“You don’t have to say sorry. It…It wasn’t your fault.”
I’m hit with a tiny déjà vu. You’d be surprised to know how many things aren’t your fault at all. Thomas’ voice, even in my imagination, makes me shiver.
“Lay?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” I gather my thoughts. “Caleb, it…it was my fault. I knew you were drunk and that cigarette I gave you…that was pot. I knew you weren’t interested in me, but still I…forced you to—”
“God, is that what you think? Is that what you think happened? You forced me?” A sharp gust of air and I can almost hear him cracking his knuckles like he does when he’s agitated. “Layla, I knew it was pot. I knew what I was doing. I wanted it to happen, okay?”
“You-You wanted to have sex with me?”
“Yes.”
“Wh-Why?”
“Because…Because I wanted to know what it would feel like.”
“You mean having sex? You hadn’t had sex before? You were a virgin too?”
See, this is the kind of thing you should know about your sexual partner. I’d always assumed Caleb was more experienced, though it’s true that I never saw him with a girl. He was one of those guys who spent time reading, doing homework, sometimes hanging with friends.
But I thought he’d done it. I’d heard rumors about it. I never had the courage to ask, only the courage to throw baseless tantrums. Yeah, I fought with him over a stupid thing because I’d heard he’d slept with someone. I even broke his lamp and spilled water on his biology homework. Boy, that was a big fight.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t a virgin?”
“No, Layla. I wasn’t.”
“But you just said you wanted to see what sex would feel like.”
“You know what, this isn’t the way I pictured having this conversation. I was hoping you’d come to the party and we’d talk. I’ve missed you, Lay. I’ve missed you so much and I’ve got so many things I wanna tell you, and I’m tired of not talking to you. Are you sure you can’t make it? I mean, it’s a Saturday.”
“Tell me what you meant.” I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, my legs bouncing on the floor, impatient.
“Don’t do this, Lay. I don’t want to do this over the phone.”
“We’re gonna have to, unless you wanna drive up in the snow.”
“Please, Lay, just—”
“What did you mean, Caleb? You know I’m not gonna let this go. I’ll keep calling you and drive you crazy until you tell me.”
This time his sigh is resigned. “I wanted to see how sex would feel like…with a girl.” I remain silent at his declaration. Things seem even more tangled now. “I’m gay, Layla.”
“No you’re not,” I blurt out.
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. You slept with me.”
I’m repeating myself and my voice is high, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around what he’s saying.
“I thought…no, I knew that if I was going to fall in love with a girl, it would be you, Lay. You were everything to me. My best friend. My go-to person. I knew you were in love with me and I thought if I could just push all those weird feelings away, I’d fall for you. I thought if I just…touched you, I could, maybe, fall in love.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No,” he whispers.
“So it failed, your experiment,” I mutter, talking to myself. “It was an experiment for you, sleeping with me.”
“No. God, no. Layla, it wasn’t an experiment. I could never do that to you. I—”
“And you left.” My voice seems dead to me. Flat. Without any inflection. “You left me in that strange bed. With people I didn’t know. By the time I got back home, you’d already gone. You know, when I was lying there in that bed, for a second I thought you’d gone out to get me coffee or something, like in the movies. I thought you were falling in love with me. I thought things were going to be perfect.”
“Layla, I’m—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it.”
“But—”
“I think I’m gonna hang up now.”
My entire body sags as I end the call. The phone slides out of my limp fingers and falls on the ground with a clatter. I sit on the couch in a daze. It’s hard to focus when the buzzing is loud in my chest, my ears, my stomach, even my arms.
Caleb can’t be gay. I love him—loved him. Whatever. I pictured our wedding, our honeymoon in Paris, our babies: one violet-eyed boy and a green-eyed girl. I pictured him making love to me countless times. Even though our first time was a fucking disaster, I knew we’d improve with age, like wine or…or some kind of alcohol I can’t think of right now.
How can he be gay?
