Love Her Madly (9 page)

We didn't talk about the things that Tim had shouted at us, but the rest of the campus did. Even Max, who was always the first to gleefully venture into uncomfortable topics, didn't say a word. He had spoken with Tim, who was embarrassed but unapologetic about his crazy bender. He told Max he was over our little clique, and he seemed to be. He never showed up to hang out again, and whenever we passed each other on campus, he ignored me.

It wasn't until Lila stopped by the room two days later that I began to understand the nature of the rumors surrounding us.

“Everyone says that you guys are perpetrating some sort of threesome,” she said, staring at me coolly between sips of Diet Coke.

When I laughed, she raised her eyebrows. “So it's not true? You're the only one sleeping with Raj?”

“What? No, I'm not sleeping with Raj! He stays over here
sometimes, but that's because he's an astronaut. He sleeps on the floor.”

“Oh. Okay. But I heard that you two were making out in the library. Max heard it from Tim.”

It all flashed into focus. Tim had seen us. He had probably followed me there and discovered us together. I felt a small pang of sympathy for Tim, the poor bastard. I had inadvertently stomped him when he was down.

I decided against trying to deny it. I wasn't a good enough actress, and Lila was too shrewd.

“So it's true.”

“We've kissed a few times, yeah. But we aren't sleeping together.”

“What about Cyn?”

“Cyn's not sleeping with him either. We're all just good friends.” Lila had this sarcastic look on her face, like I was shoveling lies down her throat. “Jesus, Lila, it's the truth! Just because you ended up hooking up with Max doesn't mean we're all screwing.”

She seemed to be coming around. Then she lobbed a grenade at me, hard. “I've got a friend at Hubble who says Cyn's car is outside his place pretty often. Did you know that?”

I felt my gag reflex engage as my whole being recoiled at the idea. “So? They're friends. Friends hang out,” I managed.

Lila leaned forward, practically licking her prosecutorial chops. “So it wouldn't bother you if they were sleeping together behind your back?”

I forced a sarcastic smile. “It might, if it were true.”

She stood up. “Look, I'm just telling you what I heard. It sounds like you guys all need to have a little chat before shit goes crazier than Tim after a bottle of hooch.”

“Thanks for your concern.” I wanted her gone so I could freak out in peace. As if hearing my unspoken wish, she gave a
cheery little wave and left me to wallow in doubt and misery.

I'm not particularly proud of what went down next.

First I paced around, wondering what to do. Cyn was in class, and I was supposed to be at Spanish Lit in a few hours. If I hurried, I would have time to get to the Hubble and see Raj, and back to the main campus in time for class. I put on my sneakers, and like a stupid cliché movie heroine, ran my ass over to his room.

The Hubble existed as a fleabag motel for drifters until Tiny U bought it, painted it yellow, and rechristened it as a single-­occupancy dorm. Raj lived on the second floor. He had a tiny balcony that faced the freeway, and beyond it, the small local airport. I arrived in the parking lot, red-faced and drenched in sweat from my run.

I knocked on the door, and Raj opened it. His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he swung the door wide.

“Can I use your shower?” I blurted, cursing the lack of forethought that had brought me to his door, stinking like steaming hot roadkill.

He grinned. “Sure. Is yours broken?”

I slipped past him into the bathroom and closed the door. I turned the water on cool, and wondered what the hell I was going to say when I got out. I rinsed my hair with his blue, alpine soap. The clothes that I'd come in were soaked with sweat, so I rinsed them, too, and hung them up to dry. I turned the shower off and wrapped myself in his striped towel.

In the mirror, I saw that the cold rinse had drained the crimson from my face, leaving only a flattering flush across my cheeks. I thought I looked pretty enough to do something terrifying. I opened the door.

Raj was on the balcony, having a cigarette. He turned around, saw me standing in his towel, and came back inside, sliding the glass door shut behind him.

“Better?” he asked, an amused grin spreading across his face.

“Yeah,” I said awkwardly.

