Deeper

JANUARY Caroline

Winter break was endless. I slept in late and padded around the house in my slippers. The rest of the world was working, productive, but I had nothing to do.

I played six million games of Minesweeper, which—yeah, I don’t even know. Obviously there are better games. I couldn’t bring myself to commit to anything that involved more than one level or any sort of complex strategy.

It was draining, being home. Christmas in the Caribbean wore me out. Having to smile so much. Having to talk about my classes, my friends, my interests, and never mention West or the bakery, Nate or the pictures, any of it.

Keeping secrets is exhausting. When your whole life turns into a secret, what then?

I told my dad about rugby. He didn’t like the idea of me playing a tackle sport.

“You should play golf,” he said.

“Dad, I hate golf.”

“What’s wrong with golf?”

Golf made me think of West. How he caddies, so he must know when to hand somebody a nine iron or a sand wedge. How he must have opinions about drivers and wear some kind of a uniform—a crisp polo shirt, khaki shorts. He must look so different.

I pored over Google maps, searching for golf courses in Oregon, trying to guess which was his.

My grades came. Two A’s, two A-minuses. Dad put them on the fridge.

He asked if I was going to see Nate, and when I reminded him we broke up, he said, “You were friends before you were going out. Maybe it’s better not to burn that bridge.”

Obviously, I didn’t call Nate. I took a four-hour nap instead.

For New Year’s, Dad took me out to dinner and made a big thing out of letting me drink a glass of champagne. The next morning he gave me his credit card to buy myself “something nice.” Because I got good grades. Because he was so proud of me.

When I showed him the cashmere sweater I’d bought at the mall—the exact shade of West’s eyes—he kissed my temple, rubbed my shoulder, left me alone to watch bad movies in the den.

At night, long after Dad was asleep, I lay in the glow of the TV and waited for West to call.

I dozed off sometimes. I was so tired.

But when the phone rang, I woke up. I laughed. I craved. I yearned.

I flushed hot, dug my teeth into the flesh of my thumb, whispered words I never thought I’d own.

“Want you.” “Need you.” “Inside me.” “God, West.”

He would tell me things he wanted me to say. Dirty things that somehow weren’t dirty with him, they were just true. They were real. He would tell me, and I would say them. Anything he wanted.

There were words I didn’t say, though.

I miss you.

I love you.

I must have thought there would be time for that later. After break, when I saw him again, we’d be different. We’d be close—as close as we were on the phone. We’d be real.

I hadn’t learned yet that when your whole life is a sham, real isn’t something that happens to you.

When you surround yourself with lies, all the real things start to break.

I’m back in Putnam for all of an hour before I head over to West’s apartment.

I can’t help it. I need to see him.

I wanted to pick him up at the airport last night, but he’d left his car in Des Moines, and he was getting in late. So I tracked his flight and saw when he landed, a quick twenty-minute drive from me in Ankeny. I imagined him driving to Putnam alone in the dark.

This morning, I’d promised my dad I would hang around for lunch after my sister and I went to the bridal shop to pick up my dress. Janelle grilled me relentlessly about boys, wanting to know if I was over Nate yet. “You should start thinking about meeting a new guy,” she said at least six times. “It’s not good to focus just on school.”

Dad said I shouldn’t jump into anything.

The whole time, I was thinking about West an hour away. Almost close enough to touch.

I want to take the fire-escape steps two at a time, but I stop myself. They’re icy. I knock on the door, short of breath, heart pounding. I’ve been imagining this moment for weeks. The entirety of break spent anticipating this reunion, this kiss. West pressing me up against the wall. Pushing his weight into me, his hips. Me running my hands over his arms and his back. Getting lost in him, as surely as I’ve been lost in my own head all month.

When he opens the door, though, nothing’s the way I imagined it.

His face is blank. As blank as the sky, as gray and cold.

I wait for him to recognize that it’s me—to warm—but he just says, “Hey,” and then I realize he has recognized me. And this is my reception.

He doesn’t step aside to let me in. He’s dressed for work at the restaurant—black slacks, white button-up, shined black shoes. So handsome it’s a little scary, with his eyes that way.

“Hey. You’re back.” I have this nagging urge to check the door, make sure I’m at the right apartment. In the right dimension.

“I’m back.”

“Did you have a good flight?” Gah. We were supposed to be kissing by now.

He turns away and grabs his coat out of the closet. “It was fine. I’ve got to go in to work.”

“On a Thursday?”

“I picked up a shift.”

“Can I walk over there with you?”

He shrugs like it’s nothing to him one way or the other.

I’m baffled. Just the other night he said he wanted to get inside me, build me up, fuck me hard until we were both bruised and shaking, and then he wanted to do it again, slow, sweaty, trembling, and watch me when I came.

