Chapter 20
“How did we meet again?” Hayden asks.
I snap back to reality, wrenching my eyes away from the rhythmic jump and fall of Hayden’s heartbeat on the monitor. It’s hypnotic. What did he ask? Right, how did we meet? Well…okay, so what did I tell Mom last night when I promised I’d be honest. Right!
“At Woodsy,” I tell him without any further explanation.
I know he’s searching for more. He’s looking for the moment one of us made a move and asked the other out, what possessed him to date a curly haired runt of a they, what made him choose me. Sorry, Hayden, but what you’re looking for never happened.
“Yeah, but like, you know…” His words drift off for a second as he considers how to say it. I focus on his carefully constructed messy hair. He looks more like the Hayden I remember today. “How’d we start dating? Did I ask you out? I feel like I would have asked you out.”
“I…” I start, not sure whether I’m about to admit it all and tear down this facade, but he keeps talking when I pause too long and saves me from it—for now.
“Yeah, I bet I asked you out,” he says. “I’m always the one to ask girls out, and you’re…you know…uh…”
“Girly?” I squint. It wouldn’t be the first time someone said it, not like it bothers me.
I like my feminine side. Oh my gods, but on the other hand, please don’t tell me he’s one of those hyper-masculine dudes who think girls and femmes are helpless and have to be led.
You can be queer and still think that unfortunately. Puke, nasty!
“Yeah.” He shrugs nervously.
I think he thinks he hit a nerve, which is sort of funny. He swallows and starts talking again immediately.
“I don’t mean you’re too girly or anything, or that a girl couldn’t ask me out.
But you’re a guy, I mean…fuck…a non-binary person and more feminine, and I figure I’d be…
” He stops and huffs. His eyes are rolled up, looking at the ceiling for a full second before he looks at me again.
It’s all I can do not to giggle. “I’m not doing this well, am I? ”
“No.” I shake my head and laugh. It’s sort of cute seeing him like this. Endearing, even. Him being the nervous one and not me, finally, is refreshing.
“So how did we start dating?”
He is persistent though.
The correct answer is, We didn’t. I made it up because of a stupid spell I did and then my nurse friend told your family we were dating.
I did sort of tell her that, so that’s not her fault, and I really wanted it at the time—oh wow, at the time, I never thought I’d say that—and your entire family was staring me down.
I wasn’t thinking, and agreed. I was being absurd and I shouldn’t have done it.
I should have told the truth. I’m so sorry!
“You asked me out at the shop.” I punch myself mentally. What am I doing? Am I trying to be an asshole now? “But our first date wasn’t until like a week later. I was too scared, and you had to ask twice.”
“Oh.” He grins.
I was too scared? Ugh, no. And you had to ask twice? What’s with that? What am I doing? Trying to make a cute romance story out of it? Sure, he used to make my knees go weak and I didn’t know what to say when he’d come in for his coffee, but I’m better than that. Why would I say that?
“Yeah. You took me to dinner. Uh…we went to, uh…” Gods, where would we have gone? Quick, what did I tell Mom? Shit! I don’t remember. “Taco Bell.”
Shit! That wasn’t it!
“Taco Bell?” Hayden angles his head and scrunches his nose. “I took you to Taco Bell on our first date?”
“Yeah, it’s my favorite restaurant.” It’s actually the truth, for once, even if it’s not my stomach’s favorite. I keep my head upright and focused on him despite the urge to drop it in shame.
“O-kay. Guess that makes sense. I don’t like Taco Bell. I mean I guess you already knew that,” he says.
“Yeah.” I fake laugh. Oh my gods! “It was super sweet of you though. Not liking it and all, but taking me there anyway. And then we went to the Harrel House and we got spooked, and you thought I was horrified, and you kissed me.”
I hate myself with every single word that comes out of my mouth.
That’s not his memory. It’s not our memory.
It isn’t his to have or to think. It’s mine.
Mine and Zachary’s. Mine and his brother’s.
I fight back the urge to close my eyes and sigh in defeat.
Why can’t I just stop talking? Get out of my head, Zachary!
