When In Rome...Find Yourself: A Sweet New Adult Romance

by Lena Mae Hill

  “She’s great.”

  “And your anxiety?”

  “Same as always.”

  “Good,” Winnie said. “Remember, if you don’t manage your anxiety, it will manage you.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  For once, there was a silence. Rory didn’t remember them ever having a silence on the phone. But they were so far, it almost felt like they didn’t have as much in common anymore. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe that was okay, not to have every experience in common with her mother. She cringed just thinking about what Kristina would say to that.

  Of course, she’d had some experiences that her mother hadn’t been a part of. Things her mother didn’t even know about, and never would, if she could help it. She loved her mother, but she didn’t necessarily want her to know she’d smoked pot, or cigarettes for that matter. She didn’t want her mother to know that once, she’d drank a couple beers and then taken a shot and puked in the parking lot behind the pool hall. Even Quinn didn’t need to know that stuff.

  After their goodbyes, Rory went downstairs to see Theresa. Theresa had been spending a lot of time in the cubicle under the stairs, and again, Rory found the house empty except for the sound of tapping keys behind that door. Maybe she could start being brave here. She certainly couldn’t do what Kristina had suggested, and for some reason, she’d always thought when Theresa was in there, she was doing something very private, that it was off limits to even knock.

  Clenching her fists against her thighs, she took a deep breath. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she tapped on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Rory hesitated. Again, it had been too easy.

  “Ned?” Theresa called.

  Rory turned the knob and opened the door a crack to peer inside. The walls of the tiny office were papered with photos, most of them people but some scenery and postcards. It looked like a corkboard in a popular girl’s dorm room, overlapping photos of so many faces. She even saw a couple magazine clippings about Brody Villines.

  “Oh, it’s you, dear,” Theresa said, turning away from a desk set under the slant of the stairs. She sat in a black rolling chair, and on the desk before her, a computer screen glowed. “Do you need some dinner? I was just working on a new piece.”

  “A new…piece?”

  “I think it’s going to be a good one,” Theresa said with her sparkling eyes smiling. “It’s getting steamy already.”

  “Oh. I…Sorry to bother you.”

  “Did you get some dinner for yourself?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Rory said. “I’m actually not feeling so well. We ate at a questionable place this afternoon.”

  “I have some tummy tea in the cabinet,” Theresa said. “Make yourself a cup. It always works.”

  “Thanks,” Rory said, backing from the room. She had a million questions, but they could wait until Theresa wasn’t busy. If she wanted to share, she would. Rory had already invaded her privacy once that day. She’d done her brave thing, and now she was ready to go hide out in her room with her book and let the fan dry a second coating of aloe on her fiery skin. With a book, she could absorb herself in someone else’s life, become someone else, someone brave without trying. Someone like Kristina, not like Rory.

  *

  “So? Did you do it?” Kristina asked in class on Monday. Rory wasn’t sure what to say. If she said yes, she’d be lying, and she’d have to make up all the details to satisfy the girls. They were all turned around in their seats waiting for an answer. Sweat broke out along her spine. If she said no, they’d be disappointed or worse. Especially Kristina, whose eyes held excitement but also a bit of a challenge. She didn’t think Rory could do it. And she was right.

  “No,” Rory admitted. “It wasn’t the right time.”

  “I knew it,” Kristina said.

  “It’s okay,” Maggie said. “Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

  Kristina rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to make her. I was trying to get her to do something that she could feel good about, so she wouldn’t think she was a coward.”

  “That’s easy for you,” Rory said. “You have a guy who fell in love with you in an airport, the second you stepped off the plane. What if Ned says no?”

  “He’s a guy, he’s not going to say no to getting laid.”

  “That’s not what I want, though.”

  “Well, then get more.”

  “It’s not that easy for me,” Rory said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?” Kristina challenged. “Guys? I understand them well enough. Just let yourself have a little fun. Relax. Enjoy yourself. Guys like that.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, because…” Rory trailed off. She didn’t want to blurt out in class that she had mental issues. It wasn’t something she wanted to talk about to strangers. She’d told Patty about it, and Patty ended up telling their whole group, and the next thing she knew, people were asking if she was okay every time she blushed, which was all the time.

  “Because you’re pretty,” she finished lamely.

  “If you think you’re hot, you are,” Kristina said. “That’s how it works. It’s ten percent looks, ninety percent attitude.”

  Maybe that was true. Objectively, Kristina wasn’t all that pretty. Sure, she had the blond hair and blue eyes thing that guys seemed to love, but her face wasn’t actually beautiful. She was kind of plain.

  “Even if it is, I don’t have that,” Rory said. “You don’t have to wonder if guys like you, because you know they do.”

  “Fine, do it your way,” Kristina said. “I’m trying to help you. If you want it to be easy for you, then let it be easy. It doesn’t have to be so complicated. It’s simple, really, when you think about it. It’s been going on since the beginning of the human race.”

  “Like with me and Weston,” Maggie said. “That’s why it works so well. We don’t play games. It’s easy. It’s simple. We always know what’s going on, where we stand. No surprises.”

