Second Chance

by Katie Kacvinsky

  I set her down on the bed and she flops over onto her side. A few strands of loose hair stick to the side of her face and neck and I wipe them away. My fingers burn a little at the contact because I forgot how warm and smooth her skin feels. I can remember how sweet it tastes. My eyes linger on her lips, lips that I’ve spent days, months obsessing over. I have to force myself to look away.

  I take her blue, faded tennis shoes off and my nose wrinkles up from the odor that escapes, but I’ve smelled worse. I consider burning these pathetic shoes, with a frayed hole in the toe and the soles worn almost completely down to the fabric. Yet, knowing her, she’s too sentimental to carelessly burn anything. She probably wants to give them a funeral to commemorate their travels together. I set them on my balcony to air out.

  I peel off her sweaty socks and frown at the brown stains on the heels. I glance down at her and wonder if she ever did laundry. I contemplate checking her hair for lice. I throw her socks in the trash and notice her jeans are scrunched up around her knees so I decide to slide them off, so she can be comfortable. Or maybe I want to torture myself. I’m relieved her pink underpants look clean. I have to resist letting my fingers run down her legs, legs that I’ve tasted every inch of, and I cover her with a blanket before I lose any self-control.

  I head back downstairs, grab her bag from the porch and pour a glass of water from the sink. When I walk back in my bedroom I can’t help but feel like its brighter, like the light has shifted in the sky and more rays are filtering in, but I know why it feels warmer. She always had that effect on my life. I throw her jeans on top of her bag and set the water on the nightstand next to the bed. I stare down at her for a few seconds. I could watch her sleep for the rest of the night and wait for all the old feelings to flood through my heart. But I built a dam to catch those feelings. Well, at least to slow their progress. I grab some shorts to sleep in and escape downstairs before the memories have a chance to catch me.

  ***

  The next morning, I walk into my bedroom to get a change of clothes and try to ignore the energy of a girl whose presence I can feel like a gust of wind, like a storm blowing in. I glance quickly at the bed and Dylan’s still sound asleep, rolled up into a ball, her nose and forehead peeking out from under the blanket. I need her out of my room before her presence contaminates everything.

  I grab a gray hooded sweatshirt from the top shelf of my closet and I hear her body shift on the mattress as I pull it over my head. Yanking it down over my waist, I turn to see her eyes open now, blinking at the ceiling. I shut the closet door and she turns and squints until her eyes adjust and focus on me. We stare at each other for a few seconds. The room feels too small, as if the walls are slowly compressing around me.

  I tell myself I’m not impressed with those huge eyes, eyes that could level me with a single glance. She blinks at me unbelieving, like she’s still in a dream. She glances around my room.

  “Gray? Where am I?” Her low voice is slower and groggier than normal.

  In a mental hospital, I want to say, but she looks too tired for sarcasm.

  “In my bedroom,” I say. “I thought you might prefer it to the front porch.” I pull a UNM baseball cap low over my head. She sits up and the blanket falls to her waist. She rubs her eyes and runs her fingers over her messy heap of bed hair. I try to dwell on the fact that her face is puffy and she has dark circles under her hazel eyes and that I am by no means attracted to her.

  My mind quickly shifts to Kari, the girl I met at the Velvet Room last week, in those high boots that walk around in my mind. We’ve been texting and have plans to hang out next week. I try to focus on that, instead.

  “How long have I been asleep?” she asks with a yawn. I tell her about fourteen hours.

  “It’s Friday morning,” I say. Her eyes widen at this.

  “I don’t think I’ve slept that long since I was—” and she stops to consider this, resting a finger on her chin.

  “In the womb?” I offer and she grins. Her eyes light up when she smiles. It’s annoying. She presses a hand against her temple like she’s in pain and I point to the glass of water on the nightstand.

  “Thanks,” she says. She takes a sip and grimaces. I sit down at my desk chair, the furthest spot away from her in the room, the safest spot, and watch her come back to life.

