Leah.
“Leah?” I hear Caleb’s voice behind me as I cringe. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” her voice trembles as she studies each of our faces.
“I’m having dinner with a friend. How did you—?”
“I followed you,” she says quickly, you haven’t been taking my calls and I wanted to see why.” She whispers this last part, squeezing her eyes closed as if to shut me out.
“How could you do this, Caleb?”
As if on cue, she drops her head and begins sobbing into her hands. I eye her dribbling nose and turn away disgusted. I have the worst luck in the world.
“Leah,” Caleb pushes past me and wraps his arms around her.
I watch from the outside, fear twisting in my stomach like a fist.
“Come on, I’ll take you home,” he turns back to mouth a hasty ‘I’m sorry’ to me as he steers her out the door. I watch them go. She looks childlike next to him. He never made me look that small and fragile. I swing my door closed and curse. It feels as if I am a thousand years old.
The following evening I am curled up on my sofa, getting ready for an exciting night with my law school applications, when my doorbell rings.
I groan and smother my face in a pillow. Rosebud.
I open the door without bothering to look through the peephole.
Not Rosebud. Caleb. I eye him warily.
“Well, well, well,” I say, “look what the red-headed girlfriend dragged in.”
He smiles at me sheepishly and runs a hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry, Olivia, I guess she’s having a harder time than I thought.”
“Listen, I really don’t want to get involved in your girlfriend drama…”
I hit some kind of emotional nerve because he blinks like a bug just flew into his eye.
“I understand that,” he says. “She wants me to have friends. It just came as a shock.”
“She doesn’t want you to have a friend like me, Caleb, and if she told you she was okay with it, she was lying.”
“Friends like you?” he says smiling. “Are you insinuating that you’re attractive?”
I roll my eyes. Totally off topic.
“Okay, okay,” he says holding up his hands, “but, I want you as a friend, regardless of what anyone else thinks. Does that count?”
I make him wait. I pretend to be thinking about it. I bite my lip and frown. Then I stand aside and let him back into my house. He looks pretty damn smug.
We decide that we want cake. I pull out mixing bowls and ingredients and Caleb fashions chef hats for us out of paper towels. I marvel at the fact that a few weeks ago I thought I would never see him again and here he is in my kitchen. We laugh a lot and when the batter is ready to be poured into the cake pan, Caleb sours the mood.
“Leah makes the best red velvet cake.”
I glare at him because I don’t want to think about his fancy pants girlfriend just now AND I’ve never even eaten red velvet cake.
When he goes on and on about it, I pick up a handful of batter and fling it toward his face.
I miss of course, and it lands on the wall behind his head. Caleb turns to look at it.
“You know,” he says with surprising calm, “you really need to work on your aim.”
Before I know what is happening, he turns his entire bowl upside-down over my head.
I am dripping brown batter all over the floor, laughing so hard I can barely stand. I reach for the counter to steady myself and feel my feet slip out from underneath me. Caleb reaches out a hand to grab me, and instead of accepting his help, I try to smear batter on him. I smash it into his face. He yelps, and in seconds, my tiny kitchen is a war zone. We throw eggs, flour and oil, and when those run out—we launch handfuls of chocolate chips at each other. At some point, I tackle him, and we go sliding to the floor. We are laughing so hard, tears start leaking from my batter encrusted eyes. I am leaning over him, as he lays sprawled on his back. There is egg on his nose, and both of his eyebrows are caked in flour. I can’t imagine what I must look like. The laughter is suddenly sucked from our throats as we realize the awkwardness of our position. We could kiss. Like in the movies.
I hover above him for a second waiting to see if he will make a move. His eyes are undoubtedly on my mouth and I am breathless in anticipation. My heart is pressed somewhere against his ribcage and I wonder if he could feel it beating around bombastically.
“Olivia,” he whispers.
I swallow.
“We still have a cake to bake.”
Baking? I look around at the mess and groan. How can he think about baking?
Two hours later we are sitting on the floor of my tiny balcony, still covered in batter, eating Caleb’s cake. I pull a chunk of goop from my hair and toss it over the railing. Caleb drops another slice in my hand.
“Favorite book?” he asks.
“Madam Bovary.”
He snickers.
“Favorite pastime?”
“Depression.”
“Favorite pastime?” he asks again. We’ve been playing this game for the last hour. It’s very one sided since he can’t remember his favorites.
I scratch my chin. “Eating.”
“Favorite memory?”
I pause at this one. All of my favorite memories include him.
“There was this…guy…he planned out a super-extraordinary date. He sent me on a scavenger hunt and I had to figure out answers to clues like, where our first date was and where the best place to buy a bra was. Each time I went to one of the places in the clues, there would be a gift and another clue waiting for me. It ended with me going to the place where we had our first kiss. He’d set up a table with dinner and music. We danced. It was….” I don’t know how to finish that sentence.
Caleb is quiet. When I turned to look at him, he is staring up the sky.
“What was his name?”
I shake my head.
“No way.”
“Why? Rock my world-tell me….”
“The stars look silver tonight,” I say changing the subject. “Maybe soon you’ll remember your favorites,” I say quietly. He shrugs.
“Or, I’ll just make new favorites. Starting with you.” This should make me excited, but it just reminds me of the ticking time bomb our relationship resembles.
“Can I be your favorite girl?”