Unteachable(37)
Author: Leah Raeder

“Hey,” I said. “I just got an idea.”

“You have that crazy Irish glint in your eyes.”

I leaned toward him, doing my best Gary Rivero. “I’ve got a job for you, sweetheart.”

“Maise, I’m your friend, but I am not getting involved in the trafficking of controlled substances.”

“No,” I said. “I need your particular skillset. And, more importantly, your willingness to be a creep.”

He shrugged self-consciously. “What did you have in mind?”

March. Acceptance letters. A small pile of cash growing in my private bank account. A dream of freedom and Southern California sun.

And always, in my pocket, in my skin, in the back of my mind, the hollowness where he used to be. The empty circle where my finger used to fit into the ring. The crimson flakes and ruby dust strewn across the ledges of my ribs.

There were words for this feeling, but none of them conveyed the bone-deep ache of it, the grinding of cell against cell. It pulled my body into itself, a black hole consuming me from the inside, turning my bones supermassive, as heavy as I was on the Gravitron that night. When I thought I would finally collapse into myself I realized it was him, pulling at me. My skin stretched tight. My heart pressed right up against the bars of my ribs. I lay in the snow and watched the stars and even the Earth wasn’t strong enough to hold me down. A stronger gravity pulled at me. And pulled. And pulled.

It was a strange-looking building, more like an aerospace firm than a high school, steel struts curving gently against the sky with a sense of unfolding wings. The campus was huge, and I spent nearly an hour walking around before I found the car I wanted. I was cold in my wool leggings and skirt and thin coat. I caught my reflection in a car window: the bones of my face too prominent, too chiseled, the hollows faintly violet. Not eating well. Not sleeping enough. The cold got in because there wasn’t enough stuff between my bones and skin, just nerves hanging like spiderwebs, silvery and thin, undisturbed.

I sat on the hood of the car like I had a lifetime ago.

Kids milled around the lot, yelling and laughing. Two cheerleaders walked past, one brown-skinned and one tan, ultra-white fluoride smiles. Go Terriers, I thought.

He wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice me until he was a dozen feet away.

He stopped, the tension in him slowly unraveling until he stood there, slack and shocked. Jeans, dress shirt, blazer. Smooth-shaven, his hair shorter than it used to be. That face I had been seeing in my dreams.

I swallowed as he walked toward me. His eyes never left mine. The closer he got the more bewildered he looked, and I thought, ridiculously, He doesn’t recognize me, but he dropped his messenger bag on the ground and raised his arms and I slid off the hood and hugged him, viciously. We stood like that for a long time. My eyes were closed. I breathed too deeply, drinking in the familiar smell of him, insanely thinking I could hold it in me, preserve it. The chest rising and falling against mine felt like warm summer earth, radiating stored sunlight into my bones. I never wanted to move again.

After a minute or forever or two he leaned back and looked at me, still wearing that bewildered expression.

“Hi,” he said in a soft voice, half breath.

The last three months of my life rose into the air and dissolved like mist.

“Hi,” I said.

He touched my hair gingerly, let his hand drop. Pulled me close again, then leaned away and touched my face. He couldn’t seem to figure out where the proper boundary was.

Answer: there wasn’t one.

He unlocked the passenger door and looked at me and I got in. I closed my eyes again as he picked up his bag and came around. The car smelled so much like him, like warm suede and candle smoke. Like home.

I had promised myself not to cry until I’d said something appropriately dramatic, but I was about to break that promise.

Evan got in, still amazed/bewildered/stunned, and saw my face. He reached for me.

Then I was incoherent for the next ten minutes, sobbing my stupid heart out, clinging to his jacket, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m ruining your jacket,” and when he laughed that beautiful kind laugh and said, “Ruin it, it’s yours,” I cried even harder, accepting his invitation.

It’s somehow a lot easier to be courageous when you’re a weeping mess. When the waterworks stopped I slid away, burying my face in a tissue, everything a million percent more awkward. I had utterly forgotten why I was here. I had just wanted—needed—to see him, to touch a little, verify his existence. Well, mission f**king accomplished. Now what?

Evan seemed to sense this and started the engine.

He drove aimlessly for a while, glancing at me with giddy confusion.

“Do you want to get some coffee?” he said.

Slow head shake. Meaningful eye contact.

His gaze lingered on me. Then it shifted back to the windshield and stayed there.

He pulled up to an apartment complex. I followed him upstairs. We didn’t speak. Dingy white walls, boxes on the floor. An unlived-in feeling. He walked straight to the fridge and took out two bottles of Blue Moon and leaned there while I leaned on the counter across from him. We each took exactly one sip before we put them down and met in the middle of the kitchen. He clasped my face in his hands, his thumbs hard against my cheekbones, holding me still as he kissed me so, so lightly, as if pressing his lips to a dandelion he might accidentally scatter.

Then he stopped, looking at me.

