Chapter 15
Lennon
When I’ve hidden in my room for as long as I possibly can without it being weird, I venture into the living area. Whatever Connor is cooking smells pretty decent. Rich and savory. Meat that’s been cooked with onions, garlic, and celery.
The scent hits my olfactory bulb and reminds me in no uncertain terms that I skipped lunch.
“Smells good,” I say.
“Thanks. I don’t eat processed food anymore, so I’ve been trying to teach myself to cook.”
Ordinarily, I’d meet a quip like that with the same amount of mistrust as someone claiming to enjoy CrossFit. Given what I know about him, I let it go.
He’s in the kitchen, standing at the counter, slicing tomatoes and painstakingly layering them with mozzarella. Out of habit, I wash my hands, rinse a few stems of fresh basil, and pinch off the best leaves, placing them on the corner of the chopping board he’s using for him to add to the salad.
He accepts my help with a guileless smile. In his world, things like this exist. Strangers stand side by side in small kitchens and cook together, and there’s nothing unusual or untoward about it.
Neither of us says anything, and to my surprise, he doesn’t rush in and attempt to fill the silence. He’s comfortable in my presence. Content with being quiet.
This close, I can smell his hair. A woodsy scent with a hint of cypress and black pepper.
It’s light brown, short at the back and sides, and long enough on top to allow for a subtle wave to curl on his forehead.
From here, his skin looks paler than it does thirty yards away.
It’s milky and smooth, liberally covered in freckles.
Even though the freckles are light, the profusion of them darkens his complexion by at least a shade or two.
He has the kind of skin that probably worried his mother when he was a kid. I bet it had her calling after him to remind him to use sunscreen before he left home in the mornings.
Not that it makes him interesting or memorable. His face is still super forgettable.
“D’you want to sit at the table or on the balcony?” he asks when dinner is ready. There’s a tiny balcony through the double doors near the dining table. It’s so small it barely got a mention during the grand tour of the apartment.
“Table’s fine,” I reply. There isn’t much to look at on the balcony other than the parking lot. Being out there will undoubtedly only make an already awkward meal a lot more awkward.
Connor steps out of the way and motions for me to serve myself. I grab the knife and fork he’s put out on the counter for me and head to the table.
“Drink?” he says. “I have soda, water, or red wine.”
A quick spark of hope flares in me. No, not hope exactly. More like vindication. Justification. “Thought you didn’t drink.”
“I don’t.” He shrugs personably. “I bought the wine for you. Thought it would go well with the pasta. Want me to pour a glass for you?”
I stop moving and turn back toward the kitchen. “I’ll, uh, I’ll pour for myself, thanks.”
“Just so you know,” he says as he sprinkles a pinch of salt on his pasta. “I don’t have a problem with alcohol. I don’t drink for health reasons, so please don’t feel uncomfortable drinking around me.”
“Oh. Good to know,” I say because I don’t know what else to say.
I uncork the wine and find a wine glass in one of the overhead cabinets. He has a selection to choose from. All different colors and heights. Mismatching but cohesive in that they’re all cut crystal and art deco in style. I chose a deep, transparent plum-colored glass.
Coincidentally, it’s the biggest one he owns.
I pour heavily and carry my plate over to the table. He’s seated already, napkin on his lap. A little pottery oil lamp I hadn’t noticed until now has been lit. The flame flickers warmly. Like the hanging lamp in the living area, it feels overly personal.
I consider telling him this is not how students live, but think better of it, in case he starts talking about antiques again. Or worse yet, he remembers he’s under instruction from Anna to take me thrifting tomorrow.
My eyes roam around the room, landing on a photograph on the shelf behind him.
He’s with a group of friends on a football field.
I recognize the jock to his right, with Connor’s arm around him.
They’re with a bunch of other guys I’ve never seen before.
Connor is dressed in full football regalia, or whatever you’d call it—those big shoulder pads, tight pants, and all that.
He’s at least fifteen or twenty pounds heavier than he is now.
He has his helmet in his hand, and his hair is damp and plastered to his forehead.
He’s smiling as big as it is possible for a human being to smile.
I look away quickly and try to think of something to say.
“Thanks for the food,” I say stiffly. “I like Italian.”
“I know. You told me it was your favorite food when we met. I made this for you.”
I feel several things at once on hearing that and find myself unable to decipher the overarching emotion, so I take a big bite of pasta to sidestep the issue.
It’s awful.
Absolutely awful.
The pasta is overcooked to the point of porridge, and the sauce is heavily over-seasoned. A faint, acrid taste of burned garlic permeates the entire concoction.
“Ooh,” he says, reaching for his glass of water. “That’s not what my mom’s tastes like at all.”
“It’s fine,” I lie.
