The rubber band snaps. Suddenly, she’s gesturing wildly to the set up in the kitchen with the food and the flowers, her hands flailing around and threatening to knock the coffee mugs off the counter. She hops off the counter and starts pacing angrily around the kitchen. I stay perfectly still. If she’s anything like my sisters, one wrong move, and the whole place will get smashed.
“Layla.”
I’m a statue. I keep my voice low, calm, and begging for her to look at me, even though my insides are completely twisted up.
Layla whirls around and glares.
“So that’s it?” she demands, trying and failing to keep the shake out of her voice. The sound makes my heart jump. “Was this all some ploy to nail some college chick? Was this your plan all along, to tell me how special I am, fuck me, make me fall in—fall into bed with you, all the while you’re secretly planning to run off to fucking California?!”
She stops at the far end of the kitchen, where a cloudy window faces the back of another brick townhouse. This would have been the part where my sisters would start throwing kitchen utensils and breaking dishes, but Layla just grips the countertop and bows her head. I know without asking that she’s trying not to cry. She’s trying not to look weak, like she cares as much as she does.
I only know because I’m trying to do the same thing. I’ve known this girl less than two weeks; been with her for maybe forty-eight hours. But as I see her there, so clearly in pain—pain that I caused—the truth is so fuckin’ clear. It’s a fact that hits me with so much force that I actually have to grab the edge of the stove to keep from falling down.
Fuck me. What am I going to do?
Finally, after several minutes of trying to get myself together, I find my voice again.
“Layla,” I say again, this time more softly.
I push off the stove and shuffle toward her. She doesn’t move, just keeps standing at the window. I can feel the warmth of her body from inches away, and it’s causing me physical pain not to touch her, even a little.
So I do. Because I really am an asshole.
I slide my hands tentatively up her arms to rest on her shoulders. Then I lean down and rub my nose down her neck. Because really, this might be the last time I get to do it.
“Please,” I say into her warm, soft skin. “I didn’t mean to tell you like this. I didn’t mean for all this to happen.”
She sighs, and for a second I think she might forgive me. But then she ducks out of my reach to the other side of the kitchen. It’s for the best. I can’t be close to her and keep my hands to myself. I don’t think she can either.
“Why are you even going there?” she asks me, her voice suddenly sharp. “You’re a New Yorker if I’ve ever met one. This city is in your blood. Is this just a spontaneous move? Something that just came up?”
I shake my head, shifting awkwardly in my sneakers. “Ah, no, not exactly. I’ve been trying to figure it out for a while now. I was in LA for a few weeks last year and met some of the people K.C. set me up with. It’s been in the works since then, and stuff just came through for me.”
I don’t mention the people who are waiting there for me. People I haven’t been talking to much for the past few weeks because I’m too wrapped up with Layla. People like Paul, the owner of the club where I’m supposed to be working. People like Jessie, the girl I spent a good chunk of that time with.
Layla’s mouth opens and closes a few times. “But…you don’t really have to leave, do you?” she pleads, and it just about breaks my heart. “I mean, it’s not like you’ve signed a contract, right?”
From anyone else, it might sound pathetic. But from her, I get it. If it were me on the other side, I’d already be on my knees, begging her to stay. But there are other things to think about here. Things like, I’m nowhere near good enough for Layla, that she deserves better than a fuckin’ delivery man or a part-time doorman. Things like, sometimes I feel like I have to get out of this fuckin’ cesspool of a city or else I’ll die. Or I’ll never figure out what or who I am without the chains of this place holding me down.
“No, I do have to go, baby,” I say quietly, and watch her face fall. “And not just because I already made the commitment. I’ve spent almost twenty-seven years in this city. Never lived anywhere else, never had any other job. My sisters are old enough now to help out with our mom, and my brother’s eighteen, almost done with school. I need to try to do something different with my life, but everything I try here goes nowhere. It’s time.”