I hadn't spent much time in Raj's room. Cyn and I had stopped by together once or twice, but I hadn't ever been there alone. It was a typical college-guy man cave. Books everywhere. A futon propped against the wall. The single bed harbored a laptop and a pile of slightly dirty clothing.

“Are you sleeping with Cyn?” The words fell out without ceremony.

He blinked. “No. Who told you that?”

I sensed he was telling the truth. I sat on his bed, my hair dripping down my back. “Ever since Tim-ageddon, we've been at the epicenter of rumor central. According to the rest of campus, we're all three of us sleeping together.”

He sat down next to me and rubbed his forehead. “Does that bother you?”

I shrugged. A few seconds ticked by as I continued to drip, just as I had that first day we met. “I haven't slept with anyone. Ever.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and pulled my hair away from my neck. Then he kissed me right below my hairline. His lips felt hot against my cool, damp skin.

“Do you want to?” he whispered, his voice husky. “Is that why you came here?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say of course, I want to be yours and I want you to be mine, forever and ever. But I didn't say that. I just used one hand to open the towel.

His mouth dropped open and he quickly tossed the towel to the floor and hastily cleared a spot on the bed to lay me back on. Then he just looked at me, one hand tracing my nipples and belly button, all the way up to the shallow basin at the base of my throat and back down between my thighs.

I was struck dumb. His brown eyes traced my body with what felt like reverence. As he explored me, he glanced back at my face and smiled slightly, his dark eyes dilated with desire. He flipped me over and performed the same tender inspection on my back, stopping to gently kiss the more pronounced of my freckles near my shoulders. When I couldn't stand any more, I righted myself and pulled him close for a long, deep kiss. I took his shirt off. He took off the rest. I didn't have time to investigate his holdings right away, as he was soon on top of me.

It hurt, but I didn't care. It made sense that it should hurt. Seeing the discomfort on my face, he murmured an apology and quickly finished, his face pressed close into my neck, his breath hot and ragged.

He rolled off me, his eyes closed, breathing heavily. I closed my eyes and searched myself to see how I'd changed. I felt happy, because Raj and I were undeniably closer, but that good feeling was almost instantly tempered by a huge wave of doubt.

“Are you okay?” I opened my eyes to find him leaning on one arm, gazing at me languidly.

“I'm great.” I couldn't help but smile. “That was unexpected.”

He laughed. “So, that's not what you came here for?”

“I came here for you,” I admitted.

“I'm glad.” We began to kiss.

We stayed there together on his narrow bed all afternoon. The sky became overcast with storm clouds, and Spanish Lit came and went without me there. As I watched the changing light alter the color of Raj's naked back as he slept, I wondered what Cyn would think when I didn't appear for class. I wondered if she would worry about me.

At dusk, I went into the bathroom to check on my clothes. Everything but my nylon shorts were still sopping wet. I pulled on the shorts and picked up a green T-shirt of Raj's. It had an image of a broken lightbulb on it, and I knew that Cyn would
instantly recognize it.
It would be a great conversation starter
, I thought grimly as I pulled it over my head.

“Is it cool if I borrow this?” I asked, emerging from the bathroom.

Raj was having another cigarette on the balcony. He nodded. “Looks like there's a storm blowing in.” He gestured toward the airport, where heavy purple rain clouds darkened the horizon.

“You're telling me.” I picked up my wet socks and underwear and put them in a plastic bag to take back with me. “If I don't tell Cyn about us, she'll just figure it out anyway.”

He closed the door and sat on a chair. He ran one hand back through his hair, uneasily. “You think she'll be upset?”

I detected some hopefulness in his tone that I didn't like one bit. “I dunno, does she have any reason to be?”

He sighed. “I don't know, Glo.”

He looked ill. I had just slept with him, and here he was, turning gray at the thought of upsetting Cyn.

“Has she said anything to you?” I asked tightly.

“You know how she is. She says all kinds of things. I don't know what to think about it.”

I felt my throat tighten. “What do you mean you don't know what to think about it?”

