Chapter 18
18
Needing very much to shower, I head into the stairwell, prepared to seek out my usual sanctuary on one of the lower floors. Then I stop.
Why should I steer clear of Scott? Why should I go downstairs while he enjoys the convenience of showering on our floor?
Not today , I decide. Not when I’m obviously winning our endless competition right now. He only has the memory of losing out on the obstacle course, while I have the dreamiest scavenger-hunting partner I could want.
Scott has come close to ruining my time here, hasn’t he? Well, now I don’t mind ruining his shower.
I spin on my heel and march to the bathroom on my own floor. Inside, sure enough, I recognize Scott’s towel hanging on the hook outside the first shower stall, the one I remember wrapped around his waist when we had our inconvenient first run-in here.
We’re the only people in the steam-filled room. Without my barging right into his shower, however, Scott won’t know I’m in here, especially when I’ve avoided this bathroom for days.
While I want to gloat, I don’t want to just speak up. No, I want Scott to want to know why I’m in ebullient spirits. Then I’ll nonchalantly volunteer the information. Obviously.
So I do the mature thing. When I get into the hot water of my own shower, I start to sing.
Years of choir in school have made me melodious enough to hum the tune of “Since U Been Gone.” While I’m not exactly ready for Carnegie Hall, I don’t care. I’m enjoying myself. There’s no embarrassing me today. I met a hot guy while covered in mud and fighting with my rival. I’m past embarrassment. I’m embarrassment-proof!
However, I earn no response from Scott. He ignores me for several minutes. Undeterred, I continue. Only when the water coming off me is running mud-free down the drain does Scott speak up.
“Not sure why you’re in such a good mood,” he comments gruffly. “You lost.”
I smile to myself, then speak over the hiss of the showers. “You did see my roommate, right?”
Honestly, Scott couldn’t possibly have set me up more perfectly. He grumbles something I can’t hear over the water.
“What was it you said about reality not living up to fantasy? I think it’s objectively clear Erik is the fantasy,” I point out. “ And he’s my roommate. I don’t need to project anything to make that into a fantasy. Thank you so much for turning down my offer of friendship. Imagine if I let you wear me down until I was as miserable as you and unable to appreciate this moment.”
He humphs once more. I’m ready to encore my Kelly Clarkson performance when he interjects. “Two things,” he starts.
I find myself once more envisioning our emails. Two things . It’s very Scott. The eleven-point Calibri, Arial’s playful cousin and Outlook’s former-default, would precede numbered items 1. and 2. For ease of organization , Scott would say. To look tight-assed and ultraorganized , I would amend.
“First, I’m not miserable,” he says.
“Well, you’re miserable to be around—”
“And second, you think if we’d become friends, I would have snuffed out your romantic idealism? I thought your hope was made of stronger stuff.”
Hm. Didn’t intend that implication. “You missed the point of my statement,” I insist, withdrawing from the stream of the shower and sticking my head out. “Imagine I’m putting it in bold and underlining it in an email to Harrison. Erik is the fantasy ,” I reply.
I don’t dare wonder whether I hear him chuckle. Executive Manager Emeritus John D. Harrison, whose job specifics nobody really understands, is—ironically, in publishing—not known for his reading comprehension. Important points in emails require every possible emphasis.
“Please.” Scott matches me, sticking his head out enough to meet my eyes, his hair slicked back. “Tell me how your romance with Erik is going to go. Will you talk long past midnight in your common room, making the hours feel like minutes with everything you have in common? Will you do every activity and spend every meal together, not wanting to be apart even for a moment? Will you make love on your twin bed when the sexual tension in your room becomes irresistible?”
I glare. It’s important he see no change in my expression, none whatsoever, at him saying make love .
“I think all of that is very possible. As long as he’s not as miserable as you,” I finally declare.
He holds my gaze. “ I could never be your fantasy. Of course,” he states. I can’t help hearing the edge in his voice. Unexpected and sharp.
“Exactly,” I exhale.
Scott’s eyes flash.
“You have soap on your ear,” he says.
Furious, I withdraw my head. I wash the soap off, and when I’m confident I’ve resolved the unfortunate ear situation, inspiration comes. In weekly meetings, some of my most successful rebuttals of Scott’s skepticism for my proposals have come from asking him the very same shrewd questions he puts to me. “What’s your fantasy relationship like, Scott?” I inquire.
“I don’t do that,” he replies immediately.
No. No way will I give him the easy out . I stick my head out of the shower once more. “You don’t fantasize?” I ask, my question heavy with incredulity.
Never one to withdraw from conflict—as I expected—Scott follows my lead, sticking his head out again. “Of course I do, when it comes to physical fantasies,” he says, in the driest intonation anyone has ever used for the words physical fantasies . “Who doesn’t?”
I cannot stop the stray thought that invades my head. Just what are Scott’s fantasies in the bedroom?
“But otherwise, I don’t daydream,” he says, issuing the final word with unmissable disdain. “I live in the moment. In what’s real.”
His eyes couldn’t possibly skim down my exposed skin when he says what’s real . He couldn’t possibly linger in the echo of his words while his gaze hangs on to me. No, when Scott withdraws his head abruptly into his shower, I’m one hundred percent certain he means only judgment.
I do the same. Has the shower water gotten hotter in the past few seconds? It couldn’t possibly have.
Desperate, I grasp onto the fight we’re in the midst of. I have to win this argument, I decide with sudden vengeance. I have to prove that fantasies are worth holding on to.
