Page 46 of A Totally Platonic Thing
I toyed with mine, picking off a couple of olives. I could put it back in the box. Lunch for tomorrow. I’d be home most of the day, so maybe I should put a couple of slices in a baggie for Lucas to take to school with him.
That thought depressed me more than Lucas’s silence, or his weirdness since he’d…since we’d…ugh. Here I was, spinning my wheels and trying to come up with ways to, what, act like his freaking boyfriend? Yeah. Basically. And meanwhile, he’d come on my ass, because if you could do it you could think the words, dammit, and now he didn’t want to be around me anymore.
He’d barely even reacted to me telling him how good I’d been for the past few days, going to my classes and doing my reading and not going out at all. I’d had a beer earlier, but that wouldn’t have bothered him—like it shouldn’t. I didn’t have a problem having one drink and only one when I was at home. (And honestly, anyone expected to read thirty pages of Marxist criticism ofThe Sun Also Risesneeded at least a beer. Barbiturates would’ve been better. And I was pretty sure Hemingway would’ve agreed with me.)
Bringing up my virtuous behavior again would be so,sopathetic and desperate. I cleared my throat. “So my senior seminar went well today. I mean, aside from the part where I’m not sure if I’ll pass or not. I made some good points aboutSense and Sensibility, and Dr. Wilcox nodded along and told me he agreed. So maybe he’ll, like, have some mercy.”
Lucas swallowed a bite and then looked up at me. “You’re so good at this, Chris. I mean, the whole reading and analysis and paper-writing stuff. Of course he’ll take that into account. Maybe if you went to his office hours and talked to him one-on-one, not when he’s rushed after class?”
The content of what he said should’ve warmed me down to my bare toes. But his tone, slightly mechanical and reserved, chilled me instead. Not even a smile? I mean, he wanted me to succeed, didn’t he? Or had the way I’d turned all clingy after we’d gotten off together made him not even want to be around me anymore?
“Thanks,” I managed through my very tight throat. I kind of wished I’d stopped at one piece of pizza. What I’d eaten sat so heavily in my stomach that I felt a little sick. “But you know, if I have to walk this spring and then go back for a couple of make-up summer classes, that’s not the end of the world. I mean, taking classes after you’ve graduated is so lame, but it’s not a huge deal.”
“It’s not at all,” Lucas said, sounding more like himself. “So many people do that. I think Amanda’s even taking a class in the summer to finish up, and you know she’s so focused it’s scary.”
I had to laugh at that, and that slight break in my tension felt amazing. “She’s so focused it’s scary, but isn’t she double-majoring?” I’d spent enough time visiting Lucas in his lab that I’d gotten to know the people he spent the most time with. I even brought Amanda coffee too a lot of the time. She traded me these amazing homemade strudels her mom sent her. “Electrical engineering and business, right?”
Lucas shook his head, and he smiled for the first time since Monday night. “Yeah. She’s insane. But my point is, you won’t be the only one in your summer classes who’s in that boat if you end up having to do it. It’s not like you’ll be the odd man out. And anyway, summer classes are cool. They’re smaller, everyone’s more laid-back. I’ll be jealous when I go to work every day and you’re chilling on campus.” His smile faded. “If I can even get a job, which, you know. Who knows.”
A wave of sympathy and guilt hit me so hard I nearly toppled over. Lucas had so much more going on in his life than just me, or my problems, or…my ass.
“You will,” I said, and I totally believed it. “That big aerospace company is your top pick, right? And then there are all those little firms who had booths at that fair they had a few months ago. And it’s not like you’re stuck in Santa Rafaela. We—you could go anywhere.”
I bit my tongue, hard. Shit.We?What the hell was wrong with me? God, I hoped he didn’t notice.
By the narrow-eyed look he shot me, he noticed all right.
I didn’t know what to expect, but then he said, very evenly, “You’re right. We’re not stuck in Santa Rafaela. I like it here, though. If I can find a job locally, I will.”
Lucas was thinking about the future with both of us in mind? That seemed so like him, but…God, I’d end up being a burden to him, wouldn’t I? If he felt obligated to stay roommates, to think about my needs too.
More guilt, this time crushing me like a ton of bricks.
“I like Santa Rafaela too,” I said. “But even if you get a job here, things are going to change. I mean, you’ll be able to afford something better than this apartment.”
I couldn’t quite bring myself to state the obvious: that I probably wouldn’t, with or without a job. English degrees might confer all kinds of valuable skills, but valuable in the abstract and valuable in the job market were two totally different things.
Lucas looked me right in the eyes. “It wouldn’t be better without you.”
As I reeled from that, he got up abruptly, took my plate and his, and went into the kitchen, starting to put things away.
It wouldn’t be better without you.
On top of the three days of as much radio silence as you could manage when you lived in someone’s pocket, that felt like more than I could handle.
He’d spanked me. He’d come on my ass. He’d stopped talking to me, and now he’d basically told me he wanted to keep living with me indefinitely. That he’d been taking me into account as he made his future plans, in a way college roommates definitely didnotget taken into account most of the time.
The mixed signals had my brain going haywire. If he couldn’t stand being around me, why would he want to keep living with me after we graduated? And if he wanted to keep living with me, obviously he wanted me around.
Maybe he regretted fooling around with me—okay, he definitely regretted fooling around with me—and wanted everything to go back to the way it had been.
And I wished it could too.
But I couldn’t. That unwelcome revelation I’d had taking a shower the other night, that I’d wanted Lucas all along…well, it hadn’t faded. If anything, I’d brooded over it nearly every moment I hadn’t been busy with my classes or with catching up on studying. Maybe even during some of those moments, too. And that might fade with time, or it might not. But it definitely wouldn’t fade if we lived together.
And Lucas might be single now, but he wouldn’t stay that way. Lucas was a total catch, and didn’t I know it better than anyone. Could I live with him while he had a girlfriend, now, after I couldn’t deny how I felt anymore?
No.
