sex, kissing, and touching had only worsened that depraved little craving. And in trying to hurt him, I’d only let myself be more vulnerable and dug up feelings I wanted to stay dead and buried…
On a Monday night, those feelings made way to the surface even more and left me questioning how deeply I’d buried them.
With my wavering confidence in operation Destroy Tristan Moore, I’d spent the remainder of my weekend obsessing over ways to dig my claws in a little deeper. His lines were playing with my head and some cynical part of me was starting to think that reading into them would only hurt after inevitably finding out they were nothing more than movie lines. And now I looked back at our Romeo + Juliet night as one that had backfired entirely on me.
I just wasn’t doing enough, I told myself. None of it was as impactful as it needed to be. In my head, doubling down was the only way. Build him up even higher so he could fall from a great height. Let him get as close as possible, and in the end, leave him begging for relief. I needed stage-five emotional warfare + sexual purgatory. It was a foolproof plan, right? Right.
So, when he didn’t show up at our house that evening, I pulled on my slinkiest of all dresses—a black slip dress that was short and tight and highlighted every curve and dip of my body. I stood in the full-length mirror in my room and brought my hair up into a high ponytail. The ends curled a bit, a deep mahogany offset by my fair skin. My fingers expertly applied a coat of cinnamon Lip Venom that tingled a bit as its magic worked to give a little pout to my lips. I finished with a wing to my eyeliner and a coat of mascara.
It was time to work him into a frenzy. Torture and destroy. I could do this. You can do this. I kept my head high while I drove partway down the hill to his house and parked. The upper floor lights were on, including the ones in his bedroom, and as I watched, I saw his tall frame drift across the open window. He was definitely home.
One last look in the mirror and a steadying breath, and I slipped out of the car. Combat boots turned out to be a good option for this incline, I thought. I was almost at the bottom of the hill, just another dozen feet, but then a car came around the corner and stopped in the driveway. The house’s side door opened and Tristan stepped out just as Heather hopped out of her car and walked his way. His arm went around her for a second, or maybe it was just that he was ushering her inside. From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell what was happening, but in that second, I stopped walking. My feet were still as I stared at the lighted spot on the driveway from the open side door, the top of Tristan’s hair illuminated, a gleaming ink, as he let her in.
And then I turned. I turned and walked back to my car as quickly as possible, rushing to start it with shaking hands, to turn it around and drive far away.
I bit at my lip while pulling back into my own driveway and turned the car off. “Fuck!” My palms slammed against the wheel, but not in anger. It was at that point, as my eyes began to water, that I fully realized what was surfacing within me. My phone buzzed, and I swiped away the tears before they hit my cheeks.
Tristan: Rose, I saw you leaving. Heather was just here to get some things she left a long time ago. I was going to come over right after, promise. Come back. Please. Come watch a movie with me here.
I held my phone with a shaking hand and tried to understand where I’d failed. How had I let myself get worked up over him again? This was not part of the plan. I needed him to feel like I didn’t care. Like the tears that were now coursing down my face were not for him. Like his arm pulling Heather into his house wasn’t another pain to me.
It’s fine. Have fun. I have plans later, anyhow.
I switched my phone off after my text went through. I didn’t want him to sweet talk me just as much as I didn’t want to give in and end up feeling like an idiot. He’d made enough of a fool out of me with that fucking box of spoiled movies.
As soon as I’d shut myself in my room, I finally felt the shift from sadness to anger as it bubbled up inside. I wiped away the last tears on my jaw as I pictured Heather sliding into his bed. I was mad at him for being with her, even though we weren’t together. And I was mad at myself for letting it hurt me. Fucking failure. I grabbed up a pen then, my hand shaking as it furiously scrawled out a letter on a scrap of paper.
Dear Tristan,
I’ve been thinking a lot about you and your faults and I am reminded of how Jane ends up alone at the end of The Barber of Siberia. By the way, I never thanked you for ruining Tristan & Isolde. I look back and am happy to be done hearing your name and satisfied with the idea that Tristan was very much dead at the end of their pointless love story.
With sincere animosity, and NO x,
Rose
My pettiness and petulance had reached a new level, courtesy of my very obvious jealousy. I sealed the letter into an envelope and left it on the kitchen counter, knowing it would get to him more quickly than through the mail.
Back in my room, my hands were shaking once more. I stared at my black computer screen, into a void of anger and irritation, and before I knew it, my fingers were working in a vicious pattern to pull at the fabric on my chair. I was completely entranced—gone from the world and the present as I let myself be devoured by OCD.
It was the first time in a long time I’d even had an episode. I had been focused so hard on getting Tristan back that until then, I hadn’t even realized that I’d been fixation free for weeks. But it all came back to me like I’d fallen off the wagon, like a rushing tidal wave pouring over my head, there to drown me in my anxiety.
