by Roan Parrish
I wasn’t quite sure what happened next, but I found myself lying on my back on the couch with Sofia on top of me, squeezing me.
Damn, she’d pounced me like when we were kids. I didn’t see it coming. I never did.
“Don’t cry, bro,” she said. Her voice sounded so young.
Was I crying? I felt my cheeks and found that yes, I was crying a little.
“Get off me, jeez.”
She sat cross-legged, looking at me, waiting.
“I’ve…I’ve never been in love before,” I said finally. “Am I? How do I tell?”
I liked Dane so much more than I’d ever liked anyone—like, exponentially more. I was always hot for him. I wanted to be around him all the time. I even found his strange, monosyllabic answers before he was sure you wanted more information charming.
Damn.
“Never mind,” I said. “You’re probably right.”
“I’m always right. So what are you going to do about it?”
“Do?”
“Yeah. Are you gonna tell him?”
“I…I guess I have to at some point?”
“Well, either that or you could perish of longing.”
I flicked her nose.
“Does he love you too?”
Did Dane Hughes love me? It seemed like a question for a Magic 8 Ball or a flower with an unknown number of petals.
He was so hard to read. Sometimes he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off me. Other times I got the feeling he wasn’t letting himself touch me. He’d invited me into his home by giving me the diorama table, but there was still a distance between us. Still things I knew he wasn’t telling me. He was so self-contained that sometimes it seemed impossible even to speak to him. It still intimidated me a little; it made me feel like his life was complete without me. So did the fact that he hewed so strictly to his routine, when I would happily cancel any plans to get to see him.
But the other night…
He had come to me. He’d sought me out when he felt messed up, and there had been a need in him that had screamed through his fingertips. A need for me. That was what I wanted: for both of us to find comfort in each other. He’d fallen asleep right away but I’d lain awake for a while, listening to him take harsh, shuddering breaths as he dreamt about something I couldn’t imagine. In his sleep he’d clutched me to him, fingers seeking my hair and my skin.
“I…don’t know. Maybe he could? Someday? I don’t know.”
Sofia grinned and bumped me encouragingly with her shoulder. Then she bounced into the kitchen, leaving me a warm puddle on the couch, and brought the chips and salsa and the bag of marshmallows from the kitchen.
“Do you wanna know a secret? But an actual secret, not like yours, which wasn’t a secret at all because everything you feel is basically readable on your face at all times.”
A small, mean voice said: I’m better at hiding my feelings than you know, since I’ve spent the last few months feeling abandoned and missing you and you never knew it.
Instead I said, “Hey, it’s a secret because no one else knows it!”
“Fine. Well, mine’s a secret because no one else can know. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.”
She fixed me with the intense stare that used to mean Tell Mom and you’re dead. Now I guessed it meant Alert the media and you’re dead. How times had changed.
“I’m kinda dating Coco.”
“Holy shit, Coco Swift?!”
She dead-eyed me. “No, cocoa powder. Of course Coco Swift! The fuck other Cocos do you know?”
“Well, excuse me for not immediately being like ‘Oh, obviously, you’re dating rock star Coco Swift!’ ”
Her eyes went all soft and dreamy.
“Well, I am.”
“So, um. When you’ve been staying the night with her, you’re like…Are you serious?”
“Yeah, kinda. I mean, we’re leaving it open ’cuz dating someone in your band has disaster written all over it. But…” She shrugged. “She’s pretty great.”
I mustered a smile, though I was definitely shocked.
“Damn. She’s gorgeous. And an amazing guitar player. And intimidating as hell. Well done.”
“I know, right?”
Sofia made a mock swoony gesture that I thought might not be mocking at all.
“Wow.”
We sat there, facing each other on our twenty-dollar couch, knees touching, marshmallow powder on our fingers.
“Everything’s different now,” I said.
We reached for each other and clasped hands the way we had as frightened children.
“Everything’s different now,” Sofia agreed.
* * *
—
“Hi,” Dane said. “I’m…calling you.”
I grinned. He was so damn cute.
“Thanks for listening,” I told him. “It’s really nice. That you called. How are you? How was your day? What are you doing right now?”
“Talking to you.”
I laughed, then realized he wasn’t kidding. He hadn’t called me while he was walking or doing an errand or cooking. He’d just…called me.
I shivered with happiness.
“Sofia get on the road okay?”
“Yeah. She left yesterday morning. They had some kind of festival thing that the label set up first, then the first show of the tour is tonight. She was a little freaked about all the shit people are talking about her online. Like, probably people wouldn’t have liked whatever new singer Riven got that wasn’t Theo. But because she’s a woman, people are being predictably disgusting about it.”
“Sucks,” Dane grunted. “Theo never looked online for that reason.”
“Probably smart. I think Sof’s too excited and it’s all too new for her to resist yet. Plus, some people are super excited about her. So that’s nice.”
“How are you doing with her leaving?”
