You

by Caroline Kepnes

  “Amy Adams.”

  “No s!” She grabs the bag and flies. “Thanks, Joe. Have a good one!”

  I want to run outside and take her home to you. I want you to know that she came onto me, that she talked to me about God. I run to the door but she’s gone. The phone rings. I answer. Is it her? No. It’s a bank. They want to know about a recent transaction. The card she used was stolen, apparently. I don’t rat her out but the phone call kills my buzz; that’s what I get for flirting. I check my phone; still no response from you. And somehow the absence of a response from you is a signed permission slip to be bad. I search the Internet for Amy Adam, almost as a dare for you to get back to me.

  It’s virtually impossible to find anything because of the actress, Amy Adams, and Ethan texts me a photo of him and Blythe on Coney Island. I don’t respond. I take my time getting home and I don’t need to check my phone for a response from you, because if you were responding to me, your response would interrupt one of my fruitless searches:

  “Amy Adam New York”

  “Amy Adam not an actress”

  “Amy Adam sweatshirt”

  “Amy Adam Facebook”

  “Amy Adam SUNY Purchase” (You never know. . . .)

  I walk home and plod up the stairs and I check my phone; still no response. I hear something from inside my apartment; you’re here. I smell pumpkin wafting from my apartment; you’ve been baking. I hear singing come from my apartment and I smile. You’re no Amy Adam. I love you for being off-key. I was wrong to doubt you and I knock twice on the door. There is a response, you cry out for me to wait.

  You open the door and wow. This must be your second home because you brought the robes. You’re in yours (naked underneath) and you baked a pie (pumpkin underneath). You tell me I have twenty-five seconds to get naked or get into my robe. I pick you up, my impish little wonder, and you kiss me; you respond. You are so proud of your spontaneous surprise. You admit that your building was off-limits because of roaches and resultant exterminators. You decided to turn a bad thing into a good thing, a surprise. I eat your pie and I eat your pussy and when I get up in the middle of the night to brush my teeth, my toothbrush is wet with your saliva.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. And I am.

  45

  I don’t know what you put in that pumpkin pie and you laugh that it was right out of a can. But the pie and the robes did something to us, for us. The next morning, I wake you up with a kiss and you embrace me. You beam. “Remember when I baked you a pie?”

  “I remember when I baked you a pie,” I say and you love it when I mimic you. You kiss me and we take our time with each other and you are full of new ideas for my hands. I love how you’re not shy. I love how you tell me what you want. Your imagination should be bottled and stored and studied and I’ve never had you like this. You’re so upright and your legs are intertwined with mine. Good God, what a fit, what a fuck and we collapse. “Wow,” I say.

  “Yeah,” you say and you roll over to me and ask me if I want leftover pie and I ask you where you learned to fuck like that. You blush. You are shy, perfect. You pull a T-shirt over your head and when you’re halfway out the bedroom door you run back to me and smother me with kisses and touches.

  I am the luckiest man in the world and while you’re putting pie in the microwave I’m erasing my search history in my phone. You’d never snoop in my phone; you respect my privacy and you trust me. But I don’t want my phone tarnished with Amy Adam or Amy Adams or any other girl in the world. You sing out from the kitchen, “I keep forgetting. I started one of those stories in A River Runs Through It.”

  And you’re reading my books after all and I like the sound of you in my kitchen so much that I can’t wait for you to come back. I get out of bed, naked. I walk into the kitchen and pick you up and set you on the counter and spread your legs and nothing stops you from extolling the virtues of my tongue, my lips, not the noise from the street, not the hum of the microwave, not the fighting upstairs, not the beep from the microwave. When I have you in my mouth, you are mine and mine alone. You have never cum this hard in your life; I know it, I feel it. Something ferocious and far away inside of you has let me in at last. You stroke my ears with your fingers and thank me and I pull you off the counter and we settle onto the couch with our pie and A River Runs Through It. You read me a sentence you like and I interrupt you.

  “You want to stay here again tonight?”

  You hesitate, but only for a second. And then you smile. “Sure!”

