Complicated

by Dana Tyler

  The show cuts to commercial.

  “Hey, how was your date?” Alice asks. “You went on one the other day, right?

  Katy’s carefully studies the mushrooms on her plate that she picked off the pizza.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I do not want to be talking about my date in David’s house when he could walk in the door any second. It makes me feel skeezy, like one of the contestants on the show. Like I’m cheating. Which I’m not. And I definitely don’t want to talk about it with Katy, who’s not exactly thrilled I slept with her brother—again—and then went out with another guy. She claims to understand David’s refusal to commit but it’s obvious she keeps expecting him to change his party line.

  “Well, how was it?”

  Alice doesn’t know there’s a problem, bless her.

  “Good,” I say. I pick up my plate and eat another bite of pizza. It’s my third slice and I shouldn’t have taken it, because my stomach is bursting at the seams full, but it’s from the gourmet pizza place that doesn’t deliver to my neighborhood and I can’t stop.

  “Just good? What’s the guy like?”

  Zach is handsome, attractive, funny. He has a job. He likes art and marine mammals. He bought me flowers, which David has never done. He makes facial piercings and guy liner impossibly hot. But while I’d love to do very bad things with him, I don’t get the little flutter in my stomach I get whenever David walks into a room.

  But I can’t say that. I shrug and eat more pizza. If I’m chewing I can’t talk.

  “We don’t really discuss date details,” Katy says, getting up from the couch and heading into the kitchen to put her plate away.

  “We’re watching a dating show,” Alice points out as she goes.

  “It’s complicated,” I say.

  Alice chews her lip for a second. She leans in to me and whispers, “Did you, like, date Katy once or something?”

  “No.” Alice looks expectant. “Her brother. But we didn’t really date. Just hooked up.”

  “Ah.” Alice sits back, pulling her striped socking covered legs up onto the sofa. “Got it.”

  I don’t know if she really does, but the show comes back on. The three of us snark about the fake dates on screen and stop talking about my love life. When it ends, Alice helps us clean up.

  She’s on her way out the front door when it swings open and David stumbles in. Literally stumbles and nearly falls, clearly drunk. He bumps into Alice, who helps him right himself. “Whoa, partner.” He giggles. David never giggles. He must be wasted.

  She makes sure he can stand, and then she waves at us, winking at me. I don’t like that wink but David’s losing his fight with gravity, so I grab him.

  “Had a little too much, huh?” I ask.

  “You wouldn’t believe this drink,” he slurs.

  “Oh, I believe it. I’m seeing the evidence of it right now.”

  Katy laughs and shakes her head, but doesn’t get off the sofa to help.

  “Come on, partner,” I mimic Alice’s tone on the last word. “Let’s get you somewhere you can’t hurt yourself.”

  I help him upstairs, which he manages to scale mostly on his own. In the hall he trips and slams his shoulder into the wall. He recovers, straightens, and stumbles to his room and onto his bed. I get him a glass of water from his bathroom, along with a few ibuprofen. He takes them without question and drinks some of the water.

  “Thanks, Hannah.” He hiccups in the middle of my name, making it Han-hic-Nah. “I love you.”

  It’s like a kick to my gut. The butterflies in my stomach drop dead. He’s drunk. He doesn’t mean it. Or rather, he means it like all drunks mean it: with total, absurd sincerity, only it’s the same amount of love you feel for the stranger who smiles at you on the subway, which is not real love at all. Mild affection, at most. It hurts to hear it this way, when it’s so full of conviction and so empty at the same time.

  “You should lie down.”

  He bends down to pull off his shoe and gives up after a weak tug. I sigh dramatically, possibly for my own benefit because it’s clear he’s not focusing on anything, and yank his shoes off.

  “You like to…” he slurs something that sounds like ‘take off my clothes’ but it’s hard to be sure. Not that it matters. Everything he says tonight will be nonsense.

