by Kahlen Aymes
“Should I go?”
“I didn’t… I mean, I don’t know,” I stammered then paused.
“Are you going?” she asked again.
“I didn’t make plans. Do you want me to? I can go with you, er, if you want. Make sure you’re okay.”
“I don’t want to usurp your plans, Ryan.”
I sat down on my bed and swiped my hand through my hair. Julia used words like usurp when so many didn’t even know that the hell it meant. I needed air. My lungs wanted to fill up into a huge sigh, but she’d hear it and know the conversation was weird for me.
“I didn’t really have any plans.” Other than call you and see what you were doing, I thought. I was pissing myself off right now. Why the fuck did I even ask her about that stupid party in the first place?
“I’m not feeling the greatest. My throat is scratchy and my nose is stuffy. I think I’m coming down with something, so I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere tonight. Anyway, I’m sure I look like crap.”
I sat up a little, not happy she was sick, but ecstatic I didn’t have to go to that damn party and watch some prick hit on her all night. I sighed in relief. “Want me to bring you some soup? Do you need medicine?”
“I had one of those instant noodle things.” She cleared her throat and let out a small cough.
I hated the thought of her sick and all alone, and found myself wanting to take care of her.
“Jules… why don’t I come get you? Aaron will be out all night tonight. He’s chasing a new girl, and with that party, I doubt he’ll come home until morning. I’ll stop on the way and pick up some Nyquil, Kleenex, and stuff.”
“That’s sweet, Ryan, but you have better things to do than listen to me blow my nose. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I won’t. I’ll be over in an hour.”
“Ry—” she began, but I interrupted.
“Don’t argue, Julia. I’ll get some movies and lots of junk food, too. Lots of salty stuff to help your throat.”
I hung up without giving her a chance to protest, and an hour later I was waiting for her in the lobby of her dorm. When the elevator opened, and she came out in gray sweatpants and a dark purple parka, carrying her pillow and a box of tissues, my heart did flip-flops. Her hair was tied up in a knot on top of her head, she was pale, and her nose was unnaturally red. It was easy to see she felt like hell, but I couldn’t help the small smile that came to my mouth as she walked toward me.
“What are you smiling at? Don’t look at me,” Julia muttered, wiping her nose.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and started walking toward the doors that would take us out to my car. “You look fine. For a sicky.” I gave her a squeeze and laughed softly, happier than hell at the prospect of spending the evening with her, despite the state of her health.
Her little fist came out and punched me hard in the ribs, but my coat provided enough padding to keep it from hurting.
“Is that all you got?”
“No. I’m gonna breathe on you and spit in your mouth,” she teased miserably. “Just wait.”
I laughed out loud and piled her into the waiting car to drive the short distance to the apartment Aaron and I shared. It was in an old turn of the century house that had been converted into four apartments. It was nice but not very big. I’d rushed around and picked the place up, but it still wasn’t as clean as I’d wanted for the first time Julia came over. She walked in ahead of me when I pushed the door open, slowly glancing around. There was an old couch and a large TV in the living room, with two mismatched chairs, and the kitchen was small; off to one side, the table, that looked left over from some fifties sitcom, was cluttered with books and legal pads.
“I bought you Diet Coke, Cheetos and one of those veggie sandwiches you like from Ike’s,” I murmured, setting the bag, paper cups filled with pop, and the videos on one end of the counter. I pulled off my coat and hung it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
“Thanks.” She wrapped her arms around herself, still clad in her coat. “What’d you get?”
“Roast beef. I thought we could share, if you wanted.”
“Yeah.” She nodded and went to sink down on the couch, setting her pillow down.
“Do you have the chills? You look cold.”
“A little.”
I went to my room and pulled the comforter from my bed, and in less than a minute, I had her shoes and coat off and the covers tucked all around her as she lay on the couch. My hands shoved the covers under her legs and feet. Her green eyes locked onto mine.
