Chapter Twenty-Five
Sonya strokes my hair as I lie across her lap.
After what Jamie told me last night, I should be mad at Sonya. I should slam my door on her and never talk to her again. But once I saw her standing in her bedroom doorway when I got home, I couldn’t be angry. I couldn’t shut myself off from her.
I needed my friend.
She apologized over and over again for her part, but I’m not mad at her. I’m only mad at Henry. And myself. And a little bit at Jamie.
Sonya was trying to help. Henry was a stranger who agreed to fool a poor grieving mess of a girl.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Sonya says as she squeezes my shoulder. “But you have to talk to him.”
“He lied to me,” I say.
“He might have a good reason.”
I cover my eyes with my hands. “I feel so stupid.” Stupid for thinking I was anything more to him than a charity project. Stupid for every time I felt something for him, and stupid for how guilty it made me feel.
“You’re not stupid,” Sonya says. “You’re just mad.”
I grind my palms into my eye sockets to keep from crying. I’m more than mad. Much more than mad.
“Do you want to do something today?” Sonya goes back to stroking my hair. “Get your mind off it? I asked Jamie to stay away. Give you some space. So I’m all yours.”
I shake my head and roll from my side to my back, eyes trained on the ceiling. “No.”
“Want to sit around and do nothing?”
“No.”
“Well, those are the only two options,” she says.
I sit up and turn to face her. “Go be with Jamie. I’m not ready to talk to her yet, but I still don’t want her to feel like she’s a bad person.”
She bites her lip. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s fine. Go be with your girl. I need to be alone.”
“Okay,” she says, standing up and adjusting her shorts. “But you’re both my girls. Just so you know.”
“Go be with the girl you kiss,” I say. “Is that more specific?”
She grabs her keys off the coffee table. “Yes. And for the record, I’m only going to see Jamie because she feels terrible about all this, and I know how she gets. I’m worried.”
“You don’t have to explain. Go. I’m fine.”
She leans down to give me a hug, holding me tight.
“Call me if you need me,” she says as she heads out the door. When it shuts behind her, it dawns on me that I’m alone for the first Saturday in months. Without Henry. I open my phone to his contact, swallow a lump in my throat, and hit block. For real this time.
I’m so mad at him I could hit something. The sadness I felt last night has transformed into something rougher, something aggressive. I’m not sad. I’m not depressed. I’m pissed.
I remember all those nights in college at the batting cage. Andy encouraging me to swing harder. Sam trying to help me with proper form, but I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to get it out.
I jerk off the couch, marching myself to the subway station toward the second-best thing to a batting cage I can think of.
The Devil’s Rage Room is exactly what it sounds like: a place in Hell’s Kitchen where you can pay to whack shit around and make a mess.
The guy at the desk takes my card for an hour alone in the room and leads me toward the back. He shoves a bat and some goggles into my hands and plops a helmet on my head.
When the door to the rage room closes behind me and I’m alone, I almost don’t know what to do. I feel the bat in my hands and grip it tighter.
Tentatively, I set an empty beer bottle on the table in front of me, snap the goggles over my eyes, and think of how Sam taught me to swing. I bring the bat to my shoulder, take a breath, and smack .
I hit the bottle square in the center. It flies off the table, hits the wall, and shatters into a million pieces.
I take my bat to the front of an old TV, cleaving a line down the middle of the screen. Again and again I hit it, until I’m losing my breath. I smack a lawn flamingo, knocking its head clean off. I smash my bat on the table, sending bits of plaster and wood flying. I whack a glass vase, and another one, and another one, before moving on to an old toaster. With every hit I feel adrenaline spike through the nerves in my body, and I let out a guttural scream as I unleash myself.
When I’m done, I stand in the middle of the room and survey my wreckage. I’ve done a pretty good job, in my opinion—every square inch is covered in debris, and I have a body that feels siphoned of my anger. Exhausted, I surrender my weapon. It hits the floor with a metallic clink.
“God, that felt good,” I whisper to myself. My body is shaking all over. My heart pounds against my ribs as I catch my breath.
I feel dizzy as I pour out onto the street. I realize that half my anger was directed at Henry, and the other half at myself for falling for it. For being so naive. I know deep down that I’m not meant to fall in love again, so why did I buy into it anyway?
Another thing this excursion has taught me is that I don’t need Henry to do the Passion Project anymore. I can do it all on my own.
···
I hoist my bag of groceries higher on my shoulder as I hike the five floors to the apartment. A bead of sweat trickles down my sternum. It’s so hot today, I feel like I’m in a pot of ramen noodles. I could barely put clothes on this morning, just an airy black spaghetti-strap dress and a claw clip for my hair. Still, it feels like too much.
