Chapter 22
I’m not proud of it, but when I wake up in the morning? I freeze.
By this age, I should be a pro at this. I should know how to wake up in someone else’s bed and act normal. I should be able to look a guy in the eye and say, “Thanks for a great time last night! Let’s do it again soon?”
But I have never even come close to spending the night with a guy. In fact, Harrison might be the only non–family member of the male persuasion whom I’ve interacted with past midnight. I loved to party in college, but I also loved to sleep.
I love to sleep so much, in fact, that I am pretending to do so right now.
I practice the words in my head. Thanks for a great time.
No, that sounds like he just took me to Disney World.
Let’s do it again. That sounds like I’m not also interested in spending every other waking moment with him.
Which I am. So that’s out. Not to be weird, but was that actually an enjoyable experience for you?
Because I’m feeling a little self-conscious about it.
Or maybe, I’m sorry I didn’t also make you come, but I don’t have a ton of experience with this, so will you please give me some pointers on how to interact with dicks?
Specifically, your dick? Also, I’ve been meaning to ask about its girth.
I let out a quiet snore for good measure.
Pathetic. I am pathetic.
It takes me three additional snores to realize the room is a little too quiet. I freeze, listening for another person’s breathing.
Nothing.
I roll over and stare at the empty half of the bed, where there’s a faint imprint of a human body in the sheets. Reaching over, cool sheets meet my fingertips.
Well, shit.
Is it fair for me to be mad at him, seeing as I was just fake snoring? No. Am I pissed anyway? Yes.
I grab my phone to see if he’s texted me, but the only text I have is from my family group chat.
Dad: Happy Fourth!
Mom: Hope you’re doing something fun today!
I send a fireworks emoji in response, then throw my phone to the empty side of the bed and groan.
Given my lack of experience, it’s entirely possible I’m just misinterpreting this. Maybe it’s totally normal for him to leave me in bed alone the morning after he made me come with his tongue. Totally, absolutely normal.
I do everything possible to stop my intrusive thoughts from winning, but is this because I didn’t get him off ? still escapes into my brain space.
Groaning, I roll out of bed and put on my Old Navy American flag T-shirt and denim shorts, freshening up and pulling my hair back into a high ponytail with a bright red scrunchie.
The look is giving summer camp counselor, which I’m hoping sends whatever the opposite of I slept with your son last night vibes are.
As I step out of the bedroom a few minutes later and make my way down to the main floor, I’m hit with the sickly-sweet smell of pancakes and syrup. I follow the sound of chatter, about to turn the corner into the kitchen, when I collide with something. No—someone.
“Oof—sorry, Em.” He looks frazzled, his eyes wide.[*1]
“Harrison? What’s wrong?”
“I think this was a bad idea,” he says, and before I can ask what he means, his mother rounds the corner.
She smiles wide, her bright red lips a pop of color against her pasty skin.
She looks better than she did the last time I saw her, now donning a Fourth of July–appropriate seersucker dress.
But even still, she has a crazed look in her eyes, as if she’s on the hunt.
“Emma,” she says, her voice falsely enthusiastic. “Good morning!”
Harrison looks like he’s about to sprint out of the house, but I ignore him and steel myself.
I have a mission to accomplish, after all.
I came here knowing this would be awkward but still wanting to support Harrison and win over his mom.
“Millie! So nice to see you again. Thanks for letting me join. I’m really excited to be here. ”
She looks me up and down. I say a word of thanks to Past Emma for having the foresight to brush my hair instead of leaving it tangled up in a classic I Spent Last Night Making Out with Your Son look.
“Yes,” she says. “We’re so happy to have you.
I was just delighted when Harrison told me he was bringing you!
So nice to hear that you’re trying to be a better friend.
” I don’t have time to respond before she continues, which is probably good because I don’t know how I possibly could’ve responded to that.
“It’s so important to heal broken bonds.
Especially when they’ve caused so much pain. ” She looks at me sympathetically.
I would like to not be here right now.
“I’ll get you some coffee, sweetheart,” Millie says, smiling with her lips pulled so far to the sides and her eyes so emotionless that she looks like she’s smelling something foul.
Before I can get another word in, she turns around to grab a mug from the cabinet.
I take that as my cue to sit down at the dining table.