“You look like a cannoli.”
“My throat hurts. Do you have ice cream?”
I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t have it, anyway. It’ll make mucus and you’re already a snotty bitch.”
Her laugh followed me to the kitchen as I went to retrieve the bag of food I’d gotten from the sandwich shop, the sodas, and the bag of cold medicine I’d picked up at Walgreens. Soon, it turned into a raspy coughing jag.
“Dickhead,” she managed finally when she’d gotten it under control.
My lips quirked in amusement at her jibe, even though I felt guilty for making her laugh in the first place. I unwrapped the food, set her sandwich on the coffee table in front of her alongside mine, and then flipped on the TV.
Julia coughed again, covering her mouth with a tissue. “Ryan,” she said between coughs, “this is a bad idea. I never get sick, so this must be a bad bug. I seriously don’t want you to catch it.” She snuggled down deeper into the blanket, curling on her side, and closing her eyes. I could have taken the chair at the end of the couch, but I sat down next to her and lifted her legs so they rested across my lap. I grabbed the remote and half of my sandwich, my arm resting across her legs. I watched her face for her reaction, to see if I was overstepping the bounds of friendship, but she just sighed.
“Not hungry right now?”
She shook her head. “Maybe in a bit.” She breathed in, her eyes still closed. “This smells like you.”
I flushed. Should I have gotten a clean blanket out of the closet instead? “Do you want a different one?” I started to take a bite.
“No. I like it. It’s like you’re wrapped all around me. It feels good.”
My heart stopped. I still didn’t know how the fuck to classify our relationship, or what we were to each other. But one thing was for sure, I liked the way that sounded. To say we were friends was the fucking understatement of the century.
“Thank you, Ryan.”
“For what?”
“Getting sick with me,” she said sleepily. Yeah, I probably would get sick as a dog and in that moment, I didn’t give a rat’s ass.
I smiled. As long as anything was with Julia, whatever it was, I was in. All in.
Chapter 2
Uncomfortably Close
~Julia
“Julia, are you coming?” Ellie asked, impatience growing on her face.
“Er…” I hesitated. I didn’t know what I was doing. I hadn’t heard from Ryan this afternoon. We’d talked about going to see the new Spiderman movie and grabbing some curry at the tandoori restaurant near the theater. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, we’re leaving in thirty minutes!” Ellie seemed exasperated. “Chris is picking us up. I thought you wanted to go? We have to get in line early if we expect to get a table near the dance floor.” She stared at my state of dress, and her face twisted in disdain. “You can’t go like that! Why haven’t you changed?”
Ellie, and a couple of her other friends, were going to a new dance bar. Supposedly, it would be the hottest thing in the Stanford club circuit, with the added hook of free Wi-Fi. It had been heavily promoted since the beginning of the semester in the Stanford News, and signs were tacked up all over campus, so we’d talked about it a lot and were both excited for it to open. Tonight was the official grand opening.
“I’m not sure I’m going.” I cringed as I waited for her to blow a gasket.
I was sitting on her bed while she was in the bathroom. Ellie paused putting on her mascara and looked around the corner, still holding the black tube in her hand.
“What? Why?” Her brow wrinkled into a displeased frown.
Afraid she would be pissed with my answer, I plowed forward. “Ryan and I might do something.”
She stared at me with wide eyes; her expression hardening further and her lips pursing. “Ryan?”
“Yeah.” My shoulders lifted in a small shrug and I cast her a brief glance, unable to meet her eyes.
“But, we planned on this!” she huffed. “What? Are you guys dating now? I thought you were just friends.”
One leg was curled in front of me and the other foot was flat on the mattress as I leaned one elbow on my bent knee and one hand played with a strand of hair. I sighed. “We are.”
“You’d blow off the grand opening of HotSpot for a guy who’s just a friend?” She stared hard at me and waited for me to answer. “A friend, who, let me remind you, is the hottest guy either of us knows,” she said knowingly. I still couldn’t meet her eyes. “Super-hot friend, Ryan.”
