“He’s on the business beat at the Observer. He was writing about the crash. Small world.” Evan smiled. This time, he walked away for good.
Was it possible that he knew? Through the rest of that week, I waited for Evan to bring up Adam’s name again. I was certain he was going to test for my reaction, to watch for the fluttering pulse in my neck or the nervous twist of my hands—damning proof of how much that name still meant to me.
But that wasn’t Evan. I was the one who thought like that, not him. I could never decide whether Evan sensed those concealed parts of me and chose to leave them alone, or whether he thought that what he saw was everything there was to see. And the harder problem was—I could never decide which of those possibilities I wanted to be true.
*
A memory, from freshman year, from the time when Evan and I were just friends. A few months, that’s all it was, a ratio that diminishes as the years go by. But those days were intense and heady, when our affection was waxing like the moon, when the uncertainty electrified the air between us. In an odd way, those feel like our purest days. When we were truly ourselves, before we started bending and changing to accommodate each other.
But that’s not quite right. Because even then, even before we were together, I was hiding certain aspects of myself from Evan.
That night, in early October, we were on the couch in Evan’s common room. Evan was sitting upright at one end, and I was lying with my head in his lap, the TV low in the background. Evan would occasionally brush a piece of hair from my forehead, but he couldn’t see the expression on my face from where he sat. At the time, I was still dating Rob, my high school boyfriend. Evan didn’t mind talking about Rob, which surprised me. Maybe he knew it was only a matter of time before Rob would cease to be an obstacle.
“So you and Rob,” he said. “Do you ever worry that he might cheat on you?”
“Not really. We have too many friends who could report back to me if he did.”
“Even if he was secretive about it?”
“Rob thinks too highly of himself to cheat. Like, he doesn’t see himself as that kind of guy. He’s too proud.”
“Do you think he worries about you? That you might ever cheat on him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Were you guys always faithful to each other?”
My face must have tightened when Evan asked that last question, but he didn’t notice. He just kept running his fingers through my hair, tracing the ridge of my ear. I thought before answering. This was the second time a chance had arisen to make my confession. The first had been the very first night of school, while we were eating pizza. He’d asked me about my summer, and I’d almost said it—the look on his face had been so warm and trusting, and I wanted to tell him everything. He was just a friend at that point, and there was no reason not to be truthful. But even at that first moment—and at that second moment, too—I wanted Evan to think of me a certain way.
“Yes,” I lied. “I mean, I always was, and he was, too, as far as I know.”
“Mmm,” Evan said. “Did I tell you about what happened at practice? So one of my teammates said…”
It never came up again. He never knew the difference. Perhaps he hadn’t been administering any kind of test, or perhaps he had been, but only unconsciously. As the night wore on I began to feel a certain relief—that I had passed—but there was guilt, too. Did I think it was okay to lie because it was never going to happen again? Or did I know, even then, that it was an error destined to be repeated?
*
I tried not to think about Adam. I really tried. Our encounter that summer had lasted barely two minutes, capped with an empty promise to stay in touch. How many times did that happen in a given day in Manhattan? Hello and good-bye, a hundred heartbeats. I did everything to force Adam McCard out of my mind. I focused on whatever was in front of me: Evan, work, friends. But there was too much time in between. Too many empty hours, alone with nothing but my thoughts. I scanned the faces of everyone I passed in the street. I jumped every time my phone rang. While I was waiting for sleep, I found myself thinking about him. Adam McCard, Adam McCard, repeating billboards at the side of the highway. It seemed impossible he wasn’t thinking about me, too.
And then, just as September was about to turn into October, I heard my phone ringing over the weak dribble of our shower. How did I know? But somehow I did: I knew that this time it would be him. His voice on the message was deep and smooth, an answer to an unasked question.