Mark is staring. He walks forward until he’s standing directly in front of me. I think about how he saw this coming and warned me all those weeks ago. He could gloat right now, but he doesn’t. He tucks my head into the safety of his chest and hugs me close.
After a silence that feels bigger than the night, I say, “Mark, what about his hand? He won’t be able to play guitar tonight.”
Mark squeezes me tighter. “I know, Ellie-bear,” he murmurs into my hair. “I know.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Mark asks gently when the taxi drops us off at my house.
I shake my head. “I don’t know exactly, but I don’t want to be here in case he comes home. And, I don’t really feel like explaining to Payton and Ainsley why I took off tonight.”
He nods wordlessly and we walk to my room and finish getting my suitcase together. I’m glad that I started packing for winter break yesterday because my thundering head and my mixed-up heart are making it difficult for me to think properly.
It takes us a few minutes to figure out the car situation because after everything I drank, there’s no way that I can drive tonight.
Mark takes the jangling keys from my hand and heads for the front door. “I’ll just drive yours so that you’ll have it at my place and can leave for home from there in the morning. I’m sure that I can figure out getting my car tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I fall in step behind him. “Are you positive?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
We’re quiet the whole way to Mark’s apartment. I don’t cry, but I’m close. My stomach’s churning and complaining, and every time I close my eyes, things start to sway and I think I’m going to hurl.
I finally do lose it when we get to the parking lot of Mark’s apartment complex. I’m puking my guts out over the brittle frozen grass and I’m freezing because I didn’t want to ruin my coat so I took it off.
Like a champ, Mark holds my hair while I throw up. But because he’s Mark, in between rounds he gets back at me by torturing me with stories about the Kardashian sisters because he knows that I can’t stand them. By unspoken agreement we don’t talk about Ben or what happened.
When there’s nothing left and my stomach is as empty as every other part of me, Mark helps me shuffle inside and brush my teeth three times and get into an oversized long-sleeved t-shirt and yoga pants. He scoots me into his bed and then stays there, looming over me and looking hard like he’s trying to figure something out.
My head’s still swimming, but I’m not so gone that I don’t start to feel awkward. “What is it?”
A line appears on his forehead. “Are you sure that you’re okay, Ellie?”
I chuckle. “Well my mouth still tastes like ass and I think my organs might be lying in the grass out in front of your apartment building, but other than that I’m peachy.”
Mark shakes his head. “I meant earlier…”
I know what he meant, I just don’t know how to answer him. I close my eyes and wish that everything would stop whirling. “No. I’m not fine. Not at all. I don’t know when I’ll be fine, if ever.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I ruined things with Ben.”
“I know.”
“He’s probably never going to speak to me again.”
Mark leans down and kisses my forehead. “Never is a really long time.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I’m Alright
“Chica, you can’t avoid the place forever.” Mark pushes the frosted glass door with the heel of his hand. “I need caffeine or I’m going to lose it. Like, seriously lose it, so you’re going to have to man up and take one for the team.”
“Fine.” I step behind him into the warm, bustling space where I’m bombarded by the scent of coffee and the sounds of conversation. I don’t take a visible breath or grab my heart or anything dramatic like that, but I do feel the sharp sting of memory.
Mark sneaks a look over his shoulder as he steps toward the line of people threading out from the barista counter. “You have to see him every day at home so I don’t think you can rationalize us being deprived of caffeine anymore. And I’m telling you now that I’m never drinking a cup of that heinous stuff from the cafeteria again. Ever. They shouldn’t even be allowed to call that junk coffee.”
Mark’s right, but it still feels weird for me to be here. Ever since that first encounter back in October, I’ve been thinking about this place as his coffee shop. I might have to deal with the real Ben at home but I certainly don’t relish the idea of warring with the ghost of him when I don’t have to. But, Mark’s right and I know that I’m being ridiculous. This place has the best coffee in town, and it’s convenient, and I just need to get over myself.
