My heart sinks. I already have plans with Ethan tomorrow after school to work on “The Waste Land.” Is this some sort of trick? To see which version of him I’ll pick? No, maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe Ethan is not SN after all. The disappointment begins its slow bloom.
Me: Can’t. Have plans already for a school thing. Have to work Tuesday. Wednesday?
SN: you are a busy woman, but I know you’re worth the wait.
Me: I am. Are you?
Again, there it is. That weird flirty tone I used to use when we first started writing but have largely dropped since. The voice that isn’t mine, that creeps in only when I’m trying too hard. Have we lost it already, our comfortable rapport, because I’m too nervous to be normal around a guy I could actually care about? No. I rub my finger along the ninja that is now stuck to the back of my laptop. I will not be afraid. This is SN. This, whatever this is, whoever this is—Ethan-or-not-probably-not—is worth fighting for.
CHAPTER 32
“What?” Ethan asks after he hands me my latte and I haven’t offered to pay, like I practiced in my head. We are sitting on the stuffed chairs at Starbucks, Ethan directly across from me. I’m having trouble forming words, because I’m too busy trying to sort this all out. I feel stupid for assuming SN was Caleb. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.
“What-what? I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re looking at me funny. Do I have something on my face?” Ethan begins to swat at his lips, which do have a tiny crumb stuck to them from his blueberry muffin, but that’s not why I’m staring.
“Sorry. Just a little out of it today.” I hold on tight to my cup, both hands cradling it like it’s something fragile: an injured baby bird. “I guess I’m tired from the weekend.”
“How was it?” Ethan asks, and smiles, as if he really wants to know. Which makes me think he’s SN, because SN always wants to know everything. And which, of course, also makes me think he’s definitely not SN, because SN already knows how my weekend was.
But most of all, I think he can’t be SN because I want him to be SN, and that’s the quickest way for it to not happen: for me to want it badly.
“Great. I mean, a little rocky at first. Long story. But then it was great. It was hard to leave,” I say, which is true and untrue. It was hard to leave and it would have been hard to stay. Not feeling like I belong anywhere has made me crave constant motion; standing still feels risky, like asking to be a target. Maybe that’s why Ethan doesn’t sleep, come to think of it. Eight hours in one place is dangerous.
“Yeah, I bet. Is that sticker new?” Ethan points to my ninja, and I realize that though I’ve had it on my computer all day at school, he’s the first to notice. Even Gem didn’t see it, because her only jab today was to call me “sweaty.” Not that creative, considering it’s ninety degrees in November.
“Yeah. My best friend from home, Scarlett, made it for me. They’re supposed to be like tattoos. I’m kind of in love with them.”
“They’re all really cool. She should sell them, like on Etsy or something.”
“That’s what I said!” I look up, and then, when I catch his eye, I look down again. This is all too much. I just need to fast-forward to Wednesday, meet SN, move on. If he’s not Ethan, I will let go of this silly crush. Theo is right and wrong: this is playing with fire. I like being around him too much.
He too is cradling his coffee cup now. I’ve read somewhere that when someone mirrors your body language, it means they like you. Then again, if that were true, I’d be sitting cross-legged, and I’d have long ago caught Ethan’s nervous habit of rubbing his hair. Instead of mirroring him, I want to crawl into his lap. Rest my head on his chest.
“Great minds, man.”
“Great minds.”
Are you SN?
Why do you wear a Batman T-shirt every day?
Why don’t you sleep?
“Why don’t you sleep?” I ask, because it seems the easiest of my questions. The least invasive, although maybe we’re past all that now. I wish conversations came with traffic lights: a clear signal whether you need to stop or go or proceed with caution.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been particularly good at it, but this past year it’s like sleep is this fast-moving train and it only comes by, like, twice a night or something, and if I don’t run really fast to catch it, I miss it altogether. I know. I’m a weirdo.” He looks out the window, that “weirdo” dropped so casually it could be a reference to our messages, or it could just be that he uses the word “weirdo” too. It’s a common noun. It means nothing.
“That’s very poetic. A train metaphor. Maybe you should take something. I mean, to sleep.”
Ethan looks at me, a question in his eyes, or an answer. Maybe both. “Nah. I don’t like to take anything.”