Page 9 of All The Ways to Miss You

I set my jaw at his assessment. Even if it’s true, I scramble to construct a comeback. My mind zips from one brassy retort to the next. But my instinct when he challenges me like this is to bulldoze him right back and knock him off his high horse.

Though I would never act on it, an alluring option plays in my mind like a movie.

I set my glass down and slink toward Evan until we’re face-to-face, and place my hand on his chest. At my touch, his chest muscles stiffen beneath his worn T-shirt.

When he exhales, I read the wild excitement in his stunned eyes. He may have been joking, but I can tell there was a kernel of truth to his offer. He wants me. Though I don’t have time to consider why, the thought of being desired excites me. Deep down, I enjoy this new game between us.

I lick my lips, drawing his gaze. I lean closer until my lips brush over the sandpaper scruff of his chin and the softness of his full lips. His accelerated breathing warms my face. Behind my controlled facade, my heart lurches with excitement.

Evan wouldn’t expect this aggressiveness from an uptight princess. Now that he’s in shock, I whisper four words across his skin at his offer to shower together.

“Not. On. Your. Life.”

When his eyes widen with confusion, I give him a shove, sending him over the door’s threshold and into the hallway. Emboldened by my victory, I slam the door in his handsome face.

Perhaps if I had more alcohol circulating in my veins to lower my inhibitions, I would have the courage to approach him and prove him wrong. And if every move I made wasn’t so cautious or calculated, I could. At his challenge, I want nothing more than to be the opposite of what he expects, or the opposite of what I expect of myself.

My mood plummets when I realize he sees my flaws. It’s hard enough for me to fight my own negativity, but now I have to hide it from him too? I already do it with everyone at work.

Then I consider the bright side of this unfortunate conversation. In a few words, Evan has cured me of my unwanted budding attraction.

“Are you done for the night? I’d like to have my apartment back. I have uptight and prissy things to do,” I say with bite.

“Sure thing, Cat. But if you change your mind about the shower,” he says as he saunters toward the door, “you know where to find me.”

four

It’s night two of attempting to sleep on Aggie’s lumpy couch. It smells like Cheetos and sweaty feet.

I lie awake, counting the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on her ceiling. There are 236. I roll and face the bookshelf, only to find her porcelain giraffe collection. I grimace at their crazy marble eyes and pink feather collars and flop in a new direction, tugging the covers with me.

Tonight it’s not insomnia I’m suffering from, it’s that I can’t stop thinking about Evan. It’s not because he’s attractive. It’s not because he annoys me. It isn’t even because he flirted with me. It’s because he made me angry enough to imagine I could take control of a situation and fight back. That’s something I can’t ignore, because it’s a first in my short recollection.

Yes, I ran away from my home and family to move to Chicago, but that wasn’t an act of control. It was an act of survival. There was no way I was ever going to find out who I was before with my parents forcing me into the cookie-cutter shape of the daughter they wanted. During my two-year recovery, I lived under their watchful eyes, under their rules, and withered as they drilled me with their unattainable goals. I was drowning. Everything within me screamed for a new life I could discover on my own.

When Evan called me uptight and prissy, those words hit a nerve. Those are words I would use to describe my parents. Perhaps I had overcome those traits and loosened up before when I was in college and on my own. I can’t be sure, but when I imagine myself free as a bird like Aggie, my pulse dances.

Maybe I owned a porcelain giraffe collection. If I had, my parents would have called it tacky and childish. It doesn’t matter what I do, or what I’ll ever do, I’ll never be good enough for them. It’s sad someone my age obsesses about these things, but in the after, they’ve been an overbearing part of my life.

My phone chirps with a text message, tugging me from my antsy mood. I lift it from the coffee table. The time reads one a.m.

Evan

Your water is fixed.

Normally, I would place the cell back on the table and ignore the message, because this is what I do—allow texts to mellow. I deconstruct and look beyond the words to identify underlying meanings before deciding a response. But tonight, I stare at his words, refusing to let go. I snag my bottom lip with my teeth when a sassy response is the first thing that comes to mind.

My fingers fly over the buttons and I type: It’s about damn time.

My thumb hovers between one of two emojis. Which to pick? The angry purple devil or the smiley face? Adding the second would change the context, like all is forgiven, or worse, like I’m flirting. And given the clear messages I’ve been sending, I shouldn’t be flirting.

For the first time after I stop thinking, select one, and press Send. There’s a bloop as the internet gods deliver the message to Evan, and as soon as they do, I regret my decision. Stupid smiley faces.

Three bouncing bubbles appear below my text. I grip the phone, waiting.

Evan

Shouldn’t you be out partying with your blond leprechaun?