by Anthology
Besides, if I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t be walking toward beautifully-lit Parkinson, an old building with a large clock set into the side of the bell tower. It was situated next to a busy street, but it was one of my favorite places on campus. The large, sweeping stone façade was somehow associated in my mind with something so very British. In a good way.
And I loved the tower. Too bad no one was allowed up there.
“I miss home,” I admitted, but the night was lovely, and breathing fresh air while I was heading toward something exciting and different seemed to be exactly what I’d needed. My words didn’t quite have the same solemn sadness that they would have had even a few hours ago.
“Had you ever traveled outside of America before this?” He headed right toward the steps of Parkinson and I kept stride with him. His legs were longer, so he had to be slowing down a bit on purpose, to let me stay next to him. Ben used to barrel ahead, making me run just to keep up.
For the second time that night, I found myself thinking that Ben might not be as great as he’d seemed. But that was probably just the emotion talking. I’d loved Ben. I still did. Two years wasn’t something so easily forgotten.
“No,” I admitted. “And actually, I’d barely been out of Virginia before I went to college.”
“Well, Scotland’s a bit far away, but with a three-hour train ride, you could always add another country to your list of places visited.” Stuart reached the double doors and pulled one open, winking at me as he ushered me inside. “Maybe you can visit there for a weekend while you’re here. You’ll be practically a world traveler then.”
He was teasing me, but I started thinking back to all the plans that Ben and I had made to travel around Europe. Now all those plans had been destroyed.
The next thing I knew, I found myself telling Stuart about it. At least, an edited version. “I was going to go to Scotland next weekend, actually. With—a friend.” I didn’t want to say Ben’s name out loud. “But he backed out, so…”
I trailed off and shrugged.
“So you’re not going at all?” He paused just inside the front entrance, his brow furrowed. “Are you afraid to travel alone, or something? I mean, I get that. I know it’s harder for ladies…”
I knew it was kind of crazy, but I was starting to fall in love with the way he said ladies.
“No, I just—” I sighed. “It’s just not the same without him,” I whispered.
I watched the understanding dawn, and almost in slow-motion, Stuart reached out and squeezed my shoulder.
I sucked in a breath, feeling my body start to tingle where he was touching me.
When was the last time that a simple shoulder squeeze set my pulse racing? I was in the middle of talking about my recent ex, for God’s sake! I was supposed to be downtrodden after ending a long-term relationship.
I was downtrodden.
Or at least, I had been until last night. Today, it was more like I was…processing. Sorting through and acknowledging my feelings before packing them away into memories while also feeling something new and a little bit exciting.
Definitely an experience.
What did it mean that I was this attracted to another guy so soon after Ben and I had broken up? Was I a terrible person?
Stuart pulled away and shoved both his hands in his pockets. “Look, I know you don’t know me that well. But if you want to go to Scotland and need some company, or maybe if you want to go with Shae but still want to have a guy along, I’m happy to go with you. I know it’s not the same, but—” He paused for a second before saying, “it would be a shame to miss out on a great experience just because some arse didn’t realize how good he had it.”
Oh.
Was he flirting with me?
I wasn’t sure, but one thing I did know: his words made me feel good. That soothing feeling that he’d brought with him earlier was getting stronger. I swallowed hard and gave a jerky nod. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
He grinned. “That’s the first step toward every great thing.”
It was almost like he was waiting for me to smile again before he started moving, because as soon as I chuckled, he tipped his head toward the direction of a door set just off the main hall.
“Act official,” was all he said, just before he pulled out a large key and fitted it into the knob on the door. I was too surprised to do anything more than make my back ramrod straight and widen my eyes, and when he pulled the heavy door open to reveal a cold stairwell, I shuffled in on stiff legs, standing just inside the small area as he shut and locked the door behind us.
Once that was done, he turned back to me, took one look at the way I was standing, and burst out laughing.
I relaxed and scowled, pretending to be annoyed. “What?”
“If that’s how official people in America look, I’m taking it off my list of places to visit.”
That surprised me. “You’ve never been to America?”
“No.”
I raised a brow. “Have you ever been out of your country?”
That made him laugh. “Yes.” But he didn’t elaborate, just pointed up the first flight of stairs. “Now let’s climb, shall we?”
I hadn’t really thought about where we were going until just now. But then I realized…a secret stairwell—well, locked stairwell, anyway—in the center of Parkinson that went up and up and up was probably leading to one place.
The tower.
* * * * *
We burst through the door at the top, laughing at how hard we were panting, which in turn only made breathing more difficult. I didn’t know why it was so funny. It just was.
It felt natural to let Stuart take my hand and lead me out toward the parapet to look at the city. The buildings I usually walked in front of and the street I often crossed were nice-looking, but nothing spectacular, from the ground. But here, several stories above the city, there was still a small glow of light from the sun in the far horizon, and with the lights of the church and the row houses below added to the happy silence that had overtaken us, it felt like one of the most incredible experiences I’d ever had. For a moment I was moved outside of myself, forgetting every pain, every problem of the past couple of weeks.
