“It’s just … a little chilly for ice cream.”
“I’m buying you an ice cream cone.” I turned on Mel. I shook her shoulder—not hard, but firmly—and spoke in the calmest voice I could manage. “I’m buying you ice cream. One ice cream cone. If you don’t want it, the offer is off the fucking table. Why can’t you be happy?” I leaned in, my voice rising. “What my parents always bought me was one ice cream cone. And it was delicious. Why can’t you fucking accept it?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. God, what was Mel’s problem? Couldn’t she see that I wanted to share something of myself? Always, when Mom and Dad took us to Cape May, they bought us saltwater taffy and one ice cream cone each. Then Dad would call us “the emperors of ice cream.” The emperors. Me, Seth, and Nate.
“The emperors,” I whispered.
“Matt…?”
“What?”
“That … actually sounds great. Ice cream.” Melanie smiled. “I’d like that.”
A relieved smile broke out on my face. “Yes,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We found a little ice cream parlor and Melanie chose a mint chip cone. I couldn’t quit smiling as I paid.
“You don’t want one?” she said.
“No, no. That’s not how it works.” We sat at a small round table and I watched Mel eat her ice cream. She looked genuinely happy. “How is it?”
“Great.” She grinned.
When she finished, the last bite of waffle cone gone, I cleared my throat and said, “Hannah wants you to leave.”
Melanie’s grin dropped. “What?”
“Mm. She wants you gone. She doesn’t want you driving me around.”
“Wow.” Mel chewed her cheek. “She didn’t strike me as the insecure type.”
“She’s not insecure. She worries about me blowing my cover. She’s in this, too, you know?”
“So am I. Do you want me to leave?”
I shrugged and made a noncommittal noise.
The answer was no, I didn’t want Mel to leave, but I wouldn’t give her that. She would read my answer wrong.
“What you did—” I paused, frowned, smoothed my hands over the table. “Melanie, you can’t—” You can’t grab my dick, or hop on my lap, or try to kiss me. Ever again.
God, how to say this?
I forced myself to look at her. Her eyes were wide, her face colorless. I smiled thinly.
It was hard to believe that this timid girl found the courage to grope me. Go big or go home, I guess. Or, in Mel’s case, don’t go home. I wanted Melanie to stay. My loneliness at the cabin was too absolute, and Mel’s cheerful attitude made a good counterpoint to my gloom. And, most important, having a car at my disposal gave me a much-needed sense of control.
“Don’t try anything stupid again,” I said finally. I narrowed my eyes. “Understand?”
“Yes.” Mel nodded vigorously. “I won’t. I swear.”
“Good. It should be enough for you to know that—” That I wanted you. That my body came alive at your touch. “That I want you for a friend, Melanie. A friend.”
She drove me back to the cabin and I went straight to my desk. I told her I needed to be alone, so she closed herself in her room.
I wrote for several hours.
I wrote about Melanie’s appearance in my life and the things that happened in Denver.
I wrote about Seth—exhaustive passages I would ultimately cut—and Hannah, of course, beautiful, clever Hannah.
No matter how I reached for her with my words, she slipped away. I had such ideas about her. If only I cast my net wide enough, I might capture her in my language—but it was always too much or not enough. Then I laughed because she defied me. She defied me here, where it mattered most, on the page.
A storm came up the mountainside and mixed with my thoughts and my writing. The blue night turned black. Mel remained in her room and I walked through the cabin, my mind thundering. It is not so important to be happy, I realized, because I was satisfied and not happy. It is only important to do what you were born to do.
*