  We shower together behind the yellow police tape and I wash your hair and you kiss my chest. We get dressed together and the future is now, here.

  “Hey, Beck.”

  “Hey, Joe.”

  “What do you think about moving in here?”

  You smile at me. You stop buttoning your silk blouse and you walk across the room and the sun follows you because all plants lean toward the sun, you. You gaze up at me and I kiss you and you whisper, “It’s only my first year, Joe. Let me get my MFA, you know? I need that to be my focus.”

  It’s not the answer I wanted but it’s good enough for me. We finish getting dressed and go into my kitchen and if Karen Minty were here, she would know how to make us egg sandwiches but if Karen Minty were here, I wouldn’t have you. You slip into your coat. I tell you that I understand that you’re not ready to move in but you’re welcome to bring your computer here and write any time you want.

  You are moved. You hug me. “That’s so sweet, Joe. But my computer is so old and clunky.”

  “I wish I could get you a new one,” I say. “One of those MacBook Airs.”

  “You don’t need to get me anything,” you say. You are not greedy. You are content. “And those MacBook Airs are crazy expensive, Joe. And besides, when I’m here the last thing in the world I want to do is write, so it all works out with my clunky, old computer.”

  I kiss you. I know to let you walk out on your own and you turn back and blow me a kiss. Twice. When you’re gone I flop onto the couch and fuck around on my computer. I look at MacBook Airs and college courses. Let’s face it. You are a writer. That’s your life. I love the bookstore, but business will never be what it was. I want to buy you a MacBook Air and I am overwhelmed in the good way. I e-mail you. I feel close to you.

  Is it time for you to come back yet?

  You don’t reply, but I’m not worried or scared anymore. I know you too well. I know that you’re jotting ideas down in the notepad application on your phone. I know that you’re not ignoring me. You’re writing because you’re inspired, because you’re content, because of me.

  IT’S a slow day in the shop, which is fine by me. I have time to make plans, to plant seeds. I sign up for a Q&A at NYU about part-time student life. I don’t know what I’ll study—Books? Business?—but I want to work hard for you, for us. I call Bemelmans and make a reservation for us next week. You probably don’t realize it, but it’s almost six months since we first met, and I’m gonna go for broke. We’re gonna start off right here. I’m gonna set up a table in the cage and have a candlelit dinner. We’re gonna fuck in there and do it right and then you’re gonna get your present—a dress I just bought online at Victoria’s Secret. They keep e-mailing you reminders about your shopping cart and I was able to find the item number and search the online inventory. It’s hot; you showed it to Chana and Lynn, you think it’s too hot.

  Chana: Get it. Why not?

  Lynn: Just don’t get it in red. Also, wear tights.

  Chana: Are you kidding? The whole point of a slutty dress is that it’s slutty.

  You: Ladies, ladies. Calm down. I know I could never pull this off.

  But you can and you will and the dress is going to arrive tomorrow. It’s going to be hard to hide it from you, to wait, because I know you’re gonna look great in it, Beck. But if you’re too shy to wear it to Bemelmans then I’ll understand, of course.

  FedEx arrives and there’s a new James Patterson—gonna get busy in here
tomorrow—and there’s a little something for me too. I’d almost forgotten that I ordered a DVD of Pitch Perfect; you only watch the download, but you should own what you love, it’s that simple. I should wait to give it to you until it’s our anniversary, but at the same time, you’re coming over tonight and you made me a pie. There’s no way I’m waiting and I stash the DVD in my bag and tear into the box of Pattersons. I put on some tunes—for once, I’m in the mood for Ethan’s music and maybe this is what it means to be happy—and I make adjustments in Popular Fiction to make room for Patterson, the same way I’m gonna make room for you when you move in with me. I’m happy, Beck, and the juices are flowing and I just got another idea for our anniversary! Before we go to Bemelmans, we’ll go to Macy’s in midtown and head back to our dressing room. You’re not gonna believe the way I went out of my way for you and maybe after Bemelmans we’ll go to a tattoo parlor and get tattoos that only we can see. Everythingship would look hot in small black letters high up on your inner thigh and I better calm down or I’m gonna have to hang a sign and take five in the cage downstairs.