He said that. Two nights ago. I didn’t make it up.

When he brushes past, he smells like wool and peppermint, and he doesn’t even look at my face.

I follow him down the steps.

He’s put on a hat I’ve never seen before, black-and-dark-gray stripes, thick and thin. I look at the spot where it meets the back of his neck. My fingers itch to touch him there.

His mood keeps me from doing it. His mood is a real thing dividing the space between us, as solid as granite.

Go away, his mood says, and it reminds me of the other times he’s been like this. Weeks ago now.

I’d almost forgotten. All the rules we’ve had between us—I guess they were suspended over the break. Our talk of touching, of wanting, the dirty thoughts we exchanged, made me forget.

I’m not sure what the rules are now, but I know that whatever they are, they’re fully in effect.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? You seem kind of distant.”

He turns partway toward me, hands shoved deep in his pockets. For an instant, his whole face is a wince. “I guess I don’t feel much like talking.”

You felt like talking the other night.

You talked me into two orgasms before we got off the phone.

I heard you come.

What the hell is wrong with you?

I should pick one of these things and say it, probably. But I just spent a month at home not saying any of the things I really felt. West was the only person I opened up to, and even with him, I censored myself.

My throat is tight.

We come to an intersection. The pile of iced-over snow reaches my waist, but there’s a cut shoveled into it, and we pass through. I crunch over frozen gray slush in the road. The restaurant is half a block up on the right.

It’s getting dark out, even though it’s only four o’clock. The world feels dim and threatening. A car goes by, and the crunching noise its tires make sounds like a threat.

It’s cold. So cold.

“What are you doing later?”

“I’m on until late.”

He doesn’t say when he’ll be home. He doesn’t invite me over.

That empty thing he does with his face—it’s a trick. An act he’s figured out how to do. It drives me crazy, because I don’t know how to hide myself like that, and I haven’t done anything to deserve his retreat.

It makes me think of that day in the library when I tried to slap him.

The way he was that day—that’s West. That was me, too. Both of us there that afternoon, angry, intense, impulsive, real. Whereas this—this is just West being an asshole.

“What’s your class schedule this semester?”

Another shrug. “I’d have to check. I haven’t memorized it.”

There’s a slight sneer in that sentence. I haven’t memorized it, like I’m sure you have.

West has never sneered at me before.

He’s teased me, challenged me, seduced me—but he’s never mocked me.

Something is really deeply wrong here.

I screw up my courage and catch at the sleeve of his coat, pulling him to a halt right in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Did something happen to you? Last night, or on your way back here?”

It’s a long shot, but he could have an excuse. An explanation. He could.

“I told you, nothing’s the matter.”

“Then why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

I push at his biceps with my fingertips, looking up at his empty face. “Like this.”

He kind of rolls his eyes at me. Not all the way, but he glances up at the sky, like I’m hassling him. Some random, troublesome girl. “I think you have the wrong idea about us.”

“What does that mean?”

“Showing up at my apartment. We’re not gonna be like that.”

We’re not gonna be like that.

That’s what he’s getting at with this routine of his. That’s his purpose. “You’re pushing me away.”

He still won’t look at me, and I think at first it’s more of the same thing—a way for him to pretend I’m getting predictably whiny now, female histrionics in full effect—except his eyes are glistening. His Adam’s apple works, bobbing as he swallows.

His voice is full of gravel when he tells me, “It’s just, I’m gonna be busy.” He clears his throat and continues, “I’ve got eighteen credits this semester, plus an extra bakery shift, and I don’t think—”

“Who do you think you are?”

“What?”

“Are you the same person who I talked to on the phone two nights ago? And the night before that, and the night before that, and twice a lot of days, when the house was empty with Frankie at school? Was that you, or was that some other guy who just sounded like you?”

“You know it was me.”

“So what are you saying?”

He crosses his arms. Completely unable to look at me. “I’m saying I want to back off this thing.”

“This thing.”

“Us.”

“You’re breaking up with me?”

“We were never going out.”

The words drop onto the ground between us, and I look at the place where they land, right in front of his feet. The frozen gray slush. West is standing braced—his legs wide, his arms crossed, the restaurant door ten feet behind him, glowing like a beacon.

He planned this. He was ready for it.

And he’s still doing a really terrible job of pretending not to give a shit.

We were never going out.

We’re not friends.

He told me less than forty-eight hours ago that he wanted to tongue my clit until my thighs were trembling. I don’t know what’s changed. Something. Nothing. He hasn’t bothered to tell me.

Because, after all, when does he ever bother to tell me anything?

I should be angry, but I’m so surprised and so fucking disappointed. I thought I’d be in his bed right now. I thought we’d be smiling, naked, rolling on a condom so I could finally, finally, feel him inside me.

Instead, he’s so far away, I can’t even find him in his own face.

