Read Love Her Madly Online

Authors: M. Elizabeth Lee

Love Her Madly (10 page)

“I don't think he has,” I said flatly. “I went over there, and it just happened. After the fact, he told me about you, and when I asked him what was going on, he said he was confused. He said we had him totally fucking confused.”

Cyn's crying had quieted, and she was studying me intently. She emitted a hard laugh, like a cough.

“Confused. How convenient.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. We were both silent for a moment. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry.”

“Well, it's kind of too late for that. If you had suspicions about how I felt, and you actually gave a shit, you wouldn't have slept with him. Now you've trumped me by giving him your cherry, and I'm stuck on the outside because I cared more about your feelings than my own.”

“I gave him my
cherry
?” I sneered. “Do you even hear yourself? You make it sound like I snared him in a sex trap just to one-up you, and if you know me at all, you know that's bullshit. It just happened. If you would have told me how you felt, then I could almost understand you saying that, but you didn't, so fuck off. I didn't ask you to stay away from him, and I wouldn't
have. I figured things would just work out the way they were supposed to.”

“So you think this is how things were supposed to work out? With you being happy and me being miserable?”

“No. I don't want you to be miserable. And just so you know, I'm not fucking happy. I just lost my virginity to a guy who is ‘really confused,' and probably in love with my best friend. This situation couldn't suck more.”

I snatched some clothes out of my dresser and pulled them on as fast as I could. My mind was lurching about recklessly, and I knew I'd have to get out before I said something I couldn't take back.

She watched me put on my socks. “It does suck,” she said, sounding like her normal, equivocal self, “but I don't want to give him up either.” She looked up, meeting my eye. “I like him more than I ever expected to like someone, and I know he has feelings for me. You know it, too.”

“We both like him,” I agreed, standing in the very spot on the carpet where, not so long ago, we had pledged to never let a guy come between us. “Neither one of us told the other one shit because we both knew it, and that's why we're now having this fight.”

Cyn's face had grown calm. “We're having this fight because we didn't want to have this fight. We're both fucking cowards.”

I got up and opened the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. I need air.” I was so exhausted, I just wanted to curl up under the stairs and cry myself to sleep.

“It's raining,” she protested.

“I don't mind.” I closed the door behind me.

The rain was falling at a steady drizzle. I wandered through the quad, the cool drops soothing my simmering skin. A few students passed by carrying umbrellas, but they took no notice
of me. I went to the cafeteria and bought a soda, though I would have preferred a few shots of something strong. I sat at a table in the empty room where once, long ago, orientation had taken place, and stared out at the wet parking lot.

I must have fallen asleep. When I opened my eyes, the rain had stopped.

The student convenience store was closed, so it had to be after one in the morning. I dragged myself back toward our room, unable to contain a moan when I saw the light still on inside. I was too exhausted for another confrontation.

I climbed the steps, feeling like a prisoner on her way to the gallows. Inside, Cyn was half asleep on her bed. I was stunned to discover Raj sitting on our floor, staring at the television. When he saw me, he flipped it off. Cyn's eyes fluttered, and she sat up.

“Hey,” I muttered to both of them before flopping onto my bed. “Some day, huh?”

Cyn shot me a limp smile and Raj just shook his head. As curious as I was to find out what they'd been discussing in my absence, I was too spent to care. They weren't cuddling in her bed, which was a good sign. If they had been, I would have kicked Joan out of my old room that night and maybe left school the next day. I closed my eyes and collected what little energy I had left, steeling myself for whatever was coming.

“I had an idea,” Cyn began, lifting a joint from her nightstand.

I looked at Raj, but he wouldn't meet my eye. Cyn lit the joint and looked to me for my response.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows. “What's your idea?”

Cyn took a long drag and passed the joint down to Raj, who took a small toke and passed it to me. I took a drag and watched as Cyn languidly exhaled. “We share.”

I took a Cyn-sized drag. Raj still wouldn't look at me. He seemed to be holding his breath.

