by Noir, Roxie
The front door opens, and there are footsteps on the stairs. Margaret comes in, looks at us on the couch, looks like she’s about to say something but then just nods and takes herself into the kitchen without saying anything.
“Sure, fine,” I mutter, mostly to myself.
“I don’t think you’re wrong to be mad that he didn’t tell you,” Victoria says, slowly. “That’s a lot to spring on a person.”
“It could also be a control thing,” Harper says, reaching for the bowl of chips and settling it on her blanket-covered lap.
“Go on,” I say, munching one.
“Well,” she says, and then stops. She thinks. “Is he gonna be a martyr about it if you go back to him? Is this part of a pattern, where he decides things for you and performs some sort of self-sacrifice, and then expects you to be happy and grateful afterward?”
Victoria’s just nodding.
“Exactly,” she says. “He could have done this out of love, or as a mechanism for control.”
I blink at the screen. Someone is dragging a feather over someone else’s nude back. It looks… tickly.
“That’s a lot to do for control,” I say.
“It’s a lot to do for love,” points out Victoria.
“That’s the big question,” Harper says, and we both turn to her.
We wait.
“What’s the big question?” I finally ask.
“Is he pure of heart?” Harper says, as if that’s the obvious answer. “If he found a unicorn in the forest, would the unicorn befriend him or stab him?”
She crunches another chip, as if this is a totally normal thing to say. Which, for Harper, it kinda is.
“I thought that was virgins,” Victoria says.
“He’s not that,” I point out.
“It’s open to interpretation,” Harper says.
“How do I find this out?” I ask, suddenly pragmatic. “Where do I find a unicorn? Is there witchcraft I can do?”
“Too bad you don’t have ready access to virgin blood any more,” Victoria says.
“Actually, that’s a misconception,” Harper pipes up. “Virgin blood in most rites doesn’t refer to blood from a virgin, it just means blood that hasn’t already been used. Like olive oil.”
Victoria and I look at each other.
“Actually, that makes sense,” Victoria says.
“I think you just have to use judgement about Caleb, though,” Harper adds.
“Can’t I at least ask a magic eight ball?” I say.
* * *
I shower again Sunday morning, and this time, I don’t cry during it.
I still feel crappy, like my skin is lined with lead, making all my movements heavier and slower than they should be. I stand in front of the fridge for a full five minutes, trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast. I wear pajamas for the third day in a row, though I do change into fresh ones again.
That afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk, doing actual homework, when there’s a knock on my partly-open door, and I glance over.
Margaret’s standing there.
“Hey,” I say, sitting up straighter.
“Hey,” she says. “Can I come in?”
I just nod, and she walks into the tiny room, then sits cross-legged on my unmade twin bed and holds a green box out to me.
“There were girl scouts by the library, I guess it’s cookie season,” she says as I take the Thin Mints. “Also, I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”
I look at the box in my hands, then back at her.
“But I swear to God I didn’t report you,” she says quickly, sitting up straighter. “I…”
She trails off, looks out my window.
“I know,” I tell her. “It was my dad.”
Margaret looks back at me, eyes wide, mouth open.
“We’re not speaking any more,” I say, carefully tearing the cardboard strip from the end of the box.
“Your dad tried to get your scholarship pulled?” she says, still goggling. “Holy shit.”
Since talking to my dad, I’ve gone back and forth on whether I think he knew I could be punished.
“Yup,” I say, matter-of-factly.
“Sending those emails was really fucked up of me,” she says, quickly, like she’s nervous and in a rush. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, I do, I was thinking that it was pretty weird and creepy of some professor to sleep with you when you were literally in his class.”
I pull apart the plastic sleeve and shoot her a look.
“But I obviously should have just talked to you instead of… doing that shit,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Really.”
I crunch into a Thin Mint and look at the cookie for a long moment, thinking.
“I should have trusted you. I don’t know why I didn’t,” she finishes.
“Probably because you’re an obnoxious know-it-all who thinks she’s God’s gift to men,” I say, a small shower of crumbs escaping my mouth.
There’s a long, long pause before she speaks.
“Are you trying to say I’m not God’s gift to men, or…”
“You asshole,” I laugh, and she grins at me. “Also, morally bankrupt? What the fuck, Margaret.”
She hides her face in her hands. I almost tell her that she also has to apologize to Caleb, since he’s the one she told was morally bankrupt in the first place, but I still haven’t worked up the nerve to go talk to him yet because I think he’s probably still pretty mad at me, and I’m still a little bit mad at him, and it’s all still a mess.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, through her hands.
“I haven’t forgiven you yet,” I tell her, eating another cookie.
“I deserve it,” she says, and then looks up at me. “Oh, I have another apology. Wait here.”
I wait, still eating cookies, and in fifteen seconds she’s in my room again, holding something behind her back.
“I hope it’s another box,” I say.
She just grins wider, then pulls the thing out from behind her back.
It’s a dildo.
