If Only (22 page)

“Thank you, Daniel. That helped,” I say, and he opens the door to usher me back inside. I’m only going in for a minute, to grab my stuff so I can officially head home.

Elaina waits for me at the table when I get back in. I shake my head at her, not in the mood for any kind of explanation.

“Don’t, Elaina. Please, don’t. I appreciate what you tried to do for me today, but this is not happening. You cannot force him to speak to me when he clearly doesn’t want to, and I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to him at this point, not after four pints and a shot.”

She startles at my admission. “A shot? Who gave you a shot?”

“Does it matter?” I continue. “Look at me. I’m fine, except for some minor humiliation. I need to get out of here. I have a phone call with Sam later. And classes start tomorrow. My night ends now.”

I grab my fleece and fix my purse strap across my body.

“Who is going to walk you home?” she asks.

I shrug. “I’m fine on my own.” I look at the clock above the bar. It’s only seven-thirty. It wasn’t fully dark when I was outside a moment ago. “It’s not dark out yet. I’ll be home in ten minutes. I’ll text you when I get there.”

I turn to leave, but she grabs my arm.

“Jordan, wait. I will get Duncan. He will walk you home and come back. It is okay.”

We both scan the bar, though, and see no sign of Duncan. Noah and Hailey are in plain sight, though, and our eyes connect for a brief moment. That’s enough for me to entertain no other thoughts of waiting.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Elaina. “I have to go.” Our second semester of classes starts tomorrow. For that reason alone, I shouldn’t be here. At least now she can’t argue with me for leaving.

I make my way past her to the door but am forced to pause in the frame of the exit. Four pints and a shot have officially caught up to one another, and a wave of dizziness hits me out of nowhere. My palm rests on the windowed portion of the door. I’m hoping the dizziness will pass, but it doesn’t fully. I leave anyway. Even though I ache to talk to Noah, I don’t want to do it like this, when sobriety is waning.

I’m not out the door a full minute before I hear him. “Jordan, what the hell are you doing?”

I don’t turn around but keep walking, maybe not in the straightest line, but I move in the right direction. Away.

“I’m going home. Go enjoy your night.” My back still faces him.

I walk, but not fast enough. His footsteps catch up to mine. His hand on my shoulder, he forces me to a stop and then to face him.

“You can’t walk home alone like this. You’re drunk.”

I brush his hand off my shoulder, my immature pettiness taking over. I’m so angry with him, and at the same time I want nothing more than for him to touch me, to go back to where we were twenty-four hours ago.

“Thank you for the astute observation, Mr. Keating, but I assure you I can walk home like this.” I turn to leave, but this time he grabs my hand. The tightness I feel in my stomach now has nothing to do with liquor.

“It’s getting dark. You know it’s not safe to walk the park at night alone. Don’t be stupid to be spiteful, Jordan.”

His repeated use of my first name feels like swallowing shards of glass. Each time he says it, the cut goes deeper.

“Spiteful?” I tremble as I speak the word. How could he think I would spite
him
? It doesn’t matter. He’s already made up his mind about everything.

“
Please
, Noah.” My voice cracks, and I don’t try to hide my sorrow now. “Let me go.”

He’s quiet for several seconds and then pulls out his phone.

“Fine. I’m walking you home. I just have to…”

He trails off, and even in my state I know the words he doesn’t want to say.
I just have to text Hailey.
Because he came with her. Because they have history. Because he’s evened the score. I don’t want to believe that last one, but Hailey spoke it without a hint of irony, without an ounce of malice. She still loves him, and maybe that’s enough for Noah now that he’s lost any faith in me.

I can’t wait for him, so I start on my way again. A minute later he is next to me, almost. He hangs back a few paces, and we walk in silence, together but not.

The walk is sobering yet painful. To be this close to him yet so very, very far is maddening. The beauty of the park is muted by the growing darkness, the spindly, naked trees more threatening than inviting. I’m glad he’s here, if only for a short time. When we finally emerge from the park onto the Hillhead property, I break the silence.

“Are you back with her now? Hailey?”

I figure that no matter what he thinks of me, he owes me this answer.

