Others in the crowd are hitting on Chris, trying to get him to dance. He doesn’t pair up with any of them, but I’m still jealous and I let myself acknowledge the jealousy, swoop into its caves and its cavities, sniff its musty odor, swallow the metallic tap water. No judgment tonight. It’s only the truth, ever the truth. Chris has this hold on me, and it’s climbing by the second. The lights drench him in the color he’s been lacking, or maybe they just reveal some inner color that’s been covered up by too many years of black-and-white suits. Either way it’s a dazzling sight. He’s a dazzling sight.
I’m a race car, outpacing all the others, accelerating on a dirt road, no turns to curb my speed. I’m a witch, flying by broomstick above the cars, filling flasks with the dusty clouds, consummating her potion with spells that got her ancestors burned at the stake. I’m a winged creature way across the world, flying from a snow-capped summit to join back up with Chris. Landing on my legs, I’m human once again.
Chris’s eyes slide down me and I let them slide, beg them to slide.
More drinks, more pellets—they’re all kicking in, kicking out. “See how free it is?” I ask Chris. “To be so anonymous in a crowd like this?”
“Free,” he echoes back, marveling over all that a single syllable can hold. Only the volume of a thimble yet the vibration of thunder. Now that he’s finally stopped to smell the invasive wildflowers, he wants to taste them too, suck on the prickers until he has the wounds to prove it.
I take his hand in mine, step close so I can feel him against me, hard. Something unleashes, some kind of confidence that we’d end up here, pressed against each other.
A whisper says not to go through with this, that I’ll ruin and regret it. I don’t capitulate to that voice, just move Chris’s hands onto my hips so he can feel the textures for himself.
“Happy New Year,” I murmur, egging him on, egging him up.
He hesitates, sifting through the cons on his list until he gets to the pros, pausing there. When he leans in to kiss me, I’m already there. The balloon has popped, his pent-up energy bursting, no space left to worry about the consequences. Whatever the fallout may be, it’s worth the falling in.
Chris is gone by the time I wake up, which isn’t until the next afternoon. I’m not sad that he showed himself out. It’s better than having to eject him, and it’s not like we were going to go out for bagels and coffee and confess our love for each other. This isn’t some gross romantic comedy.
Tara asks me about it, says she saw his shoes when she got back last night.
“Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal,” I say. “I just had to bring him back here because his ex-girlfriend was at their apartment.”
“Ex?” she says. “So they broke up?”
My conscience prickles. “I mean, she gave him an ultimatum that expired at midnight, so by definition that means they’re over.”
Tara looks like she might say more on that but moves on. “Well, I knew something was finally going to happen between you two. Wait till I tell Hal and Jenni. They’ve been shipping you both since day one.”
“There is no shipping going on,” I refute. “It was a onetime thing to help Chris through a weird night. We’re not going to become a thing or anything.”
“Because you don’t want to or because he doesn’t want to?” Tara asks, bringing me a steaming mug of coffee with a huge dumping of cocoa powder on top, just how I like it.
“Because we both don’t want to. Enough with the twenty questions.”
“I just want to make sure you’re feeling okay about it all.”
“I’m feeling great,” I say, gulping down the coffee, coughing on the cocoa powder. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
It’s not true, though. I’m feeling very off, very irritable. I expected that once I got with Chris, I’d have scratched the itch, moved on like I do best. But if anything, it’s made the itch worse. I want to scratch it again, now that I know how satisfying it is.
“We’re different that way, I guess,” Tara says. “I can’t help but get attached to people I sleep with.”
“Hmm, I wouldn’t know what that’s like.” I try to laugh at myself but am not quite able to. “No one’s ever gotten a hold on me that way. It doesn’t sound fun.”
“No,” she agrees. “But the primary point of love isn’t to have fun, is it?”
“Of course it is,” I snap. “What else would it be for?”
I don’t wait for an answer, just make my escape out the door, leaving my footprints in the thin layer of snow resting delicately on the pavement before the exhaust from the cars wrecks it with soot, turns it to slush.
Chapter 29
In the days that follow, a sequence of disagreeable events unfolds.
For starters, the heat breaks at the Inn, our radiators as cold as ice queens. Tara and I have to bundle up in scarves and hats inside, with no update from the super on when it will be fixed. Next, I’m all cramped with writer’s block, unable to think of any ideas for a new play. Usually I have so many ideas swirling that I just have a hard time getting them onto the page. Now, though, I can’t even dream up the concepts. It’s like all my creativity has congealed and I can’t figure out how to reverse it from solid to liquid to air.
There’s no word from Chris either. I figure he’s trying to move on from the whole Olivia mess before he comes for round two with me, but I’m not going to sit around and pine—I’m not an evergreen. So I give him a call one night. It goes straight to voicemail. I don’t leave a message, just text him something short so he won’t think it’s serious.U still up?