I hear a crash then, in the distance…or maybe it’s inside me. I spring to my feet, but I can’t stand still. I keep changing legs, as if prepping myself to run. Somewhere. Anywhere. In the snap of a moment, I dash to my room. I’m dragging clothes over me. Tights over my sleep shorts. Leg warmers. A fuzzy white sweater over my camisole. My purple fur coat. A hat. My boots. Gloves. Three pairs of socks under my snow boots. And I’m out the door.
A snowstorm is easier to battle with, than my empty apartment.
He stole my notebook. The notebook I write my poems in. The notebook I had with me on prompt night.
That asshole.
How do I know it’s him? Because I’m not an idiot. I’ve looked fucking everywhere at home. I had to clean my apartment—twice—to get into all the corners. I’ve got blisters on my palms to prove it. My knees are chafed from kneeling and fishing out clothes hiding under my bed.
I still didn’t find my tiny blue spiral-bound notebook.
After my sojourn in the snow yesterday, I started thinking rationally. The pain and the sting of the cold cleared my head.
Caleb is gay. The guy I’ve been in love with all my life is gay, and I never noticed it.
Never. Not once. I’ve been so absorbed in my fantasies that I never bothered to come out of them. How selfish and stupid and unobservant do you have to be to not notice that your best friend is gay? I grew up with the guy, for God’s sake. How did I not know this?
I sat at my bench—the bench where I saw Thomas for the first time—and pondered. And cried. And pondered some more. It was an awful cycle, until I thought I’d die of the cold weather. So I trekked back, and by the time I reached home, I was itching to read or write or both.
And since then I haven’t been able to sit still, because my notebook is missing. Missing!
I know it was Thomas. He stole it when we were in the storage closet. It has to be him. I know I didn’t simply misplace it, and he’s the only human being I’ve come in contact with in the last three days.
Since it’s Tuesday, our poetry class isn’t meeting. Even so, classes are back on, so I walk to the Labyrinth. He must be there. He has other classes, after all.
I need my notebook back. I need that stupid poem back. I remember every single word of it, and I just hope he isn’t able to figure out it’s about him. I don’t want him to insult it like he did my last poem.
As I reach his door and stare at the Poet in Residence sign, I realize how stupid it is to think he doesn’t know. Of course he knows I wrote it for him. He knows everything about me. I try the knob, feel it turn, and suddenly, I’m standing in front of him.
Thomas is at his desk but he looks up as I enter. He doesn’t appear surprised to see me here, as if he knew I’d come. This makes me even more sure he’s the thief.
Without looking away, he puts his pen down and sits back in the high-backed leather chair. It creaks slightly. The sound, oddly, feels illicit, like breathy pants behind closed doors or a loud rustle caused by hasty shedding of clothes in the dark.
Should I feel shy around him now? Should I want to look away from his beautiful eyes now that he knows I’m a crazy stalker who comes on people’s legs? Because, honest to God, I don’t feel any of those things. I feel famished. My skin
thrums. It’s more than awareness. It’s like he’s…in me. A part of him is breathing inside my body.
I step in and close the door behind me with a click. The hood covering my head falls, swishing down my loose curls. These inconsequential sounds feel even more illicit than the creak of the chair, something out of a thousand imaginations I’ve had.
“So, apparently you don’t even knock,” he murmurs.
Shit.
“I was just checking to see if the knob would turn.” I lick my lips. “And it did.”
“And it did,” he repeats.
My hands are at my back, gripping the very knob. I’m sorry is on the tip of my tongue, but I know it won’t do any good. Somehow I know that if Thomas is angry, no matter what I do, he won’t budge. Should have thought of that before I confessed all my crimes to him.
“You have my notebook.” My words waver.
Thomas shifts in his chair, causing it to creak again, causing my thighs to quiver against each other.
“Your notebook.”
“Yes?” I wanted to make it a statement, but my voice betrays me and comes out squeaky at the end, turning it into an unsure question.
