13 Sloane
March 2017
At first, no contact seems impossible, like quitting an addiction cold turkey. There’s no slowly weaning yourself off of them. One day you have them, and the next day it’s like they don’t exist.
As time goes on, you start to remember your life before them. You stop reaching for your phone when you see something that reminds you of them. You take the songs that they showed you off of your playlist. Eventually, you start to forget them completely.
One month without contact, and I was becoming a different person. Winter had slowly turned into spring, and the extra freckles I got from the sun were starting to come out again. I had stories Ethan had never heard and memories he wasn’t present for. One month without contact. and I was finally starting to feel okay again.
Lauren was dragging me to Pike’s formal. Last week I’d put up a fight because I wasn’t sure that I was ready to see Ethan yet, but I realized I had to stop putting my life on pause for someone who was no longer a part of it. Usually, formal was a whole weekend down in Savannah, but since the chapter was on probation, fraternity standards required them to host an event monitored by the university.
“Think of it this way—running into him at formal is better than running into him at a bar. Here you’ll have a date to distract you. Plus, Reese is hot. That never hurts.” Lauren winked.
“Fine, you’re right, I guess. Which shoes?” I held up two pairs of heels.
“Black. You can never go wrong with an all-black moment.”
“Ladies, you ready?” Graham knocked before entering.
We took a group tequila shot before heading to the bus pickup lot. The closer we got to campus, the more uneasy I started to feel. All I needed to do was make sure I didn’t throw up or cry when I saw Ethan. Simple enough.
When the pledge driver pulled up, the parking lot was already full of people. Luckily, no sign of Ethan as far as I could tell. My stomach started to feel uneasy, but I did my best to hold it together.
“Let’s find Reese,” Graham said. “Sloane, you’ve met him before, right?”
“A few times,” I replied.
“He’s cool. Good guy,” he assured me.
“Reese!” Lauren waved him down.
Reese Thompson was tall, well over six feet. He had short hair that was dirty blond, and I could tell he had recently shaved, though he didn’t look like the type that grew much facial hair. When Graham gave me the lowdown on Reese, I learned he should’ve graduated last year but had to stay for an extra semester after he missed a few credits.
“You made it!” Reese reached out to side-hug me. “Ready to get wasted?”
“Am I ever,” Lauren replied, grabbing a water bottle full of vodka from Graham’s back pocket, proceeding to pass it around.
I scanned the crowd one more time for any sign of Ethan before we piled onto the party bus. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all. I felt myself begin to relax and start to try and enjoy the night. It was a little over a forty-minute ride to the venue, but thankfully we brought plenty of roadies. I took a seat halfway through the drive, and by the time I stood up to get off the bus, I could feel the Smirnoff rush through my entire body. Vodka was never my friend.
“Woah there.” Reese grabbed my arm and helped me balance. “I’ve got you. Let’s go inside.” He took my hand and guided me off the bus, which I was thankful for because I wasn’t sure I could feel my legs.
“This is a really nice place,” I observed.
I expected the restaurant to be a slight step up from our usual dive bars but was surprised to see white tablecloths, a live band, and a buffet with chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks. It reminded me of a low-budget wedding planned by a former fraternity event chair. Reese gripped my hand tightly and led me to the bar, where a huge line had already formed. I wrapped my hands around his forearm to keep my balance. From the back of the crowd, I could see Lauren and Graham had almost made their way to the front.
“Should we cut the line?” I asked.
“It’ll move fast; they have four bartenders,” he said. “Are you ready for graduation?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied. “I’m still not sure what I’m doing.”
“It’ll happen; you still have plenty of time. I’m moving to New York right after finals.” Reese was trying to make conversation with me in the middle of the loud and crowded bar. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was interested in me, wanted to sleep with me, or was just being nice. Either way, I played along.
“Oh yeah, I think Graham mentioned that. I love New York. It’s always been a dream of mine to move there and become a writer.”
“What kind of writer?”
“I don’t know. I just love to write.” I shrugged, not wanting to get into it.
“Well, if you do end up in the city, I’m sure you’ll love it. I’ve interned there every summer since freshman year and never want to leave. Well, once I move there in August, anyway. I finally got offered a full-time role when I left this past summer.”