This week, I’ve been operating on cruise control. Eat, sleep, go to work, try not to think about Henry, repeat. This is my new normal.
I turn the key in the door and open it to Sonya and Jamie standing in the living room. I also haven’t spoken to Jamie since our fight a week ago.
“Hi,” she says, dipping her head low as I enter.
She has red eyes and clumpy eyelashes. I set my grocery bag on the floor and kick off my sandals. “Hi,” I say.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
She looks terrible, like she’s been crying all week. “You were just trying to help,” I say.
“I just…” She takes a moment to regroup, glancing at Sonya for support. “I just know what it’s like, you know? The sadness. And, loving Sonya…it made me feel less hopeless. I wanted that for you too. It was naive and stupid.”
I shake my head. “I’m not mad at you anymore, Jamie,” I say. “I understand why you did it.”
“Still…” Jamie looks down at her feet. “It was so wrong.”
Sonya takes both of us by the hands. “We shouldn’t have meddled in your life,” she says. “All I really wanted was for you to stay in New York. You never gave it enough of a chance. And, I don’t know…I thought if there was a guy here maybe you’d try to love it.”
“It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand. “Who else gets to say they have friends who’d go through all that just to make them feel better? I’m pretty lucky.”
“We love you,” Jamie says. “Enough to meddle from time to time.”
“I know,” I say, taking Jamie’s hand so we’re in a circle. “I love you both too.”
Sonya throws her arms around us, collecting us in a group hug. I laugh as Jamie sniffles. “I’m still so mad at Henry,” I say, a quiet confession. “I can’t get past it.”
Neither of them say anything in response, so I just let them hug me until it’s too hot to bear the physical contact. I pull out of the hug and fan myself with my hand. “God, it’s hot in here,” I say. “No more hugs until we get central air.”
“In your dreams,” Sonya says as she picks up the grocery bag. “About the hugs and the central air.”
Someone buzzes to enter the building. Sonya hops to press the button to let them in. “I ordered Sweetgreen,” she says. “How about we have lunch on the roof? Enjoy the weather outside.”
“Now?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, plucking a head of lettuce from my bag. “Jamie will unpack your groceries and bring up the salads. Right?”
“Sure.” Jamie shrugs as she grabs the lettuce from Sonya and puts it in the fridge.
“Let’s go.” Sonya tugs me toward the door, where I barely have time to slip my shoes back on before we’re out in the hallway.
She leads me up the staircase, pulling me behind her. “What is going on?” I ask.
When we get to the top of the stairwell and face the door to the roof, she stops and drops my hand. “Please forgive me for this, but I had to meddle one more time.”
She pushes the door open, and standing there in the middle of our rooftop garden is Henry.
Lightning shoots through my bones.
“No.” I take a sharp turn and head back toward the stairwell, but she’s already closing the door on me.
And now I’m alone on the roof with Henry.
We stare at each other, the sun beating down on us both. His lips are slightly parted, and his eyes are sad. The wind ripples through his messy hair and presses his clothes to his body. I hate looking at him. I hate that it still does something to me.
“Bennet…” He takes a step toward me.
I step back. “No.”
He stops. “Let me explain,” he says.
I shake my head, clenching my jaw. “No.”
“Please,” he pleads.
“You lied to me,” I say. “I asked you a hundred times why you were helping me, and you lied to me every time.”
“No.” He twists his mouth into a frown. “I lied to you the first time. Everything I told you since the night we met has been the truth.” He stops in front of me. He looks as if he wants to reach out, but wouldn’t dare.
“Truth built on a foundation of lies is still a lie,” I say, brushing past him toward the garden. “I can’t believe I was never anything to you but a pity date. An arrangement.”
“That is not true. It wasn’t some devious arrangement ,” he says, exasperated.
“Maybe it was a social experiment. To see if you could manipulate a sad girl into doing whatever you wanted. I was just another story you wanted to collect.”
“It wasn’t like that!” He takes a microscopic step toward me. “I swear. I didn’t tell you because I knew it would hurt you, and it doesn’t reflect how I feel about you. It wasn’t like that.”
“Well, then tell me what it was like.”
He looks away, scrunching his face in the sunlight.
“The truth,” I say, stepping close to him. He swallows, still dodging eye contact. “If you just felt bad for me the entire time, Henry, I want to know.”
