If Only

by A. J. Pine

  I kiss the paper that once held news of my impending doom and thank it for booting me out of the Victorian Women’s class. I stop at the Hillhead store and pick up a loaf of bread and some jam, the only thing I’ll have to offer Noah for breakfast other than a cup of tea or Elaina’s coffee. When I walk back into the flat, my bedroom door hangs wide open, and Noah sits fully clothed, wearing his jacket, on my bed. If it were possible for one to pace while sitting still, that’s what he would be doing. He is the picture of agitation. And he’s holding my journal.

  My hand loses its grip, and the bag of food falls to the floor.

  “What are you doing with that?” I swallow hard, my question a tremble of words.

  Noah answers through gritted teeth. “Are you still seeing him, Jordan? Are you still with Griffin?”

  Jordan? He called me Jordan.

  I shake more now because I can’t think of a forgivable reason for him to read anything in the journal, nor can I imagine what he would have read that has him so on edge. The air in the room grows thinner, like it’s been sucked away along with any sense of trust that was between us. He’s still holding the journal, the line of his jaw tight.

  “Noah.” My eyes sting. “What are you doing with my journal?”

  “I didn’t know it was your journal, Jordan.” His words are calm, but his voice breaks slightly on my name, my first name. “It was sitting open next to my toothbrush, and it was kind of hard not to see what was written in there by your friend.”

  Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. I closed it when I finished, but the binding has come loose from how often I write. And Griffin folded the freaking corner of the page—when I threw it on the desk it must have fallen open. I know exactly what Griffin wrote on that page.

  It was the night before I left for London when Griffin spent the night, a fucking platonic night, but Noah misconstrues the message. Underneath the directive to meet him in Amsterdam in March, Griffin scribbled, “I’m glad I spent my last night with you. Maybe again in Amsterdam?” He even dated the fucking entry.

  I open my mouth to protest, to explain, but instead I start to shake. He violated my privacy. And judged me without even thinking he could be wrong.

  “Can we keep in mind for a second here that you had no right to read my private thoughts?” He stares at me in silence, his only response. Noah’s eyes storm, and it’s all I can take not to drop to my knees and plead with him to listen. Instead I root myself in place and steady my tone. “No. I’m not still seeing Griffin. I never officially was.”

  The words pass through him, the storm in his eyes transforming to ice.

  “What about us, Jordan? Are we officially seeing each other? Or are we going to fill the time until you make it to your spring-break hook-up?” Noah’s hand runs through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me about seeing him again?” He breathes a heavy sigh. “I came here that night to tell you Hailey and I were through.” He shakes his head and lets out a bitter laugh. “Elaina said you’d already left for London, but you were right here, with him. And you never said shit about it.”

  My stomach turns. Noah at the door. Me asleep in Griffin’s arms. No, no, no. I grab the journal from his hands, anger trumping horror, but he won’t meet my gaze. “How can you judge me, Noah? Maybe you should have violated the entirety of my privacy and read the whole thing. Then you could have seen how I felt about that first kiss on the train, how I felt about you.” I shake at the realization of what he thinks of me. “But thanks for calling me a whore.”

  Every extremity trembles. If I don’t sit, don’t grab something to stabilize, my knees will fail me. My right hand bears the load, pressing against the wall. I swallow a sob as I think about all I’ve been holding back for two years, waiting for someone like Noah. When I finally find him, he’s no less judgmental than I was of Griffin when we first met.

  His eyes come back to mine, but I can’t hold his stare. I can barely hold myself up.

  “That’s not what I meant, Brooks. I never called you a whore.”

  He stands, hesitating for a few seconds, but my eyes don’t betray me. They stay trained on the window behind him, just past the shoulders I kissed last night, when he was mine, and I was his, and all of the bullshit was over. But here we are, now, and Noah brushes past me heading for my door.

  “You didn’t have to,” I say to his back as he exits. He stops but doesn’t turn. “It’s in your eyes, your damn hypocritical eyes. I guess we were stupid for trying, huh? Everything this year has an expiration date anyway. Maybe we hit ours before we got started.”

  I don’t mean the words as cruelly as they spill forth, but I’m grasping to defend my pride, to defend who I am despite what he sees. After everything he’s said in the past two days—everything that led him to me on New Year’s Eve, he has such little faith in who I am.

  “Maybe we did.”

  That’s the last thing he says before walking out of my room, my flat, and, seemingly, my life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Jordan, open the door now. I can make the man-child break it down.”

  “She can’t make me break your door, Jordan,” Duncan assures me. “But it would be nice if you let her in.”

  There’s a small pause.

  “I can make you break the door,” Elaina insists.

  “I beg to differ.”

  There is a moment of hushed whispering before I hear Duncan again.

  “Jordan, I would like to amend my earlier statement when I said Elaina couldn’t make me break your door. She has promised to do something to me that she’s not done before. It’s something I’d really like her to do, so if you could be a love and open the door, that’d be great. Otherwise I’m going to have to break it.”

