“It’s not like you’ll be driving.”
“No, exactly. I hope the condo two blocks from work will be cool.”
“The apartment-share with the residency student?”
“That one.”
“Aren’t residents supposed to be super busy and never at home?” Haley’s hands sneaked under Scott’s tank top and up his lower back. “Don’t you want to meet someone who’ll introduce you to loads of people? You don’t know anyone over there.”
“I don’t expect Dr. Allen to be a nine-to-five kind of guy; shadowing him will be worse than any residency. There won’t be much time for me to get social.”
“I wish I could believe you.” Haley pouted jokingly. “You’ll meet tons of blonde Californian beauties and forget all about me.”
Scott gently pulled at the ends of her just-above-the-shoulders bob. “Pity I have a thing for brunettes…”
“You do, huh?”
“I do.” Scott’s smile disappeared, and he became suddenly serious. “I’m going to miss you,” he said, dropping his forehead to hers.
“Me, too.” Haley lifted her chin to kiss him.
In a blur of passion and longing, they tore each other’s clothes off and rolled onto the bed, their limbs so entangled it was impossible to tell where one body started and the other ended…
Thirteen
Haley
“We’re going to be late,” Haley said, her mind still hazy from all the goodbye sex.
If nothing else, Scott’s imminent departure had given her the best week of sex of her life. There was something to be said about making love knowing you were about to be separated from your partner for a long time. It heightened everything. Every kiss, every touch, every sensation was more urgent, intense, powerful…
Scott groaned, stretching beside her. “I don’t care…”
“The sooner we leave,” Haley grazed the skin of his neck with her teeth, “the sooner we can come back and do this again.”
“I’m convinced.” He flashed her a roguish smile and hopped off the bed.
They took a quick shower—together—and managed to get to the restaurant only ten minutes late. To their relief, they weren’t even the last to arrive. Alice and Jack beat them to it and, judging from the healthy glow on both their faces, for the same reason.
Once they were all seated, Haley fought hard to keep a smile plastered on her face. But inside, she couldn’t help the relentless countdown her brain had initiated. Her stupid mathematical mind enjoyed providing her with a set of depressing numerical stats Haley could’ve gladly done without. 12 hours until Scott’s plane left. 720 minutes. 43,200 seconds. 72 days before he came back. 1,728 hours. 103,680 minutes. And a ridiculous number of seconds. Okay, now she could get Scott’s hatred for numbers.
How was she supposed to endure all that time without him? It wasn’t that Haley had never been single, or that she didn’t know how to be on her own. But in the last six months, she’d relinquished most of that independence to her relationship. She’d gotten used to Scott’s presence by her side. To always have his support, to see him almost every day, to make love to him whenever she wanted, and to always be able to count on him… And now she’d have to learn how to be alone all over again.
Besides disturbing numerical statistics and even gloomier thoughts, Haley was having a hard time deciding what she found more annoying about this farewell party. The way Madison kept trying—and failing—not to stare at Scott adoringly. How Alice seemed to pick up on everything and kept alternating worried side glances between Haley, Madison, and Scott. The frankly tasteless jokes the “boys” kept bouncing off Scott about Californian beauties. Hello? His girlfriend is sitting right next to you, assholes. Or the fact that every minute they spent at this restaurant was a minute less Haley could have Scott all for herself.
Usually the most social and outgoing in her group of friends, tonight Haley felt like a bratty child who hadn’t gotten what she’d wanted for Christmas. While her family was all happy and busy celebrating, she was left alone sulking in a corner—ignored.
Get a grip, she told herself. You’re ruining this for Scott, stop being a total bitch.
Haley took a deep breath and got up to go to the restroom. A splash of fresh water on her face and she’d be as good as new and back to being a decent human being and not a sorry girlfriendzilla.
She’d barely made it to the hall leading to the restrooms when someone grabbed her from behind.
“I know you’d rather be back home,” Scott breathed down her neck. “Me, too.”
Goosebumps traveled all the way down from Haley’s nape to the tip of her toes.
“Busted?” she asked, turning around.
Scott nodded, opening his arms invitingly.
Haley burrowed her face in his chest. “I’m sorry, it’s your goodbye party and I’m ruining it for you. But I can’t help being in an awful mood.”
“Hey.” Scott made her look up. “You’re not ruining anything. I know every minute we spend here seems like a minute less we can be together, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Scott had a wicked twinkle in his eyes and Haley couldn’t help but smile and ask, “Make up for it, huh? How?”
Scott whispered the mischievous answer in her ear and made to lead her back to the others before she could reply.
“Hey,” Haley protested, “what if I really needed the restroom?”
Scott flashed her a grin. “Did you?”
“No,” Haley admitted, and let him pull her away.
Back at the table, they spent the rest of the evening eye-flirting with each other. The entire dinner didn’t seem wasted time anymore, just a long session of hands-off foreplay. Haley couldn’t stop smiling—for real this time. Never in her life had she had this much complicity with anyone. Not a guy. Not her friends. Only Scott. It would always be Scott.
