It’s dark when I slide my room key into the lock and push open the door to the suite. Lena’s breathing is rhythmic; she only stirs a little as the lock clicks into place behind me. I feel an ache in my chest. She misses Charlie in a way I never will, because my heart’s with someone else. I want so badly to erase her pain. I pull the blankets over her exposed shoulders, and she turns in her sleep. Then I slip off my shoes and slide under the covers without bothering to change. It’s too risky to wash the scent of Adam’s cologne and sweat off me; Lena will wake up and want to know what I’m doing at three in the morning. She doesn’t deserve another betrayal. I’m caught off-guard by how much this secret hurts.
9
Charlie
You breathe in, out, steady. You’ve got it under control, everything’s controlled. You’re fine. Your little lamb’s back in New Hampshire at her liberal arts college, just an hour from her cozy family in Boston. And Aubrey’s in her senior year of high school in whatever little Illinois town she’s from—you can never remember the name of it; it’s somewhere just outside Chicago—and you’re back in uni in Oxford, far away from both of them, which is how you like it these days.
You laugh because it’s only been three months with Aubrey and you like it best when they’re both far, far away—but you also like to hang on to them, like that rope that connects you to them. It’s better than having some girl at uni, always buzzing around. For the first year or so with Lena, she was like that . . . buzzing, always on you, always chirping about something and needing something, and those summers away from her were the best. But you love her, you really do. She’s your lamb; Aubrey’s your loris. You love them both, and that’s the problem. Sometimes the love just seeps in and takes over and you forget who you are, and that’s when it gets overwhelming. That’s why you needed those summers away, and that’s why you’re better off with them both out of the U.K.
It’s been just over two years with Lena. There are the talks: Can you make it through college? Can you spend the summer together? Can she visit over winter break—her parents will pay for it. And every time you have to study up. Read it over (the book) to remember the basics: her habits (twirls hair, clicks teeth when thinking); her favorites (chocolate peanut butter ice cream and shrimp tempura rolls); the memories (Burning Man last summer, fishing in the Catskills the summer before that); everything down to the colors of her fingernail polish and what she smells like. If you get one detail off, you lose the game.
Keeping them straight is harder than you figured. Sometimes they merge into one indistinguishable personality. You have to keep it straight, and it throws you—it’s not just who they are but who you are with each of them. Everything down to the clothes and how you do your hair. Sometimes it makes you angry. Sometimes you’re so angry you feel like it’s crawling out of your insides on top of your skin, visible to everybody. But they smile, they laugh at your jokes, each one lays her head on your shoulder, and you know: you’re the only one who feels your anger.
It was fun at first. Aubrey, irresistible Aubrey. You had no choice—you had to be with her. She’s deeper, more intense than Lena, like a dark, swirly vortex. Inscrutable. Mysterious. Addictive. A challenge. The calm before the storm, the eye of the tornado. You could be somebody different with her.
Now it’s harder. There are phone calls or at least emails, to the extent that you can get away with it (two different girls, two different yous). There are endless details to remember. And all the time you’re not with them or texting them or talking to them or emailing them or finding excuses not to do any of those things, you’re recording it in the book. To keep it all straight.
That was why you stopped talking to Adam, and Phil, and Henry, and Z, and Alex. You kept blending your two selves into one and they were getting confused. You were making mistakes, creating holes. You couldn’t keep your selves straight and sometimes you couldn’t decide and sometimes you were someone totally different, unrecognizable. It was a fresh start. That’s why Liam had to go, and Adam before him. It’s why you live alone now in this big, empty dorm room. Just you and your two girlfriends and your book. Your favorite pages from the book are at the beginning, when things were simple, when the lists were easy and strictly factual:
Lena
>> The only time Lena drinks soda is on planes >> Likes mint-flavored floss and cigarettes >> Adds butter to her coffee >> Wears FlowerBomb perfume >> Hates the color orange >> Hates gummy candies/anything with gelatin >> Had pony when little named Beans >> Childhood friend named Bettina, now in rehab >> Closer to mom
Aubrey
>> Pours whole milk on her ice cream >> Wears Vanilla Mist body spray >> Has neg. thoughts on “using the Lord’s name in vain,” especially around her parents >> Good at Ping-Pong, checkers >> Childhood best friend named Karen >> Closer to dad
>> Says “pop” instead of “soda”
>> Allergic to pine nuts, walnuts