Own Me

by Lexi Scott

  “What I want?” She takes a deep breath and moves closer to me. “I want to be free.”

  “What would happen if you stopped working at your parents’ business?” I ask, and she spins around suddenly, narrowing her eyes at me.

  “I don’t want to be a scientist.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

  I hold my hands up, surrender-style. “I’m not a recruiter for the program, if that’s what you think.”

  “You’re giving off the vibe.” She drops her arms and pokes one finger into my chest.

  “Sorry.” I take her hand, watch her eyes go dark, and hold back a groan when her tongue darts out, quick and pink, and wets her bottom lip. Before I can stop myself, I’m going down that path I shouldn’t be, telling her things that aren’t facts about my life—they’re useless murky memories that would never come up on a government questionnaire. But I figure one tiny detail won’t throw me too much…

  “The thing I remember most about my mother?” Genevieve leans closer—so close I can see the pattern of grays and lighter blues that make up her irises. “She lived every second like she was exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what she wanted to do. I’m sure she had regrets, but I think she just loved…everything. And when she died, I hated everything. I thought it was a shitty testament to who she’d been.”

  My voice is shaky with emotion, and I realize how dangerous “one tiny detail” can be. I’m a scientist. I know all about chaos theory and fractals, the butterfly effect—I should be more careful.

  The problem is, being with Genevieve makes my usually logical brain short circuit.

  “It’s normal to hate everything when you lose someone you love,” she says, threading her fingers through mine.

  “Yeah, it is.” I brush her hair back from her face and let my palm linger on her cheek. She closes her eyes and breathes deep. “But it starts to become a habit. I fight it every day. Because sometimes I have beauty and happiness staring me right in the face, and I never even notice. Not until it’s too late. I don’t want to keep making that mistake.”

  “It’s not too late,” she says, her words a soft promise. Or is it a dare? “We can make sure it isn’t. This will work, Adam.”

  Her body is warm and soft in all the right places. I haven’t slept with a girl since my summer fling with a visiting research assistant, so some of what I’m feeling is pure, pent-up need. But that’s not how this is going to go. I’m not going to use Genevieve, because what I feel for her extends way beyond animal urges. I respect her. I love the way she makes me feel, the way she makes me want to change.

  “Do you want to go to the roof?” I ask, and the words vibrate with my glaring frustration with my inability to keep a lid on my erratic thoughts.

  Her eyes startle wide open at my tone. “Sure.”

  I spin her body from mine in one neat movement and we rush up the stairs, coming out onto the wide roof and into the cool night air. Night took over while we were inside, and the deep blue of the sky cools every bit of temper that flared in me.

  “It feels so…wide open up here,” she says, twirling around, head tilted back. “Free.”

  “You could tell your parents you’re not working for them anymore. Don’t you have brothers and sisters who could help out?”

  She’s talking about the celestial beauty of freedom; I’m talking practical applications of it.

  “You know my brother, Cohen, was going to leave, but my father offered him a raise and the accounting position. I think it helped that Dad also hired Cohen’s fiancée to work there, at least until she graduates and gets a teaching job. Lydia is this crazy successful lawyer. Enzo has always done whatever the hell he wanted to, even when we were just kids. Cece will probably get a full time job as a professor.” She looks at me and raises her eyebrows. “Hey, maybe you’ve run into her on campus? She just got a position as a TA in Comparative Feminist Lit?”

  I think back to the way Cody and I made fun of the comparative lit losers and feel a surge of panic. Not like Genevieve could possibly know that. Mocking her sister, even inadvertently, is not something I want to do. Or want her to know I do, anyway.

  “Uh, no. They’re so, um, different. Just, yeah, different. Plus, you know, the liberal arts department is kind of segregated from ours.” By a big, fat line of real knowledge and usefulness.

  “Wait, are you serious about your beef with the liberal arts? I thought that was just a bad joke, like Schrodinger’s cat.” I can hear the laugh behind her words. “Holy crap! I can see it in your face! You do look down your nose at them. What a science snob you are, Adam. So, like, exactly how much do you hate them? Is it like a separate water fountains and bathrooms kind of thing?”

