F*ck Love

“I was hoping we’d have some time together tonight. To … you know…” He waggles his eyebrows at me.

“To what?” I ask dryly. Neil doesn’t get my humor. It’s nothing against him, really. But sometimes I like to make him nervous.

“To do things.” He glances over my shoulder to where Della is taking off her shoes and picking up the remote.

“Like?”

“Have sex,” he whispers.

“What? Why are you mumbling?”

“To have sex,” he says louder.

“Ew!” Della says from the living room. “I’m right here.”

I watch him turn bright red, and I giggle. Neil is cute.

“Plenty of time for that next week, lover,” I say. “After finals are over.”

He gives me a really good kiss goodnight. I almost get glassy-eyed as I remember all the reasons I love him.

1. Good kisser

2. Kind

3. Goofy

4.

Della makes me cook her a snack. Cook. Like I actually have to melt butter and chop garlic for what she wants. She sits on the couch, with Teen Mom on mute, and talks about Kit the whole time. She thought a proposal was coming, but now he’s possibly cheating.

“I have been distant,” she tells me. I wonder when that was.

“Emotionally distant?” I ask. “Or physically? Because every time I look over, you’re on his lap.”

“Emotionally,” she says, without skipping a beat. “Last week I sent two of his calls to voicemail. I was on the toilet. And yesterday, when he asked me what I thought about his bass playing, I gave him a really generic response.”

“Ouch,” I say. “Wedding’s off.”

“This isn’t a joke, Helena! He’s the love of my life. My soul mate!”

I scrunch up my nose. Hadn’t I read somewhere that there was a difference? I think about telling her about my dream. Maybe that’s what I need. A good laugh about me with Kit. But she’d probably say that Kit and I have nothing in common. And then I’d get mad. She didn’t see us at breakfast. She didn’t know that I changed his mind about coffee. Or that I was working hard to be a coloring book artist, because in my dream he told me I was. All these things.

I carry her snack to her and sit as far away from her on the couch as I can.

“Come snuggle with me,” she says.

“No.”

She turns back to the TV, glassy-eyed, checking her phone every thirty seconds.

“Has he not answered any of your texts?” I ask her.

“No. I think he’s asleep.”

I wait a few minutes before picking up my phone and typing in his name.

Hey Kit!

It takes a few, but eventually the talk box pops up. I wait, my limbs tingling.

K: Hey kid!

I glance at Della out of the corner of my eye. She’s enraptured by Tyler and Catelynn.

Drink anymore coffee?

K: I want to be a better man.

Lol. Why haven’t you texted Della? She’s freaking out.

His text box shows up for a few seconds, then disappears all together. After that, I don’t hear from him.

Shunned by association. Maybe Della was right. He is cheating on her. Asshole. There is no way I am marrying someone like that, let alone having his baby. I have to stop this nonsense. It was just a freaking dream.

“Tell me about him,” I say to Della. “What’s he like and why do you think he’s so great anyway?”

She turns to look at me, her eyes large and filled with tears. “He’s so good. Ten times better than anyone I know. He cares so much about other people. And not what they think—he doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks—he just cares about them.”

“What else? Is he smart? What is he into?”

“He’s … really smart. But, he doesn’t throw it around, you know? He’s quiet. Listens, even when you think he isn’t. And he notices details, crazy details. Like he always knows when I’ve had my eyebrows waxed, or change my nail polish color. And he likes … I don’t know. We do the same things.”

Since Della’s life consists of sleeping late, shopping for bikinis, and going to the occasional late night concert, I’m not sure it says much about Kit.

“He’s just busy,” I tell her. “It’s not about you.”

She nods, and just like that, her glassy eyes turn back to the TV, and she’s zoned out. That’s the thing about Della: if someone’s not in love with her, she stops being able to function.

Kit disappears for a week. And, during that week, Della will not leave my apartment. She follows me from room to room, asks for snacks, and cries into my throw pillows. I suggest she go to his job and ask him what’s up. But she says only trashy girls chase men, and instead stalks his Facebook.

I try to leave my apartment as much as possible, but she asks if she can come with me when I leave. I’m smothered in places a person shouldn’t be subjected to smothering: the grocery store, the dry cleaners, the gas station where she gets out of the car to stand next to me while I pump gas. I sneak out once, when she’s using the bathroom, and ten minutes later she blows up my phone until I answer.

“Where are you?” she sobs.

When I tell her I ran to the bookstore, she says she’ll meet me there, and shows up in huge sunglasses and a tight black dress.

“Why are you dressed like that?” I ask. I am crouched in the trashy novel section, looking for cheap thrills and deep skills.

“Kit is here,” she says. “I saw on his Instagram.”

Shoot. I didn’t. He hardly ever posts pictures.

“Were you going for the clubbing-in-the-middle-of-the-day look?” I ask her.

“Shhhh,” she says, flapping her hand at me. “Here he comes.”

I have The Barron’s Lust in my hand when Kit comes walking up. I stand up, so I’m not at crotch level, and glance at Della. Her face is indifferent, but I can see her hands trembling. I’m caught in the middle of a couple’s quarrel, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

“Easy Dells,” I whisper. “He’s just a boy who has a lot of explaining to do.”

Her shoulders straighten up, and I see her pointy little chin jut forward.

Kit notices my book first. “Whoa!” he says. “Bet it’s at least ten inches.”