Chapter 13 #2
“That’s never stopped you before,” I say, leg bouncing so hard his glass of milk ripples. Cooper’s eyes finally meet mine, and my heart gives a painful squeeze.
A look I can’t read flits across his face, his jaw tightening and a muscle ticking in his cheek. “If I hadn’t screwed up that night like I did, do you think—” He clears his throat. “Do you think we might have ended up together?”
The world stops, capturing us in a Polaroid moment staring at each other.
The image shifts, and it’s us from six years ago, faces young and cheeks aching with laughter.
It morphs again—smiles loose and eyes glassy as we celebrate a birthday over drinks.
And again—noses burnt on the Fourth of July, ugly sweaters at Christmas, a kiss at New Year’s.
I see all of these precious snapshots of what could have been like I’m viewing a tenderly made scrapbook—the way our bodies curl toward each other, the easy intimacy, the sharp glint of playfulness in our eyes as we take for granted another giddy night at a cheap diner.
The idea sears itself in my mind like a memory, blistering as I remind myself it’s not.
It hurts too much to linger in flighty fantasies, cutting my fingers on the edges of all of those fake photos and blank pages.
“No,” I say, shaking my head and pulling my hands away.
Cooper’s face falls, and I keep going, slipping into my most flippant mask, creating the distance everyone is so comfortable holding with me.
He doesn’t get to leave me and then come back and play a game of what-ifs over the tombstone of my hardened heart.
“We’re way too different. For example, your love language is physical touch.
My love language is mac ’n’ cheese. This would have never worked between us. ”
“Eva,” he says on a breath that’s half laugh, half frustration. “Come on.”
“No,” I repeat, anger rising. “You come on. Where do you get off asking me a question like that? Be serious for a fucking second, I beg you.”
Cooper opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “I’m not some social experiment for you. You don’t get to fuck off just long enough for things to heal only to resurface and reminisce about the past, tearing the cut wide open again.”
This wasn’t part of it. This was never supposed to feel real or honest or important. This was never supposed to unravel me, chip away at all my armor until I’m standing bare-boned in front of him.
“Eva. I’m sorry. I—”
“I’m out of here.” With shaky hands, I dig through my wallet, throwing whatever cash is in there on the table before I bolt for the door. It takes me a good ten seconds of storming down the sidewalk to realize it’s raining. Of course it is.
I look around, trying to get my bearings through the sheets of rain falling in every direction.
I’m not super familiar with Brighton Beach, and I pull out my phone, trying to find the closest subway stop so I can take what I can only imagine will be a super-convenient two-hour train ride back to Manhattan.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cooper calls over the heavy wind. I jump when I realize how close he is, my phone slipping out of my hands into a puddle.
“Oh, real nice,” I say, pushing my drenched hair out of my eyes and glaring at him. “Look what you did.”
“Don’t start,” he says through clenched teeth, making me want to dig in and really fucking start.
He bends down to grab my phone, but I shoulder him aside, getting it myself.
I don’t need him playing hero. I randomly pick a direction and start marching, trying to get my screen to respond to me instead of the raindrops.
I almost cry out in relief when I see the Q train is only three blocks away and I’m heading toward it.
“Where are you going?” Cooper says, chasing after me.
“I’m taking the train home,” I say, ignoring the rain in my eyes as I keep my chin lifted, pace fast. But Cooper’s faster. He grabs my arm, spinning me around.
“Don’t be ridiculous. That’ll take forever. I’ll drive you home.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” I say, ripping my arm from his grasp. I know I sound like a petulant child but I couldn’t care less.
His look is thunderous, and he rakes his hands through his wet hair. “Would you just stop it, you ridiculous woman? Why can’t you let me do anything for you?”
“Why didn’t you ever call me?” I yell. It shocks us both.
Cooper blinks, water sluicing down his cheeks, the lenses of his glasses collecting raindrops and making it hard for me to read his expression.
“Why?” I repeat in a whisper, voice cracking.
Embarrassment swamps me, but I continue to stand there, waiting for an answer.
It’s a pathetically old wound, but it’s only festered with time.
Gouged deeper and deeper as I’ve watched more and more people step into their lives without me, leaving me behind like a used doll they’re tired of playing with.
