‘Well,’ Assad says, hands on his hips. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘Shit.’
He cocks his chin towards the goal.
‘First to thirty?’
I look at my watch. I have time.
‘First to thirty,’ I confirm, dribbling the ball back to the penalty spot and lining myself up behind it. I run, I aim, I score.
44
Mia
Early Tuesday morning, I’m sitting at my desk in a daze. Ethan left for practice just a few moments ago and I already miss him. It’s sickening, really, it is. Less than thirty-six hours into this thing and I’m a lost cause. Notebook open, I should be proofreading the conclusion to myBleak Houseessay that’s due tomorrow but instead I’m doodling in the margins and wondering how soon I can get him back in bed. I’m tired and sore but not too tired, and sore in a good way. Every time I move, I’m reminded of him, of us, of the way our bodies fit together …
No. I shake my head, and recommit to my work. Reliving last night’s orgasms isn’t going to give me a deeper insight into the way theJarndyce v Jarndycecase acts as a metaphor for corruption in Victorian society. It doesn’t help that we woke up in my room. I would say slept in my room but that would be a lie, there was very little sleeping involved. My bed is so close and I can still smell him on the sheets. Maybe I should head down to my history of English lecture, study there instead. Two lectures, one seminar and one lunch shift until I see him again and we’ve already agreed to skip dinner at the ref and eat here. He says he’s going to cook. I should probably grab a snack, just in case.
Before I leave, I check my phone to make sure there are no more missed calls or desperate messages. Nothing. My parentsaren’t speaking to me. It’s the strangest feeling. After twenty years of smothering, you’d think I’d be thrilled with this new approach. Their only response to my message yesterday was a thumbs-up reaction and when I called, neither of them answered. The only reason I knew they hadn’t been abducted by aliens is because Kane took the time to inform me that they’re super pissed and if I have half a brain, I’ll leave them be, advice that goes against every instinct in my being. I desperately want to fix things, apologize, explain the problem away, but if they won’t talk to me, what can I do? Thank God I have a distraction. I touch a tender spot from when I slipped and hit my hip on the taps while we were having sex in the shower before Ethan left for practice. What a distraction.
Ten minutes. That’s how long he’s been gone and I’m down so bad I pull up his Instagram, scrolling through his pictures one by one. There’s a whole carousel from the playoffs last season and I can’t help but zoom in on the details. This one captures his smile best. This one is a great shot of his ass. He looks so good I literally gasp out loud and I can’t wait to watch him play again on Saturday. I can’t wait to tell people that he’s mine. And then I reach the inevitable. A picture of Ethan and Breanna. It’s still incomprehensible, how he could go from dating someone like her, all glossy and filtered, to someone like me, but I don’t want to question it. Not now. But that doesn’t stop me tapping on her tag and checking out her pictures. The fall semester at Marshall is well underway. Here she is tailgating before the first football game of the season, here she is picking apples at Lunsford Farm, here she is at the homecoming dance. It feels like looking at photos from a TV show I used to watch – I recognize these characters but I’m not caught up on the current season and they all look slightly different now.
I keep scrolling and it’s only when I make it back to the pictures from this spring that I realize she’s deleted every photo of Ethan. He’s gone, completely erased from her life. When I tap through to a few of their friends, he’s missing from their feeds as well.
‘This was a bad break-up,’ I whisper to myself, checking on more and more accounts. It’s like he never existed.
If it wasn’t for a knock at my door, it’s entirely possible I might’ve spent all day reviewing the evidence like some kind of social media detective, but I toss my phone in a drawer, as though I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Before I can answer it or even invite them in, the door opens and Oliver steps into my room, raking his dark ash hair out of his grey-blue eyes.
‘Morning.’ He leans against the wall, leather blazer squeaking against the paint. ‘I was on my way down to get coffee and I thought, what’s the one thing that would make a caffeine fix even better?’
He looks so strange in my room, completely out of place. My heart still leaps at the sight of him, but I gently push it back down, like a bad dog trying to get on the good furniture.
‘I’m talking about you,’ Oliver says when I don’t reply. ‘Walk down to The Snug with me?’
‘Oh, thanks but no, I can’t.’ I look over at the rumpled bed, checking for condom wrappers I know are in the trashcan in the bathroom but I fear have miraculously leapt out and displayed themselves on the sheets. ‘I have a lecture, history of English?’
‘Fair enough.’ He lets his eyes roam the room and it feels like a violation. I didn’t invite him in, I don’t want him picturing me here. ‘I’ll see you tonight then.’
‘Tonight?’ Truly, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
‘The Herzog retrospective. There’s a nice French place next door, my dad’s favourite, you’ll love it.’
He chuckles at my obvious confusion, eyes crinkling as though I’m being so silly.
‘Our date?’ he reminds me. ‘We talked about it on Sunday? I booked a table for six-thirty to give us enough time. I couldn’t remember what time your seminar with Quinn finishes but you can always skip it, he won’t care.’
It’s only been two days since our last conversation, but it might as well have been two years. So much has happened and none of it helps him.
‘I can’t skip Quinn’s seminar,’ I tell him, still seated at my desk. ‘It’s the last one before mypaper is due and I don’t think he’ll look at my work more kindly if I’m not front and centre in his office. I can’t afford to get a low score on this paper, it will bring my whole grade down and—’
‘Oh, you’ll be fine.’
Without asking permission, he wanders inside, picking up the things on my desk, turning them over in his hands and then setting them back down somewhere else entirely. ‘Even if you fail, you can always repeat the module next year.’
‘No. I can’t. I only have one year here, remember?’
I watch him pawing through my copy ofJane Eyreand it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time all over again. He isn’t shy and reserved, he’s arrogant and smug, only speaking when he believes someone is worthy of speaking to. A man who has never had to worry about a single thing his whole life. All the swagger of someone whose artistic life choices will always be cushioned by a rich family, a successful dad who can slot him into the familybusiness at the drop of a hat. No wonder he isn’t worried about failing classes, or life as a struggling musician – he wouldn’t know struggle if it smacked him around the head with an acoustic guitar. And the worst part? It’s the exact same accusation I levelled at Ethan before we’d exchanged so much as a single sentence. The irony isn’t lost on me. Wild how a cute accent and a musical instrument can mess up a girl’s head.
