Chapter 10
10
I do not understand jokes. I do not understand drinking for fun. My tongue feels like sandpaper in my mouth, and my bladder begs for mercy. All of my nesting pillows are missing. If it wasn’t for passing out from sharing an entire bottle of wine with Peter, I never would have been able to sleep with only a single pillow beneath my head. I don’t know what woke me. Come to think of it—I don’t know how I got in bed. The last thing I remember was using Peter’s shoulder to prop myself upright in my living room while my coworkers laughed around me.
With a bracing breath, I roll to the side of my bed and push myself into a sitting position. Then, promptly recoil when my bare foot connects with a warm, solid body beneath me instead of the floor.
“Elise?” Peter’s voice cuts through my panic. It’s rough and gravely with sleep. A sound from my dreams. And my nightmares. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”
“What are you doing here?”
He sits up. Even with only the streetlight filtering in through my blinds, it’s obvious he’s been sleeping on the floor with only a pile of coats as a makeshift bed for himself. “No one was sober enough to drive themselves home, and there weren’t many Ubers available. I didn’t want to leave you alone with people in your apartment. You might not like me very much anymore, but at least I’m not a stranger.”
I stare at him as he stares back at me. In the dark, in the quiet, in me…something shifts.
“I don’t dislike you,” I admit though it pains me to do so. It would be utterly unfair to be untruthful when the reason for our broken relationship is lies. “I distrust you. There’s a difference.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. The sound of his palm scratching against his facial hair fills the silence.
“I wish you would have told me that you found out about the bet instead of running without a word,” he mumbles.
“I wish you would have told me about the bet instead of lying to me for years.”
There’s no way he was so inexperienced when we slept together for the first time. Moreover, why did it take him so long to collect his winnings after that? Did they up the ante? After he got me into bed, did they bet on whether I could be persuaded to have a committed relationship with him? Was the pot increased for every year that we stayed together?
He removes his hand to stare directly at me. “Do you really want to do this now? With a dozen people passed out in your living room? In the middle of the night? When you’re probably still drunk?”
I sigh. He’s right. Though I’m increasingly eager to hear his explanation, now is not the time.
I heave myself off my mattress and trudge toward the open door.
“If you’re uncomfortable with me in your bedroom, I can sleep in the living room with everyone else,” he murmurs to my back .
“I have to pee,” I whisper.
My cheeks burn. I don’t know why I said that. He didn’t need to know that.
“Oh,” he responds.
Without overanalyzing his meager reaction, I tiptoe into the hallway. Everything is quiet, save for a steady snore coming from the living room. Whoever is making that sound should seriously consider scheduling a doctor appointment to check for sleep apnea. Maybe they don’t know they snore. I should probably see who it is, so that I can tell them. Right after I pee. And brush my teeth.
Priorities.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Peter is leaning against the wall in the hallway, a glass of water in his hand.
He holds it out toward me. “Here. Hydrate and take this. You won’t feel as bad in the morning.”
I feel bad now. My head pounds in an irritatingly erratic rhythm. My skin feels like I’ve been rolling in a vat of desiccant pearls—itchy, dry, and stretched papery thin over my muscles.
“Thank you,” I mumble before swallowing the offered ibuprofen and washing it down with the full glass of water.
Peter must also have more experience with drinking heavily than I do.
“How do you know this will make me feel better?”
It’s easier than asking what I really want to know.
He grimaces as he steers me back toward my bedroom with a warm hand on the small of my back. “I can’t do anything in moderation. I’m either completely disinterested or obsessed. I was never invited to parties in high school, so when I had the chance during undergrad, I took it. I drank. A lot. I almost didn’t graduate on time.”
His explanation surprises me. I also empathize with his inability to do anything halfway .
He tucks me back into bed as I ponder this new information.
“Why didn’t I know this about you? Before.”
He shrugs then settles back onto the coats beside my bed. “You never asked.”
I frown at my ceiling. His answer unsettles me for several reasons. One—it implies that I didn’t ask him important questions about his past when we were in an intimate relationship. Two—I find it difficult to believe that he almost didn’t receive his bachelor’s degree on time. Three—I have no knowledge of his preferred timeline of life achievements. Which brings me back to number one.
I roll onto my side to stare at him on the ground.
He looks like a fictional vampire. Flat on his back, his hands crossed over his sculpted chest, lying perfectly still with his eyes closed, his unfairly thick, luxurious lashes kissing his high cheekbones. The coats resemble a makeshift coffin. He definitely has fangs. He sunk them into me once upon a time.
