As You Are

by Claire Cain

  What was he about to say?

  What was he about to say!?

  My mind was reeling, and I managed to say something like “it’s ok” or “don’t worry about it,” and we all focused on our food until Henry piped up with some other, unrelated topic, bless him. I felt unsettled the rest of the time, not sure what to make of the conversation or even my feelings of awkwardness about it.

  After dinner, I gave Henry a hug goodbye and then Jake grabbed my hand and pulled me out into the still-warm evening air.

  “I’m sorry if Henry and I upset you,” Jake said, his thumb brushing along the back of my hand.

  “He didn’t upset me. I was surprised,” I explained, wanting to tread cautiously so I didn’t give him any sense I didn’t want to be with him.

  “You seemed… something. Bothered, at least,” he said, less of a declaration and more of a question, which was unusual for him.

  “I mostly felt stupid. I wasn’t sure if you were comfortable with that title or if you’d even want it—”

  “I am, and I do,” he said, his voice full of that characteristic confidence again.

  “Oh… that’s… good,” I sputtered. We stepped off the path and walked through my little patch of grass onto the patio. My mind was racing right along with my heart. Did he know what he wanted? All of a sudden, everything had changed for him? This didn’t make sense.

  “Listen, I don’t want to rush you. If you’re not ready to call me your boyfriend, then don’t. But I’m not going to want to date anyone else. I don’t want to spend time with anyone else. I want to be with you, Ellie, and I hope you want to be with me too.” He ran a hand from his neck up and over his hair, then let his arm fall back by his side.

  “I… I don’t know what to say,” I said and immediately felt my stomach plummet.

  “That’s… that’s fine. Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to say anything.”

  “I think we should, you know, think about this…” What was I saying? Why couldn’t I look him in the eye?

  “Hmm.” It was more of a grunt of acknowledgment than a response. He pursed his lips together for a second like he might say something else, then gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Have a good night.”

  I flipped the lock and watched him walk away. As soon as he was out of sight I slid the blinds closed, curled up on the couch, and cried.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I must have fallen asleep because I woke up Wednesday morning with a hangover despite the fact I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol. A crying hangover. An emotion hangover. A holy crap I just screwed up a chance at a relationship with what has rapidly become my dream guy hangover.

  I showered, dressed, and walked in to work ten minutes later than usual.

  “Hey Elizabeth! Oh… are you ok?” Erin’s face was twisted with concern. Apparently my hangover was visible to all.

  “Yep. Rough night but doing fine. Thanks,” I said and retreated to my office down the hall.

  I’d spent the time getting ready that morning and then driving to the office berating myself for being the biggest idiot of all time. Did I want Jake Harrison to be my boyfriend?

  Yes.

  Absolutely.

  Hells yeah.

  Why was I being an idiot? Why didn’t I say that? What was holding me back?

  I was surprised when Henry said it, but my awkwardness was more at the thought of Jake not wanting to be called that or anticipating the stereotypical-but-too-often-true reality of a guy not wanting to be committed too soon. But what was I thinking? This was serious-as-taxes Jake, and he wasn’t the kind to mess around. I knew he’d tell me what he wanted, and then, when he walked me home, he did tell me.

  I’m not going to want to date anyone else. I don’t want to spend time with anyone else. I want to be with you, Ellie, and I hope you want to be with me too.

  I mean, hi.

  Hello.

  What else was I waiting for?

  And then, like a genius, I said I think we should think about this like I needed to think about whether I wanted him or not.

  I did.

  I wanted him.

  But that was terrifying.

  If I was being honest, and I liked to pride myself on that (but then not actually be at all honest with myself, I was discovering), then I would admit it scared me. Because Jake was like… it. He was it. He was the kind of man you find, and you marry, and you don’t stop. You lock that man down and hurry up and bear him some progeny because men like that should raise children who then grow into excellent humans.

  He was accomplished and ambitious but not so much he wouldn’t make time for me. He essentially told me that he’d changed his entire way of doing things for me by dating me. Guh.

  But I was in transition. I felt excited by him and the prospect of being with him, but like it was happening at a pace or at a time that was too much for him, and maybe he didn’t know it. Maybe this was exactly what happened with his mom and dad—they got swept up.

  And for me, it was right in the middle of a time when I was trying to make major life decisions. Could I afford to date someone I’d have to factor into my life? And all of that didn’t even touch on the much larger reality of him being in the Army. The Army.

  Never mind the fact that my pacifist parents might find themselves at a total loss when it came to talking to him should they ever meet, but how long would he even be living in Clarksville? How long did we have?

  I could feel the spiraling. I took a calming breath and sipped my coffee from my travel mug. I’d bought it at a kitschy place in town. It said, “Bless Your Heart” and did a decent job of keeping my coffee hot. I felt the hot liquid slide down my throat and opened my email on my computer.

  And that was where the week took a turn.

  The first email awaiting me was one from Operation Achieve, the organization that had granted me the money for the project late last year and who, I was hoping, would fund another year, at least. I opened it immediately, eager to see what they had to say. My heart rate skyrocketed as my eyes skimmed over the words once, then returned to go back over them.