  “I don’t hate them,” I object. “And if we have separate bathrooms, it’s just because those douches from philosophy are always wandering into the bathroom and forgetting to leave. Or that’s what I hear from the Math Department. Those poor guys have to share bathrooms with some outlier liberal artists who snuck into their territory.”

  She’s laughing hard and loud now, and the sound gets caught in the wind, which picks it up and tosses it around on the roof. “Here I was thinking my future husband is all open-minded, but apparently I’m marrying a bigot. So what if I told you I wanted to major in philosophy instead of working at my parents’ place?”

  “As my future wife, you’d be the one and only person who could bring me over to the dark side and make a liberal arts lover out of me. Never repeat that in front of Cody,” I warn, loving the easy way she bumps my hip with hers and puts a hand on my arm.

  “Your secret is safe with me. And you won’t have to hide your face in shame as the husband of a dreaded liberal arts major. I don’t want a degree in philosophy. I guess this is going to sound so flighty, but I don’t know what I want. I just know it’s not what I have.” She puts her hands over her face. “Ugh. That sounds like some pathetic first world problem. You don’t have to tell me it doesn’t.”

  I tug her hands down. “Hey, I’ve worked in some pretty desperate places—refugee camps, ghettos… What you feel? That’s an everyone problem. I’m not saying you aren’t lucky to have political freedom and clean water and vaccinations. All good stuff. But you have a right to ask for more out of your life and not feel like a bad person for it.”

  “So, it’s not just science and math that you’re all brilliant at, is it?” she says.

  “I guess not.” I sit on the low ledge over a sharp drop, and Genevieve backs up a step.

  “Get off of there.” She clutches a hand over her heart.

  “Are you afraid of heights? It’s okay,” I say, jumping onto the ledge to show her. “I grew up balcony hopping across apartments. I’ve got an amazing sense of balance.” I back up a few inches, just enough so I can feel the wind tug and swirl at my back.

  She puts her other hand over her mouth, then rips it away and whisper-screams, “Get. Down. Now! Right now!”

  “Genevieve, I’m fine. I swear. See, even if I fell, I know how to bend my knees, arch my back, keep my feet together… I’m trained in physics. I’d probably only break my legs, worst case scenario.” I turn to look down, and it’s a far fall, even for me. And I’m used to heights.

  She’s taking steps back, shaking her head. “Please,” she begs.

  I jump down and walk to her, about to tease her for worrying, when she shoves me in the chest, hard.

  “What were you thinking?” she demands, backing me up to a wall. “You could have fallen. You could have died. What the hell, Adam? What the hell!”

  I take her hand in mine. “Whoa. Calm down. I was totally safe.”

  “You say that, but you and I both know you weren’t. What if something happened to you? What would I do?”

  The way she’s shaking, I’m pretty sure she’s going to smack me across the face. And I’ll take it because, though I never meant to do it, I hate that I upset her. “Nothing was going to happen, but I’m sor—”

  She fl
ings herself into my arms and clutches at my shirt, her head buried in my shoulder, her heart thumping so hard, I can feel it against my chest.

  I put my arms around her, holding her close, petting her hair, doing what I can to calm her down.

  “Asshole. You’re an asshole,” she says. “Don’t scare me like that.”

  She’s this upset because she was worried. About me.

  I’m not exactly sure how to process that. Holding her under the speckled, inky sky, on top of the world, I only know I don’t want to let go.

  “Hey, c’mon, I was just showing off.”

  She peeks up at me from under her lashes, relief bringing back her sense of humor. “Don’t do that again. At least not until we have a will made up.”

  “I think you’re overestimating my vast wealth,” I say with a laugh. “You’re agreeing to marry a pretty poor man, Gen.”

  “Good thing I’m not a gold digger.” She bites her lip. “On that note, we should talk about what we actually want from this, um…marriage.”

