by Penny Reid
The guy in front of me gave me the side-eye, likely because I’d broken the near silence that surrounded us. I gave him a flat, hint of a smile in contrition and then turned my attention to the list of coffee drinks. I already knew what I wanted to order, but I needed something on which to focus as I berated myself for my absurdity.
But at least it was done. At least I wasn’t dwelling in limbo anymore, wondering with each text whether it would be the one he answered. Wondering whether—
“Emily?”
My head whipped to the side at the sound of my name in Victor’s voice. And there he was.
Just standing there.
So close.
Looking so handsome.
In line.
For coffee.
His lips parted.
Staring at me with surprise and some other unidentifiable emotion in his eyes.
It took a long moment for my brain to reengage, and when it did my first thought was, Maybe he’s afraid. I am his stalker, after all.
No longer stunned by his sudden appearance, a sharp, aching tightness in my chest stole my breath and a shock of heat flooded my neck and cheeks. On instinct—because I was so very, very uncomfortable and flustered—I turned away, freezing, facing the guy in front of me. He was now giving Victor the side-eye.
A moment passed during which every sound of silence became a deafening roar. My mind and heart raced. I couldn’t quite catch my breath and the sharp, aching tightness kept ebbing just to return sharper, more painful, more unbearable.
Ahhhh. Why now? Do something!
I felt him shift behind me, move. Maybe he’s leaving. I closed my eyes, balling my hands into fists so as not to give into the urge to turn and check, or watch him walk away.
But then a second later, I almost jumped out of my skin as I felt his chest brush against my back and his breath against my neck as he whispered next to my ear, “Do you have a minute to talk?”
My heart leapt, but then was quickly yanked back into place by the heavy burden of truth: If he wanted to text you, he would have responded to your texts. If he wanted to talk to you, he would pick up the phone.
A fissure of anger had me straightening my back and thawing the freezing instinct. He wanted to talk? Now? Why? To tell me he didn’t want to talk to me? Hadn’t his silence said enough? I rolled my lips between my teeth, fighting a new urge (to tell him to return any one of my hundred phone calls if he wanted to talk) and shook my head.
“Emily . . .” He breathed my name. It was said with the same cadence as a please.
And for some reason, that pissed me off, likely because I felt myself melting. I didn’t want to melt. I melted entirely too much with Victor Hanover. Meanwhile, he melted never.
As it’s been established, when I’m pissed off, I don’t freeze. I boil. Stepping out of line, I made a beeline for the elevator lobby, no longer feeling heavy or burdened by the end of our non-relationship. Instead, I felt the lightness of rageful gratitude for my friend Anna, that she’d stopped me from texting him earlier. Because, if I had, it would’ve just been another text he didn’t answer. And then, when I ran into him just now, I would’ve been falling all over myself to make him like me, to take me back as whatever he wanted, in whatever form suited him, just-please-please-please-talk-to-me-again!!
Pathetic and psycho.
I was marching with purpose, single-mindedly focused on getting as far away from Victor as possible, when I heard Victor say, “Emily.” It wasn’t whispered.
I turned the corner for the lobby when I heard him shout, “Emily! Stop!” He sounded closer than before.
Someone shh-ed harshly and I didn’t blame them. He had broken the most sacred of rules on campus, shouting during finals week at the library. THE HORROR.
I’d almost made it to the study room when I felt a hand close around my elbow and spin me around. Victor’s gorgeous and brilliant eyes darted between mine, he seemed out of breath, and he didn’t release my arm when I tried to shake him off.
“Would you listen?” His eyebrows pulled into a V, and he took a step closer, using his hold on me as leverage.
I sealed my mouth shut and glared at him, crossing my arms. He still didn’t let go.
“Em,” he said through heavy breaths, his gaze pleading. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just—I don’t know how to do this.”
A bolt of agonizing sad-mad sliced through me and I shrugged to hide how close I was to crying. Part of me wanted to tell him it was okay, I’d accepted his rejection, I wouldn’t be texting him anymore. He didn’t need to figure out how to let me down gently or whatever he planned to do.