“I don't get it,” I said flatly.

Cyn smiled and bowed her head knowingly. I passed the joint back to Raj, and when he finally looked at me, his face was awash with worry. I felt a strong desire to crawl into his arms, and that's when I realized what Cyn was suggesting.

“We share
Raj
?” I said, my voice rising precipitously.

She nodded in a way that told me she expected just such a reaction, and that she was prepared to wait it out.

The absurdity of it was astounding. “How? I don't get it. Are we, like, sister wives in this scenario? Do we switch off days of the week?” My head felt foggy, and the many sensible arguments I wanted to make about the insanity of her proposition eluded me. My whole day spun before me; the long runs, the unexpected cherry loss, the drama, and to top it off, the damned joint. I focused my attention on Raj. “You recognize that this is crazy?”

He sighed. He looked as shaken and worn-out as I felt. “We've been talking about it for a couple hours. I'm not trying to push any agenda here. It's really up to you girls.”

I looked at Cyn in bewilderment.

“Glo, I can see you're about to freak out, and I understand why. But please, just think about it. The three of us get along so great together, and all these feelings have been there all along; they were just below the surface before. Now they're out. I personally don't see why we can't make the best of it. I mean, maybe it's a gift.”

I fell back onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. The room was so quiet, I could have imagined myself alone.

“This is so fucked,” I moaned.

“We have to deal with it,” Cyn said calmly.

I raised my head to look at Raj, the cause of all this misery. “You honestly can't choose between us?”

He looked positively ill, and I felt sorry I'd said it. I glanced
up at Cyn and noted that she registered my regret. Raj groaned and opened his hands wide, as he had done in his room earlier that day. “I won't. Even if I were able to, which I can't, picking either of you over the other would obviously destroy your friendship. We'd all be unhappy. I'd rather we just went back to being in the closet, all three of us.”

“It
would
kill our friendship, wouldn't it?” I asked Cyn.

She shrugged casually, as if we were discussing the weather. “Could you stand to be around me if I was with him and you weren't?”

I shook my head.

“I couldn't either.” She smiled sadly.

I picked up my pillow and threw it at Raj. “Why can't you just be a eunuch?”

He pulled the pillow onto his lap and shrugged. “Hardly any fun for Raj.”

Cyn laughed. I wanted to, but hilarity was lost under a morass of other emotions.

“I'm glad you freaks find this so funny,” I growled.

“If you can't laugh, you cry,” Cyn said.

“Maybe we should,” I countered.

She sighed. “Why? I mean, really. We've been happy for the last couple of months. Now, there's maybe some sex. That's just one element. Otherwise, nothing has really changed between any of us.”

“What about jealousy? There's no way—”

“Jealousy is normal. We're not. If we agree to this, we don't have to be jealous. You know I love you. You know it's not in me to want to take things from you. I'm really okay with sharing. Otherwise, I wouldn't suggest it.”

“And you're okay with this, too, Raj?”

“I really care about both of you. This has been the most confusing time of my life . . .”

I glanced at Cyn. After “confusing” she raised her eyebrows at me ever so slightly. It almost made me crack up, but Raj continued to pour his heart out, so I held it together.

“. . . If I somehow ruined the friendship of the two girls I care about most, I think I'd toss myself off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I really do. I don't know what will happen, and that's really terrifying, but yeah, I'm up for it. Life is a grand experiment.”

As I listened to his velvety voice, I threw myself into the future, attempting to explore in a millisecond all the possible outcomes of this scenario. They all seemed to lead to heartbreak or social suicide. But the alternative—refusal—appeared a total loss. They could both choose to cut me off right there, and I'd have traded the risk of future failure for immediate, certain devastation.

“This is so insane,” I heard myself murmur.

“Glo—” Cyn began.

“I'm not saying no,” I interrupted. “I feel like I can't say no. I'm too invested in both of you. You're like love vampires.”

Raj smiled and shook his head.

“This isn't a trap, babe,” Cyn said seriously. “This is just the best solution for a very unusual problem.”

