The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [337]
She looked at him, her facial muscles contracted, the lips firm and locked as if glued together, the eyes cloudy and wet with the tears which dribbled down her cheeks. Her look told him that she had said her last word, that her dislike and anger had become unspeakable. With a forced calmness and deliberation, while her tears choked her, she removed his engagement ring from her finger and handed it to him. Accepting it, he felt that he perceived a sign of weakening in her, and he thought that maybe she was hoping he would say something to break up the quarrel. But he wasn’t sure, and he was afraid to seem weak to her. And Jesus Christ, he didn’t want this.
“All right, baby,” he said with a mask of exaggerated coldness for the tumbling feelings within him, taking the ring in his closed hand.
“I never want to see you or hear your voice again. Don’t call me up. Don’t ask me to forgive you, or to make up and forget this!” she said throbbingly.
“Jesus, ain’t you acting a bit previous, as if I was going to come crawling around? Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“A beast.”
He left her in tears, thinking that at least he had carried out his bluff and not backed down. He walked slowly, evenly, his shoulders flung back theatrically. And he knew he wished it had never happened and he was glad she couldn’t see his face, because he was moody, and it would give him away. He counted his steps. He was tempted to look back, turn, follow her home. He couldn’t, and he heard her heels racketing as she walked. If she’d come back after him. If girls were different so that he could go to her and say come on, let’s drop this, and still not be afraid of seeming weak in her eyes for doing it. Hearing footsteps behind him, he slowed down against his will. But they grew fainter. Going home alone. Crossing the street, he again heard feminine footsteps behind him. But it couldn’t be her. A strange girl, tall and slender and neatly dressed, swiftly passed him. He looked after her. He thought of Catherine brooding, regretful.
He had won the quarrel by leaving her alone at night, sobbing in the street, and it was a victory which now impressed him as not having been worth the winning. He could tell anyone about it, and stand before them as one who hadn’t backed down, or taken any crap. And he liked the idea of people seeing him as that kind of a guy. And yet, he had to pay the cost of it now, he had to think of her crying, walking home alone, never seeing her again. That was an idea he didn’t like so well.
He lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one he’d been smoking. He felt a sudden sense of freedom, and realized now that after becoming engaged to Catherine, he had thought of her in almost everything he had done or planned to do. He’d had to consider not only himself but also Catherine in his ideas about the future, and that had been a change he hadn’t even noticed in himself. And now he was free to think only of himself, and not of how she’d fit into the picture. And he didn’t have to worry the same way about money. It was like being released from a kind of jail, he told himself, the same way he used to feel as a kid when the last day of school was over and the summer vacation had really started.
He remembered her sobbing voice. He had said things that had cut her deeply. A girl had her vanities, all girls, and a guy ought to know that. He’d hurt her. He smiled, enjoying one or two of his cracks, but he knew that it was a miserable enjoyment, and he wished the cracks were unsaid. Even so, she’d had no right to go making a mountain out of a mole-hill.
He shook his head, feeling like hell, not even knowing what to think, remembering her crying, her face when the angry tears had come against her will. Would she go home and cry all night in bed, not able to sleep? He was sure that she did care for him, no matter what she’d said. Poor kid, she must be feeling in the dumps this minute as she walked home. What the hell, if he had taken a little,