Stay a Little Longer

by Dawn Lanuza

  “Was it you or Jimmy?”

  “It was him, of course.” Lucian laughed.

  Caty laughed with him, rubbing her eyes because she’d had so little sleep. She knew she wouldn’t be sleeping much anytime soon, though.

  “No one wants to go first,” Lucian added.

  “That’s because only stupid people do that,” she spat. Yes, she never had trouble making the first move, but this already felt too big to just go ahead and jump in. This was a high dive. “Smart people assess risks.”

  “Again, like I said, one has to be braver than the other.”

  They stared at each other, not saying a word.

  “You think it should be me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It should be him.” Caty frowned.

  “Why?”

  “Because,” was all she could think of.

  “I don’t get why you’re hesitant about this. You don’t have a problem letting men know you want them.”

  “I don’t,” she agreed. “He knows that.”

  Lucian cocked an eyebrow to tease her.

  Caty shook her head then covered her face with her hands.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucian asked.

  “Nothing,” she answered too quickly. “I already told him I was seeing someone.”

  “So? Tell him you changed your mind.”

  “I can’t just change my mind,” she reasoned. “This guy was supposed to be special.”

  “But you only made him up.”

  “Lucian.”

  “Catalina,” Lucian sighed with exasperation.

  “I can’t do it,” Caty whined. “I can’t go back to texting and calling. I’m not gonna do the long-distance thing.”

  “What is so bad with long distance? I did it.”

  She smirked, “Yes, and as I recall, you complained about it constantly. You threatened to break up with Jimmy five hundred times before getting here.”

  “Okay, fine. But even after last night? His love bites didn’t help?”

  “Especially after last night.”

  Lucian paused, thought about it, then nodded ruefully. Jimmy came back to the living room with a ladle in hand.

  “Should we use the table like normal adults or eat on the couch?”

  “Couch!” they both answered.

  Jimmy smiled and walked back to the kitchen.

  “You don’t have to text him; sext him,” Lucian grinned.

  Caty threw a pillow at him.

  “You know what else I think?” Lucian stood, poised to remove the contents of the table in front of the couch. “The one who goes first is usually the one who wants it more.”

  Caty thought about that, watching him put away the magazines and the fake plant.

  “He lives twelve hours ahead of me,” was all she said.

  “So you’ll get valuable foresight.”

  “Lucian, please,” she begged.

  “Honey,” Lucian faced her, hands on his hips, “you’re thinking too far ahead. One foot after the other.”

  “Who’s putting one foot after the other?” Jimmy asked, both hands holding plates with two pieces of his French toast, eggs, and bacon.

  “Nothing,” Caty answered, jumping to her feet to grab a plate.

  He pulled it away before she could get it and scolded, “No breakfast until you tell.”

  “It’s the nap guy.”

  “The nap guy,” he repeated, because he knew about Elan, of course. Living with Lucian and Jimmy meant sharing French toast in the morning, going out at nights, watching reruns of old sitcoms, and telling each other everything.

  “Lucian thinks I should give it a try.”

  Lucian took his plate. “I didn’t say that. And even if I did, she’s obviously talking herself out of it.”

  “Why?” Jimmy gave her the plate. “And judging from that love bite, I assume you’ve passed the napping stage?”

  “Was it good?” Lucian interrupted.

  Caty rolled her eyes. “What do you think? I have a hickey. It goes right down to here.”

  “The biting kind,” Jimmy supplied, looking impressed.

  Caty raised her voice a little to get them back on track. “He lives an ocean away from me.”

  “So have phone sex, for God’s sake. You touch yourself—don’t think we don’t hear it,” Jimmy observed, as if it was so obvious. “Here’s to hoping he’s as fluent as he is durable.”

  “That’s it? That’s the answer to this?”

  “Well, you’re not having sex with anyone here,” Lucian mumbled, mouth stuffed with toast. “Except with yourself. He’s right; these walls are too thin.”

  “What about me?” she retorted. “I hear you guys too!”

  “More reason for you to have sex on the phone.”

  “It’s not just about the sex. It’s everything, okay? I can’t have a relationship with a gadget.”

  “I hear they’re developing stuff for that,” Jimmy added. “Plus, you’re not gonna be away from each other the whole time, right?”

  “I don’t know; he lives in Manila.”

  “But is that a permanent thing?” Jimmy asked.

  Caty knew what he was implying, and that was the very thing that she was afraid of. She can’t ask someone to change his whole life for something that even she wasn’t sure of. Would it be worth it?

  But Lucian wasn’t done. “May I remind you of your meltdown after that one date?”

  That date. The one where she just had to check her messages. It was a couple of weeks ago, while she was settling in and agreed to go out with a Riot! bartender named Jordan. He was hot, and he’d asked her out as soon as she took her perch on the barstool. They went as far as kissing, and when he invited her up to his flat, she only ended up running back down.

