She throws out a sad laugh. “Yeah. It’s his fault that he kissed you, his, not yours—and to throw that in my face because he thinks I am cheating on him with Matt?” She shakes her head. “It feels like I don’t even know him anymore.”
“It was stupid, Emma. I think he was just jealous. Please don’t break up because of it.” I’m ashamed that not ten minutes ago I was floating around on a high that jealousy caused. I can’t see her like this. I can’t take any more heartbreak.
Why can’t people just get along? my heart whines.
Tears start flowing anew as Emma whispers, “I mean, I always knew he had a crush on you, so maybe I was stupid to get together with him in the first place.”
“No. You weren’t stupid. There is nothing stupid about loving someone.” I grip her hands. “There has to be a way for you guys to work this out. This can’t be the end.”
“I don’t want to.” She shrugs. “I’ve been thinking these past few days and I think maybe, it’s okay to not get what you want. Yeah, I loved him, or I thought I did, but getting together with him was not better. I thought it would be, but I think we were closer to each other as friends. We shouldn’t look for love stories where there are none to be found.”
________________
I have a new shadow. Her name is Sarah Turner. She follows me everywhere.
One day she caught me in the ladies’ room up on the second floor of the Labyrinth. I’ve always felt it’s too risky to go there, but I’m known for not heeding my own advice. I had just come out of Thomas’ office and I needed to put myself back together after he made me fall apart. She was at the sink when I entered and shot me a curious look.
“Are you here to see Professor Abrams?”
“Y-Yes. We, uh, I had a few questions.”
The running water filled the silence as I averted her eyes. Then she asked, “You’re new, right? Creative writing isn’t your major?”
“No, it’s not.” I don’t have a major yet, but she didn’t need to know that.
Closing the tap, she rolled out a tissue and wiped her hands. “So our star poet pulled you into this?”
Yes. “No. I have a friend who insisted I take the class.”
“Well, good luck. I’m here if you need me for anything. As I said, I’m great at gender roles in literature.”
She left then, and it took me a minute to understand what she meant. Suddenly, I remembered that long ago fib Thomas told outside of The Alchemy, back in a time when I barely knew him.
Anyway, after that encounter, I see Sarah everywhere around campus. She waves at me from the corridor or smiles at me from across the street. I don’t like that. I don’t like that she sees me. In those moments, it’s hard to keep my promise to Thomas of no regrets. In those moments, I wish I could wear him on my skin so he could curb my anxiety and this heavy, dark feeling inside my chest.
Because it doesn’t matter. No amount of accusations or looks or guilt will ever make me give this up, whatever Thomas and I have. I won’t give this up, because Thomas is happy. Well, not happy happy. He is too abandoned for that, too much in unrequited love, but he laughs without bitterness. A laugh that actually sounds like one. I thought I’d never see him laugh that way.
But he does with me. His laughter is rich and dark, like everything else about him, and I bring that out of him.
“Your office is so boring, Thomas. I mean, beige, really?” I told him one night when I was there, sitting on his lap.
“What would you prefer? Purple?”
“Duh, what else? Though I could be persuaded by blue too. You know, the color of my tattoo, the tattoo I play with when I’m alone at night.” I undulated my hips, feeling the bump of his erection between my thighs.
“Is that right?
“Mm-hmm.”
“Except it’s my tattoo and you’re here every night and I play with it with my tongue.” He licked the side of my neck and whispered in my ear, “Until you’re begging me to stop but secretly hoping I don’t. Is that the tattoo you’re talking about?”
“You’re such an ass.”
He laughed then, threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. I was stunned. I’d never seen him do that before. The sound rolled over my flesh, drenching me in fresh lust and arousal, but it was more than that. It was the fact that I’d said the same line to him countless times in the past, but he’d never laughed at it. I wasn’t saying anything new or particularly funny, but he heard it that way.
Thomas was happy. When you’re happy, you laugh at the lamest jokes.
How can happiness be wrong?
How can any of this be wrong if the end result is laughter and momentary peace?
When I’m in doubt or when I can’t fall asleep in my soft bed and have to curl up in my cold bathtub or inside my closet, I think about his laugh.
I think about how he laughs when I climb up his body like a monkey in desperation. He laughs when I get mad at him for stealing my Twizzlers, like I steal his cigarettes. He laughs when he sees my polka dot socks. He laughs when I insist on wearing those ridiculous Russian fur hats—his words, not mine. He laughs when I tell him he’s the worst teacher anyone has ever had, that his home assignments are stupid. He laughs when he fucks me and I get too needy for my orgasm. He laughs when my words stutter while reading my poems and riding his cock.
He laughs and laughs and laughs, and it makes me wonder, if I hadn’t pursued him with a single-minded insanity, would he have deteriorated in Hadley’s absence? Would the lines around his eyes and mouth have deepened into permanent scratches?
So maybe all of this is a good thing—all the sneaking around, breaking rules, fucking with the universe. Everything is worth it.
For Thomas.
Even though it’s inadvisable, I still build castles in the air. I still think of myself as a Cinderella and him as my tarnished, broken, kinky Prince Charming.
I just wonder what’s going to happen when the real Cinderella comes back and makes him all shiny and whole. He won’t need me then. He won’t need his slutty fake princess.
________________
Bathed in the yellow light of the lamp, Thomas is sprawled in his office chair, having a smoke with his shirt unbuttoned and hair mussed up by my fingers. I’m on the floor, propped against his couch, my notebook in my lap, my eyes on the tight curves of his sweaty muscles.
I’ve gotten used to this arrangement—being with Thomas, inside a sleepy building, in the dead of night, cozied up in his fire, writing while he smokes. Sometimes I listen to the music on his phone. It’s all instrumental, songs without words. They help me write whatever nonsense comes to my head.