“I’m in possession of it, yes.”
My hands fall away from the knob. Huh. That was…easy. “Are you saying you have it?” A stupid question.
He rubs his lips with his index finger. “Is there any other way of saying it?”
There’s a tiny spark in his eyes. If I hadn’t spent copious amount of time studying those twin flames and cataloging them, I would’ve missed it.
“Wow, so you did steal it from me,” I murmur to myself.
“If by stealing you mean the way you stole the book from my office, then yes, I did steal it.”
The mention of the book conjures up the image of it sitting on my nightstand. I’ve read it numerous times. I’ve read it so much that it’s mine now. I can’t give it back to him. I mean, I can go buy a copy for myself, but that won’t have his words in it. I won’t know what sentences he holds dear, how he defines himself and his unrequited love.
I grip the knob again, ready to turn it and leave, but I manage to stand my ground. “Look, I’m not here to make trouble. I just want my notebook back and you won’t…” I pause for a split second before completing the sentence. “You won’t have to see me again.”
Yes, this is the right thing to do.
He is married. He is a father. He is a teacher. He is not a distraction. He is not fleeting. I don’t understand what he is to me yet, but I know I can’t afford to find out. Already, I am in too deep. We have crossed too many lines.
“I’m going to drop the class.” I nod, having made up my mind. “Which is a relief because I obviously know nothing about poetry, or writing in general. So, if you’ll just give me my notebook, I’ll be on my way.”
Something flashes across his face that I don’t understand, and he shifts in his chair again. The creak, the whisper of his clothes against the leather gets my heart whirring. I ignore it though. He fishes out my notebook from the drawer and places it in the middle of his neatly organized desk. He uses his ring finger to slide it across the surface, until it sits at the edge.
“Take it.”
With shaking legs, I walk farther into the room. I extend my hand and curl my fingers around my notebook. It’s unusually hot to touch, as if he left his heat-print on it. I pick it up, ready to tuck it away in my coat pocket, but his fingers snap around my wrist and halt my progress.
“Not so fast,” he says softly. “Read it to me.”
“What?”
His fingers are so long that he can encircle my tiny wrist completely, and I’m shivering at his power. On top of that, he stands, towering over me. I have to crane my neck up to look at him. “The poem. Read it to me.”
My eyes bug out of my skull. I must look like a cartoon because Holy shit! I can’t.
“No.”
Thomas lets go of my hand but I’m not relieved—not when I can see how bunched up his body is, how coiled with restrained strength.
I lick my dried lips and his eyes follow the action. They are charged with erotic electricity, and a silly hiccup jerks out of my throat as I draw in a breath. I slap my hand over my mouth in mortification and walk backward.
For every inch I move away, he gains two. He is advancing on me, blocking out the meager light and the view of the snow through the windows.
Clutching the notebook to my chest, I keep walking until I’m right back where I started—at the door, my spine pressing into the wood and the knob digging into the small of my back—only this time Thomas is right there with me. He is so close that I can feel his fire and the flames dancing on his skin, but not close enough to touch and burn.
Fire-breather.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
His stare is making me fall apart. What is happening? Unable to return it, I eye the patch of skin on his throat, which is directly in front of me. “I can’t.”
He goes still at my threadbare voice but then his Adam’s apple bobs, hitches, like his throat is inundated with swollen emotions. “You wrote it for me.”
His thick whisper compels me to lift my gaze. My first reaction is to deny it, but I reject the idea as soon as it comes. Some weird intuition tells me he needs it, like he needed my orgasm, my desperation at the bar.
Hypnotized, I nod. “I did.”
“Then do it,” he bites out.
My eyes go back and forth between his face and his throat, watching the odd intensity of his expression and the savage pounding of his pulse. It’s difficult for him, this display, but I’m guessing his emotions are too big to contain. He can’t stop them from bleeding out, and I can’t stop myself from absorbing it in my pores.
