I SIT THERE, TOO stunned to move. He was going to kiss me. At least I think he was, the way he was reaching for me like that. Admittedly, I’m lacking experience in these matters. But his hand was halfway to my face and he was leaning toward me, just like they do in the movies—even though I grabbed his hand, was trying to stop him from touching me. And then Aja screaming . . . I try to focus on what’s happening in front of me.
“I’m not making it up! I swear! Ask her,” Aja says.
They both turn to me. I realize I’ve missed most of the conversation, but I can fill in the spaces. Aja’s eyes drop when I look at him. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I know I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”
Eric looks from him back to me, a quizzical expression on his face. “Jubilee—what is he talking about?”
I feel hot all over and I suddenly wish I could disappear. Or that they would. What was I thinking? Letting them into my life like this. My house. Letting Eric nearly kiss me? Like I’m just some normal person.
My face burns with humiliation and it’s like I’ve been transported back to the high school courtyard where Donovan kissed me and all I can hear is the laughter of what feels like a hundred gleeful teens shrieking in my ear.
I can’t believe you kissed her!
You earned this fifty bucks, dude.
What a total freak show.
Ugh. What’s happening to her face?
“Jubilee?” Eric’s face comes back into view and I hate how he’s looking at me. With a mixture of confusion and pity and . . . I don’t know—like he doesn’t know me at all. And my humiliation from then and now is getting all mixed up and my face is on fire and my heart is thumping in my ears and I just want it all to be over.
I stand up, my knees knocking into the chair behind me, sending it crashing to the ground.
“You should leave.”
“What?” Eric’s eyebrows knit together, and then his face morphs from concern to absolute bewilderment. “Why?”
“I want you to go!” I yell it this time, hoping the volume will conceal any other emotion coming through. I cross my arms, trying to swallow past a lump the size of a golf ball in my throat.
He stands there for a second more, eyes burning into me, questioning.
“Jubilee,” he says, his voice quiet but insistent.
I don’t respond. I don’t waver.
“OK,” he says, finally. “OK. We’ll go. Come on, Aja.” He tries to put a hand on Aja’s shoulder, to guide him out of the kitchen, but Aja jerks him off. They shuffle out single file, and when I finally hear the door open and then close with a thudding click, I bend over the table, grasping the edge of it, my chest heaving, hot tears rimming my eyes.
I stand there like that—relieved that they’re gone, yet hoping they’ll come back—until my knuckles start to ache and my knees feel like they’re going to buckle. Then I slowly right the chair that tipped over and sit in it, shoulders slumped, surveying the scene in front of me. The two plates. Two coffee mugs. Two crumpled napkins. To anyone else, it would be a normal sight—the aftermath of two people having lunch at a kitchen table. But for me, it’s a peculiar and painful reminder that for the first time in nine years, someone was here—and now he’s gone.
SOMETIME WHILE THE afternoon morphed into evening, my humiliation morphed into a vague sense of anger. But I can’t pinpoint just what it is that I’m angry at. Donovan? Those heartless kids? Eric for leaving, even though that’s exactly what I told him to do? Me for telling him to leave?
Lying in bed, I picture Eric’s face as it leaned toward me and focus on another question: was he really going to kiss me? I keep rolling the moment over in my mind, replaying the look on his face, the leaning, Aja’s scream, until the realization of what’s bothering me about it materializes. I sit straight up. I wanted him to kiss me—in the split second where I thought that’s what he was trying to do. And what does that say about me? That I have some kind of bizarre death wish?
I turn toward the nightstand, where Eric’s coffee mug sits. When I was cleaning up earlier, I couldn’t bring myself to wash it. Or put it down. So I brought it into my room, like a souvenir from an airport gift shop. Now I stare at the rim where Eric’s mouth was touching it just hours before and resist the urge to bring it to my lips. What is wrong with me? I tear my eyes from it, turn off the lamp, and lie down in the dark. But as sleep overtakes me, the truth slips into my brain. That maybe some things are bigger than a fear of death. Like the fear of never again being looked at the way Eric was looking at me. Like for that entire second in time, I was the only person who mattered.
“WHY AREN’T YOU dressed?” It’s Sunday evening and Madison is on my front porch. Though I figured she’d give up if I let her knock long enough, she didn’t and I reluctantly opened the door.
“I’m not going,” I say, my mortification from the day before still so fresh, I’m positive she’ll be able to see it on my face.
She doesn’t.
“Back up, I’m coming in,” she says. With no other choice, I jump out of the way, and Madison charges into the den. Then she looks around, taking it in. I expect her to make some smart-alecky comment about all the books but instead she says, “When did you guys move here again?”
“About twelve years ago.”
“And how much did your mom pay for this place?”
“I don’t know—like two thirty, I think. Why?”
“Because it’s probably worth like three times that now.”
“Oh,” I say, because I don’t care about this house right now, or her real estate interests; all I care about is getting back in my bed and pretending the day before didn’t happen.
“So, what’s your problem?” she says, dropping her bag on the ground. “And don’t tell me it’s a long story. You know I’ll get it out of you.”
“Come on in,” I mutter, shutting the door behind her. I follow her into the living room and, not wanting to slip my gloves on, I perch myself as far away from her as I can on the armchair while she gets situated on the couch.
“Go on. Spill it,” she says.
So I do. I tell her about Eric and the mayo on my lip and the almost-kiss and Aja screaming and—
“Wait, wait, wait,” she says, holding up a hand. “He was going to kiss you? And you were going to let him?”
“That doesn’t— It’s all beside the point. What matters is that Aja was totally freaking out. And then I kind of freaked out—and I basically kicked them out of my house. I guess.”
“Um, it’s not ‘beside the point.’ It kind of seems like the whole point, actually. Are you into this guy?”
“What? No!” I say. “Why would you— That’s ridiculous.”