He moved to hold her, and she let him.
A few weeks after “that night” as they mutually referred to their almost-sex, Jeremy was over, and amidst a litter of eviscerated thai take-out cartons he was making notes in the margin of his second-hand volume while she tapped away at her laptop.
“Hey, Dev?”
Her gut clenched painfully.
“Have you heard back from anyone yet?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
“Jeremy.”
“Hmmm?” He grunted from behind his tatty volume of Langston Hughes.
“Please don't call me that.”
His eyes rolled up, from the page to her face.
“All right.”
They had settled into a friendship that was platonic, but more tender, more physical than any of Devan's prior or current friendships. They often cuddled through 572
movies, and now and then he spent the night in her bed. But there was never a recurrence of the almost-sex of “that night.”
She'd let him glimpse, in small, painful shards, a little of what her connection with Vaughn had been—nothing of the fantastical abduction or of being held hostage. She only alluded to how this man she still loved had taken care of her when she'd been scared and hurt, and how she'd come to see that he was sort of her counterpart—a reversed reflection of herself, and that she was trying to learn how to live without him, now that she knew what it was to be with him.
After that, Jeremy had given up his occasional efforts at seduction and his more cerebral attempts to convince Devan that they should be lovers.
“I want to tell you something.” Jeremy said gravely one night, though he was already adorably tipsy. They were well into one of their new rituals: the post-study cocktail hour.
“All right,” Devan locked eyes with him with mock seriousness, a little afraid he was about to revisit the abandoned theme of their destiny as soul mates.
“I went on kind of a date last night,” Jeremy said, looking freaked. Like she was going to hate him, or something.
“How dare you go on a date,” she teased, smiling, “when you know I expect you to stay celibate and solitary, waiting for me to come to my senses and elope with you?”
“His name's Gordon.” He'd blurted it out the way you'd tear of a band aid—fast, to get the pain out of the way.
Why was her face burning? God, what did her face look like? She made sure to smile. She'd known, or at least suspected and she was happy for him and she knew she'd better smile or his freak-out would just get worse.
“And how are you acquainted with this most fortunate Gordon?”
“Don't do that.” Jeremy looked like he'd been put to the rack—pale, quivering, stretched to the breaking point.
“All right,” she came back, soft and quiet, her smile gentle, now, instead of teasing. So, you went on a date with a guy. So you're bi.”
“Is that what I am?”
“Isn't it?”
“I don't know.”
She put her arms around him because he seemed like he was about to cry.
“I've been sort of scared I was gay since I was like eight years old. And maybe I've kind of known it since, I don't know. Almost that far back. But every once in a while there'd be a girl. Nicole my freshman year. Jennifer my senior year. You. I never tried for any of the boys I liked. And it never seems to work out, with the girls. I don't know.
Before you, I guess I'd always just hung back, because I didn't really know what I wanted. Or because I was afraid of what I kind of knew I wanted. Hence my tragic state of virginity at the age of twenty two.”
“And now. Gordon.”
Jeremy slipped out of her embrace. His eyes looked like tears would spill over any second, but he smiled.
“It was funny, how it happened. He's the guy who owns that little boutique record store up on the corner.”
“Oooh, cute!” She remembered the guy—bleached, platinum hair, ridiculous body, tattooed arms.
Jeremy laughed, “Yeah. I know. So, you know, I go in there sometimes, we've chatted, laughed a few times, whatever. So last night I was in Linda's, having a beer, reading Dirty Gertie, and someone slides into the booth, on the bench across from me.
And I look up, and it's him. We start talking, he orders a beer. We had like three rounds, just talking shit. Then he invites me over to his place to check out his private vinyl collection.”
“Nice line.”
“I know, right? But he was so cute, like really excited, talking about the birth of new wave and playing his vintage Talking Heads. And then he tried to kiss me.”
“Tried.”
