Page 63 of The Way I Am Now
“Oh,” he exhales, relieved, seeming to understand. “You are. I mean, I do. I love you,” he says again. “And I—I’ve never felt this way before either.”
I let him wipe the tears from my cheeks, and as he looks down at me, even his eyes turn shiny. He smiles and blinks fast. “Jesus, you’re gonna make me cry now.”
“Sorry.” I sniffle, almost laughing at myself.
He releases a breath of a laugh too. “It’s okay.”
We readjust our positions, and when he gets up to throw the condom away, he asks if I want him to leave the lamp on—I don’t, I won’t need it if he’s here. He climbs into bed and covers us with the sheet, laying his head on my chest while we hold each other.
“Josh?” I hear myself say into the darkness.
“Hmm?” he says, his voice all loose and sleepy.
“I love you too.”
He raises his head and looks down at me, squinting slightly like he’s confused or didn’t quite hear me, but then he kisses my lips softly and says, “I know how hard that was for you to say.”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t.”
JOSH
I left her asleep in my bed this morning. She didn’t even stir when my alarm went off at five. I was so tempted to stay with her. But I’m not quite off the coach’s shit list yet, so I can’t afford to be late to a single practice or workout if I have any hope of playing this season.
The first month of the semester has flown by. Between my practice schedule and Eden working, plus our course loads, it seems like we have less and less time for each other every day.
I make it through morning training from six to eight, then the team meeting before my first class at nine. I text her good morning on the way. But she’s usually running too late; she won’t text back until after her first class ends at ten thirty. I only have an hour break between morning classes, and then it’s back to prep for practice again.
I hate that there’s no time to just relax together. I don’t know how we’d see each other at all if we weren’t in the same building. She got a second job at the café across the street from our apartment, but the manager’s already being a dick about her availability. I don’t know what he expects. This is a college town; everyone’s schedules are crazy. I’ve gone in there to study when she works on the weekends. I tell her it’s so I can spend a little more time around her. That’s mostly true, but I also don’t trust the guy. It seems like he has it out for her for no reason, criticizing everything she does, wanting her to come in early, stay late.
I was there once when she dropped a mug on the floor and it broke.
She laughed for about two seconds out of embarrassment—it was charming and cute and everyone thought so, giving her these sympathetic nods and smiles. And then, as she was literally kneeling on the floor to clean it up, the manager came over all red-faced and tossed a rag down next to her, muttering, “It’s not funny. Pay attention to what you’re doing. If you can’t be more careful, you can’t work here.”
The way he said it, though, he was so angry, way angrier than he should’ve been over a cheap ceramic mug. And the way she looked up at him. I saw something flash in her eyes. She was scared, for just a second, I could tell. I stood up and walked over, not even knowing what I was going to do or say, but I had the most intense urge to grab the guy by his stupid apron and push him up against the wall, drag him outside. Not a familiar feeling for me; I didn’t like how quickly it came on.
“Look, I distracted her,” I told him. “I’ll pay for the mug.”
He didn’t even speak to me; he just glared at us both and walked away.
I squatted next to her and said quietly, “You absolutely do not need to put up with that shit.”
“Please,” she scoffed. “I’ve dealt with bigger douchebags than him. But you should probably go. You didn’t make me drop the mug, but your faceisvery distracting. Plus, all these girls keep checking you out. I’m getting jealous.”
I looked around. No one was checking me out. But someone was checkingherout. A guy in the kitchen was watching her through the window where the servers pick up the food, his eyes lingering for just a little too long. I stared him down until he walked away.
I really want her to quit the second job. Not only because I hate her boss and her creepy male coworkers, but we’re not even one full month into the semester and she’s already running herself ragged. The only nice part of being so busy is that it makes the time we do have feel more special.
Her classes are all on the opposite side of campus. Most days we can at least walk home together, though. Sometimes we can sneak a lunch in. Today I stop by the student union for sandwiches and then have to jog to the library if I want to make it in time to see her at all before I have to head back to the athletic center to get changed for afternoon practice.
I smuggle the paper bag of food in my backpack and head up to the fourth floor of the Arts and Sciences Library. I find her toward the end of one of the aisles, near our spot in the back corner, where we can usually get a few minutes of privacy. I stand there and watch her for a minute. She has a cart of returned books she’s supposed to be shelving, but she’s standing on top of one of those little plastic stepstools, flipping through the pages of a book, before she reaches up to place it in its designated spot on the shelf. Then she takes down the book next to it and starts skimming the pages instead. I glance at the titles as I walk toward her. Biographies, looks like. She’s so absorbed, she doesn’t even notice I’m standing right next to her.
“Excuse me, miss?” I whisper.
“God!” she yelps, and the book she was holding clatters to the floor.
“Shh,” I tell her, bending down to pick it up. “This is a library.”
As she takes the book from me, she smiles and says, “When are you going to stop sneaking up on me?”