  “Right. You’re right.” I nod. “Want to head to the beach? You mentioned you think better there.”

  “I did, didn’t I? It’s true.”

  We leave the observatory and head down the highway, Genevieve flipping the radio stations, singing along until a song she likes ends, then flipping again to find a new one. I like her clear, strong voice. I like that she kicks her ridiculous heels off and tucks her bare feet under her legs.

  She rolls down the window, and I lose the potent scent of her, but I get to see the way her face looks when she tips her head back, closes her eyes, and breathes the night air deep into her lungs. She lets one hand hang out the window, holds it flat in the rush of air, and watches her fingers jump and pulse in the current. When she shivers, I reach back and grab a hoodie, hand it to her, and watch as she pulls it over her head, the hood so huge, it hides her entire face.

  “My shirt is so freaking uncomfortable,” she says, wrestling with herself in the loose cloth. “Will it be weird if I take it off?”

  “Not weird at all,” I say, forcing the words to come out evenly.

  She twists her arms inside the hoodie and pulls the little green-ribboned shirt out the bottom, sighing heavily as she drops it on the floor. Her entire body looks different all of a sudden. She curves and stretches like she’s just been untied from ropes.

  “You can turn right here,” she says, pointing to an exit off the highway I’ve never even noticed. We follow a long, winding road to a tiny shop by the ocean. A surf shop.

  “You know this place?” I ask as I pull into the lot and park.

  She nods, but doesn’t bother to explain any further. As soon as we’re stopped, she hops out, barefoot, arms wide, and runs through the sand and down to the waves. I walk after her, glancing back at the shop I’m sure is Deo’s place. Besides being her crush, I realize he’s practically part of her family. As much as it irks me that he broke her heart, I have to accept that he’s a part of her past, is in her present, and will be around for the foreseeable future.

  Which now includes me.

  “Adam!” she calls over the crash of the waves. “Come here!”

  I run down the beach to her. “Why?” I ask.

  “Because look at this!” she yells, jumping back away from the waves, then biting her lip and darting forward. “Isn’t this amazing? Doesn’t it just make you feel like no matter how bad things are, they just can’t be that bad. Right? Because look at this!”

  The sky is starlit and the silver moon is so huge it lights up the entire sky. The waves are dark and harsh, but beautiful. The air feels like it’s buzzing with an energy that’s impossible to resist. I catch her happiness like a fever.

  That’s what I’ve always loved about Genevieve. I know my own boundaries, my limits, really well. I know I tend to be the guy who sits in the corner and watches the fun from afar. But Genevieve doesn’t let me do that. She drags me in and makes me participate.

  “It’s amazing,” I agree.

  She stops jumping in the waves and pushes her hair back from her face with both hands. “You aren’t seriously saying this is amazing while you still have your shoes on. Take them off. Now.” She crooks her finger at me.

  If there’s a man on this earth who could resist that crooked finger, I’d love to meet him and shake his damn hand. Because he’s a far stronger man than I am.

  My shoes are off, and I cuff my jeans then wade out to her side.

  “That’s better.” She grins, focused on me, as a huge swell gathers and breaks right at the back of her legs. I know she’s not gauging for it, so I grab her around the waist and hold her still until the water sucks back out.

  “Careful,” I say, my voice quiet, because she freaked me out. It scared me to think of her falling under the water and getting pulled out with the undercurrent. What if I wasn’t here to catch her?

  Which is an idiotic thought. I haven’t been around for most of Genevieve’s life, and I’m positive tonight isn’t the first time she’s done something bordering on insane.

  I also realize this must have been the exact way she felt when I was standing on the ledge of the observatory like an idiot. Only she couldn’t catch me. It’s shocking, sometimes, what a complete and total jackass I am.

  “You’re making a habit of this whole knight in shining armor thing, aren’t you?” she asks, tilting her head back and laughing.

  Which leaves her neck exposed. Once again, I’m fighting back the urge to kiss the line of her neck and up her jaw. I think about kissing her the way I bet none of her shitty boyfriends ever have. Like she’s the only goddamn girl in the world. Like I never want to kiss anyone else.

