But when the phone rang, I woke up. I laughed. I craved. I yearned.
I flushed hot, dug my teeth into the flesh of my thumb, whispered words I never thought I’d own.
“Want you.” “Need you.” “Inside me.” “God, West.”
He would tell me things he wanted me to say. Dirty things that somehow weren’t dirty with him, they were just true. They were real. He would tell me, and I would say them. Anything he wanted.
There were words I didn’t say, though.
I miss you.
I love you.
I must have thought there would be time for that later. After break, when I saw him again, we’d be different. We’d be close—as close as we were on the phone. We’d be real.
I hadn’t learned yet that when your whole life is a sham, real isn’t something that happens to you.
When you surround yourself with lies, all the real things start to break.
I’m back in Putnam for all of an hour before I head over to West’s apartment.
I can’t help it. I need to see him.
I wanted to pick him up at the airport last night, but he’d left his car in Des Moines, and he was getting in late. So I tracked his flight and saw when he landed, a quick twenty-minute drive from me in Ankeny. I imagined him driving to Putnam alone in the dark.
This morning, I’d promised my dad I would hang around for lunch after my sister and I went to the bridal shop to pick up my dress. Janelle grilled me relentlessly about boys, wanting to know if I was over Nate yet. “You should start thinking about meeting a new guy,” she said at least six times. “It’s not good to focus just on school.”
Dad said I shouldn’t jump into anything.
The whole time, I was thinking about West an hour away. Almost close enough to touch.
I want to take the fire-escape steps two at a time, but I stop myself. They’re icy. I knock on the door, short of breath, heart pounding. I’ve been imagining this moment for weeks. The entirety of break spent anticipating this reunion, this kiss. West pressing me up against the wall. Pushing his weight into me, his hips. Me running my hands over his arms and his back. Getting lost in him, as surely as I’ve been lost in my own head all month.
When he opens the door, though, nothing’s the way I imagined it.
His face is blank. As blank as the sky, as gray and cold.
I wait for him to recognize that it’s me—to warm—but he just says, “Hey,” and then I realize he has recognized me. And this is my reception.
He doesn’t step aside to let me in. He’s dressed for work at the restaurant—black slacks, white button-up, shined black shoes. So handsome it’s a little scary, with his eyes that way.
“Hey. You’re back.” I have this nagging urge to check the door, make sure I’m at the right apartment. In the right dimension.
“I’m back.”
“Did you have a good flight?” Gah. We were supposed to be kissing by now.
He turns away and grabs his coat out of the closet. “It was fine. I’ve got to go in to work.”
“On a Thursday?”
“I picked up a shift.”
“Can I walk over there with you?”
He shrugs like it’s nothing to him one way or the other.
I’m baffled. Just the other night he said he wanted to get inside me, build me up, fuck me hard until we were both bruised and shaking, and then he wanted to do it again, slow, sweaty, trembling, and watch me when I came.
He said that. Two nights ago. I didn’t make it up.
When he brushes past, he smells like wool and peppermint, and he doesn’t even look at my face.
I follow him down the steps.
He’s put on a hat I’ve never seen before, black-and-dark-gray stripes, thick and thin. I look at the spot where it meets the back of his neck. My fingers itch to touch him there.
His mood keeps me from doing it. His mood is a real thing dividing the space between us, as solid as granite.
Go away, his mood says, and it reminds me of the other times he’s been like this. Weeks ago now.
I’d almost forgotten. All the rules we’ve had between us—I guess they were suspended over the break. Our talk of touching, of wanting, the dirty thoughts we exchanged, made me forget.
I’m not sure what the rules are now, but I know that whatever they are, they’re fully in effect.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? You seem kind of distant.”
He turns partway toward me, hands shoved deep in his pockets. For an instant, his whole face is a wince. “I guess I don’t feel much like talking.”
You felt like talking the other night.
You talked me into two orgasms before we got off the phone.
I heard you come.
What the hell is wrong with you?
I should pick one of these things and say it, probably. But I just spent a month at home not saying any of the things I really felt. West was the only person I opened up to, and even with him, I censored myself.
My throat is tight.
We come to an intersection. The pile of iced-over snow reaches my waist, but there’s a cut shoveled into it, and we pass through. I crunch over frozen gray slush in the road. The restaurant is half a block up on the right.
It’s getting dark out, even though it’s only four o’clock. The world feels dim and threatening. A car goes by, and the crunching noise its tires make sounds like a threat.
It’s cold. So cold.
“What are you doing later?”
“I’m on until late.”
He doesn’t say when he’ll be home. He doesn’t invite me over.
That empty thing he does with his face—it’s a trick. An act he’s figured out how to do. It drives me crazy, because I don’t know how to hide myself like that, and I haven’t done anything to deserve his retreat.
