Like so many people before me, I had a problem and I thought sex would fix it, only to realize in the morning it’s made it worse.
I look at the door, think about leaving, but no, that would hurt her. I have to stay. I have to face this. I have to figure out what the hell I’m going to say to her to make this okay.
And then the toaster dings and the toast pops up and Su-Lin stirs and adrenaline rushes through me like someone has beaten down the door and come in with a gun. I turn on my phone and look for something—anything—to remark on while I figure out what else I’m going to say.
It’s the coward’s way, I know. But if I allow myself to fall into this, I know what will happen. I’ll wrap my whole being up in us and never want to let go, not even if it’s better for her.
I can’t do that again. Not to her.
Su-Lin squints over at me, smiling as she sees the toast in the toaster.Then she seems to notice that I’m dressed, and finds her clothes next to her and stares at them.
I finish my Google search and wave my phone at her. “TubeDaily did a piece about our launch today. She called the originalSockwives‘pure brain-breaking crazy,’ and she also says she peed herself, so I think that’s a good thing.”
Su-Lin’s smile turns tentative. “This is what I live for. People fake laughter but not bladder failure.”
I try to ignore the tightness in my chest, which is now throbbing with a dry, empty ache. But Su-Lin proceeds to put on her clothes under the covers, like we’re friends at a sleepover.
Because our date is over.The last one this week. And now we have to go back to being casual, which is the last thing I want. But I also don’t want to start sweating and crying uncontrollably, don’t want her to face that kind of a mess the morning after we finally slept together.
So instead I butter the toast. I put some on a paper plate and hand it to Su-Lin. She sits down on the couch, and I take the chair, and we eat and talk about our nerves for the upcoming launch, as if nothing has happened. As if we didn’t just have earth-shattering, transformative, mind-blowing sex that magnified my feelings for her a hundred times over.
Su-Lin smiles at me again and I try to smile convincingly back at her.
She’s fine with this. Maybe it’s even what she expected. I’m the one whose heart is shattering, blown apart by the force of my own expectations.
Stick to the plan, Brendan, I tell myself.
But mostly I wish I was somebody else.
Seventeen
Su-Lin
When I fell asleep last night—sometime after Brendan did, his warm breath soft and even against my bare skin—I’d had this image of what it would be like waking up in bed with him. I’d roll over, and he’d be there, and I’d realize his arm was still around my waist, like he didn’t want to let go. I’d scoot up against him as his eyes fluttered open, and he’d smile. And we’d tease each other about morning breath, but that wouldn’t stop us from kissing and tangling up in each other all over again. Which would, of course, lead to incredible morning-after sex and possibly another round in a nice, steamy shower afterward. I’ve never had the experience of waking up with a guy after sex before, so maybe this image comes from too many movies.
There are a few seconds after I wake up, smelling toast and feeling the warmth of him in the sheets, that my heart swells with this sense of perfect happiness—and then I open my eyes and see him sitting hunched over in a chair across the room, staring at his phone. Fully dressed.
Another look around, and there are my clothes in a neat pile by the bed. Like he put them there in hopes I would get them on as soon as possible.
My heart deflates so fast it’s painful.
Don’t be paranoid, I tell myself. It was a polite gesture, setting my clothes there for me like that. Anicegesture.
But he barely looks up at me as he reads a comment about our launch today, or as I fumble with a halfway normal response.
That’s when I really know. He doesn’t want to talk about last night.
He wants to pretend it didn’t happen.
I put on my clothes under the sheets, which still smell like him.They’re yesterday’s clothes, so I’m going to have change again, but he clearly doesn’t want me walking around naked, even if it’s just as far as to my suitcase and then the bathroom.
Everything in me feels sharp and jagged with uncertainty—my heart against my ribcage, my breath in and out of my lungs. I’m smiling, taking bites of buttered toast that tastes like cardboard, but it’s like I’m made of delicate glass. Like I’m afraid to move too suddenly or I’ll break.
So different from last night, which was all heat and solidity and smoothness and hope.
And love.
I’m in love with him. So crazy in love with him. I should have known it before, and probably on some level I did. But I couldn’t look at it too closely, couldn’t let myself think about how much I might be in love with him if he didn’t—couldn’t yet—feel that way about me. Like it was something we had to fall into together, at the same time.
