by Theresa Weir
Lights were on inside the house, and a rectangle fell on the ground, coming from a window with no glass. Below the window I could just make out the dark shape of a person.
“Ian?”
“Oh, hey! Was just texting you, telling you to come over. And here you are.”
“Weird, huh?”
“Really weird.”
I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight app, aiming it at Ian.
His arm came up to shield his face. His hand was covered in blood. Dark blood, like it had dried. He was wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt.
“How long have you been out here?” Stupid question. He was obviously clueless.
“Don’t know.”
“Let me see your hand.”
He held it out and I passed the light over it. Hard to tell in the dark, with all the blood, but it looked like he’d sliced his palm open. “You might need stitches. Let’s go in the house and clean it up so we can get a good look at it.”
“I kinda like it out here.”
“We have to go in.”
“If you say so.” He rolled to his side.
“Careful of the glass.”
“Oh, right.”
His feet were bare.
“Wait. Don’t move. I’m going to get your shoes.”
“Why?”
“Too much glass.”
Was the house locked? I didn’t have a key. No. The knob turned and I stepped inside. I hurried upstairs to his room, hitting light switches as I went. In the closet I found a pair of sneakers.
Back outside I crouched down and jammed the shoes on his feet, tied them, and then told him to stand up.
He did.
Upright, he teetered, then took several sidesteps before catching himself. Jesus. I draped his arm over my shoulder, wrapped my arm around his waist, and led him toward the steps and the backdoor. Once inside I pushed him in the direction of the sink, turned on the water, and made him stick his hand under it.
“Whoa,” he said, watching the diluted blood in the white sink.
“You really shouldn’t drink,” I told him.
“I’m not good at it.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“But you are.”
“I’m a pro.”
After the briefest pause, he said, “I was sad.”
“About what?” I shut off the water and grabbed a handful of paper towels. They were pretty sanitary, right?
“You.”
I went still, then bunched up the towels under his hand. “Come closer to the light.”
We turned and moved under the ceiling light. He did that sidestep drunk thing again, so I pushed him down on a kitchen chair, then got a better look at his hand.
Hard to say. The cut was maybe three inches long, but not really deep. But it was still bleeding. “I think we should go to the ER.” Last thing I wanted to do was haul a drunk guy to the ER.
“Why? Are you sick?”
“You probably need stitches.”
He pulled his hand from mine, then grasped me at the waist and urged me closer, between his legs. “Let’s go upstairs instead.”
God, did I need to slap him? “Where are the keys to your van?”
“I dunno.”
“Let go. You’re getting blood all over me.”
“Don’t you want to be my buddy fucker?”
“It’s fuck buddy.” I pulled him to his feet, then patted him down, finding his keys in his front pocket. I pulled them out. His phone. “Where’s your phone?”
“I dunno.”
Must have been outside. I’d get it later.
I grabbed more paper towels, wrapped his hand, then pressed it against his belly. “Hold that there.” Then I draped his arm over my shoulders again and aimed for the front door and his van that was parked at the curb.
One thing about Minneapolis? You’re never far from an ER. Five minutes after stuffing Ian in the van I pulled up in front of the well-lit doors of the campus ER. Ian wouldn’t be the only drunk dude inside.
While we waited, Ian complained. “Let’s just go home,” he kept saying. A few times he fell asleep, head tipped back against the wall, mouth open. Finally it was our turn.
Good thing we came. His hand needed twenty stitches. When the doctor was done with the needle and thread, he wrapped Ian’s hand in gauze, told him to keep it dry, handed me a sheet of homecare instructions, and sent us on our way.
The sky was getting light by the time we pulled to a stop in front of the house. I got Ian upstairs to the bedroom, and damn if I didn’t have to take off his shoes and unbutton and unzip his pants for him, tugging them down his legs as he tumbled backward in bed. I dropped the jeans on the floor. “Scoot over.”
He scooted, probably thinking I was going to crawl into bed with him. Instead, I pulled the covers over him and turned out the light. Outside the window, birds were singing.
And speaking of window… The kitchen window had to be repaired. Not my problem, I told myself. Let Ian deal with it.
I was turning to leave the room when he grabbed my hand and tried to tug me down beside him.
So tempting. Maybe if he’d been in any other room I would have done it. I would have been his buddy fuck or whatever he called it.
“I have to go,” I said, pulling my hand from his. “I have class in a few hours. You’ll need to call someone about fixing the window.”
He didn’t answer because he was asleep.
I was tired, and it was tempting to sleep on the couch. I could have seen how he was in the morning. But no, I needed to get back home to get my books and class assignments.
I found his phone outside in the grass. Now that the sun was beginning to come up I could see the blood on the ground. I grabbed his cell phone. It was covered in blood too. I took it inside, tried to clean it off with a damp paper towel, then went back upstairs and left the phone on the end table next to his bed, along with the ER instructions. I remembered the little end table. Bought at Goodwill, painted a pale blue.
We tried.
We’d tried to erase everything that had happened before. Or at least I’d tried.
