Pulse (9 page)

Chapter 11

MIA

“If I say
that I have a surprise for you, will you get out of bed?”

Aimee
gently kicked over a stack of books I'd pledged to read in the two-weeks time I
had until officially starting my new, full-time summer job at the UCF library.
It wasn't glamorous, and the pay was shit, but it at least enabled me to keep
campus housing until the season ended. If nothing else, it gave me time to
await a response from Cambridge, and if I was rejected, what my plans would be
thereafter. Which was, honestly, probably moving back into my mother's house.
All the way in
 
Arizona.

Arizona.
I didn't even want to contemplate this possibility. The few miles that I was
already feeling between myself and Dr. Greene felt like an ever-stretching gap.
An endless void.

Since
when did I become so melodramatic? This wasn't a good color on me, and I knew
it.

I sat up,
rolled out of bed and onto the floor with about as much grace as a dropped brick,
and started rearranging the stack of toppled books. So far, I'd read
The
House of the Seven Gables
,
The Count of Monte Cristo
, and
Dracula
.
Gatsby
was next on the list.

“What
kind of surprise?” I asked. “Does it involve Pringles or chocolate?”

“It involves
you needing to put on some clothes that aren't sweatpants,” she said. “We're
going out.”

“No,” I
said quickly. “No, no. I'm not up for any of your antics. I don't want to go
out. I want to stay inside, and read my books, and mope.”

“Mia,”
Aimee stressed. “I know you've been upset. I know breakups are hard. But you
need to snap out of it before you become one of those people that literally
lays around eating Twinkies and drinking whiskey and plucking every stray cat
from off the streets. Can you say hello, Animal Hoarders?”

“Florida
does have an immense stray cat problem,” I noted. “Where would we be going? No
dodgy dive-bars.”

“No dodgy
dive-bars,” she swore. “I mean, yeah, it is a bar – but I have a surprise for
you. I swear, you'll like it. You don't even need to drink if you don't want
to.”

“After
last time? No thanks. I'll stick with water and coffee.”

Aimee
rolled her eyes and cracked a smile. “You're impossible, you know. But you're
still my favorite person.”

“I know.”

I felt
like a fraud, not saying anything to her. Letting her believe that my
persistent depression and confusion and wayward behavior was a result of my
long-term relationship ending, and Evan finding some nouveau Tinder-girl. It
was almost pathetically easy to keep my own secret tucked away in the crevices
of my heart; a note only I could read.

But the
ink was slowly bleeding.

I watched
as she picked up a few of my tops, held them to her chest, then tossed them
aside.

“We need
to get you something for tonight,” Aimee said, and I said: “I don't have much
cash to spend on clothes. I'm kind of pathetically broke right now.”

“My
treat,” she said. “This guy I'm seeing – the one from Chiller's, he's been sort
of spoiling me. Guess what he does?”

“Whoa,
wait,” her news actually managed to liven me up a bit. “It's been what, two
weeks, and he's giving you money?”

“Not
money
,”
she insisted. “He owns an Anthropologie, and you're looking at his newest
employee. Granted, I work a whole ten hours a week – but he gives me super
steep discounts on top of the employee discount, on anything and everything I
want. I'm practically paying nickels and dimes.”

She
grinned wildly, yanked me up, and essentially shoved me into the bathroom. So I
shaved, showered, and even put on a little makeup before we made a quick trip
to Anthropologie. I shook hands with Aimee's new beau, who would apparently
also be making an appearance at wherever Aimee was dragging me to, and
outfit-wise, I ended up selecting a creamy-colored cotton sundress that
buttoned up in the front. It was airy, simple. I felt pretty, and I needed to
feel pretty. Paired with a pair of cork-wedged sandals and a bit of sunflower
perfume, I felt warm and sunny and properly boho-chic.

“You look
absolutely darling,” Aimee glowed. “Night and day. Really, Mia.”

In the
dressing room, she braided the two front strands of my hair, then clipped them
back with a small silver pin so that it looked as if I were wearing a braided
halo. She shimmied herself into a slightly sexier dress – black, strapless, and
tight in all the right places.

