33. Fast Car
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
fast car
IMOGEN
“You told him about me, huh?”
Roman chuckles as we lie on the hood of his car, staring up at the inky blue sky.
It’s so clear out here, and the stars look like little diamonds scattered in a dark sea. I think I’ve spotted Orion’s belt about 500 times, but each time Roman tells me I’m not anywhere close to it.
“Sort of.” I turn to him with a wince. “Do you think he’s gonna figure it out?”
“Well, he and Frankie already know I’m seeing someone, but they have no idea who it is.”
Music pours out of the car stereo. At the start of the ride he insisted on a playlist that I quickly dubbed ‘divorced dad rock.’ It’s a lot of Bryan Adams, Springsteen… stuff I grew up listening to on long road trips with my parents.
“We really should have coordinated lies.”
“Hey, you could have texted me,” he laughs.
“He sprang it on me and I had to come up with something that was at least a little bit credible.” That uncomfortable feeling starts to grow in my gut. “I hate lying to him.”
“I do too,” Roman mutters. “I don’t wanna hurt him.”
In my heart of hearts, I don’t think Logan would be that upset. Shocked, maybe, but it’s not like he would disown me. I know my brother pretty well, and even if the news was hard for him to swallow, it wouldn’t take him too long to come around.
Roman gnaws on his fingernail as we sit in silence for a while, and my eyes fall on the little bow and arrow tattooed on his knuckles that I keep forgetting to ask him about.
“Are you a Sagittarius?”
“How’d you guess?”
I reach over and trace the bow and arrow with my fingertips. Roman laughs.
“Oh, yeah. I just needed something to fill the space and the artist suggested my zodiac.” He turns to me. “What’s your sign?”
“Leo.”
“I’m not going to pretend I know what that means,” he laughs. “Gotta admit, I only know the names.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be checking to analyze our relationship prospects.”
This is my favorite part of a relationship, the part where you’re still figuring each other out. I hope we keep surprising each other, finding out what makes the other person tick along the way.
He smiles, staring up at the stars as I nuzzle into his chest.
“I love learning more about you,” he murmurs.
“You do?”
“Of course! Like, tell me something you’re passionate about. Something I don’t already know.”
I used to be so confident in my identity, but now that it’s all wrapped up in school, I’m not really sure of my passions outside of it.
“I don’t really know.”
He looks down at me and grins.
“You’ve gotta have something.”
“I mean, it’s kind of a hard question! I like horror movies, because of my dad, and uh… reading, I guess? I like romance books. I like to read about people falling in love, the kind that won’t be able to live without each other.”
Before he can keep digging, I decide to flip the tables on him.
“What about you? Any passions outside of educating the masses?”
“Definitely cooking. After Christa died, I thought about traveling the world like Anthony Bourdain.”
I could absolutely picture Roman with an obscure YouTube channel, traveling to different places and trying new cuisine while he gushes about it. Every time he talks about food his eyes light up. You can taste the passion in the dishes he makes. Nothing is half-assed.
“So, are you over academia then?”
He smiles, but there’s a hint of bitterness to his expression, like someone reflecting on their past and all the turns they’ve ever taken.
“It takes a lot out of a person,” he murmurs. “I know cooking does, too, but it’s also exacting and… it’s the kind of thing I could lose myself in.”
Makes sense. He had a lot to run from.
And again, we’re silent for a while, one song on the playlist fading into the next. I recognize it immediately, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, but I’m clearly not the only one. Roman slides off the hood, leaning into the driver’s side and turning up the volume.
“You know what else I’m passionate about?” He asks, walking toward me. “Dancing.”
“Dancing?” I laugh.
“Hell yeah. You wanna dance with me?”
“Here?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“You ride horses, you cook, you have a huge dick, and now you’re telling me you dance?”
“To be fair, I never said I danced well , but the rest is all true.”
He throws me a wink, holding out his hand. I can’t resist him like this, with his mussed hair and playful expression.
“C’mon, darlin’.”
I let him take me in his arms and rest my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He smells so good, and the feeling of his arms around me is even better. It’s not even about the sex, not only about it at least, I just love hanging out with him. It’s been a really long time since I’ve felt like this about someone.
But that’s what makes me terrified.
Ninety percent of relationships that begin before the age of 30 end prematurely. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce; that number goes up to sixty-seven percent for second marriages, and seventy-four percent for third marriages. Everything that exists, everything that ever will be, has an expiration date.
Is that why love always feel so insurmountable, and so fucking complicated? I’m drowning in it, tossed into a raging river without a life raft and the only thing I have to hold on to is him.
Is that even love, or a panic attack?