We both manage a few more bites before accepting defeat and resorting to grating some cheese over the leftover pasta and eating that instead.
“How did I fuck up spaghetti?” he mutters to himself. “I followed the recipe to the letter.”
I assume it’s a rhetorical question, not something that demands an answer like, well, you added an insane amount of salt and cooked the living shit out of the garlic and onion, so I arrange my face into an expression I hope conveys mystification.
Unfortunately, the spaghetti debacle lends itself to a conversation about food and whether we’re going to buy food and cook together, or separately. Naturally, my extreme preference would be to go it alone, but before I’m able to say so, Connor suggests we share.
“It makes so much more sense,” he says. “Less waste, more savings if we buy things in bulk. Plus, I’m serious about learning to cook, and as you can see, I need the practice. We can go grocery shopping together, so we get things we both like.”
I have no idea how he thinks going grocery shopping together is a selling point, but my phone is buzzing on the table, causing a loud, hard-to-ignore clatter of aluminum on timber that distracts me. I just know it’s Anna.
“I bet that’s Anna,” he says before I have time to check.
I turn my phone over and tilt the screen toward him to show him that it is indeed Anna.
“Sweet Jesus,” I mutter as I read the message. “She says I have to go to the container store. She says I need storage baskets urgently.”
To be clear, I’ve made it to twenty-four years of age without ever once setting foot into a store that specializes in containers. And I’d very much like to keep it that way.
“What else did she say you needed?”
“More books, a plant, and”—I use both hands to air quote—“‘something unique.’”
“Got it,” says Connor, not in the slightest bit confused about anything on the list. “We can start working on it tomorrow. We’re going thrifting anyway.”
Yup.
The theory that I’m in my own personalized version of hell definitely holds water.
I help clean up, and Connor looks absurdly happy about it. I can almost see a thought bubble above his head that says, “Damn, I’m good at choosing roommates.”
I can’t stand it.
Cracks from the day are beginning to show, and I know myself well enough to know what they’ll bring.
I need to get away from him as soon as possible and be on my own.
I plead exhaustion, ignoring the trace of disappointment I see in his eyes.
I take a long shower, hoping the steam and hot water will relax me, but they don’t.
If anything, they work me up more. Everything in the bathroom feels other.
It doesn’t feel like my place. Like somewhere I belong.
Or somewhere I should be. Everything is neat and clean and smells like Connor.
Not just like his shampoo or body wash. It smells like his skin.
Like his hands and mouth. Like air that’s been in his lungs.
The more I think about it, the more I smell it.
My breathing quickens. Too fast in, too slow out.
Soon, I’m gasping. Doubled over and dizzy. There’s too much air in my lungs and not enough at the same time. My heart races and my conscious thoughts become thin and stretched out.
I need to get out of here, but I don’t want Connor to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.
I don’t want to be like this.
I stay where I am, breathing erratic, lungs burning, until I hear distorted voices in the living room. He must be watching TV. If I make a quick dash, I can probably get to my room without him seeing me.
I open the door as quietly as I can, and walk fast, but not so fast as to draw attention to myself.
“Night,” he calls.
I reply with a collection of consonants that pass for a greeting and close my bedroom door, leaning heavily against it.
I look around in a mix of disbelief and something stronger.
My room is ridiculous. Too empty and too new.
Too bland, too basic, and what the fuck was I thinking with that headboard?
It looks nothing like me. Nothing like the person I used to be.
Even the bedding I chose is wrong. Too black. Not faded or worn at all.
I keep my eyes down in an attempt to avoid the reality of my situation. I’m almost successful, but the haphazard lines of the parquet flooring draw my attention. I follow them until they lead me to the wall behind my bed. The wall with the stupid headboard.
The wall plastered with Havi’s photographs.
I fight it for as long as I possibly can, until my breathing has slowed to nothing. Until I’m lightheaded. Until I have no choice but to let my eyes travel upward.
They land on the photograph in the bottom row of the grid, the one on the far right.
It’s a photo Havi took a few hours after he got his rose tattoo done.
A close-up of the back of his hand. The ink is new and vibrant, shiny, and a little inflamed around the outline of the piece.
In the image, he’s holding his hand up in front of his childhood bedroom window.
In the background, though slightly out of focus, I can make out the back wheel of his old BMX.
He used to chuck it on the grass when he was done riding in those days, instead of using the kickstand. It drove his mom crazy.
Before he got the tattoo, I told him it was a mistake. I said it was too big. Too noticeable. Impossible to hide. He said, “That’s why I want it.”
Seeing his hand on my wall makes me miss him so much that I message him even though I know full well he won’t reply.
Havi
How ’bout this? If you forgive me, I’ll tell you how badly I’m fucking up my life—in detail.
For real, H. This shit is next level. You’ll laugh your ass off.