“I was just trying to be nice to him!” I say frantically. “I didn’t want Brad to have to worry about me and…” But before I can say anything more Sean just says, “Sssshhhh,” and starts leaning toward me. He reaches up and closes his hand over mine. I’m still holding the fork. He’s leaning forward, his arm resting on the back of the couch behind me. His mouth is getting closer. His lips look moist. Is he going to kiss me? He’s going to kiss me!
I tip my head to the side. I open my mouth the tiniest bit and I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
“Dude,” Sean says. I open my eyes. He’s nodding his head and pointing to his mouth. “Now that is some good fucking cake.”
I look over at my fork. It’s empty.
He wasn’t going in for the kiss, he was going in for the cake.
“Your face is red,” Sean says. “Are you okay?”
My champagne buzz is completely gone.
“Oh, did you think I was about to…” Sean says. He points back and forth between our mouths.
I shake my head. I am suddenly dying of embarrassment. I’m going to go into the bathroom now. I’m going to go into the bathroom and hide and not come out until Sean is asleep. I start to stand. But Sean has wrapped his fingers around my wrist again. And he’s pulling me in slow motion toward him. “Ellie, don’t go,” he says. And I do not have any cake on my fork this time. I close my eyes.
Twenty-two
I wake up and the events of last night come back in flashes, the way dreams do:
Lip against lip, mouths opening. Time slowing down, speeding up, slowing down. We are on the couch. We are on the bed. We are on the f loor. We are magnets. We are melting. We are drunk. We are ordering more champagne. We are drinking from each other’s mouths. We are drinking from each other’s skin. We are breathing heavy. We are yip yip yipping. We are cracking up. We are playing strip poker with fries as cards. We are winning. We are losing. We are naked. We are covered in sweat. We are licking it off. We are pressed together. We are going faster. We aren’t stopping. We are going too fast. We are slowing down. We are curling ourselves together into a ball. We are comparing our scars: white lines on my shin from slipping on wet rocks, tiny white circle of an ancient chicken pockmark on my hip, scratches on his arms from a lifetime of dogs, scraped up knees from falling off a bike, that tangle of jagged white lines on the inside of his arm for reasons he can’t say. We are breathing together. We are heartbeating together. We are starting all over again. We are not sure where his body stops and mine begins. We are drifting off into something like sleep.
I lie here now, on this beautiful bed in this beautiful hotel room. Silk eye pillow wrapped around my wrist like a bracelet. One sock on, one sock off. My head pressed against the pillow, my face stuck in a smile. I reach out for Sean. But the bed is empty. I’m alone.
Alone.
Alone?
I sit up. There’s a glass of water next to the bed. I don’t know how it got there. I pick it up and drain it. My head aches, like my skull is slightly too small to hold my brain. My tongue feels fuzzy. My lips are sore. I get out of bed. I am naked except for the sock, and suddenly embarrassed. I pull the sheet off the bed and wrap it around myself.
“Hello?” I say. My voice isn’t working right. “Sean?” He’s not here. My whole body feels fragile, like I’m made of glass. I walk around the room, the sheet dragging behind me. Every bit of evidence from the night before has been cleared away. No champagne bottles, no room service cart. Even the balled-up napkins we used in the napkin war have magically disappeared.
My cell phone is on the table. It’s flashing. I have two text messages: stop ignoring me, from Amanda, and also I’m worried about you. And four missed calls. All from her. But nothing from Sean. And I realize I can’t even call him. Because, ha-ha, I do not know his phone number.
I walk to the enormous bathroom. The door’s halfway open. No Sean.
I lean against the wall.
My heart is suddenly pounding. I squeeze my eyes shut.
What if I imagined everything that happened last night? Or I changed it all around in my head to make it what I wanted it to be?
A new picture starts to present itself. Me, drunk, falling all over the place. Talking too much. Laughing too loud. Spilling my whole soul to poor Sean who just wanted to eat some dinner and go to sleep.
I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the giant mirror over the sink. There are bags under my eyes and my hair is sticking out in all directions, there are pillow creases on my face and dried drool on my cheek. I turn the shower on steaming hot. I get in and let the water run over me. There’s a basket in the shower, containing tiny bottles of fifteen different types of shampoo, conditioner, and bath gel. I close my eyes and tip my head back. I wash my hair with basil mint shampoo. Brush my teeth, hard. Floss. I remind myself that what happened last night doesn’t even matter. This trip isn’t about Sean. I was just drunk. I thought we had a connection. I was wrong. This is about Nina. This is about finding Nina. But what if he’s gone now? Then what will I do?