  “Do you have anything stronger?” she asks.

  I raise an eyebrow. “You want stronger water? Are you used to something lead-based?”

  She takes another drink and shakes her head. Yep, too early for sarcasm. “I’m used to coffee as thick as motor oil.”

  I open my mouth to inform her that this isn’t a fricking hotel, but when she pulls her covers off to reveal her bare legs and pink panties, I lose track of thought. She throws me a questioning glance and I divert my eyes and try to look indifferent, like her body has no effect on me. I point out her jeans are on her duffle bag.

  She blushes and the color reaches all the way to her lips and my eyes are drawn to them for a second. She lifts her nose and sniffs the air.

  “Where are Heidi and Klaus?” she asks.

  I stare at her. “Who?”

  “My tennis shoes,” she says simply, like I should know.

  I roll my eyes. She’s obviously as random as ever and for some reason this knowledge irritates me. Maybe I was hoping Dylan would change. Grow up. Mellow out. Her unpredictable mind is what I love most about her and if she could suddenly turn boring, it would really help me get over her.

  I tell her they’re airing out on the balcony and I suggest that she pack a shoe deodorizer the next time she travels. Then, as if I care, she tells me she bought her shoes in Munich and that they’ve been her best friends these past few months.

  “They didn’t give me a single blister,” she says triumphantly and wriggles her long, pink toes in my direction to prove it. I stare at her naked feet dancing in the air in front of me and something pulls on my heart but I pull back.

  She swings her legs over the side of the bed and smiles into my eyes like we’re best friends. She starts to explain the history of her shoes, how they’re named after this wonderful German couple she met who gave her directions when she was lost—

  I stand up and interrupt her because this is getting ridiculous.

  “Dylan, I don’t care about your shoes. That’s not the most pressing issue right now.” She blinks back at me and waits.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, louder than necessary. Her grin is gone. The sparkle in her eyes fades. She looks disappointed to see anger, not happiness in my eyes. What did she honestly expect? She looks down at her hands and thinks about my question. A few seconds go by.

  “I wanted to see you,” she says simply. But it isn’t simple, I want to tell her. I fold my arms over my chest and hit her with a hard stare.

  “It’s been over four months,” I point out.

  “All the more reason to pay you a visit,” she says, like I should be happy, like I should be skipping and cart-wheeling and welcoming her with open arms and daisies and a tandem bike ride into the sunset because she finally got around to fitting me back into the travel plan she calls life.

  “You’re not thinking of staying here, are you?” I ask. It’s more of a threat than a question. I thought I was over her. But it’s easy to convince yourself you’re over someone when they’re five thousand miles away. You eventually forget the way they smell, the way their skin tastes and the sound of their voice. Until they show up one day, and, just by looking in their eyes you spiral right back to the place where you started.

  She stands up, no longer shy that she’s only in a T-shirt and underwear. She takes a few steps towards me and I have to mentally pretend she’s my cousin to keep my eyes from falling to her naked legs. She registers the angry look on my face.

  “I’ll do whatever I want,” she says. “Unless I’ve missed some breaking news story, this is still a free country.” She pushes past me and grabs her jeans. I glare down at her, anno
yed that she’s annoyed. She has no right.

  “You can’t just show up and expect to stay with me,” I say. “I have roommates.” And a date with a really hot girl, I’m tempted to add. Who wears clean clothes. And

  showers regularly.

  Dylan turns and frowns at me. “I never expected to stay with you,” she says as she tugs her jeans on. “I was just taking a power nap.” She stumbles as her foot catches in the jeans and I grab her elbow to steady her. My fingers bristle from the contact of her skin and I drop her arm.

  I give her the same intense stare I give my catcher when I’m reading the plays.

  “Well, my life’s a little busy right now,” I say. “Some people actually have a routine. I have baseball and classes. You can’t just expect me to drop everything and entertain you.”