She made quote symbols with two fingers of each hand lost her grip on the mascara in her right hand. “Shit!” she said as it went tumbling to clatter on the linoleum floor of her bathroom. “Why don’t you just bring him along?” She bent to pick it up and threw it in the sink, muttering obscenities.
“We haven’t really had much time to talk this week and he wanted to see that new Spiderman movie.”
“How much talking can you get done in a movie?”
“Yeah, we’ve thought of that. We’re going to the midnight movie so we can have a late dinner first.”
“Does it have to be tonight, Julia? We planned this for almost two months,” Ellie lamented.
She was right, but my heart sank. I wasn’t being a great friend, and I hadn’t heard from Ryan, in any case. He did tell me he had a study group for his chem lab, so maybe it was running late. My phone was sitting on the bed next to me, and I looked at the screen. Blank. He hadn’t texted or called.
“Maybe Ryan and I can go out tomorrow night,” I admitted. I wanted to tell Ellie I needed to text Ryan before I committed, but that would sound silly. I was already committed to going with her, and I should have told Ryan so this afternoon, instead of making plans with him.
Was I really almost ditching plans with one best friend for another? Especially when they weren’t even set? I wasn’t sure if I’d forgotten about going with Ellie, or time with Ryan was just beginning to take priority over everything else.
Ever since I’d been sick last month, and I’d spent the entire weekend at his apartment, we’d seen each other practically every day. I kept telling myself we were just friends, because I had no indication from him that he wanted to be more, but he was amazing and sweet. I’d have to be a blind idiot not to realize how wonderful he was. That said, I couldn’t become one of the gaggle of women on campus who swooned whenever he walked into a room or gazed adoringly at him like insipid morons. I inwardly cringed at the thought. I was certain a big part of the reason he liked to hang out with me was because I didn’t fawn all over him.
He hadn’t even tried to hold my hand, kiss me or made even a single move that indicated he thought of me as anything other than a friend, but the casual way he draped his arm over my shoulder sometimes, or when our hands would accidentally touch, was affecting me in ways I didn’t want to analyze. In the weeks after I first met him, I had serious insecurities about my abilities to attract him, given the platonic state of our relationship. So, I told myself I couldn’t let myself get wrapped up in romantic dreams of Ryan. Too many women wanted him, anyway, and I didn’t want to compete.
I cleared my throat and looked up at her. “You’re right, El. I’ll get ready in a flash!” I jumped up from the bed and ran into my bedroom to get ready. I pulled a black dress from the closet and threw it on the bed. Picking up my phone, I began to type out a text to Ryan. Regret surged and tightened my heart, but I tried to push it down. I’d looked forward to this club opening for a long time, and it would be fun. I’d make it fun or die trying. I need to stop acting like an idiot. It was one night.
One night… without Ryan.
~RYAN
I glanced at the clock on the wall. 10 PM.
Fuck!
I was agitated. I felt claustrophobic and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the lab. My lab partner, Nathan, kept yammering on, asking me to give him tips on landing some girl he was hot for. I grimaced. What the fuck gave him the idea I could help him? I’d rather he just focus on the assignment so I could get the hell out of there. I hadn’t had a chance to message Julia, and I felt bad about it. I promised I’d get back to her before seven, and it was already ten. My chest expanded as I set up the vacuum flask and aspirator. I was sure she’d be pissed by now, so our plans were probably flushed.
Nathan stopped talking and watched what I was doing. He’d dropped the first flask, and we’d had to start over from the beginning. It pissed me off, considering I was planning on the movie with Julia, but I did my best not to let it show.
“Dude, that’s not right. We’re supposed to grow the crystals out of the solution. So, what are you doing?”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve synthesized acetylsalicylic acid, Nate. Trust me. My brother Aaron and I did this stuff all the time. We didn’t get science kits for Christmas, but we did experiments all the time. We both wanted to be doctors, like my dad, and he taught us stuff like this on a regular basis. Doing it this way is quicker.”