I had a moment of wistfulness, wishing that Ben were here with me, but it wasn’t as sad as the past week’s thoughts had been. And I certainly didn’t wish Stuart away.
“Do you like it?” Stuart’s voice was soft in my ear, and for a second I closed my eyes, remembering how I had thought last night that his voice was like a lullaby.
Soothing. Just like the way he’d soothed my heart today.
I nodded. “It’s gorgeous.” My voice came out all breathy, but it wasn’t from the view. It was his nearness that was making my skin tighten and my blood pump faster.
He smiled, and his sheer handsomeness hit me again, making me wonder what a guy like him was doing up here with a girl like me. It couldn’t be just because of my breasts. I really hoped it wasn’t just out of pity, although I wouldn’t blame him if he felt sorry for me. Or maybe he simply felt a responsibility toward me because he knew Shae.
Speaking of—“How do you know Shae, anyway?”
If he was surprised by the non sequitur, he didn’t show it. Instead, he leaned back against the parapet, half-closed his eyes, and gave me a close-lipped smile. “She’s my cousin.”
I looked at him askance. Really? “You guys don’t look anything alike.” Shae was a tiny blonde pixie—waifish, really, especially when compared to a more average-sized girl like me. “She’s what I picture your girlfriend to look like.”
“Gross.” He wrinkled his nose and made a choke-gag sound. “She’s my mum’s sister’s daughter. Our dads are really different, though, and we both take after our dads.” For a second, I could have sworn that he looked sad, but then he winked. “Besides, I don’t have a girlfriend.” He nudged me gently. “What about you? Who do you look like?”
I thought about the way Dad’s eyes crink
led up so small when he laughed that it looked like they were closed, just like mine. And how Mom’s hair curled when it was short but fell stick-straight once it grew past her shoulders. I had the same frustrating hair. I looked like all the people I loved. I could see them in my face, in my expressions. Grandpa’s arched black eyebrows and my uncle’s big earlobes…
“Hey. Sorry.” Stuart lifted a hand and brushed a tear away from my cheek with his thumb. “I wasn’t trying to make you sad again.”
I swung my head slowly from side to side, feeling the cool air against the tear streaks on my cheeks. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. “It’s okay,” I whispered, then cleared my throat, sucking in a deep breath. “Or it will be.” My voice came out at a normal volume this time, and I did my best to keep it steady. “I go home in a few months. Until then, I can survive.”
He huffed in amusement. “Just survive? We’ve made that great an impression on you, have we?”
“No, it’s not—”
“I’m only teasing,” he assured me. “Shae said you were having a hard time lately. I know it’s not easy to feel alone—to be alone, really—at a time like this. But I promise you that there’s a lot more to life than whatever you’re feeling now. Even in a place like Leeds.” He swept his arm out over the lights twinkling below. The sky had gone completely dark, and it was seeing the view anew.
Even in a place like Leeds, indeed.
I smiled. Then chuckled. Then laughed, letting the absurdity of his words soothe me once again.
“Well,” he said, sighing softly. “We should be getting back down. I can get away with a few minutes but I might actually be in trouble if we linger too long.”
I went back down the stairs with him, and on the ground floor we sauntered out of the door like we had every right to be there.
Stuart locked it behind us, then winked at me. “Your acting skills are improving.”
I laughed up at him, and for a moment, we just stared at one another. I could feel something pulling me toward him, some tense energy that I couldn’t quite accept, coiling tighter with every second that ticked by. And I liked it. I couldn’t deny the response I was having to him, despite Ben, despite last night’s horrible unraveling. Something deep and intense was building between me and Stuart, and I felt it in a way that was completely new and altogether exciting.
My breath hitched in my chest, my fingers curling tight into my palms.
I wanted him to kiss me.
I didn’t even know his last name, but I wanted him to.
Should I lean in? Would he even want to kiss me back? Had I totally misread him? Maybe he’d been looking at my breasts earlier and thinking, How vulgar. Maybe—
“Stuart!”
I straightened, jerking out of my thoughts at the sound of someone calling his name. I looked over to see Professor Fielding, one of my engineering class professors, walking toward us. He was an older man wearing gray slacks and a maroon sweater vest over a white button-down shirt along with an air of perpetual absentmindedness. He was always stopping mid-sentence, changing his train of thought, forgetting his lecture notes…for a brilliant guy, there seemed to be an awful lot of holes in his mind.
But he knew Stuart.
Maybe Stuart was also a mechanical engineering major. He’d probably already taken Professor Fielding’s class, though, if Fielding recognized him. And he must have been an exceptional student for the guy to remember his name.
“Professor Fielding.”
And now Stuart was shaking the older man’s hand as though nothing strange had been about to happen between him and me before the interruption.
So it had all been in my head.
For some reason, though, instead of feeling embarrassed, or relieved, or something like that, I felt that rather strong sense of disappointment returning.
Damn disappointment.
“I’m pleased to hear she’s on the mend, then.”
I tuned back into Stuart and Professor Fielding’s conversation just in time to hear the professor say that to Stuart accompanied by a sympathetic nod.