“Jordan.” Regret bleeds from that one word, my name.

I can’t move or speak.

“It’s more complicated than that. We’ve been with each other through a lot.”

“God, Noah. Enough with the fucking complicated! What about what’s going on with us? Was that just to even the score with Hailey?”

His expression hardens. “I can’t believe you’d say that.” His hands clasp at the nape of his neck. “I can’t, Jordan. I can’t do this with you right now.” He pauses, his face filled with frustration. “You were right, what you said. There’s an expiration date on everything that happens here.” He paraphrases my words without bitterness. Instead it sounds as if he is making a realization.

“But not with her. With Hailey.” I realize something, too. “She doesn’t have an expiration date.” I swallow hard, fighting back the torrent that builds. “I get it.”

Those
were
my words. He is right. But those words came from a person who never could have planned on him. I would have fought against time, would have fought for him. But that doesn’t seem to matter now.

“Good night,” I say. “Thanks for getting me home safe.”

I turn toward the door of my building, praying he doesn’t try to say anything more because I can’t hold back the torrent any longer. When I get inside, my vision blurs with tears. I go to my window, though I know he won’t be there, but for one shred of a moment I let myself hope.

He’s gone.

My journal rests on the desk, now open to the first page. I read my recollection of Noah’s impromptu kiss and pick up the cause of this devastating day and hurl it into my closet. Though I’m fully clothed, I set my alarm for the morning, collapse atop my blanket, and let sleep take me. When my phone rings at midnight, I don’t hear it, or if I do, I silence it, putting off reality for a few hours more.

Chapter Twenty

I’m sure that morning is a woman because this Monday, she is a total bitch. I wake to my alarm but also to puffy eyes and a mouth that feels like I spent the night sucking on a sheet of fabric softener.

Half conscious, I shuffle my way to the bathroom. When I emerge from the shower, I am clean by definition but still layered in the bleak finality of last night. I rub a clean spot into the foggy mirror and look at my red, swollen eyes, cursing myself for signing up for a morning class regardless of who was in it. No matter how great Shakespeare is, the funniest of his comedies will not get a laugh out of me at nine o’clock on hangover Monday. I promise myself not to coin that phrase for further use. Hangover Monday is here for one appearance only.

I throw on my jeans from last night. A glance at my phone sends me into a spiral of homesickness. I missed Sam last night, so I pair my already worn denim with my Illinois sweatshirt. Not many Hillhead residents leave at this hour. Nearly everyone but me knows to avoid nine a.m. classes on a Monday. Students who walk to class are obscured under the canopies of umbrellas, so it’s hard to gauge whether or not I know anyone who’s out here. Halfway through the park, though, the rain settles as the sun pokes through a menacing cloud.

As soon as I close my umbrella, I see Duncan. We’ve been walking together this whole time.

“Good morning, Duncan,” I half say, half groan.

“Morning, Jordan. I thought that was you but wasn’t sure you’d be wanting to talk to me.”

I stop so I can look at him, so he can see the benign expression on my face.

“Duncan, I’m not angry with you. Elaina asked you to do what you did, and I don’t blame you for it. Your hearts were in the right place. But maybe you all should have been looking out for mine.”

“That’s it, though,” he says. “It was all about your heart, Jordan. Elaina only wanted to help. I’m afraid it looks as if you’ve given up already, though, and that won’t do.”

I start walking again. He joins me and continues our now one-sided conversation. Though I do listen.

“Jordan, Saturday night, when you walked in with Noah, Elaina knew. In her words: ‘Oh shit. The Americans are in love.’”

I don’t miss the s on the end of the word Americans. “Duncan, even if that was true, it doesn’t matter.”

He scratches his head. “Look. I’m saying that even I could see it, and I can be right thick sometimes. We both saw you with Griffin, and I’m telling you, it was nothing like that display the other night, and we didn’t even see you kissing. Heard it, though. Outside the front door and through your wall. You can hear everything in those flats.” He pauses for a second, and realization spreads across his face along with a naughty grin. “I guess that means you can hear me and—”

“Stop! Duncan, I don’t want to talk about what I can hear from behind the wall. I’m already scarred!”

