BEFORE
FEBRUARY 16
Nick
“Tell me again”—Aaron takes my ear between his teeth, pulling lightly—“what time your mom is coming home?”
He’s made me say it three times already. “Aaron,” I say, laughing. “Don’t.”
“Please,” he says. “It’s so sexy when you say it.”
“She’s not,” I say, giving in. “She’s not coming home at all.”
Aaron smiles and moves his mouth from my neck to my jawline. “I think those might be the hottest words in the English language.”
Something hard and metal is digging into my lower back: the spine, probably, of the pullout couch. I try to ignore it, try and get into the mood, whatever that means. (I’ve never understood that phrase; it makes it sound as if moods are something you choose, like putting on a pair of pants. Dara and I once decided that “sex-mood” would be a leather romper, skintight. But most of the time I just feel like a big pair of sweatpants.)
But when Aaron shifts his weight, leans into me with a knee between my legs, I let out a sharp cry.
“What?” He sits back, instantly apologetic. “Sorry—did I hurt you?”
“No.” Now I’m embarrassed and scoot backward, instinctively covering my breasts with an arm. “Sorry. Something was digging into my back. It was nothing.”
Aaron smiles. His hair, true black and silky, has grown out. He brushes it away from his eyes. “Don’t cover up,” he says, reaching out and easing my arm away from my chest. “You’re beautiful.”
“You’re biased,” I say. Aaron’s the beautiful one. I love how tall he is, and how small he makes me feel; I love the way basketball has defined his shoulders and arms. I love the color of his skin, a cream-gold, like light shining through autumn leaves; I love the shape of his eyes and the way his hair grows silky-straight.
I love so many individual things, points of a compass, dots on a diagram. Yet somehow when it comes to filling in the big picture, to loving him, I don’t. Or I can’t. I’m not sure which, and I don’t know that it matters.
Aaron reaches out and grabs my waist, leaning backward and drawing me onto his lap simultaneously, so I’m the one on top. Then he’s kissing me again, exploring my tongue carefully with his, running his hands lightly up and down my back, touching me the way he does everything: with cautious optimism, as if I’m an animal who might startle away from his touch. I try to relax, try to stop my brain from firing out stupid images and thoughts, but suddenly all I can focus on is the TV, which is still on, and still replaying old episodes of some competitive grocery shopping show.
I pull away and just for a second, Aaron lets his frustration show.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just not sure I can do this to a soundtrack of The Price Chopper.”
Aaron reaches for the remote, which is lying on the floor next to our shirts. “Do you want to change it?”
“No.” I start to ease off him. “I mean that’s not . . . I’m just not sure I can do this. Right now.”
He catches me by my belt before I can fully push off his lap. He’s smiling, but his eyes are even darker than usual, and I can tell he’s trying hard not to be annoyed. “Come on, Nick,” he says. “We never get to be alone.”
“What do you mean? We’re always alone.”
He sits up on his elbows, shaking his hair from his eyes. “Not really,” he says. “Not like this.” He half smiles. “I feel like you’re always running away from me.” He puts a hand on my waist and leans back again, pulling me down on top of him.
“What do you want?” I blurt out, before I can stop myself. He hesitates, his lips a fraction away from mine, and pulls away to look at me.
“Everyone thinks we had sex on Founders’ Night, you know,” he says.
My heart starts going jackrabbit hard in my chest. “So?”
“Soooo . . .” He kisses my neck again, progressing slowly up toward my ear. “If everyone thinks we did it anyway . . .”
“You can’t be serious.” This time I sit up entirely, moving off his lap.
He exhales, hard. “Only a quarter serious,” he says, scooting up on the couch so he can sit cross-legged. He rests his elbows on his knees and runs the back of a hand against my thigh. “You still haven’t told me what happened to you on Founders’ Night.” He’s still smiling that little half smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “The mysterious disappearing girlfriend.” His hand moves up my thigh; he’s teasing me, making a joke, still trying to get me in the mood. “The magical vanishing girl—”
“I can’t do this.” I don’t even know I’m going to say the words before I have, but instantly I feel a sense of relief. It’s like I’ve been carrying something hard and heavy behind my ribs and now it’s gone, released, removed.
Aaron sighs and withdraws his hand. “That’s all right,” he says. “We can just watch TV or something.”
