The week leading up to the wedding was confusing and disheartening in the extreme. By the night before the wedding, I found myself awake at night, staring at the ceiling and going over and over that masked night and the moans and the grunts and the mutual, explosive pleasure. I found myself lost in it, as though lost in a dream. I would trace the passage of the moonlight across the ceiling, idly, and wait for inspiration to strike. How could I get her to want me again? How? But she had lost interest. Worse, she was pretending that she had never been interested in the first place. When she looked at me, sometimes I thought there was something there—some flicker of lust or affection—and then her too-smiley mask would take over.
Mom told me about the close wedding date the day after mine and Jessica’s kiss. She danced into my room in the morning (her flowing dress swirling around her like a tornado, her long hair flowing unbound to her back) and perched on the seat across the room. “Wake up, Eli!” she’d cried.
I’d jolted awake, thinking in my haziness that Jessica had been with me, holding me, and then slapped me across the face. My cheek was sore from where this Dream Jessica had struck me, but really it was from where I’d had my face pressed up against the pillow so hard it made my cheek ache. The room became real in a few moments, and I sat up. “Mom? What is it?”
And then she told me, squealing like a little girl on Christmas, no idea how this would affect me. I’d smiled and laughed with her, waited for her to go, and then dressed quickly before running downstairs to find Jessica. Mom and Andrew were going out that day for a walk in the surrounding countryside. I told them I didn’t want to go, and I think Mom was secretly glad. She wanted to be alone with her fiancé. Some alone time would be nice, she’d said, which meant Jessica would be home, too.
I’d found her in the kitchen, expecting electric energy to buzz between us, our masked-night chemistry to pick up now that we were alone. But when she looked at me, it was with that fake-smile look, that PR-smile look. It was the smile of somebody who smiles for a living. There was no genuineness in it at all. I’ve never been sold a second-hand car, but I’m sure if I ever am, the salesman will wear that smile.
“Hello, Eli,” she’d said, that strange smile fixed on her. She was standing at the counter, pouring a bowl of cereal. The bottle of milk trembled only slightly. “Do you want some cereal?” she’d asked calmly.
It was not as obvious or blunt as telling me point-blank that she wanted to forget what had happened like we had agreed, even after the kiss, but it had the same effect. I wanted her badly, more than I had ever wanted anybody. I wanted her so badly that it made my whole body ache when I looked at her. But she wouldn’t drop that PR-smile.
The rest of the week was the same. I’d wait for Mom and Andrew to go somewhere together, which they did a lot. They went into Bristol city center to the Hippodrome Theater, or they took drives together. Other times, Mom had to go into the city for her work, and Andrew had to do the same. Jessica and I were on summer break and so—nominally, at least—we were studying for next semester at university. But if she did any studying, I was too captivated with my obsession for her. That was what it was becoming: an obsession. But she never let me break through the wall she had constructed.
Once, I knocked on her bedroom door. She answered it in long sweatpants and a hoodie. I’d heard her rushing around the room to change into it. It had taken her more than two minutes to answer the door. Maybe I was being paranoid, maybe she was cold, but it was June and the hottest day of the year so far, fans were blasting around the house, and when she opened her bedroom door her face was bright red. Really, I think she didn’t want me looking at her.
“Can we talk?” I’d asked.
“About what?” she’d replied innocently, tilting her head slightly as though she truly had no clue what I was implying, as though we hadn’t made love, as though we hadn’t kissed.
“About us,” I said, and felt like the biggest cliché loser in the world. Where are we going? Who are we? What is this? I hated the pleading tone in my voice, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted her, badly. I wanted her more than I’ve ever wanted anybody.
“Us?” She bit her lip, and for a tiny second I thought the mask might slip, but then it returned, and she smiled widely at me. “I’m busy at the moment. Sorry.”
She shut the door before I had a chance to say anything. I sighed and returned to my bedroom.
And on and on and on . . .