56. Our Goodbye

            The next two weeks leading up to my trip were perfect, with everything involving Thad just spectacular. Too bad they were all based on a lie.

          I did indeed call Thad after I ran away from the boorish Gaybor, and gushed an apology into his voicemail. Thad had called me back minutes later and we met and made up immediately. He told me had only said the thing about Spandex Hair Mane to get to me because he was mad that I was leaving him, and he apologized and said he would not see him, “because it would make you uncomfortable.” He went on to say that the most important thing was for me not be worried while I was gone, and that he had felt terrible for what he had said. He was incredibly adult about it all.

I apologized for screaming and being demanding, but decided to stay mum on the whole coffee with Gaybor thing.  When Thad asked what I had done that morning I simply said, “research,” with a slightly reddening of my cheeks. I covered it with a fake cough and a look away.

         In a fit of dishonest, I had decided to let sleeping Gaybors lie.

        So for the next two weeks we were hardly separated. He came over and cooked fabulous meals and stayed night after night and we talked on the phone when we weren’t together and we watched movies and he listened intently to my boring ol’ stories, and we even held hands as we drove around at night, and it was just like when we first started dating again. And he told me how much I meant to him and how excited he was that I was traveling and how he would tend to the house and to Charlotte Bronte, and how I had nothing to worry about at all, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”  

It was all just perfect. But every bit of it, every flawlessly seasoned meal, every laughing joke, and every quiet conversation, but all of it was tempered with the fact that I had lied to him. And I still felt like a terrible person, just one out of danger, and that seemed particularly galling since I had had to lie to get myself to that place.

 I had gone and checked the yard that the Gaybor had told me about: it was a graveyard of stolen lawn art, but I did not see my precious terra cotta chicken planter full of ivy. But peering over that fence and looking at all of that discarded and broken loot surmounted by weeds and wild trumpet vine, I knew the Garden Rapist was innocent. And the fact that I couldn’t tell Thad of her exoneration almost killed me.  Lies beget lies bet lies, alright. 

          The day before I left we shopped away the afternoon and then I took him out to a nice meal. I could tell he was nervous that I was leaving, but trying to make himself appear calm. But now I just worrying over if I would find a taxi from the airport, get robbed by the dancing Sharks gang, or know enough Spanish to find a hospital if necessary. Whereas he was just afraid to be alone. And I so felt for him. I was always there for him, I allowed him to lean on me and was proud to do it, but now I would be gone. Poof.

          At home that night as I packed my bags in the Bedroom, he came in and stood in the door, a look of absolute abandon on his face.

          “You’ll be okay.” I said.

          “I know,” he said, unconvincingly.

          “I’ll call you every day, and text. All the time. It’s only 10 days.”

          “I know. I’ll miss you.”

          “I’ll miss you too.”

          We kissed.

          It was the perfect goodbye, if only I had not lied to him.