EDGES

by C. G. Carroll

  “Josh, you didn’t need to do this, really. Not for me.”

  He paused, her words seeming to dampen his spirits a bit. “I wanted to.”

  They held each other’s gaze for a moment. “Okay, you’re right,” she said, smiling. “It smells freakin’ good.”

  He brightened up. “I’ll serve it for you, just hold up your plate.” She did and with a large ladle he scooped out the white sauce and swirled it over her noodles.

  Conversation flowed, comfortable and easy, about school, the local bars, life in general.

  Simone felt a vulnerability blossoming inside of her, with him sitting across from her. His hazel irises caught the candlelight, dancing and flickering in the bend.

  She was hoping he wouldn’t bring up the topics pressing on the periphery of the conversation. Such as, what were they actually doing right now? Where was the relationship going, could they get physical again without it being too weird?

  The dish was spectacular, literally restaurant quality, maybe better.

  “Good job, Joshie,” she commended him as they finished.

  “You liked it? Great. I’m happy then.”

  They finished up and he set their plates by the sink. She stood up and stretched and then moseyed on over to the couch with her wine. She somehow worked her way into a second glass, a fuller, heavier one this time.

  Josh joined her after a minute of clean-up.

  “What’s next?” she asked.

  He shrugged and smiled. With a steady and confident motion, he reached out and took her hand. He squeezed down warmly and she felt the strength of his grip. “I just want you to know that I still want to have whatever this is that we’re doing, I still want it with you.”

  “Josh—” she tried to stop him there.

  “No, just let me say it. I’m not here to pressure you, or rush things. As long as you need to figure things out, or even if you just want to keep it light. Hell, even if you need to date around a bit, I can wait until you’re ready, because I care a lot about you, Simone.”

  “Josh—”

  “But the one thing is,” he continued, “that I can’t just be friends with you. I just can’t do that. It would be a lie.”

  She breathed heavy, feeling the weight of the moment bear on her. “It’s not that I don’t want that too, it’s just… I have something personal going on right now that I have to deal with.”

  He kept his gaze steady on her. “Like a disease or something? You’re not dying, are you?”

  She laughed, but it was in exasperation. God, how badly she just wanted to come clean right then. But her mouth literally couldn’t form the words to tell him.

  “Whatever it is,” he said, “you can tell me. And even if you can’t, that’s fine, I just need to know we’re heading in the right direction. I need a sign of some kind.”

  She nestled up closer to him, so that the outsides of their legs were pressed together. “That better?”

  He smiled and lifted his arm up and curled it around her. “Much.”

  For a tiny moment Simone forgot about her issues and let him kiss her. And it felt good. There was garlic on both their breaths, but the lovely soft press of his lips on hers only made her feel closer to him.

  They kissed and slowly he eased her down onto the cushions, his mouth moving down her neck. His fingers dug into Simone’s hair and when he gave a gentle tug her chin jutted forward, pressing her neck harder into his lips.

  Josh lifted her into the air without warning, took her up in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung on. He carried her all the way into the bedroom and laid her down onto the bed.

  It was going to happen, and as Simone melted into his blankets, she felt inside her body that she wanted it to happen.

  Their clothes couldn’t come off quick enough. And once they were having sex, she didn’t want him to wear a condom. She pulled it off of him and tossed it somewhere across the darkness of the room. It felt so good for his skin to touch hers finally.

  They went at it for what must have been thirty minutes, and finally he lost his control and climaxed. They lay there drenched in each other’s sweat.

  Josh asked her if she was able to orgasm and Simone told him she did, even though she hadn’t. She had wanted to, but couldn’t. Her head was too bogged down to really let go. Only once had she been able to actually come with him since the first time they slept together. It was no fault of his own, she decided, just a problem she had.

  They lay there together, and Josh quickly slipped off into sleep. Simone began to cry. A silent cry, thin tears down her face and onto the pillow in the dark. She felt like the weight of the world was crushing her, and maybe it was.

  After some time, she calmed down, and was able to logically think about what she was doing. Sleeping with Josh now? After all she’d done? It was wrong. It was sick. She felt like she was going to vomit. Or faint, maybe.

  Quiet as a mouse, she got up and slipped back into her jeans, found her bra and shirt. She couldn’t find her panties anywhere so she decided to leave them.

  She slipped out the door with Josh still lightly snoring. She glanced at him before shutting it, the candlelight from the kitchen shining in and casting the faintest glow on his face while he lay. Simone took in the sight of him and then shut the door and left.

  Patrick

  HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WERE SLAMMED into the bleacher seats of the gymnasium for graduation, and Patrick, arriving late, gazed up into the sea of people stretching from first row to far rafters.

  Out of nowhere, someone was grabbing at his arm—Lindsey—holding him tightly, already dragging him over to where she was sitting with her friends. They were ten rows up from the court floor, which was covered with a conglomerate of massive tarps and hundreds of empty chairs where the graduates would be sitting in only a few moments.

  He got acquainted as Lindsey’s friends scooted down to make a spot for him.