  “Oh, yes. I love nothing more than putting my piss-drunk friends to bed.”

  He grins. Idiot.

  “You should stay.”

  “I don’t do drunk sex,” I remind him. Well, not this drunk, and certainly not when only one of us is smashed. There may have been past incidents of tipsy-sex but I plead the fifth.

  “No, no.” He shakes his head. “I just mean.” He lifts his hands and drops them. “Want you. That’s all.”

  “David, all you want right now is sleep and a merciful hangover god.”

  He says something else. I think it contains the word “goddess.” He lies back and crawls up the bed. I yank the covers from under him and spread them on top of him. He slurs a thanks, rolls on his side, and then he’s out like a light.

  “The patient will live,” I announce at the bottom of the stairs. Katy gives me a look that hurts almost as much as David’s drunken “I love you.” “What?”

  “You can’t keep doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  Katy rolls her eyes. “Playing girlfriend. Not when you’re dating other people.”

  “Katy, I—”

  “I know you mean well, Hannah, I do. But just,” she huffs out a breath, “be careful.”

  She marches up the stairs and I’m left in the Huan’s living room alone. In this moment, I’d rather be sucked into a black hole than ever come here again. As I walk to the bus stop, I wonder when Katy decided I was the bad guy, because that is most definitely not fair.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Date tonight?

  The text from Zach sits on my phone, unanswered. I got it in the middle of my shift so I had an excuse not reply right away. As I sit on the sofa in my apartment, surrounded by swaths of fabric and rolling clothes racks three hours later, the excuse has expired.

  I love you, David’s slurred, drunken words dance through my thoughts. Like maybe if I repeat them enough they’ll become true.

  “Shut up,” I say.

  “Are you talking to me?” Trish comes into the room holding a yogurt container and a spoon.

  “No. I’m talking to my stupid brain.”

  “Oh, good.” She moves a stack of cut pattern paper from the easy chair to the floor and sits. “Is this about the hot band guy?”

  Trish and I have lived together for two years, since I started and subsequently dropped out of art school. We’ve always been casual acquaintances and gotten along, but we’ve never really confided in each other. We have separate sets of friends, separate lives. But I need to talk to someone so badly that the words just fly out. I tell her everything, from how David and I first hooked up to how I met Zach, and how I’m now avoiding replying to a text.

  When I finish, Trish sits still for a moment like a computer processing data. “You like David.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to be with Zach?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If David showed up outside our window right now with a cheesy pop song on a stereo and begged for your love, would you go to him?”

  “David wouldn’t do that.”

  Trish stands, her brown hair bouncing like it’s in a shampoo commercial. (We use the same shampoo and I can’t get mine to do that.) “Have you talked to him?”

  “He made it clear how he feels about girlfriends.”

  “Over five months ago.” She emphasizes her words with her spoon. “People change their minds.”

  I text Zach back, saying only that I can’t tonight and don’t answer when he sends a follow up text that reads only No Worries. The subtext is no pressure, it’s cool, I’ll wait. I hate him for it. Who even says that? No worries, except
that I’m in love with an unavailable guy and therefore pushing away the sweet, patient guy. The guy who brings me flowers.

  Trish leaves to go to her evening class and I camp on the sofa with my laptop to design David’s poster. He’s yet to send me any information or Brian’s promised band photos. I email him to ask for the details. I’m annoyed that he didn’t bother to send me the stuff I need to do him a favor. It’s nice to have valid reason to be irritated at him.

  I text Zach and ask if he wants to hang out tomorrow. We make plans for him to meet me at my apartment. That settled, I get up and steal one of Trish’s beers. She doesn’t mind so long as I chip in for a replacement six pack and I’m too tired to put on real pants and go out to get my own.

  Tomorrow is my day off, so I stay up late playing a video game where I build a digital city and then get to attack it with spaceships.