Raj reached out and put his hand on my damp, sock-covered foot. Like a saint in a holy image, his eyes expressed nothing but loving understanding. I wanted him enough to do anything. Even share him.

“And if you fall out of love with one of us? What then?” I asked.

“And if one of you falls out of love with me? Or you two eventually turn on each other?” He shook his head. “Yeah, all these things could happen. We don't get a guarantee that anything will work out in this world.”

“I know that. I'm just scared.”

“I'm scared, too,” Cyn echoed softly. “Raj is right; it's a risk
for all of us. But otherwise, we both give him up, which seems impossible, or we have one hell of a knife fight to determine a victor.”

“I couldn't stab a sister wife.”

I looked up and met the gaze of my rival across the room. I watched her eyes gleam behind unspent tears. Against my wishes, I felt my own vision blur, and I knew I was giving in. She was the best friend I'd ever known, and the last thing I wanted to do was lose her. The tears escaped. I was too beat to do anything about it.

“I wouldn't do this for anyone but you,” I managed, my voice thickening against my will.

She inhaled sharply. “Me neither.”

Cyn climbed onto my bed and wrapped her arms around me.

“We can't tell other people about this. It's too taboo. Even for this place.”

Raj scoffed, his gaze fixed on the carpet. “Everybody thinks it already.”

“Glo's right. Let them think it, but we don't confirm anything. We're just what we've always been: very close friends.”

Raj shook his head ruefully.

“What's wrong?” Cyn asked.

He looked at us for a moment, serious and unsmiling, but then, as if something shifted in his mind, he laughed.

“I can't believe I can't brag about this to all the dudes.” He sighed dramatically, hamming it up for our benefit.

Cyn poked at him with her toe. “What ‘dudes'? Do you even know any dudes?”

“I don't, but I should.”

“I propose one thing,” I said. “As a rule, we keep things as open and honest as possible. Secrets are bad for us.”

“No secrets,” she agreed. Noticing my silently falling tears, she reached over and wiped them away.

“No secrets,” Raj repeated, watching us both. “And if anybody gets scared, or feels left out, we should talk about it.”

“Of course,” Cyn said.

Raj whistled softly and ran his hands through his hair for about the millionth time that night. “Okay, cool. Multiple catastrophic disasters averted. I just have one question, and please don't think I'm a dick. But just to clarify, we're not all sleeping together. It's just, like, a one-on-one thing?”

Cyn stiffened beside me. I burst out laughing. “I wish you could see your face right now.”

Raj turned deep red. Cyn put her head on my shoulder, hiding her face. My body rocked with laughter as an ocean of stress drained out of me. “Your presumption is correct. Cyn and I don't really swing that way,” I answered when I could speak again.

“Unless we're rolling, and it's a special occasion,” Cyn amended from behind her hair.

“Sorry if that is in any way disappointing,” I added.

“No, I knew that,” Raj said, getting to his feet. His swagger was all but beaten out of him, but he was still unbearably handsome. “I was just double-checking.”

“And we appreciate that,” Cyn quipped. I snorted.

Raj stepped back and stared at us sitting together on the bed, as close as Siamese twins. “Jesus, what have I gotten myself into?”

We both shrugged.

“I gotta get back to my space ship. I'm pretty sure I left the door wide open. It's been a strange day.” He paused and seemed to shake off a thought. “I'm really hoping this isn't a dream. Is it?”

We shook our heads.

He kissed my forehead, and then Cyn's. “Good night, beauties. I will call for my queens on the 'morrow.” He shrugged. “That's roughly adapted from my Brit Lit course.”

He closed the door and was gone.

I collapsed against my pillow, and Cyn got up to switch off the lights.

I heard the springs of her bed creak as she crawled on top of it.

“This is one of those nights when the world changes. It seems great, but I have no idea how I'm going to feel about any of this in the morning,” I murmured.

“Then the only solution is to go to sleep and find out tomorrow,” she answered.

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