  Ha! Promising sexual favors so she can barge in and hear how talk of sex sent my boyfriend of twenty-four hours running—the irony is not lost on me. I wouldn’t be in a possible door-breaking scenario if I hadn’t slammed said door and screamed when Noah walked out. I guess I have some explaining to do.

  I get up from the bed where I’ve been lying with the pillow pressed to my face, partly to drown out Elaina’s demands but more so to inhale whatever is left of Noah’s scent. I’m not sure which emotion to let win—anger, frustration, or devastation. If I don’t hold on to the anger, I will collapse into sobs, so I let anger take the lead as I quietly unlock the door and then resume my position on the bed, head under pillow.

  “It’s open!” I groan.

  Elaina bursts in with Duncan hot on her heels, but she shoos him out.

  “It doesn’t count if she opens it herself. The favor was only if you broke the door down. Go back to the boy house, and I will come over after I take care of Jordan.”

  Though I’m in no mood to laugh, Elaina always gets me to crack a smile. This time she will not know it because all she can see is a body with a pillow for a head.

  “What did you do?” she asks with sharp accusation.

  I spring up to sit. “Why do you assume it’s me? Maybe Noah did something reprehensible that made me throw him out!” He did, though. Didn’t he? If he never would have read that stupid page, Elaina and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  “Jordan.” She lets up on the accusation, but only slightly. “I saw the way that boy was looking at you last night, like you were the only thing that existed for him other than the air he breathes. Why would he leave like that?” She holds up a scolding finger. “Remember? Thin walls. I hear things. He was angry.”

  And hurt, I think. I replay our conversation from last night, when I kissed his scarred hand. I admitted to hurting him, and all he asked was for me not to do it again. I didn’t think I’d have to ask the same of him. I hand Elaina the journal, already opened to Griffin’s entry.

  “Here. You might as well read it, too.”

  She reaches tentatively for the journal, and I can’t help but laugh. Elaina doesn’t do tentative.

  “You are letting me read this? You always close it when I
walk in the room. Now you want me to read?”

  “This one page. That’s all it took.”

  She opens and reads it in seconds, handing it back to me matter-of-factly.

  “Wait a minute. He read the book? I thought that was against the rules.”

  “It is. And I’m not happy about that, but it’s not entirely his fault. I accidentally left it open on the desk. What Griffin wrote is pretty hard to miss.”

  “But this happened before. And besides. I know you did not sleep with him. I would have heard the whole thing, you know.”

  “True. But that entry makes it seem like we have actual plans to meet up. It was just something for him to write, a way for us to not have to say good-bye. I don’t think we really expected it to happen. And why didn’t you tell me Noah came here that night?”

  She grabs my chin in her hand, which is freakishly strong.

  “Ow!”

  “Shhh!” she scolds. “What would you have done? Answered the door with Griffin in your bed?”

  I consider this.

  “But nothing happened!”

  Still, I think about how it would have looked. What would I have done if I was in his place, coming here to tell me he and Hailey were over only to find me spooning another guy in my bed.

  “The boys and their stupid egos. They bruise too easily. He is a shite for reading that page, but you are a shite for letting him go with no fight.”

  I think of Griffin’s words from Thanksgiving and of how much easier it is to give up rather than risk losing.

  “Go to him. Now. And fix this.” She pushes me off the bed.

  “But what if I already lost?”

  She pushes me out my open bedroom door.

  “I’m going.”

  Yoga pants, tank, fleece, tennies, and a headband. Yep. I’m rocking the please-remember-that-you-might-be-falling-in-love-with-me look. But now that I’m moving in his direction, I don’t care. I need to see him, to forgive him, if it will give us a chance not to end before we begin.

  “Thank you,” I say. She still sits on the edge of my bed.

  “Go! And then tell me everything when you return. If you return. I will understand that things went very well if I do not see you before I go to work tonight. Remember, by the way, that you start your training on Saturday. With me.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” I confirm, not able to get out the door fast enough now that I have a plan. Sort of. It’s been an hour since he left. He’s had time to cool down as have I, hopefully time to realize everything that has happened, everything that’s been said in the past two nights is more real than anything that happened two weeks ago.

  It only takes a minute or two to reach Fyfe, which must have opened early today because the hallways are already abuzz with the chatter of students newly arrived after holiday break. I don’t even know what floor Noah lives on, so I decide to scan each one starting with the first. I walk past Griffin’s room. The door hangs open, and someone new stands inside, a boy I don’t recognize. My stomach sinks. He really is gone. Before this stranger has a chance to ask why I’m lurking in his doorway, I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see Duncan.

  “Are ya lost?”

  As always, he smiles. I do, too, because Duncan is exactly the person I need. I open my mouth to speak, but he answers my question before I ask.

  “Room 202.”

  I bounce up and place the most grateful kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Duncan! Thank you!”

  Bypassing the crowded elevators, I choose the stairs instead. I run, taking them two at a time, knowing I’ll be a sweating, panting mess by the time I arrive at his door, but I have to get there as quickly as possible.

  As predicted, I pant, and sweat forms at my hairline, but I’m in front of door 202 before the elevator ever would have made it. I knock. No thinking, no hesitation. Just knocking.