  They were talking mostly about the parties of the last few nights, Lindsey frequently setting her hand on top of Patrick’s while they spoke. Patrick slowly tuned them out and scanned around the gym, praying he wouldn’t see Tiffany.

  Today was the day. He had to break it off. No more games. But here, with all these people, sitting next to Lindsey, wasn’t the place to do it. Patrick hadn’t even wanted to come to graduation, but some of his friends were walking and he couldn’t just not show.

  He slouched back in his seat, almost lying onto the knees of those behind him, and kept his head turtled. Tiffany would be here somewhere if she wasn’t already, but he just needed the ceremony to start. With the total student body of Fort Lewis College only reaching five thousands students, they held graduation here in the gym, very much like that of a very big high school.

  Patrick spotted Tiffany before she could spot him. She’d come in through the north entrance on his side of the bleachers with Simone walking at her side. She looked lifeless, colorless, and weak.

  He slouched even more, and felt pathetic doing it, hiding from his own girlfriend. But it wasn’t until Simone finally spotted him, smiled, and was about to mount the stairs up to him that she realized Lindsey was there next to him and made an obvious stutter-step. Tiffany noticed and dragged her hollow blue eyes up, and then froze there, glaring and mortified. She was overcome with tears in an instant, and Simone put her arm around her as she curled forward and laid her hands over her face. Simone had the good sense to rush her down to the end of the gymnasium where they cut up the last set of stairs and marched to the very top where there were some still untaken seats.

  Everyone near the floor craned their heads around at Patrick. He laid the edge of his hand to his brow, shielding his eyes. A sense of claustrophobia came over him, like he couldn’t breathe and had to get out of this crowd. Sweat formed under his arms and there was an aching behind his cheeks. He had entered the hurricane, and it was too much for him.

  Lindsey nudged his arm. “Are you all right?”

  His he
ad bobbed without even looking up. She kept trying to wrap her arm around his, then tried to take his hand to comfort him, but Patrick finally shoved it away in frustration. He started to rise from his seat, but the music of the procession began and he was stuck. The ROTC entered with the flags and rifles. Then the professors wearing their eclectic, droopy berets. Then finally the graduates.

  Patrick was trapped for over an hour with a girl he didn’t really even care about, while two he did sat in the deep corner of the gym, one literally bursting at the seams. At that moment he realized Lindsey was an accessory, nothing more. A novelty.

  Lindsey kept quiet and further and further withdrawn during the ceremony. There was a moving speech by the student speaker and a rather drawn out keynote by an alumni.

  When the ceremony closed, Tiffany was a streak of blonde hair racing down the stairs and bolting straight for the exit, arms fiercely crossed, and was gone before Patrick could even attempt to stand up, let alone apologize, not that it would matter now.

  A glut of people formed outside, Tiffany was nowhere to be found. Lindsey gave Patrick a hug and he half-heartedly said goodbye, and she told him she’d be in town until the end of the weekend and wanted to hang out. He said sure, even though there was no way he’d ever see her again. He just wanted her away.

  In the crowd Patrick found the two guys he had wanted to congratulate in the grass outside the gym doors, and then let them get back to their families.

  It was time to get the hell out of there. He wound through families gathered around graduates and came almost to the clearing when someone grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around. He spun around right into a hand smacking him across the face.

  Simone had her hand cocked back, ready to do it again.

  The majority of the crowd had turned and were watching, aghast.

  “I deserved that,” he said, holding up a hand to block her from doing it again. “Please stop.”

  Simone pointed her finger in his face. “Are you fucking sick in the head?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Tell that to the girl who spent the last hour with her head in my lap crying. Honestly, Patrick, are you just that much of a fucking prick that you ignore her for weeks and then rub it in her face by coming with that girl?”

  “I didn’t come with her, she—”

  “It doesn’t matter! If you were going to fuck her at least have some class and end it with Tiffany already.”

  “I’m not fucking her,” he said, defensively.

  He saw what he and Lindsey had done as certainly a one-time thing. “And you’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes burned into him, her hands were shaking, and she seemed at a loss for words.

  “Come on, let’s get away from these people.”

  Everyone was still looking on. He grabbed Simone’s arm and tugged her. She followed him until they were well away from the crowd in a big open field of dewy grass adjacent to the gym.

  Simone had calmed some, and as they stood together Patrick could feel the opening with her, the last strand hanging on of a fragile connection. He could see it in her eyes, which seemed to sparkle through different hues of blue in the morning light. He’d hurt her too, maybe equally somehow. She looked like she herself could cry if he made one more false step.

  He set his hands onto her shoulders. “I won’t say I’m sorry about Tiffany because I know that won’t do any good. But I still need to say I’m sorry to you.”

  “No. We are well beyond sorry now, Patrick. I don’t know if I can ever see you again after all this, even as a friend.”

  His hands squeezed her shoulders. “I should’ve never gotten that deep with Tiffany. It was a mistake. And I was scared to break it off when I should’ve.”