But then Victor tugged me closer, his eyes dropping to my lips. “I don’t know how to do this,” he repeated, softer.
“Do what? Be quiet?” a girl asked from somewhere in the lobby.
My gaze flickered away from Victor and caught her dirty look. Though why I’d earned the dirty look I had no idea. I hadn’t said a word.
Gritting my teeth, I returned my glare to Victor, determined to persist in my apathy. But when I faced him, he caught my other arm, pulled me against him, and kissed me.
I should be forgiven for not immediately responding to the urgent press of his hot, delicious, firm and coaxing lips. I was, after all, gritting my teeth when his mouth landed on mine. And let the record show, he was the one who’d told me that nothing was ever going to happen between us. He was the one who’d ghosted me after Abram’s high-handed stunt. And now he was . . . kissing me?
My palms flattened against his chest to push him away, obviously. But then his arms encircled me, crushed my body to his, his fingers threading into my hair at the nape of my neck and urging me closer, his tongue moving between my stunned lips. And that’s when a bit of the fog cleared. My brain told my flailing heart that Victor didn’t know how to kiss.
I mean, we were kissing, and he wasn’t terrible—obviously he wasn’t terrible because my toes were curling in my shoes and my body wanted to climb his—but he was clumsy. All hunger and no savor, all desperation and no technique.
Huh.
I slid my hands up his shoulders to cup his angular jaw and nudged him back a little without breaking the kiss, angling my head so that our fit was more natural. Sliding my tongue against his with languid strokes, slowing his feverish kiss, I encouraged him to echo my gentleness.
He did. And he groaned. Loudly. Clearly liking this turn of events.
His digging fingers at the back of my head relaxed. Likewise, I felt his body relax while his hands slid covetously down my sides, stopping on my hips as he also angled his head, his tongue chasing mine, tasting divine.
Meanwhile, someone cleared their throat. Less than a second later (or maybe it was several days later, who can say?), someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Emily!”
That was Anna. Why was Anna here?
Wait. Where is here?
THE LIBRARY!
Alarm speared me and I shoved Victor away, sucking in a sharp breath. He let me go, but then he followed as I stepped back. The determined, greedy glint in his eyes sent my heart to my throat, my brain already in mass disarray. Therefore, I allowed Anna to wordlessly grab my arm, lead me to the study room, and gently but firmly push me inside.
So confused, I’m so confused. I touched my lips with disbelieving fingers. Is this a dream?
Spinning as soon as I heard the door shut, I was only slightly surprised to discover that Victor—not Anna—stood at the other end of the room, and that Anna had disappeared.
A laugh tumbled from my lips and I covered my mouth with my hand. I honestly didn’t know how to feel or what to think or . . . WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?
All I knew was: a) I was tired, b) I was confused, and c) Victor was looking at me like I was a snack.
“Emily.”
I dropped my hand, gripping the back of the chair I’d been sitting in earlier. “What do you—what is happening?”
“I don’t know how
to do this. I can’t do this anymore.” His voice was thick with some emotion as his eyes darted all over me, as though hungry for the sight of me.
“Do what?”
Victor didn’t stall, he didn’t hesitate.
He looked me straight in the eyes and he said, “Act like I’m not in love with you.”
Chapter 19
*Emily*
“I—I—I—what?” It finally happened. My brain was broken.
“I love you, Emily. I’m in love with you.”
He . . . loves . . .?
Frowning, my eyes traveled over this Victor imposter. Perhaps because of my aforementioned brain brokenness, my attention became absorbed by his clothes. He was wearing baggy dad jeans paired with a super ugly yellow and brown checked shirt, which was also way too big. His hair was flat, longer than I remembered, and must’ve been obscuring his vision. The glasses on his face were the unflattering, black and thick ones.
This was real-Victor’s lecture outfit. The one he wore to be invisible to his students (and everyone else). It hid his body and physical handsomeness and the brilliance of his gaze.
