Quinn’s voice. I can imagine her and Krishna and Bridget, lined up out there. Worried about me.
I think about the party tonight, the dancing, the feeling of being surrounded by people who love me.
I’m not weak. I’m a little drunk—getting more sober by the second—but I’m strong.
I draw in a deep breath and find that strength. Wrap it around me.
Then I take my hands away from my face and turn to face West. “I’m fine,” I call, loud enough for them to hear me. “He can have ten minutes.”
“You sure?” Krishna asks.
“Go watch your fucking movie,” West says.
After a moment, the volume on the TV goes up.
Then we’re just looking at each other, West and me. His face so perfectly not-perfect. That wide, smart-ass mouth that can make me feel electric, make me feel like I’m drowning, make me feel like I could live on him and him alone.
His mouth is a lie.
I take him apart, one piece at a time. Chin, cheekbones, nose, eyebrows. Those eyes. His pupils blown, light rims around them, dark circles beneath.
It’s just a face. West’s face.
His breath is just breath, reeking of alcohol.
He’s a man, standing there. Not a problem for me to solve. Not an obligation, not a need, not love. Maybe not even my friend.
I can almost make myself believe it.
“What do you want?” I ask.
His mouth opens. His eyes narrow. He puts his hand to the back of his neck, lowers his head, exhales.
“Yeah,” I say, because it’s easy to see right now. I’m not sure if it’s the false wisdom of all those blow jobs and beers or if it’s because I’ve been so angry, but I feel like all the pretense has been stripped away, all the cozy lies I’ve hidden behind burned off on the dance floor. I feel wise, and there are things I know that I haven’t known before.
Like this—this truth: West doesn’t know what he wants.
“That’s your whole problem, isn’t it?”
He made that speech in my room last month, told me, “I want you, and I don’t know how to stop wanting you. I want to get deep inside you, and then deeper, until I’m so deep I don’t even know what’s me anymore and what’s you.” He said that, but he hasn’t made up his mind about it. He’s afraid. He’s still drawing pencil lines around us.
I could tell him that it’s already too late. It’s been too late for a long time, maybe from the start.
Instead, I tell him, “I’m sick of waiting for you to figure it out.”
His eyes come up. Those little flecks glittering with something, some protest. Some plea.
“I’m sick of you acting like I’m just going to be whatever you want me to be. Maybe I have been so far. I guess I’ve done whatever you said, followed your rules. But I’m finished. This isn’t a game, and you’re not in charge of it. And I think—”
“Caro—”
“No. I’m talking now. You can fucking wait. I have been patient with you, but my patience is gone, West. You don’t get to barge into the line at the rugby thing and kiss me in front of everyone—in front of everyone, when you dumped me, when you’ve refused to admit we have something even to our friends for months now—and then walk away, like you’ve said your piece and that’s that. You don’t get to pick me up and throw me over your shoulder and drag me into your room like I don’t have a say in it. And put a condom in your pocket because, what? What if you feel like fucking me later? Might as well be prepared? No. You don’t get to do that. You want to be friends? We could have been friends. You want to be fuck buddies, you know, I was up for that! Probably I would’ve gotten too attached, gotten my heart broken, if we’re being honest, but so what? I wouldn’t be the first girl in the history of the world to let that happen to her. But you’re the one who said to let you know when I’m ready to see other guys, and you’re the one who dropped me after break like nothing we said or did on the phone mattered, so don’t pretend you have any right at all to play the jealous boyfriend when you’re not my fucking boyfriend.”
I’m poking him in the chest now, and it’s possible that I’m crying, but we’re not going to examine that too closely, because I need to do this. It feels like such a relief to get it out, to accuse him, to beat on him with these words I’ve been holding inside me for far too long.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“You should be sorry. You’ve been a jerk to me, and I just take it. I let you. But I’m not letting you anymore. You want to be with me, make up your fucking mind.”
He catches my face in his palms. I can’t even hear over the rush of blood in my ears, my pounding heart, my fury. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I said my piece. I should go, but he’s trapped me here between his hands, his eyes on me, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.
Everything I said is true, and I still want to be right here.
“You’re the coward.” My voice is hoarse. Low. Shocked, because I’m only now figuring this out.
“I know.”
“And a liar.”
“I know.”
“You’re playing with me.”
He shakes his head. “No. I’m not—I don’t mean to. I just can’t.”
“You can’t what?”
Another shake, and our noses bump and slide past each other. He’s not kissing me. He’s just right up against me, rubbing his cheek into mine. Scratching his stubble over my chin. I need you. That’s what he’s trying to tell me. I want you.
I need him, too. Want him, too. But it’s not fair of him to give me this and nothing else. It’s not enough.