I sigh and take a deep breath as I voice all the things I’m not sure I’ve ever said out loud, but have been thinking for years.
“I don’t want to work at FedEx forever, baby—you gotta understand that. I feel like this is my shot at something new, and I have to take it. Just like what you’re doing here, away from your family and where you grew up.”
“You’ve lived somewhere else,” she argues stubbornly, unwilling to let it go. “Those years in the country, when you were in high school, right?”
“That was in juvie, Layla,” I admit quietly, dropping the other bomb I hadn’t ever planned on telling her. That she didn’t just sleep with a guy with no future, but one with a fucked-up past too. A criminal. “Juvenile detention. It doesn’t exactly count as a positive experience outside the city, you know what I mean?”
She’s stunned. I’d be willing to bet I’m the first person she knows with a record. I was a minor, it’s true, but a record is still a record. It’s something I have to explain to any employer for the rest of my life.
“What did you do?” she asks, unable to hold back her curiosity. There’s a gleam in her eyes I’ve seen before. This turns her on.
I hate that it turns her on.
“Hung out with the wrong crowd. Got caught with some kids holding up bodegas. The third time they kicked my ass out to the center for almost two years. I got out just in time to finish high school.” I raise an eyebrow. “Do you hate me now?”
I can see plainly she doesn’t. But more than that, I can see that she’s not scared of me. The gleam is gone, and she’s not looking at me any differently than before. I’m still just Nico to her.
I’m shocked by how relieved I am.
“Please,” she says. “If I was going to be judged for every stupid thing I did in high school, I wouldn’t have any friends left in the world. Have you held up any bodegas since then?”
We both know I haven’t. There is no way I’d have the job at FedEx if I had an adult record. I barely got it as is, and that’s only because Flaco was friends with the hiring manager.
The conversation lulls, and I feel like the space between us is huge, like these two bombs having created a chasm between us. Was I really so stupid to have fooled myself into believing she wouldn’t care? Of course she cares.
“Layla, please believe me when I say this,” I start to say.
She looks up, and my throat tightens at the pain shining bright in her eyes. Fuck. Fuck.
“I didn’t expect to meet you when I did,” I ramble on. “Didn’t expect to feel what I do this intense, this fast. You’re so…fuck, you’re so everything. Beautiful, smart, sexy as hell, fun to be around, easy to talk to…the whole package, really. I…I swear to God, I didn’t expect to like you this much, baby.”
My voice cracks like a teenager’s when I finish. I’m so weak. I should just be the asshole she thinks I am. I should just let her fucking go.
“I could go with you,” she blurts out, pulling me out of my thoughts. The next words follow in a rush. “I could transfer to USC or UCLA or some other school in LA. I could fly out with you when I finish the school year in May. It wouldn’t be that hard…”
Even as she trails off, we both know how nuts it sounds. She’s thinking about jumping ship for a guy she literally met two weeks ago. It’s crazy. And yet, I can see in her eyes she’s serious.
So now I have to break her heart again. Because even though I have to leave this city, I can’t take her with me.
“Shit. Baby, that’s so sweet, and I’m honored that you would even offer to do that for me.” I walk slowly to her, like I’m approaching a wild animal. I take her hands, playing with the edges of her fingertips. “God, you’re so beautiful…” I whisper.
She blinks hopefully. My heart drops another story.
“We both know you need to stay here, finish what you started. You have your friends, your degree…law school eventually, right? Coming out to LA will only put you behind, and baby, you can’t do that for someone you’ve only known a few days. I can’t let you do that for me.”
I take a deep breath, lean in to kiss her lightly on the lips. She doesn’t respond as my words sink in. I’m numb and falling apart at the same time. Maybe this is the real difference between our ages. She’s still young enough to be optimistic, to throw caution to the wind for her heart, but I know the realities of everyday life. The complications of mine are only going to hold her back. And I won’t do that.
