No Strings

by J. C. Hayden

  I love you! I wanted to shout, thoughts suddenly flooding my brain that I’d tried to keep buried, tried to keep at bay, but couldn’t be resisted when he was right there, looking at me. I love you, for maybe longer than I’ve even realized, and I want to be with you, for real, I want to hold you and kiss you and love you and touch you and be yours. I want everything—I want mornings by the reservoir and whispered words at night, I want everyone to know that you’re mine. I want—

  “Brody,” I breathed finally, every other word I wanted to say was caught in my throat, and all I could do was look at him.

  “I need to talk to you,” Brody whispered.

  I froze for a moment. My entire body seemed to be quivering. “I…”

  “I need to talk to you,” Brody repeated, his voice firmer this time.

  “Shhh!” someone hissed a few tables over.

  “Come on.” Brody stood up and walked the few steps to where I was sitting. I stared up at him, eyes wide, heart thumping, and he looked down at me, a slight frown between his eyebrows as he studied my face for a moment before he slowly reached forward and took my hand in his. I looked down at our joined hands for a moment before I looked back up at him and stood. As soon as I was up, Brody was pulling me along toward the front of the library.

  I couldn’t help but notice how different it was to hold his hand. How thrilling.

  He pushed through the heavy doors and continued to drag me through the library and down the hall and around several corners. We came to a door to a study room and Brody pushed it open with his free hand, glancing around the room briefly before pulling me inside and shutting the door.

  Once the door was shut, Brody dropped my hand and took a few steps away from me before turning to face me. I held my breath.

  “That didn’t take long.”

  I frowned. “What—”

  “We stopped seeing each other—what?—three weeks ago, and already you’re fucking Jeffries?”

  My mouth fell open in shock. I didn’t even have the sense to be angry or indignant. The only thing I could possibly feel was shock. Because surely he wasn’t standing there, a few feet away, looking gorgeous, saying those words to me when all I wanted was his arms around me. He couldn’t be saying those things, the harsh, callous words that didn’t even make any sense, that were pulled from the air, that came out of nothing.

  “Nothing to say to that?”

  “Brody.” I finally found my voice as I shook my head, trying to make sense of what was happening. “What are you talking about?”

  He laughed humorlessly. A cruel laugh I wouldn’t have believed came from him unless I had seen him open his mouth. “I’m talking about me fucking you for a month and a half, and then you pretending to be all hurt after the soccer final when you clearly had your sights set on someone else.”

  My mouth fell open again, his words truly stunning me. “I don’t know what you think, but that’s not—”

  “Oh, it isn’t? Because that’s what it looks like to me.”

  “Brody—”

  “It looks to me like you’re dating Jeffries.”

  My mouth opened and closed a few times. “I…” Hell, it does look like that. I knew it did.

  “Well?” Brody asked, looking angrier than I had ever seen him. “Aren’t you?”

  Truthfully, I didn’t know. “I…” I swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t even understand where—”

  “What was I to you, Catrina?” Brody asked suddenly, taking a step closer as his eyes narrowed.

  How could I possibly answer that? What I knew was what we were supposed to be, how I was supposed to feel. I had no idea what he was to me—all I knew was that I didn’t feel like I was supposed to. How to answer that?

  How could I say that, to me, he was everything?

  “I don’t—”

  “Because I’ll tell you what I think,” he went on, taking another step closer. “I think I was just a quick bang, a place holder for you to get past your sexual insecurities so that you could move onto the person you really wanted all along, the one you could have what you really wanted with. I think I was just convenient, just there, and that as soon as you had an excuse, you went running into Jeffries’s willing arms.”

  The shock that had frozen me suddenly slid away to reveal a level of anger that I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. “Excuse me?” I said quietly, coldly.

  “Nothing to say then?”

  Rage flooded me.

  “Oh, I have plenty to say,” I said, practically growling as the anger surged up even harder. This time, it was me who took a step forward. “First, how dare you,” I spat. “How dare you stand there and say those things to me when I have done nothing but miss you and want you for the past three weeks. I have done nothing but wish that I could erase all of the bad things that happened and just go back to how things were before. I have done nothing but wish I had never even gone to that soccer game, but I was a fool for wanting to be there, wanting to see you.”

  Brody scoffed and my blood boiled.

  “I have done nothing but wish that we could have had more than just the casual fling that you insisted it be. I have wished for everything to be different, wished that I didn’t want you, that I didn’t care about you, that I didn’t love you, and now you have the gall to stand there, after everything you’ve put me through and say those words to me—to stand there and say that you were the place holder for me when you and I both know that you were the one who said over and over that you didn’t do relationships, that you didn’t want to be tied down at school, that you didn’t understand what other people saw in it.”

  I stepped forward again, shoving a finger in his direction, so angry, so lit up with the fury inside me that I didn’t even realize what I’d let slip. “You were the one who threw Tabitha in my face at the game. You—”

  “Because you were all over Jeffries when the game was over!” Brody shouted so loudly that it made me jump.

  “What—?”

