Eat Your Heart Out by Katie Boland Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m awkward with him. I know I was better with Graham. It’s strange. We don’t fuck and we don’t make love. We just have sex.”
    â€œI’m sure he wants you, Grace,” says Sam without thinking. I’m drunk, he thinks. Sober Sam would have never said that so casually.
    â€œNo, I think I’m too available to him, and it’s unattractive.”
    Grace pushes her glass away.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI just come running every time he calls. And we’re always fighting and he’s an asshole to me, but if he wants me to come over, I go. I don’t even think that I really love him, but I stick around.”
    â€œWell, why do you think you do it?”
    Looking at her face, he has nowhere to hide.
    â€œI don’t know. Isn’t that sad?”
    â€œIt is sad,” he says finally.
    Grace opens her mouth to say something as Sam leans forward, but the waitress comes by again. Sam wants her to go away so he can hear what Grace will say next.
    â€œCan I get you another round?” asks the waitress.
    Grace says yes because even when she tries to drown her sorrows, they learn how to swim.
    â€œSam, order something real,” she says.
    â€œOkay, shots?”
    â€œYes! Bring us four tequila, and I’ll have the same again.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll have a double rum and Coke,” he says.
    â€œFinally!” says Grace. “What were we talking about?”
    â€œDid you forget already, drunky?”
    â€œYeah, kind of.”
    Sam remembers what Grace was talking about.
    â€œI don’t really remember either,” he says.
    â€œDo you ever wonder why we even bother? Why do we try to figure this shit out? Relationships, men, it doesn’t make me happy.”
    â€œIt must, somewhere.”
    â€œMaybe at the beginning. That feeling you get at the beginning.”
    â€œThat feeling’s bullshit.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s not real.”
    â€œDo you ever think that maybe nothing is really real? That it’s all just in our heads?”
    â€œMaybe. What do you want?” he asks her.
    Grace looks away for a second. The bar has become darker, and he has to strain to see her.
    â€œTo be with someone I love. Who loves me too. Honestly. That’s it.”
    â€œNo, you don’t.”
    If that’s what you wanted, we’d be together, he thinks.
    But it is way more complicated than that.
    The waitress puts the shots on the table. Grace takes two and leaves two for Sam.
    â€œTo misery.”
    â€œEat your heart out.”
    They take the shots, quickly, one after the other. The tequila’s cheap. It burns.
    â€œWow,” says Grace.
    â€œSweet Jesus.”
    â€œI feel a little drunk,” says Grace, pleased.
    â€œGood.”
    Everything around them is unfocused.
    â€œSo you don’t think that feeling exists? Like that feeling that makes everything else not matter? The feeling you get loving someone?” she asks.
    Words fall through Sam. For years, he’s gone back and forth, telling himself his feelings are not real, telling himself she’s not who he thinks she is, telling himself to let it go and be happy without her.
    â€œFor sure it exists because people feel it all the time. I just don’t know if that feeling is grounds for a relationship. It’s not realistic.”
    â€œHuh.”
    â€œI don’t know if it’s anything other than what you want to feel about that person. And when you build someone up so much, they can’t be real to you. So I think it’s bullshit. Because usually that person doesn’t feel the same way about you, or is so different in reality that it’s like two different people you are dealing with. I mean, arranged marriages are more successful than regular ones. Just think about that. Just think about that for one second. Clearly, a relationship needs a lot more than love to work.”
    After Sam’s said that, he feels