  I felt like my eyes were crossed. I couldn’t read a full sentence. Key words jumped out and slapped me, causing me to wince at each phrase.

  Original project sufficient. No need for additional funding. No justification for expansion of project. Grant awarded to a different applicant for a new project.

  In a word: Denied.

  I sat there, breathing loudly, feeling my mind swirl with frustration, anger, and then the worst of it—despair. Without this funding, I couldn’t justify being here. I couldn’t justify staying somewhere and not teaching. I didn’t want to go back to the burnout. It was this or go back to teaching, and I couldn’t help but feel the gut-punch of this rejection because of that reality.

  The irony was they complimented me up and down. They said how valuable the work was, how they’d be able to leverage it when they worked on proposals for new programs and even ways to help soldiers who were deployed. I had barely scratched the surface, and yet they weren’t going to let me keep going. I felt both totally enraged and completely humiliated.

  I was sitting there in my office, rigid, when a reminder popped up on my computer. I had a meeting in five minutes. I had to pull it together—the distraction would be useful.

  All through the meeting, I couldn’t think. They wanted to plan an open house at the education center for August. Lacy was thrilled, and Erin seemed excited. Emily was getting good support from her higher-ups so there’d be money for food. It was all great news.

  All this did was make my heart sink as I realized I wouldn’t have any reason to be there come August. Everyone could tell something was wrong, their concerned glances and warm smiles with furrowed brows speaking without words, but I couldn’t find it in me to pretend I was fine.

  “You feeling ok, Elizabeth?” Lacy asked with a pat to my shoulder as the meeting broke.

  “Oh, yeah, just… not a great da
y so far,” I admitted, not looking her in the eye.

  “We all have those days. Hope it turns around for you,” she said with another pat and then ducked in to her office, which was a few doors down from mine.

  Once back to the isolation of my office, I sat in a daze, the door closed, and my feet pulled up to my chest in my bouncy office chair as I looked out the window behind my desk. I felt numb. I didn’t have any idea what to do with myself, but there were two hours left of the work day, so I just sat there.

  A knock broke my focus on a little row of saplings lining a gravel road that led to a barracks building behind the ed center. I was fixating on one tree in particular that had a full section of its bisected trunk turning black. It was rotten, broken, dying.

  Even though I knew it was dramatic, I gave into the depressive pull to see myself in the blackened limb.

  Another knock came, and I cleared my throat. “Come in,” I said and spun around to face my desk.

  A face I recognized peaked in the door, and her voice came quietly. “Are you free?” Captain Rae Jackson was part of the TESS study, and I’d told her she could drop by to hear about the findings.

  I felt a sliver of embarrassment needle my gut.

  “Of course,” I said and summoned my best smile for her.

  She opened the door fully, and I saw she wasn’t alone. Behind her was Sergeant Major Trask, Sergeant Holland, Lieutenant Holder, and of course, just to make a great day even better, Sergeant William Jacob Harrison.

  I ducked my head and busied myself with the printed packets I’d made last week that showed the results of the data I’d gathered and my suggestions for what Operation Achieve should do. I hoped they would put it to good use and start the process to change things for soldiers.

  Knowing I couldn’t delay the interaction anymore, and a little curious how he’d play it, I rose to my feet and welcomed the others. “Nice to see you. Thanks for coming,” I said. And then I looked at him. “Sergeant Harrison, good to see you.”

  If he felt any surprise at my addressing him that way, he didn’t show it. “Dr. Kent,” he said, and after about three seconds of eye contact, he made a point to look at the paper I handed them and not at me.

  I could see his eyes skating across the page and was reminded how I noticed his quick reading the first time we met in my office months ago. Before we were friends, and before I essentially rejected him.

  No. I didn’t reject him. But I knew his admitting he wanted to date me and be with me was significant. He’d told me as much when he explained why he hadn’t dated with any purpose in the Army—he didn’t want the entanglements, didn’t want to risk becoming involved with someone who’d suffer because of his career, which he was most certainly not going to give up until he was ready to retire.

  But here he was, avoiding looking at me, and my internal organs were lighting themselves on fire. Or something. Because the pain radiating through my body at seeing him and knowing I’d hurt him, even just a little, had to be a physical one. It had to be.

  “You can see most of what I compiled here in this data sheet, but let me walk you through the report, and then you can tell me if you have questions.” And only because I focused on the report, and when I needed to make eye contact with someone I focused on Captain Jackson or Sergeant Major Trask, or even Sergeant Holland or Lieutenant Holder, did I make it through that meeting. I successfully ignored Jake’s stoic face and the sensation my insides were exploding every time I thought of him.

  I thanked them all for coming and watched as each one filtered out, gathering keys from pockets and patting legs to make sure their patrol caps were still tucked away, ready to top off their uniforms as soon as they exited the building.

  But I couldn’t let Jake leave without talking to him. That seemed like… well, I knew it was a mistake. I didn’t have anything to tell him, but maybe if we could talk, here in the light of day, I could help him understand a little bit about why I was feeling anxious. I could tell him about the project’s funding too, and even the thought filled me with a small piece of hope.