We showed
up at The Social around nine o'clock, and I ordered a glass of cranberry juice
and lime. Poking the straw around the glass, and seated at a small, intimate
table near the stage, I asked:

“Who's
playing tonight, anyway?”

Aimee
smiled.

“I'm not
sure.”

It was
impossible to hear the announcement over the noise; the entire venue was a
collaborative echo of drunken yells and affectionate jabs between friends.
Lovers were reclined near the railings, kissing discreetly in the shadowy
spots. One girl shrieked like Bloody Mary when some strange dude spilled her
Cosmo on what I guess was a new dress. The entire place was heavy with
cigarette smoke and body heat; cheap liquor and cheaper promises.

When the
lights went off, and the stage lit up, my stomach dropped.

Evan.

Evan was
on stage. All by himself.

“You're
kidding me,” I stammered. “How? He's not even in a band!”

“He's a
great guitarist,” Aimee noted. “You don't need a band to indulge in a solo act.
Call it a whim. Anyway, surprise.”

She was
grinning wildly beneath the electric lights, and I thanked Odin that the dark
room made it impossible for her to see the dread on my face, or how sick I
felt, or how upset I was that my own perpetual dishonesty had led me here.
Because, let's face it, this wouldn't be going down if I'd been upfront with
her.

Jesus. My
life.

“Aren't
you happy?” Aimee nudged. “You guys can reconnect again. He's here, you're
here. You can thank my penchant for bringing people together.”

I smiled
mutely, pleading with myself, for the love of God, not to vomit.

“Ecstatic,”
I said. “Absolutely ecstatic.”

On stage,
Evan cradled his acoustic guitar with a look of slight nervousness. He thanked
everyone that had showed up, and then announced:

“This is
a song I wrote for a girl. Yeah, I know, I know. Anyway, I broke her heart, and
she's here tonight...I think.”

I
swallowed. Fuck.

“So,” he
said. “I guess this is just my way of saying
I'm sorry
.”

Then he
started to play, and it was the most melancholic thing I'd ever heard. He had
played the guitar many times in the past for me, of course. Around the
apartment, mostly casually, and I had always loved it. But there's something so
intrusive about nostalgia, and how easily it can be triggered by the stupidest
things; like a TV commercial, or a certain movie, or a certain song. And
sitting there, at that little table, choking on the thick air and trying to
keep myself together, I could feel my world spinning.

But I
made it through. I sat and listened to the whole set, which was composed of
five songs total. The other four weren't related to me, but everyone seemed to
love Evan. And I got it, I really did. As a musician, he was talented. His
lyrics packed a poignant punch. For them, with their complete lack of intimate
knowledge, he was easy to love.

After the
set, he found Aimee and I at our table. He was glistening with sweat, panting a
little, his short hair damp and sticking to his forehead. He raked a hand
through it, smiling brightly.

“I'm so
glad you came,” he said.

Aimee smiled
at the two of us, stood, and said; “I'll leave you two alone.”

When she
left, Evan seated himself. I sucked down the rest of my cranberry juice,
stabbed the lime with my straw, and tried to figure out something to say. Thank
God he spoke first.

“I really
am,” he said. “I'm glad you came.”

First
rule: even if he had no idea about Dr. Greene, or the past near-month of my
chaotic misgivings, this was not going to turn into some twisted, typical
love-triangle.

“I'm
wondering what Aimee told you, to be honest.”

“That
you've not been feeling well. That you lay around in bed all day. That you've
missed me.”

“Do you
miss me?” I asked him.

He tapped
his fingers against the tabletop, as if playing the piano. He wore this flimsy
T-shirt and pair of torn jeans; his Chuck Taylors so worn down that the fabric
was starting to tear. He look the proper part of a wanna-be rock star.

“I'm
still with Kristen,” Kristen. The new girl. “But yeah. I do. I still think
about us. Do you?”

I glanced
up at him, feeling weak. Across the room, by the bar, I spotted Aimee standing
with her man; they were close, near cuddling, and they both looked so happy.

“I don't
know what to say,” I told him. “But honestly? I don't want this. I'm moving on,
Evan. I appreciate the song, and the thought, but you should do the same.”