“Right,” I say slowly, looking at those five pathetic words on the ground. “We were never going out.”

He glances at the restaurant behind him. “I gotta go.”

I should let him.

I should tell him to go fuck himself.

But I need something, some rope to catch hold of, some idea what happens next. So I ask, “Will I see you? At the bakery, or will you come to the rugby party Saturday, or … ?”

“I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. Great. That’s just fucking great, West.”

His eyebrows have drawn in, like maybe I’m getting to him a little bit.

It could be because tears are making hot tracks down my face, puddling beneath my jaw, cooling on my neck.

It could be that.

“You have a great shift,” I tell him. “I’ll see you around. It’s a good thing we’re not friends, or else maybe I’d miss you. Or something more than friends—it’s a good thing we weren’t going out, or I’d be gutted right now. But, you know, we’re not. Going out. Obviously. It’s so obvious, I’m not sure why I didn’t get the memo on that. Maybe it was all the phone sex, addling my stupid female brain. Or, hell, maybe it was all those hours we spent together at the bakery, hanging out, or that time when I slept in your bed and cried on your lap on the bathroom floor. I just got confused about what we are. I didn’t get the memo.”

“Caroline—”

I take a step back. I lose my footing, slip, and fall on my tailbone. The pain pushes up more tears. When West offers me his hand, I swat it away. “No. I’m fine. Enjoy your night.”

I lumber up, and if his eyes have thawed at last—if his expression is full of as much misery as I’m feeling—damn it, I’m not going to let it matter.

I’m going to walk away from him before all of it can catch up to me.

I walk fast, and then I start to jog, because I’m afraid if I let myself feel everything that’s in me right now, I’ll have to accept that he’s breaking my heart on purpose, and he won’t fucking tell me why.

The rugby party is legendary.

It’s actually three parties. Starting right after dinner, there’s a pre-party in Rawlins lounge that’s just for the team. At nine, the whole-campus party kicks off in the Minnehan Center, which is always packed with bodies, because the rugby team throws the first big party after winter break, plays the best music, and never runs out of beer.

In between the two parties—well, that’s why it’s legendary. The blow-job contest.

Last year I missed it. I guess I was studying. But this time there’s no question I’m going. I helped Quinn with the planning, showed up to decorate Minnehan with paper cutouts of fierce rugby-playing women and this sort of oversize mural thing on the wall, which I think was supposed to be a life-size representation of a scrum but ended up looking like a giant lesbian orgy, all tongues and hands. Really we’re just lucky nobody from the college is paying attention to the decorations, because wow.

Wow.

Quinn says she’s going to save it and put it up in her dorm room after the party.

I made cheese-and-salsa dip and cookies, but nobody’s hungry. They’re thirsty. Quinn brought three gallons of fruit punch and three bottles of vodka. We mix the drinks right in the red plastic cups. Mine makes my stomach hurt—vodka always does—but I sip it, standing on the fringes, watching the others dance.

I don’t want to drink too much. I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid, like show up at West’s door and yell at him.

Like tell him that even though I know he doesn’t do parties, and he wants to back off this thing, I wish he were with me tonight.

So I could kick him.

And then probably kiss him.

I’d like to drink six drinks in a row, but that would be kind of dumb. So. Here I am, sipping my Solo cup of punch slowly and carefully like a good little girl, and when Quinn tries to get me to join her in an interpretive dance-off, I just smile and say, “No, thanks, I’ll watch.”

I’ll watch Bridget and Krishna laughing together on the other side of the room, my friends who aren’t officially supposed to be here, except they helped Quinn and me set up, and nobody cares, really.

I’ll watch Quinn undulate, pretending to be a jellyfish, because that’s her assigned interpretive-dance theme.

I’ll watch the door, even though he’s not coming, wasn’t invited to this party, would’ve said no if I invited him.

I’ll stand here and watch my life pass me by, because I’m a good daughter, a party planner, a brownnosing rule-following coward. And the way things are going, that’s all I’ll ever be.

We leave the lounge wrecked, put on jackets and hats, twine on scarves, stumble out into the overcast night. The temperature is in the high twenties, the snow thick and slushy. We slog toward the rugby field along the train tracks to a spot behind the Minnehan Center that Quinn and I diligently cleared off earlier. Forty feet of snow-free track gleaming in parallel lines.

Already, some people are milling around—mostly players’ friends, girlfriends, boyfriends. As we take bottles out of backpacks and unwrap disposable shot glasses to line them up along the tracks, the crowd grows. I’ve got a cloth envelope full of money. I’m supposed to be the cashier, but when Quinn sinks to her knees beside the tracks and says, “Let’s go, girls. Line ’em up!” I don’t want to anymore.

I don’t want to be on the outside, looking in.

