I glared at him, saying nothing, because I didn’t trust myself to speak. This is so hard.
He shook his head, just slightly, as though to clear it, his eyes searching. “Or are you serious?”
“Serious,” I parroted immediately, grasping at the word. Then I swallowed. Because I had to. This is the hardest.
Abram flinched, his lips parting, giving me the impression that a very loud objection was on the tip of his tongue. But then he snapped his mouth shut, staring at me for several seconds, perhaps expecting me to say just kidding! When I continued glaring in silence, he glanced at the ceiling. He then glanced at the wall to his left. His hands came to his hips. He exhaled a light laugh, shaking his head and covering his mouth.
He’d gone back to hiding his smiles, even the bitter ones.
I waited, watching him, feeling . . . horrible. And enormously uneasy. Also, immensely remorseful, wishing I could take the words back, but knowing it was for the best.
By the time his eyes had traveled around the kitchen and returned to mine, they were shuttered, dim, remote, and hit me with a force that felt physical.
“Yes. Absolutely. You’re right.” His tone matched his expression, and the combination made me wonder if my heart had just sustained a serious injury somehow. It would’ve explained why it was suddenly so hard to breathe.
I think it’s hard to breathe because this is hard.
“I, uh, that’s okay.” My voice wavered along with my resolve and I took a step toward him. Apparently, at some point over the last several days, I’d become magnetized to Abram.
Or maybe it’s gravity, he is quite big.
Or maybe it’s one of the four fundamental forces, working on an atomic level: weak, strong, electromagnetic, gravitational.
Or maybe—
But he held up his hand, staying me. “No. It’s not okay. Please accept my apology. I . . .” A flicker of something ignited behind his eyes, a vulnerability that crippled my brain, there and hidden in an instant. He dropped his gaze to the floor, and gave his head another shake before adding quietly, “No excuses. It won’t happen again.”
15
Problem-Solving Strategies
The potency of my self-doubt and regret was a new experience.
When Abram left me at the bottom of the stairs with a polite departing head nod after my duplicitous speech about the appropriateness of his actions, I felt a large part of myself go with him. It felt like a physical separation, being split into two distinctly different versions of myself—one followed the logical path, and one followed him—and that was nonsensical.
The one that followed him wanted to tackle him to the ground and spill my guts. I almost did.
The rest of me retrieved my dirty cup from earlier in the day and made a new cup of tea, blinking away tears. I was the worst kind of hypocrite, acting like I had all this moral authority. Meanwhile, I was a lying liar of lies, sitting on a throne of lies, eating lie soup and liar cake.
Try as I might to be rational, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was very, very wrong with me. This sense was only heightened by the near constant ache in my stomach and heart, both of which felt like an overreaction.
I never overreacted. Underreaction was where I lived my life.
You cannot deny he was behaving inappropriately, given what he knows to be true of the situation, a shrill little voice reminded me, one that sounded suspiciously like Dr. Steward.
Unable to navigate this strange labyrinth of emotional upheaval, I spotted the bag from the bookstore on the counter, grabbed my new book, left my new cup of tea in the sink, and went upstairs to play the violin. Unpacking it, I tried to play. I couldn’t play. My fingers weren’t working right. Setting the instrument on the desk, I picked up my new book. I set the book down. I didn’t want to read.
Making a split decision, I changed into the bikini from the other day. I then marched down to the back door, intent on the pool—my hairdo and Gabby and George-the-stylist be damned.
But before I opened the back door, I spotted movement. It was now dark outside, but the pool light illuminated the water. Abram was swimming laps. I didn’t press my face against the glass, but I did watch him without meaning to, tracking him, unable to look away, admiring how he paired gracefulness and power. He wasn’t a perfect swimmer, his technique could use some help, but he was strong and fast and clearly determined to swim forever.
I must’ve watched him for a half hour, probably longer. My feet grew tired of standing in the same place, necessitating that I shift my weight and flex my calves. Still, he swam. It wasn’t until he stopped and straightened, breathing hard and wiping away excess water with his hands, his eyes seeming to move directly to the window where I stood, that I tore my gaze away and stepped back.
Spooked—because clearly I was still overreacting—I sprinted to the back stairs. But then, a thought occurred to me. Pivoting, I jogged to the pantry, grabbed my backpack, and hastily climbed to the second floor, running into Lisa’s room after a short moment of hesitation, closing and locking the door.
Eureka!
I had my laptop and research notes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes!
Why I’d neglected to retrieve my backpack prior to now, I couldn’t fathom. I’d had opportunity and means—plenty of both—and yet I’d left everything there, hidden in the pantry, out of sight and out of mind. There is something wrong with me. Why did I wait so long? This behavior isn’t normal.
Powering up my laptop, I took a deep breath, some of the earlier ache dissipating as I entered my password and navigated to connect to the Wi-Fi. That’s when another disaster struck.
“What? What’s this?” I asked the little yellow exclamation point next to our Wi-Fi network.
It’s not working.
The Wi-Fi was down. I plugged my phone in and unlocked it to double-check. Sure enough, my phone couldn’t connect either.
“Shoooooot!” I made a fist and shook it at the sky. And then I sighed, letting my hand drop.
Using the cellular hotspot, I could connect my laptop to the internet. Sadly, it wasn’t fast enough for me to run my analyses, or access my data in any meaningful way. But I could check my email and browse the internet.
So I called Lisa’s lawyer, left another voice message noting that she’d never called me back, and connected my laptop to the substandard hotspot.
I searched for any news of Lisa’s arrest. I came up empty on arrest, but I did find recent links pairing her name with Tyler’s. Bracing myself against the sliminess, I clicked on a story from TMZ, timestamp three hours ago.
Front man from Pirate Orgy spotted getting cozy with an unnamed female who was definitely not his longtime ladylove, Lisa DaVinci, DJ Tang and Exotica’s wild-child youngest daughter. The pair were making out at a . . . and then blah blah blah.
I clicked through a few gossip sites, all telling the same story: Tyler had been photographed and filmed at a club with someone who was not Lisa, though there was no word from Lisa and no sightings of her. Neither my sister or Tyler were considered big names or newsmakers. She and I seemed to exist on the outer rim of celebrity culture—me because I actively rejected it, her because (I hypothesized) she tried too hard to be a part of it.
After I tired of searching for news on Lisa, I clicked through several of my bookmarks, checking to see if the latest editions of my favorite peer-reviewed publications had been published. They had not. So I busied myself by reading random news stories until doing so made me want to stab someone. I closed my laptop.
And then, debating and dismissing all my non-Abram-related options, I realized I was officially bored.
*
It was 6:03 AM and I was awake.