  “Yeah, you should’ve. But you didn’t! Because that’s just you. You’re selfish. You always have to see how far you can take it.”

  “I’m going to end it.”

  “It’s already ended.”

  “But,” he insisted. “I owe her an explanation.”

  Simone shook her head, had to brush the hair from her face. There was wetness now, forming on her eyes, making them glassy, but they never broke.

  “You could be such a catch,” she said, “if you just tried even a little to care about someone else besides yourself. Just a little bit of consideration and—”

  “I know. I know. And I realize that now.”

  Again, she shook her head. “It’s too late.” She turned on her heel and began to pace away from him, but he hurried after her and made her to stop.

  “I can be that guy, I promise you.”

  She turned back, and was listening now.

  “Why are you telling me this? I’m not your girl.”

  “But we could be something, couldn’t we?”

  She laughed, in a defensive, extremely hurt way. “We could never be anything.”

  “See, you claim I don’t try. When have you tried?”

  “You’re turning this around on me?”

  “No,” Patrick said. “All I’m saying is, if you care about me, which I know you do, why don’t you fight for me? You just let Tiffany take me, when really we were the ones who should’ve been together.”

  “Because you aren’t worth it!”

  He paused, giving her time to take it back, but she didn’t. Finally, he nodded, and then turned and started away across the field.

  “Patrick, wait.” She trotted over to him. “Wait, I didn’t mean that.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, almost like instinct, and hugged her. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  She started crying as she was pulled against his chest, closed up in his strong arms.

  “I can’t ever hate you,” she stammered. “Not ever, and God do I want to. But I can’t. No matter how much of a bastard you can be. It makes me want to pull my damn hair out!”

  He chuckled dryly. He could feel her heart beating against his chest. The closeness returned—the same closeness he never once felt with Tiffany.

  “I won’t do this to you again,” he said, once they pulled back enough to look at each other. “I swear to god.”

  “You have to end it tonight, face to face. I’m serious. You’re killing her.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Simone wiped her eyes and composed herself.

  “And then what about us?” he asked.

  “Us?”

  Patrick stared intently at her for a long moment. “I’m sick of living like this. No more lying. No more fucking around.”

  She gave an overwhelmed laugh and looked around the empty field. “When I’m in front of you,” she started, “you want me above all else, which, I must say, makes me feel really beautiful. It feels like I’m in a movie, Patrick. But when I’m not around you’re someone else, and I don’t just want to just be someone’s escape. And that’s how you make me feel. I’m nothing but convenient for you. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”

  He’d never looked at it like that.

  “I’ll change. I am changing.”

  She laughed, almost sardonically. “You can’t change.”

  “I can. It’s true this time. I’ll make you believe.”

  She stepped near him, shaking her head. “Start with tonight, with Tiffany.”

  “Done.”

  Simone hesitated, and then began to walk away again.

  “Hey.”

  She stopped and twisted back, looking at him over her shoulder.

  “I’ll prove you wrong.”

  “I hope you do.”

  He meant it. He wanted to do better. Wanted to be better. He wanted to actually have Simone look at him with respect for once instead of disappointment. Then his mind moved to the thought of Josh and how in love with her he was. That trapped, claustrophobic feeling carried through him again.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

  She turned back toward him. “Now?”

  “Yeah. Wasn’t Tiffany your r
ide?”

  She thought about it. “I’m in for a long walk, I guess.”

  “Come hang out with me.”

  “Patrick, please.”

  “Come on,” he reassured. “I won’t try a thing. I promise. I don’t have a death wish! I just don’t want to be alone. Aren’t you supposed to hang out with Josh later or something?”

  “Yeah, in like three hours though.”

  “Well—” his mind was scrambling for something to convince her “—just text Tiffany that you’re getting a ride but that it’s going to be a little while.”

  “How long, exactly?” she questioned.

  Patrick laughed. “I don’t know. As long as it takes to have a drink. I could really fucking use one. Couldn’t you?”

  Her mouth twisted from one side to the other, contemplating it.

  “We’ll just hang out as friends,” he added. “You can give me more advice. I could use some help and I’m ready to listen.”

  She started toward him again, her steps made soft imprints on the grass. “You don’t need help,” she said, urging him to walk, going with him. “You need to stop letting your dick make all your decisions.”

  “I’ll cut it off as soon as I get home. For us.”

  She laughed. “Just try to be more considerate. Please. And no more lying.”

  He nodded and they smiled at each other.

  They were walking now, side by side toward the parking lot.

  “You know what we used to call it,” she asked, “when you and Tiffany first started dating and we’d just heard the rumors about you?”

  “It? What, my…?”

  She nodded.

  “No,” he said, amused. “What?”

  “The wiener of chaos.”

  He laughed. “I like the sound of that.”

  “And it was true.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  She put both hands together, interlocking her fingers, and bounced them at her waist as they walked. “I’ll hang out with you for a little while, but just a little while. And you keep that thing at bay, deal? I’m completely exhausted, and I don’t want to feel like my life is any more of a disaster zone than it already is. I can’t take it.”