“The truth.” The sides of his jaw flex and he finally looks me in the eye. “Jamie asked me to go out with you, yes. That much is true. And maybe, at first, I agreed because Jamie is cool and I’m always happy to help a friend.” I shift uncomfortably, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But all of the reasons I gave for initiating the Passion Project were true. I was lonely, and I was treading water trying to keep busy so I wouldn’t go under.” He knits his brows together and shakes his head. “The night we met, the first night, when Jamie set us up, I was pretty nervous, actually. All I knew about you was that you were Jamie’s girlfriend’s roommate and you needed cheering up. I know why she asked me specifically. Because I never let people see me upset and I’m outgoing, or whatever. But I was worried I couldn’t actually do what she was asking because of everything I had going on in my own life. But when you came back to get your wallet…when we actually met…I wasn’t nervous. You made me laugh. You threw me off balance. And, yeah, maybe I saw an opportunity to keep my promise to Jamie, but, Bennet, you have to believe me. It got real, real fast.”
He clears his throat and lets out a sharp breath. “You know what? Fuck it. Cards on the table.” He steps toward me, a new intensity painting his face. He’s so close I feel the heat off his body. “It has been absolutely addicting getting to know you. And when I’m with you, I’m not worrying about my family or anything. I’m present. You’re funny, and weird, and you’re so beautiful that sometimes I want to smack myself for ever using the word friend in relation to you. I have wanted you for longer than you think, and I couldn’t risk losing you by telling you about what Jamie asked me to do.”
“You rejected me in the bathroom,” I say, my voice wavering.
“I thought you weren’t ready for anything to happen,” he says. “You were still guarded. Still wrestling with yourself. I didn’t want to be a mistake. I didn’t want you to regret anything. I wanted to do things right with you. If I was going to kiss you, Bennet, it wasn’t going to be half-drunk, half-confused in a nautical bathroom. I wanted you to be fully sure that it’s what you wanted.”
I feel my heart in my throat. “Why should I believe you?” I ask.
“You should believe me because it took everything in my power not to kiss you, like, a thousand times since meeting you. You should believe me because when Jamie told me you might have real feelings for me, I did an actual happy dance. Like, a real, embarrassing happy dance. And it still took me weeks to work up the courage to ask you out again. You should believe me because I could’ve stopped hanging out with you at any moment this summer. If I didn’t care about you, I could’ve fucked off into oblivion after that first weekend, but I’ve found an excuse to spend my entire summer with you. Jamie didn’t ask me to do that . No one did. I made that choice myself because I wanted to be near you. I wanted to be around you all the time. I still do.”
I swallow. It’s still so complicated. “Do you ever think that maybe…” I clear my throat. “That maybe you should like someone who’s a little easier? Less messed-up?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Not for a second.”
My heart is pounding out of my chest. I’m afraid he can feel it. I’m afraid everyone in New York can feel it.
“You have to believe me,” he whispers. “There is nothing I want more than this.” His thumb traces my jaw, inching toward my mouth.
He hesitates, freezing before he grazes my bottom lip.
“But it matters what you want, Bennet. If you’re not ready, or if you just want to call it quits, I’ll understand. If you say you just want to be friends, I’ll never mention this again. But you can’t flirt with me and touch me like you want me and then pull away like you’re not sure. We can’t do that anymore. It’s too hard for me. I don’t want to keep this hope inside me if nothing is there. You just have to tell me, Bennet.” He brings his hand to my forehead, brushing a strand of hair out of my face and then resting his palm on my cheek. “What do you want?”
The backs of my hands brush against the fabric of his pants. My legs are like noodles and my body is completely out of control. Say it. Spit it out: I want you. I believe you.
His hand moves from my neck to my shoulder; his thumb presses into my collarbone. “It’s okay, either way.”
Every instinct in my body is telling me to reach for him, to grip him with both hands and not let go, so I step in to him, wrapping an arm around his torso, pulling him flush to my body. We’re nose to nose again like we were in that horrible bathroom.
“I want to be more than friends,” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, and my nose brushes against his cheek. If I move one millimeter toward him, our lips will touch. I know he’s not going to do it. It has to be me.
All I have to do is move one millimeter, and close the gap.
I tip my chin up to him, feeling his lips brush against mine, so light it’s almost a tickle. His hands slide down my neck and arms, gripping me tightly. He smiles against my mouth. “Yeah?”
I nod, unable to stop the grin from spreading across my lips. “Yeah.”
He kisses me. A real kiss, the kind that makes my skin prickle, slow at first but with the momentum of a speeding train. He slips his tongue between my lips and I hook my arms around his neck. We’ve been holding off on this for so long that now that it’s set in motion, I don’t think I can stop it.
He tastes like sugar and smells like spearmint, a spicy sweet combination that aches. His lips guide my mouth open as he draws his hands up my body, brushing past my chest to my hair. His tongue gently presses against mine, not too much, not too little.
“Can I kiss you here?” he whispers as his mouth glides down my neck. My head falls to the side for him.