I sigh. “Mark, I said it was fine to come here so let’s drop it.”
Mark’s scrolling through his phone, reading his texts, but he pauses long enough to look at me. “You are completely full of crap and I think that you know it. But, if you really don’t want to talk to your bestest friend in the whole wide world about Ben Hamilton and your tragically broken heart, that’s okay. I get it. Instead, let’s talk about the way that you’ve been acting for the last six weeks.”
Six weeks. That’s how long it’s been since the night that I went to see Ben play at The Hill. Since I got drunk and stupid and burned everything down. Winter break was shitty and sad but at least I was able to occupy myself with mailing out law school applications and Christmas and other family obligations. At least I didn’t have to fall asleep every night trying to distract myself from the fact that he was sleeping one room over, and if I were to take the wall down, our beds would only be about eight feet apart. Eight measly feet.
I can’t say that Ben’s being difficult or trying to make things harder for me. He isn’t. He wakes up in the morning and I can hear him shuffling around in his room or the bathroom and then he leaves and doesn’t come home until late. Usually it’s after I’m in bed and so the only slice of Ben Hamilton that I get each day is the sound of him on the other side of a closed door.
When I do see him, everything is changed. I let my eyes skip over the lines of his face, never settling in one place for too long. He does the same when he sees me. It’s as if we’ve come to a silent agreement that direct eye contact is not allowed.
Even without looking too closely, I can tell that Ben is different. Darker somehow, and disconnected to his surroundings. His eyes are dim and guarded. It’s almost like he’s wearing a mask, and I think about how I’m the one that put it there.
The few times that we’ve been forced into using words, he’s been polite bordering on indifferent. It’s the indifferent that’s gutting me.
“How have I been acting?” I ask, shifting the scarf off my neck and draping it over the strap of my tote bag.
Mark’s eyes roll back. “Ugh—don’t act phony baloney. You know how you’ve been, Ellie. Moody, quiet, and annoyingly studious.”
We both step forward as the line moves. “I told you that I’m still trying for that summer internship in New York, and if I’m going to get it then I really need to apply myself right now. Last semester I let myself get distracted and I blew the LSAT because of it.”
“Whatever.” Mark drops his hand dismissively. “You already told me that Brian and Pam were fine about the LSAT and Columbia.”
I shake my head and give him a look. “Yeah, my parents were surprisingly okay about my lackluster scores, but that doesn’t mean that I’m happy that I flushed my entire future down the toilet.”
That’s the truth. And, that, I remind myself is exactly why I shouldn’t devote any more of my time to Ben Hamilton. I let myself get engrossed with him last semester and look what happened.
“Will you stop being such a drama queen? You applied to a hundred other law schools and I know that you’re going to end up someplace just as awesome as Columbia.”
I incline my head. “I doubt I’ll end up someplace just as awesome.”
Mark rolls his eyes. “El
lie, I told you weeks ago to scream, shout, or cry, then get over it. Instead of purging all that negativity, you’ve become a dweller. And you know that I hate dwellers. All that sniveling and whining…”
“Thanks Mark. You make me sound like a cranky toddler.”
“Well, if the shoe fits.” Mark nudges me with his elbow. “I just don’t want to see you turn your very last semester of college into some arbitrary self-inflicted punishment, Ellie-bear.”
I close my eyes. “I know that you’re just trying to help, but I’m fine. I really am. And the stuff that happened with Ben is for the best. We were doomed for a bad ending from the beginning.” This is the line that I’ve been feeding my sorry self for six weeks and I’m almost to the point where I believe it. Ben and I were always too different to make it work. We were destined to choose separate paths. He’s a musician and I’m an aspiring corporate attorney. Logic tells me that the two roads never shall meet.
“Maybe not…”
“Mark, you’re the one who warned me that he was just getting out of a relationship and orbiting a completely different planet than the one that I live on.”