“What are you doing, exactly?”
“I’m creating a vacuum to separate the liquid from the solid, but it will still be too slow. I don’t want to be here all night.”
“Won’t we get in trouble for not following instructions?”
I grunted, sarcasm my only acknowledgment of what he’d asked. “Can you get that filter paper and weigh it, please? Do it twice to make sure it’s accurate. And, no, we won’t get in trouble. We should get an extra credit for knowing how to do it more than one way; but we don’t even need to tell Dr. Johnson. All we need is the correct weight of solid from the solution and we’ll ace it.”
Nate took the paper to the scale and calibrated it, before writing down the weight and handing it back to me. I had the solution flask chilling in an ice water bath as I rigged up the makeshift vacuum, securing a Buchner funnel to the top of the vacuum flask and placing the piece of coffee filter that Nate had weighed into it. It would collect the solids from the saturated solution. We would then weigh it again, subtract the weight of the filter paper, and we’d have our finished weight of the acid solids.
After the solution was poured into the funnel, the aspirator began to suck the liquid into the flask at a snail’s pace, drop by frustrating drop. Ugh! I pulled the phone out and looked at the screen, and I had three messages. I scrolled through them and landed on the one from Julia.
Since I didn’t hear from you, I went to HotSpot with Ellie. I promised her months ago anyway. It’s the grand opening and I’d forgotten. Sorry! Hope your experiment turns out. Maybe we can do the movie tomorrow night?
Disappointment, and a new rush of anger at Nathan, surged through me. I couldn’t go the following night because some girl in my trig class invited me to a keg party her sorority was throwing at their house off campus. When Aaron found out, there was no getting out of going. He was all about meeting new girls. I considered that I could invite Julia and Ellie to come along, but the woman who’d invited me had done it because she wanted to get to know me, and it would be rude to invite other women. Especially Julia. I’d be talking to her all night, and besides, she might think bringing her would be a fucked up thing to do. I was royally screwed.
I glanced impatiently at Nate. He was washing the crystals by putting more distilled water through the aspirator. The substance had to be as pure as we could possibly make it to get to the correct weight. Any overage would lower our g
rade. It had to be exact.
I ran a hand over the stubble on my jaw, scratched along its edge before turning my back to Nate and typed out my reply to Julia.
I got hung up at the lab making aspirin with Nate. Tomorrow night won’t work, but how about Sunday? I’m really sorry about tonight.
If the girls were at a club, I knew there was no way Julia would get back to me tonight. Part of me wanted to finish up at the lab then wait outside her dorm or go to the club. I sighed. I’d look like an idiot if I did that.
I realized I was missing her, and it was unsettling. She was becoming the best friend I’d ever had. I didn’t know if it was because I could talk to her about things I couldn’t discuss with Aaron, or the attraction I felt that made me want to spend every waking moment with her. Admittedly, she was easier on the eyes, smelled better, and, maybe best of all, she fed me.
There was no way in hell I was going to chase her down. That was just weird, and it might send the wrong message, though I was unclear what message I wanted to send. She was beautiful and sexy, and I couldn’t get her out of my head.
I checked the connection between the flask and the rubber tube that helped create the suction.
Nate was bent over his phone, but suddenly popped up, excited. “Dude, this girl I’m dating asked me to come over to her apartment right now because her roommate isn’t home. I think I’m gonna get laid. Do you mind if I bail?”
Sure, I thought. Fucking leave me with finishing the experiment, and then cleanup alone. Why the hell not? Your clumsy ass has already ruined my night. My mouth thinned as I pressed my lips into a line. “Really?” I asked in exasperation.
“Dude, come on,” he pleaded with me. “I’ve been trying to get into this girl’s pants since the beginning of the year.”