Chapter Seven #2
Clementine: Of course. Is everything okay? Is it my mom?
Mike Stanwell: No, no. She’s doing great. It’s nothing major, but if you have a minute.
A relieved sigh escapes me and I give him a call.
“Hey,” Mike answers on the first ring.
“Hi,” I say, a little sheepish. The whole point of sexting is the lack of actual conversation. “What’s up?”
Mike sighs from the other side of the phone.
It sounds defeated. Maybe a little regretful.
My heartbeat picks up like I’ve done something wrong.
Outside, in the sliver of window between the thick curtains, I can just make out dim streetlights.
I slip out of bed and toe my feet into hotel slippers. “Mike?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he says. “Listen, Clementine, this is going to sound…” His voice drifts off as if he’s debating his next words.
“Sound…?”
“Dumb, maybe. But that text kind of sucked.”
Even alone in the dark expanse of the sterile hotel room, my eyes widen as if I could share my shock with someone else. “Oh. I thought—”
“I know. And I haven’t done anything to stop you thinking it, so I take full responsibility for that. But, I don’t know, ever since you left…” He sighs again. I pace as I listen—I’ve never heard him sigh this much. “I miss you a lot more than I expected to.”
My mouth is too dry. The water bottle by my bedside is empty, and there’s only one left in the mini fridge that I know Molly will need come tomorrow morning.
“I guess I got used to you always being around, you know? And then I tried calling you two days ago…”
I’m starting to feel anxious. I need water. Grabbing my room key and credit card, I slip out into the blindingly bright hallway, phone still pressed to my ear. I know there’s a vending machine around one of these corners.
“But you’re just so busy now…I’ve been the first one to text you four times in a row. And yes, I’m ashamed that I’m counting.”
The maze of hallways is endless and I’m beginning to regret not putting on a bra or taking the star-shaped pimple patches off my forehead. Thankfully I round another corner and spy the ice machine sign, and next to that—
Bingo. Vending machine.
“…and then that text tonight…I just have to know if you could ever see me again as something more than a friend that you fuck?”
I stop just shy of the soda array. “Whoa.”
“Sorry.” Another sigh. Some kind of record, I’m sure. “Probably could have phrased it better. What I’m trying to say is—I still have feelings for you. I’m sorry if that makes everything awkward.”
How had I missed the signs that Mike was hurting? And that I was contributing to that? “No, I’m sorry. I was totally selfish.”
“No, no, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That Clementine thing. Where you just want everyone to be happy.”
“But I do want you to be happy.”
“Damnit, Clementine.”
I hold the phone tighter against my ear. “I don’t— I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Just tell me the truth. Could you see us getting back together? Do you really want to be alone your whole life? I don’t know…Maybe we should stop talking for a little while.”
Silence as Mike breathes on the other end.
Gathering patience, perhaps. I am giving one of my only two friends a mental hernia.
But I have no idea how to answer him. I don’t want to be in a relationship with Mike.
Not only for the unavoidable end, but also the beginning, and the…
middle. I just don’t want to be with him like that.
I liked our arrangement as it was. Though clearly, that’s over now.
But I also don’t want to lose him. He matters to me. He matters to my mom—
The vending machine and its bright colors mock me as I try to string the right words together. “I don’t have the answers for you. I wish I did…What I do know is I never should’ve tried to sext you. It was insensitive.”
Mike grunts on the other end of the line. It’s possible he’s kicked something, but I can’t tell. “It’s not like I told you how I felt.”
“I should have known.”
“Of course you didn’t. You assume everyone is as anti-feelings as you are. And I was the one to initiate that first time so…I just…I care about you so much. You know I do. I don’t want to be your booty call.”
Guilt heats my skin. I tuck my still-damp hair behind my ears. “I hear you. It won’t happen again.”
“When you get back we can talk more. About getting back together, or whatever else you might want. From me. From us. If anything.”
“Yeah,” I say, voice tightening. I hate this so much. I want this to be over. “For sure.”
“I’m gonna hit the hay. Good night, Clementine.”
“Night.” Now I’m the one sighing. “Sorry again.”
The line goes dead and I try to buy my useless water but the vending machine only takes cash, and I have none.
I press my forehead into the fluorescent blue plastic.
Unsatisfied, I audibly groan at all my incredible stupidity.
How come it’s okay when Mike wants to fool around, but when I do I’m using him?
Why am I so bad at human relationships? I feel like an alien.
“A lad bereft to be sexted. Now, that’s somethin’ you don’t witness every day.”
If I was red with embarrassment before, all that color has now drained from my face into a rosy pool on the floor.
I spin to face the voice I already know.
Halloran.