Page 22 of The Way I Am Now
“You just called me Eden.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “My head is—I’m not really thinking clearly. I know your name, I promise.”
“It’s okay,” she says, her hand rubbing against my jeans. “Kiss me like that again, and you can call me anything you want.”
“No, I—I’m not really in a place to—I’m just—” I’m getting flustered, my head feeling so full as I struggle to sit up. “God,” I mutter to myself, “fuck me.”
“Yeah.” She giggles. “That’s kinda what I’m trying to do.” She leans in to kiss me again, and I have to push her hands off me.
“No, really. I can’t.” I scramble away from her and stand up, buttoning my jeans and quickly threading my belt back through the buckle. She looks up at me, so strangely, so confused. “I’m sorry, it’s really not you.”
She doesn’t say anything as she gets up and walks away. Doesn’t even look back.
“It’s not you,” I call after her. “Really.”
It’snother. She’s not Eden.
I kick at the grass and hit the metal flask, nearly toppling over as I bend to pick it up. I sit back down, take another swig, and pull my phone out of my pocket.
EDEN
We’re dozing to a movie playing on Steve’s laptop when my phone vibrates on the nightstand. I raise my head from its spot on his chest to look at the time.
He tightens his arms around me as we settle back in. But then, in the next beat, suddenly he’s sitting up, dumping me off him. “Seriously!” he shouts, looking down at my phone as the screen darkens. “Why’s he texting you at one thirty in the morning?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Do you really want me to check?”
“No,” he says abruptly.
I reach across him and flip my phone over, facedown, pretending I don’t care that he’s just looked at my phone without my permission, that I don’t care about whatever it is Josh has said. Steve is staring at me as if I should have some kind of explanation.
“Are we still on this?” I ask. “Because if we’re going to have this fight again, I’d rather just go home.”
Reluctantly, he lies down next to me. It vibrates a second time, and we both ignore it. The third time, Steve sits up again. “Oh my God, what the hell does he want?”
I reach for my phone, and this time I turn it off, but not before I catch a glimpse of the beginnings of each message lighting up the screen:
It was nice to . . .
I’m sorry if I . . .
Can I see you . . . ?
“I don’t know. I don’t care,” I lie. “Forget about it,” I tell him. Even though I’m already trying to fill in the ends of each sentence, even though all I want to do is stare at the words and overthink each and every one for hours on end.
“Sorry,” Steve says, closing his laptop and setting it on the floor. “That kinda ruined the mood.” The mood was already ruined, though, before we even got here. He lies back down next to me in a huff.
“Again, I feel like you’re blaming me or something. It’s not like I asked him to text me.”
“I know,” Steve says. “I’m not blaming you. I blamehim, believe me.”
I hesitate to say the rest, which is, again, we’re friends and friends text each other and I don’t like him thinking he has any say in the matter. But instead of that, I ask him, “Do you still want me here?”
“Of course,” he answers, softening a bit as he looks at me.
“Well, can I borrow a T-shirt or something to sleep in? I hadn’t planned on not going home tonight.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, I should’ve offered,” he says, remembering that he’s supposed to be a nice guy. He jumps out of bed, and I follow him over to his dresser, where he opens a drawer overflowing with his signature nerdy graphic tees, all in various states of unfolded. “Take your pick.”
