Rikki

by Abigail Strom

  “And?”

  “And… a part of me thinks this is some kind of punishment, because I didn’t appreciate my life enough. Or… I don’t know… the universe’s way of balancing the scales, or something.” I shook my head. “I’m not making any sense. That makes it sound like my moms’ divorce is about me, and I know it’s not. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.”

  “I do,” Sam said.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. I’ve thought all that stuff, too. Thinking it’s a punishment is your way of blaming yourself.”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Why would I want to blame myself?”

  “Because then there’d be a reason for what happened. If we convince ourselves we’re to blame for the bad things, that we caused them, then somehow the universe makes a little more sense. Shitty sense, but sense. And the whole balancing the scales thing? That’s another way we try to rationalize. Like there’s a pattern we can see if we just look hard enough. But life isn’t like that. It’s not an equation with two sides that balance. There’s no symmetry to it that we can perceive, no pattern we can understand. I’m not saying there isn’t a pattern, but if there is, it can only be seen from really, really far away.”

  “Are you talking about God?” I asked skeptically.

  He smiled at me. “That’s one possibility, sure. But you can also get distance with the perspective of time. Isn’t that why you like history?”

  I nodded. “Yes. What you said about patterns… I like being able to see the whole picture of something that happened, like the Civil War. The economic factors, the social factors, the political factors. I like being able to put it all together and make sense of it.” I sighed. “And I hate that I can’t do that with my own life.”

  “Everything is easier with distance. Sometimes that’s good.” He paused. “But if you try to get distance from your own emotions, there’s a price to pay.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it made me think of the story he’d told about his father. “You said your dad had trouble expressing emotions. Did he get better at it? With you and your sister, and your mom?”

  “Yeah, but he always had to work at it. Dying helped, though.”

  I stared at him. “Dying helped?”

  He nodded. “My dad got diagnosed more than a year before he died. He said that knowing how much time he had left helped him live more consciously.” He paused. “Have you heard of Warren Zevon?”

  “I don’t think so. Is he a scientist, like your dad?”

  “No, he’s a musician. Have you ever heard the song ‘Werewolves in London’?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s Warren Zevon. Like my dad, he had advance notice that he was going to die. So he spent the time he had left really deliberately. He recorded his last album and even wrote a song about dying called ‘Keep Me in Your Heart.’ My mom played it at my dad’s funeral.”

  I was quiet for a while, thinking about Sam’s father and then thinking about Beth and Charlotte. “I wish things didn’t have to change or end or die.”

  “But you wouldn’t want everything to just freeze in place. You wouldn’t want to stay a child, would you? Growing up is change, too. We’re changing all the time. You’re changing now. Knowing that everything changes and passes away is part of being human.”

  “A sucky part.”

  “Sometimes. But people can make something beautiful out of something sucky. Like that Warren Zevon song? It wouldn’t exist if hadn’t been dying.”

  I sighed. “You’re a good debater, Sam, but you’ll never persuade me to be a fan of death.”

  He smiled at that. “I’m not trying to. I’m not a fan, either. But I am a fan of human beings and the things death brings out in us. Bravery and love and all that.”

  Bravery and love and all that.

  I don’t know what it was about those words, but they seemed to break something inside me. Maybe because I didn’t feel brave at all, maybe because I didn’t understand why Sam’s father had to die or my parents had to divorce, or what had happened to the love they’d shared for so long.

  Whatever the reason, the tears that had been stinging my eyes were now spilling down my cheeks. And then Sam was sitting next to me and I was sobbing into his shoulder with my arms around his neck.

  His arms were around me, too, and he was murmuring something sweet and comforting and unintelligible.

  At first I was only conscious of the ball of pain inside my chest and the warm, comforting strength that Sam embodied. But gradually I became more aware of Sam and less aware of the pain. I was aware of his scent—soap and shaving cream and clean male skin. I was aware of his arm around my waist and his hand at the back of my head, stroking my hair.

  I was aware of myself, too. I was aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra under my camisole, and that my breasts were pressed against Sam’s chest. Those two surfaces, one hard and one soft, molded together to make one new thing—a point of contact electrified by my racing heart and a kind of raw heat that ignited where our bodies touched.

  But my heart wasn’t the only one racing. I could feel Sam’s heartbeat, too—harder and stronger and faster than mine.

  It would have been so easy to kiss him. I could press my lips into his skin right there—right where his neck met his shoulder. Or I could pull back enough to look him in the eye before kissing him on the mouth.

  I wanted to kiss him. I closed my eyes and let that wanting spill over me, tingling in every nerve ending.

  But Sam wasn’t trying to kiss me. If I wanted something to happen, I would have to make it happen. It would be my decision. My move.

  I didn’t want to be the one who changed things between us. I didn’t want that responsibility.

  And I definitely didn’t want the humiliation if he didn’t kiss me back.