“I already told you,” Cooper says, his voice so low it’s hard to hear over the rain. “I made a mistake. I regret it.”
“But why ?” I push, unable to leave well enough alone. “Why was that the choice you made? Why did you make me like you? Why did you chase me, if you knew how it would end?”
Why was I so easy to leave? What is it about me that’s so simple to forget? Recitals and parent-teacher conferences and important dates and milestones where I’m left alone on the curb with my heart in my hand desperately wishing someone thought I was important enough to remember.
Cooper lets out a rough noise, scrubbing his hands over his face.
“Because I was a mess, Eva,” he says, dropping his arms with a wet smacking sound against his jeans.
“And I need you to listen to me when I say that because it’s the goddamn truth.
” He stares at me, his expression harsh, jaw working.
“I wasn’t coping with the loss of my sister.
I was about to graduate college with no job lined up.
I was secretly hooking up with a guy who I had feelings for but both of us had too much internalized shit to ever tell the truth and it screwed me up.
I was at rock fucking bottom. Then I met you and I messed that up too.
I really liked you, and it scared me because I was too much of a disaster to even look at myself in the mirror, let alone start something with this cool, funny woman with her life figured out and these amazing dreams I had no doubt she’d reach with the snap of her fingers.
It’s pathetic but for a twenty-two-year-old idiot, that’s a pretty intimidating picture to try and squeeze yourself into. ”
Cooper takes a step toward me, gripping my shoulders, forcing me to look at him.
“I can’t change the past,” he says, fingers tightening around me.
“Do you have any idea, any fucking clue, how much I wish I could? How many nights the idea has kept me awake with frustration? I’d do it in a heartbeat.
I’d go back in time and slap myself and tell that idiot version of me to get his shit together and not hurt the amazing girl who actually seems to care about his pathetic ass. ”
A shiver runs through me, emotions knotted in my throat. I can’t tell if it’s the rain on my cheeks or if tears have started slipping out.
“ I’d call you , Eva,” he says, giving me a tiny shake.
“I’d tell you I liked you. I’d tell you I was a mess and ask you to be patient while I sort it out.
But I can’t. I’m not that guy and you aren’t that girl anymore and I can’t unhurt your feelings or push myself out of my own way.
But right now? I’m trying, Eva. I’m fucking trying. Can you at least meet me halfway?”
I open and close my mouth, trying to say something. Anything.
No, that’s not true; there are very specific things I need to say to him.
I need to tell him no . I need to tell him to get lost. I need to tell him that all of this is fake, fake , FAKE. My teeth clench, throat closing around the words I need to say to protect myself from another letdown.
Cooper’s hands move from my shoulders, trace up my neck, cradle my jaw. The space between our bodies crackles, tendrils of electricity urging us together, sparks growing stronger against our final shreds of restraint. We sway closer, not strong enough to resist the pull.
“Please,” he whispers, face creased in agony.
He strokes my skin, thumb brushing my lips. I part them, exhaling, and his nail gently scratches at my sensitive flesh. I try to find a floating rational thought, grip it with both hands and shove it into my mouth, say the words I need to say, instead of the ones I want to.
The fear is too real, too raw.
It sounds so lovely, what he’s asking. So soft and gentle, a cloud I want to luxuriate on as I float toward the sky. But he’ll hurt me again. Everyone always hurts me in the end.
Cooper leans toward me, our eyes locked, his body flush against mine. He’s so close, so warm. His lips right there, saying the things I wanted all those years ago.
“Say yes, Eva,” he whispers, the words ghosting across my mouth, sending a shiver of want through me, my pulse pounding like a hammer against an anvil, the need to have every inch of him pressed against every inch of me so overwhelming, I get dizzy with it.
The word bubbles up my throat, curls across my tongue. I open my mouth to say it, to give in.
A crack of thunder booms around us, rattling my bones, making us jump. The bubble is popped, the world—with its freezing rain and harsh wind—crashes back through. We’re both breathing like we just ran a marathon, eyes wide and wild.
Cooper speaks first. “Eva—”
But I’m the one to move. As sudden as the thunder, I turn, sprinting away, working to outpace the feelings trying to drag me back to Cooper’s arms.