But then, pretty much the only thing I do remember right now is the last time I saw him. It was a week ago, at school, on the last day of the semester — one week after he’d dumped me.
I was standing at my locker, feeling frustrated that I’d forgotten what I was there for — maybe an Alternate Me woke up from what I imagine was a very boring dream — and extremely annoyed at the clanging and banging of all the lockers slamming shut up and down the hallway. I’d had classes all that morning, but whatever I’d learned in them had fallen right out of my head, because the only thing I was able to focus on was the memory of Colin telling me that he needed to feel passion for the girl he was with. Each time I’d reached the end of the mental replay, I’d rewind to the beginning, and the more and more I did that, the worse and worse his breakup line would get. I couldn’t stop myself from rewriting the scene so that he’d actually explain what he meant:
“I just need to feel excitement — like, all the time. Constantly. Every day. And I just never feel that with you, Charlotte. I’ve tried — believe me, I have so tried — but it’s just not there. You’re like a small candle, but I want a real fire. You know?”
It was while I was halfway through a third rerun of this moment — when I was remembering-but-really-imagining (remegining) him comparing me to a gentle drought when he wanted a tornado — that I noticed, oh God, he was walking over to me.
Breezy casual, Charlotte, I told myself. Breezy casual.
He stopped right in front of me, stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets, hunching his shoulders and looking at the lockers. “Hey, Charm,” he said. I wished that he wouldn’t use the nickname he’d settled on only a week before he’d dumped me. At the same time, I felt a happy swell in my chest — if he was still using it, then maybe …
“You going home tomorrow?” he asked the locker.
“No … No …” There was so much more to my answer, but everything I wanted to say rushed to the front of my brain, all at the same time. Thoughts and feelings tripped over each other, just before they reached my mouth, leaving me standing there dumbly — going for breezy casual and missing by miles. If there was one thing that conversation definitely was not, it was breezy casual.
Well, actually, that’s not true — Colin was certainly breezy and casual. He kept on looking at the locker as he said there was something he had to ask me.
He’s going to take me back, I thought. That’s why he asked when I was leaving — he’s realizing what it means. He’s freaking out about never seeing me again. Okay, you can get through this, Charm — just don’t seem too relieved when he asks you. You’ve got to ride out the pause a little bit, let him sweat — let him realize, you don’t need to get back with him. You don’t need —
“Did you finish Infinite Jest? Can I have it back?”
I stared at him, my mouth going dry. I wondered, would it be possible to stuff myself in one of the lockers? We don’t have lockers in schools back home, but American TV shows always had bullied kids being stuffed into lockers. They must have been super skinny boys, though, because I’d have to dislocate a few joints if I was going to have any chance of fitting.
As Colin looked at me then, my anger and hurt melded together, creating a kind of hot nausea in my belly. I couldn’t decide whether to cry, scream at or throw up on him. A week had gone by since he’d broken my heart, and the only thing he wanted to talk about was a book he wanted back — a book he’d claimed to love but I could tell he’d never finished.
“Yeah,” I said. It had been my turn to look at the locker. “I’ll get it to you.”
“You don’t have to bring it to my house or anything,” he said. A little quick. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea for either of us. Especially you.”
“Huh?”
“Well, yeah, ’cause … You seem kind of emotional still. Just … I don’t know, give it to one of the girls. They can give it to me after the holidays. I’ll see you around, okay?”
Yeah, he actually said he’d see me “around,” like we had a chance of bumping into each other on the street anytime soon. But what hurt worse was what he did next. Started to walk away, then stopped just long enough to say: “I had fun.”
Then he took another step, stopped and turned back again: “It was fun.”
One more step, one more stop. “You were fun.”
Okay, there was only one step, only one stop. He said he’d had fun, and then he walked away. But right now, standing in the kitchen of Katie’s cousin’s apartment, a party going on around me, I’m remegining the last time I saw my ex-boyfriend, making his parting shot crueler, his face colder, because …
Because what? Because I’m afraid that was all I was to him. Fun. I thought he loved me. I know I loved him. I feel a sharp, hot fury in my chest, like I’ve swallowed a mouthful of thorns, as I wonder — why did it take me two weeks to accept that “fun” was such a shitty thing for him to say?
I hear the clatter of heels on linoleum. Katie stumbles into the kitchen, stopping to lean against the fridge. She’s almost pulling off the I’m-so-not-really-drunk look. She sees me, pulls a frown: “Didn’t you have a dog?”
“My friend’s holding her.” I think about just gulping down the cider, but what would be the point? The alcohol can’t wash away the thorns in my chest, can’t erase the memory of Colin and what he said to me.
“What’s up?” Katie starts to step away from the fridge, then reconsiders. “You look kind of stressed.”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “I just …” If I say it, I’m talking about him, and I will fail Step Six. But I need to tell someone. “I got weirded out when I saw … Colin.” Fail.
Now Katie steps away from the fridge, her eyes alert and sober. “He’s here? Where?”
“I don’t know — the hall, I guess. You know, you could have warned me you’d invited him.” And what’s with the look? Is she … excited that Colin’s here?