I find Krishna’s head in the crowd and beckon him over. “You’re the cashier,” I tell him, pressing the envelope into his hand.

“Only if you do me for free.”

“Fine. You can be my first.” I catch Quinn’s eye. “I want in on this.”

“Sweet! We’ve got another virrrrgin!”

The idea that I’m a blow-job virgin is patently hilarious, but no one is mocking me here.

She makes some room beside her, gets me a shot, sets it up on the tracks in front of me. “All right!” she shouts, and the crowd starts to gather in around us. “You all know how this works! Ten bucks gets you two blow jobs—one for you, one for the awesome, amazing, ass-kicking rugger across the tracks. You pay your girl, she lets you stick your tenner down her shirt, it’s all very kinky. We all go on the same whistle. The drink goes on the tracks, and you have to drink it with your hands free in one try. If you choke or spit it all over your face like a loser, go to the back of the line. If your rugger chokes or gets it on herself, you can have your money back. If you both swallow like big kids, you can pay another ten and go again if you want. You all know Krishna?”

Eyes turn toward Krishna. Heads nod.

“Right. Everybody knows Krish. You need change, talk to Krish. I’m also appointing him the asshole referee. This is supposed to be fun to raise money for rugby. Yes, the shots are called blow jobs. Yes, it’s ever so naughty. But if you step over the line from fun and games to junk-grabbing or name-calling or any other form of small-minded assholery, Krish is going to give you the boot, and a dozen pissed-off ruggers are going to back him up. This is a safe space. For ev-ery-one. Got it?”

More nodding and some cheers. The crowd’s happy, we’re happy. We aren’t the only ones who threw a pre-party. “All right! Let’s do it! Where’s my whistle girl?”

Somehow, Bridget has the whistle. The first row of takers pays their money and gets down on their knees.

“Hands behind your backs!” Bridget yells.

I tuck my fingers into my back pockets, just so I won’t be tempted.

Krishna winks at me.

“Suck them down, girls!” Bridget cries, and blows the whistle.

I dip my head. It’s awkward just getting my head down to the level of the tracks, and I have to open my jaw wide to fit my mouth around the shot glass. Wide enough to make it ache. As I sit up, something flashes in my peripheral vision, a camera or a flashlight or just light gleaming off the tracks.

I see myself from the outside. Head thrown back. Eyes closed. A parody of exploitation.

The shot slides down my throat—Baileys, Kahlúa, whipped cream. Burning and cold at once, foreign and alarming. I stifle my gag reflex. My eyes tear up. It’s impossible not to remember hands in my hair, pulling too hard. Nate’s dick shoved farther down my throat than I wanted it, and this same sensation right at the borderline of gagging.

It’s not funny. It’s not.

But when I swallow and lift my head, nobody’s got their hands on me. I have Quinn on my right. Bridget with her whistle, smiling. Krishna across from me with whipped cream all over the front of his black jacket, wheezing with laughter. “That is fucking gross,” he says.

“You lose!” Quinn taunts. “Back of the line.”

It’s the strangest thing, because I’m not drunk, and I’m not traumatized, and I’m not crazy.

I’m not a dumb cunt.

I’m not a slut, I’m not frigid, I’m not a disappointment.

I’m just a girl who did a shot off the train tracks, high-fiving her friends, savoring the warmth spreading down her throat and into her stomach.

It’s stupid. But I’m okay. I’m actually kind of happy.

The next couple of shots are guys I don’t know. I get the second one down but choke on the third, and that guy waves off the money when I try to give it back. I let him buy another round even though he’s not supposed to. He chokes and dribbles whitish-yellow fluid all over his chin, which is sufficiently disgusting that we both bust up laughing. “I’m Aaron,” he says, offering me his hand.

I take it. It’s sticky. “Caroline.”

He smiles. “I know.”

I decide what he means is exactly what he said. He knows my name. Nothing worse than that.

“Maybe I’ll see you at the party later,” he tells me when he gets up, damp patches on the knees of his jeans.

Maybe he will.

There’s another guy. After him, the thighs that plunk down in front of me belong to Scott.

Rugby Scott.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

“Fancy seeing you here.”

I laugh at that. Actually, I kind of snort. I’ve had … uh-oh. Some drinks. Five. Or six? They’re not very big. Quinn taught us to make them with a lot of whipped cream and not so much of the hard stuff, because a few years ago one of the ruggers had to go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. We’re supposed to get rotated out every so often, but I’m still fine. I’m better than fine.

“Did you think you wouldn’t see me?”

“Um …” His eyes flick to mine. “Does that question have a right answer?”

“Pay up, people!” Bridget shouts. Scott extends his hand, a ten-dollar bill sticking out between his fingers.

“Where am I supposed to put this?”

