“Where are you going?” Simon asks.
“Home,” I say. “I’m going home.”
“What? Why? We have this great cabin. C’mon stay, please.”
“I’ve had doubts about this trip before. And this just confirmed it,” I say, pointing to the pocket where he put the pipe.
“This is nothing, Alice. It’s just for fun.”
“Really? So why were you arrested? Why did you feel the need to smoke in the bushes if it’s nothing you’re ashamed of?” I say, grabbing my bag.
I’m grateful for the fact that I didn’t unpack right away.
“Alice, please. C’mon, be reasonable.”
“I am. I don’t want to stay.”
“Well, I do. And I’m not going back to the city until Sunday,” Simon says defiantly, plopping down on the bed in protest.
I hadn’t considered this possibility. Shit.
“Fine,” I say after a moment.
“What are you going to do? It’s dark out there already.”
“I’m going to take a cab or an Uber,” I say.
“All the way to the city? It’ll cost you a year of rent!” he laughs. I’ve never seen this side of him before. The mocking, insensitive, petulant, child side.
“I’m going to take a cab to the train station,” I explain. I don’t know why I even bothered. It’s none of his business anymore.
Simon jumps out of bed, meets me by the door.
“Alice.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. I shrug him off.
“Alice,” he says louder this time. “You can’t leave.”
“I am leaving.” I turn the knob.
“Goddamn it, Alice.” He hits the door with his fist, slamming it shut.
He startles me. The door slams shut with such force, the hairs on the back of my arm stand up. A shudder of fear courses through my veins.
What if he doesn’t let me leave?
What then?
I turn to Simon. His face is inches away from mine. I can feel his hot, fiery breath on my face. Blood drains from my cheeks and lips. My heart pounds so loudly in my chest that I hear it in my temples.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
I take a deep breath. I don’t look away from him. I’m leaving this place one way or another.
The darkness in his eyes slowly fades and the old Simon comes back to me.
“I’m so sorry, Alice, really,” he says. He puts his head on my shoulder.
“I know,” I whisper. “But I have to go.”
I open the door again. This time, he doesn’t stop me.
When I get out of sight from the cabin, I finally let out a deep sigh of relief.
41
About a mile down the road, I start to waver on my decision to leave in such haste. I tried to call a cab, but I didn’t realize it until after I left that I have absolutely no reception out here. Not even one bar! Still, I can’t go back. Simon’s insistence on me staying scared me. If I wasn’t sure about leaving beforehand, I certainly was after. There’s a lot I don’t know about him and I had no business coming out here with him.
I remember what I heard a while ago about women and intuition. Apparently, women have great intuition. The problem is that they often don’t listen to it and don’t act accordingly to it because of a variety of factors. They don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. They feel embarrassed. They think that it’s illogical. It doesn’t make any sense.
From now on, I’m going to listen to my intuition a lot more, I decide. If I had listened to it earlier, I wouldn’t be in this mess.
The road’s winding and lit only by the blue light from the moon. But moonlight doesn’t penetrate every bend; the trees hugging both sides of the road block most of it.
The scent of pine is no longer inviting and comforting. Instead, I’m starting to get scared. I haven’t been scared of the dark since I was six years old, but alone in the woods, all my old fears creep in. I turn on my phone. I still have plenty of battery left. I click on the flashlight button and the bright LED brings me some relief.
One car drives past me. And then another. A few minutes later, another. They all slow down when they see me. Again, shivers run up my spine. I shouldn’t have stayed up late watching a marathon of old Dateline programs last night on YouTube. All those murder mysteries, which seemed so interesting when I was in the safety of my bed, now seem terrifying. College girl walking down an abandoned country road all alone. I can just hear Keith Morrison’s soothing but sinister voice narrating my crime story.
“Okay, okay. You can’t think like this,” I say out loud. “The train station is 3 miles away from the cabin, you only have, what, 2 more to go? You can do this. Nothing’s going to happen. Just stop freaking yourself out.”
I look at my phone again. There’s something comforting about it even though I don’t have a signal. It’s way out. My lifeline. I thank God that the directions to the train station are still cached on the maps screen. Otherwise, I’d be totally fucked.
A car pulls up next to me. I don’t hear it until the driver honks the horn.
Beep. Beep.
Fuck. It’s Simon. He has found me. There’s no way I’m getting into his car. I look around before turning to face him. What can I do? I can run into the woods, I decide. He’ll have to first realize what I’ve done. And if he wants to follow me, he’ll have to pull over, park the car, get out and then run after me. That will give me a good running start.
No matter what you do, don’t get into that car, I whisper silently to myself. If that’s one thing that I’ve learned from all those crime shows is that it all goes to hell when the girl gets into the car.
“Alice!” I don’t believe what I hear. The voice is definitely not Simon’s. But it can’t be who I think it is. Can it?