“Oh, come on, sweetie. I know it might be kind of awkward to run into someone you fooled around with, but it doesn’t have to be.”
I know that I’ve started to freak out when I register that the mute button in my head has turned on, the music that I had been hearing behind me dropping to nothing. For a moment, the only sound I hear is Katie’s voice, three words echoing in my brain.
… fooled around with …
I THOUGHT HE LOVED ME, I scream inside my brain. But before the words can force themselves out of my lips, I catch the end of Katie’s sentence.
“ — besides, you brought a date to this party, so you’re clearly over it.”
The only noise I make is an indignant gasp, and before I can form words, Colin seems to materialize, passing by me without even noticing, taking Katie by the hand and pulling her in for a kiss — deep, firm, passionate.
Oh my God. Any drowsy feeling the cider gave me evaporates in seconds, and I feel like I’ve been plunged into ice water.
I make a second indignant gasp, and Colin pauses mid-kiss, his lips still on hers as he turns his head. He looks right at me and breaks away from Katie like her tongue just gave him an electric shock.
He stares at the ground for a second, nods to himself and looks back up. He taps the tip of Katie’s nose with his finger, affectionate and possessive. “I need to talk to Charlotte,” he tells her, beckoning me to follow him to the back of the kitchen and out onto the balcony.
I don’t want to follow him out. He’s not going to take me back. Even if I hadn’t seen him and Katie together, he made that pretty clear at the lockers last week. But even so, I find myself kind of needing to know what it is he has to say.
And when I see that Katie tries — but fails — to keep the giddy smile off her face, I think that even out there in the cold, with him, is better than being in this bloody kitchen.
So, I follow him out onto the balcony. It’s a small space, and the uptu
rned deck table forces us to stand close together, side by side, craning our necks to see each other as we look out over Broadway. Traffic is lazily flowing, snow is lazily falling. It’s kind of beautiful — but also bloody cold. I tighten my scarf, zip up the leather jacket.
“I like this,” he says, gesturing at my new ensemble. I feel a warmth in my chest and wish that I didn’t. He doesn’t get to make me feel good anymore. “But, seriously, what are you still doing here? I thought you were going home yesterday.”
“It was today, actually,” I tell him. God, he really didn’t know when I was going home. Did he ever listen to me at all? “But my flight got canceled, and so I’m stranded here.”
He makes a pained face, like he really, really pities me. I’m surprised he doesn’t reach out and stroke my hair comfortingly. I’m annoyed to realize I’d kind of like it if he did. “You’re stranded in New York, yeah — but you’re not stranded at a party you knew I’d be at. You chose to come here.”
It’s the third time I’ve made the same indignant gasp. It’s starting to irritate me — I don’t want to go back to being English Charlotte full time until I’m actually back in England. “I did not know you’d be here. If I did, believe me, I wouldn’t have come anywhere near —”
“This is not healthy, Charlotte. It’s hard to have an attachment to something an ocean away. You need to start getting over it. I mean, come on, it’s been two weeks — how much longer do you need?”
How much longer do I need? Does he seriously think that two weeks is long enough to get over not only the relationship but also the loss of the future that I was imagining? Where is the boy who cut the line in the cafeteria so that we could sit together? Who said very little when we had lunch, because he “just wanted to listen” to my voice? Who bought me simple but classy notepads to write in?
The boy who chased me at the start of the semester has been body snatched by an arrogant, aloof git — the eager, interested expression he used to have when he looked at me has been replaced by a cringe, signaling that this is all just a big inconvenience … to him.
But why do I still want him to reach out and touch me?
I know I should end this conversation right now. It’s not going anywhere good and may actually result in my Story becoming some kind of pathetic comedy that ends with me being put on trial for assaulting this git, the judge laughing as he hears how I knocked him over the balcony with my tote bag of all things. For one thing, I’m not sure I’ll be allowed a laptop in jail.
Colin starts talking again. “I tried for a month to get you to see that it wasn’t serious. Well, not to me. We were fooling around for a couple of months while you were here. You were always going to go home, so it wasn’t any kind of forever thing, you know?”
“I must have been sleeptalking when we ‘decided’ that.”
He’s starting to get agitated. I know this because he’s actually taken off his beanie. “I thought you understood. I thought you were, like, cool.”
“And I thought we loved each other.”
He gives me a look like I’ve suddenly started speaking Elvish, and I think I must be the biggest idiot in the history of idiots for coming out here when I should have stayed in the kitchen — or gone back to the living room and demanded that Anthony stop talking to the two flirters and get me out of this apartment. But it’s out there now. I’ve humbled myself and might as well finish this conversational seppuku:
“Well, that’s what you said, anyway. Whether you meant it or not —”
“I never told you I loved you.” His insistence is as firm as when Anthony made it clear to Bianca and Ashley that we were not together. What is it — am I unthinkable? Is that the case with everyone, or just New York boys?
“You did.” I force myself to hold eye contact with him. “The fountain, Lincoln Center —”
“No. You told me that you loved me, but I never said it back.”