  But I don’t. I wouldn’t have back when she was just my friend, and it doesn’t feel right to do it now just because we’re friends with the promise of marriage. The whole point of this arrangement is that our relationship stays the same while our legal status changes. Most people see tying the knot as accepting a ball and chain, but for Gen and me, marriage will be freedom. Freedom for me to continue my studies and not have to move back to my gloating father in Israel, and freedom for her to spread her wings, move out of her parents’ home, and prove to everyone that she’s over her longtime crush—whether she really is or not.

  The scary part is my growing inability to keep things compartmentalized when it comes to Genevieve. She’s naturally impetuous and emotional—so I have to be the logical one. I have to weigh the pros and cons. I have to get close enough that we can convince any government agent we’re an actual couple, without falling head over heels for the friend I’ve always had a crush on. Because as good as this feels right now, it’s going to hurt like hell if I let myself believe it’s real, only to get kicked by reality when she pulls the plug.

  This isn’t meant to last, and I have to make sure I keep that in mind. She deserves to live her life with the person she chooses for love, not convenience. One day that guy will come along, and she’ll expect the amicable divorce this situation calls for.

  The fact that thinking about that eventuality already makes me sick to my stomach is a bad sign. A very bad sign. I need to be more careful.

  “Hey, come here!” Genevieve cries, dragging me by the hand. I follow her.

  Of course I follow her.

  She leads me up a craggy bunch of rocks just out of reach of the surf, slick with seaweed and damp with the sea spray. She pulls my sweatshirt down so she can sit on it and pulls her knees up to her chest, yanking the bottom of the sweatshirt over them and down to her ankles. I sit next to her, watching the waves smash close to where we sit, protected for this minute. Until the tide comes in.

  “It makes me feel better.” I gesture out to the roaring ocean. “It’s easier to accept that I’m just a blip in the universe here.”

  Genevieve looks at me, her face small inside the large hood. “Yeah. I get that. I come here when I can for that exact reason, when I’m stressing about classes and grades. It’s an excellent re
minder.”

  “I remember being nervous as hell when I was getting my BA,” I say. “You’re smart and hard working. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Maybe you can start visiting the ocean to, you know, just sunbathe and stuff.”

  Her smile is tight. “I know the way I dress, how I present myself sometimes, may seem like I’m shallow. But I’m way more into contemplating my place in the universe than I am into making sure I don’t have tan lines.”

  “I didn’t mean— I just wanted you to know that I have faith in you. That I think you’re gonna be just fine.” I want to touch her face again, brush her hair back like I did before, but I don’t. And I probably never should have in the first place. I have no idea what the rules are anymore.

  “Whoa, teach. Back up,” she says, a nervous giggle erupting out of her throat. “It sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to break up with me.”

  I brush my finger over her wrist and down her hand. She sucks her breath in and looks at me for a long second.

  “I would never choose to not help you, Genevieve. I know I sometimes complain, but I really do enjoy working with you. Plus now I have a vested interest in making sure you do well. I mean, I can’t have my wife flunking out of college.”

  Her brow furrows and her eyes narrow. “About all that. What…what are the ground rules?”

  “For our sham marriage?”

  “Don’t call it that,” she says, her voice drowned out by the waves. “It’s just…an unconventional marriage. I get that it won’t last forever, but if we’re going to be doing this for a few years, we need to know where we both stand, right? Like I’m cool with living together, but do we sleep together, too?” She’s edging toward the slippery rocks now, a few feet away from the foaming, frothing explosion of ocean below.

  “I can’t afford to live anywhere other than the dorms,” I say. “The married dorms are all one bedroom, but I’m happy to take the couch.” I’m keeping my voice calm and trying to make eye contact, but she’s flying off the handle. She stands up suddenly, and I stand next to her and try to lead her away from the edge. Man, karma is biting me in the ass, hard. “I’m happy to do whatever makes you comfortable.”