I spent the next 12 hours clawing at my skin and hair, fixing, resurfacing, straightening, and losing myself in frustration. Finally, I lost myself in tears as I tried to get a grip, any semblance of control.
It was early afternoon when a slip of paper appeared under my door.
“I know that a life without love is no life at all.”
What timing. What a joke. I felt broken and stupid enough without this. And this was his response to my spoiler? Another quote from a movie. Another sign that it didn’t touch him; that nothing I tried would ever really touch him.
I yanked on the doorknob and hurled myself out into the hallway.
“How am I supposed to be satisfied if my spoilers don’t even bother you?!” I yelled. He stood still at the opening of the kitchen, staring back at me with a look of equal parts shock and sadness. His shoulders made up almost the entire breadth of the narrow hall, but he looked down on me with a hollow face that almost made him seem small.
“They do! They do bother me, Rose! Is that why you’re upset? Is that really it?”
“No. Yes!” My mind was too clouded to find the right answer. He came closer to me then, and if ever there was a moment to feel completely taken by the look on his face, it was then. I was falling for Tristan. I was falling for him more than I’d ever done in high school.
“Do you want me to never see Heather again? You just say the word, Rose. I’ll do it.” He towered over me in the dull hallway light, his hair around his face in a frame of sable satin.
Now tears were welling up in me, destroying any last crumb of resolve I’d been standing on. I needed to back away from this. I needed to be strong in this. Breaking down was how my OCD was rearing its head. I couldn’t let him fix this without losing, without it meaning that he was getting what he wanted after years of bringing me down.
“Do you know what I want?!” I shouted. “I want to know that after all these years, it’s you hurting and not me!” It was honest, but cruel sounding.
He stepped forward as a tear escaped from the corner of my eye. “It is absolutely me hurting. This is not what I wanted.” He wiped the tear away with an uncertain hand.
“Don’t.” I pushed his hand from my face. I was the queen of pettiness today. “I don’t need you touching me. I’m not yours to touch.”
His hand fell to his side and we stood there in the silence of the hallway. Behind him, I noticed Rob for the first time. He sat in the kitchen staring past Tristan’s body at me. It was a connection—the look he gave me—that I immediately recognized; a click I could almost hear. He read my face and knew I was falling in love with his best friend.
I shook my head and stepped back toward my room. “I have an appointment. I have to go.”
“Roslyn, I’m not giving up.”
“Neither am I… But I’m leaving.”
I slid my bag over my shoulder and turned to leave, but he snatched my hand. “Come back and let me fix it,” he said.
“I have an appointment. Let go.”
I left in a rush of anger and embarrassment. Nothing was okay anymore. I was a mess both outside and in, and I couldn’t take hold of myself long enough to figure out exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t tell him how to fix it because it was too much of a fucking conundrum.
My car sputtered before finally starting, and I saw Tristan watching me pull away. Tristan, who I should have been hating at that point. Tristan, who I should have annihilated by that point. Tristan, who occupied my mind more than anything else.
And now I had even more to consider, like why did I even care if he spent time with Heather? He wasn’t mine. We weren’t together. I’d made it perfectly clear to him, in fact, that there was no ‘we’. But the cloud of jealousy that had settled over me when I saw her stepping into his house had struck me in such a way that I was now tripping over the word. We… us. The last three weeks were full of us moments. And we had grown to enjoy each other’s company so much that the thought of him enjoying private company with some other girl was both heart-wrenching and infuriating.
Should I have acted like I didn’t care, or was it a good thing to keep myself from hurting further? There was no real reason for me to think that Tristan wanted more from me than something physical. Sure, he had a guilty conscience about some of the things he’d done, but trying to right things was for his own peace of mind. I couldn’t let any of it make me have hope that it was more.
But I’d made a complete fool of myself.
“Tristan… of course. So it went from spoiling the movies to bursting in on my dates like a lunatic. Now I barely see the other guy.”
“So, he’s spent a long time trying to get your attention. That’s what I’m getting from this, unless I’m wrong.”
“Trying to get a rise out of me is more like it. He lives to ruin things for me.”
I sat across from Joy, the therapist, who was definitely confused and maybe even concerned about how we’d quickly navigated away from OCD four times and landed on my Tristan issues.
“And I know this has nothing to do with the OCD.” It was maybe the third time I’d said that. “But… well, it does in some ways because he literally brings it out in me. He makes… he makes it worse. Like the other day—”
“When he had the other woman over.”
“Yes, exactly. I spent like almost an entire day stuck… and you know… having compulsions. And it was all because of Tristan.”
“Sounds a bit like a chicken/egg situation, though. Is it Tristan causing compulsory behaviors or have you developed an obsession and Tristan happens upon you during moments of compulsory behavior?”
“Like it’s some kind of serendipitous occurrence?” I asked.