“Yeah, well. He went to kiss me, and I, I don't know why, I just totally didn't expect it. I sort of jumped back, out of range. And he just smiled, this really fucking cocky, amused smile, and he was like, 'What? I'm not your type?' with this attitude like he knows he's the most beautiful thing to ever walk the earth. I just stood there like a complete freak, not knowing what to say, wishing I could go back in time and just let him stick his tongue down my throat. Then he's like, 'Don't even tell me you're not gay.' I don't know what look I gave him or what I did but his smile changed from cocky to...I don't know. Interested. Intrigued. He came up close to me again, and I made sure not to 575
pull back this time. And he said something like, 'Well, are you ready for your first boy?'
And I think I smiled. And then he kissed me.”
“And?” Jeremy had her dying for every little detail. And, more importantly, the end of the story.
“And what?” he taunted her.
“Do not provoke my wrath.”
“I know you want all the dirty details, you filthy girl,” he taunted in an uncharacteristically vulpine manner before reverting to characteristic sweet affability,
“but I fear there's not much more to tell. The kiss was amazing. Then I started to freak out a little. I just wasn't ready for that, even that kiss. No way was I ready to start really messing around with him. I thought maybe he'd laugh at me. I don't know, make fun of me for being afraid. But he was so sweet.” The tears were back in Jeremy's eyes. “He backed right off and gave me this kind of knowing smile and said, 'Little steps,” and kissed my cheek. Then he just held me for a little while. Then, when I left, he gave me his number and said to call anytime if I wanted to talk. Or make out.”
“Good thing he didn't take advantage. I'd hate to have to sully one of my gloves calling him out.”
“And it would be so awkward for me, having to act as your second.”
“Oh, yes. Quite.”
Jeremy smiled for a minute, but then his amused expression faded away. He took a drink. A long, silent moment later he said, sounding melancholy, “So, if you're thinking of changing your mind and falling in love with me, you'd better act fast.” 576
“You should just come, Devan,” Jeremy's voice cajoled from her cell. “It doesn't matter that you don't know them. You know me.”
“I'm just not in the mood for a house full of people.”
“Are you ever?”
“Not really.”
“That's not a mood, Devan,” he teased.
“Not everyone's a social butterfly like you, Jeremy.”
“Come on. How can you resist an opportunity to see a bunch of twenty-somethings drunkenly pairing off and sneaking into closets and bathrooms to copulate with near-strangers?”
“Will I get to see you sneaking off to a closet with someone?” A rare silence was all she got from Jeremy's end, and her face went hot.
“Look,” he finally broke the torturing silence, “it's just three blocks up from your place. I'll swing by on my way and drag you along.”
“Maybe.”
“Not quite the blood oath I was hoping for, but I'll settle. I'll come by in an hour, all right?”
“Okay.”
What the hell. It didn't sound so much worse than sitting around, counting the days forward and back. She forced herself to finish the section of outline she'd been working on for one of her term papers. Then, languid, she plodded to the bathroom and started getting ready. Brushed her teeth. Her hair. Lined her lids with a little kohl and darkened her lashes with mascara. Good enough.
What did people wear to these things? So fitting in wasn't her forte. Fine. She shucked off her tank top, tugged the chartreuse knit wraparound from its hanger and slipped it on, then kicked her feet into a pair of vintage flats she'd found at the thrift store on Pine a couple weeks before. Usually she wouldn't wear red lipstick, but it seemed like the thing to go with the dress.
So she was all dressed up with somewhere to go, but when Jeremy arrived the thought of sitting around in someone's apartment, trying to make small talk with a bunch of randoms seemed like a cruel form of psychological torture.
“Fine. I won't go either, then. We'll go online and see about applying to the CIA for jobs as spies. A contingency plan, for when every school we've courted rejects us in favor of all those ivy league undergrads whose parents have been grooming them for PhDs since nursery school.”
“Don't you dare. You go to your party. I'm not interested in being responsible for the demise of your social life.”
“But what if tonight's the night I succumb to the pot brownies? After passing through the gateway, you know it's a straight shot to being a crack addict begging for change on some corner in the Central District.”
“So tonight's the night your fate will be decided? Grad student, wetwork, crack whore. Which will it be?”