I’ve got money sticking out of my pocket, and the twenty plastered to my neck is poking me in my ear. I look heavenward, feigning exasperation. “Anywhere you want, big boy.”

That cracks us both up.

He puts it in my pocket.

I wonder if he’s been drinking, too.

I wonder why he’s here. If he came thinking he’d see me. If he was looking forward to it.

One of the players sets a shot in front of me and plunks another down in front of Scott.

Bridget blows the whistle. “DRINK!”

I open my jaw wide. Put my head down, suck up my shot, knock it back. My eyes don’t sting anymore. My lips are sticky and sweet, my hands cold from being out of my pockets so long. Scott gets his shot down, too, and pulls another ten from his wallet.

“I’m supposed to do this again now?” he asks.

“You’re allowed.”

“Oh, it’s a privilege.”

I beam at him. “It’s definitely a privilege. And it’s for a good cause.”

This time, he tucks the money in my coat. It’s zipped up to my scarf, so when he wraps his fingers around the collar, just for a second, he’s touching a perfectly innocent bit of chest real estate about five inches north of my boobs. And even that through a couple of layers of clothing.

But our eyes meet, and I know what he did, and so does he.

Whistle. “DRINK!”

This one goes down funny. I start to choke, and I have to grip the train track for a second, cold iron through brown leather, sucking air into my nose. In my peripheral vision, I notice a disturbance. Movement. A ripple of aggression.

“Not your turn, dude,” I hear Krishna say.

“I get to go again.” Scott.

“I don’t care.”

I know that voice.

I look up and see West, down on one knee across from me.

He must have shoved to the front of the line. Barged right in and removed Scott, which is totally not allowed. If anyone else had done it, Krishna would have had them kicked out, but West is West, and they’re friends.

West is West, and he’s got some kind of point he wants to make. God knows what it is.

His jaw is tight. There’s a line between his eyebrows, a hardness to his mouth. I wonder how long he’s been watching and what kind of right he thinks he has here, anyway.

The muscle in his jaw flexes, his teeth grinding together.

“You’re here for a blow job?”

“No.”

I cross my arms, pouting. “Well, blow jobs are what’s on offer. Are you in or are you out?”

Someone slides a shot down the tracks to the space in front of him. Bridget shouts, “Pay up!”

West frowns, opens his wallet, takes out a bill.

He extends it to me.

“You’re supposed to put it on me.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Everybody’s doing that.”

He hesitates, and I think he won’t. He seems troubled by all this, not sure if I’m being exploited, exploiting myself.

I’m not sure, either, but I want to tell him that sometimes you just have to trust the way it feels. You have to believe that happy things can make you happy and wrong things feel wrong.

I want to tell him that tonight he has to trust me to know what I want, instead of making up my mind for me.

He’s not in charge of me. He never was.

We were never going out. We weren’t friends. And I haven’t spent every hour since I last saw him two nights ago feeling brokenhearted, furious, betrayed.

Behind him, Scott is waiting. Hopeful Scott. Nice, ordinary, possible Scott. A guy I could take home to meet my dad. He must have driven all the way from Carter tonight for me.

It’s a shame Scott’s not who I want.

I reach out, grab West’s wrist, and drag his hand to my chest. “This is a good spot.”

Our eyes meet. He stuffs the bill inside my coat, down into my cleavage, his long fingers tamping it like an explosive.

I haven’t been this close to him since before break. Only in my dreams. Only in my bed in the dark, remembering the sound of his voice in my ear, the heat of his body, the slide of his tongue.

The whistle blows. “DRINK!”

I keep my eyes on West as I bend down to take the shot. He doesn’t drink his. He just watches me.

He watches me swallow it.

He’s watching me when I open my eyes.

Maybe it’s because I’m drunk, but I don’t think so. I think it’s because I’m tired of doing what everyone expects me to. I’m tired of waiting around to be claimed, telling myself it’s what I want.

I’m tired of being afraid of what might happen.

It already happened.

So I reach across the tracks, leaning way over with my ass in the air, pick up his shot, and knock it back with my eyes closed.

Then I look right into his eyes. I lick my lips, slow and seductive.

And that’s all it takes.

West reaches out, fists his hands in my coat, and yanks me into him. We meet at the mouth.

It’s the most obscene kiss of my life. Deep and hard, gasping hot, sticky-sweet, messy.

It turns out that West doesn’t even need words to make the point he came here to make.

Mine, his mouth says. Mine, mine, mine.

But I’m not. I’m my own. And I grab his hair, pull it, scratch his neck, punishing him for not getting that. For doing this, for never having done this before—I don’t know. Punishing him for torturing me.

It goes on, and I’m vaguely aware of somebody whooping. Maybe lots of somebodys. I don’t care. My hands clench and unclench at his hips. He’s saying my name. Kissing down my neck to my throat. He’s catching his breath, pressing his forehead against mine.