“Let’s just enjoy the time we have left together,” I say, because I’m still too weak to let her go completely. How can I live in this city for three more months, knowing that this beautiful, amazing creature is in it?
But then she says the one thing I knew she would. The smart thing to say. And I know I’m wrong. Our age difference doesn’t mean shit.
“No.” Layla pushes off the counter and out of my grasp. She shakes her head and shuffles backward out of the kitchen. “No, no. I-I can’t.”
I watch dazedly as she disappears down the hallway toward the bedrooms and returns with her overnight bag. I watch as she stuffs the books on the dining table back into her messenger bag, as she pulls on her boots and coat. I watch because I’m stuck in place, like a statue.
“I have to go,” she says, as if it isn’t obvious. “I can’t do this with you. It’s…it’s going to hurt too much. It already does.”
Her voice cracks across the last words, and she swipes viciously at the tears falling down her cheeks. Fucking fuck. All I want to do is go to her, wrap her in my arms, tell her I’ll stay, tell her I’ll do whatever she wants if she’ll just stop crying.
But instead, I keep watching as she heaves her bags over her shoulder.
“Layla.” I finally find my voice just as she opens the heavy front door. “I’m sorry.”
She turns around and stares at me, her deep blue eyes shooting a bullet right through my fuckin’ heart. I chew on my lower lip, unsure of what else to say. I want to grab her, tell her this has been a sick joke, show her that I’m willing to make it work no matter what, that this feeling between us is too special, too rare to just throw aside for things like jobs and school.
That’s what she does to me. She makes me hope in ways I never thought I could.
But then Layla turns away again, her eyes cast downward
“I know,” she says finally. “I’m sorry, too.”
And then she pulls the door shut behind her, and I, like the lonely, downtrodden, fucking asshole I am, let her find her own way back to Manhattan, back to where she belongs.
II
Stay
Chapter Nineteen
Layla
Between hiking through the unplowed streets of half of Hoboken and waiting for the slow Sunday trains to carry me back across the Hudson and up to Canal Street, it takes me almost two solid hours to get back to the dorms. It’s past noon when I arrive irate, tired, and feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck. All of it makes me a little woozy when I stumble into the apartment. The girls, who are scattered about the place studying, look up at my entrance, their curious expressions immediately melting into concern as they get a good look at me.
“Layla!”
Quinn leaps out of the small dorm armchair and runs to my side. She dumps my bags next to the closet and guides me to the couch where Jamie is sitting. Shama comes out of her room, takes one look at me, and heads to the kitchen to make some tea.
“Dang,” Jamie says as she scoots over to make room for my dazed form. “You don’t look so good, Lay. Are you all right?”
I shake my head, the memories of last night and this morning replaying yet again. It’s all been on terrible repeat for the past two hours. I nearly went back to Hoboken twice, but stopped the second time when I realized I probably wouldn’t be able to find my way there on my own. With my friends surrounding me, it all comes crashing down one last time, and the dam inside me finally breaks. The tears start coming. And they just. Don’t. Stop.
“Holy shit, babe, what is it?” Quinn asks, rubbing my back. “What did that bastard do to you?”
I choke out a few more sobs and breathe heavily, trying to rein in my emotions enough to tell them what happened. “He’s…he’s great. We slept together. It was…(sob)…amazing. And then he told me…he’s…(sob)…leaving!”
Another flood of tears pour down my cheeks after that last word, and I can feel, rather than see, my roommates trading triplet looks of worry as they pat my back and murmur that everything is going to be all right. I know what they’re thinking. This isn’t like me. I don’t break down crying after one night with a guy. I barely cried after breaking up with Teddy, and he took my V-card and cheated on me. This is just different. I’m not even sure I can explain why or how. But I feel like my heart was made of porcelain and was hurled against a wall.
Eventually, I calm down and stop shaking enough to accept a cup of chamomile tea from Shama. She folds herself down onto the rug and hugs my knees while Quinn and Jamie wrap around me from either side. I’m so thankful that I live with these girls—who else has roommates who will literally stop whatever they are doing just to help you cry over a guy?