  So once I had my tears under control I pulled back and tried to smile.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “I didn’t mean to cry all over you.”

  “That’s okay,” Sam said, his voice rougher and more gravelly than usual.

  “I should go back upstairs.”

  He frowned at me. “You’re tired. Stay here.”

  “But my room’s free. Tamsin’s not with Oscar.”

  He got up from my bed and went back to his. “Stay here,” he said again.

  I hesitated, but the temptation was overwhelming. The truth was, I liked sleeping just a few feet away from him.

  “Okay,” I said, getting under the covers.

  Sam got under his covers, too, and turned out the light.

  “Are you feeling any better?” he asked after a moment.

  I thought about it. “Not really, no.”

  “You mean I don’t have the magical ability to heal emotional wounds?”

  I turned on my side to face him, and with my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see that he was on his side facing me.

  “Have your wounds been healed?” I asked.

  “Progress has been made,” he said. “But it’s a slow process.” He paused. “Good night, Rikki.”

  “Good night.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  His lips were on mine and his hands were everywhere.

  “Sam,” I murmured, arching up to meet him. “Sam…”

  “Rikki? Are you okay?”

  I blinked, disoriented. What the hell was…

  Oh.

  I’d been dreaming about Sam, and I’d said his name in my sleep.

  I sat up and looked over at him. He was sitting up, too, and morning light was streaming in through the windows.

  “You said my name,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  Embarrassment cringed through me.

  “Could I… have some coffee?” I asked tentatively.

  He stared at me. “Coffee,” he repeated. “You said my name because you want me to make you coffee?”

  “Um. Yes?”

  He grinned at me. �
��You talk about coffee in your sleep? Wow. I’ve seen caffeine addictions before but you’ve really got it bad.”

  His words and expression seemed innocent enough, but I was paranoid.

  You’ve really got it bad. Did he mean the coffee, or something else? He’d heard me say his name in my sleep. Did he know I’d been dreaming about him?

  There was a knock on the door. Both Sam and I turned at the sound, but before either of us could say anything, the door opened and Jason stuck his head in.

  “Hey, man. Do you think I could borrow your—” He saw me and stopped. “Rikki,” he said after a moment.

  There was no reason to feel awkward, I told myself. I mean, I’d obviously spent the night here and I was wearing a camisole with no bra—a fact that Jason, currently staring at my chest, had definitely noticed—but Sam and I hadn’t slept together.

  “I needed a place to crash, and Sam has a spare bed,” I said quickly.

  Jason leaned against the doorframe and grinned at me. “Good to know,” he said. “Because I was planning to ask you to go out with me tonight.”

  He was asking me on a date? While I was sitting braless in another guy’s room?

  I tried to focus. “But you guys have your gig tonight.”

  “I know. We’re opening for another band, so it’ll still be early when our set is over. I thought we could hang out after that.”

  I had a weird sense of floating out of my body, like I was watching all of this happen to some other girl.

  Some other girl was sitting in Sam’s bed in a camisole with no bra. Some other girl had called out Sam’s name in her sleep. Some other girl was staring at Jason, the guy she’d had a crush on since the first day of college, and listening to him ask her out.

  I was looking at Jason, but I could feel Sam’s eyes on me, too. I didn’t know what to say, so I did what I always do when I feel out of my depth.

  I retreated to a point of safety.

  “We’re going as a group to hear you guys play,” I said. “So… I’ll definitely see you afterward. As part of, you know, the group thing.”

  “The group thing.”

  “Right.”

  He cocked his head to the side and looked at me, and I felt my face heating up.

  “Well,” he said, smiling slowly, “I suppose that’s a start. It’ll be up to me to convince you that the group thing should evolve into a date thing.” His smile widened. “I’m looking forward to the challenge. See you tonight, Rikki.”

  After the door closed behind him neither Sam nor I spoke for a minute.

  “I wonder what he was going to borrow,” I said finally, unable to tolerate the silence any more.

  “Probably my shampoo. He’s borrowed it the last couple days.”

  “Oh.”

  A short silence.

  “You still want some coffee?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, grateful for the new topic as well as the prospect of caffeine.

  “So what are you up to today?” Sam asked, going over to the coffee maker.

  Once he had his back to me I could look at him again. “I have to finish my essay on the military genius of Ulysses S. Grant. Lousy president, awesome general.” I sighed. “It’ll be nice to focus on something that actually makes sense.”

  “Unlike…?”

  “My own life, I guess. With history, you have the perspective of time. Like you said last night, right? It’s easier to understand something when you have some distance from it.”

  “I also said that if you try to distance yourself from your own emotions, there’s a price to pay.”

  I looked at him warily. He still had his back to me, scooping coffee grounds into the filter. His voice sounded casual, but… “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I just think that at some point you’re going to have to deal with some stuff that you’re not dealing with now.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

  “You mean my parents? I am dealing with that. Or at least I’m trying to.”