“But,
Mia-”

I stood,
hugged him, and said: “Please. Don't make this more dramatic than it needs to
be. We're over, school's over, and it's time to pack it in and start over.
Besides, the apartment is already clean of you.”

He
looked, at that moment, like I'd stuck him in the heart with a sharp needle.
Confused, distraught. As if he had never simply walked out of
my
life to
begin with.

But right
then, he let me leave without protest, and I hugged Aimee, quickly thinking up
another lie, because that was my life these days:

“I got a
text from my mom,” I told her. “I need to go outside and call her.”

“Did you
talk with Evan?” she asked, hope lighting her eyes.

“Yeah,” I
said. “He's still with his new girl. Listen, I'm not going to drag it out. But
we had a nice chat, yeah.”

Yeah.
Yeah. It was all nonsense, but no more nonsensical than Evan making googly eyes
at me while he was still mucking around with this other girl. And I wanted
nothing to do with it.

Outside,
the breeze was welcomed against the backdrop of a treacherously clingy
humidity. I sucked in a deep breath of air, took a short walk around the
corner, and sat myself down on a stone bench.

I picked
up my phone, wishing for something I knew I wouldn't see: some kind of correspondence
from Dr. Greene.

I missed
him. And thinking about how pretty I looked, and how gossamer the little
gauzy-white dress I was wearing suddenly seemed, and how shimmery I felt
sitting alone in the heady, heated city all lit up with summer night-life.

I found
his name, paused, then wrote him a message:
I need you.

A minute
later, the phone rang. It was him.

He picked
me up in his Porsche, rolling down the window, his mouth falling open just
slightly when he saw me in the dress. I gave him a twirl, and his eyes
darkened.

“Perfect,”
he breathed, then commanded roughly: “Get inside the car. Now.”

He didn't
need to ask twice. The Porsche smelled of leather and Dr. Greene's cologne.
God, I had never smelled cologne on him before – but until this point, he'd
always been dressed the part of a doctor. Now, he wore jeans and a black dress
shirt kept unbuttoned at the collar. His hair was damp, combed back, but he
hadn't shaved.

Without
pause, he reached over, grasped my thigh, and trailed his fingers along the inside,
towards the aching spot between my legs.

“What are
you doing?” I gasped.

He
grinned. That was the first time I acknowledged how truly sexy a simple grin
could be. He looked wild, unkempt, uncaring.

“I've
gone completely insane,” he said darkly. “Would you like to know what I'm going
to do to you, Mia?”

My heart
dropped; my legs trembled.

“Yes,” I
said quietly. Meekly. My skin started to grow hot.

“I'm
going to strip you down, slowly, and taste every inch of you,” he slid his
fingers into the band, feeling the slippery slit between my legs. “And I'm
going to fuck you like nobody's ever fucked you before. I'm going to fuck you
like I couldn't back at my office.”

He
withdrew his hand from my underwear, skimmed his fingertips gently down the
side of my neck.

When we
hit a red light, he kissed me, hard.

I could
have died right then, and it would have been perfectly fine.

“This is
all I've wanted,” I whispered. “I can't believe this is real.”

Dr.
Greene caught my bottom lip between his teeth, then kissed me again, gentler.
Subdued.

“Right
now, you're not my patient. I don't want to think about that. I can't think
about it.”

When we
pulled into the parking garage, my blood racing, I asked.

“What do
you want to think about?”

He
grabbed my hand, led me towards an elevator, and yanked me into his arms. He
carried me inside, kissing me feverishly, cradling me like Evan cradled his
guitar. Like something desired and precious and completely owned.

In his
apartment, he paused, still holding me, to fumble with the lights. It was all a
massive expansive of black and white; cold, stainless-steel appliances and
crisp linens. His couch was white. The pillows were black, red, and gold. The
windows, all stretched from floor-to-ceiling, broadcasting the city in a way I
had never seen before. As if we were looking down on the entire world.

We
stumbled into his bedroom, he threw me down on the bed. Ragged, filled to the
edge with a torrid kind of lust, he slid me out of my dress, dragging it down
slowly so that it gradually exposed my breasts, my stomach, my thighs. On his
knees, he was breathing heavily, almost straining, it seemed, to keep himself
contained.