I crossed my arms and stared at him. He was pretty. Even now, when he should have looked like hell. Even with dark circles under his eyes and a jaw that hadn’t been shaved in several days. You would almost think he’d missed me. That thought gave me this small rush of excitement deep in my belly. What was wrong with me?
As I stared, I had to stop myself from kissing those sweetly curved lips.
Oh, what the hell.
I sat down next to him on the bed. Then I bent and pressed my lips very lightly against his. Just a brush. Soft lips to soft lips. Then I inhaled the scent of him. Mostly stale beer and antiseptic from the ER, but also the smell of his clothes and the smell of skin. Then I went downstairs.
I left, locking the door behind me, hoping nobody got any ideas about the broken window. It wasn’t a high-crime area, and the crimes that did happen tended to be at night.
I swung my leg over my bike and pedaled back through town. The drunks were gone and the roads were full of people in a hurry to get to work.
It was weird, but I realized I felt good, almost euphoric in the way music sometimes makes me feel. I knew Ian was at the root of this feeling, but I didn’t understand what it meant or where it came from. Once he woke up he might not remember much of the night, but it had felt like real life to me. Real. Life.
Chapter 21
Ian wrapped the pillow around his throbbing head, moaned, and rolled to his side. The movement triggered a new pain. He opened his eyes a crack and to check out the source and saw that his hand was wrapped in gauze.
Molly.
He could smell her hair even though she wasn’t in the room, and he swore he could taste her lavender lip balm.
He grabbed his phone from the table next to the bed. Was that blood? And bloody fingerprints? He scrolled through the messages, or at least he started scrolling through them because d
amn, there were a lot. “What the?” He kept going. They were all sent last night, all to Molly. He read a few. Then he read more, finally reaching one about her being his buddy fuck.
“Oh, hell.” He let his head drop back on the pillow.
There was a good reason he didn’t drink very often. He was bad at it. He’d tried, but he’d never have to worry about becoming an alcoholic because he got shitfaced too easy.
He tried to fall back to sleep, but the pain wouldn’t let him. He didn’t know what hurt more, his head or his hand. He finally rolled to a sitting position, bare feet on the floor. Was she in the house?
He shouted her name, then grabbed his head, then let out another yelp as pain shot through his palm.
He needed Advil STAT.
He spotted a sheet of paper on the end table and picked it up. Homecare instructions from the ER. Signed by Molly. Ian and Molly Young.
Now he remembered. Molly had taken him to the ER.
“Molly?” He made his way downstairs, wincing with every step, hoping to find her on the couch. Nope. He looked outside, hoping to see her bike chained to the porch railing.
Nope.
Deciding she was gone, he shuffled to the kitchen, found a bottle of Advil, and took three capsules. That’s when he spotted the broken window. If he could kick himself he would.
Chapter 22
The bell above the café door jingled, and Rose’s eyes got big. It’s him, she mouthed.
I turned to see Ian scoping out the place for a good seat. He wore a black hoodie, and in the hand that wasn’t wrapped in gauze he clutched a bouquet of pale yellow flowers. He took a seat next to a window overlooking the sidewalk, patio tables, and Lyndale Avenue.
I thought about asking Rose to take his table, but that would be cowardly of me. So I walked across the room as if I owned it, clicked my pen against my tablet, and asked him what he’d like.
“I’d like to give you these.” He held out the bouquet. I stared for a moment before taking them. I didn’t know what kind of flowers they were, but they reminded me of the walls in the living room.
“Thanks. Anything else?”
“Just coffee.”
“We’ve got some really good pumpkin bread.”
“No thanks. And I don’t think you’re being mean enough.”
“How’s the hand?”
“Hurts like hell, but not as much as my head.”
I laughed. “You didn’t get it wet did you? Not your head, your hand?”
“No.” He looked up at me with that earnest and too intense expression he sometimes got. “Thanks. For last night.”
“I thought maybe you wouldn’t remember. You were pretty out of it.”
“I remember.”
“The whole night?” I thought about how I’d kissed him.
“Everything after the hospital is a bit fuzzy.”
“I’ll put these in water and get your coffee.”
When I came back he was staring out the window, his hands under the table. He looked sad.
“I’m taking a break soon,” I told him. “Want to sit outside?”
“Yeah” He pulled the white coffee mug closer. “I’ll go on out. Meet me when you’re ready.”
I stopped Rose in the kitchen. “I’m going to grab ten minutes,” I told her as I untied my apron and reached for my denim jacket.
“That asshole brought you flowers?”
“Sweet of him, right?”
“Devious.”
I made myself a chai latte, then joined Ian on the sidewalk.
It was another beautiful day. A little windy and clouds were moving fast, covering us in shadow. Just when it seemed too cold to be outside, the clouds passed and the sun felt good through my clothes.
We sat there without talking until Ian finally said, “I can’t even remember what we fought about.”
“You accused me of being remote. Shut off.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded as he watched a group of kids fly past on skateboards.