  “Oh, you couldn’t wait to run to him when the game was over, couldn’t wait to fawn all over him for God knows what, and you couldn’t wait to brag about all of his great accomplishments—”

  “I mentioned the PhD program because you—Brody, what are you talking about?” I threw my hands up angrily as my voice continued to climb, as the confusion almost overrode the anger, but not quite. “I wasn’t—”

  “You were all over him. I even saw you during the game, in the stands, cuddled up next to him. Then you had the nerve to act all put out when I decided to show I didn’t care just as much as you didn’t.”

  Everything was falling into place, everything was making sense.

  Of course.

  Brody had been jealous that day.

  Suddenly I remembered the anger and intensity he exhibited during the game that day. How I’d never seen him like that. How he was ruthless in his severity. I never would have imagined he was reacting like that because of me. Until now. Then, he’d obviously seen me with Callum after the game when I’d hugged him and congratulated him about his PhD program.

  Brody was jealous.

  He didn’t know how I felt about him, not really. Because I’d never actually said it. He felt insecure, just like I did. God, how could I not have realized it before? He did care, of course he did, he did want—

  “And then you tell me you have feelings that you can’t separate—”

  My anger was back in a flash.

  “Because that was—is—the truth!”

  “But if you had feelings, I don’t think you’d be holding his hand and fucking KISSING HIM AT THE FESTIVAL!”

  I sucked in a breath, frozen, my mouth hanging slightly open as I stared at Brody, who was panting slightly, standing so close I could smell his cologne.

  “You…” I finally managed. “You saw that?”

  Brody huffed angrily. “I went after you,” he said. He stare
d at me for a few moments longer before he began to pace. My heart screamed: He went after you! He cares!

  I took a step back so I could grip the nearby table, feeling weak and sick with my anger and frustration and confusion. “I went after you to tell you how sorry I was, to tell you that I messed up and that I wanted to make it up to you—everything I wanted to tell you when I found you in Marmaduke’s—I wanted to tell you… so much, God, and when I ran after you, all the way to your apartment, I saw the two of you, and…”

  “He kissed me.” It was all I could think to say. “I didn’t—”

  “Oh, please,” Brody said, his voice rising again. “You couldn’t wait to—”

  “What do you want from me, Brody?” I yelled, throwing my hands out to my sides. He stopped pacing and looked at me. Because as much as I wanted to deny—he kissed me, I didn’t want it, I wanted, still want, you—I was also furious that he had the nerve to be angry when he had made all the choices that had led us right here.

  “Do you expect me to just wait and wait for you to finally come around”—never mind that that had been exactly what I’d planned on after I’d talked with my mother—“expect me to just wait until you decide what you want? Well what about what I want? What about what I choose?” I dropped my hands and stepped closer. Suddenly it was imperative that I say all this. For him and for myself. Because I knew I was wrong. I couldn’t wait. I shouldn’t have to.

  I deserved more.

  “I slept with you because I wanted to do something for me, and I was so happy with you, and it felt so good to do something that was for me, and you… What did you expect? ‘I don’t have girlfriends because I don’t find that whole thing appealing’,” I threw his words back at him. “That’s what you said to me. So what did you expect? For me to just keep fucking you forever without any feelings developing? Without wanting more? That’s ridiculous, and I’m human. And after I developed feelings, what was I supposed to do? Continue to sleep with you even though I wanted more and you didn’t? How could I do that to myself? How could I put myself through that pain of having what I wanted just out of reach? Especially after the way you treated me after the game. And then when the inevitable happened, when it ended, then what did you expect? Did you expect me to be hung up on someone forever who would never want me the way I wanted him?”

  I was heaving when I finished my short speech, but I suddenly felt resolute. Empowered. I deserved more, and I’d be damned if I’d let this man make me think otherwise.

  Brody’s jaw clenched and unclenched several times as he stared at me. He didn’t say anything, and I knew it was because there was nothing he could say—there was nothing to counter what I had said because every last bit of it true. We’d both known from the beginning that what we were doing would be temporary—that casual, no strings, couldn’t possibly last forever.

  “We agreed it wouldn’t be… more,” Brody said finally, his features softening just ever so slightly. “You tried to leave so many mornings, sometimes you did, you didn’t want to stay, you didn’t want more—”

  “I did,” I interrupted softly. “I just didn’t want you to know it. I tried to leave because I didn’t want you to see how I really felt. I was scared you’d end it if you did.”

  “You ended it,” he countered lamely, almost desperately.

  “Yes, because I knew you didn’t want what I wanted, and I deserve more than that.”

  I raised my chin a bit, feeling sure of my words, more sure than I’d felt in weeks about anything.

  “We agreed—”

  “I know what we agreed on, Brody,” I said as all the fight seemed to melt away from me. We seemed to be at an impasse. “We agreed on casual until we didn’t want to do it anymore. And I don’t. Not like this.”

  Brody looked at me, and I looked back, both of us unable to read the emotions on the other’s face. There was just too much there, too much unsaid.

  Finally, Brody ran a hand through his hair agitatedly and said, “I don’t like seeing you with him.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so all I managed was, “I’m sorry.”