  “Noah, it’s me. We need to talk.”

  Within seconds I hear the release of the lock, the turn of the handle. The door swings open only slightly, and I’m greeted not by Noah, but Hailey, in nothing but a tight camisole and boy shorts, her hair in what looks like a half ripped-out ponytail.

  This isn’t happening. The anger and frustration have finally lost. Devastation officially takes control as hot tears press at my eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” I can barely get the words out. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  I don’t trust myself on the stairs now, so I run to the elevators, push frantically on the call button, but the doors won’t open. Seconds later Hailey is standing next to me.

  “Jordan, wait!”

  I don’t try to hold back the tears. Still, I find it in me to glare at her through them.

  “It’s not a good time right now.” At first I think she’s trying to comfort me, which would be just like her. Beautiful, smart, and annoyingly sweet. But something else in her tone registers. Possession. I may have come here to fight for Noah, but I’m not the only one.

  Other than pressing the call button again, I don’t respond.

  “I don’t know how much Noah told you about us, and this isn’t easy for me to say. But the reason we broke up before coming here, it was my fault. I freaked out about the finality of this year, of being cut off from everyone I knew but him, of being tied to him with such permanence.”

  I wait for her to get to the punch line, to give me some clarity as to why Noah reacted the way he did.

  “I cheated on him,” she says with obvious regret, but all I can think about is what she’s doing to comfort him now. “He was my first. And when I realized we were falling in love, I panicked. I mean, I loved that he was my first, but I wasn’t ready for him to be my only.”

  I know Noah said they had history, but I get it now, how much she must have broken his heart and why he’d try again. He loved her. Maybe he still does.

  “I didn’t know,” I say.

  She smiles. “Look, the summer, the start of this year, it was complicated. But Noah forgave me. He understands. And now that he’s evened the score, we can try to get back to where we were.” I stagger back a step at the triumph in her words. If she was lying, I wouldn’t know. But Noah’s in that room. He heard me at the door, and he let Hailey greet me. What is left to fight for if he’s already made his choice?

  The elevator doors open.

  “We have history, Jordan, and maybe that’s easier for him right now.”

  I guess history trumps two days.

  I back into the elevator. “You’re right,” I say.

  We stand facing each other, no more words passing between us as the door edges closed.

  When I walk into the flat, Elaina is sitting on her bed. She sees me through her open bedroom door and knows not to ask. Instead she opens her arms, and I head straight to them.

  “She was there.” It’s all I can say before everything I’ve been holding in, been holding back, pours out of me in hitching sobs. My own stupidity cancels out two nights of absolute perfection.

  I lower myself to Elaina’s pillow, my swollen eyes burning as the tears slowly dry.

  “I trusted him,” I say, my voice cracking on every word. “I trusted myself to believe it was real, and I let myself fall for him completely.”

  Elaina strokes my hair, and I close my eyes. “It’s not a choice,” she says, her usually curt tone softened with sadness. “If I could choose who to love, do you think I would pick the boy in the skirt who drinks whisky and shoots the zombies on the television screen?”

  I force a smile because I know she’s right. I fell for Noah before I knew him, even before he kissed me. He let me see parts of him one wouldn’t share with a stranger—his passion for a book, the questioning vulnerability in his eyes.

  She pats me on the back. “Ah, see? You know. And if it was not a choice for you, then it was not a choice for him.”

  I sniff back a residual sob threatening to break through. “But he didn’t choose me, Elaina. He chose her.”

  “We’ll see,” she says, b
ut I don’t respond. Exhaustion takes over, and my eyes grow heavy. She stays with me until I fall asleep.

  I wake on Elaina’s bed, wondering how long I’ve been out. She’s not in the room. Her clock says it’s after eleven in the morning. Wow. I’ve been asleep for over an hour. I poke my head out her door and hear bustling in the kitchen. Once in my room, I peel off my clothes and wrap myself in a towel, grabbing my basket of toiletries. Today I pray for more than ten minutes of hot water. I want to rinse away the past two days, the past four months. After that, I’ll probably spend the afternoon counting the hours until my scheduled phone call with Sam. Midnight tonight. Other than wishing her a Happy New Year and telling her I had news, not much else was said in our short chat to celebrate the commencement of the American New Year. I’d give anything to have her here with me.

  I shuffle down the hall toward the bathroom, but before I can make it into the privacy of the shower, Elaina calls from the kitchen.

  “What are you doing, Jordan?”

  I look down at my outfit, a towel and flip flops, and back up at Elaina.

  “I thought it was kind of obvious.”

  “Bullshit!” Elaina’s accent gives even a common vulgarity an exotic air. “You are going to do the, how do you say, the moping!”

  I nod. “Well, first I was going to shower, but then, yes, I was going to do the moping.”

  My eyes beg her to support my wallowing, but she doesn’t acquiesce.

  “Take the shower,” she says, “and put on some clothes.” She raises a brow. “No elastic waist in the pants. Those are the moping pants. I do not have to be at work until five o’clock. Until then you belong to me. After that, you can mope all you want until classes begin tomorrow.