***
Hours later, in Scott’s room, Haley was staring at the dark ceiling, a whirlwind of sad thoughts swirling ceaselessly inside her head. After a night together that needed to last them two months, they were both spent and could not have made love another time even if they’d wanted to.
“You’re not sleeping,” Scott said, turning on the bed to face her.
“Neither are you.”
“I can’t sleep with you so awake next to me.”
Haley huffed the hair away from her face. “Sorry, but I don’t want to sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re here now and sleep is a waste of time.” Haley sighed. “I can sleep tomorrow all day if I want to. Hell, I can sleep every day for the next two months… but not tonight, not while you’re still with me.”
“Night… it’s almost dawn already.”
“Wilt thou be gone?” Haley whispered. “It is not yet near day.”
Scott propped himself on an elbow, surveying her. “Are you quoting Shakespeare at me?” he asked with a grin barely visible in the faint light that preceded dawn. “I thought you hated verses and plays and poetry…”
“I do.” Haley smirked.
Scott frowned in the semi-darkness.
“End of the nineties,” she announced in a dramatic voice, “Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes co-star in the most epic movie of the decade…”
Scott groaned. “That movie, seriously?”
“Hm-mmm,” Haley hummed. “Romeo + Juliet was one of my favorite movies growing up. I learned it almost by heart.”
“You liked the movie, or Leonardo DiCaprio?”
“Bit of both.”
Haley smiled, and Scott tickled her sides. The game soon ended in a kiss, and when Scott pulled away, he didn’t move back to his side of the bed. He knelt half on top of her, caressing her hair.
“I appreciate the literary quote,” he said. “But we’re nothing like Romeo and Juliet.”
“No? Feels a lot like it.”
“What? Like we’re star-c
rossed lovers who just got married in secret because our families are mortal enemies and now I’ve killed your cousin and I’m being exiled?” Scott taunted.
“No,” Haley said, her tone serious. “Like you have to leave and I don’t want you to.”
“I have more care to stay than will to go,” Scott recited theatrically. “I’ll stay and lose my flight… Haley wills it so.”
“No, she doesn’t. Haley wills you to go do your wonderful internship and learn everything you can from your superstar doctor. But she wants you to stay at the same time… if it makes any sense?”
“Completely, because I want to go and to stay just as much.”
As if on cue, Scott’s phone lit up, and the alarm started beeping.
“But you have to go,” Haley said.
Scott gave her a peck on the lips and sat on the bed to silence the phone. Haley knelt behind him, hugging his back.
She leaned in and bit his earlobe. “Think we have time for one last bit of fun before your exile?”
Scott didn’t have to be told twice. “My snooze time is pretty long.” He dropped the phone and turned, pinning Haley on the bed underneath him. Turned out they still had some steam in them.
***
The drive to the airport was a sad business spent mostly in silence. Haley was busy driving Madison’s car and getting too much inside her own head, and Scott was evidently exhausted after a sleepless night. Haley knew him well enough to see he was already focused on all the things he needed to sort out before Monday.
After a quick breakfast outside of the security check barrier, the time to really say goodbye came. Tears already welling in her eyes, Haley followed Scott toward the gate as far as non-passengers were allowed. She kept her gaze trained on the floor the entire time to hide her puffy red eyes, and when they stopped, Scott had to lift her chin to make her look at him.
“Please don’t cry,” he whispered, pulling her into a hug.
Haley inhaled his familiar scent, and that did it—the last shred of self-control she’d hung to slipped away, and she started sobbing uncontrollably.
“It’s okay,” Scott said, caressing her hair. “I’ll be back in no time.”
“I know, I’m just being silly.”
“No, you’re not.” Scott pulled back slightly and cupped her face in his hands. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
He kissed her one last time—okay, more three or four kisses all rolled into one heart-wrenching goodbye—and then he walked away.
Haley watched him go through security until Scott was on the other side. He turned to flash her a sad-ish grin while he raised the hand holding the plane ticket in a final farewell gesture. And then he was gone.
The moment Scott disappeared behind the corner, a cold, heavy stone replaced Haley’s heart.
Be fickle, Fortune, Haley thought, feeling just as ill-divining as Claire Danes in the movie, for then I hope thou wilt not keep him long. But send him back.
Back to me, and fast… Haley took the poetic license of adding.
Fourteen
Haley
Scott was gone, and the only thing that made Haley get out of bed on Monday morning was the start of summer classes. After a weekend spent holed up in her room watching Romeo + Juliet on repeat, Haley was glad something was forcing her to react. With two grad computer science courses and an advanced statistics class on her plate, she hoped she’d be too busy to mope over Scott.
He’d called every day since he’d gotten to California, but talking over the phone was a poor replica of a real-life conversation, and every single time he’d been in a hurry. Too many things to set up, too many places he needed to be. And he hadn’t even started working yet. If things kept going this way, she’d be lucky if they managed to talk for more than ten minutes at a time.
Unfortunately, the first week of school proved all her fears right. The classes were demanding, but not nearly challenging enough to absorb Haley completely. She still had plenty of time to feel lonely. After almost seven months dating Scott, she was used to being held, kissed, and cuddled. The lack of physical contact was taking its toll, and the difficulties in talking to each other were rattling her emotionally. Conversations with Scott were officially counted in minutes—single digits—and not hours.