I sighed and allowed myself to indulge in feeling sorry for myself. It was easier and less sad when someone else was listening.
“I can’t believe she’s gone. The apartment feels so big without her. Well. Okay, not big.”
Dane snorted in amusement.
“But you know what I mean. Empty.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretched between us.
“And…can I tell you something that’s maybe stupid?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, but this is a secret, so you can’t tell anyone. Not even Caleb. Or Theo. Really, no one.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Oh, right. Guess you kind of have that whole secret, anonymous thing pretty well handled. Um. So, Sofia is dating Coco. The guitarist,” I added, in case, like me, he didn’t automatically jump to the idea of people dating rock stars.
“Huh,” he said, verbose as ever. “Why’s that stupid?”
“Oh, no, it isn’t. It’s…the stupid thing is…Well, I’m really happy for Sofia. Of course. It’s just that I realized all the times she stayed at Coco’s for the night—or the week—all the times she was never here, I thought she was working. I thought she was so busy she couldn’t even drag herself home on the subway. And I worried about her. I worried that she wasn’t getting enough sleep and eating enough. And…and the whole time—well, a lot of the time—she was probably just happily hanging out with her new girlfriend. Who I know nothing about. Because she never told me.”
It rushed out in a sluice of hurt.
“She was choosing to spend every free minute with Coco instead of me. And—and—and, I don’t know, but somehow it just felt sad and lonely when I thought she couldn’t spare time to come home because she was busy.
But now it feels like she didn’t even want to spend time with me even though apparently she had enough to start a whole relationship!”
My hand was clenched, and so was my stomach.
Dane didn’t say anything for a long time. He probably thought it was stupid.
“Ugh, never mind, sorry. I’m just being a baby,” I said, slumping on the couch, dejected.
“No. That’s unkind. You’ve been so close and she disappeared on you. I don’t like it.”
His voice was tight with anger. Normally, an angry Dane would be intimidating, but when his anger was on my behalf it filled me with warmth.
“You don’t think I’m just overreacting?”
“No. She had an obligation to you and she didn’t live up to it.”
“An…obligation?”
“You two share a house, you share money, you help each other. You’re committed. Partners. She checked out of your partnership and left you to do everything on your own. She broke the commitment you have to each other.”
“I…guess that’s one way to put it. Kind of makes it sound like you think she never wanted to hang out with me in the first place, though. That she just felt like she had to.”
“That’s not what I meant. But there are situations that imply a commitment. And if two people have both been participating in them for a long time, and then one person suddenly stops participating, it’s a breach of commitment.”
The way he described our relationship as a contract soured my stomach.
“I guess. I just want her to want to spend time with me,” I muttered.
“I’m sure she does,” Dane said. But I could tell he had meant what he said.
Did he really consider relationships to be so…transactional? Just cold-hearted social contracts held together by nothing but obligation?
Did he think of our relationship that way? Like: I went on one date with this poor slob, so I guess now I have to follow through?
All the joy I’d felt when I heard his voice on the other end of the line flooded away, replaced by a creeping cold and the tightness in my voice that said I was going to cry.
“Um, I’m gonna go,” I said quickly.
“Felix.”
“What?”
A spark of hope kindled: He would tell me it was all a misunderstanding. That of course he was sure Sofia adored me and wanted nothing more than to spend time with me. How could she not?! He wanted to spend all his time with me, after all!
But he said, “Nothing. Okay. Night.”
* * *
—
Maybe it hadn’t sunk in that Sofia was really gone. Maybe I was just emotionally flattened by the revelation that my boyfriend—or whatever he was—possibly viewed our relationship as nothing but an obligation. Maybe both. Either way, after hanging up the phone with Dane, I’d cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I stumbled outside, eyes swollen, hair still wet from the rushed shower I’d taken in an attempt to wake up, and something exploded in a flash of light. I put my hand up and fumbled for the sunglasses I’d forgotten.
“Is Sofia Rainey in there?!”
“Where’s Sofia!?”
“Are you fucking Sofia Rainey!?”
“Turn this way!”
“What the fuck?” I yelled, voice cracking.
I cringed away from the light and sound. There were three of them, with cameras, surrounding me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Sofia’s my fucking sister, and how dare you talk about her like that. Get out of my way!”
I pushed the guy nearest to me and he gave way, but another, bigger guy stepped in front of me.
“Oh yeah, huh, you do look like her,” he said, and snapped my picture.
Shock was replaced by rage that boiled up from my knotted guts. Rage at Sofia for abandoning me. Rage at Dane for not caring about me the way I wanted him to. Rage at the job I was going to for making me feel pointless. It all transmuted into rage at the nameless strangers in front of me who decided they had the right to intrude on the empty space Sofia and Dane had left behind.
I grabbed the man’s camera and smashed it on the ground, bits of plastic zinging away down the sidewalk.
“You can’t just take people’s pictures, you fucking asshole! What the hell are you doing? I’m nobody!”