  His eyes were slightly wide on his next question. “Are you, you know, with him? Are you two together?”

  Despite everything, I knew there was one simple answer—one simple truth.

  “No,” I said.

  After a pause he said, “I should go,” his eyes trained on the floor.

  “Okay,” I said because what else could I say, really?

  And when he walked past me and out the door of the study room, I didn’t cry, I didn’t collapse to the floor like I wanted to, I didn’t run after him, but instead I walked toward a window that looked out onto the campus. It was a cloudy, gloomy night, I couldn’t see the moon, and it matched the gloom that had seemed to find permanent residence in me for weeks.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes for a moment. I let all the feelings wash over me, claim me, letting his words settle into me, and it was in that moment that I realized what I’d said.

  I told Brody that I loved him.

  There it was—everything was out in the open, everything was there, and now there was nothing more I could do but see if it made a difference, to see if I could have what I wanted—the love I deserved.

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  The night of my final Carmen performance I was awash with nerves and anxiety.

  The first two performances I hadn’t felt nervous at all. My family had come to both performances so far and would be at tonight’s as well. They had sung my praises and showered me with the love and affection I’d been craving both nights. My father had even had tears in his eyes as he told me what a beautiful voice I had.

  I didn’t know why tonight was so different. I didn’t know why I felt so jittery. It was my final performance. I should be happy, relieved, ready to take on this character and then let her go. I knew I could do this. I was excited to get on that stage and sing my heart out. But as I stared in my dressing room mirror, I couldn’t shake the nerves.

  I was about to get up and take my position when a familiar face popped up behind me and I saw his reflection in the mirror.

  “Gabe!”

  “Hey, babe,” he said with a grin as I jumped out of my chair and rushed over to him to give him a huge hug. He embraced me tightly before pulling back and putting his hands on my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the first couple performances but I’m excited to see you on your final night,” he said. “You look amazing.”

  I was wearing a peasant skirt and a corset top for the beginning of the opera. I had also used a temporary hair dye meant to last only a week that colored my hair a deep shade of black. My makeup was done impeccably by Talia, of course.

  “Thanks, Gabe,” I said with a forced smile.

  Of course, since he’d known me since birth, he immediately knew something wasn’t right with me.

  “What’s wrong, Cat?” he asked quietly.

  He handed me the bouquet of flowers and I put them with the rest of my stuff. It was such an amazingly sweet gesture that I didn’t have the heart to tell him that flowers were usually given after a show.

  As soon as Gabe asked what was wrong, though, I felt my eyes flood with tears. I immediately grabbed a tissue from the vanity next to me and gently dabbed my eyes so I wouldn’t ruin my eye makeup. I felt raw and split open all of the sudden, like anyone could see all the thoughts and feelings swirling inside me, and it was almost physically painful to have someone this close witnessing my despair. My pathetic, pointless despair over a guy who fucked me and then decided he’d had enough. Or had at least decided that I—that we—weren’t worth it enough to stay. To try. To fight.

  Gabe led me to a nearby chair and sat next to me. I was breathing heavily, trying desperately not to cry, and when I was finally able to gather myself, I stared at Gabe for a long time. It was then that I realized the weight that I was carrying with me all night.

  “Gabe,
I…”

  “What is it, Cat? What happened? What can I do?”

  It came out before I knew what was happening, spewing from me like water from a geyser. One minute I was staring into Gabe’s sparkling green eyes, remembering when we were kids and we’d sit together, talking about the big issues, like why our parents wouldn’t let us stay out after dark. One minute I was sitting there looking at this person I loved so much, trying not to let him see what was below the surface, and the next minute my mouth was open and the words were there, spilling out in front of us.

  “Gabe…” I said slowly. I thought he was either going to laugh at me or kill me. But when I said, “I slept with Brody,” he did neither.

  “What?”

  “I slept with Brody,” I repeated. Then I laughed humorlessly. “A lot.”

  Gabe shook his head, and when he responded, he shocked the hell out of me. “I fucking knew it.”

  My jaw dropped. “You what?”

  “I knew there was something going on between you two,” he said quickly. “That day of the soccer final when he had Tabitha all over him. He—” Gabe scoffed. “He hates Tabitha. I knew there was a reason why he was acting like that. And then when I saw the look on your face I just knew. I told myself I was being weird and paranoid, but I knew. That day by the reservoir…” Gabe trailed off and I remembered the day Brody went off on Holly for once again trying to tease me about my virginity.

  Suddenly, Gabe’s eyebrows drew tightly together. “Brody’s been terrible this last month,” Gabe said, mainly to himself. “What happened with you two?”

  I sighed and told him everything that had happened after the soccer final. Gabe was shaking his head angrily.

  “God, he’s so fucking stupid. And so damn stubborn. I’m going to—”

  “No, Gabe, please don’t say anything to him. I’m tired of fighting with him.” I sighed. “I just want him to be happy—”

  “You would make him happy,” Gabe interrupted.

  “I used to think so, too.”