“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Amanda says. And then she just gives me this look, this horrible look like she feels sorry for me, not sorry with me, but for me. Like we’re totally separate, unconnected people. And I’m all on my own.
“I’m not doing anything to myself,” I say. “I didn’t choose for things to be like this.” My stomach is starting to hurt. I wish someone would come in and pluck me out of this conversation and deposit me in a different one. Or maybe tuck me back in my bed with my fan blowing on my face and my comforter pulled all the way up to my nose.
“You didn’t. But you can choose to get over it.”
I am hit by a sudden wave of loneliness, so intense it’s like my insides are hollowed out. “No, I can’t,” I say. I look at Amanda’s face; suddenly she looks like a stranger. “And you know that.”
We stop then. We’re all silent.
Amanda’s phone buzzes and she takes it out of her giant bag. She f lips her phone open with her thumb and reads her text. “I’m supposed to go meet Liz now so…I guess I’m going to go.” She snaps her phone shut and looks at me. “Do you still need me to come and pick you up later?”
I feel an ache in my chest. It’s that word “need” that gets me. And the way Amanda says it, with just the littlest hint of exasperation in her voice, like I’m a chore she has to take care of.
“Nah,” I say. “That’s alright.” I turn around and do something totally unnecessary with the milk jug so Amanda won’t see my face.
“You’re not coming to my house later?” Does she sound confused or relieved?
I shake my head. “I think I just want to go home tonight.” And a cold heaviness fills the pit of my stomach. I’m not even really sure why I said this, I don’t want to go to my house at all. And besides, I think of Amanda’s house as home more than I do my own. But it’s too late now because Amanda is saying, “Okay then,” and, “Well, I guess I’ll just talk to you later then.” And she’s kissing Brad on the cheek and walking out the door.
I stand there and I watch her go.
I feel a tightening in my chest, so intense I gasp. I miss Nina all the time, but it is in moments like these, when I feel like I am totally alone in this world, that I miss her the most.
“Ellie?” Brad says again. I just nod, still staring at the door and then I squeeze my eyes shut and will Nina to materialize. It is dangerous and childish, I know, to let myself wish like this, to pour my whole self into wanting something that I can’t have that I don’t even know how to go about trying to get. But I can’t stop. I keep my eyes closed and I hold my breath as a tear works its way down my cheek. And I just stay like that, wishing, wishing, wishing, until I hear Brad making a high-pitched beeping noise. I open my eyes.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your unhappiness, Ellie, or seem like I’m not taking it seriously, but my hot-guy-who-could-be-Ellie’s-next-boyfriend-dar”—Brad motions with his chin toward the door where a guy has just walked in—“has just gone off like cah-razy! Beep-beep-beeeeep.”
I shake my head. It’s sweet of Brad to try to distract me, but I’m not in the mood for this right now. I am so not in the mood for this.
I look at this guy who’s walking toward the counter with his hands in his pockets. He is undeniably hot. He has a swimmer’s body and he walks like a skateboarder, leaning back slightly like he’s in no kind of hurry. He’s staring at me, like he knows me. Our eyes meet and I feel something inside me flash.
Brad is squeezing my arm and whispering in my ear, “beep beep beeeeeeeep.”
The guy is up at the counter now, the corners of his mouth curling up into a slow, sweet smile. Up close, he’s even hotter—wide-spaced eyes the color of wet slate, amazing eyelashes, dark brown hair flopping over one eye. I feel a sudden craving for something, like I’m hungry or thirsty, except not either of those things. He’s still watching me.
“Hey, Ellie,” he says.
Do I know this person? I stare back at him. Feel another flash. No, definitely not. I would not forget this face.
“You don’t remember me,” he says. He blinks. His eyes! I know those eyes!
I feel myself smiling.
“You’re Sean! From the party,” I say. I think back to that moment, at the top of the stairs, that brief and strange moment with the rubber-face guy. This is what his rubber mask was hiding.
Brad lets go of my arm. I hear his sharp intake of breath.
“Hey, buddy.” Sean smiles at Brad, tips his head back slightly, then reaches up and scratches the back of his neck. “What’s up?”
Brad lets out a quick, “Hey.”
I’m back in that moment when we shook hands at the party, when Sean just held my hand there, like it was something so precious. I feel my face get hot.
“Anyway.” Sean looks back at me. “I never got to tell you.”