And then he’s standing up, leaving me cold. Alone.

He shoots a glare at Scott and walks away.

It’s only then that I understand how deeply, righteously, incandescently furious I am.

I’m stripped to my bra, dancing in a heaving mass of shirtless, sweaty, smiling, grinding women.

I’m safe, and I’m drunk, and I’m tired of men writing their claims on my body.

Slut, Nate wrote, and I believed him.

Mine, West wrote, and I let him, I melted, I gave him my surrender and my tongue, but I’m mad now. I’ve had enough of his shit. Enough.

Quinn’s at my hip, bumping my ass, lifting my hand and twirling me around. Two girls are hugging, kissing with tongue in front of me. Bridget’s dancing with Krishna, a beer in her hand.

There’s a reason the rugby party is popular beyond the blow jobs, and it has a lot to do with the pile of shirts on the stage by the DJ. We’re down to our sports bras, lace bras, acres of exposed flesh, girls who are too fat and too thin and just right, and none of us cares. We’re here to dance. We’re here for one another.

There’s a line dance. I don’t know the steps. They’re simple, but I keep forgetting them, crashing into people, spinning out too far on the twirl and losing my balance, finding it again. When I fall, hands reach out to clasp mine and lift me up. Bodies press into me, a hugging sisterhood of thrusting hips and lifted arms, sunglasses and duckface, bathed in disco-ball light.

I’m not bad. I’m not good. I’m just alive. I’m just here, dancing.

I love everyone. Everyone loves me. We’re heat and sweat, young and beautiful, sexy, together. Not one of these women would hurt me.

I drink and I’m drunk. I dance and I’m breathing, moving, living.

We’re in the middle of the dance floor, the center of everything, and sometimes I think I catch sight of him at the edge of the room.

Boots and crossed legs, leaning against the wall. Hooded eyes. Watching.

Sometimes I think I see pants with whales on them. A smirking smile that knows too much. A dimple that made me think I was safe when I never was, no matter how nice his parents are or how good his manners.

But I’m angry and I’m dancing and I don’t care.

Fuck them.

Fuck them both.

“I don’t want to see him.”

“Shh!”

“What? I’m whispering.”

I trip over something, and Quinn gets my elbow and helps me up. We’re in West’s apartment. I’m still drunk, but I’m sober enough to know this is a bad idea.

“You don’t have to see him,” Krishna says. “He’s sleeping. Keep your trap shut, and you’ll be fine.”

Quinn turns on the TV, and a wall of sound blasts out and knocks me down. “Whoa,” I say from the floor.

“Shit!” She starts giggling.

She and Krishna are fighting for the remote. I’m thinking about whether I should leave, but Bridget helps me up and shoves a cold bottle of water in my hand, so I drink that instead. I close my eyes, savoring every freezing, quenching, amazing swallow.

The sound drops off to a hush. The apartment smells like West’s apartment, and it’s full of memories I don’t want right now—except, of course, that I always want them and I always want him and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The water soothes my throat, at least. My feelings will have to wait for some other night.

I open my eyes because my balance is off, which is much more obvious now that we’re not at the party. Bridget is right up in my face, tucking my hair behind my ear, and I have to stick a hand out and brace myself against a cabinet so her beer-smelling concern doesn’t bowl me over again.

“Why did you bring me here?” My question is supposed to be a whisper, but it sounds like a whimper. “I don’t want to see him.”

“I know, sweetie. I know. We weren’t sure what else to do with you. We have to sober you up, and you were too loud for the dorm.”

She leads me to the couch, where Quinn and Krishna are already sitting. When I sit, too, Bridget pulls my head into her lap and detangles my hair with her fingers. The air feels cool against my neck. The movie is stupid, something with cars and guns. Just when my eyes are starting to get heavy, food arrives—three huge containers of nachos from the pizza place. I sink down to the floor, wedging myself between couch and cinder-block coffee table props. I stuff chips and salt and cheese into my mouth.

“This is sooooo good.”

“Don’t forget to chew,” Krishna says. “You know that’s all coming back up later.”

“No way,” Quinn says.

“Are you serious?”

Krishna and Quinn are still arguing amicably over what the odds are that I’m going to puke before morning when the front door flies open. West blinks at us in dull surprise for several long seconds before Krishna says, “Fuck.”

“Nice greeting.” He bends down to take off his snow-covered boots and disappears from view. I’m down by the floor, covered in chip crumbs and probably smeared all over with nacho cheese. He hasn’t seen me. I don’t care.

“Dude, I thought you were asleep in your room,” Krishna says.

“Not asleep.”

“Yeah, so I gather. You been at the bar?”