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping the tears off my face with the back of my sleeve. “I’m better now. Really.”
“Bastard,” Quinn remarks as we sit back. “Fuck and run. Just like we said, right? Seriously. Guys are shit.”
“He’s not shit, Quinn,” I insist, maybe a little too vehemently. “He’s lost. There’s a difference. He didn’t have the opportunities we have, you know?” I stop, swallowing back the pain I feel. “He grew up with practically nothing, in a freaking one-bedroom apartment shared with five people. He’s barely ever left New York! Now that his siblings are all grown, he finally gets the chance to make a better life for himself. I’m heartbroken, but I can’t begrudge him that.”
It’s not until I say the words that I realize they’re true. I look out the window, which faces east. It only looks out to another brick apartment building, but beyond that, I can imagine the river, and beyond that, the brownstone. I wonder if Nico is still there.
“Well, he didn’t have to screw you on his way out,” Quinn says harshly.
Jamie nods on my other side, as does Shama from her spot on the floor, although I can see she’s a little less sure. Jamie tends to side with Quinn on just about everything, but since she started dating her DJ, Shama has been a lot more circumspect about the dramas of our love lives. Jason’s another local boy from Queens, and Quinn had plenty to say about him when he first came around, until Shama told her where she could stick her opinions. I do wonder, though, sometimes if he’s really as nice to her as she makes him out to be. I’ve heard her crying in the shower sometimes when she thinks no one can hear her.
I take a sip of tea with a brief smile at Shama before replying. She squeezes my knee.
“It’s not like that,” I say quietly, even though I know Quinn won’t believe me. “What I feel…I’m pretty sure he feels it too. I think he’s sad to leave me. I think…” I take another sip of tea to give myself time to sniff back the tears that are yet again on the edge of falling. “I think his heart is breaking just like mine.”
“Whatever.” Quinn’s pronouncement isn’t quite as tough as she’d like. “You’re done with him anyway. You can’t let him just crush your heart like this, so it’s better to let him go now than to get even more attached, right?”
“Right,” I say glumly, even though I don�
��t really feel it.
It is why I left like I did. I just don’t know how I’m going to deal with seeing him every day. The assistants are going to think it’s weird that I have to go to the bathroom every day at exactly six p.m. Shit, should I look for another job?
I shiver suddenly, pulling my jacket tighter around me and rocking into it as I sip my tea.
“Are you feeling okay, Layla?”
Shama looks at me from her spot on the floor, and I can see in her eyes that it’s not just my emotional state that has her concerned. She’s looking over my entire body like there is something wrong with me.
“Actually, no,” I admit, realizing that my head is suddenly pounding and my hands feel really clammy. “I started feeling kind of funny on my way home. I thought it was just because I was so upset.”
Quinn immediately slaps her hand over my forehead while Shama twists her lips to the side, considering.
“Oh my God,” Jamie says next to me, even as she scoots a bit away. “You know the juniors at the end of the hall? Like, four apartments are all down with mono. I bet you have that.”
Quinn’s eyes roll so far into the back of her head I think they might stay there.
“Well, since Layla hasn’t been sticking her tongue down any of their mouths or using their toothbrushes, I doubt she has mono, J.” She looks back at me. “Wait, you haven’t hooked up with any of them, have you?”
I swipe her hand off my forehead and give her a pointed look. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have told you if I had been hooking up with our neighbors? Or used their toothbrushes?”
Jamie giggles, earning a sharp look from Quinn, who immediately puts her hand up to my forehead again. I roll my eyes. Shama smirks.
“Okay, so you don’t have mono. But you do feel warm, Lay,” Quinn announces after she removes her hand. “I think you might be getting sick.”
I nod. “Well, something is definitely wrong. I thought I just had a stuffy head from crying so much, but I’m starting to get chills.”
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 17