I’m crying into Roman’s shirt, clinging to him as hard as I fucking can as the realization hits me like an avalanche. I tried so hard not to love him, but he makes it so easy. He understands what I’ve been through on a profound level, and even though our pain differs at certain points, we’re walking the same complicated path. He brings the support I’ve needed for years and never bothered to reach out for.
I always thought I would just push through it, like I’ve pushed through everything in my life, but grief can’t be bulldozed. It has to be cared for and tended to. It’s a permanent change in the landscape, and I can never go back to the way things used to be.
“Hey,” Roman whispers, cupping my face in his hands. “What’s the matter?”
The thought of saying the words scares me more than agreeing to a full-blown relationship with this man. It means that when the truth comes out, and things begin to fall apart, I’m afraid my heart is going to fucking shatter.
“Talk to me, darlin’. What’s going on?”
“I think I’m—” I sputter and sniffle. “I think I’m falling in love?—”
“I know,” he whispers, pulling me in as close as he can.
A laugh bubbles up from my throat as I look up at his own red-rimmed eyes. He seems so fragile, and suddenly I’m terrified of breaking him. My body is screaming to back out of this, to shut up and tell him I didn’t mean it, but the look on his face keeps me rooted to the ground.
“You know?”
I don’t mean for my words to sound so pathetic, but I’m hanging on by a thread right now, and it’s all I can do to keep myself together.
“Yeah.” His voice is soft and soothing. “I love you, Imogen. I’ve been in love with you for a while, and I know you love me too.”
The flood of relief that washes through me is quickly overpowered by fear. I can’t even catch a break from my own anxiety for a second.
“Roman, I’m afraid that the deeper we get into this, the more it’s going to hurt when…” I trail off, my breath catching in my chest as I hold back a sob.
“When what?”
“When everyone finds out.”
He rocks me gently from side to side.
“Whatever happens and whoever finds out, nothing between us is going to change. I won’t give you up.”
“How can you promise that?” I ask, my voice trembling. “That nothing’s going to change?”
He can say all of these lovely things, but when push comes to shove, will it even be something he can control?
“I don’t know for sure what will happen, I just know there has to be some kind of solution, and that we’ll find it. Together.”
After we got back from the ranch, when we decided to jump into this with both feet, I started looking into those potential solutions. There wasn’t much help on the university website. Of course they wouldn’t have a whole page devoted to what to do if you’re fucking a professor, but after digging around online and reading some personal accounts, I found that most people in our position either split up, get fired, or quit.
“How long have you known you loved me?”
“A while, I think,” he says softly. “I was so fucking scared. I was scared you’d reject me, and I was scared that this was all happening too fast and it was getting out of control, but… I couldn’t stop feeling what I was feeling.”
“It’s annoying, right?”
Roman’s laugh is so warm it’s like crawling underneath a duvet at the end of a long day.
“Stay with me tonight. I’ll make you pancakes and pack you lunch in the morning.”
“We’ll have to swing by my place. I’ll tell Logan I’m going to see my boyfriend .”
“Alright, perfect. And I’ll hide in the bushes like a creep.”
“Aww, you’re my favorite creep,” I giggle.
I kiss him on the cheek, full of relief that the world didn’t fall apart.
We didn’t fall apart.
“We’re going to be okay,” he assures me. “You know that, right?”
We pack up our stuff, toss out our trash, and get back into the car. As he turns the engine over, I absentmindedly check my phone, noticing an email notification from the university.
Dear Imogen Flynn,
We are pleased to inform you that your application to the Aspen Sociology Conference next month has been accepted.
I start screaming with excitement, not even bothering with the rest of the email. I just keep reading the word accepted over and over again. This is everything I’ve been working toward. I busted my ass on that application and it paid off.
But as quickly as my joy overwhelmed me, a sobering realization creeps in.
I can’t even call my dad.
It’s a cruel thought that instantly makes my eyes sting.
“What’s wrong?” Roman asks.
“I got into the conference,” I whisper, showing him the email.
I can almost hear my dad cheering for me, just like he did when I got into NYU. He was so excited, he took me out for ice cream to celebrate and told me how proud he was. We listened to Tom Petty and talked for hours.
“What’s wrong, then?”
I burst into tears, covering my face with both hands as Roman wraps his arms around me.
“I wish he was here,” I weep into his chest, struggling to get the words out. “My dad.”
“Maybe he is,” Roman whispers, brushing a hand against my cheek.
“If you say something cheesy that makes me cry again, I’m walking home.”
That feeling of grief, something I assumed we shared, has always been so sharp and painful to me, but it’s clear that Roman’s managed to find some level of comfort in it I’ve never been able to grasp.
“Do you remember when I told you about the eulogy I read for Christa? About how people never really leave, their energy just spreads out into the universe?”
Roman smiles.
“He’s here, Imogen, and I know he’d be damn proud of you.”