I listened to Reese as he told me about his new boss, the apartment he and another fraternity brother signed a lease for, and his favorite spots there to go out after work. As we got closer to the front of the line, I became less and less interested in what he had to say. I looked across the bar to see if there was a drink menu or specials. I reached over to the girl next to me to grab a laminated card from under someone’s hand, accidentally brushing it.
“Can I see this?” I said, looking up at the person whose hand was resting on the cocktail menu.
Our eyes met and my stomach dropped.
“Oh, sorry,” I quickly replied.
“All good, you can have it.” Ethan lifted his arm off the bar, and I watched his eyes glance over at Reese. I grabbed the menu and quickly turned back around.
“What do you want?” Reese asked.
“Vodka soda, please,”
“Two double vodka sodas,” he ordered.
I tried to enjoy the night with Reese. Even though when my incoherent mind could form thoughts, the only thing I could think about was Ethan.
***
Like most mornings after I drank, my head was pounding and my mouth was dry. I managed to open my eyes to the sight of gray striped bedsheets and a Carolina Panthers poster on the wall adjacent to me. Whoever’s bedroom I was in, I was semifamiliar with it.
I turned over, and there was Reese, lying on his back, breathing so heavily it could’ve been confused with light snoring. I inched my way out of the covers and down to the foot of the bed without waking him and tiptoed to the bathroom. The toilet paper roll was empty, which seemed unlike him. I searched around for a second before I decided to just give up. I’d thought if these guys went out with the intentions of bringing home a girl, they’d at least ensure it was a place she’d feel comfortable in. Or maybe that was what they did when they didn’t want them to return. Either way, I had to get out of there. Quietly, I made my way out of the bathroom and searched Reese’s room for any sign of my phone or purse.
“Morning,” he said groggily. “Do want me to take you home?”
Shit. I woke him up.
“It’s okay. Once I find my phone, I can call an Uber or Lauren.”
“Your stuff is on the coffee table downstairs. You fell asleep on the couch last night, and I put you here. I offered to take the couch, but you told me to sleep here. I’m not sure how much you remember…” He trailed off.
“No, totally, I remember,” I lied. “Thanks so much. Sorry that I got drunk; I shouldn’t have pregamed so hard.”
“Seriously, just let me drive you.” He got out of bed in just a pair of boxers. His body was more toned than I expected.
“Here.” I handed him a T-shirt that was hanging on the back of his desk chair. “I’ll grab my stuff and wait in the hall.”
The car ride home was silent.
“This is me.” I pointed to building number three.
“Would you want to get dinner sometime this week?” he asked.
“Oh, um,” I stuttered.
“Why don’t you put your number in here, and you can just think about it?” He handed me his phone. I did as he asked and placed it back in the cup holder.
“Thanks again for driving me.”
“No problem.”
I got out of his car and headed towards the stairs without looking back. I made it into the apartment without running into Ethan, which I considered a win.
Lauren catapulted from the couch as I shut the door. “Oh my god, look, it’s our ghost bestie—finally haunting us with her presence!” She threw her arms in the air dramatically.
“We were about to send out a search party. Are you good?” Jordan seemed concerned for once.
“I got a little too drunk. Reese took me back to his place so I could sleep. Somewhere along the way my phone died. Sorry for the scare!”
“Did you guys hook up?” Lauren asked.
“Are you into him?” Jordan followed.
Still in my dress from the night before, I sank into the couch, feeling the weight of their stares.
“No, we didn’t hook up. Reese is nice, and yeah, there’s an attraction,” I confessed. “But I’m not there yet, not really,” I murmured, resting my head on Lauren’s shoulder, seeking solidarity.
As much as I wanted to be over Ethan and move on, seeing him last night only reminded me that I wasn’t.
Jordan, scrolling through her phone, dropped a bombshell casually. “Ethan was asking about you and Reese,” she said, her eyes not leaving the screen.
“Jordan!” Lauren hissed.
My head snapped up. “He was? Laur, why weren’t you going to tell me that?”
Lauren’s sigh was heavy. “You’ve been doing so well. I didn’t want Ethan’s…whatever it is, to mess with your head. He noticed you with Reese while he was there stag, and I think it caught him off guard.”
“He didn’t bring a date?” I lit up inside.
“Yep. But don’t read into it, Sloane,” Lauren warned, but the caution in her tone couldn’t cancel out the relief that washed over me.