“I don’t like this,” I confess.
His eyes pop open. “If it feels like the room is spinning around you, then put one of your feet on the floor. It’ll recalibrate your sense of balance.”
I gape at him. “Just how drunk did you get as an undergrad to know this information?”
He frowns up at me. “Very.”
“And yet you claimed not to have lost your virginity until you were twenty-five.” I squint at him. “That’s nonsensical.”
He squints up at me. “What does getting drunk have to do with losing virginity?”
Just because I don’t make a habit of drinking until it feels like the room is spinning around me doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of alcohol’s effects. Especially during undergraduate—and even graduate—years.
“Alcohol is a depressant,” I explain even though he certainly knows this fact. “Many people claim to lose their inhibitions while under its effects. My roommate in undergrad said tequila made her clothes fall off. Implying that she had sex when she was drunk. Also, one of my female acquaintances during grad school experienced something called beer goggles. She would sleep with men who she normally would not consider a valid bed partner if she was sober.”
Peter raises his eyebrows. “Yes. I’ve heard those same anecdotes.”
“You did not fall victim to them?”
He shakes his head. “No. I was focused on making friends and experiencing the pros and cons of drinking and parties. Sex was not on my radar.”
“Truly?” I ask because I can’t not ask.
According to my informal sampling of female peers, men think about sex all the time. They indulge in it all the time. With numerous partners.
“Truly,” he affirms.
“Come here and explain this to me,” I demand, patting the empty mattress beside me.
“You should sleep.” He closes his eyes again as if I’ll blindly follow.
Absolutely not. I will never blindly follow again.
“I’m awake now,” I insist. “I want to hear more about your experience with drunkenness and why you were a virgin until you slept with me.”
I wince after those last words fall out of my mouth. I didn’t mean to say that.
Peter sighs. “You don’t want me in your bed again.”
I scoff. “You don’t get to tell me what I do or do not want. I wouldn’t have made the invitation if I didn’t mean it. I’m not asking for sex. I’m asking for knowledge. Also—” I swallow then puke up a little more honesty in the interests of distracting myself from the idea of sex with Peter. “I feel bad that you’re sleeping on the floor without any pillows or blankets. The zippers and buttons from all those coats must be digging into your skin.”
“You don’t have any spare pillows or blankets. I distributed what I could to your guests,” he admits with yet another of his patented frowns.
“Thank you for being a good host in my stead. It seems ungracious to repay you by forcing you to sleep on the carpet without any comfort for yourself.”
“Talking then sleeping only?” he checks. “Nothing else?”
“Nothing else,” I affirm then backpedal, “I might use you to replace the pillows you stole from my bed.”
I have no qualms about admitting this. Peter used me to win an unknown sum of money. Using him as a human body pillow pales in comparison in my opinion.
He frowns even as he climbs onto the mattress beside me. He also stays above the blankets.
I roll the other way to face him then narrow my eyes. “How am I supposed to use you as a pillow replacement if you are above the covers?”
He doesn’t turn his head to face me. He remains on his back, staring at my ceiling. “I never wanted to be the villain in your story, but you’re making it really hard not to renew that role.”
I squint harder. “What does that mean?”
“If I’m under the blankets with you, I won’t be able to resist touching you,” he admits softly. “You walked away, hating me. I was left behind, missing you.”
His words sound so beautiful, but so did all his others. If I close my eyes, I can instantly transport myself back to the place and time where I discovered they weren’t true.
I scoff. “Touching is a foregone conclusion for my purposes. ”
Finally, he looks at me. His eyes bounce around my face, that permanent frown still on his lips. “Is that what you need?”
“I already told you it is.” My resolve crumbles the longer he fights against it. I should just go sleep in my bathtub. It would be as comfortable as this. “You know I can’t sleep without all my pillows.”
“No.” He shakes his head slightly. “Do you need to use me? Repay me in kind for what you believe I did to you? Is that what you need for closure, or maybe…to forgive me?”
Those ugly words stop me cold. I blink as I replay them over and over in my mind until they’re a swirling, garbled mess that’s just a bunch of nonsensical sounds.
“Elise?” he says, his voice the barest brush that shocks me into the present moment. “I can’t change the past. I can be what you need now, even if it kills me.”
I shake my head then roll over yet again, giving him my back.
“I don’t want to be like you,” I whisper. “I didn’t come here for revenge. I came to do my job.”
My job might be revenge anyway.
As tears slip down my cheeks, I console myself that if Peter gets fired, it will be his own fault. There’s nothing I can do about that now.