  The day soars into night and I can’t believe it when it’s time to close up shop. My senses are alive; you do that to me now, not fucking Nicky. I walk this block every day but today it looks different, freshly washed, even though it’s not; street cleaning happens on Tuesdays and it’s Friday. Teenagers abound, talking about plans for the weekend and I was lonely in high school, but not anymore. I can’t resist and I text you:

  Be home soon.

  You get back to me right away:

  K

  And even the dreaded K doesn’t bum me out. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. I’ve never felt so at peace with where I am, right now, on a train, tunneling toward my home, toward you. I take my time walking up the stairs and onto the street. I want life to move slowly because I want to anticipate you with all my heart, greet you with all my heart, fuck you with all my heart and miss you with all my heart. I have to laugh because I sound like a greeting card but I deserve this, you, joy.

  My whole life, I’ve never felt at home, my whole life I’ve wondered why other people seem to be able to set themselves up with a job, with family, with friends. Every year, my dad would bring a Christmas tree home and my mom would get angry and drag it onto the sidewalk. Everyone at school knew; we were the weirdos who toss our tree on the street before Christmas. I’d plan on Hanukkah, but my dad would yell at my mother, You don’t even own a menorah! Since when are you so Jewish? I’ve survived winters without presents in red and green or blue and silver. I’ve known Thanksgivings without turkey; my dad prefers beef. I’ve waited, Beck. I reach my stoop. The wait is over. I unlock the front door and the key sticks because I gave you my keys and this spare I’m using is rusty. I get the mail, just bills and coupons for J. Goldberg. The usual. I climb the steps and I remember what it was like climbing these steps when they led to Karen Minty and I think of something I love about you with each step and I do my homework even though I don’t need therapy anymore:

  #1 Beck sees beyond my background and knows that you don’t have to go to college to be smart.

  #2 Beck loves me in her own way, with a toothbrush, a robe.

  #3 Beck isn’t afraid to tell me how much she loves being with me.

  #4 Beck wakes up happy when she wakes up with me.

  #5 Beck can’t cook and neither can I and she says that’s good because it means we get to learn, together.

  #6 Beck looked up solipsistic in the dictionary that night. And now her dictionary is marked with all kinds of words that came out of my mouth and into her world.

  #7 When she orgasms, she clings on to me with her entire body. Her tits respond to my touch. Respond. Her whole body is a response.

  #8 She has the capacity to be genuinely happy for other people. She takes pride in the fact that she put Ethan and Blythe together. She is sweet.

  #9 She remembers everything I said or nothing I said and it’s always good either way. She says sometimes that she’s so crazy about me that she goes deaf when I talk.

  I can’t wait anymore. I want you now and I run up the last few steps and swing open the door and I’m hard as a rock and I’ve got Pitch Perfect in my hand but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. The tapestry that covers the hole is on the floor. And you look at me with new eyes when you see me. You are holding a pair of your panties. You quiver with fear, like I am a horror movie, like I am a Rottweiler or a rejection letter and I am none of those things and I take a step toward you. “Beck,” I try.

  “No,” you say. “No.”

  46

  YOU’RE the one who snooped in my wall yet you’re acting like I’m the only one in this apartment with problems. You want to leave me, of course. You are afraid of the Box of Beck. You are judgmental, nasty. You stand in front of the hole in the wall behind my sofa—my special and private place—and my box is on my sofa, partially shredded because you tore into it like a sewer rat. There is only one good thing about any of this. In your haste to snoop through my things, you left your phone on the coffee table. I grab it while you’re burrowing through the box.

  “This is a used tampon.”

  “It’s in plastic.”

  “Don’t you fucking move,” you order.

  A lot of guys would be pissed, but not me. I know you’re out of your mind right now, Beck. Hell, you’re angry that I “stole” your Mardi Gras beads but you didn’t even know they were missing until now. You’re mad that I helped you scour your apartment for your Chanel sunglasses last week when I “clearly” knew they were in this box. But honestly, you’re better off without those fucking obnoxious glasses. They’re for people like Peach; you look silly in them and you change the subject.