  “Sergeant Harrison, could I ask you to stay for a moment? I had one additional question for you,” I said, trying to sound formal and professional. His response to me had been professional, curt, and not unlike the way I’d greeted him. For all I knew, he wouldn’t want his coworkers knowing we were involved—in whatever way it was we were—so I didn’t want to betray that.

  His eyes flashed with something before he responded, and a leaden feeling filled my belly. Hurt. It looked like a little glimpse of hurt before he locked it away behind his neutral-faced vault. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ah, there it was. Somehow his “ma’am” felt more like a hatchet to my sternum than the simple courtesy it was. But again, this was exactly in line with how I’d been speaking to him, so could I really be upset with him?

  I waited a moment as the others left and stayed standing so I was at least close to his eye level. “I wanted to see… how you’re doing.” I felt my chest and cheeks flush and wanted to reach for the words and gather them back into my mouth before they reached his ears. Of course, this was impossible, but I wished it because as soon as they came out of my mouth I knew how stupid they sounded.

  How little they offered.

  Worse, I saw how they affected him. I saw his lips flatten and turn down into a frown, his already-furrowed brow, so serious and dark under his dark brown eyebrows, seemed more lined. “I’m fine, ma’am,” he said, his words clipped and spare.

  I pushed out a short breath, frustrated we couldn’t break through this. He said he wanted me to figure out what I wanted, but this wasn’t a very generous way to give me space. Granted, I wasn’t giving him much to go on.

  “Well…” I felt a flash of self-righteous frustration. Really. Was this how he was going to give me time to figure out what I wanted? Be a jerk? Treat me like we weren’t even friends? “Ok.” I heard the edge in my voice. I let my fingertips rest on the desk and I leaned my weight into them, letting them tent to hold me upright.

  He stood there a beat, his brown eyes unreadable, his bearing and general energy speaking to his upset more than his now very studiously calm face.

  “Is that all, Dr. Kent?” he asked, no irritation, no resignation, no hurt, no impatience—there was nothing in his voice now but cordiality, and that was brutal.

  That was the blow.

  I’m sure my eyes widened when he said it, and I barely squeaked out a surprised, “Yes” before he turned on his heel after a nod. I stood there and added, “Thank you” for some inane reason and listened to his footsteps move away from me down the hall.

  By the end of the day, I couldn’t see straight. I felt my heart pounding but at the same time, I was entirely sapped of energy. I researched other organizations and foundations, and I did have a few small applications out to other places, but they wouldn’t be able to fund the project on their own, even if I got all three of them. I’d applied for them in case I only got partial funding from Operation Achieve, not considering I might be in danger of getting no funding at all.

  Oh, naïve child.

  I refused to think about Jake. I let my mind be overtaken with the frustration and anger bubbling up and choking me. This was the preferable alternative to more weeping over a man. It wasn’t that I was above it, but I’d done plenty of that last night.

  I slunk home and closed the curtains, gluing myself to All About Steve in a self-flagellating attempt at distraction.

  (Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the beauty that is this movie. It’s absolutely awful. And yet, it stars Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper. Really. Really. If this teaches us anything, it’s that one can face utter failure, the ultimate bathos, and recover to make something sublime.)

  By the next day, I felt a little less angry but a little more embarrassed and hopeless. I ran through all of the scenarios, and the thing I came down to was I’d have to see if there was a way to appeal Operation Achieve’s decision and
argue for the expansion of my project, if that was even possible.

  But the hits? They kept a’ coming.

  Early Thursday, I had an email from Angelica at the Quint Agency.

  Elizabeth,

  * * *

  As you know, I was very interested in your novel, but it turns out before I received your manuscript in full, another agent requested a manuscript from another author that, we’ve discovered, is nearly identical to your own. I can’t, in good conscience, partner with you on the novel or contract with you. You should know plagiarism is a serious offense.

  And it was at that point my heart stopped beating. The floor dropped out from underneath me, and I was falling down a pit, or a well, or a direct line to hell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Plagiarized? Me. Plagiarize? A teacher who hated plagiarism. Plagiarizer?

  Not a chance in hell. Not an orchid’s chance at my mom’s house. Not a freaking funion’s chance at a Phish concert. Hell no.

  I felt rage. Rage, and utter disbelief. Before I could even think about what I’d say, I was on the phone, calling the agency.

  When Angelica Quint answered, I gave it to her as calmly as possible.

  “Hello Ms. Quint. I am glad to speak with you. I received your email this morning regarding my novel and the alleged plagiarism, and I’m deeply disturbed. Under no circumstances did I plagiarize. I wrote every word of the novel, and I have multiple emails and drafts I can provide to you to prove that,” I said, my adrenaline coursing through me and causing me to shake as I spoke.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Kent. We’ve got a clear match here of large parts of the text,” she said, and before she could continue, I had to interrupt her. I couldn’t stand it.

  “Do I get to know what the other text is? Someone stole my writing. I can’t make this any clearer and I’m sorry if I sound upset, but I am. I did not, in any way, under any circumstances, or in any stretch of a unicorn’s imagination, plagiarize. That is my original intellectual property and I will defend that,” I said, my voice rising even as my hands shook and I felt tears prick behind my eyes.