  She ignores me and digs around in her duffle bag. I glare down at her. Shouldn’t she be apologizing? Begging me to forgive her for so easily crossing me out of her life? She stands up and her face is too close to mine. I take a step back. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, like she’s trying to calculate something in my expression.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to surprise you,” she says.

  This makes me laugh, but it sounds forced, rubbed with bitterness.

  “What really surprises me Dylan, is that I haven’t heard from you in four months,” I say as she throws my bedroom door open and drags the duffel bag behind her. She marches down the stairs and shakes her head. Her bag thumps loudly behind her and she shouts over it.

  “You could have tried to contact me,” she argues.

  “Says the girl with no telephone or permanent address,” I yell back. “Is it that hard for you to use the phone once in a while?”

  She turns to me when she reaches the bottom of the staircase. “I don’t understand international calling cards. Too many numbers. It freaks me out.”

  “What about emailing?” I say and walk down the stairs. “Or do they not have computers in Europe?”

  “You never emailed me. At least I sent you postcards,” she points out.

  “Oh, wow, two postcards, one from Germany telling me ‘how many great wieners they have.’ Very considerate.”

  She blinks up at me. “They have amazing hot dogs,” she says. “I thought you’d appreciate that.”

  “That’s your idea of keeping in touch?” I ask and lean closer to her.

  “I wanted to surprise you,” she says again, leaning back at me so her face is inches from mine. “But I didn’t know your events calendar is completely booked this spring.”

  I hear a chuckle and wince to see all my roommates sitting in the living room watching us like we’re a new reality show, The Ex-Files. They all stare at Dylan and she has the nerve to smile and start introducing herself. They’re all plenty eager to meet her but I cut them off.

  “Don’t bother making introductions,” I tell Dylan. “You’re not staying.”

  “Do you mind? I’d like to make a good first impression.”

  “It’s a little late,” I point out. “They already met you on the front porch when you

  looked like you were strung out on heroin.”

  “You say that like it’s such a bad thing.”

  I hear another chuckle and turn to glare but I can’t tell who laughed. Dylan’s feet stomp along the hardwood floors.

  “What about your shoes?”

  “I told you. Their names are Heidi and Klaus—”

  “I’m not calling them by their names—”

  She’s out the front door before I can finish. I quickly glance at Bubba as he shakes his head.

  “This completely redefines the term sexual tension,” he says.

  “Stay out of this,” I yell back. I slam the front door behind me and follow Dylan onto the grass in the front yard. She unzips a side pocket of her bag and pulls out some silver flip-flops. She kicks her feet into them.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Do you have any money?”

  “I have seventy-five Euros,” she informs me like this currency will work in the U.S.

  She bends over and her shirt rides up to expose her bony spine. She lifts her duffel bag with a groan and swings it over her side to use the straps like a backpack. The change in weight takes her body by surprise and she starts to wobble. I take a step towards her.

  “Whaa—” she yells as she stammers to the side. I try to grab her but the bag wins and she flies sideways and pulls me down with her onto the grass. She lands half on her bag and half on my chest and our bodies connect with the grass in a muffled thud. We lay there for a moment and despite all my efforts to be mad, I’m cracking up.

  “Ow,” Dylan moans, her voice close to my ear, her body pressed against mine. She starts laughing and pretty soon we’re both laughing so hard my whole body is shaking and I can feel her stomach muscles flexing against mine. I look up and see the sun flooding down on us through tree branches just beginning to bud. I haven’t laughed this hard in months. It makes my face hurt.

  “That was a graceful exit,” Dylan says.

  “You’re insane,” I say through gasps for air.

  She pushes herself off my chest and sits up. She slips her arms out of the straps and I lean on my elbows and look in her eyes, eyes that I’ve smiled and laughed into so many times. It’s too easy, too familiar to back here. But I force the thoughts out of my head. I wind them up, stuff them in a ball and smack them into the sky.

  She looks away from me and picks at a tuft of grass between us.