He’s always hiding.
This Victor’s chest rose and fell like he couldn’t catch his breath and he pulled off the glasses with obvious reluctance, making me flinch as the full brunt of his unobstructed stare landed on me. It felt like an unveiling, like a revelation of himself. I stopped myself before I swayed too far forward.
He held the frames between his fingers, his hand suspended at chest level, giving me the impression he would fit them back in place at the slightest hint of resistance or challenge or rejection.
If you give him a reason to leave, he’ll bolt.
His gorgeous eyes seemed conflicted, determined and yet panicked, and I watched his lips firm, his jaw flex, his hand that gripped his glasses tighten into a fist.
“Emily, I miss you and I love you.” His voice was deep and loud and sure. “But seeing you—” He licked his lips, swallowing the rest of the thought. “I’ve made peace with it and I wish you nothing but happiness. If you want me to, I’ll leave you alone.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” I muttered, the words slipping out unplanned, a thought voiced.
His eyes widened, clearly confused. “Pardon?”
I crossed my arms, snapping my mouth shut, my broken mind besieged, occupied with duct-taping itself back together while also working through too many reveals at once.
He didn’t think of me as a stalker. He hadn’t blocked my texts. He chased me through the library, yelling my name during the sacred ritual of finals week quiet time. He kissed me—our second. He didn’t push me away after—yet.
If you want me to, I’ll leave you alone.
You would like that, wouldn’t you?
I wasn’t sorry I’d said the stream-of-consciousness words. He’d set me up to fail. If I forgave him immediately, then I had no self-respect. If I didn’t forgive him, then he’d disappear. Again.
I gave him my attention but said nothing, struggling to untangle this snarled clusterfu. . . knot. The Victor who claimed to love me continued to stare. He swallowed. His breathing evened. His hand holding the frames, however, didn’t move. It didn’t lift to place the glasses back in place, nor did it lower to discard them or tuck them away.
But when his eyes dimmed and he shifted his weight toward the door, I panicked and blurted, “You are not forgiven! And you’re not allowed to leave.”
He seemed to rear back a fraction of an inch; his gaze watchful. “O—okay.”
“I mean it.” A spike of alarm, of distrust, had me darting forward to the door and standing in front of it, heedless that this brought me within a few feet of where he stood. Gripping the doorknob as extra insurance, I tilted my chin up and glared at him. “You are not allowed to leave me ever again. No more leaving. No more ghosting!”
Victor’s eyes narrowed—just slightly—as they moved over me, and finally his hand lowered to tuck the ugly glasses in his pants pocket. “You don’t forgive me, but you don’t want me to leave you alone?”
“Yes.” I nodded, ardently, and admitted on a burst of feelings, “I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know what will set you off, send you running. And I never know what you’re thinking.”
He swallowed again, finally pushing his hair off his forehead and out of his eyes, looking completely bewildered. “Emily, I just told you I love you.”
He loves me. Weeeeeeee!
So why did he ghost me? Grrrrrrrrrrr!
“Yes. You also told me months ago that nothing would ever happen between us. And then we developed this awesome friendship, and I loved our friendship. But then you disappeared like it—like I—meant nothing to you.”
He eyed me warily. “You love our friendship, but not me? You want us to be friends?”
A spike of fury had me stepping away from the door and gesturing to him wildly. “See? This is what I’m talking about. I feel like you’re trying to trick me into saying something to make you leave again. If I say, ‘Yes, Victor. I love our friendship and I want to be friends,’ you’ll go silent on me, because you’ll take that as a rejection. But if I say, ‘No, Victor. I love you,’ then it’s like I’m giving you a free pass to stomp all over my heart, and there’s plenty of your footprints there already.”
“I am so sorry.” He shifted forward; the movement restrained like he was trying to hold himself back. “I know I screwed up. I should’ve messaged you back, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I did, it would mean the end of our friendship.”
“That makes no sense. You ended the friendship by not texting me back.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did!”