I have the perfect evidence waiting for me in my dorm, I remember. “Erik is an actor,” I say pointedly over the water. Pausing, I prepare to play my ace—or whatever the champion card is in Demoniaca. I found the workshop very hard to follow. “ And he’s a huge Elytheum fan,” I announce.
Scott laughs. I hear nothing warm in the sound.
“Well, as long as he’s a huge Elytheum fan,” Scott repeats sarcastically. “Might as well save the wedding venue now. In fact, this campus would work. You could do a whole Elytheum-themed wedding.”
“Maybe we will!” I retort.
Our voices have increased in volume, echoing in the harsh acoustics of the room much louder than the water. “You clearly have so much in common,” Scott comments, heavy with patronization.
“We have Elytheum,” I protest.
“ And? ” Scott asks.
“Does there need to be an and ?” I shoot back in frustration. If you don’t share each other’s passions, your connection is like calling an impressive pile of wood a fire. It’s missing one important piece—the fire.
Whereas a fire is…a fire. No matter how small, fraught, or hidden.
Of course, Scott douses mine. He laughs ruefully.
“Did you even have a real conversation with this guy? I know it’s not the stuff fantasies are made of, but real relationships are built on getting to know someone beneath what’s on the surface,” he says.
“I know what real relationships are,” I snap. Enough , I want to say. Scott proclaiming himself the authority on real life and real relationships is comical when he’s literally here because he can’t keep a girlfriend.
Nevertheless, while I would prefer rolling into another river over admitting it to Scott, his words have struck a nerve. Erik…didn’t ask me any questions about myself, did he? My introduction to my eye-catching roommate suddenly seems insubstantial and one-sided. What if it was only fireworks, not fire?
What’s more, what about my fantasies of Val himself? Not Experience Val— Val Val. When I’m daydreaming, the Lord of Night isn’t asking how my day was, or wanting to know about my family or my childhood, or encouraging me in my work, or…everything else the person I love should do.
Scott shuts off his water. Pulled from my contemplation, I shut off mine.
We step out simultaneously, wrapped in our towels. Scott’s eyes meet mine, the emotion in them clouded like the steam-fogged mirror. “I don’t think you do know,” he declares.
I swallow. I have nothing to say, not when I’m focusing every filament of myself on keeping my eyes from dipping to his naked chest. Glistening, no doubt, with shower water…The towel he’s holding carelessly up with one hand…
I should have used the downstairs showers.
He steps closer. In the narrow space, only about a foot separates us. The humidity is intense. Or, I’m pretty sure it’s the humidity. Yes, definitely—the damnable heat is only from the shower water.
Not Scott’s face, inches from mine. In a hazy, weakened corner of my mind, I wonder if this is one of his fantasies. In a public restroom.
Or maybe it’s only one of mine.
His gaze wanders to the towel I’m clutching around myself. Refusing to resist like I did, evidently. From the look in his eyes, I know I’m not the only one with humidity-haunted memories. “I think if you knew what a real relationship was,” he grinds out, “you would realize what I’ve known all along.”
“What?” I whisper. “That I’m incapable of love or happiness or whatever?”
I intend the question to come out hissed. Instead, I only sound husky with need. I guess I need to practice my whisper like Scott did with his eyebrow. I’ll need my own notebook, no doubt. Details for Demonesses .
Scott’s eyes flash. There’s no fantasy-hero flourish when he speaks.
“The real thing can be so much better than anything you can imagine,” he says. “Better than any fantasy.”
His quiet conviction startles me. He isn’t chastising or making fun. The strangled note in his voice echoes formlessly, like a cry in the fog.
My mouth goes dry. “Then why are you here?” I get out.
Scott’s expression falters, the look of a man wrestling with his own contradictions. I would have had sympathy for him, once.
He reaches up.
Whether out of instinct or desire, I know what he’s doing. I feel his intention. The promise of the movement. His hand nears my face, like he’s going to caress my cheek or my forehead or—
Instead, he stops, his hand in midair. I ignore the shocking pull of want.
I force myself to remember what got me here. “Maybe you need to stop settling, Scott,” I say. “It’s okay to want more from life. From love. Dare to fantasize. Don’t close yourself off to it.”
It’s the end of the final chapter. The end of this argument. The end of all our arguments, maybe. I start to leave.
Scott grabs my elbow. I only just manage to keep my towel from falling. Startled—with his grip yearning on my skin—I look up.
“I shouldn’t have rejected you,” Scott replies. “I’m realizing our friendship could have been… interesting. ”
My mouth drops open. The steam-filled restroom suddenly feels far away. Like we really have entered some other realm. Not fantasy, exactly. Just not reality, either.
I say nothing, daring to search the storm in his eyes. Fuck the final chapter , his expression says. I have a rogue imagination, and in the literal heat of the moment, I’m pretty sure he’s going to pull me to him and kiss me—only our towels separating us, and perhaps not even—until he lets me go.
“I hope Erik is everything you dream of,” he goes on. “Goodnight, Jennifer.”
He walks out, leaving me reeling. I exhale, shuddering out my surprise. No matter the harshness of his words, I felt the undercurrent in them. He wasn’t just furious or judgmental. He spoke like someone who…wanted. He isn’t the final chapter. He’s ripped it out.
I stand in the steam, no longer certain of the ending, clutching the place on my elbow where his fingers had held me.