“Thank you.”
“Yeah, that was really good,” someone else says. I’m not paying attention to anyone who’s talking to me. I’m simply nodding and smiling and walking further backstage, toward the exit.
I take a big sip of my water. But I don’t stop at one gulp. Suddenly, I’m thirstier than I’ve ever been. And I drink the entire bottle without stopping.
“You were amazing,” someone says.
“Thank you,” I mumble and walk past him.
“Alice?” the voice says again. It’s mildly familiar.
“Yeah?” I turn around and see Tristan.
29
Tristan is standing backstage with his foot propped up on the wall. There are wires and poles all around him, but he’s standing so casually that it looks as if he’s back in our dorm. His arms are by his sides and his face is tilted slightly toward me.
“You came,” I say. Still on a high from my performance and the crowd’s response, I throw my arms around him. “Thank you.”
For a second, he seems surprised by my exuberance, but then quickly wraps his arms around me too.
“You were wonderful,” Tristan whispers into my ear.
“Thanks,” I say when I pull away. “I was super nervous, as you can imagine. But I got through it. I can’t believe I got through it.”
I’m keenly aware of the fact that I can’t stop smiling. I try to press my lips together, but they just won’t budge.
“I can’t believe you said all those things,” Tristan says.
“Oh, yeah, well…I don’t know,” I say. I don’t really know what to say. “That’s how I feel and I just wanted you to know that.”
I’m owning my words. I’m being honest to my true feelings. Wow. This is a whole new world. A whole new me.
“Well, thank you,” Tristan says. “Thank you for saying those things and thank you for inviting me.”
“Sure, anytime,” I say jokingly. “Actually, no, not anytime. This is the last time. I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack leading up to this.”
“I thought that given how well this went, you’d be considering a career in public service. Somewhere where you can make speeches all the time,” Tristan jokes.
“Hell, no!”
We share an awkward moment of silence. Tristan takes a step closer to me. I look up at him.
“Well, thanks for coming,” I say. “I really appreciate it.”
“No, thank you for inviting me,” he says. “I had no idea that you were going to do a whole speech about me.”
“What can I say? You are sort of an important person in my life. And I want you to know that I meant what I said. I’m really grateful for our friendship.”
He nods his head, hanging his shoulders. Then he looks up at me. His eyes sparkle in the dim light. And suddenly, the moment changes. We are friends one second and more than that the next. Nothing changes except that I know, I can sense, that he wants to kiss me. I want to kiss him, too. He takes my hand in his and looks carefully at each of my fingers, as if he’s seeing them for the very first time. Slowly, he brings them up to his lips and gives me a light peck. I know what’s coming next. I want it to happen, but I don’t let it.
Instead, I take a step back.
“I have to go,” I say. “Thanks for coming again.”
I walk back home in a daze. I’m on a high from my speech and from the moment with Tristan. I did not give my speech or invite him to it for that to happen. And I pulled away because I don’t want to spend the rest of my time here and the summer wondering about the kiss. No, it’s time for me to move on. Tristan will be in my life as a friend only. And that’s enough. That was the whole freakin’ point of the speech. So why can’t I get him out of my head?
Finals finally come to an end. It’s funny how you wait for this one week each semester, dreading it, hating it, and each day of the week passes ever so slowly. But then it’s Friday and you look back and bam! Finals week is over. This time I didn’t procrastinate until the last possible minute to study for any of my classes and was able to get a proper night of sleep every night. Unlike Juliet, of course. She stayed up all night for what seemed like three days straight.
“Did you end up getting any sleep at all this week?” I ask her, packing up the disaster that is my desk.
I’m not so much packing up as going through all the junk that has piled up in there and throwing almost all of it out. Why didn’t I do this earlier again? Why did I think that I would need to hold on to all of this junk mail? Juliet doesn’t keep anything and calls me a hoarder.
“Not really.” She shrugs. “A few hours here and there in the afternoon.”
“I don’t know how you’re still functioning,” I joke.
“Red Bull, baby! Red Bull and about fifty pots of coffee.”
“So, what are your plans for the summer?” I ask.
“Oh my God! I completely forgot to tell you,” she says, jumping up and down. Her eyes light up like a Christmas tree.
“I’m going to the Hamptons! Well, not just me. A bunch of people I know are pulling together and getting a place there. It’s not cheap, but it’s going to be epic!!”
“Oh wow, that sounds exciting,” I say unenthusiastically.
“You’re a West Coast girl, so I’m not sure you’re quite getting the significance of this. This is the Hamptons. The Hamptons are the place to be in the summer. There’s like a million parties everyday.”
“No, I get it. I’m sure you’ll have a blast,” I say, trying to infuse my voice with more excitement.
“And of course, you have to come!”
“What?”
“Yes! Please, c’mon. It won’t be the same without you,” Juliet pleads. Juliet is an expert in pleading. This is probably the exact same voice she uses to plead for things from her father. Its high pitch makes her sound completely helpless, when in reality, she’s the only one in control.