A bit of frustration quickly followed though. I didn’t want Ethan to think I’d moved on so easily, or at all. I wanted him, not Reese; if only he knew that…
I stood up, stretching. “I need to charge my phone and wash off the night,” I declared, walking to my room.
“We’re going to get bagels. Want your usual?” Jordan offered.
“Definitely.”
I connected my phone to the charger, its battery as drained as I felt, and then headed for my ultimate hangover cure: an ice-cold shower. After those ten minutes of torture were over, I wrapped myself in a towel and checked my inbox, eager to see what messages awaited me.
10:15 p.m.
Lauren Ellis:Did you leave??
10:45 p.m.
Jordan Coleman:Where are you?!
12:07 a.m.
Ethan Brady:Hey
9:58 a.m.
Unknown:Hey, it’s Reese!
Seeing his name in my inbox felt comfortable, like life was back to normal again, though I knew it wasn’t. I knew the right thing to do was leave Ethan on read and go on that date with Reese. Why is it always so hard to do the right thing? I wrote back to Ethan and left Reese unanswered for now. When it came to Ethan I had absolutely no self-control, and the sad part was, I think he knew that.
***
An hour later, we were sitting in his car—the same place he’d broken my heart only a few weeks ago.
“I guess I’ll just go for it,” Ethan started. “This thing between us scares me. I don’t know how to deal with it. I thought that ending things with you was the right thing to do, for both of us. But when I saw you with someone else…I realized I didn’t want that. I know you deserve more than what I can give you, but I owe it to us to at least try.”
Relief washed over me, and a smile emerged on my face.
“I still need to take things slow. No title yet, okay? I’m not saying we won’t get there; I just don’t think we need to rush into it.”
I didn’t care that I was settling for a fraction of a relationship with him when I knew I deserved so much more. I was willing to settle for whatever he would give me, because a fraction of him was better than nothing at all.
I reentered the apartment dreading having to explain where I had been. It wasn’t that the girls didn’t like Ethan; it was that they didn’t like what he was doing to me. Stringing me along was what they liked to call it. They didn’t know him the way I did though. I knew that he wanted to try; he just said it himself. I could tell that he was scared that he’d fail, or he wouldn’t live up to my standards. None of that mattered though, because what he didn’t know was that I was already in love with him. I was afraid to tell him, because once I did, it would be game over. That was the only move I had left, and I wanted to keep it in my back pocket.
“Where’d you just go?” Lauren was sitting at the counter doing schoolwork.
“Ethan and I talked,” I said sheepishly.
“Sloane!” Jordan inserted herself into the conversation without moving from the couch. “We just talked about this!”
“He texted me a few times last night, and I didn’t see them until earlier because my phone was dead. I just wanted to hear what he had to say.”
“So…what did he have to say?” Lauren asked.
“The TLDR is that he wants to try again. I feel bad for him. I know this is all new to him, and me I guess, and I feel like I put a lot of pressure on us. We’re going to take it slow and try to work up to a relationship.”
“Come on. Do you hear yourself? A relationship isn’t supposed to be this hard. Sure, every couple has arguments and makes compromises but the lead-up shouldn’t be this long. He should know what he wants, and if he doesn’t, maybe that should be a sign that it’s not you.”
I knew she was trying to protect me, but those words cut deep. While I’d never been one to get angry with Lauren, that instance was the closest I had ever come.
“I’m sorry, I know that sounds harsh. All I’m trying to say is that you need to stop losing your mind over someone who doesn’t mind losing you.”
“He does know what he wants; he just doesn’t know how to give it to me.”
“And that’s any better? Why him? What’s so special about Ethan?”
“I wish I could put it into words. I think he’s my first love, which sounds weird because I’m twenty-two. For a while I thought I loved Carter, but the more I thought about it, what I had with him wasn’t love. It was an attachment. He was just a distraction when I needed it the most.
“Things with Ethan are different though,” I continued. “Right off the bat, I knew there was chemistry between us, and then it started to grow into this confusing but sort of beautiful connection. He’s the first person that I’ve ever been this close to, and I know that’s not saying much, but to me it’s something.”
“We want you to be happy,” Jordan cut in.
“Seeing you hurt just hurts us,” Lauren said. “I’m all for second chances, but he better not fuck it up again.”
And I completely agreed with her.