  “Well, maybe I can get over it now.”

  “Because you broke up with the nap guy?” Jimmy asked.

  “We didn’t break up.” Caty rolled her eyes.

  “I think you broke up with him.”

  Caty wiped her face and wondered, “What?”

  “You told him you were seeing someone,” Lucian pointed out.

  “I’m allowed to see someone. It’s not like we said we weren’t gonna do that.”

  “Is he seeing someone else?”

  The thought made her frown. “No.” She remembered how Elan looked when she told him she was seeing another guy. He was obviously surprised, and if it had been her on the other end, she would have looked far more shocked.

  She felt guilty for that tiny lie, but then again, maybe it was the right thing to have said.

  Lucian waved his hand. “Then by all means, go test your theory. But if you still can’t sleep with someone else, then you need to call that boy.”

  Caty rolled her eyes. “And have phone sex?”

  Lucian’s lips spread into a smile. “Sure, if that’s your prerogative. But I think it’d be nicer if you told him how you truly feel.”

  He didn’t need this. Not after that grueling flight. Not after the delays and the crying baby in the background. Not after seeing Caty standing on the street as his cab pulled away.

  He went straight to the hospital, where his mother was. He’d finally gotten a text from Gia explaining what had happened, saying at the end, Don’t worry, I got it under control.

  But Gia had a six-year-old who went to school every day, a husband who wouldn’t be returning from his job away from home until the end of the year, and no extended family near enough to help her.

  He had always been the one to take their mother to checkups, to church, to Sunday lunches with relatives or friends.

  “What are you doing here? I said we’re okay,” Gia insisted. He wasn’t expecting a welcome, but he certainly wasn’t happy with
what he got. After all the back and forth he went through about staying or leaving, he was welcomed back with this?

  Elan narrowed his eyes. “Have you slept?”

  “I’m fine. How was your trip?”

  He shrugged. “It was okay. I’m here.”

  “Elan.”

  “Gia.” He closed his eyes because she had that tone. He knew it so well, and he didn’t want to argue. He wanted to believe that he’d done the right thing flying back early. Unfortunately, he’d been plagued with worry that he’d been wrong, and if he had discussed the decision with Caty before, he knew that she would have made a much more sensible point. But he was here now and he would deal with it.

  “She’s fine,” Gia said. “She’ll be discharged in the morning. I tried calling you, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “Was already flying back.”

  “Did you get to see what you wanted to see?”

  He avoided that and pulled up a chair next to his mother. “Yes, it was fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Funny, I thought that’s what I said,” she quipped.

  He breathed through his nose and didn’t respond so that would just end the discussion. Elan wanted quiet, or at least a quiet place, even though his thoughts weren’t allowing him to get a wink of sleep.

  “Did you even stop by your place first?”

  He snapped, his voice rising, “God, Gia. Can you drop it? I’m already here.”

  He saw her lean back and wince.

  God damn it. He looked away, face twisted with irritation. Calm down. He started breathing slowly and counted to ten.

  “It’s okay,” she said, her voice cutting through as he got to three. “Elan. Look at me. It’s okay.”

  Four.

  “Elan, you’re not like him,” she announced. “I know that. You know that. We all know that.”

  Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

  He extended that last breath before turning back to her. Gia looked at him, then shook her head. They did this all the time, staring each other down until someone gave in first.

  They’d fought over chores when they were kids, but after their father left, they stopped arguing about petty things like taking out the garbage or cleaning the windows.

  A loud ring cut through the room and broke the staring contest. They looked around for the source of the sound.

  “Your bag,” she said.

  He opened the zipper, grabbed his phone, and read the name on the screen: Caty.

  “Take it,” Gia ordered.

  He wasn’t planning to drop the call, so he left the room to do it. He cleared his throat to shake off the negativity hanging around him.

  Elan answered, mustering all the strength he had not to sound pissed off or upset. “Hi.”

  “Hey?” Hesitation.

  He cleared his throat again and decided to try and do better. The fact remained that he and Caty were right back where they had been before the trip. He couldn’t see her—or even worse, touch her—when he wanted to.

  “Hey. Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She sighed, hesitation still lingering in her voice. “Just checking to see if you made it back in one piece.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you? In one piece?”

  Elan looked down, as if he really needed to check. “I think so?”

  “Good,” she said, then muttered, Good, good.

  A thick silence followed, pure radio silence. He couldn’t say anything else. His mind was frozen as he stood there in the hospital lobby. If she asked, he couldn’t lie about where he was, as he’d done before when his mother had been in the hospital.

  “It’s just that,” Caty started again, “my week’s pretty slammed. Hans is hosting a party for all of these important people.”

  She went on about it, but somehow all he could think was that she was seeing someone. In New York. Where he was not. Annoyance and disappointment overwhelmed him.

