Chapter 44
Mia
Early Tuesday morning, I’m sitting at my desk in a daze.
Ethan left for practice just a few moments ago and I already miss him.
It’s sickening, really, it is. Less than thirty-six hours into this thing and I’m a lost cause.
Notebook open, I should be proofreading the conclusion to my Bleak House essay that’s due tomorrow but instead I’m doodling in the margins and wondering how soon I can get him back in bed.
I’m tired and sore but not too tired, and sore in a good way.
Every time I move, I’m reminded of him, of us, of the way our bodies fit together …
No. I shake my head, and recommit to my work.
Reliving last night’s orgasms isn’t going to give me a deeper insight into the way the Jarndyce v Jarndyce case acts as a metaphor for corruption in Victorian society.
It doesn’t help that we woke up in my room.
I would say slept in my room but that would be a lie, there was very little sleeping involved.
My bed is so close and I can still smell him on the sheets.
Maybe I should head down to my history of English lecture, study there instead.
Two lectures, one seminar and one lunch shift until I see him again and we’ve already agreed to skip dinner at the ref and eat here.
He says he’s going to cook. I should probably grab a snack, just in case.
Before I leave, I check my phone to make sure there are no more missed calls or desperate messages.
Nothing. My parents aren’t speaking to me.
It’s the strangest feeling. After twenty years of smothering, you’d think I’d be thrilled with this new approach.
Their only response to my message yesterday was a thumbs-up reaction and when I called, neither of them answered.
The only reason I knew they hadn’t been abducted by aliens is because Kane took the time to inform me that they’re super pissed and if I have half a brain, I’ll leave them be, advice that goes against every instinct in my being.
I desperately want to fix things, apologize, explain the problem away, but if they won’t talk to me, what can I do?
Thank God I have a distraction. I touch a tender spot from when I slipped and hit my hip on the taps while we were having sex in the shower before Ethan left for practice. What a distraction.
Ten minutes. That’s how long he’s been gone and I’m down so bad I pull up his Instagram, scrolling through his pictures one by one.
There’s a whole carousel from the playoffs last season and I can’t help but zoom in on the details.
This one captures his smile best. This one is a great shot of his ass.
He looks so good I literally gasp out loud and I can’t wait to watch him play again on Saturday.
I can’t wait to tell people that he’s mine.
And then I reach the inevitable. A picture of Ethan and Breanna.
It’s still incomprehensible, how he could go from dating someone like her, all glossy and filtered, to someone like me, but I don’t want to question it.
Not now. But that doesn’t stop me tapping on her tag and checking out her pictures.
The fall semester at Marshall is well underway.
Here she is tailgating before the first football game of the season, here she is picking apples at Lunsford Farm, here she is at the homecoming dance.
It feels like looking at photos from a TV show I used to watch – I recognize these characters but I’m not caught up on the current season and they all look slightly different now.
I keep scrolling and it’s only when I make it back to the pictures from this spring that I realize she’s deleted every photo of Ethan. He’s gone, completely erased from her life. When I tap through to a few of their friends, he’s missing from their feeds as well.
‘This was a bad break-up,’ I whisper to myself, checking on more and more accounts. It’s like he never existed.
If it wasn’t for a knock at my door, it’s entirely possible I might’ve spent all day reviewing the evidence like some kind of social media detective, but I toss my phone in a drawer, as though I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t.
Before I can answer it or even invite them in, the door opens and Oliver steps into my room, raking his dark ash hair out of his grey-blue eyes.
‘Morning.’ He leans against the wall, leather blazer squeaking against the paint. ‘I was on my way down to get coffee and I thought, what’s the one thing that would make a caffeine fix even better?’
He looks so strange in my room, completely out of place. My heart still leaps at the sight of him, but I gently push it back down, like a bad dog trying to get on the good furniture.
‘I’m talking about you,’ Oliver says when I don’t reply. ‘Walk down to The Snug with me?’
‘Oh, thanks but no, I can’t.’ I look over at the rumpled bed, checking for condom wrappers I know are in the trashcan in the bathroom but I fear have miraculously leapt out and displayed themselves on the sheets. ‘I have a lecture, history of English?’
‘Fair enough.’ He lets his eyes roam the room and it feels like a violation. I didn’t invite him in, I don’t want him picturing me here. ‘I’ll see you tonight then.’