There’s a dull thud. “Yeah.” Then a few seconds’ silence and a loud crash. “Shit.”

“You’re drunk.”

“No kidding.”

Krishna turns to look at Quinn, eyes wide. She makes this shooing motion with her hands that means, Get him into his bedroom. Krishna stands up, nachos in hand, and it’s the wrong move, because West zeroes in on the container, says, “You guys got food?” and walks toward the couch.

Then he sees me and stops.

“Have to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk,” I tell him.

“Yeah. I bet. Listen—” He cuts himself off. Looks at Bridget, Quinn, and Krishna. “You guys should probably fuck off for a while.”

“It’s three in the morning,” Quinn says.

“In winter,” Bridget points out.

Krishna crosses his arms. “We’re responsible for her tonight.”

“I’ll be responsible,” West tells him.

“You’re drunk.”

“So?”

“So you can’t take off your shoes without falling over. I’m not giving you Caroline.”

“Hello? I’m down here? Alive and well? Perfectly capable of making my own decisions?”

“I’m taking her,” West says.

“I’m not leaving her,” Krishna insists.

“Fine. Stay. But we’re going in the bedroom.”

“Maybe I don’t want—”

And then I’m upside down, with West’s shoulder a hard pressure in my gut, and I have to focus, because my eyes are prickling and hot and I’m afraid I’m going to puke on him.

He picked me up. Picked me up off the floor and threw me over his shoulder.

That dick.

When he sets me down, I bump into the wall. He closes the door and locks it.

He’s so dead.

“You Neanderthal. You fucking—fucking—Piltdown Man. How dare you? How dare you?”

He’s over by his desk, pulling his wallet out and setting it in the drawer. Taking off his jacket. Unzipping his hoodie. He opens a drawer and pulls out a string of condoms and puts one in his pocket.

“What’s that for?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry? How about you stop acting like an entitled caveman who can just kiss me when he wants to, throw me over his shoulder and carry me into his room and get out a condom, like that’s ever going to happen, who can just phone-sex me when he wants to get off and throw me away when he’s all done? How about—”

“Caroline.” He sits down on the bed. His voice is slow and soothing. “We got things to talk about. Could you maybe give it five minutes without the screeching?”

“I’m not screeching!”

But it comes out pretty screechy.

I turn around and face the wall, covering my face with my hands because it hurts too much to look at him.

I need to be angry, because if I stop being angry, all that’s left is disappointment and wanting, and I can’t afford either of them anymore. They cost too much. They’ve been taking too much out of me for too long.

His bedsprings squeak. Even that seems poignant, a sound I remember from being in his bed, his hands on me, his mouth. My eyes flood with tears, and I’m so disappointed with myself.

“Caroline.”

His voice is right behind me now. I’ve heard it like that, my name low and intimate, right before he comes. It’s more than I can bear—the way my heart lifts, my body responds, even as I’m trying to locate my anger and push back the tears. “Don’t.”

But he doesn’t listen. He puts one hand against the wall and the other at the small of my back. He leans in, his mouth by my ear, the heat of his body behind me close enough to feel, close enough to make me yearn, close enough to draw me back in if I let it, if I break, if I’m weak.

“Please,” he says.

There’s a knock on the door. “You okay, Caroline?”

Quinn’s voice. I can imagine her and Krishna and Bridget, lined up out there. Worried about me.

I think about the party tonight, the dancing, the feeling of being surrounded by people who love me.

I’m not weak. I’m a little drunk—getting more sober by the second—but I’m strong.

I draw in a deep breath and find that strength. Wrap it around me.

Then I take my hands away from my face and turn to face West. “I’m fine,” I call, loud enough for them to hear me. “He can have ten minutes.”

“You sure?” Krishna asks.

“Go watch your fucking movie,” West says.

After a moment, the volume on the TV goes up.

Then we’re just looking at each other, West and me. His face so perfectly not-perfect. That wide, smart-ass mouth that can make me feel electric, make me feel like I’m drowning, make me feel like I could live on him and him alone.

His mouth is a lie.

I take him apart, one piece at a time. Chin, cheekbones, nose, eyebrows. Those eyes. His pupils blown, light rims around them, dark circles beneath.

It’s just a face. West’s face.

His breath is just breath, reeking of alcohol.

He’s a man, standing there. Not a problem for me to solve. Not an obligation, not a need, not love. Maybe not even my friend.

I can almost make myself believe it.

“What do you want?” I ask.

His mouth opens. His eyes narrow. He puts his hand to the back of his neck, lowers his head, exhales.

“Yeah,” I say, because it’s easy to see right now. I’m not sure if it’s the false wisdom of all those blow jobs and beers or if it’s because I’ve been so angry, but I feel like all the pretense has been stripped away, all the cozy lies I’ve hidden behind burned off on the dance floor. I feel wise, and there are things I know that I haven’t known before.