  “So I might miss the premiere on Friday,” she explained, talking about that show they agreed to watch together.

  “And you’re seeing that other guy, right?”

  There was a pause. “What?”

  “You’re going to keep seeing that guy while you conveniently have me in this weird virtual space—” he blurted.

  “Hey,” Caty snapped. “You’re kidding, right? Nothing about you is convenient.”

  He knew he should dial it back. He knew that. He was picking a fight at the worst possible time, but he’d been in a really bad funk since riding the cab to JFK. It had just been a too-long bad day. “I get it. We live in different places.”

  “It’s not just that,” she reasoned. “You’re half a day ahead of me.”

  “Yeah, but I never ask you to stay up for me.”

  He heard her sigh, “God, that’s not it either.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Why are you bringing this up now?”

  She was right; of course, she was right. They should have talked about this when he was right next to her, and he could tell her, Please, stop seeing other people. Let’s give this a real, proper try. But they hadn’t, and that was killing him.

  “I’m just so sick of staring at my phone,” Caty said. “Every time you go to sleep, I can do anything I want, but I just end up waiting for you to wake up. What is that? I don’t want to keep doing it.”

  Elan blinked a few times, and his back slouched.

  “I need a break,” Caty continued. “I just moved to New York. I want to be present here, but I feel as if I’m in this bubble with you. And you have needs.”

  “Don’t talk to me about my fucking needs,” he complained.

  “Fine. Then I have needs,” Caty insisted.

  “Weren’t they met just a few hours ago?” he blurted out. “Or was that too long ago for you?”

  Elan heard her gasp. He really should just end the call. Drop his phone. Throw it at a wall. He hated how he sounded and how that must have hit her.

  It took awhile for her to speak. “Look, this was never supposed to be—I don’t know how to do this.” She recovered. “We weren’t supposed to keep talking.”

  “You could have just said. I didn’t know I was wasting so much of your time.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she was quick to say.

  “Then tell me, Catalina, whatever did you mean by that?” He knew he sounded harsh, but he wanted the answers. If she thought that they weren’t supposed to keep talking, then everything that had happened in the past few months seemed like a lie. Even that night. Especially that.

  It was so quiet on the other end that he thought for a minute that she was no longer there.

  “Why can’t you come home?” he mumbled.

  “What are you talking about? This is my home. I am home. My life is in New York,” she blurted out. “This is exactly my point.”

  “I can’t be in New York,” he responded, looking around the bare walls of the hospital. He was frankly getting sick of its smell and how it was so bright yet dark at the same time. “I’m needed here.”

  He heard her sigh. “Elan. Nobody asked you.”

  Elan took a deep breath. Frustration and regret had swirled around him the whole day, but this felt like a sudden stop. His hand became limp as he set the phone down and ended the call. He walked as fast as his feet could take him out of the hospital and into the parking lot. There was a heaviness in his chest, and it felt like there was a plastic bag over his head. He couldn’t breathe, but he kept walking until he found a corner.

  He opened his mouth to catch his breath, but he let out a scream that echoed throughout the lot. The release made his knees buckle, so he crouched for a minute, put his head between his knees, and breathed slowly.

  He told himself in between breaths that there wou
ld be tomorrow, and by then he would be better at this. Maybe he wouldn’t be so upset. He wouldn’t be so emotional, and he would find a sensible voice.

  He had to believe all of that would be possible.

  part

  The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn’t stop each other on the street to say I love you.

  jonathan safran foer

  fourteen

  one month later

  Caty went back to Riot! that night to watch Lux do her first Mariah Carey impression. She wanted to be current, but really, Lux killed “Touch My Body” all the time.

  She sat on a stool by the bar and greeted a few friends. Jimmy was supposed to be there, and she guessed he’d arrive soon. He was never late for Lux’s performances. He was always there for her now that they no longer had to cross borders to be together.

  “What can I get you?”

  Caty turned to find Jordan leaning on the bar in front of her. “My usual. I’m shocked you haven’t prepared it yet.”

  He grinned, reached down, and grabbed two shot glasses. “I need an extra second to have you stare at my face.”

  She smiled and watched him pour the tequila. He set the glasses down on the counter. One for her, another for him.

  They clinked glasses, smiled at each other, and drank. It burned its way down her throat, all the way to her stomach.

  “How’s Lux doing?” she asked, her voice loud so Jordan could hear her.

  “Two shots before going back.”

  “Really?”

  “She looked banging, though,” he added, his smile lighting up the bar. He was so pretty she almost regretted running out of his apartment on their first date.

  But then again, she didn’t. That horrible feeling in her stomach threatened to return, so she tapped her glass on the counter.

  Jordan raised an eyebrow. “That kind of night?”

  He was sweet, in spite of the amount of ink on his arms that made him look tough.

  “How was the shoot today?” he asked.

  Caty’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, I guess.”