Saturday morning, still in this state of mind, Haley was positively scared of spending another full weekend in her room. She worried she’d end up with another forty-eight-hour marathon of tragic love movies and endless tears… so she decided to go to the library to do her homework. Usually, she didn’t care to use a shared space to study. Library goers had a tendency of rolling their eyes at her constant keyboard click-clacking that made Haley uncomfortable. But staying home wasn’t an option today. In a public location, Haley would have to get her act together, concentrate on her assignments, and she definitely wouldn’t be able to watch any movie or cry.
Of all the facilities available on campus, Haley settled on the Widener Library. If she really had to go study somewhere, she might as well pick Harvard’s flagship library. The building was an impressive brick rectangle, its front lined with huge white pillars that stood at the head of a flight of steps. Inside, the larger study room, Widener Loker Reading Room, had an old-style feel and was even more impressive with its high-vaulted light-green ceiling that let in plenty of natural light.
The place must’ve been a lot emptier than during a regular term, but still, all the long rectangular tables had two to three students already seated at them. Haley shuffled to the back of the room, toward a table with only two busy seats at the opposite ends. On the left, facing Haley, was an Asian girl in a red cotton sweater with long dark locks, her neck bent over a set of open tomes. On the right, there was an empty chair with a messenger bag strapped across its back and a laptop opened on an Excel sheet.
Haley’s first instinct would’ve been to grab a seat in the middle, but the Excel sheet had caught her attention. Whoever was working on that model was doing a really poor job. To be fair, Haley could understand the base logic they’d applied. But they were going at it all wrong… a few lines of well-thought code inside an Excel macro could solve the problem in a matter of minutes. Otherwise, it’d take them hours…
Careful not to make it scrape, Haley drew back the second to nearest chair to the abandoned laptop and sat down, setting up her MacBook on the table. Where to start? The STAT S-106 homework assignment seemed to be calling to her. And while she worked at it, the fella next door could get a better idea of how data should be handled. Secretly, Haley hoped that whoever was going to sit next to her would realize how good of a job she was doing and plead for her help. She couldn’t help it. When it came to numbers, she was such a show-off.
Shuffling the syllabus out of the way, Haley found the paper with the first homework assignment. Question one looked easy, a straight statistical analysis of a given pool of data, complete with Mean Absorbance Ratio, and prevalence calculations. Question number two, instead, was the open-ended kind Haley hated:
The Boston Mayor is determined to assess the population satisfaction with the performance of the Police Department (PD) and the District Attorney (DA) office in all the city’s counties.
You are in charge of the team contracted to do the study and must report to the Mayor.
- Who should you poll? Do you attempt a census or opt for a well-designed controlled poll/survey?
- What sample size(s) would you use? What criteria do you need to satisfy to argue about the validity of your final conclusions?
The assignment continued with more stupid open questions. Ugh, what a waste of brainpower… going over the methodologies to acquire the data was so boring. Essential for any analysis to ever make sense, but still boring. Haley wanted to play with the numbers, not the methodologies they were collected with.
Let’s get the dull questions out of the way first.
Haley was working on the first point—Who should she
poll?—when the mysterious next-door neighbor showed up. Haley recognized him a second before their eyes met, from the light scent of citrus and sun-kissed skin that filled her nostrils.
Open-mouthed and wide-eyed, she lifted her eyes and met David Williams’ gaze, the same shocked expression mirrored on his face. With his dark hair tucked behind his ears and wearing a simple white T-shirt, faded jeans, and sneakers David looked… well, there was only one way of putting it: hot.
Haley cursed under her breath. All of a sudden, a day spent in her room crying seemed like the better alternative.
“Hi,” he whispered.
No mocking grin, no challenging attitude. He sat in his chair and, with a few clicks of the mouse, he revived the laptop screen that had gone dark in the meantime.
Haley was still staring at him, ready to pack her things and go, when—eyes still glued to the screen—he added, “We’re in a public library, Haley.” Haley. Not Sunshine or another stupid nickname. “I’m here to work, no need to fidget.”
Haley shut her still open mouth and imitated him, turning her eyes to her Mac and trying to concentrate on her homework. She could do this, ignore David and complete her assignments. Haley reread the first question.
Who should she pool?
Well, who was interested in the service levels of the Boston PD and DA? All adult residents of the Boston area counted, for sure. But should she also include non-resident students? Did minors count? Did tourists count? Did David Williams count?
She jotted down the questions—all minus the last one—to justify the inclusion or exclusion of the different groups in her final answer.
What sample size should she set on?
That depended on the margin of error she was ready to accept, and on the desired responses confidence level—to account for the statistical probability of people lying when interviewed.
And what was the statistical probability of her picking the one chair next to David Williams on a campus with more than twenty-two thousand students and over seventy separate library units?
On a regular day, fooling around with percentages and deviations—even for stupid open-ended questions—would’ve intrigued Haley, but on this particular morning, she was having serious troubles concentrating. What with having to fight the urge to spy on David and what he was doing every five seconds. And what with his distracting aftershave that she could barely—but definitively—detect.
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