“I can’t,” he repeats.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I don’t sound so harsh anymore. I sound gentle. I feel gentle, because, God, I care about him, even though it’s wrong and dumb. He’s hurting, and I care. “I can’t know, because you don’t tell me anything.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Now I push his hands off me and grab his head, the way he did mine. I want him to see me. I want him to hear, to understand. I sink my fingers into his hair, hold him there. Make him listen. “You could tell me,” I say. “There isn’t anything you couldn’t tell me. God, anything—you know I’m on your side. And if you just told me …” I trail off, thinking what that would be like.
I should keep silent, but there’s too much alcohol in me, too much openness not to say all of this.
I look in his eyes.
“If you just told me, then we could get into that bed and crawl under the covers. We could take everything off, and we could really be together. Deep and then deeper, just like you said. You know how it would be, West. We both know.”
“Incredible,” he says.
I dip my thumb down, run it over the arch of his eyebrow. “Yeah. Incredible.”
I put my arms around him, gather him close, tuck my head against his neck, because I think he needs this. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in Iowa who’s ever hugged him, and in Oregon, who knows? Maybe no one hugs him but me.
I hold him tight, and he’s shaking. Actually shaking.
I feel sorry for him. That’s a new thing. I think this is the first time since I met him that I didn’t feel like West had all the power, held all the cards. The first time I’ve ever believed he’s maybe even more screwed up than I am.
I kiss his jaw. I stroke his back one more time, because it’s broad and warm and strong, and the truth is I can’t help it. I never could.
But after all that, I let go. Take a step back. Meet his eyes and lift my chin.
“It’s deeper or nothing,” I tell him. “So make up your mind.”
This time, I’m the one who walks away.
FEBRUARY
West
January ended. February came.
I quit selling weed and got rid of my stash. Without Caroline around, the bakery was dead. I worked hard, studied while the bread rose, listened to the buzzing fluorescents.
It was boring. Boring and miserable.
Three weeks passed when I didn’t see Caroline, and, even so, she was woven through my life. My memories, my dreams, my thoughts. It turns out you can’t cut someone out of your heart just by wanting to.
I didn’t want to hurt her.
I didn’t want to hand her the power to wreck me.
I didn’t want to fuck her and walk away like it meant nothing, like she meant nothing.
I just wanted to be with her. All the time. Every way. Even though I was leaving, and even though I didn’t deserve her.
“Deeper or nothing”—that’s what she said before she walked out of my apartment and out of my life.
I was too scared to pick. Too scared to follow her outside, tell her what she wanted to know, go down on my knees and beg if I had to.
I was too caught up in all these questions I didn’t have answers to.
What if you go after the love of your life and it ruins you?
What if you don’t, and you figure out you’re already ruined?
What if there’s no right thing? Only you and the girl you love and your fear. A ticking clock, a mother you can’t trust, a sister who needs you, a father determined to fuck up anything good you manage to get your hands on.
I’d shied away from deeper, but I never gave much thought to the alternative.
Nothing, or deeper.
My choice to make.
What kind of dipshit chooses nothing?
Smoke fills my lungs, and it’s been so long, the rush is immediate.
The high is ugly. It amplifies my bad mood, so much that I can feel my lip curl, the corners of my mouth turning down. My nostrils flare.
I take another deep drag.
I’m on the sun porch at the back of the restaurant, grabbing a five-minute smoke in the middle of the Valentine’s Day service rush. It’s cold out here, the sounds of the kitchen muffled by insulation and wood siding.
Tips are good tonight. I should be content to work, but I’m crawling out of my fucking skin.
I haven’t seen Caroline in twenty-two days.
In the window, against the darkness outside, my reflection stares back at me, pissed off and mean.
I look like my father.
I’m the age he was in my first memory of him. He bought me a bike with training wheels and Spider-Man on the seat. I thought he was fucking amazing. My father, I mean. Not Spidey, although Spidey was pretty great, too.
My dad and my mom were always kissing, hands everywhere. I wasn’t allowed in Mom’s bed at night when he came around. They made noises in there, so I had to squint my eyes closed and send my thoughts away. I would lie on the couch under an old green nylon sleeping bag, rubbing the satiny lining under my chin, thinking about how awesome it would be when they got married. How I’d have two parents.
Kids with two parents lived in a house with a yard. I knew this because I watched the kids at school who had what I wanted, and the main thing they had was dads and moms. Dads with jobs and wedding rings who showed up for school concerts with video cameras and waved.
Five feet away, on the other side of the paneling, the headboard knocked out its rhythm. My parents’ voices blended together, low and urgent, full of pain.
I figured that before too long I’d get a dog to go with the kitten my dad had brought home out of the blue the week before.
Before too long, everything would be perfect.
It didn’t last, though. It never lasted. He argued with my mom, and she didn’t manage to calm him down. He kept harping on how much she’d spent on some shirt she bought. The fight escalated into a tirade about her nagging, her neediness, what a useless fucking burden we both were.
He got behind the wheel drunk, backed out into the road with a spray of gravel, and jerked the car forward so fast he ran over the kitten.