  “Well, what about this?” you vent. “This is my yearbook, Joe.”

  “And it’s perfectly fine.”

  “It’s mine, you sicko. You didn’t go to Nantucket High School. This is my book from my life and my friends and my home.”

  “Beck.” You have never sounded more selfish but I will be patient.

  You point at me. “No.”

  You can’t be held responsible for your actions. You keep looking at the fire escape like that’s a possibility for you. You’re talking crazy, like you’d leave me after all that pie, all that talk about moving in together. I try to reach you: “Beck, calm down. You’re not climbing out the window and you’re not gonna run down the stairs when you’re out of your mind like this.”

  Round and round we go, one minute you are afraid, one minute you are going to kill me, one minute you think I am going to kill you, one minute you are the victim of my evildoing (LOL) and one minute I am the victim because you are going to kill me (LOL). You snarl and call me a fucking sicko. I know you don’t mean it. If you were truly afraid, you would make a serious attempt to “escape.” But the fact is that I know you. I know you are pleased with your discovery. You like attention and devotion and that box is proof that I am attentive, devoted. If that box contained Candace’s things, you would have broken your neck trying to get out of my home. You will get on my side, but I have to be patient. You’re in shock. You scream again. My head is starting to pound and I worry about the neighbors and I snap.

  “Would you please shut the fuck up already? Do you hear me calling you names? How do you think I feel when I walk in here and find you in my wall? Do you think that feels good? Do you think I like to be spied on?”

  “You have a box of my shit,” you sneer. “I’m leaving.”

  “Nobody’s making any decisions right now,” I say. “And let’s be honest, Beck. I could just as easily say I’m done with you for snooping around in my stuff.”

  “I—I can’t believe this,” you stammer. “You’re crazy. You’re crazy.” And here you go again, with the chattering teeth and you’re pulling at your hair. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” Don’t you get tired of your dramatics?

  “Calm down, Beck,” I plead. “Why don’t you sit dow
n on the sofa?”

  Your cheeks get red and you get up on your tippy toes and you call me names—psycholoonnutjobfreakassholesickocreep—and it’s fine. I know you don’t mean it.

  “Oh I mean it, Joe.” You gawk and you brandish my Figawi hat. “I don’t even want to know where this comes from.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m sure,” you say. “Fucking sicko.”

  I remember last month around this time, you got violent and screamed at me for throwing away a three-day-old burrito that was stinking up your fridge. The next day, you got your period and you kissed me on the cheek.

  “I’m not crazy,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know, Beck.”

  “I promise,” you said. “When I get nasty like that, it’s like I’m standing outside of myself and I know I’m being terrible and irrational but there’s nothing I can do about it. I have serious PMS issues sometimes.”

  I forgave you and I haven’t thought about that moment until now because I know how to be in an everythingship. Anyone who walked in here right now would think you’re nuts, Beck. Anyone would try and protect me and ask you to lower your voice as you assault me with accusations. I’m a pervert and a sicko and a stalker and a hoarder and a psycho and I don’t respond.

  “Are you deaf, Joe?”

  “You know I’m not deaf.”

  You’re screaming again and do I scream at you? Never. When I text you and you don’t respond right away, I let it go. And now it’s your turn to let it go. It’s not like I stole anything that you need. Who looks at their high school yearbook? You’re moving on with your life; I never once saw you look at that thing. You don’t miss those people. And a lot of girls would apologize for invading my privacy. You’re ungrateful right now. You’re still calling me names: depraved, twisted panty-hoarding creep.

  You will settle down and I will get through this and I pretend you are a lion at the zoo. I am the zookeeper and I guard the door and I pray that I don’t have to use my fist on you but if I do, you will recover, probably. For now, my job as the zookeeper is to stand by and wait. You’ll wear yourself out soon enough, the same way you wear yourself out on my dick.