Bob:What a brilliant finish (gives a slow clap). Absolutely brilliant. That just took him straight to the semi-finals.
Dan:It’s the comeback we’ve been waiting for. Did you see her face when he said he only fucks real women? She tried to keep it together, but she was so hurt, Bob. Our boy did that (smiles proudly). Minimum effort with maximum results. That look is the highlight of thecompetition so far. I think we should just replay it over and over and over and over again.
Bob:You know what I loved the most?
Dan:Tell me, Bob.
Bob:I love how—with just a few comments—he managed to destroy everything they built over the last two weeks. I mean, like a fucking earthquake, he just demolished it until there was nothing left. That takes skill, Dan. All those jokes, the playful banter, absolutely every perfect moment they shared—it’s all gone. Nothing but rubble now. And it’s killing him. We gotta give this kid credit, though. No matter how much hurt and guilt he’s lugging around with him, he’s never afraid to take on more.
November, 21
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Jasmin was glad that the drive to Albuquerque was only two hours long. His presence was causing her composure to waver. Breakfast was quiet. The car ride was quiet. So much was carried in the silence. The silence was a sign that things had changed, that they wouldn’t be the same again. She just needed time to process everything he’d said. She was more hurt than she was angry, but she’d get over it, treat it like every other unwanted emotion. It shouldn’t be too hard. She’d known all along that her feelings for him were one-sided and she was no stranger to rejection. A couple hours away from him and she’d be just fine.
She booked them into the South Star Hotel. It was smaller than the others they’d stayed at, but it had the indoor swimming pool she’d promised him. After dropping their bags in the room, he went straight down to the pool and she left to tour the town. She wasn’t in the mood for real sightseeing or visiting attractions, so instead she walked through the streets, did the shopping she was supposed to do, got lost in a little bookstore, and then had lunch on her own.
Maybe processing what he’d said wasn’t as easy as she’d thought. If she had been blessed with the gift of logic only, it would have been easy. Logic told her that he was a jerk and she shouldn’t take anything he said to head. But unfortunately human beings were cursed with feelings, and once feelings were involved, logic took a backseat.
She really liked him and he was right. It caused unnecessary complications. Those feelings had made her see things that weren’t there. When they watched movies for two solid days, shethought there was some kind of connection. He was just bored. When they held hands at the Grand Canyon, she thought they were starting to build a friendship. He was just having a bad day. When he kissed her, she thought it was one of the most special moments in her life. He only did it out of pity. And last night, what she saw as a breakthrough, a sign of them being something more, he saw as a mistake. How could he kiss her like that—with so much ardency, and then call it a mistake?
Stupid, stupid girl! She’d misread everything. He kept trying to tell her. He tried to make her see that there was nothing there.
“You’re so annoying.”
“We’re not friends.”
“The concept of we doesn’t exist…There’s no together.”
He told her things like that constantly and she refused to listen. She kept pushing, almost forcing him to like her back. Maybe it was the loneliness, but she wasn’t so desperate to escape it that she’d keep on beating a dead horse. He didn’t want her. He made that very clear. He could’ve said it differently (sugarcoat it a little), but the result would still be the same. At least she could always count on Kevin for a harsh dose of reality. It was time to take a hint and stop trying.
A part of her wanted to tell him to leave, but what could she say:Well, you didn’t want to have sex with me so I’m gonna leave you stranded and you can find your own way to Georgia.That was so petty. She’d offered to drive him there knowing he didn’t like her. How could she withdraw the offer now when nothing had changed? The other part of her hadn’t asked him to leave, because…well, the other part was just plain stupid.
Just grin and bear it, she told herself. They would get to Georgia in a few days and until then she would still be civil, but there was no reason to still be naïve.
She walked around aimlessly and when she couldn’t take the boredom anymore, she hopped into her car and took a longdrive to the outskirts of the city. She drove up a winding road until she reached a dead end at the peak of a hilltop. A nice, quiet spot to spend the evening. After parking her car on the gravel beside a tree, she got out and climbed onto the hood, resting her back against the windshield. Only the sounds of nature surrounded her as she watched the sun set, birds chirping and crickets humming. She could see the Sandia Mountains far off in the distance. She’d learned that it was Spanish for watermelon because of the pink hues it emanated at sunset. She strained her eyes to see the colors, but she was too preoccupied with the heaviness in her chest to concentrate on it for more than a few seconds at a time.
As it became darker, the city began to light up. Were it not for one building that was completely lit up in green, it would have looked like fireflies against the blackness instead of an actual skyline. She zipped up her jacket, inhaling tranquility and exhaling every hurtful word he’d said to her. She just needed to let it go.
It was past eleven when she got back to the hotel. The room she’d chosen had two separate bedrooms partitioned with a wooden sliding door because she was really making an active effort to stay away from him like he wanted. So the last thing she expected to see was Kevin sitting on her bed, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his thighs. He was definitely grumpy. Nothing new.
“Do you mind?” she said, shrugging off her thick jacket. “This is my side.”
“Where were you?”
She thought she’d seen him angry before, but that was mild compared to this. She didn’t want to get sucked into another argument, so she chose not to respond at all.
“I called you eight times.”
“I left my phone in the car.”
His jaw tightened. “So you’ve been walking aroundalone? At this time of night?”
She didn’t bother correcting him and chose not to respond again. It only pissed him off more. Scorpio: a water sign. And Kevin was very much like water. H2O on its own was pretty harmless, but it didn’t take much to aggravate it and make it react. It could be the simplest thing. Like if a chunk of any alkali metal was dropped into water, it literally ignited and, depending on the metal, it could even cause an explosion.
On the periodic table of elements, the further down one moved along column one, the more catastrophic the reaction became. Lithium and Sodium didn’t do much damage; it caused a little smoke, a little heat. That basically represented their normal arguments on a day-to-day basis. At that gas station in Utah, where they’d had their first real fight, she was Potassium, maybe even bordering on Rubidium. A quick outburst but still controllable. Last night was more volatile—like water mixing with Caesium, which was powerful enough to break something. But right now, she was Francium. Instant detonation.
His fierce blue eyes remained pinned on her. “So you dump me at this hotel—yourfather’shotel—and then you fuck off until eleven o’ clock. You don’t answer your phone. You don’t tell me what time you’re gonna be back. Not even so much as a text to let me know you’re okay. Anything could’ve happened to you!”