At this we both laugh, but I find myself hanging on to whatever he may say next. I wonder if it’s possible to fall in love after a day. But it’s been more than that. Hasn’t it? Starting with that kiss, so much has passed between us in four months. Duncan’s right, and it shames me to admit it, but it was never like that with Griffin.

“What are you trying to say?” I ask him.

“I’m saying you don’t fall out of love in a matter of hours because of some silly words on a silly page.”

I shake my head. “He didn’t trust me. He took one look at Griffin’s stupid note and thought the worst of me.”

“Aye.” He thinks for a moment. “But from what Elaina’s told me, the man’s been put through the ringer. It’s quite messy, yeah, for him to spend a year with the girl who really did break his trust? I imagine it makes him wary of trusting again so easily.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Messy.”

Duncan rubs his buzzed head, hesitating.

I push him further. “Just say what you want to say.”

He sighs. “Aye. Ya did have Griffin in the room with ya when he came by. Try to understand what that could have done to him. Even though nothing happened, ya didn’t tell him.”

My heart sinks into my stomach when I remember lying in Griffin’s arms and hearing the knock on the door. My eyes sting with the threat of tears because I do know how Noah felt. The only difference is I didn’t know he was there, but when I went looking for him, he knew it was me and let Hailey greet me at the door.

We’re on campus now, and I’m minutes from facing Noah.

“You’re right,” I say, “about all of it. But there’s one puzzle piece missing from your argument.”

“And what’s that?”

“Hailey. The other girl.” I shrug and try to smile, indicating my appreciation for his words, but everything in me feels too heavy.

Because he knows he cannot argue against me, he smiles back sadly, waving as he walks toward his building. As I approach Taylor with increasing dread, I lament that my castle has turned into my torment. Any steps Noah and I have taken forward are erased with all the steps that instead lead back to a beginning that is now an end.

Three tables. That’s it, the setup of the classroom. Three tables. An intimate seating arrangement. Each table seats five, and all seats are filled except for one at one table and one at another. Noah is not here.

There are still several minutes before class begins. In my morning haze, I somehow made it out of the flat with time to spare. I opt for the table closest to the door and take a seat next to a girl I recognize from one of my first-semester classes. She’s heavily in conversation with someone on the other end of a text, but she looks up to say hello when I sit. Minutes tick away like seconds before a hurried woman walks in the door, hair half-falling out of a messy bun stabbed through with pencils and a precarious stack of books between her two hands. She barely makes it to the small desk at the head of the room before the books pour from her arms, some making it to the desktop, others finding an unexpected place on the floor.

“Right,” she starts, clasping her hands together below chin level. “I am Professor Thompson, and I’d like to welcome you to…” And now her hands flourish with dramatic passion. “Shakespearean Comedy.”

In spite of myself, I smile. Her manner and air of speaking is Judy Dench as Eleanor Lavish in
A Room with a View
, vivacious and infectious. In just her introduction I’m certain she’s the type of woman who doesn’t hold anything back.

“Sorry I’m late.” The familiar voice comes from the door. He smiles until his eyes meet mine, and I realize I never had a chance to tell him we would be taking this class together.

Surprise!

Noah makes his way to the only empty seat in the room at the table opposite mine. His back faces me, so I cannot gauge his expression. His shoulders tense toward his ears, though, and he barely turns toward the instructor.

“It’s quite all right…” She pauses, waiting for him to speak his name.

“Noah. Noah Keating.” In his profile I see his forced smile, and the corners of my mouth inch up involuntarily along with him.

Stupid smile
.

“It’s quite all right, Noah Keating. As the rest of you will soon find out, attendance for this course is mandatory yet quite fluid. Depending on the topic of the day, we may meet here as a class, or you may meet in smaller groups or pairs for scene work at other places along campus or in your area of residence.”

This gets everyone’s attention.

“As the course description informs, the reason for the small class size is that we do not simply read Shakespeare’s comedies. No one was meant to
read
them.”

I’m not sure I like where this is going.

“Whether comedy, tragedy, or history, we are meant to
experience
Shakespeare, and the only way in which to do that is by watching or performing. In here, you will do both.”