“Tell me how Boston is treating you,” Millie continues. “Everything going well?”
I stutter out some words about how it’s going well and I’m liking my job, and I’m feeling good about my ability to form complete sentences under pressure until she hits me with, “That’s great. I know it’s been nice for Harrison to have a friend nearby while he deals with everything.”
The word “friend” rattles around my brain like an alarm.
“Yeah,” I tentatively offer. “Breakups are never easy.”
Harrison jumps in. “Mom, how are the panca—”
“I know,” Millie says, ignoring Harrison. “They’re so hard. Especially when you’re blindsided by them. I know all about that,” she says, then mouths divorce at me, as if she’s letting me in on a little girly pop secret.
“Well, I’m sure what Stephanie is going through pales in comparison to what you went through,” I say. “I can’t imagine how hard divorce must be.”
Millie narrows her eyes at me, confused. “Oh, I don’t give a damn what Stephanie is going through. Why should I?”
Harrison abruptly stands up from his seat at the dining table, then looks surprised with himself for making a scene, then sits back down, the wooden chair creaking beneath him.
“Oh, I just…” I attempt to say. “It seemed like you and Stephanie got along really well.”
She smiles thinly. “We did. But anyone who breaks up with my son with no explanation doesn’t deserve my well wishes.”
I think we’re talking about me for a moment, and I’m about to clarify that Harrison and I never dated in college, and then I realize we are not, in fact, talking about me.
“Wait, what?” I ask, this time directed at Harrison. He stares into his coffee, unresponsive.
Millie looks on with interest, (correctly) realizing she’s uncovered an interesting tidbit of information.
“Frankly, I couldn’t believe it when Harrison finally told me what happened,” she says.
“Mom, I don’t think—”
She cuts him off. “I mean, why would she break up with him when it seemed like their relationship was going so well? And why offer no explanation? It just seems like she owed him more than that, don’t you agree?
” She pauses for dramatic effect before adding, “Although maybe you could offer some more insight into why someone would do that.”
This time, I’m the one who stands up abruptly, realizes I’m making a scene, and sits back down. We’re engaged in a high-stakes game of musical chairs.
There’s no way that’s what actually happened. Harrison clearly lied to his mom.
Except did he ever actually tell me that he broke up with Stephanie?
I rack my brain. Stephanie isn’t coming back, he’d said. I know it’s my own doing, and so I need to be able to live with that, but I really didn’t want to sit here and be alone.
Then when Stephanie had come to talk to me: Honestly, I’m not even that broken up about it, which goes to show it was probably the right call.
The right call by her. Not the right call by Harrison.
I don’t want you to think that I pushed him into something he didn’t want, she’d said. Harrison didn’t break up with Stephanie for me. Stephanie broke up with him and pushed him to me.
Holy shit.
The level of embarrassment I feel is such that all the blood rushes away from my face rather than toward it.
I’ve been sucked dry by a vampire, except the vampire in question is an extremely misguided and highly embarrassing belief that Harrison broke up with Stephanie because he still had feelings for me.
You thought you were worth that much? Cobalt says. You’re a fool.
My heart sinks all the way to the floor. I know, I whisper back.
“But anyway,” Millie says, flipping a pancake. The sound of metal on cast iron sends chills up and down my bloodless body. “Are you seeing anyone right now? Any nice young men?” She smiles sweetly. “Or women, of course! That’s lovely, too!”
I am obviously not going to tell her I’m seeing her son.
I would never dare, especially not after discovering I was so unbelievably incorrect about the circumstances under which our relationship began.
And besides, what even is our relationship status?
More Than Friends with One-Sided Benefits?
If our relationship were any more than that, wouldn’t he have told me that Stephanie broke up with him rather than continuing to not correct me when I referenced the opposite?
And what does it say about our relationship that he told his mom about his breakup, but didn’t tell me?
Setting that aside to consider later, I open my mouth to remark on how extraordinarily single I am, but just as the words are about to enter the airspace, I see Harrison shake his head, so slightly it’s nearly imperceptible. His eyes are wide, and his breathing appears to be short.[*2]
What in the actual hell?
He thinks I would turn this conversation with his mother into a tell-all about our relationship status? And he’s so sure I would do that, and is so afraid of that possibility, he’s actually trying to warn me?