“Well, if I get to get laid every day instead of just holding out a paper cup for people's pennies and gum wrappers, I'm opting for the life of crack whore.”
“Off to your party, then, to commence your journey down the slippery slope of narcotics addiction.”
“All right.” Jeremy put his arms around her and held her tight in a long, warm embrace. “Pleasant moping.”
And there was the door again. Jeremy, bored with his party already. Good. She was fatigued with her melancholic reveries and glad to have some company. Now they could pop down to the corner market, rent one of the cheesy psychological thrillers they both adored, and get some Thai delivered. The weight of her isolation lifted, she bounced to the door and flung it open with a playful flourish.
Things froze. Her lungs, her whole chest went rigid. She couldn't breathe.
“Hello, Dev.”
Sharp silver look cutting into her.
She opened her mouth to say his name but only caught her breath as the floor dropped away from under her feet and she started to fall. Or maybe she was floating.
No air. No words. Then things unfroze. Her rigid chest started pounding and panting, her whole body hot and quivery.
Everything in her surged with the urge to lunge, to press herself against him, wrap her arms around him.
But why was he there? Clamping down on her hope she backed away, caught her hands behind her back so she wouldn't touch him. She wanted to say something.
Everything. But there were no words in her head. Only feelings swelling her up so big she hurt.
“Vaughn,” she finally managed across the space she'd put between them, though her voice creaked a little. “Come in.”
“Are you sure?” His face was pale and wet and his eyes were going red and bright.
“Please. Yes. Come in.” She wanted to sound calm but her voice came out rushed and had a frantic edge.
The rain was soaking him.
“You're on your way out.”
“No. No I'm not.”
He stepped in, just far enough to close the door. She dug her nails into her wrist.
That helped. Helped her fight the want. To close the space she'd put between them, to put her hot hands on his carved, marble cheeks, to press her mouth to his.
“I'm sorry, Dev.”
His voice. She'd missed his voice.
“I'm sorry to just appear at your door like this, after all this time. I'm sorry I just dropped you here and disappeared.”
It didn't matter. She only cared that he was here now. All she wanted to know was why. What it meant.
She didn't realize, until he took a tentative step forward, until his tense mouth softened and curved, that he was mirroring her, that she had moved closer, that she was smiling. Now he was so near she could touch him if she unclasped her fingers from her wrist. But she'd pressed him before. She wouldn't corner him, now, if all he'd come for was an apology. Closure.
“God, look at you,” he breathed, his voice so intimate, his gaze so tender, she knew. He hadn't just come for a better good-bye. This was it—the first moment of 580
knowing each other, not in the woods, not in a surreal make-believe dreamed up by Conrad, but here, in the reality of their actual lives.
She just smiled her joy, her eyes sweeping down, reminding her she still had on the green dress for the abandoned party, locking her gaze on him again, half-afraid he'd disappear if she looked away too long.
Closer. Closer. Was he moving toward her? Or had she taken another step? She tightened the grip of her fingers on her wrist. She could sense the warmth of his body, now, he was so near, and hear the faint sound of his quick breaths. A smile still subtly turned one corner of his mouth, but his face was pale, his eyes were glinting, questioning.
When he lifted his hand she caught her breath and her tummy twinged. Waiting, hoping for the soft caress of her cheek she'd memorized and replayed hundreds of times in the months she'd been missing him. But he just touched her, lightly, a brush of the backs of fingers, along her bicep. She unclamped her hand, let her arms fall to her sides. Hard to breathe. Heart pounding so fast. Maybe he could see her shaking.
Her eyes drawing him in. Soothing away his fear. God, it had been so hard to get here, to risk her anger. No. Her pain. But now it seemed impossible, ridiculous, that he'd let even one day go by. Them apart.
She seemed expectant. Tremulous. So like that first night, by the fireplace in the cabin; his chest clamped and his gut tightened at the momentary thought of how he'd almost taken her that night, not knowing how young, how inexperienced, how hurt she was.
But now was different. Now Dev was no innocent. Now they weren't strangers.