Lost In Us

by Layla Hagen

  It was so perfectly fake it felt real.

  "Let's go inside," I murmur. "Oh shoot—turn around," I command and swirl around, grabbing Jess by the shoulder.

  "Ouch. What was that for?" she complains.

  "Abby just passed by. I told her I missed the last two Saturday volleyball games because I had chickenpox."

  Jess bursts out laughing. "You're an awful liar."

  "She is." I raise my gaze and find James standing a few feet away from us, in front of the fountain. He's dressed in a suit, something he told me more than once he despises. And whether the weekend was real or not, there's nothing fake in the sudden lightning-fast beats of my heart and the racing pulse in my throat. I curse my wardrobe choice—an above-the-knee gray cotton dress with short sleeves. I thought it made me look like a smart, would-be professional when I chose it. I feel like a desperate schoolgirl now.

  Jess steps forward. "I'm Jessica Haydn," she says, almost out of breath.

  "James. Nice to finally meet you." He kisses Jess on both cheeks then turns his attention to me. "You look perfect for someone who was supposed to be down with chickenpox for two weeks," he muses.

  "I had to come up with something," I mumble, staring at my feet.

  "Are you joining us in the auditorium, James? Getting bored to death by lousy speeches is much less painful when in good company," Jess says.

  "I'm actually here to deliver a speech." He smirks at her.

  "I'll make sure not to fall asleep during yours, then." She winks. “I’ll be eternally grateful if you crack a joke or two. You’re twenty-eight, which makes you a good fifteen years younger than all the other speakers, so I’m putting all my trust in you.” Jess will never cease to amaze me. Is there anything that could ever throw her off, or shake that fantastic confidence of hers even a bit?

  "You were not on the speaker list," I say to James. "I checked it twice."

  "I promised Dean Kramer that I'd show up spontaneously if I had time."

  "I'll wait for you inside, Serena. Nice meeting you, James," Jess dismisses herself, and I wonder if it's finally a sign of embarrassment or she just wants to give us some space.

  "Let's go somewhere in the shade," he says, undoing the top button of his shirt.

  We stop under the valley oak next to the auditorium and I lean against the rough bark.

  "We should go inside. The first speech will start in a few minutes," I say.

  "I didn't come for the speech," James says, his lip curling into a delicious smile. He leans so close I can feel his warm, sweet breath on me. "I wanted to see you."

  My heart skips a beat. How can I not melt at such words?

  He leans in even closer, and I expect him to kiss me, but he stops just one inch short of my lips. It takes me a second to realize he's asking for my permission. I close the distance with a soft kiss, then pull back quickly.

  He looks at me questioningly.

  "Someone can see us," I murmur.

  "You weren't that concerned when we landed on Friday."

  "That was different."

  For a few seconds neither of us says anything, then he lifts my chin with his right hand. "Is everything all right?"

  "Sure. I just… would feel weird if anyone saw us. You being a speaker and all." What I meant to say is You not being my boyfriend and all, but he wouldn't take that too well. The idea of having to explain to anyone, Abby or whoever knew Michael and me as a couple, what's between James and me panics me almost as much as telling Mum about it. Abby spent the better half of the week after the breakup calling Michael every profanity in the book (and inventing some of her own) for leaving a decent girl like me and hooking up with a ho. I'm not sure how she'd assign those labels now. And I don't plan to find out soon.

  He lets go of my chin, and takes a step back, looking at me. "You look hot in this dress."

  "Don't mock me."

  "I'm serious. Makes me even sorrier that I have to go in for that speech. What are you doing tonight?"

  "I'm busy," I stutter.

  "Sending another batch of CVs?" he muses. “I thought you said you almost exhausted your list of banks.”

  “I actually added a few dozen more to the list last night.”

  He grins. “Because 112 applications are not enough?”

  “I'm doing something else tonight," I say, avoiding his gaze.

  "What?" He's suddenly inches away from me, clutching my arms in his hands.

  "It's nothing, just… a thing I do sometimes." Sometimes meaning every Wednesday.

  "Which is?" His grip on my arms tightens. I raise my eyebrows and he removes his hands.

  "Are you seeing someone?" he asks in a strained voice. There's a glint in his eyes I never saw before. Sharp. Dark. It makes the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end.

  "I never took you for the jealous type,” I challenge.

  He flinches visibly, his eyes widening.

  "No, of course I‘m not," he says, but his body has that same strange rigidity it had at the airport, when the lark brought up boarding school. "You're free to date whoever you want."

  "For the record, I'm not seeing anyone but you."

  To my intense misery, he looks even unhappier than before. But the glint is gone.

  I take a deep breath. "I'm dressing up as a clown for a few hours in a show at the local hospital for kids with leukemia."

  His glower melts into a surprised smile. "That's very admirable of you," he says and kisses my forehead.

  "I started doing this after… you know."

  After Kate's last whim, the one that sent her to the hospital, never to get out of it alive again. When the wait next to her bed became unbearable, I started wandering around. That's how I stumbled on the ward where leukemia kids were housed. I don't know why but I started returning every week, whether to read stories to them, watch movies, or dress up as a clown, like today. After I moved to the U.S., I continued to volunteer at a local hospital.