It makes me think of that day in the library when I tried to slap him.
The way he was that day—that’s West. That was me, too. Both of us there that afternoon, angry, intense, impulsive, real. Whereas this—this is just West being an asshole.
“What’s your class schedule this semester?”
Another shrug. “I’d have to check. I haven’t memorized it.”
There’s a slight sneer in that sentence. I haven’t memorized it, like I’m sure you have.
West has never sneered at me before.
He’s teased me, challenged me, seduced me—but he’s never mocked me.
Something is really deeply wrong here.
I screw up my courage and catch at the sleeve of his coat, pulling him to a halt right in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Did something happen to you? Last night, or on your way back here?”
It’s a long shot, but he could have an excuse. An explanation. He could.
“I told you, nothing’s the matter.”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
I push at his biceps with my fingertips, looking up at his empty face. “Like this.”
He kind of rolls his eyes at me. Not all the way, but he glances up at the sky, like I’m hassling him. Some random, troublesome girl. “I think you have the wrong idea about us.”
“What does that mean?”
“Showing up at my apartment. We’re not gonna be like that.”
We’re not gonna be like that.
That’s what he’s getting at with this routine of his. That’s his purpose. “You’re pushing me away.”
He still won’t look at me, and I think at first it’s more of the same thing—a way for him to pretend I’m getting predictably whiny now, female histrionics in full effect—except his eyes are glistening. His Adam’s apple works, bobbing as he swallows.
His voice is full of gravel when he tells me, “It’s just, I’m gonna be busy.” He clears his throat and continues, “I’ve got eighteen credits this semester, plus an extra bakery shift, and I don’t think—”
“Who do you think you are?”
“What?”
“Are you the same person who I talked to on the phone two nights ago? And the night before that, and the night before that, and twice a lot of days, when the house was empty with Frankie at school? Was that you, or was that some other guy who just sounded like you?”
“You know it was me.”
“So what are you saying?”
He crosses his arms. Completely unable to look at me. “I’m saying I want to back off this thing.”
“This thing.”
“Us.”
“You’re breaking up with me?”
“We were never going out.”
The words drop onto the ground between us, and I look at the place where they land, right in front of his feet. The frozen gray slush. West is standing braced—his legs wide, his arms crossed, the restaurant door ten feet behind him, glowing like a beacon.
He planned this. He was ready for it.
And he’s still doing a really terrible job of pretending not to give a shit.
We were never going out.
We’re not friends.
He told me less than forty-eight hours ago that he wanted to tongue my clit until my thighs were trembling. I don’t know what’s changed. Something. Nothing. He hasn’t bothered to tell me.
Because, after all, when does he ever bother to tell me anything?
I should be angry, but I’m so surprised and so fucking disappointed. I thought I’d be in his bed right now. I thought we’d be smiling, naked, rolling on a condom so I could finally, finally, feel him inside me.
Instead, he’s so far away, I can’t even find him in his own face.
“Right,” I say slowly, looking at those five pathetic words on the ground. “We were never going out.”
He glances at the restaurant behind him. “I gotta go.”
I should let him.
I should tell him to go fuck himself.
But I need something, some rope to catch hold of, some idea what happens next. So I ask, “Will I see you? At the bakery, or will you come to the rugby party Saturday, or … ?”
“I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah. Great. That’s just fucking great, West.”
His eyebrows have drawn in, like maybe I’m getting to him a little bit.
It could be because tears are making hot tracks down my face, puddling beneath my jaw, cooling on my neck.
It could be that.
“You have a great shift,” I tell him. “I’ll see you around. It’s a good thing we’re not friends, or else maybe I’d miss you. Or something more than friends—it’s a good thing we weren’t going out, or I’d be gutted right now. But, you know, we’re not. Going out. Obviously. It’s so obvious, I’m not sure why I didn’t get the memo on that. Maybe it was all the phone sex, addling my stupid female brain. Or, hell, maybe it was all those hours we spent together at the bakery, hanging out, or that time when I slept in your bed and cried on your lap on the bathroom floor. I just got confused about what we are. I didn’t get the memo.”
“Caroline—”
I take a step back. I lose my footing, slip, and fall on my tailbone. The pain pushes up more tears. When West offers me his hand, I swat it away. “No. I’m fine. Enjoy your night.”
I lumber up, and if his eyes have thawed at last—if his expression is full of as much misery as I’m feeling—damn it, I’m not going to let it matter.
I’m going to walk away from him before all of it can catch up to me.
I walk fast, and then I start to jog, because I’m afraid if I let myself feel everything that’s in me right now, I’ll have to accept that he’s breaking my heart on purpose, and he won’t fucking tell me why.
The rugby party is legendary.