  Kristina faked a huge yawn, and Maggie glared at her until Professor McClain started speaking. Rory fidgeted through class. Kristina had a good point. She could just stop avoiding Ned and let things happen, stop worrying about the outcome. But that wasn’t her. She was uptight, always stressed about something, just like her mother, always asking if she was safe and had taken her meds.

  She could have stood up for herself way back in elementary school, or knocked on Theresa’s door and realized it was no big deal instead of making it into something in her head, something big and secret, when really it was nothing. She was the queen of the molehill she’d convinced herself was a mountain. If she’d asked Kristina that first day why she was being rude, she’d be already established in their group. But she always sat out, afraid of looking stupid. Maggie had it right. Even if what she described did sound a little boring, it was better to hold onto what you already knew and loved than to risk something that might end up breaking your heart.

  *

  Rory was in her room reading later in the week when someone tapped on her door. She sat up, straightened her blankets and darted a look around the room. It was not neat by her mother’s standards, but it wasn’t a complete dump. She could only hope Theresa wouldn’t want to come in and look around, make sure she wasn’t doing anything unseemly.

  When she opened the door, it took her brain a second to catch up with her eyes. She hadn’t expected Ned to be standing there. “Heyyyyy,” he said.

  Definitely stoned.

  “Oh. Hi.” She glanced out into the hallway behind him, halfway expecting Theresa there. Halfway wanting her there. She didn’t know what to say, how to escape.

  “Did I…do something?” Ned asked, pulling at one of his dreads and furrowing his brow in that cute way.

  “What? No. Why?”

  He studied the end of his dread. “Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

  Her face was so hot it was staring to sweat. “So…what’s up?”
r />   “Do you want to hang out or something? I feel weird standing here in your door.”

  “Okay.”

  Then they stood in her doorway just looking at each other for an eternity.

  “Are you sure you’re not pissed at me about something?” he asked. “Because I’ve barely seen you all week. Did I say something?”

  “I’ve just been busy with school and stuff.”

  “Oh. Huh.” He stuck his hand in the pocket of his baggy cargo shorts and looked around her room while she waited.

  “So, like, what did you want to do?” she asked. “Did you have something in mind?”

  He smiled. “I have one thing…”

  For a second, she thought he meant the one thing guys supposedly always thought about, and her face exploded with an unbearable heat. But then she saw that he’d pulled his hand from his pocket and was holding a pipe, its glass a swirl of red and blue and purple. She knew what smoking did to her, the good and the bad. It made her calm in a way nothing else did, soothed her anxiety, and put her to sleep. But it also made her frisky, which was the last thing she needed.

  “Oh, thanks, but I don’t know if Theresa would like that,” she said, taking a step back from the door. “And she’s got to smell it if she’s in the house, which she is, of course, because she never leaves. I mean, is it safe to do it in here with her right downstairs?”

  Ned laughed as he passed her, apparently taking her receding step as an invitation. He pulled a baggie from his pocket and dropped into her desk chair. “Theresa doesn’t care,” he said. “I smoked her out the first day I got here.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “This isn’t America,” Ned reminded her. “Weed’s no big deal. And Theresa’s cool.”

  “How did you know that, though? What if she hadn’t been cool with it?”

  “I would have known from the start,” Ned said with a shrug, turning to the desk and opening his baggie. “It’s not like I’d force her to be around it. I wouldn’t do it in the house if she didn’t like it.”

  As he broke up a nug, Rory marveled at how brave he was. And sort of entitled, too. She didn’t know any girls who would just assume it was cool to do something like that, assume that their house mom would be okay with it and would still like them even if she weren’t. Like Patty had said, guys always thought people liked them. Whether it was girls or house mothers or anyone else, they assumed whatever they wanted would happen simply because they wanted it.

  Rory never assumed anyone liked her. Maybe that’s why no one did. That’s what Kristina would say.

  “That’s…good, I guess,” Rory said. “At least you checked with her first.”

  “Of course,” Ned said. “It’s her house.”

  It was Rory’s room, but he hadn’t exactly checked with her before coming in. But then, she wasn’t sure she didn’t want him there. She couldn’t think of what to do with herself, though. Should she sit back on her bed where she’d been? Sit in a flattering position, fluff up her hair, and bite her lips to make them redder? Tidy up a little while his back was turned and his attention was focused on loading the bowl? Stand there with her arms dangling like dead things by her sides?

  Now that she’d thought about them, she couldn’t stop. What did people do with their hands? They seemed so useless all of a sudden. She wanted to pick up her camera, but then, Ned wouldn’t want her taking pictures of him loading a bowl. She clenched her fists, but then he might think she was mad, so she unclenched them and held them straight at her sides. Great. Now she felt like some kind of toy soldier.

  At last, she sank onto her bed just so she could hold onto the edge and not have to think about what to do with her extra limbs. Ned turned and held out the pipe to her, pinched in his hand with a lighter. She tried to accept it, but she wasn’t prepared for the way her fingers would have to close over his. They got all tangled up with his during the handoff, and then she pulled back at the same time, and the lighter clattered to the floor. Her sweaty fingers barely saved the glass pipe from going down, too, and Ned lunged forward as if to catch it when it slipped, and she leaned forward trying to snatch up the lighter at the same time, and their foreheads clashed together so hard she saw sparklers.