My hands tremble as I open my notebook and flip to the page I wrote the poem on. I could recite it without looking, but I need this barrier because God, this is crazy. It’s fucking crazy and it’s turning me on.
Words blur as a full-body tremble clutches me in its grip. I grab the knob behind my back with one hand and tighten the hold on my notebook with the other. Somehow I focus and get the words to stop swimming.
“It-It burns when you look at m-me,” I whisper, my tongue feeling heavy.
“Flames dance in your eyes, in them the fire resides.
Turning me into ashes. Black and p-powdery.
It…It’s a slow process. My disintegration.”
I stop to take a breath. My breasts are heavy and so are my thighs, heavy and needy. I rub my ass against the smooth door, which does nothing to abate the thick lust in me.
“Keep going.”
“It-It begins with a spark of heat, a sizzle so tiny.” I jump when I feel something brush against my throat.
I almost drop the notebook when I see his finger grazing the top button of my coat. Every time, I’m hit by the fact that his fingers are so long and thick. Tiny curls of hair sprout from his knuckles, making them look masculine. They feel right, which means it’s probably wrong.
“What are you doing?”
Thomas is focused on the task. “Unbuttoning your coat.”
“Wh-Why?”
“Because I want to.” He shrugs. His reply is both arrogant and boyish.
The top button opens, revealing a sliver of my skin. “Thomas. Don’t…please.”
“Keep reading.” He unbuttons the second one and then the third, followed by the fourth. Out of habit, I expect cold to rush in any minute, but I know it won’t. Thomas is close; the sun follows him wherever he goes.
I let go of the knob and curl my hand over his, stopping him from going further. “Please. Stop.”
His eyes lift and I can’t draw in a breath. If I thought he needed me to read the poem for some bizarre reason only he’s privy to, then I was wrong. That wasn’t need. That wasn’t…anything. This is need. This. The flush of his cheeks. The clench of his jaw. The flare of his nostrils dragging in a bucketful of air as though his lungs are starved. He
is starved for me.
I’ve never been looked at this way before, never been someone’s blazing focus of attention. My body, my very soul pressures me to move my hand from on top of his.
Oh God, I’m going to let him do this, aren’t I? I’m going to let him unbutton my coat.
My hand falls away and he continues his task. The silence is too much, and the only way to fill it is by reading the poem, so I do it.
“A warmth…” My coat is completely unbuttoned now. My chunky green sweater shows through the gap. Guess what, it has buttons too. He parts my coat, careful to not touch my skin, and pushes it over my shoulders. I roll them and it hangs lifelessly, awkwardly from my body.
Thomas runs his finger along the V of my sweater, feeling the soft but fuzzy cloth before stopping at the top pearl white button.
A drop of sweat skates down my spine and I arch my back—only a fraction, but he notices. The vein on the side of his neck pounds in answer.
“A warmth invisible. It leaps and grows,
Turns my skin red and roars.
Then I burn. Slow and steady.
It hurts when you look at me.”
Thomas has reached the middle of my sweater and there is no way I can focus on reading. I let the notebook fall, along with my coat and grab the knob with my other hand. I’m sliding down. My thighs are slippery, my hands sweaty. There’s an inferno in my stomach courtesy of the fire-breather.
“Finish the poem, Layla,” he says, his fingers about to reach the last button.
I attempt to shake my head but in reality, it lolls from side to side against the door. “I-I can’t. I can’t do it. It’s too much.”
I look to the ceiling and scrunch my eyes closed when I feel him pop the last button. Tamping down a needy moan, I clamp my quivering thighs together.
“Next time.” I hear the smile in his voice and latch on to his words.
There’s going to be a next time? I snap my attention back to his slightly bent head. He is clutching the edges of my green sweater in a tight fist. The color on his knuckles is leached out, leaving them white and almost trembling with need. I can see he is as desperate to unveil my skin as I am to expose it to him.
The Unrequited Page 14