“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the couch.
I didn’t say anything, I just slowly took off my coat and hung it over a bar stool before tentatively sitting down. Zack came to sit next to me, so I angled myself so I was facing him and took a deep breath. On the end table behind him I noticed some framed pictures. There was the one of him and Lily that was identical to the one I’d seen at Jen’s place, one of Leo and Kristin, looking very much in love and one of Zack, his mom and Leo taken at some point before I’d met her since she had a full head of dark hair, very similar in texture and color to Zack’s. She looked like a different woman, and I realized how beautiful she’d been when she’d been healthy.
“Sorry if I was weird this afternoon,” Zack said, pulling my gaze from over his shoulder back to him. His lower lip was twitching slightly.
“It’s okay,” I said, thinking it wasn’t, but knowing it was the right thing to say.
“I just don’t really know how to act around you, Em,” he said slowly as if he was afraid of my reaction.
“How do you want to act?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer. It was like we were both walking on eggshells around each other.
He ran his hand through his hair and it flopped back down over his forehead. I fought the urge to reach over and run my fingers through it.
“I don’t know. I’ve missed you,” he said, angling himself closer to me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly on guard and hyperaware of how close he’d gotten.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, pulling back, as if changing his mind about what he was going to do which I thought was kiss me, and I felt my heartbeat quicken with this knowledge.
Why had I questioned him? It had been so long since we’d kissed. A part of me had forgotten what it was like, but another part of me remembered with such clarity that I almost wished he would lean forward again so I could change my mind about pushing him away.
“Let’s watch a movie,” he said all of a sudden, popping up from the couch like a jack-in-the-box. He crossed the room to the entertainment center and opened one of the doors to reveal close to a hundred movies. “Let’s see. What are you in the mood for?”
He said this without turning around, so I had to respond to his back.
“I don’t care,” I said, being purposefully vague, but also because I couldn’t even see the selection since he was kneeling in front of it, and I was afraid to move closer to him. “What are my choices?”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Come here and see,” he said, beckoning me forward, and I hesitantly got up to join him, peering over his shoulder. That close to him, I could inhale the intoxicating scent of his aftershave, and it made my head go a little fuzzy.
“Wow, I didn’t know you and Leo were such fans of cartoons,” I said, observing the full shelf of every kid’s movie Disney and Pixar had produced in the past fifty years.
Zack froze for a second before turning around to look at me. “My daughter’s almost two,” he said slowly. “They’re hers. But, I am a pretty big fan of Cars and Up, so I’d be game if you want to watch either of those.”
I knew it was his attempt at a joke, but I couldn’t bring myself to laugh.
“Oh. Yeah. Right. I keep forgetting you have a kid,” I mumbled more to myself than to him, but he heard me.
Every time I thought about the fact that Zack was a father, it seemed so surreal, because the guy I met that summer was so different from the one kneeling before me, and that one piece of information was the biggest difference. Maybe if he’d told me about Lily from the beginning, it might not seem so weird, but he hadn’t, so it was.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, and I knew he really wanted to clear the air about Lily, but I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready to go there, to hear his story and learn why he’d kept her from me.
“No,” I said quickly. “No. Let’s just watch a movie.”
I knew that as soon as he told me about her or I saw them together, reality would sink in, and a part of me just really wanted to hold onto the guy I fell in love with over the summer. I had this inherent fear that he wasn’t really the same guy, and it scared me. I really, really liked that guy, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to know this other guy with this whole other life. I know how shallow that sounds, but it had nothing to do with Lily. It was truly the fact that I didn’t feel like I knew Zack, and Lily was just a part of that.
“Okay,” he said, and the disappointment was palpable in his tone. “How about Avatar?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, before hurrying back to secure my spot on the end of the couch.
Zack put the movie in, came back to the couch and sat at the opposite end.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked, his mouth twitching as he waited for my response. His arm was draped over the back of the couch, and I noticed he’d gotten a new tattoo. Six lines of script were inked on the inside of his left forearm, balancing out the lyrics to Jump on his right forearm. From the distance I sat, I couldn’t read the new words, which I assumed were lyrics.
“I’m okay,” I said, and it came out sounding hoarse. Maybe I did need a drink, but before I could change my mind, Zack turned off the lamp and we were ensconced in darkness for a few seconds before the movie started.
Then for the next two and a half hours, we sat in silence, neither of us moving a muscle.
When the movie was finally over, Zack turned on the lamp next to him and stretched his arms over his head, his t-shirt inching up to reveal his defined stomach muscles.
I forced myself to look away and asked, “Where’s your bathroom?”
“That way,” he said, nodding toward the front hall with his head.
Once inside the small powder room, I closed the pocket door, put my hands on either side of the pedestal sink and appraised myself in the mirror, taking a few deep breaths. I waited about a minute, washed my hands, braced myself and went back out into the living room. Zack was texting someone on his phone, but he put it down when I returned to my seat on the couch. I wasn’t entirely sure what should come next. Would we talk? Would he try to kiss me again? Should I just leave? Why was I even here?