Perceptive enough to notice that I was struggling to contain an emotional explosion, he quickly embraced me. “I'm just saying she's a strange girl, and I would hate to hurt her. Just like I would never want to hurt you.”

I gently extricated myself from his grasp. I didn't trust myself not to shove him away. “So has she said she has feelings for you?”

He shrugged, straining to make the case for his indifference. “Does she? Who knows? Did she say anything to you?”

“No.”

“Well, if she does, she didn't tell me. But until today, neither
did you . . . not with words, at least.” He took a deep breath. “Honestly, I've been confused as hell by you two. I can't figure out what the hell either of you wants from me.”

“Have you kissed her, too?” It occurred to me that I had only questioned him about sex.

He looked down, and I had my answer. I couldn't believe they had both kept it from me.

“Glo, it was only once. It only happened once.” He reached out for me, sensing my fury. I stepped away.

“When?”

“About two weeks ago.” He spread his hands wide in front of him and stared at them as if they held the answers. “She stopped over here after work. We got high. Then we kissed. After a while, she said she had to go and she left. The next day when I saw her, we were all together, and she acted like it never happened. Like she forgot.”

“And that left you heartbroken, so you came to me,” I said with surprising bitterness. “I'm your afterthought.”

That really hurt him, I think. I saw him flinch. “That's not what you are to me.”

Outside, thunder cracked. I felt confused and ashamed and angry, and I wanted to get out of there so I could pull my thoughts together. “I have to go before it storms.”

“Don't go.”

His eyes looked so sad and pathetic that I wanted to stay. I wanted to believe, but I couldn't. “I have to go. I have to talk to Cyn. I don't even know what I'm telling her.”

He shook his head miserably. Thunder rumbled again, growing louder.

Impulsively, I kissed his cheek, but when he tried to hold me, I wiggled away, close to tears. “Don't worry,” I said, “I'm sure you'll find out how it goes.”

“Be careful,” I heard him say as I flung myself out his door.

It must have been adrenaline, because I somehow had the energy to run all the way back to our dorm, the bag of wet underwear swinging absurdly from my fist. A thunderhead towering above campus gave the twilight an operatically dark edge, but the fiery blitz of lightning bolts were what really got my knees pumping. Getting fried by lightning would have been a fitting way to conclude my short, sorry existence, but I still loved life enough to run in a half crouch. The rain clouds burst open just as I passed the student center, obscuring the dorms behind a veil of water. As I pitched myself blindly through the downpour, I looked up and saw our window glowing brightly. My stomach twisted.

I opened the door, and she was sitting on her bed, a book open in front of her, the stereo tuned to a dance mix. She straightened when I entered, a concerned look on her face. Then, in slow motion, I saw her eyes trace down to Raj's T-shirt, and the blood drained from her cheeks.

I couldn't face her yet. I walked directly into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the shower. I stayed in there for a long time, washing redundantly, my skin already prune-like from the drenching. When I couldn't stall any longer, I pulled on my robe and stepped outside.

The dance music was off. Cyn was looking out the window, crying silently.

I sat on my bed and listened to her sniffle. I couldn't think of a thing to say.

“How was he?” Cyn demanded, her voice raspy and bitter. “Aren't you going to share?”

My cheeks began burning, but I still couldn't speak.

“I thought we told each other everything,” she snarled.

“Yeah, so did I,” I snapped, with unexpected venom.

She looked surprised, but then quickly rolled her eyes knowingly. “Okay, fine. But I didn't sleep with him.”

“And why didn't you, if you wanted to?”

“Because I knew what it would do to you, stupid!” she shouted. “I knew that you liked him, but I liked him, too. I just thought if neither one of us did anything, he would choose. And I guess I was right, because now he's chosen you.”

She started to shake with sobs. It was terrible to see her so distraught, but her tears didn't extinguish the simmering ball of anger I'd been carrying since I'd left the Hubble. There was no reason for her to be crying. In the shower, I had painfully forced myself to rehash everything that had happened that afternoon. As much as I hated to face it, he clearly cared more about Cyn's thoughts and feelings than mine. I was just the runner-up, and a fool.