I turn around. My ears weren’t lying. It is Tristan.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. The cold air nips at my throat. I pull my coat closed at my neck, wishing that I hadn’t forgotten to pack my scarf.
“Get in,” he says. “It’s freezing out there.”
I want to. Really badly. It is freezing, colder than freezing, probably. But I’m mad at him. And he still hasn’t answered my question.
I shake my head. I’ve had enough of guys bossing me around for today. I continue walking, well aware of that fact that it’s my pride that’s keeping me out of his car. Not any intuition. Tristan’s a great guy and he’d never make me feel uncomfortable. He’d break my heart and make me wish that I was dead, but he would never scare me.
He drives slowly alongside of me.
“C’mon, Alice. Stop fucking around. Get in,” he says through the rolled down window.
I shake my head.
“Why are you here?” I yell. Partly because of the howling wind. And partly because I’m mad at him. “Are you stalking me?”
“Why are you here?” he yells back. Clearly, not answering my questions. “If you’re having such a good time with Simon, why are you walking down the road all alone in the middle of the night?”
“Fuck you!”
“C’mon, Alice. Please, get in.” The tone in his voice changes. He’s pleading now. But my heart remains cold. My pride stands strong.
“I don’t need you to stalk me, Tristan. I’m fine,” I say.
I expect our banter to keep going until I reach the train station. I can use an escort. It is cold and dark and windy. And I am scared of being all alone out here. But then it doesn’t.
“Fine,” Tristan yells and drives away. The screeching of the tires as he pulls away breaks my heart.
“No, no, no,” I say, watching him disappear into the darkness. “Please don’t go.”
But I don’t run after the car. I stop, stand there like a statue. Unable to move. A feeling of inevitable doom spreads through my body. Regret. Why didn’t I just get into his car? Why did I have to be so stupid? He came all the way here. He was here to help. He loves you. Why did I
have to be so cold? So unforgiving? A million other things that I should’ve said and done run through my mind.
I look out into the distance. Waiting for him to return. But he doesn’t. He’s gone. Really gone.
I take a deep breath.
You can only depend on yourself in life. There’s no one else. Definitely not some guy.
A set of headlights from across the road blinds me and disappears. The car makes a u-turn across the road and pulls up next to me.
“Tea and I broke up,” Tristan yells through the open window.
42
This time he doesn’t have to coax me inside. Neither of us says another word as I climb into the passenger seat. I don’t get in because of what he said. I would’ve gotten in if he had said that he hated me. It’s not every day that you get the chance to right the wrong decision that you’d just made. And I didn’t need any more signs that this is what I had to do.
As I pull up the window, the warmth of the air inside puts me at ease. Heat is coming out from the seat. I start to warm up from the inside out.
“Will you take me to the train station?” I ask.
“Why? I’m going back home.”
“I think I’d like to go to the train station,” I say. I don’t have a good reason. I don’t want to go back with him. There’s something about this. If I let him take me home, he’ll be my knight in shining armor. Or something like that.
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” he asks.
“Will you take me there or not?” I ask. He grunts and gives something like a shrug.
We drive in silence for a few moments. It’s deafening. We used to be able to hang out in the same room for hours and not talk without feeling uncomfortable. But now, everything’s different.
“And by the way, what were you thinking back there?” Tristan asks. The tone of his voice is accusatory. Angry.
“What if I hadn’t come back for you? You know, you and your dumb pride. It’s going to get you killed.” He shakes his head. “It’s okay to admit that you need help sometimes, you know that? It’s okay to feel lost. You don’t have to do everything on your own all the time.”
Tristan continues his lecture. He’s not much of a talker. He tends to keep things bottled up most of the time, behind a door with a big lock on it. A lock that I don’t have a key to. And listening to his lecture puts a smile on my face. I know that he cares about me. But it’s not every day that I get actual confirmation of that fact.
“What? Why are you smiling? I’m really mad at you, Alice.”
I nod. “I know. You’re right,” I say.
“I’m right? Wait, what?” He slows down to stop.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to memorialize this moment in stone. I don’t think I’ve been right, well, in ever.”
“Well, you better savor it then,” I laugh. “I’m not sure if you’re going to be right again anytime soon.”
We start driving again.
“And what were you thinking coming here?” I ask. “I mean, what if everything between Simon and me was fine? What if I hadn’t confronted him?”
“I would’ve just stayed there.” He shrugs. “I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“Stayed there? Where?”
“In the parking lot.”
“The whole weekend?”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t really have a plan.”
I roll my eyes. Don’t say anything for a bit.
“I had no idea that this was going to happen. I was just coming to talk to you. That’s all,” he says after a while. He’s looking straight ahead. Strands of hair fall into his face. He tucks them behind his ear. “I don’t want you to think I was some sort of stalker,” Tristan adds.
“I know that.”
“And then I saw you leave. So I followed you.”
I nod. That makes sense.
Neither of us says a word for a while. And then I remember something he had said.
“What happened with you and Tea?” I ask.