Okay, he’s just rewriting history now. But I remember it clearly. Our first time in the city together: We’d been dating — not “fooling around” — for about a month, and I asked him to take me to Lincoln Center. I hoped that he wouldn't figure out I kind of wanted to go there only because of Pitch Perfect. I remember thinking that I had made a fool of myself by getting excited when I saw the fountain for the first time, practically dragging Colin forward a few steps as I rushed it like a little kid, weaving in and out of tourists, ruining at least three photographs.
He was laughing that day, as we got to the fountain. I remember that very clearly, just like I remember the soft spray from the arcing water. The amazement that someone could make room in Manhattan — cramped, clustered, cluttered Manhattan — for this beautiful mess of stone and glass that surrounded the fountain and courtyard on three sides. How, if you turned away from Columbus Avenue, somehow the noise of the traffic just went away …
I was so in love with New York at that moment and so in love with Colin that the words were out of my mouth before I’d even managed to successfully interlace his fingers with mine.
“I love this,” I said. “And I love you.”
And he said …
“Yeah …”
Yeah.
Oh, bollocks. I don’t remember him saying it back to me. I must have just remegined it, because how could it be possible for me to fall in love with someone who wasn’t in love with me as well? Isn’t that what falling — being — “in love” is? “In love” = two people who love each other, doesn’t it?
“I think you should go.” His face — all sharp lines and haunted hazel eyes — is stern now. He’s not telling me to leave for my own good, he’s telling me to leave because, as he says, “It’s the worst idea in the world for us to be around each other right now. And since this is Katie’s party — she invited me weeks ago — it’s not fair to her if I go. I really don’t want to disappoint her.”
The thorns in my chest start wriggling, and I feel like I could projectile vomit all over him. Okay, he didn’t love me back, but does he have to be so blatant about his priorities now? Is he trying to hurt me? I do not deserve this!
“We got a problem?”
Anthony’s here — and he’s letting a little bit of the Brooklyn voice he put on for Bianca and Ashley creep into his own. He’s standing in the doorway — he must be part ninja to have snuck up so quietly — with a sleeping Mistake in his arms, staring at Colin with a kind of blank expression.
Colin looks at me. “Who’s this guy?”
Where would I start? Fortunately, Anthony’s got this. “That’s not an answer to my question. All I want to know is, are you bothering my friend?”
“Bothering your …” Colin looks at me, like, What is he talking about?
I just shrug at him, the prickly feeling in my chest starting to fade a little. I’m curious to see what happens here.
Colin scoffs, putting his beanie back on — the hipster equivalent of a power move. “I’m not bothering anybody, okay? If anything, she’s bothering me. But it’s all okay, because Charlotte was just leaving.”
“I don’t think she was,” says Anthony. “Besides, I’m having a good time and, more importantly, so’s my dog.”
All three of us look at Mistake, whose nose twitches as she snores loudly. I almost laugh in spite of my discomfort, my heavy heart.
Now, Colin looks at Anthony. “’Ev.” Ugh, I forgot about his butchering of “Whatever.” There goes my smile. “Anyway, screw that — me and Charlotte already agreed she’d leave.”
We did?
Anthony shakes his head. “I highly doubt that.”
Colin looks at me to intervene. “What’s this guy’s problem?”
I bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from smiling and showing Colin how much I’m suddenly enjoying this. “It looks like you are.”
Colin actually stamps his foot. “You know what? I’m sick of th
is. You guys should take off before you kill this party for everybody else.”
Mistake’s stirring, and Anthony absently pets her head. It should look totally ridiculous, but it somehow just makes him look even more in control of this conversation.
“I don’t feel like going anywhere,” he says. “And where I come from, people only leave a place when someone makes them. You gonna do that?”
“This is so primitive!” Colin’s voice is a squeak, and he looks like he’d make for the door if only there was a route that didn’t take him through Anthony. “You really resorting to threats, dude?”
“Who made any threats?”
I take Anthony’s hand, wrapping my fingers around his palm and, for a second, enjoying the idea of Colin wondering, Hey, is she with this guy? “Come on, it’s time to go.”
For the first time since he’s been out here, Anthony stops eyeballing Colin and looks at me. Up close, I’m relieved to see that he really does seem to be in control — he’s not just pretending. “Are you sure?” he asks.
I keep my voice small, because — for some reason — I want only Anthony to hear this next bit. “I am. I’m done here.”
He squeezes my hand. We walk back into Katie’s party without saying a word more to Colin, not even acknowledging Bianca and Ashley as we pass them in the kitchen. I’m feeling good, like I’ve cleaned out my heart, taken out garbage I should have dumped two weeks ago — garbage I shouldn’t have collected in the first place.
As we walk, still hand in hand, down the four flights of stairs to street level, I’m feeling somehow cleaner on the inside. Looser, lighter …
*
About three minutes later, I’m crying on 116th Street.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Anthony, as he brushes snow off a stoop and motions for me to sit down. He plonks himself beside me and squeezes my hand. He hasn’t let go since the balcony.
Kiss Me in New York Page 9