Percy,
The last six weeks have been hard. Harder than I thought. I’m still not used to this room or the bed. The school is huge. And the people are smart. The kind of smart that makes me realize how growing up in a small town gave me a false sense of my own intelligence. I look around during a lecture or a lab and everyone seems to be nodding along and following instructions without need for clarification. I feel so behind. How did I even get accepted into this workshop in the first place? Is this what all of school will be like?
I know I spent our last bit of time together studying, but it wasn’t enough. I should have worked harder. I need to work harder now if I want to succeed here.
And I miss you so much. I can’t concentrate sometimes because I’m thinking about you and what you might be doing. When we talk, I can hear your disappointment in me—for not telling you about the workshop and for how unhappy I seem here. I don’t want it all to have been a waste. I will work harder. I will succeed here. I have to.
And that’s why I think we need to establish some boundaries. I love hearing your voice on the other end of the phone, but I hang up and feel nothing but loneliness. Soon you’ll be starting school too, and you’ll see what I mean. We owe it to ourselves and each other to immerse ourselves—you in your writing and me in the lab.
What I’m proposing is a break from constant communication. Right now, I’m thinking a phone call every week. We can make it the same time—like a date. Otherwise, you’ll be all I think about. Otherwise, I won’t be able to do this thing that I’ve wanted for so long, I won’t be the person I want to be. For you, but also for me. Just a little space—to build a big future.
What do you think? Let’s talk about it tomorrow—I was thinking Sunday could be our day.
Sam
I read the whole thing three times, my cheeks wet with tears, a wad of crackers lodged in my throat. Sam wanted space. From us. From me. Because talking to me made him feel lonely. I was a distraction. I was holding him back from his future.
Sam was kidding himself if he thought I’d wait till tomorrow to talk about this. To fight about this. This was not how you treated your best friend, and it was absolutely not how you treated your girlfriend.
His phone rang three, four, five times until he picked up. Except it wasn’t Sam who yelled hello over the music and laughter in the background. It was a girl.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“This is Jo. Who is this?” Was this why Sam didn’t want me calling? He wanted to have other girls over?
“Is Sam there?”
“Sam’s busy at the moment. We’re cheering him up. Can I take a message?” Her words slopped together.
“No. This is Percy. Put him on.”
“Percy.” She giggled. “We’ve heard so . . .” Suddenly she was gone, the music went quiet, and there was muffled laughter before a door closed. Then silence until Sam spoke.
“Percy?” From the one word, I could tell Sam was drunk. So much for needing space to work harder.
“So was this whole email bullshit? You just want more time to get drunk with other girls?” I was yelling.
“No, no, no. Percy, look, I’m really wasted. Jo brought over raspberry vodka. Let’s talk. Tomorrow okay? Right now, I think I’m gonna . . .” The line went dead, and I curled up on the couch and cried till I passed out.
* * *
CHARLIE PICKED ME up a bit before eight the next evening. By that time, I was all out of tears. I had sobbed through a long conversation with Delilah and then again when Sam sent a short apology for hanging up on me to puke. He wrote that he wanted to talk tonight. I didn’t reply.
I didn’t think it would be possible to laugh, but the mountain of snacks Charlie had assembled on the front seat was truly insane.
“There are burgers, dogs, and fries there if you want something more substantial,” he said as I eyed the packages of chips and candy.
“Yeah this probably won’t be enough,” I joked. And it felt nice. Light. “I usually go through at least four party-sized bags of chips a night, and there’s only three in here, so . . .”
“Smart-ass,” he said, glancing my way as he headed down the long driveway. “I didn’t know what flavor you like. I was covering my bases.”
“I’ve always wondered what happens to all those girls you date,” I said, holding up a box of Oreos. “Now I know. You fatten them up and eat them for dinner.”
He shot me a mischievous grin. “Well, one of those things is true,” he said in a low drawl. I rolled my eyes and looked out the window so he couldn’t see the blush spreading from my chest to my neck.
“You scare easily,” he said after a minute had gone by.
“I don’t scare easily. You like to provoke people unnecessarily,” I told him, turning back to study his profile. He was frowning. “What? Am I wrong?” I barked, and he laughed.
“No, you’re not wrong. Maybe ‘scare’ is the wrong word, but it’s easy to get you worked up.” He looked over at me. “I like it.” I could feel the flush move down through my body. He turned back to the road wearing a big enough smile that a hint of a dimple appeared on his cheek. I had a strong urge to run my finger over it.
“You like to make me mad?” I asked, trying to sound indignant, but also trying to flirt. He glanced over again before answering.
“Sort of. I like how your neck gets red, like you’re hot all over. Your mouth gets all twisty, and your eyes look dark and kind of wild. It’s pretty sexy,” he said, his eyes on the empty stretch of highway. “And I like that you stand up to me. Your insults can be pretty savage, Pers.” I was shocked. Not by the sexy part—that was just Charlie being Charlie, at least I thought so—but by the fact that he’d so obviously been paying attention to me. Spending time with him had been the only thing keeping me halfway sane, but I was getting the impression that he’d started paying attention before he’d taken pity on me this summer. At least I thought it had been pity. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“When it comes to insults, you deserve only the best, Charles Florek,” I replied, trying to sound easy.
“Couldn’t agree with you more,” he said. And then added after a beat, “So what’s with these puffy eyes of yours?”
I looked out the window again. “Guess the cucumber slices didn’t work,” I mumbled.
“You look like you’ve been swimming with your eyes open in a chlorinated pool. What’s he done now?” he asked.
I sputtered a bit, not sure how to get the words out quickly enough that I wouldn’t start to cry again. “He, umm.” I cleared my throat. “He says I’m distracting him and wants to take a break.” I looked over to Charlie, who was watching the road, his jaw tight. “He needs more space. From me. So he can study and be important one day.”
“He broke up with you?” The words were quiet, but there was so much anger behind them.
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice cracking. “I don’t think that’s what it was, but he only wants to talk to me once a week. And when I called last night, there were people in his room, and this girl he’s been hanging out with. He was drunk.” A muscle twitched in Charlie’s jaw.
“Let’s not talk about it,” I whispered, even though we had both been silent for seconds. Then I added with more certainty, “I want to have fun tonight. There’s one week left of summer and one of the best horror movies of all time ahead of us.”
Charlie looked over at me with a pained expression.
“Please?” I asked.
He looked back out the windshield. “I can do fun.”
The movie was Rosemary’s Baby, one of my favorites from the sixties, and not exactly the cheesy slasher film Charlie had expected. As the credits rolled, he stared at the screen, mouth hanging open.