  The next afternoon I’m dressed in one of Trish’s dresses. It’s forest green jersey material that hugs my curves and the color, I’m told, brings out my eyes. It also brings out my cleavage or at least does good things for it. The skirt is bouncy and light and it makes me feel pretty. Due to Trish’s advice (“guys dig long hair”), I leave my tangle of rust-colored hair down, managing to tame it with some product Trish hands me. I’m putting the last touch ups on my makeup when Trish, who’s on her way out the door, calls “Buzzed your friend in. Have fun!” before the door shuts behind her.

  I give myself a last glance in the bathroom mirror. Not bad. Good, even. If Trish doesn’t make it in fashion design, she has the chops to become a fairy godmother.

  Right as I’m stepping into the hall, there’s a knock at the door. I open it and see David. Not Zach. For a panicked moment, I wonder if I accidentally made a date with the wrong guy, except that I can’t imagine David accepting. Besides, he’s in a bleach-stained hoodie and has stubble on his chin like he didn’t bother to shave.

  “You look hot.” He grins.

  “Thanks. What are you doing here?”

  He hands me a thumb drive. “This is the stuff you asked for.” I gape at the tiny USB drive in my palm. “You know, for the gig poster.”

  “You could have e-mailed it.”

  “Some of the images are too big.”

  “Okay, great.”

  “And I wanted to apologize for being so wasted the other night.”

  “It happens.” I put the thumb drive on the stack of plastic storage containers we keep in the hall like a table. It’s where we throw mail, keys, and take out menus. Originally we planned to replace it with a real piece of furniture but it never happened. “Besides, that’s your house. No need to apologize to me.”

  “I know. But you had to deal with me.” He glances down at my chest again. “And, we never got around to that talk you wanted to have. I was sorting of hoping—”

  “It’s not a good time. I’m on my way out.”

  As if on the cue, the white phone that acts as our apartment buzzer rings. I pick up. “Great,” I say to Zach on the phone, my voice so high it sounds like I’ve been huffing helium. “Be right down.”

  David watches me, tugging absently on the frayed wrists of his sweatshirt.

  “That’s my date.” David stands as if frozen to the spot, staring at me like I’ve just spoken in Latin.

  I usher him out and lock the door behind me, making sure Ariel is still sleeping on the sofa. The cat sometimes tries to bolt out the door. David’s expression is heartbreaking, like I sucker punched him. Not your problem, I remind myself, but I can’t hold back the flood of guilt.

  “I didn’t know you were seeing someone else.” His words are crestfallen and his body is tense. I’m actually surprised Katy didn’t tell him but it’s obvious this is news. His eyes flit back to my dress. “I thought…” He trails off.

  Thought what? I want to demand but it’s not the time to have that fight.

  “I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t,” I say, thinking of our recent tryst and wanting to make it crystal clear I wasn’t “seeing” anyone else when we last hooked up. Not that it matters, given our situation. “This is sort of new.”

  We reach the lobby door and David breezes past me. “See you later, Hannah,” he calls back. His tone is casual, friendly, but there’s an edge to the words.

  Zach’s head follows David’s progression and comes back to me. He starts to say something but stops and takes me in.

  “You are perfect.”

  I force a smile and swallow back vomit. I can’t do anything about David now. Besides, it’s his fault. He’s the one who didn’t want to be in a regular relationship. I have no reason to feel so guilty that I’m sick to my stomach. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  “Really, Hannah, you’re radiant.”

  “Thanks.”

  Zach’s smile is so honest, so genuine, that it makes the guilt heavier. “You look nice too.” He does, spiky hair, lip ring, and all. He puts his arm around my waist and we walk to the cab that’s waiting.

  I will enjoy this date and I will have fun with Zach.

  I will not think about David.

  Zach takes me to little Italian restaurant up on Queen Anne Hill that makes their own pasta and serves everything with homemade crusty bread and olive oil. I order spaghetti and manage to eat without spilling tomato sauce on the dress.