“I know, but—”
I’ve had enough of this conversation. Just thinking about this stuff twists me inside out. “No buts. Let’s just leave it alone. Ben and I are fine as friends.”
Mark turns away to order but it’s obvious that he still wants to say something. After we get our cappuccinos and sit down at a small table in the corner, I tell him to spit it out.
The sides of his mouth are turned down in a thoughtful frown. “If you and Ben are so fine then what’s with the radio silence?”
“For your information, we’re not silent. Did it ever occur to you that maybe we don’t have a lot to say to each other?”
Mark’s eyebrows go up a notch, and I know that he doesn’t believe me. That’s understandable. I don’t really believe me either.
“Ellie, I still think you should at least try to talk to him about what happened. Maybe if—”
I don’t let him finish. “Maybe we should go back to when you said that it was okay if I didn’t want to discuss Ben.”
“Touché,” he chides as he takes a sip from his cup. “If we’re banned from talking about your calamitous love life, then you realize that we’re going to have to talk about mine, right?”
Despite myself, I laugh. “Oh Lord, and the Hal Shepherd saga continues.”
Mark leans across the table and lowers his voice. “So listen to this…”
When I get to my statistics class that afternoon, some guy is in my seat. I’ve noticed him before. Aaron or Elliot or something like that. He raises his hand a lot and I get the impression that he likes the sound of his own voice. I think he’s a Political Science major.
Ainsley would call him a “tall drink of water.” He’s got sun-kissed chestnut hair smoothed back away from his forehead, broad shoulders, and a clean-shaven jaw that surrounds an oval mouth. He’s wearing an ironed button down paired with a simple sweater. God, it’s like stumbling into a parent’s wet dream.
This class doesn’t really have assigned seating, but it’s pretty standard to choose your seat on the first day and stick with it, so I find it a bit odd that he’s lounging in my chair with his ankle cocked casually on one knee. He’s writing something in a spiral notebook.
I look around and decide that I’ll skip the confrontation and grab a seat one row over. As I pass, the tall drink of water lifts his head and looks directly at me.
“I’m in your seat,” he says matter-of-factly, folding his arm over the back of the chair.
My forehead crinkles. I’m not sure whether I should laugh or be annoyed with this guy. “I can see that,” I say carefully.
“You were supposed to ask me to move.”
Now I do laugh. “I was? I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to be following a predetermined script.”
He looks a little frustrated. Deep green eyes move over my face. “Yes. You were going to ask me politely for your seat back. I was going to act confused and apologize profusely and then I was going to introduce myself. Hopefully by the end of class we’d have plans.”
It takes me a few seconds to process the meaning behind the words, but when I do, a slow blush climbs up my neck and over my cheeks.
“Plans?”
“Yep. Plans.” He smiles and sticks out his hand. “I’m Evan.”
I smile back and shake the offered hand. He has a firm grip that verges on painful. “I’m Ellie. Ellie Glass.”
“I know who you are,” he says with a wink as he picks up his notebook and slides from my chair to a neighboring seat. “Elizabeth Glass, daughter of Brian and Pam Glass.”
“How in the world do you know who my parents are?” Is this guy a stalker or something?
He shrugs. “I’ve heard things. Your parents are kind of a big deal.”
“I guess,” I reply guardedly. This is such a strange almost-conversation.
Evan gestures to the recently vacated chair with his hand. He smiles. “Please play along or I’m going to spend the rest of this class feeling like a wanker.”
“Who uses the term wanker?”
The smile grows wider. “My mom’s British so I’ve picked up a few things here and there.” He tilts his head. “Actually I can do a near perfect accent.”
“That must make it easy to charm the ladies.”
His eyebrows lift. “Easy is relative. I’ll let you know at the end of class.”
I shake my head and sit down and spend the next hour trying my damndest not to glance over at Evan despite the fact that I can feel his eyes grazing the side of my face and occasionally dropping lower. He really is cute. I shift in my seat and clear my throat nervously.