“No.” I close my eyes, take a deep breath, think of Aaron’s hands and smile and the way he looks on the basketball court, fluid and dark and beautiful. “I mean, I can’t do this. You and me. Anymore.”
Aaron jerks backward as if I’ve reached out and hit him. “What?” He starts to shake his head. “No. No way.”
“Yes.” Now the terrible feeling is back, this time settled in my stomach, a hard knot of guilt and regret. What the hell is wrong with me? “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” His face is so open in that moment, so raw and vulnerable, a part of me wants to reach out and hug him, kiss him, tell him I was kidding. But I can’t. I sit there with my hands in my lap, my fingers numb and alien-feeling.
“I just don’t think this is right,” I say. “I—I’m not the girl for you.”
“Says who?” Aaron starts to reach for me again. “Nicole—” But he breaks off when I don’t move, can’t even look at him. For a horrible long moment, as we sit there next to each other, the air between us is charged with something cold and terrible, as if an invisible window is open and a storm is blowing through the room. “You’re serious,” he says finally. It isn’t a question. His voice has changed. He sounds like a stranger. “You’re not going to take it back.”
I shake my head. My throat is tight, and I know if I look at him I might break. I’ll start to cry, or I’ll beg him to forgive me.
Aaron stands up without another word. He snatches up his shirt and yanks it over his head. “I don’t believe this,” he says. “What about spring break? What about Virginia Beach?”
Some guys from the basketball team plan to take a road trip to Virginia Beach in March. My friend Audrey is going with her boyfriend, Fish; Aaron and I had talked about going together and renting a house with everyone on the beach. We’d imagined clambakes on the beach and long days that tasted like salt. I’d imagined waking up with all the windows open, the cool sting of ocean air, and warm arms around my waist . . .
But not his arms. Not him.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. I have to get down onto my hands and knees to pick up my shirt. I feel horrible and exposed, as if all the lights have been turned up by a factor of a hundred. Five minutes ago we were kissing, our legs intertwined, the beat-up couch taking on the impression of our bodies. Even though I’m the one who screwed it up, I feel dizzy, disoriented, like I’m watching a movie too fast. I put my shirt on inside out but don’t have the energy to fix it. I don’t bother with my bra.
“I don’t believe it,” Aaron says, speaking half to himself. When he’s angry he actually gets quieter. “I told you I loved you . . . I bought you that stupid stuffed cat for Valentine’s Day. . . .”
“It’s not stupid,” I say automatically, even though it kind of is. I’d thought that was the whole point.
He doesn’t seem to hear me. “What’s Fish going to say?” He shoves a hand through his hair. It immediately flops back into his eyes. “What are my parents going to say?”
I don’t answer. I just sit there, squeezing my fists so hard my nails dig into the soft flesh of my palms, gripped by a terrible, out-of-control feeling. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Nick . . .” Aaron’s voice softens. I look up. He has his hoodie on now, the green one he got doing Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans the summer after sophomore year, the one that always mysteriously smells like the ocean. And in that moment I nearly break. I can see he’s thinking the same thing. Scrap the whole thing. Let’s pretend this never happened.
Upstairs, a door slams. Then Parker shouts, “Hey! Anybody home?”
Just like that, the moment vanishes, skittering away into the shadows, like an insect startled by a footstep. Aaron turns away, muttering something.
“What’d you say?” My heart is going again, like it’s a fist just itching to punch something.
“Nothing.” He zips up his hoodie. Now he won’t look at me. “Forget it.”
Parker must hear us, or sense us. He’s pounding down the stairs before I can yell up to him to stop. When he sees Aaron, he freezes. His eyes tick to me, and to my bra, still lying on the musty carpet. His face goes white—and then, a split second later, completely red.
“Oh, shit. I didn’t mean—” He starts to backpedal. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” Aaron looks at me. I know all his moods—but this expression I can’t identify. Anger, definitely. But there’s something else, something deeper than that, as if he’s finally figured out the answer to an impossible math problem. “I was just leaving.”
He takes the stairs two at a time, forcing Parker to squeeze himself against one wall so Aaron can pass. Parker and Aaron don’t like each other and never have. I don’t know why. The moment they’re together on the stairs feels electric, charged and dangerous; out of nowhere, I’m afraid that Aaron will hit Parker, or vice versa. But then Aaron keeps going and the moment passes.
Parker still doesn’t move, not even after the front door slams again, indicating Aaron has left. “Sorry,” he says. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”