“I don’t know.” I shrug.
“Okay, promise me that you’ll think about it. Especially around July 4th. Or any week or weekend really. It doesn’t matter, they’re all going to be amazing!”
“How long are you going to be there?” I ask.
“Two months,” Juliet says. “Most people will be coming and going, but I’m planning on soaking every second of my Hamptons time.”
I turn back to packing. I’m almost done with my desk, which now looks like a shell of its prior self. How many students have sat at this desk before? I wonder. How many papers were written here? How many tests were studied for? How many hours were wasted procrastinating?
“So?” Juliet asks.
She walks over to my bed and plops herself on it. There are piles and stacks of clothes everywhere. I have a tendency to fold things first before figuring out what order I want to stuff them into my bags. I do this mainly because I hate to unpack when I get home, and often let my bag just sit there half unpacked in the corner of my room. And if I’m not going to unpack then I need to be able to reach all of my favorite clothes easily.
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” I say.
“Will you really think about it? Or are you just saying that to get me off your back? You know you say that a lot when you really have no intention of thinking about anything ‘cause your mind is already made up.”
“Oh my God.” I laugh. “You’re such a pest. I’ll think about it. Really. I promise.”
The Hamptons do sound nice. I’ve never been to Long Island, but I’ve seen it in plenty of movies and television shows. Maybe it would be nice to fly back here for a week or so and really let loose. If there’s anyone who knows how to have fun, it’s definitely Juliet.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she says, getting off my bed. “I’m really going to miss you, girlie.”
I turn to face her. She taps her foot slightly on the floor and doesn’t look directly at me.
“I’m going to miss you too,” I say and wrap my arms around her.
“Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on here
?” Dylan walks into our room through the open door.
“Are you saying your goodbyes already? You’re not leaving today, are you?” he asks.
I shake my head without letting go of Juliet. We’re still locked in an embrace and when I shake my head, we both move side to side.
“So what’s up with the waterworks?” Dylan asks.
Juliet and I finally let go of each other. There’s mist in both of our eyes.
“Well, since you’re saying your goodbyes already, I wanted to make sure that you’ve said your goodbye to your engagement ring,” Dylan says, pulling out a small blue box from his pocket. “I’m taking it back to Tiffany’s today.”
Juliet’s eyes light up. “Give that to me,” she says.
“You haven’t taken it back already?” I ask.
Juliet opens the box and puts the ring on her finger.
“Gorgeous,” she whispers. “My future fiancé has his work cut out for him.”
I roll my eyes.
“Here, you have to put it on, Alice. One last time,” Juliet says.
I shake my head, but she grabs my hand and pushes the ring on my ring finger. The two-carat diamond and the little diamonds around the halo sparkle so bright that they make me want to reach for my sunglasses. I find myself transfixed, unable to look away.
“I have to hand it to you, Dylan,” I say. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever have a ring this beautiful in my life. And I want to thank you for that. Whomever you marry in the future will be one lucky lady.”
Dylan’s face explodes in a wide, effervescent grin.
“No matter what, I have a feeling that you’ll be my favorite wife,” he says.
All three of us crack up laughing. Even now, I have a hard time believing that the events of this semester actually took place. Wow, what a ride.
30
A few hours later, I’m pretty much packed up. All the posters and pictures from my side of the room are down and all that’s left are little bits of glue and tape that I wasn’t able to scrape off. It’s definitely a sorry sight. Finals have this odd letdown quality to them. There’s all this build up, anxiety, and anticipation and work leading up to them. And then, one moment later, they’re over and you find yourself at a loss as to what to do. It’s like there was a purpose of you being there and suddenly there isn’t. It’s already my second semester, but I still haven’t found a decent way to cope with this feeling. A huge part of me wants to go to sleep and rest, but my mind keeps racing and my body wants to celebrate. We’re all going out later tonight, around 10, but there’re still hours until then. I plop down on my bed, pull the covers all around me, and wrap myself around my phone. The Internet is always a good way to kill time.
There’s a knock on my door.
“Hey.” Tristan stands in the doorway. “Can I come in?”
I just started a game of Candy Crush.
“Sure,” I say reluctantly, barely able to pull myself away from the screen.
“You going out tonight?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says, nodding.
“Cool.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Okay, I have to put down the phone. He’s waiting for me to pay attention.
“What’s up?” I look up at him.
He sits down on the bed next to me. A little too close. I pull the covers over and create a little bit of a barrier between us.
“How did your finals go?” he asks.
“Good.” I shrug. “I don’t really know. I guess we’ll see.”
He looks somewhere behind me on the wall. I can tell that he’s not really interested in my answer.
“You? How was your Macroeconomics final?” I ask. That’s his most difficult class. I really hope that he ends up passing it. And not just passing, but succeeding.
“I actually think it went okay,” he says. His eyes light up at the thought. “I’m really hoping for an A-. That professor never gives out As.”
