She offered me a fling. A no-strings-attached relationship. But I don’t want that with her. With Aurora, I would want more.
I guess I hoped she would too. Instead, I’m left wondering what signals I’ve been giving off. Even my sister called me a “hit-it-and-quit-it” type.
“So you got rejected,” Denice says, and I nod.
“I got rejected.” Raising my brows at her, I say, “Are you surprised?”
“You know,” she says as her lips curl into a little frown, “I actually can’t tell. I could see it going both ways with the two of you. She doesn’t really seem interested in anything serious, but if you’re not either?—”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I say. The words are sharper than I mean them to be, and I clear my throat at Denice’s look of censure. “Is there a sign on my forehead that everyone but me can see? Something likeCall for a good time?”
“No,” she says slowly. “There’s not.” She pauses, and her voice is hesitant as she goes on. “But you treat everything like a joke, Roman. Whether that’s how you feel or not,” she adds quickly, cutting off my protest, “that’s how you come off. Are you aware of that?”
She’s speaking calmly, rationally, and I both love and resent her for it.
“I guess I’m becoming aware,” I say. Nessa’s eyes have drifted closed, her tiny, feathery lashes twitching every so often. “I don’t think everything is a joke. I know it’s not.”
We sit in silence for a moment, until Denice speaks.
“You seem really upset about this.”
A wave of exhaustion hits me. “Yes,” I say. “Because Iamupset. Because I care about things, Denice, and apparently people think I’m not capable of that.”
“Don’t use that tone with me,” she retorts, and I scoff.
“Then don’t say stupid things.” But a second later my shoulders slump. “No,” I say grudgingly. “Sorry. But—I’m serious.”
Denice sighs. “If people misunderstand you, you might just have to let them misunderstand you. Or, I don’t know.” She reaches over and touches the tip of Nessa’s nose. “Prove them wrong.”
Denice’s wordsstay with me for the rest of the weekend, and when Monday rolls around, they’re still there, marinating in my own soupy feelings.
The only person I’ve ever felt the need to impress or prove anything to is my father—not that it ever worked. Otherwise I’ve been content moving through life on my own, unconcerned by peoples’ perceptions.
But it bothers me that Aurora might see me as someone frivolous or shallow, and for the first time, I find myself wanting to change the way she thinks of me.
I’m just not sure I can, or even should. She’s rejected me. And in front of her I brushed it off, but it hurt more than I expected. A lot more. It was like a flame being snuffed out, a little balloon of hope being punctured.
Should I fight for someone who by all appearances doesn’t want me?
No, right? I need to cut my losses and move on.
Maybe I don’t even like her that much. Maybe she’s—what was it my grandfather said to Elabeth?
The only creature to have captured my attentions, which in the past have been so easily swayed.
Maybe she’s simply tamed me into somethinggrudgingly complicit.
I snort with disgust. Knowing what my grandfather ended up doing, the words feel even worse now.
“Cut it out,” I mutter to myself, pushing my hand through my hair and staring down at my computer screen.
My résumé stares back up at me, full of choppy contradictions—fancy job titles but short durations, and very little related to my actual field of interest.
The clock on the wall ticks steadily into the silence, accompanied only by my stomach when it rumbles, and I finally push the computer aside and stand up. The cushions of my recently sanitized couch let me go with reluctance.
I trudge into the kitchen and slap together a sandwich—ham and cheese, because turkey is gross—eating it mindlessly as I stare out the window over the sink.
When my phone begins to buzz from my pocket, I startle and drop the sandwich. It falls apart in the air and lands with one slice of mayonnaise-slathered bread face down, the other slice landing on top of the ham and cheese and lettuce and tomato as they all splat on the floor.