Tristan shrugs, shakes his head. He looks straight ahead. I know that he’s avoiding eye contact with me.
“Tristan?” I can’t let it go. I’m going to see her and I need to know what I should expect.
“We broke up,” he says. He shrugs again, the kind of shrug that makes me certain that it wasn’t good.
“I’m not sure if it’s a breakup since we weren’t really seeing each other officially, but whatever,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“We weren’t officially dating. Is it a break up if there’s nothing to break?”
“Did she know that?” I ask.
“Not you too.” He looks straight at me. “Yes, I was very clear with her about that.”
“She didn’t seem like she was when we spoke,” I say.
Tristan shakes his head. Annoyed.
“So why did you break it off?” I ask. I’m very careful about not saying ‘break up.’
“I didn’t. She did,” he says.
“What?” I ask. That’s hard to believe. Tea was really smitten with him. Why would she do this?
“She said that she didn’t want to be in an ill-defined relationship. She wanted more. Either we were together, exclusive, or we weren’t. And I couldn’t give her that.”
I ask him why even though I know the answer.
We stop at the light. He turns all the way toward me in his seat. Looks straight into my eyes. I see an image of the red stop light in his eyes, and wonder if he can see them in mine.
“You’re a hard act to follow, Alice,” Tristan says quietly.
Shivers run down my spine. The tips of my fingers get cold. Then go numb. I don’t know what he means. No, that’s not true. I do. I have my suspicions, but I don’t dare assume. I don’t want to know.
“What,” I start. My throat is raspy and the word comes out broken in half. “What are you talking about?” I try again.
The light turns green. He drives out of the intersection and pulls over to the side of the road.
“What are you doing? Why are you stopping?” I ask quickly. I feel myself going into a panic over what might happen and over what might not.
“I want to tell you something,” Tristan says quietly.
I don’t look away from the front windshield even as Tristan turns to face me again.
“Alice? Turn to me. Please,” he says, touching my hand. I recoil from his touch. I take a deep breath. Quiet my pounding heart. And turn to face him.
“I love you,” he says, slowly allowing each word its time and space.
“What?” I mumble.
“I love you, Alice,” he says again. I try to read his face. It’s blank. All I see is how much his sun-kissed skin has faded in the bleakness of a New York fall.
“I love you, too,” I say a little too quickly.
It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth either. I’m not sure what he meant for his ‘I love you.’ I love you as a friend. I love you like I used to. I love you and want to get back together. I love you and I want to be friends. We sit there in silence for a bit. It seems like we should kiss, but the moment isn’t right. There’s a distance between us. Filled with all the things that have been unsaid. All the things that should be explained.
Slowly, Tristan starts the car again and puts it in drive. We drive the rest of the way to the train station as strangers.
43
The parking lot is empty and Tristan parks right up front near the handicapped sign.
“I’ll walk you inside,” he says as I get out.
“No need,” I say, but he ignores me. I don’t stop him. We walk together into the train station. It’s small and deserted. There are only a few chairs arranged in a circle along the walls. There’s no one at the ticket counter. I check the large electronic schedule board behind the counter. A train going back to the city will come in twenty-five minutes.
I go to the ticket machine and buy a one-w
ay ticket.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come back with me?” he asks as I press ‘buy.’ I shake my head, no.
“I’ll just meet you there,” I say. “Thanks for coming out, though. Really. I really appreciate it.”
Tristan stares down at his shoes. They’re an old pair of sneakers with no shoelaces that he has had for years. He doesn’t wear them often. I know that they’re his go-to shoe when he needs to be comfortable.
“How long have you had those shoes?” I smile. “Since tenth grade, at least.”
“Ninth.” He nods his head. When our eyes meet, his sparkle under the harsh fluorescence in the room.
“Are you ever going to get rid of them?” I ask.
“Are you ever going to get rid of Bear?”
My breath gets lodged in my throat and I cough. Bear is an old teddy bear that I’ve had since I was a little girl. I don’t play with him anymore. He’s too old and fragile, but he sits on top of my dresser and I hold him whenever I feel lost or confused or lonely.
“No, of course not!” I gasp.
“Ever hear that a pot shouldn’t be calling a kettle black?” he jokes.
“Fair enough,” I smile.
I’m suddenly at ease. I know that Tristan and I are going to be okay. Friends. For real this time. I know that he wasn’t lying when he said that he loved me. And I definitely wasn’t. What happens to love after love? I wonder. Maybe this. This friendship that’s a little bit more than just friendship. Something a little bit deeper. Closer. More unusual.
“Oh hey, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something. Back in the car. What did you want to talk to me about?” I ask.
“Just about us. About how I miss you.”
“You miss me?”
He nods. I feel his gaze on my lips. He takes a step closer to me. I feel his soft breath on my cheek. We’re standing so close to one another that it would require more energy to pull away than to pull closer together. Suddenly, he catches himself.
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