I feel frenzied—lightheaded and hungry. All my defenses down in an instant. “You can kiss me anywhere,” I say, somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
So he does. His lips skate across my eyelashes, my cheekbone, my chin, my mouth. My mantra come to life in front of my eyes as he touches me.
My cheeks are real. My chin is real. My lips are real. I am real. I reach for his face, his neck, his skin rough under my fingers. I let my hands trace his body down to his torso, relishing in every muscle, every contour, until my thumbs slip through his belt loops. Henry is real.
He wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me even closer. It’s not enough. How could anything be enough when I’m kissing Henry? His hands slide down my body, taking their time on the way as if he’s savoring every inch of me. He glides his touch all the way down to my thigh, where he guides my leg around his hip. I throw my arms around his neck, clinging to him, needing his lips. Our bodies move together, breathe together until I trip on one of the beach chairs on the turf.
“Shit.” I start to fall backward. Henry hugs my body against his and holds my head to his chest as we fall together. He softens the blow with one arm, protecting my head from hitting the hard surface with the other.
And now he’s on top of me.
I brush his hair off his forehead as he looks down at me. “You good?” he asks, surveying my body for bumps and scratches.
“Henry,” I say, cupping his face in my hands. “I’m so good.”
I flip us so I’m on top, my legs spread across his hips, straddling his lap, and I pin him down by the shoulders.
“You sure you’re good?” He laughs, his hands resting on my thighs.
“Yeah, why?”
“We’re in public,” he says, craning his neck toward the door to the roof.
“It’s a private roof,” I say, pressing my lips to his neck. “And I don’t really care who sees.” Because I want more.
He grabs both sides of my face, kissing me deep and hard. “I can’t believe I’m kissing you,” he groans.
All the times I stopped myself from touching him are rushing through me, and I’m releasing them all right now.
I rock my hips back and forth against his. “Fuck, Bennet,” he growls.
I grab handfuls of his hair as he cups my hips and ass, his fingers pressing into my soft flesh. A strap from my dress falls off my shoulder and Henry presses his lips to the spot where it used to be. I reach down for the bottom of his shirt and pull it up over his head, finally feeling the warmth of his skin on mine. I let my dress fall under my chest.
He traces the outer ridge of my nipple. “Beautiful.”
He kisses between my breasts, gentle and tender. I moan, feeling him move and grow beneath me.
“This is my favorite Saturday,” he says.
“You’re just saying that because I’m half-naked.” I kiss his chin.
“No.” He hugs my body close to his and flips me onto my back. “I’m not.” He lowers his body on top of me. I squeeze my legs around his hips and he groans. His fingers trickle down, and he gently caresses my inner thigh.
“This okay?” he asks as he inches his fingers between my legs.
“Absolutely.” I fall open for him, knees spreading.
He slips a finger beneath my underwear, stroking up and down. He dances around me, until he finds a spot that makes my body go rigid. “There?”
I nod, concentrating. “There.”
He grins as he presses into me, stroking that spot. I maintain focus on the feeling, the pleasure. I let out a microscopic groan as he edges me closer and closer.
I arch my back as he continues his blessed ritual between my legs. I don’t want to tip over the edge just yet. It’s too soon. “Henry,” I gasp. “Do you have a condom?”
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a brown leather wallet. Faster, faster, faster. I want his weight back on me as soon as possible. He fishes for a moment before he pulls out a silver-wrapped condom and hands it to me. I inspect it.
“This expired last year.”
The excitement drains from his face. “Do you have one?”
“Yeah, the depressed girl and her lesbian roommate definitely have condoms lying around everywhere.”
“Shit.” He lays my skirt back down over my hips.
“Shit, indeed.” I stretch out on my back. Henry rolls off and settles beside me.
“Of all the ways I imagined this happening,” he says, “ that was definitely a surprise.”
“How’d you imagine it happening?”
He laughs, inching closer to me and brushing his hand against mine. “In most of my fantasies we weren’t on a roof.”
“Most?” I nudge him with an elbow.
“Well, there was one where I kissed you on top of that skyscraper.”
My heart melts like ice cream doused in hot fudge. I turn to face him. He’s already looking at me.
“I’m sorry I missed our date.” I tap his lower lip with my fingers. “Both of them.”
He guides my leg over his hip, tangling our feet and legs together. He kisses me long and slow before he speaks. “I’d wait for you at that bar a million times if it meant I got to be here with you.”
I place a palm on his cheek. You’re safe with me. That’s all I see in his eyes when he looks at me. That’s all I feel in his lips when he kisses me. You’re safe with me.
He blinks, and I can feel his eyelashes glide against mine. “Want to go to my place?”