“I know,” I sulked. “I’m sorry.” Obviously, there was no hiding my broken heart from Dana. It wasn’t that I’d planned an evening of sitting across the hall while the love of my life got “spectacularly laid.” It just worked out that way.
After she left, I turned up the volume of the TV, hoping to blot out any sounds of reunion joy that might filter through the hallway. For a restless couple of hours I flipped channels. At last, I was rewarded with a showing of The Princess Bride. It was exactly the right movie for such a crappy night. I lay down on the sofa, braces and chair cast away, and let the familiar story suck me in.
— Hartley
When my phone rang, I knew it would be my mom. She always called at 8:30 on my birthday. I was born in the evening, right during an episode of Melrose Place. Before I was born, my mom never missed an episode of that cheesy show about West Hollywood brats.
She had me when she was younger than any of the cast members.
“Hi Mom,” I answered my phone.
“Happy Birthday, sweetie. Please don’t do twenty-one shots tonight.”
I laughed. “I promise not to do twenty-one shots. Or even twenty. Maybe I’ll stick to nineteen.”
“That’s not funny, Hartley. You could die.”
“I won’t drink much. I promise.” Just half a bottle of champagne.
“Be careful, sweetie. I was young once.”
“You still are, mom.” She wouldn’t even turn forty until the springtime.
She laughed. “I love you, Adam Hartley.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
We hung up, and I checked the clock again. I was starting to feel impatient. Stacia had given me only a vague itinerary. She’d flown into JFK that afternoon, but was sticking around the city for farewell drinks with some of her other coursemates. I’d asked, but she didn’t say when she thought she’d arrive.
She often pulled stunts like this, and I knew it was intentional. She was the type of girl who understood the value of playing hard to get. Hell, she practically invented it. Worse — it worked. Waiting for her always made me wonder if she was done with me. Part of wanting Stacia was knowing that she ought to be unattainable. I wanted her in the same way that she wanted her designer shit — because it was only sold in Italy, and nowhere else. Therefore, she must have it, and parade it around in front of others.
Fuck. Forget what it said about her. What did that say about me?
I got up and began to pace around my room, which is not an easy thing to do in a boot cast. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Everything about me tonight was ridiculous.
It was going to be strange seeing Stacia for the first time in months. Of course I was looking forward to it, because long-distance Stacia had not been nearly as appealing as the real thing. Truthfully, I was a little worried about getting back into the swing of things with her. She was like song I’d forgotten how to sing. I needed to hear it again to remember why I liked it the first time.
Except songs didn’t really do that, did they? Even if you forgot the words, the tune was stuck deep in your soul.
Gah. I was thinking too much. Way too much. And there was nobody around to stop me. The evening marched on, and my anticipation began to fade into disappointment. Stacia wasn’t going to show, and in my heart, I wasn’t all that shocked. The weirdest thing was that it left me feeling like an asshole. As if I ought to be more surprised. As if I should care more than I did.
So when the text from Stacia finally came, it was pretty much anticlimactic. Sorry, Hartley. I’m stuck here tonight…
Blah blah blah.
It took me about three seconds to throw down the phone and stand up. There was someone just across the hall that I wanted to see — someone who was always easy to be with. Before I could overthink it, I had the bottle in hand, and was headed for the door.
— Corey
Just as The Man in Black was sitting down to poisoned wine with Vizzini, I heard our room door open. Expecting Dana to call out her usual greeting, I didn’t sit up or turn around. But it wasn’t her that I heard. Instead, there was the distinctive sound of crutches on the wood floor. And its pace was slow — the stuttering thump of someone crutching clumsily, possibly because his hands were overburdened. My heart began to thump in my chest. My hope fairy buzzed to life and began dancing with ticklish feet on my belly.
“Jesus, Callahan, could you take something?”
I kept my eyes on the screen a half-second longer, as if I hadn’t seen the film a good two dozen times before. When I sat up, it was just in time to reach over, catching the two glasses dangling from Hartley’s fingers. In his other arm, he cradled a fancy looking bottle of champagne.