I think. Actually, I’m only about sixty percent sure it’s a dildo, because while it’s definitely phallic, it’s also tapered and green, the design on it pink and swirling in a series of dots to a somewhat fanciful tip.
I stare for a long moment.
Then I finally ask, “Is that a tentacle dildo?”
“Yep!” she says, holding it up proudly. “It’s brand new from the store’s new hentai collection. It’s got a suction cup on the bottom so you can attach it to the shower wall or your chair or whatever and go to town. Also, it’s still shrink-wrapped.”
I take it from her. It’s surprisingly heavy.
“Thanks, I hate it,” I deadpan, and Margaret laughs.
* * *
Monday night, I finally work up the courage and go to Caleb’s house. I pulled up his name in my phone a hundred times that day and nearly called, but every single time I chickened out, and I can’t bring myself to text a ‘let’s talk about forgiving each other and also maybe whether we can move on from this’ message.
So I’m here. I’m walking up his sidewalk, onto his front porch. I’ve still got the key to his house, but this is not a let myself in scenario so I knock.
And I wait.
And I knock again, and wait again, and repeat that at least four more times.
Then I wait. I wait for a really, really long time, and I listen for signs that he’s in there and knows it’s me and is avoiding the door, but I don’t hear a single thing.
Finally, I sit down on his porch steps, the concrete cold beneath my butt.
Me: He’s not there.
Margaret: Where is he? It’s not like he has a job.
Margaret: Sorry.
Victoria: The man still needs to run errands. Maybe he’s at Target.
Harper: Maybe he’s hiking the AT again.
Me: It’s January.
Harper: He probably has a lot of psychic p
ain to work through.
Margaret: Dude, come on.
I really hope he’s not hiking the Appalachian Trail again. I don’t want to go months without talking to him, and I can’t see myself hiking out there in search of him. For one, there are bears, and for two, I’d obviously never find him, no matter how noble or romantic my intentions. Also, I have class.
As I walk away from his house, I realize his car isn’t in the driveway.
Duh, I think to myself.
And then: I’ll try again tomorrow.
* * *
I try again Tuesday. And Wednesday. No car, no Caleb. My roommates tell me to stop being a child and just call him, see when he’ll be home, and then talk to him in person, but I don’t.
Thursday, I go over again. I knock one million times and wait at least ten minutes, but there’s nothing so I finally unlock the door and go inside.
There’s mail all over the entryway. I’ve never seen mail there before. Caleb doesn’t leave mail on the floor. He’s not a mail-on-the-floor guy.
At last, standing in his house, I call him.
The call goes straight to voicemail. I try again. Same.
Slowly, carefully, I collect the mail from his floor. I sort it into a looks legit pile and a pretty sure this is junk pile, then put both piles on the kitchen table before heading upstairs, where I stand in the door to his bedroom for a long moment, afternoon light leaking through the curtains.
The bed is made. Everything is in place, though I notice his phone charger isn’t there.
And then, despite myself, I go in. I sit on his bed, and I feel half like an intruder and half like I’ve come home, and for the first time the thought strikes me that this could be the last time I’m in his house.
If he never wanted to speak to me again, the girl who cost him everything, I don’t know if I could blame him.
I lie on his bed and put my face right on his pillow, then inhale, and suddenly it feels like he’s there, like we’re lying naked and sweaty on his bed and we’re laughing about something, still casually tangled.
Smell isn’t like the other senses. When you see or hear something, those signals get filtered through a part of your brain called the thalamus, which then relays the signals on. Not smell. Our sense of smell is hooked right into the limbic system, the emotional response part of our brain.
I breathe in again, just for good measure, and it’s a gut punch.
Then I roll over, onto my back, and call him one more time.
Voicemail.
I lie there for a long time, thinking. I’m thinking that it’s probably super weird that I’m in his bed. I’m thinking that he hasn’t been here in days and I don’t know where he is. I think there’s a possibility he’s never coming back, though it seems remote.
And then, finally, I think of someone who’ll know. I pull out my phone. I do a single google search, take a deep breath, and hit the phone number.
“Loveless Brewing,” says a friendly female voice. “Tammy speaking.”
I did not have a plan for this.
“Hi, Tammy,” I say after a quick, awkward silence. “Would it be possible to speak with Seth Loveless?”
“I can check, sweetheart,” she says. “What’s this concerning?”
She sounds so nice that I don’t even mind being called sweetheart.
“It’s a whole long thing, really,” I say. “Can you just tell him it’s Thalia?”
“Of course, hon,” she says, and if I didn’t know better I’d say there was pity in her voice. “But he might be busy right now so chances are he’ll have to call you back.”
“That’s fine,” I say.
“One sec,” she says, and then the hold music starts, some instrumental version of the John Denver song Country Roads.
I start pacing, fully prepared to wait a while, but instead the music clicks off after about thirty seconds.
