I pressed POWER on the remote and settled in for a night of vampires, blood, broken promises, and Reece’s perfume campaign. Every time the show went to commercial, my heart leapt into my throat. And after several commercial breaks, I was on edge. I felt like the girl who hadn’t seen her boyfriend in months—the one who went away to college—and she was nervous to see him during fall break, just like she’d felt on their first date. Excited. Hopeful. I’d gone months with no Reece, and the thought of seeing his commercial—that creative part of him—well, it was simply that: The thought of him. The very thought of him.
Poppy wriggled out of my arms. She had enough of my racing pulse and the nervous heat emitting from my body. She jumped off the couch and stretched out on the floor, panting lightly. I tested my underarm.
“Dear Lord,” I whispered, fingering my moist pit. “That’s disgusting.”
And then I fell silent as I appeared on the TV screen. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I was there, dressed in red pants and a little blouse with cherries all over. My dark hair whipped about in the breeze as I ran, looking behind me every so often. Smiling and laughing.
“Catch me!” I squealed and raced ahead, weaving in and out of pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk. Busy. Loud. Smoky grayscale city. The only color was my pants and the cherries on my shirt. They disappeared then reappeared. In and out. Left to right and back again. A flash of red. Muted color. And another flash. Legs moving faster.
“Catch me!” I cried.
I giggled and ran on, turning my head, surprise in my eyes as he narrowed the gap, coming faster, camera bobbing with the messy nature of a documentary film. Like I was meant to see it through his eyes. The man trying to keep up. The man who loved me and wouldn’t let me slip away.
“Catch me!” I called, rounding the corner.
The camera turned, jolted and froze—a freeze frame on my serious face. Up close. Too intimate. Freckles and laugh lines and strands of hair in my eyes.
“Catch me. Keep me,” I whispered, and the camera panned back, revealing my pursuer. He looked like Reece, and he set his mouth on mine. A flag in the ground. A claim. The camera zoomed in. Just our mouths. Teeth sinking into soft, fleshy lips.
I barely heard the ending: “‘Catch,’ the new fragrance from Pop Art Perfume.”
The tears in my eyes distorted the screen, and a blaring potato chip commercial threatened to distract me. I needed to think. To think to think to think. I turned off the TV and sat in stunned silence. It was too easy to convince myself I’d made it up. Many girls are short. Many girls have long brown hair. Many girls wear red pants and blouses with cherries on them. Many girls . . .
The doorbell rang. I jumped. Poppy hopped up and barked her brains out. I assumed it was Soledad. She came over at night sometimes just to check on me. I couldn’t make her understand that ringing my doorbell at ten at night was not comforting. It didn’t make me feel safe. It scared the shit out of me.
The front door was solid. I could only peer out the living room window, and even then, I knew I wouldn’t be able to see who stood on my stoop.
“Honey, I’ll be right back!” I called, and then added reluctantly through the door, “Who is it?”
“It . . . It’s Reece,” he said. I could hear the shock underlying his words. He thought there was another man in my house! I ripped open the door.
“Reece!”
“I . . . I thought . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is this a bad time? You sounded like you’re busy.”
“No no! I’m not!” I cried. I grabbed his forearm and pulled him inside.
“You were talking to someone,” he said, confused.
“No. I just said that because I didn’t know who was at the door. I didn’t want them to think I was alone,” I explained.
“Oh,” he replied, relieved. “That’s smart.”
Only then did he notice Poppy howling and jumping at his feet, begging to be touched and picked up and taken out of this awful house.
“Hey, sweet girl,” Reece said, bending down and scooping her up.
Her tail wagged so hard that it shook her entire body. She doused him with kisses, and I swallowed the urge to blurt out, “Don’t leave her! Don’t leave me!”
I watched him snuggle the dog we purchased together then set her on her feet. She tore around the room, grabbing the first toy in her path, and raced to Reece—her play partner for the rest of the night. He dropped to his knees and wrestled the toy from her mouth, throwing it down the hall where she retrieved it and brought it back. Over and over and over again, like the faithful dog she was, and they played for what seemed like hours while I looked on. An outsider.
When she was sufficiently worn out, she trotted to her water bowl, and Reece took the opportunity to address me.
“This is weird, isn’t it?” he asked. “Coming over like this?”
“No!” I tried again, softer this time. “No, Reece. It’s not weird.”
“I—” We both said it simultaneously and smiled.
“You first,” Reece said.
“I saw your perfume commercial tonight,” I said.
He pulled himself off the floor and onto the couch. Beside me. If I wasn’t already hopeful because he was the one at my front door, I was now, sitting so close to him.
“What did you think?” he asked softly. He played with his fingers in his lap—something I’d never seen him do.
“I thought it was beautiful and sweet and sexy,” I replied.
“I was going for all three of those things,” he said. “So that’s good.”
We fell silent. It made no sense when I was bursting to the gills with words, and I knew he must be too, or else why would he have knocked on my door?
“Was it me?” I whispered.
He didn’t look at my face.
“You know it was you, Bailey.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “I mean, after everything I put you through. Surely you can’t want to be with me anymore. I don’t deserve you.”
He looked at me then.
“This isn’t about deserving. This is about wanting. And I want to know. I can’t wait any longer for you to come to me. I want to know right now. That’s why I came to you. Is there a chance to make things right? Is there a chance you may still love me?”
I didn’t know what to say first. I thought it terribly unfair that he came to me. He shouldn’t have! I should have gone, and I’d planned to. Tomorrow. But that’s the thing about tomorrow. Tomorrow is sometimes too late. And then what do you do?
“I was going to see you tomorrow!” I said. “I planned to go to your house.”
“Don’t,” Reece said.