By the end of class, we don’t have plans, but after an unrelenting assault, I did agree to exchange numbers. Evan put himself in my phone contacts as “Evan the Wanker.” I’ll admit that it made me laugh.
Like I do most afternoons when I get home, I drop my bag by the door and head to the refrigerator for a drink. There’s a strange car in the street in front of the house. It’s covered in band stickers that I’ve never heard of and I wonder if Payton has finally gotten Ben to bring Nick, his drummer friend, over here.
The delicate sounds of an acoustic guitar drift to me through the walls and as I pop open a can of soda, I take a tentative step into the hall.
The music is coming from Ben’s room. I walk to the door and close my eyes for a moment, listening intently.
After a few minutes, everything goes flat. It’s not because of the music. Ben’s playing is beautiful like always. I’m all flat inside because I know that he’s on the other side of a closed door and that I’m the one who put him there.
I can talk about how fine I am all day long and I can flirt with cute, well-dressed guys that say “wanker” and smile at me, but it’s just a substitution for what I really want. So, why am I so afraid to admit it out loud?
I place my fingers on the door and think about knocking. I think about knocking so long and so hard that I almost do. But this is now. Knocking on Ben’s door was then. Before I told him we were all wrong and before he realized what a faithless moron I am.
This is my train of thought when I hear a series of sounds that are like cold water being dumped over me—Ben’s words tangled up in the soft notes of a girl’s voice followed by their joint laughter.
I don’t move. I just stand there and listen at the door like a creeper, trying to get my breathing back to normal. I hear shuffling and realize that they’re moving toward the door and me. My heart jackknifes and I jump to my own bedroom door just as the knob twists.
And then I’m standing in a hall that feels about a hundred feet too narrow with Ben and a girl who is holding a guitar in one hand. She’s petite and dark with a pixie haircut and large fishbowl blue eyes. The entire look is so ethereal that I sort of expect to see a pair of fairy wings sprout from her back.
Ben gr
uffly introduces the fairy girl as Mia. I almost feel sorry for Mia because I don’t think she gets how awkward everything is. Then Ben’s arm brushes against hers and I don’t feel sorry for her anymore.
Mia explains to me that she’s going to be playing with Accidental Sweet Tea on occasion because the other guitarist is having some family issues and may need to bail on a few of the gigs. I realize that it would be polite and normal for me to respond to this but I can’t speak just yet. I only seem capable of nodding and grunting.
Ben is watching me closely. Throughout the encounter I’ve avoided looking at him but I can sense him staring at me, all swift gathering clouds and darkness. As I duck into my bedroom with a snort that I hope Mia can translate as my socially awkward version of “nice to meet you,” I shoot a final glance over my shoulder. Big mistake. This time I don’t miss Ben’s eyes, and after weeks of no eye contact at all, the collision is so intense that it steals my breath. It splits the sky apart like a flash heat lightning.
He seems almost as affected as me. The mask slips and the sun breaks through. Then, almost before I can make sense of the way his face is rearranging itself, his brown eyes go dark, and his mouth draws tight, and we each pull away—Ben to the living room and me to my bedroom.
Once I’m safely inside my hidey-hole—sheltered from the storm—I lean my head back against the closed door and take a deep, calming breath. Then I do what any faithless moron would do. I text “Evan the Wanker” and I make plans.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Still Here
Evan shows up with flowers. Not gummy bears or jelly beans or cotton candy. Flowers. Long stemmed pink roses dotted with a few sprigs of airy baby’s breath.
The gesture is sweet and romantic and I can tell that Evan is waiting for me to swoon or giddily jump into his arms like a normal girl, but all I can manage is a stuttering thank you and a shaky smile. It’s hardly a convincing performance and he seems disappointed. I’m hoping that he chalks my behavior up to first date nerves.
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