“You seem different,” Zack said, turning to face me on the couch.
I propped my feet on the coffee table and looked over at him. “I do?”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning his head casually on his hand, his elbow propped on the back of the couch.
“Different bad or different good?”
“You’re reserved – I think is the best way to put it. You’re not the same – at least not with me.”
Wow, he had some nerve.
“Um, can you blame me?” I asked, sounding much bitchier than I’d intended. I looked away from him, feeling unsettled by the penetrating stare he was aiming at me.
“No, I guess not.”
I turned so I was able to see his face. “Zack, what do you want?”
“I miss you,” he said, repeating what he’d already told me earlier in the night.
“So you regret what you did – ending things?” I asked, holding my breath as I waited for his answer.
“Yes and no,” he said, and I closed my eyes, not sure I wanted to hear the rest, but he continued talking. “It was the right thing for me to do at the time. It doesn’t mean I was happy about it, but I didn’t have another option. I hated hurting you, but I knew being in a long distance relationship wasn’t something I could do at that point in my life.”
“So what do you want now?” I asked again, focusing on the future instead of the past that I’d dwelled on for too long.
“I miss you,” he said again, sounding like a parrot.
“Yes. You said that. What do you want?” I was more terse the third time I repeated the same question.
“I’ve liked seeing you. I think, maybe, I was hoping we could be friends.”
“You want to be friends,” I said blandly.
He nodded. “Yeah.
I do.”
I sighed, long and loud. “Why?”
He looked taken aback by my question. “What do you mean why? I like you. You’re a cool person. I want us to be friends.”
I’m a ‘cool person’? Seriously?
It was probably the last thing I wanted him to say. I wanted him to want more than that. I needed to know that he regretted breaking up with me because he felt something for me, not because he thought I was ‘a cool person’. What did that even mean?
I wanted him to tell me he wanted to get back together, and that this time, he wasn’t letting me go. I think I needed to hear him to tell me he loved me. It was probably the only thing that would make me want to keep seeing him in any capacity. Anything else and I ran the risk of getting burned again.
“Zack, I have enough friends. I’m not really looking for any more right now,” I said, standing up and turning to face him. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head quickly a few times, and I could see he was stunned that I’d turned him down. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I figured it was a long shot, but I had to throw it out there.”
Yeah, well maybe if you’d thrown a little harder, I might have caught it.
I knew right then and there that if he’d have put his heart on the line, I would have let him in. I would have talked about all the things that were bothering me and all the things I was afraid to know and asked all the questions that had been eating away at me for months, but he didn’t do that and had essentially closed that door.
I’d gone out on a limb when I’d asked him to dinner earlier in the day, and then I’d thought maybe he’d been doing the same when he’d asked me to come over to watch a movie. Had I known he just wanted to be friends, I never would have said yes, because truthfully I knew that being friends with Zack Easton was the last thing I wanted.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Zack
“Wow, that is probably the most depressing song I’ve ever heard,” Leo said, when he came through the door around three in the morning. “It’s worse than the first version of Hate you busted out with that just had that one chord and ‘Emily hates me’ over and over again. Am I safe to assume you didn’t get laid?”
“You are safe to assume that,” I said, strumming a few poignant chords on my guitar. I had no real purpose with my playing at that moment. It was more about getting my aggression out. “My genius plan to be friends and work my way back in backfired.”
“Well, it was a shitty plan anyway,” Leo said, hanging his coat in the hall closet.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said, glaring at him.
“Sometimes you have to learn things on your own, Daniel-san,” he said, in a really bad imitation of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid.
“Did you have a better idea?” I asked, ignoring his attempt at humor.
“Actually, yeah, I did.” He grabbed a soda from the fridge and came to sit beside me. “See, your inherent problem has been that you keep meeting with her in places where she has an out. You need to get her alone, in a place where she can’t run, and then convince her to listen to you, see things your way.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like Stockholm Syndrome at all. What are you suggesting? Kidnapping her? Driving her out to the middle of nowhere and demanding she hear me out? Then win her over, so she comes over to my side?”
“No, you idiot. You really need to quit using that degree of yours. Just ask her out on a date. Take her to that place I took Kristin in Raleigh, and then tell her how you feel. Quit playing games.”
“What place? The fancy place where you planned to propose last month but chickened out?”
Leo glared at me. “Yes, that place.”
I laughed. That was a funny Leo story. He was usually the most level-headed guy I knew, but when it came time to pop the question, he freaked out and couldn’t do it. I knew he was trying to gather enough nerve to ask Kristin to marry him at Christmas, but we were all taking bets that he’d chicken out again. Molly was the only one who believed he’d actually do it this time.
“I don’t know, dude, that’s not really us. Fancy dinner, all that extraneous silverware. Would I have to wear a tie?”