For three months I had forgotten what the sweet hot rush of blood in my veins felt like. How alive my body was, not only in the obvious places but in the thriving red marrow, the chill prickling my scalp, the curl of my toes. I’d become as numb as if I was the one snorting all that coke. When Evan touched me I became aware of kitten-soft wool rubbing against my shins, the fine hair on my forearms standing on end, his hands unbuttoning my coat as gently and intently as if removing a bandage.

“Wait,” I said. “No.”

His hands dropped.

God, what was I doing? What was this? I took a step back, walked out of the kitchen and through the apartment. It looked like an art gallery without art. Geometrical patterns of light and shadow slapped across white paint and hardwood. I went through every room, seeking signs of life. Mattress on the bedroom carpet. Beer bottles lined up on windowsills. Shampoo, toothbrush, razor. My reflection in the bathroom mirror, mouth swollen and claret red, eyelashes lacquered with tears, more alive than anything else here.

“Is this what you wanted to see?” Evan said behind me. “My shell of a life?”

I turned around and walked past him. My footsteps echoed violently in the empty rooms. If I spoke too loudly, glass might shatter.

“I didn’t come here to gloat,” I said.

“Then why did you come?”

“I don’t know.” I turned again, hands raised. “To see how you’re doing. If you like your new job.”

“If I’m over you.”

Yes. “No.”

He stepped closer. His face was blank, his words a soft growl. “I’m not over you. I dream about you every night. I watch that f**king video over and over just to hear your voice. Does that make you happy? Is that proof I cared?”

This was the first time he’d ever seemed truly angry at me. I made my backbone iron, refusing to shirk. “No, I’m not happy. I’m f**king miserable. My life is a huge joke.”

He walked off, paced a bit, came back.

“Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t come here to f**k with my head and play games. You don’t test someone’s love by leaving them.” He rocked on his toes, his fingers clenching and unclenching. “It was so easy for you to end it. So goddamn easy. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you used me. You had your fun playing at being an adult and then it got difficult and scary and you bailed.”

My fist was in my coat pocket, trembling. “I didn’t bail. I didn’t go anywhere. You’re the one who left.” I stared to laugh, humorlessly. “And it was difficult and scary from the f**king beginning, Evan. Wesley was right. He saw how messed up it was.”

Evan laughed back, and his was cold. “You said you didn’t know how to have a grown-up relationship. Well, here’s your first lesson, Maise. When it gets hard, you don’t run away.”

“Don’t you dare try to teach me something.”

We faced each other, blazing and feverish, a blade of hot kitchen light slanting between us. Dusk bruised the apartment with deepening shadow. If I’d had a car, I would have stormed out. Calling a cab was a lot less dramatic.

“What are we doing?” he said suddenly, in a harsh whisper.

“Being stupid,” I said.

“Yes.”

I opened my fist in my pocket, letting the ring tumble out. I rubbed the smooth groove in my palm where it had marked me.

“I’m f**king starving,” Evan said. “You want some dinner?”

“Yes.”

We ate Chinese food on a blanket on the living room floor, using cardboard boxes as tables. He had to unpack a lamp. We split a carton of beef chow mein and finished our beers, then opened more, sitting across from each other and not touching except for when he handed me a bottle, and my arm tingled as if I’d hit my funny bone. Safe subjects: his new class (interesting, mostly about managing stage fright), my new class (boring, mostly about managing boredom). I told him how ridiculous it was being “friends” with Hiyam and he told me about his new students, one of whom was a dead ringer for Wesley (“Maybe he’s outside right now, filming an exposé on us,” I said, and we peered through the blinds, laughing, his hand brushing my leg). We laughed easily, effortlessly. It was all too absurd. You really had no choice. We carried the leftovers to the kitchen and I stood at the sink, rinsing my hands, and Evan came up behind me and breathed against my hair. I didn’t move. Cold water on my skin, his heat on my neck. A live wire ran up my spine straight to my brain stem. I turned and he lifted my face and kissed me, and I let him, my wet hands falling to my sides. My chest felt tight and heavy. He let go and I dried my hands and kissed him again, harder but still close-mouthed. Beer and almond cookies. Buzzing fluorescent light, linoleum smacking beneath our shoes. My shoulder blades knocking against the fridge. The kiss grew intense and we stopped simultaneously, pulling away.

“What are we doing?” I said.

“Being stupid.”

He didn’t sound sincere. I swallowed.

“I should get home,” I said, thinking, Ask me to stay.

He didn’t say anything.

In the cab I clutched the ring so hard it felt like it was carving through my bones. I was almost home when my phone vibrated.

Come over this weekend, he texted.

Immediately, I replied, Yes.

When I got there Saturday afternoon, Evan and Park were carrying a couch up the front walk.

I ran to hold the door for them. Evan merely said hello, but Park grinned and winked at me. I navigated them up the stairs. Park brought up the bottom and pretended to doze off, bored, then snapped awake and did lift reps with his end of the couch, and I laughed.

“Showoff,” Evan said, out of breath.