“Well, since the question infers that I would’ve had to give myself to that person before it would be possible for her to give me away, I wouldn’t like it.”
The temptation to ask Have you? And, if so, what happened? And who is this stupid woman who gave you away? was nearly overwhelming. If anything was true in the universe, it was that anyone who could willingly give Abram away was stupid (and also Newton’s Laws of Motion).
Locking eyes with Abram, the questions were at the forefront of my brain, that mutinous little voice pushing them to the tip of my tongue, but the server chose that moment to swing by to refill our waters, saving me from making a critical error in judgment.
After ascertaining all was delicious and well, the server left. I did my utmost to ignore the curiosity pressing uncomfortably against my skull, and instead took a bite of lasagna.
I felt Abram’s attention move over me, and eventually he said, “So, you read a lot,” giving me the impression he was trying to get me talking again.
Since this was a benign, previously established fact, I confirmed it.
“Every night before bed, for about an hour. If I don’t have a busy day the next day, I’ll read for an hour and a half.”
“Oh. Really busy day? Like what? Getting a blowout from someone named George?”
I was about to ask him who George was when my slow brain finally caught up. Double yikes. Again, I’d forgotten who I was supposed to be. I blame Lisa Kleypas’s excellent novel.
“Well . . .” I worked for a moment to identify an appropriate response to his teasing. Luckily, I was able to stall by taking a bite of my food. Once I finished chewing, I said, “Who is to say how I spend my time isn’t any more or less important than how you spend your time?”
“Good point.” He nodded eagerly, like he’d been hoping I would respond this way. “So, tell me, how do you spend your time?”
Taking another bite, I chewed for longer than was necessary, my eyes moving up and to the left, because—since I was not in fact Lisa—this was a tricky question. I had no idea how my sister spent her time. Furthermore, I couldn’t help but feel I’d just fallen into a verbal trap of some sort.
Unable to delay responding forever, I eventually decided on, “I sleep.” This was true for Lisa, me, and humanity.
“You sleep.” His voice was deadpan.
“Yep. Speaking of which, did you, uh, sleep well last night?”
Abram’s gaze flickered over me, as though he thought I might be leading him into a trap of my own. Little did he know, I was just trying to change the subject.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly, “I slept fine. Why?”
“It’s just, you were up early.” His sleep patterns were so sporadic, and this facet of his personality fascinated me.
Abram finished chewing a bite of steak before responding. “You were expecting to make it to the donut shop and back before I woke up?”
I shrugged, but also shot him a guilty look.
He chuckled. “I came down the stairs just as you walked out the front door.”
“Why didn’t you try to stop me?”
He ignored my question and asked one of his own, “Any regrets?” The speculation behind his eyes made me think maybe the question had a double meaning, but I was too distracted by the memory of this morning’s tussle to parse through what the double meaning might be.
The grabbing, the teasing, the friction of our bodies as I jumped and slid down his, the touching, the staring, his scent . . .
Instead of answering directly, I cleared my throat and said, “It’s important to live in the present.” I said this mostly to remind myself, but also, due to the limits of the space-time continuum, living in the present was the only option. Wishing for a different past or an impossible future was pointless. “So, uh, did you write any music last night?”
“No, but I did get some lyrics written earlier today. You’re playing the violin again?”
“Yes. I can almost play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which means “Old MacDonald” is next, and that’s my favorite, with all the bock, bock, bocking, and moo, moo, mooing, and then the wolves came, as the prophesy foretold, in this economy.” I forced myself to take a deep breath here so I would stop talking. Something about the way he was looking at me with those intense, deep brown eyes made me feel fidgety.
But Abram grinned, and the flash of dimples made my knees happy I was sitting instead of standing. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You say weird stuff sometimes. Like, ‘and then the wolves came.’ What is that?”
“It’s just a thing I do . . . when I don’t know what to say.” I’d been caught without prunes and my lasagna was finished. Might as well tell the truth.
“So you speak nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense. These phrases, they’re special. They’re special phrases that work for almost any occasion. They’re evergreen.”
“If you say so.” During dinner, his left dimple had become a permanent fixture on his face and it was hugely distracting.
“They are.” I rubbed my forehead, feeling somewhat harassed by his attractiveness. “Here, say something and I’ll use one of my phrases.”
“Fine. Let’s see. Um—” Abram’s gaze moved beyond me. “Okay. Want to go see a movie?”
“In this economy?”
A short, surprised laugh shook his shoulders and lit his eyes. “You’re nuts.”
“So let it be written, so let it be done.”
“Oh no. You’re not going to stop, are you?”
“Be that as it may, still may it be as it may be.”
He was fighting a massive grin. “Please stop.”
“There’s no escape from destiny.”
“What can I say to make you stop?”
“Wise words by wise men write wise deeds in wise pen.”
“You are so fucking weird sometimes.” He shook his head, his shoulders also shaking, losing the fight.
“As the prophesy foretold.”
“Oh my God—” he clutched his stomach, tossing his head back to laugh “—I love you.”
I sucked in a breath, my heart doing a strange, twisting thing. I kept my eyes affixed to the table so he wouldn’t see my illogical and sudden turmoil, because it was illogical and it was turmoil. I told myself that his words had been an expression, nothing more.
Abram is a goodtime guy, he probably loves everyone.
Yes. Exactly.
. . . Wait! No. No, he is not a goodtime guy! Stop thinking of him that way.
The explanation was much simpler: he didn’t love love me. It had been a figure of speech.
I lifted my gaze—just for a single second—to peek at him. But then I couldn’t look away because something distressing happened.
The laughter and resultant smile lit up his face, casting everything else in the room in bleak shadow, and he wasn’t hiding either this time. However, it wasn’t just the smile that was distressing—I’d seen him smile several times at this point—but rather my new and completely involuntary physical reaction to it. The sight hit me in the stomach, an unexpected blow, jarring my teeth, a little painful and a lot uncomfortable. At first.
And then the pain dissipated, became an expanding warmth, a hum of kinetic energy—even though I was sitting perfectly still—radiating outward to my fingertips and toes, clouding my brain, and wrapping my whole person in a lovely, tight, cozy cloud.
Holy shit.
What the hell was that?
A microcosm of the big bang but in my body!
Disoriented and mesmerized, I couldn’t take my eyes from his face where the effects of his laughter still lingered, giving his features an attractiveness that was four-dimensional. More than physical, it was an allure that permeated both space and time.
“What?” Abram’s laughter had tapered while I’d been having a mini freak-out. “No more phrases left?”
I pretended like I needed to scratch the back of my neck as I quickly sifted through the possible anytime-phrases remaining:
Just like in my dream.
But at what cost?
And thus, I die.
They all felt a little too . . . accurate.
So I shrugged, glancing at him quickly and offering a tight smile, murmuring, “And then the wolves came.”
14
Normal, Tension, and Other Examples of Forces