“It’s true,” I admitted. “I am.”
“It was a bad idea to move into together.”
I watched him as he took a sip of coffee, and I remembered morning kisses that tasted like that.
“Two strangers.”
“We did okay for a while, but…I’m not girlfriend material. That’s what you need to understand. I’m not anybody who’s going to stick with anybody.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I can’t share myself.” I shrugged. “I guess I’m just selfish.”
“I think there’s more to it than that.”
I’d never asked him about himself, but now I became suspicious. “What was your major?”
“Psychology.”
“Oh, my God.” And yeah, it made total sense. I should have known.
He must have read my dismay or disgust, because he added: “I minored in film if that helps.”
I shook my head. “You’ve been trying to psychoanalyze me from that first night.”
“You are a mess. Who wouldn’t be trying to figure you out? That doesn’t have anything to do with my degree.”
“I don’t want anybody trying to figure me out. That’s why I can’t have a relationship.”
“The thing with us—it all happened way too fast.”
“That’s me. I jump in and jump out.”
“Were we just playing house? Was I just your fuck buddy?” he asked. “Because I think it was more than that.”
“No, it wasn’t. You saw it as something it wasn’t. It’s weird, but I think guys take breakups harder than girls.” I put my elbows on the table. There we were on the sidewalk, warm sun beating down, the cool breeze of fall blowing his curls, sending the scent of him my way. “You can’t really like me because you don’t know me. You’ll never know me.”
I’d said the same words to other guys and they’d gotten pissed. He surprised me by leaning back in his chair. “Are you saying that knowing a person is all about her history? All about the core of who she is? Even if that core is never shared?”
“Pretty much.”
“So you don’t know me either. If what you say is true, then you don’t know me at all.”
My mind hesitated. He was pulling shrink shit on me, but I couldn’t help but get sucked into what he was saying. “I know you.”
“How do you know me? When you don’t know anything about me.”
My heart was beating fast, and I was feeling out-of-breath.
“Right?” he asked.
I stared at him, and it felt like I was falling into his eyes.
“People are more than the sum of their parts,” he said. “They are layers and layers and layers. Something happened to you somewhere along the line and if you don’t want to share it with me that’s okay. That’s fine. But you have to understand that the past might impact who you are now, and it might hinder your ability to build lasting relationships, but it doesn’t have to define you. The past touches you, and it will always be there, but you are more than your past experiences.”
I imagined jumping into his chair and knocking him to the ground, not in anger but appreciation. I wanted to wrap my arms and legs around him and get as close to him as I could.
I did know him, I realized. Even if I knew nothing about his past. He was kind and sweet, with morals that were almost old-fashioned. He was a gentleman. “Are you like twenty-five going on a hundred?” I asked instead of launching the attack I’d so perfectly played out in my head.
He laughed, and my God, his laugh. Kind of this dude giggle that made him suddenly seem really young. “I get that a lot. I think it might be from taking care of my mother for so many years.”
More about him. Did I want to know? He was just sharing the hell out of himself. Another shrink trick, I suppose.
“It was just the two of us,” he said. “She was sick with cancer for three years.”
“How old were you?”
“Freshman in college when she died. So I ki
nd of know what you’re going through.”
He didn’t, but I brushed that away. “I should probably get back to work,” I said when I noticed a third group of people stepping into the café. I was getting to my feet when he pinned me with his eyes again. The color in there was always changing. Now, in the brilliant sun, they looked really, really green, with gold lines running through them.
“Let’s go somewhere together,” he said. “I’ll come and pick you up. Go out to eat. A movie.”
“You mean like a date?” I couldn’t keep the horror from my voice. I didn’t date. It was way too traditional. No, you hook up with guys at parties and go home with them. No, you hook up with guys at bars and go to hotels with them.
“Is that too boring for you?”
“I think we’re beyond that. I mean, we can’t undo the past few weeks.”
Whenever I dumped a guy, he never talked to me again. Never texted, never tried to call. Nothing. And if I ran into him at a party or a bar, he’d give me an I-hate-you look. I didn’t get what was happening now with Ian. I didn’t know how to react.
“I’m not trying to undo it,” Ian said. “I just want to bring in another layer. I want to bring in something normal.”
My chair scraped against the cement as I stood. I picked up my latte and took a swallow now that it was cooler. “I don’t do normal.”
He flinched, and I instantly felt bad.
To soften my rejection, I said: “Don’t forget to change your bandage. And keep an eye out for infection. If your hand feels hot. If you have a fever.” Through the window, I saw Rose waving frantically and mouthing the word help.
“So no movie? There’s an interesting looking documentary playing at some place called The Bell Museum. Know where that is?”
I kept forgetting he didn’t know his way around. “Yeah, it’s on campus.”
“It’s about some guy who lived underground for a year.”
“You like documentaries?” I did too, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“When I minored in film studies my focus was documentaries.”
Damn. He had to quit sharing himself. But it seemed like this was his new thing. While we’d lived together he’d shared nothing, but now he was trying to make up for lost time.