“You little shit, you’re gonna pay for that!” yelled the guy whose camera I smashed.
“Fuck you!” I choked out.
I took off at a dead run, heart pounding so hard in my ears it sounded like the rushing waves of the ocean. The sound reminded me of that perfect Saturday of Dane’s birthday, sitting on the beach with him and staring out at the water.
I was so shaken and distracted that I got on the wrong train and didn’t notice for four stops. One second I felt hot and sweaty, the next freezing. When I finally realized what had happened and changed trains, I was trembling with adrenaline and felt like I was gonna puke.
“Whoa, late night?” my coworker said when I got to work. “You look like shit.”
“ ’M fine,” I mumbled.
All day, every loud noise made me jump. Each new customer felt like a potential threat. A group of tourists with fancy cameras trundled in and my heart started to race, thinking it was the guys from outside my apartment. A young couple took a selfie with me in the background and I put my hand up to block my face, heart racing. I felt trapped behind the counter, exposed, on display.
Was this what it was going to be like now? Would the cost of Sofia’s fame be my privacy and peace of mind? And if I felt this bad from one encounter, what would it be like for Sofia actually being the target of the attention?
On break, I sat on the floor in the corner of the storeroom where no one would find me. At lunch I couldn’t force anything into my stomach but water, and even that just made me feel ill.
By the end of the day, I was sweaty and shaky and covered in more coffee than usual due to my unsteady hands and hypervigilant startle reflex. I felt disgusting and scared and furious.
All I wanted was for Dane to hold me and tell me everything would be okay, like he had in the alley outside Quizzo. I wanted his strength and his gentle hands.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about his comments on the phone. If I asked for comfort, would he give it to me because I needed it, or because he wanted to give it to me?
More disturbingly, how would I know the difference?
But my need for comfort was stronger than my fear. After all, I knew that Dane wasn’t a phone person. I knew we worked better when we could touch each other. I knew that he had a hard time expressing his feelings in words, even when I could tell he was full of them.
Given our fail of a phone conversation the night before, I didn’t bother calling him, I just headed to his place. I went in through the bar in case he was down there, and Johi waved.
“Hey, Felix,” she said. “You look…a little rough.” But because Johi was nice as hell, it just sounded concerned and not mean.
“Yeah, bad day for latte containment, I guess. He home?”
“No, he was in for a bit earlier, then ran out again a couple hours ago.”
My stomach sank.
“Oh. Okay, thanks.”
“You want a drink?”
“Fuck, yes. Can I have a gin and tonic?”
She mixed my drink and waved away my money. I snuck a dollar from my tips onto the bar for her when she turned around and went upstairs, hoping Dane would be home soon. I downed the drink and took a shower, desperate to scrub the sweat and coffee off. The whole time my ears were pricked for Dane’s return, but he wasn’t back when I got out of the shower. Realizing I didn’t have anything clean to change into, I borrowed a T-shirt of Dane’s. I buried my face in it, hoping it might
smell like him, but it just smelled like clean laundry.
I went into the living room and sat in front of my diorama. But without Dane’s podcasts playing in the background to guide my curiosity, I felt directionless. It was just bits of paper and cardboard and markers and glue. I flipped through a magazine, halfheartedly cut out a few things, doodled in my notebook, and slumped in my chair.
What the fuck was I doing? Who made dioramas? Children. Children who thought that real life could be frozen in time and looked at from all perspectives. Children who didn’t understand that nothing ever stops, it rushes past and erases itself as it goes. Erases you if you don’t have something to hold onto.
I pushed out of my chair, disgusted. I called Dane, but it rang through to voicemail.
“Hey,” I said. “Um, I’m at your place. I kinda…had a not-great day. Wanted to see you. Uh. Should I wait for you? I mean, if you’re coming home soon—coming to your place, I mean. Or, um, I guess I’ll wait for a little? Uh, I hope you’re having a good day. Maybe I’ll see you in a bit. Okay, um, bye.”
I groaned at that pitiful message and threw my phone onto the couch, then collapsed after it.
I figured I’d give him a chance to call back, and put on an episode of Secaucus Psychic. The episode ended, then another, but Dane still hadn’t returned my call.
It felt sadder to be here without him than to leave. Maybe I would just go home, put on my pajamas, and crawl into bed so I could sulk where no one could see me. Sofia had said I could move into her room while she was on tour, so I could do that.
I dug out my phone and typed Please, I need you, but I deleted the text without sending it.
I stuck around for another few minutes, hoping I’d hear Dane’s footsteps in the hall, but they never came. I thought of leaving him a note, but I didn’t know what I’d say. Finally, deflated, I made my weary way home.
Chapter 11
Huey
I was utterly exhausted—nauseated and muddled. Morgan had called in a bad way after meeting up with their sisters to discuss their mother’s care after she’d been admitted to the hospital again, and I’d gone to them. It was disheartening to watch the way a crisis could erode all the progress they’d made, but that was the way it went.