  When we finish, sans desert, Zach and I walk down the hill and get ice cream from a food truck that sells gourmet flavors. I get vanilla with lavender that sounds more decadent than it tastes. Zach gets chocolate blast with brownie pieces.

  We sit in on a bench in a cement space erroneously called a “park.” It stretches a block and the ground is covered in gravel with paths wound through and places for trees that have yet to be planted. It’s warmer tonight than it has been but the dress doesn’t do much warmth-wise. I shiver and Zach offers me his jacket but I shake my head. “No, I’m good,” I insist, which is stupid because he can see that I’m not.

  “I’m not offering to give it to you,” he says, smiling. “I want it back.”

  He leans in to kiss me. His lips push against mine and I sit there stiffly, unresponsive. It’s like kissing someone’s elbow. At my resistance, he pulls back to look at me.

  “I should get home,” I blurt.

  The words land on Zach’s face like a slap. I’m two for two tonight. Just great.

  He tosses his ice cream unfinished into the bin next to us and stands, offering me a hand. I take it. My hands are like ice but he doesn’t wince. He leads me to a cab parked in front of bar. “I had a good time,” he says, but the warmth has drained out of his words. They sound mechanical. Hurt.

  “I did too.”

  He doesn’t look convinced. “Have a good night.” He shuts the door and walks around the car. He knocks on the driver’s window and hands him some cash and then gives me a small wave.

  “Where to?”

  I give him my address. The ride isn’t long. I don’t live far. I get upstairs to an empty, dark apartment. Relieved to be alone, I strip off the dress, hop in the shower, and cry until I can’t cry anymore.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Have a good day off?” Lori asks, filling the cream pitchers for the condiment counter. I finish counting the opening register and shut the drawer.

  Instead of just saying that it was fine like a normal person, I launch into an elaborate lie about how I baked ten dozen cookies and donated them to charity. Lori looks impressed and asks which charity accepts cookie donations. I’m saved by the arrival of a delivery guy who’s at the backdoor with crates of milk.

  It’s a stupid lie but I want to feel like a good person, because I don’t, even though I keep telling myself I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not my fault I’m smitten with a guy who apparently likes me enough to get jealous but not enough to call me his girlfriend. And it’s not my fault that I don’t like Zach as much as he likes me.

  But I feel responsible anyhow, like I should be able to rewire my brain and fix it.

  When
my shift ends, I get home to find the apartment vacant. I change into jeans and a t-shirt and finish making David’s band poster. I e-mail him, offering to go to the copy shop and print it out for him if he pays me back. He doesn’t reply but he’s never great about e-mail and for all I know, he’s at work. His shifts waiting tables are unpredictable and sporadic.

  After an agonizing argument with myself, I send Zach a quick text to thank him for our date. Then I spend nearly an hour debating over word choice, typing and retyping it until I convince myself to hit “Send.” The final version reads: Thanks for last night. Four words. It still seems too stiff. He replies almost immediately.

  No problem.

  What’s no problem, I wonder, shaking the phone and trying to make it add anything to his response. Another few words, an emoticon, anything. But it doesn’t.

  I go into the kitchen and decide to bake some cookies so my lie isn’t as tainted. I don’t think I have to work with Lori again until next week, but I make a mental note to look up cookie-charities in case it ever comes up again.

  I pull out the flour, sugar, and chocolate chips, but we don’t have eggs. I leave the non-perishables on the counter and take the bus to the large Safeway. I live near downtown so the real grocery stores are a bit of a trip but the price difference is usually worth it and I trust their dairy products more than I do from tiny two-aisled mini-marts.

  I spot Zach’s spiked blue hair in the cereal aisle. I consider turning back, sneaking out, and running home but before I can make a move, his gaze fixes on me.

  “Hey,” I say. “Guess I’m stalking you now.”

  “How the tables have turned.” He smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He grabs a box of oat rings and puts it into his hand basket. “What’s up?”