I felt marginally better.
All day on Monday, I waited, feeling like I was holding my breath, and I didn’t exhale until I saw him standing there in the doorway, looking like the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Now, it’s been three more days of the same. I’m currently lying in his bed, staring at him, and he’s looking right back at me.
I haven’t left yet.
But I know I’ll have to go soon. I always go right after he gets up.
“Come to Malibu with me this weekend.”
I freeze. Is he…is he asking me to spend the weekend with him? In Malibu…where we met. Does this mean—
“Grady’s been asking to see you.”
Oh.
“Grady? You still talk to him?”
“Yeah. I surf with him every weekend. Max usually comes, too. Grady and I got close after ”—he looks away—“you left.”
A pain pierces my chest. I feel like I’m bleeding out.
“So, you’re asking me to come to Malibu with you because Grady wants to see me?”
His eyes come back to mine. “What other reason would I ask for?”
None, clearly. “Will Max be coming?”
It’s not that I don’t like Max because I do. I think he’s great. But I’m guessing he doesn’t like me so much anymore after I broke his best friend’s heart.
“No. He’s got other plans this weekend.”
“Oh, okay.” I sit up, resting against the headboard. “So, will I need a hotel room?”
I don’t want to be presumptuous and think we’ll be staying anywhere together.
“No, I have a place. You can stay in the spare room.”
Okay.
“Great. Thank you. It’ll be good to see Grady again.”
Come on, Evie. Sure you want to see Grady, but really, this is about you doing anything you can to spend time with Adam, outside of the bedroom.
Not that he said we’d be spending time together. He might just leave me to spend time alone with Grady and let me sleep in his spare room because he’s a good guy.
Adam gets up from the bed, heading toward the bathroom, like usual.
I slip my legs over the side of the bed, covering myself with the sheet, preparing to go.
“And, Evie”—he stops in the bathroom doorway, turning back to me, his hand resting on the frame—“me asking you to go to Malibu doesn’t have anything to do with you and me—not that there is a you and me. Going to Malibu is not some romantic getaway where we get to relive our past and pretend things are okay. Because they’re not okay. I’ve only asked you because Grady’s been bugging my ass about seeing you since he found out you were back. Is that clear?”
Crystal.
His words are like a knife in the chest. This isn’t something I didn’t already think. But I had hoped…I don’t know what I hoped. He doesn’t feel what he used to for me that is obvious enough. I killed those feelings years ago. I know he’s just fucking me. But still…it hurts like a bitch. I have to fight the tears from entering my eyes.
“It’s clear. But I didn’t think there was anything more to it than going to see Grady.”
“Oh. Well, good then.” He turns abruptly and disappears into the bathroom without another word.
And that’s me dismissed.
Taking a deep breath, I pick up my discarded clothes from the floor just as I hear the shower turn on.
As stupid as it sounds, I hate that he showers immediately after having sex with me. It’s like he can’t wait to get the smell of me off of him.
When we were younger, Adam always said he liked the smell of me after sex. He liked it even more when I smelled like him.
And when he did shower after sex, it was always with me, and he’d end up dirtying us both back up again once we were in there.
But we’re not kids anymore.
We’re not the same people we were back then. Everything is different, and that’s because of me.
And after Adam’s little speech, I know for definite that the only thing he wants from me is sex.
I was just fooling myself, thinking maybe he could at some point want more. But why would he? I hurt him in the worst possible way.
I dress quickly, so I won’t be here when he gets out of the shower. I have a feeling he wouldn’t like it very much if I were still here.
I slip my feet into my shoes and grab my bag. Then, I let myself out of his bungalow.
I walk the short distance to my car, which is in the staff parking lot.
When I reach it, I get in my car and turn the engine on.
“Here With Me” by The Killers is playing on the radio with Brandon Flowers lamenting about a lost love that he wants back.
I feel a pinch in my chest and then a sting of tears in my eyes so fierce that I can’t fight them.
Grasping ahold of the steering wheel, I drop my head against it, and I cry.
I cry for the choice I had to make all those years ago. I cry for not really having a choice.
Back then, I thought giving up Adam would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do in my life.
Now, I’m not sure.
Because this here right now, having him but not really having him, is far more painful than anything I’ve ever felt. And I’ve felt a lot of pain.
Back then, at least I could cling on to the hope that some part of him still loved me, that I wasn’t alone in my feelings.
But whatever Adam did feel for me died a long time ago, and I am more alone now than I was in those ten years without him.
There is nothing worse than loving someone when they don’t love you back, especially when you have only yourself to blame for it.
The song ends.
I dry my face with a tissue, take a deep breath, and turn the radio off. I put my car in drive, and I stay the whole journey home in complete silence.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year.” I tilt my head back from its place on Adam’s lap, so I can look up at him.
We’re on the beach by my rock—well, our rock now. We’re celebrating our one-year anniversary with a picnic—well, pizza and sparkling water, like we had on our first date, so it’s a less fancy type of picnic. But it’s perfect for me, just like he is.
It’s a year to the day when we first talked on the beach. I did wonder if our anniversary should have been tomorrow, the day we had our first date, but Adam said it was today. He said the day we first talked was the start of us.
He can say the sweetest things at times.
“I hope you’re not saying that like it’s a bad thing.” He grins down at me.
“Of course not, silly.” I tap his chest with the back of my hand. “It’s a good thing, a really good thing. Just…time sure does go by quickly.”
“Especially when you’re having fun.” He winks.
He’s totally referring to sex, the huge amount of sex we have.
Since we slept together for that first time, not a day has passed when we haven’t had sex.
I’ve had a lot of fun with Adam teaching me all kinds of new things and positions. And I know for sure he’s had a lot of fun, too, because he tells me so often.
I stare back out over the water, thinking about time. We don’t have much of it left.
Time is creeping up on us. Adam will have to leave for Harvard in just a little over a month.
I’m not ready to let him go. I don’t feel like we’ve had enough time together.
And I worry that he’s going to go to Boston, and make a whole new life for himself that doesn’t include me, and I’ll lose him.
I let out a small sigh.
“What’s up?” He taps my forehead with his fingertip.
“Nothing.” I look up at him. “Just thinking about when you have to leave for Boston. Stupid really. I shouldn’t be thinking of it on our special day.”