“Who cares! If you actually want there to be an ‘us’, you might want to figure something out soon, and if wearing a tie is what’s holding you back, then you might want to really think about whether Emily is the right girl for you.”
“She is,” I said, not even hesitating. I had no doubts about that. I just had to make sure that this time, when I actually got her, I wouldn’t be so stupid as to let her go.
“Well, then it’s time to go balls-to-the-wall and tell her how you feel. No more ‘let’s be friends’ bullshit. No more dancing around your feelings. Man up and just tell her!”
I almost fell over laughing, clutching my stomach as Leo eyed me speculatively.
“Did you really just use the term ‘balls-to-the-wall’?” I asked, gasping and nearly crying I was laughing so hard.
“Fuck you,” Leo said, shoving me in the shoulder as he got up and walked out of the room. “I don’t give a shit what you do, just do something instead of moping around here writing bad music.”
“Maybe I should just propose,” I sung, playing a few random chords, making up a song as I went. “Prove that one of us has the balls to do it. Too bad you couldn’t take your own advice, man. Balls-to-the-wall might have been a good idea, you chicken-shit fuck-head.”
Leo just shot me the finger before he headed upstairs. “At least I’m with the girl I’m in love with, you dumb-shit. I’m one up on you,” he called down the stairs, getting in one last dig.
Not for long, I thought, as I set my guitar down to formulate a plan.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Emily
I cried the whole way home, rehashing every mistake I’d made that night and how much I’d wished things had turned out differently. I felt like such a stupid girl. Hanging out with Zack had only succeeded in opening up old wounds. Friends. He wanted to be friends. That was some bullshit. We were never friends to begin with. We practically pounced on each other the first night we met. What on earth would make him what to think I’d want to be his friend?
When I got home, I saw the light on in Rachel’s room, so I knocked softly. I needed my best friend, but I got my brother instead.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked as soon as I saw him.
He grinned. “My class got cancelled tomorrow, and I don’t have classes on Tuesdays, so I got on a plane.
I shook my head in amusement. The two of them had racked up some serious frequent flyer miles this semester. Fortunately for Chase, my father flew all the time for work, so he got free tickets constantly. Chase could fly for free whenever he needed. Our dad literally had a stack of flight vouchers sitting on his desk at home.
“Cool,” I said, feeling drained all of a sudden, as I fell against the door jam and leaned my head against the wall.
“Have you been crying?” Chase asked, appraising me.
At his question, my face crumbled, and I started crying all over again. His arms immediately encircled me.
“What happened?” he asked, leading me over to Rachel’s bed.
Bailey was lounging in the center of the bed, half-asleep, but he perked up when I sat down. I settled down to him and stroked his soft fur, while I rehashed the entire night’s events to my brother.
“Fuck him,” Chase said. “I thought he was a cool guy this summer, but man, now he’s just playing with you. I’ll go kick his ass if you want me to.”
I laughed through my tears at the idea of Chase, with his slight build and complete lack of athletic ability, going after Zack who worked out on a regular basis. Suffice it to say, it wouldn’t be much of a fight, but I appreciated my brother’s offer. Chase maintained his stoic exterior, obviously meaning what he’d said.
“I don’t know what to think,” I said, shaking my head and feeling completely deflated.
&nb
sp; Chase put his arm around me again. “Just let it go Em. He’s a jerk. He’s in the past. I hate to say it, but you might be better off with D-bag Ben.”
“Oh, no. Definitely not,” I said, anger welling up inside of me, as I filled Chase in on my news on the Ben front.
Why couldn’t I get anything right in the guy department? I was apparently a perpetual failure when it came to the opposite sex.
“Dick,” Chase said through gritted teeth, and I could tell it was all he could do to stay in the apartment and not go hunt down Ben. “I told you this summer he was cheating on you. Fucking asshole! I will kick his ass the next time I see him.”
“Who’s ass are you going kick baby?” Rachel called, slamming the front door behind her.
She appeared in the doorway to her bedroom holding up a container of Dunkin’ Donuts doughnut holes. Apparently she and Chase were midnight snacking. “What happened?”
She immediately crossed the room and enveloped me on my other side, and Chase filled her in on the latest Zack and Ben news, as she opened the box of doughnuts for me to take some.
I then spent the night tossing and turning before falling into a deep sleep. When I woke up, I didn’t feel any better. I half thought I might hear from Zack, but I didn’t and knew I was stupid to even think that. I’d told him I didn’t want to be friends, so why would he call me?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Zack
“So you’re the one who’s been poisoning my daughter’s mind with pop music,” I said, startling Emily as I walked up behind her and Lily at the park. They were playing in the sand box, building a castle with Lily’s beach toys. On the edge of the sand box was Emily’s iPod, and emanating from it was a song I knew was by Taylor Swift, but it wasn’t one that Jen had told me to learn when she’d given me a list of Lily’s favorites. This one was more melancholy than the ones I’d played for her.
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