“Thalia?” a familiar-ish voice says. “Oh, thank fuck. I’m nearly out of room for bookshelves.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Caleb
I stand back and survey my work, folding my arms over my chest as I do.
Not bad. They still need to be painted, and I don’t think Seth’s walls are perfectly even because the very top of the right side has about a half-inch gap between the wood and the wall, but it’ll do.
I should ask Seth if he still has any of the paint he used to paint that wall, I think. That would be the easiest way to match it and make them look like built-ins —
The key turns in the front door, and out of habit, I glance at the clock.
Then I frown, because Seth is hardly ever home before six and it’s four-thirty.
“ — That every bag had one single poison M&M in it, but you couldn’t learn how to tell the poison M&M until you were ten,” Seth is saying, and I frown harder because whoever he’s telling the story about Eli’s M&M lie to, it’s not one of my brothers.
We all know the story. We all lived the story.
“That seems like it would only work until the first time you decided you wanted M&Ms so much that you’d risk it,” Thalia’s voice says. “And it’s not like kids have good judgement.”
“No, they do not,” Seth says, though I can hardly hear him over the sudden pounding of my heart, and several thoughts crash into each other, all at once.
Did I shower today?
He didn’t warn me.
What day is it?
She’s here. She’s here. She’s here and I’m not ready. I haven’t figured anything out, I don’t know what to say, all I’ve done is build a really big bookcase.
Then they both come around the corner, into Seth’s living room, and Thalia stops.
“Oh,” she says.
“I thought you were at Levi’s,” Seth says, walking past her and toward his kitchen. “Do either of you want anything to drink?”
“No, thank you,” calls Thalia.
“Same,” I say.
“Well, I’m just parched,” Seth says, his voice echoing from the next room over the sound of his fridge opening. “It’s been a whole Friday, you know?”
“Is it really Friday?” I ask Thalia, sotto voce.
“It really is,” she confirms. “What day did you think it was?”
I sigh, run a hand through my hair, because I’m very much not the kind of person who loses track of days, though apparently I am right now.
“Maybe like… Wednesday?” I say.
Seth comes back out of the kitchen, drinking a glass of water, and looks from me to Thalia and back.
“Right,” he says. “Let me just grab something from upstairs and text Levi that we’re not coming over, and I’ll go… somewhere that isn’t here.”
Thalia’s already blushing.
“We could go —”
“Nope,” he calls, already heading up the stairs of his townhouse.
“ — somewhere less intrusive,” she finishes, even though Seth’s long gone.
“It’s fine, he once stabbed me in the hand hard enough to draw blood because I tried to take one of his french fries,” I say. “He owes me.”
“How are any of you alive?” Thalia says, half-laughing and half-horrified. “On the way over here he was telling me about Levi convincing Eli that eating dandelions made you capable of flight.”
“That ER trip is one of my earliest memories,” I tell her.
“All right, I’m out,” Seth says, coming back down the stairs, putting something in his pocket, then grabbing his coat and swinging it onto one arm. “Getting drinks and then seeing a movie with, uh, a friend. I’ll call before I come back.”
“Have fun!” Thalia says.
“Thanks,” he says, and then turns and walks backward, pointing at me. “Don’t fuck this up. I like her and I’d like for us to keep her.”
“Bye,” I call, and then he’s gone and his door opens, closes, and suddenly it’s very, very still in this living room, the smell of freshly cut wood permeating the air and Thalia and
I looking at each other.
There are a thousand things I want to say to her, but I can’t find words for any of them. I missed her and I love her and I spent nights roaming the darkness of Seth’s living room, feeling like a thousand tiny cactus spines were working their way into my skin, too agitated to sleep and too tired to do anything but pace.
Sometimes I feel like I’m staring into the void, the sudden blankness that’s the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel like I’m staring into the blue sky, endless possibilities. Which it is depends on the day.
“I didn’t mean to stay here a week,” I finally say. “I guess I got really involved in making Seth the bookshelves I promised him a couple years ago when he moved in here.”
“They look good,” Thalia says, her gaze roving over them, then coming back to me. “I was afraid you’d gone off to hike the Appalachian Trail again when you weren’t home by yesterday.”
“It’s the dead of winter,” I point out.
I did a deep dive into what equipment I’d need and how feasible it would be, what my route would look like, whether I could make it if I started in Georgia now.
“That’s why you didn’t go?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t go because I don’t want to escape you. I didn’t go because it’s a long time and I’d miss the hell out of you.”
I pause. We look at each other, something tense and unspoken between us, something that needs words I can’t find. I’ve spent the last week mostly silent, mostly alone: making these bookshelves, hiking solo through the forest, doing a thousand chores at my mom’s house.
I spent the week trying to untangle the sudden mess of my life, trying to find the right words to take back to Thalia, but I still haven’t.
“I miss the hell out of you now,” I say.
She looks at me steadily, unblinking, and then she takes a deep breath and closes the distance between us. She looks up at me, her hands in the back pocket of her jeans, her elbows splayed.