Page 67 of Guy's Girl
A slow smile spreads across Clay’s face. “Is that so?”
“It is.” Adrian turns to Ginny. “I have one.”
“What is it?”
“Szöszmötöl.It’s a verb that describes when you’re doing something and get so involved in it that the entire rest of the world falls away.”
“Oh,” she says.
Neither of them speaks after that. Adrian’s brown eyes watch her so intently that her stomach starts to warm, low and steady, right at the base of her pelvis. She feels as if she has crawled into his eyes, as if they are a warm, dark cavern that cocoons her, protecting her from the outside world. She tries to stay still, to keep from moving her pelvis or heaving her chest, but it’s nearly impossible; a strange, tight fire seems to have lit inside her.
She exhales. “That’s... a beautiful word.”
“It is.”
“I have another,” Jozsef announces, cracking open the cave in which Ginny was huddled. She turns to him, blinking rapidly, as if his blond mop of hair were a sudden burst of sunshine. “Nincs. Orsincs.”
“Wh—” Ginny clears her throat. “What is that?”
“It’s a word that quite literally refers to the absence of something. A lacking. A thing that isn’t there but should be.”
“Oh.”
And as Adrian stands from their table, brushing off his jeans and heading over to the bar to collect more beer, Ginny thinks she knows exactly what he means. That she has always known. Thatnincsdescribes what she has long felt about herself—an absence, a lacking, a thing that isn’t there but should be.
***
The next bar isn’t a bar at all. It’s an outdoor food hall inside the alleyway beside Szimpla Kert. Pebbles crunch under Ginny’s shoes as she crosses under a wooden archway with a neon sign that reads:karaván.Food stalls line each side of the alley, and a crowd of people mills about the inside, queueing for orders or eating at one of the wooden high tops.
As they elbow their way through the throng, Ginny spies every type of food imaginable: gyros, some sort of deep-fried pancake, burritos, sweet potato fries, marshmallow cones, burgers with patties made entirely of cheese. The farther they walk, the faster her heart races. What should she eat? How can she possibly choose? Her mind darts from one option to the next, considering each, trying to imagine their flavor, to taste them without tasting them. The boys start to peel off, headed for one stall or another. Ginny remains frozen. She spins in a tight circle. Her neck jerks from left to right. People jostle her on both sides. She scans thecrowd for a glimpse of the boys to see what they’ve chosen. She sees no one.
Going into every meal since the night she arrived, Ginny’s brain has been on high alert. She’s certain that she’ll slip up, that one bite will turn to two and two to a thousand. And sometimes, it does. Sometimes, she gives in to the panic, to the rabbit scanning the room in search of more, more,more.
She doesn’t want that to happen tonight. The last hour at Szimpla Kert was the closest she has felt to calm in a long time; she doesn’t want to ruin that with yet another binge. Yet another descent into the total absence of control. She will have to pick her dinner carefully. To ensure she doesn’t choose something addictive, likely to trigger—
“Having trouble deciding?”
Ginny spins around. Behind her stands Finch, a cheese-and-chicken taco in one hand.
She narrows both eyes. “No.” She starts to turn away, to march toward the nearest stall, but Finch grabs her wrist.
“Ginny, wait.”
“What?” She spins around. “What, Finch? What could you possibly have to say to me?”
Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the light-headedness. Maybe it’s the crush of people, the thumping music, the overwhelming shimmer of food at every corner of her vision. Whatever it is, something tells Ginny that she needs to have this confrontation here,now.
Now that he has her attention, Finch seems to have forgotten how to speak. He looks down. Shifts from foot to foot. Thetacoshifts on its plate, too, sliding from one edge to the other. When he looks back up, his eyes are so warm and sad it almost breaks Ginny’s heart.
“I miss you,” he says.
Ginny laughs once. The sound is harsh, biting. “Nice try. Fool me once.”
“I do.” His words plead with her. “You have no idea how difficult this decision was for me.”
“For you?” Ginny steps closer, voice rising. “Foryou? No, fuck that, Finch.Fuckthat. You spent the last year leading me on. I should have known it was all bullshit.” She shakes her head. “It’s the same fucked-up shit that happened freshman year. It’s just a rerun.”
“It’s not a rerun.” This time, Finch is the one who steps closer. He takes Ginny’s hand and pulls her in until she is just an inch from his chest. “I did want to be with you. Ido.But I have to consider my future. To break up with Hannah—it would destroy her. And it might destroy me, too. I don’t know. But that doesn’t— I can’t—” He looks down at the pebbled ground. After a long pause, his eyes inch back up to find hers. “I love you, too, Ginny. I always have, and I always will.”