Someone had been ill?
“I’ll see you in class tomorrow, then?” Professor Fielding asked, and like a total dork, I started to answer—
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
Thankfully, Stuart replied first, saving me from myself once again.
Class? Tomorrow? I had class with Professor Fielding tomorrow, as well as our first recitation later that afternoon. Last week’s had been cancelled because the TA had a family emergen—
Oh.
That’s where I’d recognized Stuart’s name from. On the syllabus for my Thermofluids class. Stuart Claremont, teaching assistant. The guy who had saved my from myself in so many ways over the past two days was someone I was going to have to see three times a week for the next four months.
Maybe I should have been embarrassed, but after tonight, all I could feel was something a lot like anticipation.
Chapter 4
After Professor Fielding walked off without even acknowledging me, I had been planning to make a joke about how I have invisibility powers and didn’t even realize it, but Stuart had looked deflated and sad all of a sudden—kind of like I’d thought he’d looked when we had been up on the tower. So I stayed quiet, since I didn’t think it was a good time to even bring up how I was taking that class and he was my recitation instructor yada yada yada.
I let him walk me home in silence and he’d made sure I got into my room okay and then waved from the other side of the threshold and said, “Be seeing you, Jill,” before walking off.
I hadn’t gotten any tingly feelings from that particular exchange, but the hurt over Ben wasn’t as bad anymore. If anything, I was left with the desire to do something nice for Stuart that would help cheer him up, like he’d done for me.
Shae had been by again while I was out with Stuart and left another message on my corkboard that threatened bodily harm if I didn’t let her know I was okay—I didn’t bother to try to figure out that logic—so I took a quick shower, put my sweats back on, and went over to her room, which was two houses down and one floor up.
She hugged me, then scolded me, then grilled me for information on what had happened with Stuart. I insisted that there was nothing going on.
“Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on Ben.” She rolled her eyes at me and I resisted the urge to tell her to shut it.
“We were together for two years, Shae! And he just broke up with me a week ago. After I followed him halfway around the world.”
Ugh. I sounded like I was whining.
“Stop whining.” She said it teasingly, but it echoed my own thought. Was I really overreacting to the end of a two-year relationship?
I didn’t think so, but like I’d thought earlier, at least some part of me was already starting to move on, it seemed, because I didn’t demand that she sit there and listen to me rehash how much he’d hurt me and how much I loved him and all the things I’d already told Shae hundreds of times over the course of last week.
Instead, I shrugged. “Stuart and I are just…I don’t know. Friends. Sort of. If people can be friends after only a couple of hours.”
Besides, Stuart had seemed happy to hang out with me. But I didn’t tell that to Shae. I wasn’t sure how she’d react, and I didn’t want to take the chance that she might try to interfere one way or another. I liked this burgeoning friendship with him and I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.
Thankfully, she nodded in agreement. “I understand. Stuart is like that. He’s a good guy. Always has been.” Then she shrugged. “It’s probably for the best, anyway. He’s kind of a mess at the moment, with his mum going downhill pretty fast. I don’t know if Aunt Margie will even make it to Christmas at this rate.”
I’d felt my brain stutter to a stop at that news. His mother? Had that been the family emergency he’d had to attend to last week?
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling more than just curio
sity. It didn’t matter that we’d known each other less than a day. He’d done a good thing for me and I was genuinely concerned.
“She’s got ALS. She’s at the point where she doesn’t breathe well anymore. They rushed her to hospital last week because she stopped breathing for a while. That’s where Stuart was gone to.”
“Oh, that poor—”
“But don’t let on to him that I told you. He doesn’t like when people fuss over him.”
And yet he does so much for strange girls who act like the world is over when their boyfriends break up with them.
That was nothing like watching your mother die.
God, he must think I’m the world’s most selfish person.
I promised Shae I wouldn’t say a word about it to him, and we’d spent the next hour talking about random things before I headed back to my room for the first good night’s sleep I’d had in ages.
The next morning, I woke up thinking about Scotland.
It felt strange. I’d spent the last couple of years waking up to thoughts of Ben. These past couple of days had somehow obliterated that, like some kind of ritual cleansing via alcohol and tears had swept my body free of old habits. This morning, though—unlike yesterday and the entire week before, I no longer felt like nothing would ever be okay again.
If anything, I felt like maybe there was hope, after all. Probably not tomorrow, or even next week, but for the first time in a couple of weeks, I felt like I’d taken a big step forward because this morning, I was thinking about possibilities for happiness without Ben. And like Stuart had said last night, thinking about something was the first step toward every great thing.
I wondered if he’d become so smart because of what his mother was going through, or if it was just from being older.
Either way, I was excited about seeing him again today.
I stopped at Shae’s dorm and picked her up, then we walked together to class. The campus was bustling at this time of day—city commuters were on their way to work and the sounds of cars driving and people walking and talking all around us filled the air. It was one of those very rare, late-September days with a bluish-grey sky and a few puffy clouds—no rain in sight.