  He frowns. "It helps you?"

  "Sort of. It helps them a lot which… helps me."

  A loud beep makes us both jump. It comes from inside—the sign that the first speech has begun.

  He kisses my forehead again and murmurs, "Call me after you finish." Then his lips move to my ear and he says playfully, "I missed your coffee."

  I give a nervous giggle. I woke up with the firm determination we both needed a strong dose of caffeine on Sunday morning, after only having had about four hours of sleep the whole weekend. So I left a sleeping James and went to the nearest Starbucks, but instead of buying two cups of steaming hot liquid, I returned with a bag of ground coffee. What followed reminded me why I never do things spontaneously. Especially things I suck at. James woke up to the disgusting smell of burnt coffee and a filthy-beyond-imagination stove. Yet for all the warning signs, he still insisted on tasting my coffee. I never saw anyone spit anything with such desperation.

  "One kiss before we go in?" he whispers, trailing his lips from my ear down the base of my neck.

  "Please let me do this," Jess pleads for the fifth time.

  "No, I want to do it," I say, keeping my eyes on the kettle, awaiting the whistle announcing the water is boiling. I didn't call James after I finished last night, because I stayed at the hospital much longer than I intended. After the show was over, Maya, one of the girls in the leukemia ward asked me to read her favorite bedtime story so she could fall asleep. How could I say no to a teary-eyed six-year-old?

  "Are you sure he's even up at this hour?" Jess asks, hovering around like a drunken bee. She's normally asleep at this hour, but today she woke up early to prepare for her phone interview at nine. She froze in place when she spotted me in front of the stove.

  "He said he’s always up by six on weekdays and leaves for his office at seven."

  "And you decided to wish him good morning by poisoning him?"

  "No, I decided to do something nice for him for a change."

  Twenty minutes later, I park Jess's Prius in fr
ont of James's luxurious building, and grab the two plastic cups with trembling hands. They're still warm. And I know the coffee in them is decent enough because Jess gave me her full approval after testing it. She even poured a cup for herself.

  I greet Daniel while I practically jog to the elevators, armed with the two coffee cups and a strange sense of bliss. I'm not sure exactly what brings it. Perhaps the fact that I'm wearing my favorite light blue dress or that I had my first culinary success. Oh, who am I kidding? Nothing except the thought of James's kisses can make my entire body tingle this way.

  I press the bell with my elbow and wait patiently, afraid my heart will literally burst out of my chest when the door opens. But when it does open, it's not James who looks back at me. It's Parker. A very messed-up Parker. I do my best not to recoil at the sight of his bloodshot eyes.

  "Serena," he says, looking even more stunned than when he saw me at the airport. "Hi, how—oh, you brought coffee?"

  "I didn't know you'd be here, or I would have brought more," I say, trying to withhold a laugh. "You know what, take mine. You look like you need it more than me. Is James's hangover as bad as yours?" He doesn't take the cup.

  "James, no… He didn't drink that much… I mean…" he stutters, and I think I've never seen a person this incoherent, unless they are truly drunk.

  "Can we continue the conversation inside?" I ask and push him from the doorway. I was expecting the living room to look as disheveled as Parker, but except for a wrecked blanket on the couch, indicating where he spent the night, everything looks as neat as it did when I was last here.

  "James's in his room?"

  "Yeah…"

  "Excellent," I say and make a step forward toward his room.

  "What? No, that's not a good idea."

  I raise an eyebrow. "I assure you I can stomach whatever is inside," I say and try to walk past him, thinking that nothing can beat the things I've seen over the years in Jess's room following one of her wild nights out.

  To my astonishment, Parker steps in front of me. "Are you serious?" I ask.

  "Now is not a good time, Serena. You… maybe you should leave and I'll tell James to call you later." There's no stutter in his voice anymore, and an uneasy feeling is starting to form inside me.

  "Why?" I raise my head, trying to look in his eyes for the first time, but now he avoids mine. "Parker?"

  “He's not alone," he says in a defeated voice.

  There is no air in my lungs. Someone sucked every wisp of it, leaving an unbearable heaviness in my chest. It's a stranger's voice that whispers, "Don't tell him I was here." I swirl on my heels in the direction of the door, determined to get past it before the burning heat behind my eyelids turns to tears.

  I'm halfway to the door when the only thing that could make this even more painful happens.

  "Parker, are you up?" James calls.

  I measure the distance to the door and know I can't make it without him seeing me. So I hide the cups behind my back, grit my teeth and turn around, hoping the pain has numbed me already.

  It hasn't.

  A thousand blades rip through me at the sight of his beautiful face, now contorted in astonishment. At his side, her red hair wild on the shoulders of an overlarge, baggy T-shirt belonging to James, contrasting with his polished, work-ready appearance, is Sophie.

  My first thought is that I'm glad it's not the lark. My second is that I want to disappear from the face of the earth forever.

  "Parker, you little devil," she says, "I don't remember seeing your lovely friend here last night."

