83 Ginger
83
Ginger
I reread the sentence for the fifth time, making sure it was perfect and that each word expressed exactly what I wanted to say. Then I looked up when I heard a knock at my door and saw Kate peeking in. She looked nervous.
“You’ve got a visitor, Ginger.”
“Let them in.”
“Okay…” She looked a little unsure. Turning her head, she stuck her head back in through the crack in the door. “I’ll be smoking on the balcony.”
“Sure. No worries.” I got up.
Then I saw him. I watched him walk like a hurricane through the door of my office, a lazy smile on his face, his blond hair uncombed, in worn jeans that slid off his hips as he took step after step toward me. He stretched out his arms. For a few seconds, I froze, paralyzed, knees on the verge of giving out. It had been almost a year since I’d seen him, and… I still wasn’t ready. Especially not now. This was the moment when I was least ready.
“What’s up, Ginger Snap? Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“I…” I brought a hand to my chest. “Rhys…”
Finally, I reacted. I ran toward him and hugged him. I felt his hand on my head, my cheek on his hard chest, his minty aroma enveloping us amid a rush of memories and shared secrets, moments frozen in time, nights in front of the keyboard.
I pulled away and looked at him. He was thinner, he had bags under his eyes, but he was still every bit as handsome as I remembered, eyes glimmering, with that special way of leaning down to bridge the distance that always separated us. I don’t know…he was just him. Darkness and light at the same time. Dazzling and also the opaquest person I’d ever known.
“Have I changed that much? You’re looking at me weird.”
“No. Not at all. You’re the same as always. You’re…fantastic.”
“You, on the other hand…” He stepped back and examined me. “You look different in that suit. You cut your hair. You never told me.”
“I just haven’t had any time lately…”
“I know. It looks good. You look great.”
“Thanks.” I gulped. I was nervous.
Rhys reached up to touch the tips of my hair. Then he stroked my chin and cheek, and we looked each other in the eye. We were both full of longing, memories, desires. I closed my eyes and felt his fingers rubbing my lips, tracing their outline, making me tremble.
He groaned.
And kissed me. Kissed me intensely.
Our mouths united in a kind of fury. Starved. Something quivered in my chest, something good and bad at the same time. All I still felt for him, all I’d always felt, fighting against what had to be. I shook from pleasure and sorrow. Rhys picked me up and sat me on the desk. His hands were wild as they sought me out, grasping my legs, trying to unbutton my blouse.
I held my breath. Not even two minutes had passed since he entered my office after a year’s absence, and already he’d turned my world upside down, making my skin burn as it touched his. Worse: before we had even touched.
I laid my quivering hands on his chest.
“Ginger… Ginger…” He kissed me again.
“Wait, Rhys. I can’t. Not now.”
He stepped back. I could see the incomprehension in the gray of his eyes as I tried to quickly button the blouse he had almost torn open. I slid off my desk and stood there leaning against it, hands clutching its edge, not wanting him to see me shaking.
“What’s up, Ginger?”
“This isn’t how it works.” I glared at him now. I was furious—furious at him, furious at myself. “You can’t just barge in and do this! You can’t just assume that summer two years ago was something you can pick up and leave off at your whim.”
Rhys took a deep breath as his brow furrowed. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I just… I saw you, and you know you do that to me; you know I can’t get over you, don’t you, Ginger? I can’t keep my hands off you…”
He approached me again. Seductive, but without forcing himself, so certain in his every movement, so fascinating I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“You don’t understand…”
“What don’t I understand?”
I told him softly: “I’m going out with someone.”
He blinked. Confused. Then looked down and looked back up. I don’t know what I saw in his eyes just then. There was…so much. Things mingled, tangled. I couldn’t tell what it all meant. Maybe he couldn’t either.
He ran a hand through his hair and paced through the office, hands on his hips, then stared at me. “Who is he? You never told me anything…”
“But…we agreed we wouldn’t talk about that. You know, when we were together two summers ago. I didn’t know if I should until I saw where things were going. Neither of us has talked about that stuff. You either. Unless you want to hurt me, I mean. Jesus, Rhys. I hate this. I hate it…”
“Ginger,” he interrupted me, impatient.
“James. We’re giving it a real try.”
“James? Again? Are you kidding?”
“You say that as if I haven’t been crashing into the same wall for years,” I replied, not realizing my voice had started rising.
“What fucking wall?” he shouted.
“You, Rhys. You’re my wall.”
I blinked as I tried to stop myself from crying as I saw how upset he was. My eyes itched. I was starting to fall apart. I don’t know what we were trying to do there staring at each other; in the silence, we were telling each other something, but I couldn’t say what. I was almost relieved when Kate knocked again after finishing her cigarette on the balcony.
“I just wanted to remind you that you have a lunch date,” she said, then, to Rhys, smiling: “A pleasure meeting you, Rhys.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, trying to stay calm as she departed. He was still there, leaning against the windowsill and staring out into the gray sky, which looked as if it was about to spill its fury over us.
“Fuck…” I turned and grabbed my phone out of my bag.
“What is it now? You’re getting married tomorrow, and you forgot to order the flowers?”
“Fuck you, Rhys,” I hissed.
“What’s the problem? It wouldn’t surprise me if you forgot to tell me.”
For a moment, I forgot I was supposed to have lunch with James. I forgot I was looking for my phone to try and cancel, even if, punctual as he was, he was probably almost there. I forgot everything that wasn’t this moment. And I let my anger out. The rage I’d suppressed. The indignation.
“How can you be so goddamn selfish?! How can you throw it in my face that I didn’t tell you about James when for years you’ve been fucking whoever you feel like, and I never even dared ask you for an explanation? What is it with you, Rhys? Has it ever occurred to you to think about someone else?”
I didn’t realize until then that I was crying so hard, my vision was getting blurred. He came close, breaking the inches of safety that lay between us. He tried to hug me, but I pushed him away. I heard his labored breathing. But then I gave in, let him have his way, let his arms wrap around me as I sobbed into his chest. His hot breath in my ear made me tremble.
“I know I’m an idiot, Ginger. But I never felt anything for those girls. I always knew you were the one, that you were my rock…”
The buzzer downstairs rang.
Confused, in a situation I could never have predicted, I walked away from my desk and took a few Kleenex out of my bag to wipe my face and blow my nose.
“It’s James. I’m supposed to have lunch with him.”
“Give me a fucking break.” Rhys closed his eyes.
“Please, if I matter to you at all, even just a little bit, try to act like a normal friend, Rhys. Are you listening to me? I know all this is difficult for both of us, but I don’t want to hurt James. He doesn’t deserve that. I didn’t even tell him about what happened that summer; all he knows is I met you in Paris, and that we’ve been talking since then…”
“Go let him in,” he grunted.
I hugged him, passed by him, thanked him. For an eternal second, my arms around him, I asked myself what would happen if I didn’t open the door, what would happen if I stayed with Rhys forever, just touching him, feeling him, listening to him breathe. Creating an us . Was that even possible, or was it just a dream, an ideal, like touching the moon?
But then I returned to reality.
And I let go of him and walked out of my office.