He looked pained, uncertain, torn. But he said nothing.
I shook my head tiredly. “I don’t know what to do with you. I—”
“I thought I could walk away, when the time came. But I couldn’t. When I saw you with him, with Anna’s cousin, I couldn’t walk away like I’d planned.”
“First of all, I wasn’t with Abram. He’s like a brother. Secondly, you literally walked away.” I lifted my hand and made a sweeping motion.
His eyes seemed to grow brighter. “You’re not with Abram?”
“No. Of course not.” I scrunched my face, but then a thought occurred to me. “Wait a minute. You just kissed me. Are you telling me you kissed me thinking I might be with someone else?”
“Yes,” he said, not hesitating, his eyes clear. “Yes. I kissed you thinking you were with someone else. And I’m not sorry I did it.”
What?
“How can you—” My hands flew up. “Okay. Okay. We need to stay focused! One thing at a time. You walked out of the museum, got in your car, and left. You walked away.”
“No, that’s not—I left the museum, yes. But I didn’t walk away. I couldn’t. I want a chance with you,” he blurted, shoving his fingers into his hair and turning away.
That had me standing straighter. “If you wanted to be with me, why not just tell me?”
Victor placed his hands on his hips. His stood in profile, but he’d turned his head as his eyes moved over my body, growing impossibly wistful as they finally came back to mine. “You—your intelligence, your sweetness, your humor, your fearlessness and courage and heart, and even your beautiful body—are a 97% confidence interval with a 3% margin of error and a Z score of 2.17009. You, every part of you, are as close to perfection as is reasonably scientifically possible.” He said this like it caused him no end of torment, like it was a listing of charges against me. “And I’m—”
“Brilliant? Funny? Generous? Wonderful? Sexy?” I tossed each descriptor at him with the full force of my vehemence. “Or were you going to say distant and unfeeling? Because those also apply.”
The side of his mouth hitched, but the smile was not echoed in his eyes. “I’m untested,” came his quiet response.
I waited for him to c
larify. When he didn’t, I glanced at the ceiling, huffed, and didn’t try to hide the irritation from my voice as I parroted, “Untested.”
Facing me fully, he dropped his hands from his hips, and he showed me his palms, as though surrendering. “I’m inexperienced and unsure. I lack confidence because I have no track record of success because I’ve never tried. I’ve never wanted to try. I’ve spent my life actively avoiding needing or wanting this, and now I’m doing everything wrong.” The words sounded like they were torn from him. “I’m in love with you.”
Oh. That’s right. He said he was in love with me. By the way, has it for sure been established that I wasn’t currently daydreaming?
“But I’m so afraid,” he added quietly, and the way he said it—pure, honest, raw vulnerability—awakened my reflexive protectiveness.
Show me where it hurts! I’ll kiss it!! Yikes. I couldn’t say that even though it was true. I needed to think. I needed a plan. I needed more of this, more of him talking, more bravery, but I couldn’t enable his jerkish behavior by capitulating the first time he was finally honest.
Clearing my throat, I ordered myself to stand firm and asked, “What are you afraid of?” My feet, however, shuffled forward as though pulled until mere inches separated us. I couldn’t look away from the mesmerizing mixture of intelligence and fear and determination, all swirling together behind his dazzling eyes.
“Everything. You. Me. Everything,” he confessed on a whisper. Even so, his voice cracked, and his shoulders hunched, and his gaze seemed to oscillate between resentful and hopeful.
“Can you be more specific?” My head was spinning.
He cleared his throat, his attention dropping to my hands. I followed his gaze and realized I’d lifted them to chest level and had pressed my palms together, as though praying.
Staring at my fingers, he said, “The month before spring break, w—when we were spending all that time together, I stopped eating.” He cleared his throat again, took another deep breath, and his voice was sturdier when he spoke next. “I was afraid to eat. And when I did, I started weighing food again, second-guessing every serving. I saved meals for when we were together. I stopped going to the airfield. Instead, I went to the gym whenever I had a free second.”
