Or maybe I’m wrong about that being the fatal moment, since things seemed alright after it happened. Maybe the entire evening was a disaster from beginning to end, and Tristan had finally had enough and couldn’t take another second of…me. Let alone want to actually kiss me.
Painfully self-conscious of the fact that only that too-thin wall separates my apartment from Tristan’s, I sink as silently as I can down into my chair and bury my face in my hands,hoping to hide for at least a few minutes from embarrassment and a sickening dose of hindsight as that scant twenty-five percent of hopefulness dwindles.
What the hell made me think that asking my neighbor on a date could possibly be a good idea? In what world could this haveeverended well?
At some point, it’s not even about the fact that he’shim—all sexy confidence and sparkle and bounce, and I’mme—boring, quiet, lingering heartbreakmewho can’t think of a single interesting thing to say, except of course for bizarre historical facts that shouldneverbe brought up during a date, because I spend my goddamn life buried in books and the past; long past and my own. The bottom line is that getting involved with someone you can’t escape from if things go wrong or fizzle out is pretty much the stupidest thing you can do. Add in those other unfortunate realities of the situation; thehe’s him and I’m meparts, and this disaster of a date was doomed from before I even opened my goddamned mouth to invite him on it.
Next door, I can hear Tristan rustling around in his apartment now, an unnecessary reminder of the fact that the mortification of the way he practically ran out on me tonight is utterly inescapable, as is the small yet sharply painful hole that’s been torn open in my chest by tonight’s baffling ending.
Goddammit, I’d really liked him.
My fingers tangle in my hair, tugging in frustration at the strands as I breathe through the unexpectedly sharp sting of disappointment.
It’s not just that he’s gorgeous; jaw-droppingly, distractingly so. It’s not just his enormous, long-lashed, laughing eyes and irresistibly firm, always slightly on display body, or even his tantalizing smiles. It’s the way he’d made me feel so at ease, likeI could be myself without boring him. The genuine sweetness that I can tell lives deeper in him than his flirty friendliness, the little glimpses of his eager enthusiasm for life. The stunning depth and beauty of his music and painting.
I’d thought we were having a good time. Jesus, I thought he wanted—
That thought is now too mortifying to complete, even in my own head, because there’s not a question in my mind that he knows exactly what I thought he wanted. And he, most decidedly, did not want it.
Besides, all things considered, I’m not sureI’mready for that, not so quickly at least. Not that I don’t want it. Didn’t—
Fuck.
Blowing out a long breath, I lift my head from my hands and pull my phone out from where I’d been sitting on it, tucked in the back pocket of my jeans. For a moment, my finger hovers over my text icon. I need to tell Alex I’ve satisfied his conditions and he doesn’t have to set Todd on me.
Just the thought of messaging him though makes me realize I don’t have the energy or the resilience right now to explain to him about what happened tonight, which of course he’ll demand to know.
No, I’ll be putting that delight off until tomorrow.
Instead, my finger drifts over to my photos, taking the familiar path to the album I’ve scrolled through a million times over, the one with pictures I’ve memorized by now.
Stephen. Everywhere. His smile. His laughing face, captured in a frozen moment, so happy and familiar.
And the two of us. Selfies mostly, with a few proper pictures of us together, taken by friends or strangers.
The well-worn ache builds and sharpens in my chest, afeeling that never really leaves me, only dies down, just enough that I can ignore it until moments like this hit. Heartbreak. Loneliness. The loss of the future we’d wanted so much to share. The loss ofhim.
And guilt. So much guilt that sometimes I still feel like I could drown in it.
Except tonight, there’s a new edge to the familiar pain. A bite of fear that’s different from the fear that’s plagued me in the past.
For years, I’d wondered if I’d ever be able to even want to feel something for someone again.
I’d wondered that for so long that I hadn’t even realized that fear has been calming lately, dwindling into a quiet, hopeful little spark that whispered,maybe.
Now a new fear has sprung up in the old one’s place, suddenly sprouting teeth that sink into me and refuse to let go.
Will anyone ever want to feel something formeagain?
I’m halfway asleep when a banging jerks me wide awake. It’s a metallic, slapping sort of bang, like someone hitting their hand against a pot.
What the hell is Tristan doing?
Now that I’m fully awake, I can hear him too—a constant, quiet yet distinct stream of words, muffled enough by the wall between us that I can’t tell exactly what he’s saying. Still, I can get the gist.
Whatever’s going on, he’s fluently cursing it, a steady stream of frustration that, despite the thorough pity party I carried to bed with me, has my lip twitching up in an amused grin. Hedefinitely sounds pissed, but not distressed enough to make me actually worry.
Though I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s doing and haven’t ever actually seen Tristan get upset about anything, I can just imagine the scrunched up pull of his forehead tugging at his eyebrows, how they’d be lowered so that his long lashes would brush against his piercing, those soft, expressive lips of his turned down.