  “Ah, shit, I’m sorry,” Ned said, rubbing his head. “Are you alright?”

  She froze as he reached out and pushed her hair back, touching her forehead with his thumb. And then his eyes were looking right into hers, so close she could see his individual, long lashes again. She had to force herself not to close her eyes and pray, please kiss me, please kiss me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, pulling away from his touch. She sounded as faint as she felt. “You?”

  “Yeah, dude, I’m fine,” he said. “Do the honors?”

  He swiped the errant lighter from the floor and lit it, holding it sideways for her while she inhaled to light the nest of green inside the pipe’s bowl. She coughed once before controlling the urge. The first time she’d smoked with Jack of Spades, she’d felt like such a child compared to everyone there, the band and their entourage. So when the pipe came to her, she’d done what everyone else did, not wanting them to know she was an amateur.

  And then she’d coughed for five minutes straight while they all laughed at her.

  “Dude, have you ever even smoked before?” Patty had asked.

  “A million times,” she’d said through her coughs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.” That one hit had gotten her so high that by the time she stopped coughing, she could barely sit upright. But for what felt like the first time in her life, she didn’t worry about what people would think of that. She noticed that she wasn’t worrying about what anyone thought, or if she’d overdosed somehow, or how she’d get home. She wasn’t even particularly worried what everyone thought of her coughing fit anymore. It was like magic.

  But later, she’d been mortified. The next time, she’d managed to hold her coughing in. She’d handled her first drink a little better, at that first show, acting like it was old news to her, that time probably fooling half the people there into believing that she’d drunk lot of times before.

  Ned took the pipe and took a hit before passing it back. Now she was worried what he’d think, but she knew in a few minutes, she’d stop caring so much.

  “Does it help the anxiety?” he asked, accepting the pipe.

  “Yeah, some.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her nose. She didn’t want to go into the whole thing about how it let her escape herself, like books, but how it also made it hard for her to grasp the reality of things that happened while she was high. Like losing her virginity, which still didn’t seem real, but like something that someone else had done.

  “Wow,” Ned said.

  “What?” she asked, looking at the blurry shape that Ned made. She knew what came next. He’d say something about how she looked better without glasses, why didn’t she wear contacts.

  “I’ve never seen you without glasses.”

  “And?”

  “You look different.”

  She replaced her glasses, and he came back into focus. “Better or worse?”

  “Neither,” he said. “Just different.”

  “Want me to keep them off?”

  “Can you see without them?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then that answers that question.”

  For a few minutes, they sat in silence.

  “Are you, like, always high?” she asked.

  “Not always,” he said with a smile. “So tell me, Rory. What’s life like in Arkansas?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What does that mean?”

  “Tell me something,” he said. “Anything. Your favorite memory. Your job. Your family.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, taking off her glasses again to rub at a spot on one lens. “My family is okay, I guess. My mom calls every day, or I have to call her, or she’ll freak. She’s pretty protective. And I have a little sister, and a dad
.” She replaced her glasses again. “And I’m rambling. What about you?”

  “You’re not rambling,” he said. “I asked you a question. You hardly talk.”

  “What’s your show about?” she asked. “I heard some people at school talking. I just wondered. What are you painting?” A flicker of a thought crossed her mind, that maybe he’d say he was painting her. That’s what would happen in a movie. And then he’d show her, and they’d fall in love.

  “People at school are nosy,” he said. “Don’t listen to all that.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But what are you painting? I’m nosy, too.”

  He smiled and hit the pipe again. “Rome,” he said.

  Again, they sat in silence a while. So long that she wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, or if they’d been sitting there for hours, years, without speaking. If they’d really just had that conversation at all, or if she’d just thought it. “I think I’m going to lie down,” she said.

  He didn’t answer, and then she wondered if she’d said that aloud, or just thought it. She felt very heavy and sleepy now, and she didn’t really care if Ned was there. She just wanted to curl up in her bed and be at peace.

  “Want to watch a movie?” Ned asked.

  “Um. Sure?”

  “What do you have?” he asked, nodding at her laptop.

  She got up and opened her Netflix account. Ned was still in her chair, and she had to lean over him. The Nedness of him pressed against her like a living thing, the heat and presence of him, so close she could lean a bit to the right and bump against him.

  Should she lean in and bump against him?

  She put on a movie, and when she stood, Ned picked up her laptop and settled onto her bed with it. After a second, when she hadn’t moved, he patted the bed beside him. “You coming?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

  She sat on the bed beside him, leaving just enough space so her shoulder didn’t touch his. After she’d adjusted the pillows, he scooted down a little and lifted his arm, waiting for her to put her head on it. Oh, that was bad. She knew she shouldn’t. But they were watching a movie. On her bed. Did that mean he didn’t really want to watch the movie? If he put his arm around her, it might only go from there, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go in that direction. She was still trying to stop her heart from pounding every time she saw him. And she’d been so good the last week, barely speaking to him, like he said.