Page 79 of This Time It's Real
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Eliza,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m usually pretty good with this stuff, but when it comes to you—one second you’re saying things that sound so sincere, like you might really like me, and you’re making me those paper cranes . . . And the next you’re telling me that you’re only doing this for your internship, that every sincere-sounding thing that comes out of your mouth is just flowery bullshit, and you’re planning out our every single interaction three weeks in advance. If you hadn’t kissed me back like that . . . I still wouldn’t know.”
I stare ahead, fully convinced now that I’m in some sort of alternate universe, whereCaz Songis the one second-guessingmyfeelings toward him.
“Besides,” he goes on, voice low, “a lot of people might like me for my—reputation. But that’s the side I show to them on purpose tomakethem like me. Nobody’s ever gotten to know me as well as you have. I wasn’t sure . . . I didn’t know if those other parts of me were worth wanting too.”
And my heart shatters.
But my resolve doesn’t.
“Of course they’re worth wanting,” I say, in disbelief that I’d even need to affirm this out loud. “Caz, you don’t know how hard it’s been to pretend like—like Idon’twant you. But this isn’t going to work.”
He stills; I feel the muscles in his shoulders bunch. “Why not?”
“Apart from the thousands of logistical reasons, you mean? It’s—Okay. Okay, you know Zoe? Zoe Sato-Meyer?”
“I remember, yeah.” His voice is carefully neutral. “The one who gave you the bracelet.”
“Exactly. She is—shewasmy best friend.” The correction makes my chest ache like a bruise, but I continue. “We didn’t even have a fight or anything. It was just—we drifted apart. That’s what always happens when I’m involved, Caz. Every single fucking time. And you might say or think you want me now, but . . . that’s what will happen with us too. I’m certain of it.”
This is the closest I have ever gotten to voicing the truth: that I’m afraid. That for a long time now, between maybe the third and fourth move, the fourth or fifth friend I lost along the way, I’ve suspected that there’s something fundamentally unlovable about me. Something that makes it easy for people to forget me the second I leave, to drift out of touch no matter how hard I try to keep them in my life.
I’ve said before that my default setting is loneliness, but maybe I was wrong.
Maybe it’s really fear.
“You can’t keep doing this, Eliza,” Caz says. We’ve reached my building now, and I slide off his back before he can carry me farther. Then I stand up unsteadily, soaked through and shivering, and bring myself to look at him. His jaw is set, tiny jewels of rainwater glistening on his skin, his eyes darker than the sky behind him. This feels, in every way, like a finale.
“Doing what?”
“You can’t control everything. You can’t decide how other people feel—howIfeel—”
“But I already know how it’s going to end,” I choke out. “Iknow. And when it happens—I’mgoing to be the one heartbroken. Not you—”
“That’s not true—”
“You think that now. But you don’t know—you can’t know—” My voice threatens to waver, to give me away, but I catch myself. Draw in a deep breath. Assume some semblance of professionalism, hide behind it like armor. “Look, this is my fault for not sticking strictly to our business arrangement. That’s all it was supposed to be; that’s all it reallycanbe. And I’m close to finishing up with my internship. Once we do the interview together, and clean up this whole mess—we can stage a proper breakup. Part ways for good.”
His eyes flash. “So that’s it? You’re just not going to give it a chance? You don’t have the guts to eventry?”
I want to answer him. I really do, but there’s a fist-sized lump in my throat and I can barely swallow, let alone talk. So I just nod.
And Caz waits. He waits, and I disappoint him again and again with every new second that passes between us, until he understands. “Fine,” he says at last, backing out into the rain. Already, his outline is blurring, like something from a dream. “If that’s what you want.”
“Whoa. What happened to you?”
Emily’s eyes widen as she opens the front door to see me standing here, dripping wet and shivering, my hair in dirty tangles, my feet completely bare after abandoning my disgusting sneakers outside the entrance.
“It rained,” I say, and I realize I sound like I’ve been crying.
“Yeah,clearly.” She gapes at me a few moments longer, opens and closes her mouth a few times, probably deliberating how appropriate it would be to make some joke about my sad, disheveled appearance, before sighing and hurrying off into the laundry.
She returns with two thick towels that smell faintly like pine.
“Thanks,” I croak out, stepping through the doorway, leaving wet footprints everywhere behind me. But when I bend down to wipe them, I only end up spraying droplets of mud and water all over the marble surface and slipping on the mess I’ve just made, my left hip bone hitting the damp floor with a painful thud.
That’s it, I decide as I pull myself slowly back up. I wince.This is without a doubt the most miserable moment in my whole life. It is literally impossible for things to get any more depressing than this.“I think I’m just going to take a shower first.”
