I stay at the gym as long as fucking possible, almost until I know for sure Mia’s finished up her nightly bathroom routine. I’ve been hard all night, and lifting didn’t help to get the excess energy out. Thinking about Mia on all fours. And how I only had her that way once. And it was only… forty-eight hours ago?! The shortest and longest amount of time, ever?!
I have to say that eating takeout by myself in my windowless little office is the most pathetic I’ve ever been.
When I finally make it home, all the lights are off in the common areas. There’s a strip of light showing under her door. I shut the front door as quietly as possible. It doesn’t help.
“I left some dinner for you, Elias,” Mia shouts from behind her closed door. “It’s in a container in the fridge.”
I scrub my face. “Thanks, Meems,” I yell back, reverting to her childhood nickname, hoping it would take me back and remove any ideas I have of her as a sexual being. One of the sexiest, if I’m being honest. This strategy clearly doesn’t work.
Because I’m a sad, sick, pathetic sack of shit, I find myself gravitating towards her room. I lean my head on her doorframe.
“Yes, Elias?” she asks condescendingly, her voice muffled by her closed door. “I’m very familiar with the creaks of our floorboards. Also, I can see your toes.”
“I ate dinner,” I say lamely.
“You can bring it for lunch tomorrow, then,” she says.
“What if it’s bean burrito day?”
“Today was bean burrito day. There are never two bean burrito days in a row.”
I run a finger down the wood of her door, pretending it’s the crevice between her breasts, because I’m a fucking maniac. “Okay. Night, Meems.”
“Night, Elias.”
I go to my room and jack off.
The rest of the week passes in much of the same way, the two of us circling around one another, avoiding each other at home and at work, and it’s hell. I don’t go to her classroom for lunch anymore, and I find ways to keep busy instead. I eat lunch with random coworkers I find in the staff room. I give Ethel a bathroom break and man the security desk for a little. I wander around the neighborhood.
She drops her class off twice this week without a word about our new Olympics unit, and honestly, my heart isn’t into it without her, so basketballs in the middle of the gym it is.
I text Leo to grab a drink on Saturday, but he cancels last minute, which is probably for the best, because I’m honestly not sure I can look at him right now. I text some of the other friends from school, Grant and Mike and some others, and we meet up at some trashy bar downtown.
I just can’t find anyone I want.
I go home. All the lights are off. I go into my room and look through the text message thread from just a week ago. With Mia. And I jerk off again.
The next day, I leave early for my gym and have back-to-back sessions until the late afternoon. I lift until my muscles are aching again, but it doesn’t help, and I end up even more amped than before.
Dinner by myself in my tiny little office is getting old, so I decide to be a real mature person and go home, to my own house, for dinner.
I throw my bag on the floor. Mia’s laptop is open on the couch, connected to our television, and it looks like she’s been streaming episodes of one of those rich housewives shows.
I walk into the kitchen, where she’s bouncing around and cooking in the fucking tank top and shorts she always wears around the house. Have they always been that tiny? Her hair is in that high ponytail, so I shove my hands in my pockets to avoid wrapping it around my hand. Stay strong, man. It’s been a week, you sad sack of sorry shit. A week too long. I actually miss her. Not even the exposed skin above her shorts, but just… Mia. I miss Mia.
“Hey,” I say, my voice hoarse.
“Hi,” she says brightly. “How were your sessions?”
“Fine. I saw Ethel. She brought me a huge thing of macaroni pie. Wanna split it?”
The fake smile on her face makes way for a genuine one, full of warmth, for me or for Ethel, I’m not sure. All I know is that I want to cut it off and put it in my pocket like a fucking serial killer. I’m losing my mind. “Sure,” she says. “We can have it with the chicken and veggies I just made.”
I shove the whole Tupperware into the microwave, not really thinking about anything but her tits. She takes two plates from the cabinet and loads them with food.
We sit in silence, eating our food, watching each other’s mouths as we pull our forks through. Or at least, that’s what I’m doing.
“I have your class Tuesday,” I try. “I’m gonna do that project-y thing that we talked about. But I’m not gonna start with the long jump idea. I wanna start with basketball.”