“So we had a good first date,” he says, but I bet the thought of kissing me sort of makes him ill. “Wish I could remember it. I don’t even remember thinking about asking you out, or liking you before this.”
Oh wow. That was very honest. I didn’t need to know that. I mean I guess I did know it, but like, I didn’t need to hear it directly from him. That’s how he really feels, how he feels about me. I’m nothing. He’s bi and I was still never an option.
The thought spears through my mind, clashing with my heart and fracturing it into tiny pieces.
Still, my mind conjures images of Hayden kissing me in the Harrel House, his face superimposed over Zach’s.
It’s uncomfortable and off-putting, but I’m not sure if it’s because of what he just said or because of how it really happened.
It’s the kiss I’d always dreamt of, the moment I’d wanted, but it feels more like a nightmare.
Why would I want that from someone who thinks of me that way, even if they don’t see it?
“Yeah,” I grunt. I don’t want to say anything else. It’s become too unpleasant. I don’t feel like trying right now. Not anymore.
“I’ll have to take you to Taco Bell.” He makes a puking face, laughs, and continues, “When I get out of here. It shouldn’t be long either. The doc said maybe a few days.”
“Oh really?” I refuse to respond to the date comment, even if I do giggle as genuinely as I can manage at his “funny” face.
“I don’t want to be rude, but…” He trails off, and all I can think is you don’t want to be rude, but what? You’re going to be anyway? “My friends are coming by soon, and uh…I’m assuming they don’t…you know…know…about us? I’m assuming we hadn’t told anyone.”
From the look on his face, I’m not holding back the boiling feeling of betrayal and astonishment as well as I think. Everything is brewing together into a heaping mess, and it’s literally all I can do to force a grin and nod.
“Maybe they do. And sorry for breaking the news to your family,” I blurt.
“No, I didn’t mean it like—”
I throw my hand up and stretch my neck.
“Don’t. I’ll be okay,” I say. It’s like we’re genuinely having a couples fight in the middle of the hospital, even though we’re not a couple. Not a real one, at least.
How do you just assume we’ve not told anyone? I mean we hadn’t. There’s no we did anything, but that’s not the point. That was brazen.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Hayden says as I get up and start toward the door.
Weeks ago I would have melted to the floor in a heap of hot, embarrassed putty had he called me baby.
I would have literally let him do or say whatever the hell he wanted.
He could have gotten away with murder in front of my very eyes, and I would have said nothing.
But now, with his clear distaste for me?
Hearing it now, my stomach drops like a massive weight into my bowels and twists my insides in nauseating knots while I fight the reflex to gag.
I’m so glad I’m facing away from him so he can’t see the disgust on my face.
“It’s okay,” I say without turning, and march into the hallway.
I don’t think my timing could have been better. The moment I pass the nurse’s station, a group of unruly, ugly, tall, acne-covered boys in letter jackets stampede past me. I know where they’re going without even looking.
Why did I think he would be different? Was it his pretty face? That disarming smile? The kindness that seemed to seep from his eyes when he entered the store? Or was it some fake idea of him I had in my mind? Or was it because I thought it could only ever be a fantasy?
I press the elevator button and fidget with my fingers while I watch the numbers tick off closer and closer to the fifth floor. I notice my foot is jumping, so I slap it to the ground and blow out a deep breath. The familiar arrival ding sounds. I just want to get home and—
The elevator doors slide open and Zach steps out. He freezes when he finally notices me, his feet like a statue on the threshold.
“Hi.” Zach grins.
“Hey,” I practically growl despite the surprise, and push past him into the confines of the little box.
“You okay?” He moves out of my way and away from the elevator, giving me some space.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I spit back as the doors slide together.
His eyes don’t leave me until the doors have closed, and that’s when I let it all sink in—the enormous mistake I made, not just in the lie that started everything, but in thinking I knew anything about Hayden.
I imagined his whole personality. It was a fiction of my own making. An illusion I couldn’t unsee until now.
I swallow the lump in my throat, let a tear form in the corner of my eye, and let the tremors loose.