‘Tonight?’ Truly, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
‘The Herzog retrospective. There’s a nice French place next door, my dad’s favourite, you’ll love it.’
He chuckles at my obvious confusion, eyes crinkling as though I’m being so silly.
‘Our date?’ he reminds me. ‘We talked about it on Sunday? I booked a table for six-thirty to give us enough time. I couldn’t remember what time your seminar with Quinn finishes but you can always skip it, he won’t care.’
It’s only been two days since our last conversation, but it might as well have been two years. So much has happened and none of it helps him.
‘I can’t skip Quinn’s seminar,’ I tell him, still seated at my desk. ‘It’s the last one before my paper is due and I don’t think he’ll look at my work more kindly if I’m not front and centre in his office. I can’t afford to get a low score on this paper, it will bring my whole grade down and—’
‘Oh, you’ll be fine.’
Without asking permission, he wanders inside, picking up the things on my desk, turning them over in his hands and then setting them back down somewhere else entirely. ‘Even if you fail, you can always repeat the module next year.’
‘No. I can’t. I only have one year here, remember?’
I watch him pawing through my copy of Jane Eyre and it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time all over again.
He isn’t shy and reserved, he’s arrogant and smug, only speaking when he believes someone is worthy of speaking to.
A man who has never had to worry about a single thing his whole life.
All the swagger of someone whose artistic life choices will always be cushioned by a rich family, a successful dad who can slot him into the family business at the drop of a hat.
No wonder he isn’t worried about failing classes, or life as a struggling musician – he wouldn’t know struggle if it smacked him around the head with an acoustic guitar.
And the worst part? It’s the exact same accusation I levelled at Ethan before we’d exchanged so much as a single sentence.
The irony isn’t lost on me. Wild how a cute accent and a musical instrument can mess up a girl’s head.
‘Why don’t you meet me at the cinema?’ he suggests. ‘I’ll see if someone else wants to get dinner first, I’ve got my heart set on the steak tartare.’
‘Maybe see if someone else wants to see the movie too.’ I scoot my chair backwards and stand, facing him. But Oliver doesn’t get the hint.
‘It doesn’t start until eight. You don’t want to miss it, Mia, who knows when you’ll get the chance to see How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck on the big screen again?’
‘A risk I’ll have to take,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t think it’s going to work out.’
‘Seeing a movie?’
‘No,’ I say, gesturing between the two of us. ‘This. In general.’
He stares at me like I’ve just slapped him around the face and I kind of wish I had.
‘You’re not serious?’ he says, a disbelieving smirk lurking in the corners of his mouth. ‘Is this about the bop?’
‘No, it’s about me.’ Then I reconsider the statement. ‘Actually, no, it is about you. And yeah, a little about the bop. Maybe you could get an extra ticket and take those girls to see the movie.’
‘Mia, there’s no need to be jealous.’
‘Oh, I know,’ I reply coolly. ‘But thank you for giving me permission. So good of you.’
He’s flustered and it’s not cute. He’s not cute. A red rash is climbing up his throat as he grabs at handfuls of his hair.
‘What about my dad?’ he says, playing his one final card. ‘What about the internship at Herringbone?’
‘I don’t know if I want to intern with a company where dating the son of the CEO is a condition of employment.’
Oliver stiffens and his top lip twitches as he beats his hand against the top of my dresser. ‘Do you want me to beg for forgiveness, is that it? Because I will.’
Just like Alice said, he loves the drama.
‘Please don’t,’ I say as he’s pulling up the legs of his jeans to kneel. He’s wearing mismatched socks, one black glitter, the other a pink-and-blue diamond pattern. Not even Harry Styles could pull that off. No, wait, that’s not true, but Oliver sure can’t.
‘Is this your thing, the chase?’ he asks, one pant leg caught up around his calf. ‘You only want something until you have it?’
‘Hardly,’ I reply, pressing two fingers into my temple. ‘If things had gone differently on Saturday night …’
The reality of my words makes me feel sick.
I can’t stomach the thought of it now. I look away from him, unable to hold his angry gaze and my eyes fall on a pile of maroon fabric by his hand.
A sweater. That isn’t mine. Oliver looks at me then at the sweater and the name, very much visible, emblazoned on the back.
Taylor.