Page 49 of The Way I Am Now
“Your room’s this way,” she says, smiling as she leads me to a wooden door on the opposite side of the apartment. “My old roommate left a few things. Just a dresser, bookcase, desk, and chair. We can get rid of them if you want, but I thought I’d leave it and see if you need any of them first.”
Myroom.
The wooden floors continue, and as I cross the threshold, it feels like the room is drawing me in. It’s smaller than my bedroom back home. But there’s a large window with a tree outside it, and the old, chipped furniture is warm and inviting. I run my hand along the top of the desk and feel the grooves of pen marks crisscrossed along the surface.
“What do you think?” Josh’s voice says behind me.
When I turn back around, Parker is gone and Josh is standing in the doorway with two of my bags at his feet, cradling my little stained-glass lamp in one arm like it’s a baby.
Our fingers touch as I take it from him, the brass body of the lamp warm from his hands. I bring my lamp over to the desk—mydesk—plug it in at the wall socket, and turn the little key-shaped knob to switch it on.
“Perfect,” I say, turning back around to face him. He leans against the doorframe and smiles the way he always does. That perfectly imperfect smile of his. But this time it sparks something in me, like that key-shaped switch. Like I’m seeing him in full color for the very first time. My feet are frozen in place. But in my mind, I’m walking over to him. Because all I want to do is pull him inside the room,myroom, close the door, take his hands in mine, and put them on me. I want to kiss him everywhere, feel his mouth on my skin. I want to—
“You okay?” he asks, picking up the bags and walking toward me like he’s definitely not thinking any of the things I am right now.
I swallow, watching his arms working so easily, so smoothly, as he sets the bags down next to the closet door. “Yeah. I’m just . . .” I bring the backs of my hands to my cheeks. They’re flaming. I’ve always been attracted to him, but this is different—this churning inside me is like a gnawing hunger but deeper. I usually have so many firewalls up when I start thinking about him, the sudden vividness of this fantasy catches me off guard. “Just hot. Warm,” I correct.
I don’t know what is happening to me. Is this just how I feel about him when I’m not filtering my emotions and censoring my every thought?
He walks past me, his arm just grazing mine, as he goes to the window. “Let me see if I can get this open. All these old windows stick really bad in the summer.” He unlocks the metal latch at the top and gives the wooden frame a sharp jab before it squeals open, ushering in a fresh breeze, which hits my skin, cooling me down just enough to stop me from rushing over to him and acting out the things that won’t stop playing in my head.
“Thanks,” I tell him, reaching out as he passes me. My fingers catch the sleeve of his shirt, my hand grasping his forearm as he stops. I want to pull him in, want him to reach for me too, but he stands there and covers my hand with his for only a moment before letting go.
“No problem,” he says, all nonchalant, and goes to the doorway as if I were really only thanking him for opening the window.
I make my way downstairs, feeling slightly dizzy as my senses attune to him, just steps behind me. All day long we’re in such close contact, passing in the hallway, squeezing by each other on the stairs. Every single time I want to reach out to touch him. But he doesn’t seem to be having the same problem at all, and I don’t know what to make of that.
The day is only getting hotter and more humid when I find myself alone outside. I take one last sip of my now melted frozen cappuccino and decide I can at least try to undo the bungee cords holding the mattress and box spring in place.
Standing up on the inside of the car door, stretching on my tiptoes, I reach under the mattress, trying to feel the spot where the two hooks connect. I can’t see it, but I can feel it right at the edge of my fingertips.
“Don’t be a hero, Eden!” Parker calls out, suddenly behind me. “Let the guys get that one. It’s not anti-feminist, I promise. Or if it is, whatever, I won’t tell anyone.”
“I got it,” I say, even though I can feel my grip slipping.
“Here,” Josh says as he comes up behind me. I feel his leg next to mine, his hand resting on my back for a moment as he reaches his other arm around me, his body pressed up against mine now. “You almost had it,” he says with his hand moving along my arm to the place where my fingers almost reach the hook. He pulls the cords closer and says, his mouth painfully close to me, “Hold this side.” He slips the hook into my hand and then reaches farther, pressing tighter against me, to unclasp the two.
My heart stutters at the feeling of his body on me like this. He has to be feeling it too.
As he steps down, I lose my balance. “Oh, ya good?” he says, normal as anything, as he places his hands on my waist to stabilize me. If I turn around, I’m afraid I won’t be able to look him in the eye without kissing him.
And because I don’t think I should do that here, in the middle of the street, I just mutter, “Yeah, all good.” I keep my back to him as I slip under his arms. I go stand at a safe distance on the sidewalk with Parker while we watch the two of them maneuver my mattress off the car.
I run up the steps to hold the front door open for them, and as Josh passes, he says, “Thanks.”
I let myself look up for only a split second, and I can tell he has all these questions in his eyes as ifI’mthe one being weird.
As the door swings closed behind them, Parker snorts a laugh.
“Well, then.” She breathes out an exaggerated sigh, almost a whistle. “You could cut that with a knife.”
“What?” I ask, even though, of course, I know.
She tilts her head and smiles.
I press my hands to my cheeks again, feeling the blood simmering under the surface of my skin. “Um. So, food?” I say, instead of acknowledging what is apparently obvious to everyone around us. “I’m gonna order us some food. What’s good around here?”
Thirty minutes later, we’re all on the roof with a large pizza and a two-liter of soda. Dominic brought up paper plates and plastic cups and hands them to each of us.