  “Would it be too much to ask to use your shower?” she asks.

  DYLAN

  Well, that was adequately mortifying. It’s not exactly how I imagined our reunion would go. I didn’t expect a welcome parade, but a friendly hello would have been appreciated. Instead, I get demoted to not only an unanticipated visitor, but an unwanted one. Harsh. And Gray has no idea how flushed he gets when he’s mad and how it just makes his eyes blaze and his cheeks blush and how our entire, stupid fight just felt like foreplay.

  Catherine was right. I didn’t want to really believe it, but I see it now. Gray needed more from me. I realize how much I’ve let him down.

  Now I’m naked in his shower, which is awkward because it’s just making me picture him naked. The water doesn’t help me relax. It pelts my skin, like it’s angry, like it’s pushing me to hurry up and get out. Or, maybe I’m just not used to really good water pressure.

  I dry off and wrap a faded yellow towel around my chest. I wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror, meeting eyes that are still puffy and skin that’s dry and peeling around my nose. I dab some lotion on my face, brush my teeth, and contemplate where I went wrong, and more importantly, how to make this up to Gray.

  Maybe I’ve watched movies like The Cutting Edge and When Harry Met Sally and A lot Like Love and Ever After and While You Were Sleeping and Say Anything (just to name a few) one too many times. Is my hopelessly romantic idea of love just an unrealistic collection of Hollywood movie clips? Have I convinced myself that my love life could mirror the high-intensity story plots of fictional characters?

  I guess I did. Huh.

  But what is life without love? It’s what inspires us, what drives us, what keeps our bodies warm on cold nights and our hearts soft when they want to harden with loneliness. So why hold it back? Then, the worst thought of all strikes: Gray doesn’t love me anymore.

  I stare at my reflection and see the disbelief on my face. Is it possible to fall in and out of love, like it’s just a season, just a trend? Can love be an illusion—a moment that passes—like any other fleeting emotion?

  I pull on the khaki pants Catherine’s grandmother gave me. They’re too short and hang low off my waist, but they’re the cleanest ones I have. I throw on my jean jacket and check out my appearance in the full-length mirror. Not exactly stunning.

  I make a mental note: In the future, d
o not attempt to win a boy’s heart when you look like you were just released from a refugee camp. I lift my chin and try to shake off my doubts. All I can do is be myself.

  I spring down the stairs and through the front door to find Gray sitting on the steps in the sun waiting for me. His elbows are resting on his knees and he’s staring out at the street. I sit down next to him and run a comb through damp hair that smells like his shampoo, like musk or spice or something.

  He leans away from me, a little stiffly.

  “You know,” I say, “I’ve always wondered why men and women’s shampoos smell so different. Why do guys want to smell like Ocean Mist and Steel Ice? And how is Steel Ice even a scent? And who decided women prefer to smell like fruits baskets?” I wait for him to help explain my observation, but he studies me without a trace of a grin.

  “I’m not really in the mood for your random questions right now,” he says. I stare back at him and wrinkle my eyebrows. I had considered it a very serious question.

  “You must be hungry,” he says in a flat voice. I pat my empty stomach and swear it feels concave. I nod and start to tell him the bar of soap in the shower looked like a block of cheddar cheese, but then I remember his comment and bite my lips together.

  “I’m low on groceries,” he says. “But there’s a café down the street.” He stands up and frowns when he takes in my outfit.

  “Seriously, Dylan?”

  I set the comb down on the porch step. “What?” I ask.

  “You’re the only girl I’ve ever met that goes out of her way to dress badly.”

  “It’s okay,” I say and tug on the collar of my jacket. “It’s vintage.” I open up the front of the coat to show Gray the inside lining and he shudders at the sight of the striped flannel. His reaction makes me laugh. I pick myself up and stick my hip out to the side like I’m posing for a magazine cover.

  “Hey, this style is the rage in Europe right now,” I say.

  Gray studies his fingernails. “I’m sure.”