  He poured water into the reservoir, stuck the pot on the burner, and turned on the coffee maker. Then he turned around to face me.

  “I don’t just mean your parents.”

  He looked serious, and suddenly I felt afraid.

  “There isn’t anything else I’m not dealing with,” I snapped.

  “Yeah? Then why are you hanging onto that blanket like it’s some kind of shield?”

  I looked down at myself and saw that he was right. I was clutching the covers so hard my knuckles were white.

  I hated that Sam had noticed that. It was enough to send me back to our high school days, when my priority around Sam was to keep the upper hand—no matter what.

  I unclenched my fingers and let the quilt go. “What is it you think I’m not dealing with?” I asked, keeping my voice cool.

  “Don’t you think it’s interesting that you’ve always gone for guys that don’t go for you? It’s kept you from getting serious with anybody.”

  My face flooded with color. “That’s not true. I’ve gone out with guys who liked me.”

  “Guys like Aaron? Sure. But you weren’t really into any of them, so nothing got serious. And the guys you’ve been into? They never made a move, and you never said a word to them. Keeps things kind of… virtual, wouldn’t you say? In your mind, where you can stay in control.”

  My hands fisted again, but they were under the covers this time. “What are you saying?”

  Sam ran both hands through his hair. The movement made his arm muscles flex and I tried to ignore it, since I wasn’t in the mood to feel attracted to someone who was starting to piss me off.

  “I’m saying that maybe it’s time to go after something you want instead of hanging back and waiting for… well, whatever the hell you’re waiting for.”

  For just a second I thought he might be talking about himself, and my heart started to race. Then:

  “I mean, come on. He stood right there and asked you out.”

  He wasn’t talking about himself. He was talking about Jason.

  “You wanted me to say yes?”

  “If you’re interested in him, then yeah.”

  “But… before… you said he wasn’t good enough for me.”

  “I don’t think he is. But what I think doesn’t matter.”

  “He has a girlfriend,” I said, wondering who I was arguing against—Sam or myself.

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  I blinked. “He doesn’t?”

  “They broke up last week. I was with him when he got the call.”

  I tried to process this information. “So… Jason doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Not anymore.”

  I was trying to understand my own reactions to all this and failing miserably.

  I didn’t know how I felt about Jason’s newly single status. But I did know that Sam pushing me to date him made me feel like shit.

  How many times and in how many different ways was Sam going to let me know he wasn’t interested? Maybe he whacked off with my panties, maybe looking at me half-naked made him hard, but that was obviously just biology. It didn’t mean anything.

  So what if he’s not interested in you. You’re not interested in him, either.

  But the words were starting to sound hollow.

  “You think I should go out with Jason.”

  “I think you should if you’re interested. Are you?”

  I felt angry and hurt and raw. And while I didn’t completely understand everything I was feeling right now, I was one hundred percent sure I didn’t want Sam to see any of it.

  “Yeah, I’m interested.”

  Maybe it was even true. After I got away from Sam I’d try to figure that out.

  Sam’s jaw tightened. “Then go out with him,” he practically growled. “What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation to come out of your Plexiglas bubble and live your life?”

  “You think…”
My voice shook a little, and I cleared my throat. “You think I’m a coward?”

  Sam didn’t back down. “About this, yes. You’re more of an observer than a participant in your own damn life.”

  I got out of bed and went to the door. When my hand was on the knob I turned to face him.

  “Well, Sam, I guess I should thank you. You’ve really shown me the light, you know? Although it does seem like a Do what I say, not what I do kind of scenario.”

  He frowned at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I gestured around his room. “I’m just wondering where she is.”

  “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend. You know, since you’re so gung-ho about taking romantic chances or whatever. Because in case you haven’t noticed, the only one who ever seems to be in here is me. So what are you waiting for? Why aren’t you going after what you want? I know Mena wasn’t right for you, but she’s not the only girl in the world. Isn’t there anyone else you’re attracted to?”

  Sam’s eyes were dark and angry and intense. “The girl I’m interested in isn’t interested in me.”

  I felt a pang in my chest as I wondered who it could be. Dyshell? Tamsin? Claire? Someone from one of his classes I hadn’t met yet?

  “So find someone else,” I shot back. “If you can stand there and tell me to go after a guy I want, I can tell you not to pine after someone who’s not available.”

  “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I guess you can.”

  I wasn’t sure I could stay any longer without showing more emotion than I was comfortable with.

  “Good luck with that,” I said stiffly—and then I left.

  On my way to the stairwell I stopped and turned around. I looked at Sam’s door for a moment and then across the hall at Jason’s.

  Then I marched over to it and knocked.

  “Come in,” I heard, and I pushed the door open.

  Jason was sprawled on his bed with his guitar, but when he saw me standing there he sat up straight.

  “Rikki, hey. What’s up?”

  “I want to have a date thing with you. Tonight.”

  He blinked. “You do?”

  “Yes.”