  "I've got my tricks," Parker says and winks.

  “I’m Sophie.” She waves, giggling.

  It takes me a second to realize what's going on. She doesn't remember me. Small wonder, given the drunken state she was in when we met. The tiniest bit of relief springs in my heart that this will be a bit less humiliating, even though not less painful. I'll be eternally grateful to Parker for playing it up.

  "James, you don't mind if I join you in the office a bit later?" he says, putting one arm on my shoulders. "I promised breakfast."

  "Don't be a prick, James," Sophie says when James doesn't answer. "Let the two of them go." When he still doesn't answer, she raises her eyebrows and adds, "I'm taking a shower," then disappears from the living room.

  "Can you give us a moment, Parker?" His voice carves raw wounds inside me.

  "That's not necessary," I say, finally lowering my arms from their twisted position at my back. James's gaze freezes on the coffee cups. "No, Parker—" I plead.

  "You two need to talk, Serena," he says firmly and then walks out the front door.

  "I didn't know you were coming," James says, still staring at the coffee cups.

  "That's obvious," I answer sardonically. "I wanted to surprise you. But you beat me to it."

  "I—"

  "No, you know what? Don't say anything. I'm going to leave now and for the sake of my own sanity, pretend I never met you."

  "You want to stop seeing me?" he says, shell-shock contouring on every pore of his face.

  "No. I want to stick around and find a new bitch in your bed every morning." I don't know when my pain transformed into anger, but I welcome the change. Being angry is so much better than being in pain.

  "I never meant for you to walk in and witness something like this, but Serena," he says in a low voice, walking toward me, "I was honest with you from the beginning…"

  "I know. But seeing you with other women…" I pause to find the word that would sound least dramatic, "…bothers me." I make a go for the door but he puts an arm around my waist.

  "You didn't seem too happy yesterday when you thought I was going out with someone," I say angrily.

  "Don't go," he pleads in my ear. "We can find an arrangement that works for you. I don't want to stop seeing you. I don't."

  His lips are so close to me now, his blue eyes peering into mine. I think I see somewhere behind their infinite blue the same desperation that churns inside me. I was right, it was fake. All of it. Yet as I stand here, one word away from shattering altogether, I can't help asking for one last chance to make it real.

  "I doubt we can, unless that arrangement includes you not seeing anyone but me."

  He doesn't need any words to shatter me. The stone silence and the sudden coldness in his eyes do the same cruel job.

  Still, I keep hoping, I keep waiting.

  But they don't come. The only words that would keep me from leaving. He doesn't object when I remove his hand from my waist and walk past him. He doesn't come after me when I put the coffee cups on the table besides the entrance and open the front door.

  So I walk out, without a word or a look back.

  Parker unhitches himself from the wall when he sees me. "That didn't go too well, huh?"

  "I just want to get out of here," I whisper, and run toward the elevator, fighting hard to hold back my tears. To my relief, the doors open the second I press the button and I slide in. So does Parker.

  "I meant what I said about that breakfast."

  "No offense, but I want to be alone right now."

  "You don't look like you should be on your own," he says softly.

  "Parker, please… I…" A sob escapes my lips and I look away from him.

  "Fine, I'll drive you home."

  "But—"

  "No argument accepted. Give me your car keys." I hesitate for a second, then retrieve the keys from my purse and hand them to him, because I don't feel capable of driving. I barely have enough energy to keep from bursting into tears.

  "How will you come back?" I ask once we're in the Prius.

  "Cab. Can you enter your address in the navigation system?” he says, pointing at the navigation system.

  "Sure." I enter the address, then lean back, staring out the window as the car starts moving.

  "He's not a bad person, you know."

  "Don't start defending him."

  "I'm not. I just want you to know that—"<
br />
  "I don't get why he bothered getting involved with me at all," I spit. "He has an army of… women… who happily climb in his bed at the snap of his fingers. He didn't need one more meaningless name to that list."

  "You were anything but meaningless, Serena," Parker says.

  I turn to him furiously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He looks at me shortly then focuses on the road again. "The way he talks about you… he admires you."

  I snort.

  "I mean it. He thinks you're smart and—"

  "Are you making this stuff up?" I ask, the muscles of my neck quivering violently. I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and discover there are no tears on my cheeks. Something about acute anger seems to be keeping them back.

  "I'm not. He went on and on about your hospital thing last night."

  "It didn't keep him from jumping in bed with Sophie."

  This earns me a few minutes of silence. I don't want to know any of this. What he said or what he thinks. What purpose will it serve except making it that much harder to piece myself together again?

  "James went through some rough stuff a few years ago."

  And I finally do snap. "Everyone does, Parker. That's life. And honestly, his high school girlfriend leaving him isn't the roughest stuff."

  Parker turns white. This time the silence lasts longer. We park the car in front of my block and wait for his cab when he says quietly, "Lara didn't leave him; she died. On our graduation day."

  A sudden coldness chills my insides, and a lump in my throat makes breathing a chore. I gape at Parker in shock but he doesn't say one more word. His cab arrives and before sliding in it he mutters a quick, "See you," that I don't manage to return.