Like this—this truth: West doesn’t know what he wants.

“That’s your whole problem, isn’t it?”

He made that speech in my room last month, told me, “I want you, and I don’t know how to stop wanting you. I want to get deep inside you, and then deeper, until I’m so deep I don’t even know what’s me anymore and what’s you.” He said that, but he hasn’t made up his mind about it. He’s afraid. He’s still drawing pencil lines around us.

I could tell him that it’s already too late. It’s been too late for a long time, maybe from the start.

Instead, I tell him, “I’m sick of waiting for you to figure it out.”

His eyes come up. Those little flecks glittering with something, some protest. Some plea.

“I’m sick of you acting like I’m just going to be whatever you want me to be. Maybe I have been so far. I guess I’ve done whatever you said, followed your rules. But I’m finished. This isn’t a game, and you’re not in charge of it. And I think—”

“Caro—”

“No. I’m talking now. You can fucking wait. I have been patient with you, but my patience is gone, West. You don’t get to barge into the line at the rugby thing and kiss me in front of everyone—in front of everyone, when you dumped me, when you’ve refused to admit we have something even to our friends for months now—and then walk away, like you’ve said your piece and that’s that. You don’t get to pick me up and throw me over your shoulder and drag me into your room like I don’t have a say in it. And put a condom in your pocket because, what? What if you feel like fucking me later? Might as well be prepared? No. You don’t get to do that. You want to be friends? We could have been friends. You want to be fuck buddies, you know, I was up for that! Probably I would’ve gotten too attached, gotten my heart broken, if we’re being honest, but so what? I wouldn’t be the first girl in the history of the world to let that happen to her. But you’re the one who said to let you know when I’m ready to see other guys, and you’re the one who dropped me after break like nothing we said or did on the phone mattered, so don’t pretend you have any right at all to play the jealous boyfriend when you’re not my fucking boyfriend.”

I’m poking him in the chest now, and it’s possible that I’m crying, but we’re not going to examine that too closely, because I need to do this. It feels like such a relief to get it out, to accuse him, to beat on him with these words I’ve been holding inside me for far too long.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You should be sorry. You’ve been a jerk to me, and I just take it. I let you. But I’m not letting you anymore. You want to be with me, make up your fucking mind.”

He catches my face in his palms. I can’t even hear over the rush of blood in my ears, my pounding heart, my fury. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I said my piece. I should go, but he’s trapped me here between his hands, his eyes on me, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Everything I said is true, and I still want to be right here.

“You’re the coward.” My voice is hoarse. Low. Shocked, because I’m only now figuring this out.

“I know.”

“And a liar.”

“I know.”

“You’re playing with me.”

He shakes his head. “No. I’m not—I don’t mean to. I just can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

Another shake, and our noses bump and slide past each other. He’s not kissing me. He’s just right up against me, rubbing his cheek into mine. Scratching his stubble over my chin. I need you. That’s what he’s trying to tell me. I want you.

I need him, too. Want him, too. But it’s not fair of him to give me this and nothing else. It’s not enough.

“I can’t,” he repeats.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I don’t sound so harsh anymore. I sound gentle. I feel gentle, because, God, I care about him, even though it’s wrong and dumb. He’s hurting, and I care. “I can’t know, because you don’t tell me anything.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Now I push his hands off me and grab his head, the way he did mine. I want him to see me. I want him to hear, to understand. I sink my fingers into his hair, hold him there. Make him listen. “You could tell me,” I say. “There isn’t anything you couldn’t tell me. God, anything—you know I’m on your side. And if you just told me …” I trail off, thinking what that would be like.

I should keep silent, but there’s too much alcohol in me, too much openness not to say all of this.

I look in his eyes.

“If you just told me, then we could get into that bed and crawl under the covers. We could take everything off, and we could really be together. Deep and then deeper, just like you said. You know how it would be, West. We both know.”

“Incredible,” he says.

I dip my thumb down, run it over the arch of his eyebrow. “Yeah. Incredible.”

I put my arms around him, gather him close, tuck my head against his neck, because I think he needs this. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in Iowa who’s ever hugged him, and in Oregon, who knows? Maybe no one hugs him but me.

I hold him tight, and he’s shaking. Actually shaking.

I feel sorry for him. That’s a new thing. I think this is the first time since I met him that I didn’t feel like West had all the power, held all the cards. The first time I’ve ever believed he’s maybe even more screwed up than I am.

I kiss his jaw. I stroke his back one more time, because it’s broad and warm and strong, and the truth is I can’t help it. I never could.

But after all that, I let go. Take a step back. Meet his eyes and lift my chin.

“It’s deeper or nothing,” I tell him. “So make up your mind.”

This time, I’m the one who walks away.