“Oh wow, that’s great. And you see, you were worried.”
There’s a moment of silence. I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t.
“Tristan?” I say. His eyes return to mine. “What’s up? Did you just come here to talk about finals?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Not really.”
I wait for him to say something else. But again, he is at a loss for words.
I’m starting to get impatient.
“Tristan, what’s going on? Is there something you want to talk about? If not, then please leave me alone so I can waste a few hours playing Candy Crush.”
“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I just want to apologize for everything that has happened this semester. I shouldn’t have worked so hard and ignored you. I really didn’t give our relationship a fair shot. Just looking back to last winter and how much fun we had. I’m not really sure what happened when we got to school, except that I was a dick.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “What happened happened.”
“No, see, that’s precisely it. It happened because of me. If I hadn’t been so busy with work and school and actually spent some time with you. Then maybe…”
“No, I should’ve been more understanding about your job. It was a good experience, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” He shrugs. “I just don’t think it was worth losing you over.”
“Well…it’s okay,” I say. “I don’t really know what to say.”
“And I also wanted to apologize for getting confused about us. That was partly because of my crazy schedule. I just felt like I needed to get something off my plate.”
“Tristan, it’s fine,” I say. I sort of hate that he referred to me as the something that he had to get off his plate. “It’s all in the past.”
“You see, that’s the thing. What if I don’t want it to be in the past, Alice?”
“What?”
I feel myself losing color in my face as blood drains away somewhere to the lower half of my body.
“Don’t look so scared,” he jokes.
“What are you talking about?”
“I just want to apologize for everything that has happened this semester. Because I know it’s my fault.”
“Well, not exactly,” I say with a smile. “You didn’t force me to marry Dylan.”
“I know.” He waves his hand to dismiss the matter. “But I know it wasn’t for real. I know you don’t love Dylan. I just made a bigger deal out of it than I probably should have.”
“No, I don’t think so. In fact, I think you’re response was probably quite appropriate given the circumstances.”
We both start laughing. It’s too ridiculous not to. A part of me is shocked that we’re actually laughing about it so soon. I was sure that it would be years before I could laugh about this. And yet, here we are.
As we laugh, our bodies move closer and closer. I’m not sure how it happens, but suddenly, I find myself right next to his face. I look up at him, surprised. Tristan doesn’t look so surprised. His eyes sparkle. He licks his lips. He touches my chin and lifts it up, bringing my lips closer to his.
“Tristan,” I whisper.
“Alice.”
“What are you doing?” He looks down at my lips and then back to my eyes.
“You know what I’m doing.”
“No, we can’t,” I say, pulling away from him.
“What? Why?”
“Because. Because you know why.”
Now, I’m getting angry. Does he really not know why? I look at him. He stares at me dumbfounded.
“Because I’m going home to LA. And you’re going to the Bay Area. We won’t see each other for a long time. You’re going to be here for school next year and I’m going to go to USC.”
“So?” he asks.
“So? I don’t want to kiss you and then spend the summer wondering what the hell it means. I want to move on from this Tristan. I can’t keep doing this.”
“What if I don’t want you to move on?”
“I want to be with you, Alice. I want to try again.”
I look at him. He looks earnest. Set in his decision. But I’m not.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I say, getting out of bed. “I don’t think this…this thing between us can work. It’s too complicated.”
“I love you, Alice.”
He walks over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders. A few loose strands of hair fall into his beautiful face. It takes all of my strength I have not to just lean over and kiss him.
“I love you, Alice. Do you love me?”
I don’t reply for a moment. I could lie. But I don’t.
“Yes, I love you, too.”
“So? What more do we need?”
“It’s not enough, Tristan. I know the Beatles say that it’s all you need, but I need more. At least now.”
I walk out of the room as quickly as I can because tears are already flowing down my face. I can’t stop them. I don’t even try. I just hope that he doesn’t catch up to me and see them. And another part of me hopes that he does. I want him to wipe them away and say that no matter what, everything will be okay.
But Tristan doesn’t follow me. I get to the elevator and ride down to the ground floor. It’s May and New York is in full bloom. The streets are crowded with people in t-shirts and shorts. Everyone seems to be running, bicycling, or walking their dogs. I run down to Riverside Park. I need to be alone, but that’s pretty much impossible in this city. All I can ask for is to be somewhere where no one knows me. Strangers here don’t make it a policy to comfort strangers.
With tears running down my face, I run until I reach the fence separating me from the Hudson River. I stand there watching the river flow by and letting my tears flow with abandon until twilight falls.
31
I don’t see Tristan at the bar that night. I keep waiting for him to come by. I have my act all ready to go, but he doesn’t show up. Dylan and Juliet are clearly disappointed and somewhat angry at me. They’re even upset the following day while I’m stuffing the last of my stuff into the few available spaces that I still have left in my bags.
Auctioned to Him 6: Damage Page 137
