The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love (18 page)

I swallow hard, feeling it echo through my hollow limbs. “So . . . now what?” I mutter, but I'm talking to myself.

Except Roxana doesn't get that. “Exactly. Now what, Graham?” She throws her hands up in the air. She sounds pissed, and suddenly that makes me angry. I just poured my heart out to her. She totally rejected me. And now she's
mad at me
?

We glare at each other for a few seconds more, and then I look at my watch. “Well, it's ten thirty,” I say, my voice magically steady as if it's an entity apart from everything churning inside me. “We have to catch a train soon.”

“Right,” she says as she yanks the door of the bar open. The bouncer doesn't even stop us this time as we march back to the room.

When we get in there, Devin starts to ask if everything is all right, but Roxana cuts him off. “We have to catch our train now,” she says with a fake smile and a syrupy-sweet voice that sounds more off than the Mariah Carey song Ryan is currently interpreting.

I just stand by the door as they say their good-byes and mutter mine on cue. I vaguely realize that Devin is making plans to see Roxana again tomorrow at NYCC, but I barely hear it. Everything
suddenly looks and sounds as if it's underwater.

When we leave the bar for the final time, Roxana walks briskly out in front of me, and I make no attempt to catch up to her, just follow her familiar gait all the way to Penn Station. My head is down, but the streetlamps paint her shadow across my path. If I had all my writerly wits about me, I'm sure I could make it into a metaphor for something. But right now, whatever primal emotional preservation method courses through my body kicks in and I feel numb to my core. Or maybe it's the beer. I'm thinking I wouldn't mind if this lasted awhile, like maybe for a few years, until I can be positive I'll be totally over this abject rejection.

Our train is at the platform when we arrive at the station. We go down the stairs to catch it, and that's the only time Roxana says anything to me. “I texted Felicia, and her brother can come pick us up.”

I give a small nod.

She stops walking then and lets me get on the train first. I immediately realize it's so that I can choose a seat and she can choose one somewhere down the car.

That's fine. As soon as I sit down, I search through my backpack and put my headphones on. But scrolling through my phone, I realize there's no music I want to listen to. Music will probably unleash all the emotions that are being strangely kept at bay, and I can't afford to throw a gift like that away.

I keep the headphones on anyway. They're a decent pair, and they
cancel out most of the noises of the train. It's not that crowded because it's too early for most of the rowdy drunk crowd to be heading home after a Saturday night out, but there are still some conversations happening in the car that I'd prefer not to hear: a loved-up couple two rows behind me, some girl telling her friend about the amazing second date she just had.

With the headphones on, I mostly just feel the rumble of the train. And then I close my eyes, and I can almost pretend to be on any train, going anywhere. I can be in a 1920s detective novel or a sci-fi intergalactic flight. I can be anyone, too. Anyone except Graham Posner on this night in October. That sounds like a step up to me.

“The skies swallowed her up and the stars glittered coldly on—feeling nothing for one shattered heart on one insignificant planet,”
Charlie says at the end.
“They shine and shine but all is dim.”

No. For once, I don't want to be Charlie Noth, either. Even though I feel closer to understanding his feelings than I ever have before.

With determination, I manage to keep my mind pretty clear as we rumble back to Huntington. Anytime anything even remotely unpleasant threatens to surface, I just pop it like a bubble. Or better yet, punch it like in an old episode of Adam West's
Batman
. Rox—POW! Karao—BAM! Even Robert Zi—gets KABOOMed.

I'm not asleep exactly when we finally arrive, but it takes me a while to realize the train has stopped. When I open my eyes, my car
is almost empty and Roxana is nowhere in sight. I grab my backpack and amble out.

She's waiting for me outside. She points out Emile's car in the parking lot, and I follow her to it.

Felicia is sitting in the passenger seat, so Roxana and I open opposite doors in the back and slide in.

“Hi, guys!” Felicia says.

“Hi,” Roxana immediately responds, extra loudly; maybe she thinks she can pass that off as her usual chirpiness. “Thanks so much for picking us up! I owe you one, Emile.”

“Yes, thank you,” I echo in hollow tones.

“No problem,” Emile says as he pulls out of the parking lot.

“So . . . how was it today?” Felicia asks brightly.

“Fine,” Roxana says stiffly, and I just nod. Silence permeates the car.

“Just . . . fine?” Felicia asks, and her sharp eyes glance at us in the rearview mirror.

“Well, you know. It was great,” Roxana says, again substituting volume for enthusiasm. “The usual nerd stuff we love. We don't want to bore you.”

At this point, Felicia has turned back to look Roxana in the face and gets met with a toothy smile. Then Felicia turns to me, and I will my mouth to turn up too.

She looks back and forth between us for a second longer and then sneaks a glance at her brother before finally turning around in her seat,
like she's desperate to find out what's happening but knows better than to ask in front of him.

“Sounds awesome,” she finally says. “But you guys sound exhausted.”

“Yes, definitely,” Roxana says, her voice now flooded with relief.

Ten minutes later, Emile pulls into my driveway. I thank him and Felicia again before scrambling out of the car and up to my front door, my keys already in hand. I cannot get away from that Toyota Prius and its current inhabitants fast enough.

THE NUMBNESS STICKS WITH ME
as I methodically prepare for bed, and I'm starting to think I'll fall asleep that way. But then, from the corner of my eye, I glimpse something on my wall: a few of the
Misfits of Mage High
panels that I love the most and have tacked up there. Suddenly, one moment comes back like a pinprick to a balloon and jolts all my nerves awake—what Roxy said about
Misfits.

She didn't want anything to change, and now everything has. How will we ever write together again? Or talk? Or do anything without it being supremely awkward? Have I destroyed everything I built up over the past eight years in one fell swoop?

A tear escapes my eye. I hastily wipe it away and shut my eyes tight so that no more tears can come. It takes me a very long time to fall asleep.

After only a couple of fitful hours of rest, I wake up the next day with a pounding headache and dry, red eyes. I only remember halfway through dressing that I'm probably experiencing something of a hangover. Coupled with a shattered heart, of course. Terrific.

The original plan was for Roxana's mom to drive Samira, Roxy, and me to the train station this morning, but I immediately self-veto this. Instead, I go downstairs and ask my dad if he can give me a ride. He agrees, and I send Roxana a quick text that takes me way too long to compose, since I want to come across as casual and non-brokenhearted as possible.
No need for a ride today. My dad will drop me off
is what I finally settle for.

K
, she texts back after five minutes. Which I desperately attempt (and mostly fail) not to read anything into.

On the drive over, my dad asks what's going on at the con today and I mumble something about panels because, honestly, I don't even remember what I had originally planned for the day.

“Sounds fun. Maybe next year, I can come with you guys on one of the weekend days,” he says.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Next year. That seems impossible right now. That the minutes, hours, and days will tick away enough for us to be at New York Comic Con again one whole year later. How can I possibly occupy
that time without my best friend and my writing partner? How excruciating will all those moments be?

I'm absentmindedly staring at my dad's hands on the steering wheel, and the shiny gold band on his left hand twinkles at me. Out of nowhere a thought hits me. I've asked my dad to recall the day he met my mom hundreds of times. In the beginning, it was about them, their story. But later on, I wanted to hear it because it gave me hope as an awkward nerd myself. That my dad got up the nerve to approach a pretty girl and strike up a conversation, even if the impetus for it was misguided.

But now I realize . . . I don't know much about the rest. How did they keep talking? How did he ever tell her he loved her? Eventually propose to her?

There's only one person I can ask this of now. I might as well.

“Dad?”

“Hmmm?”

“When did you tell Mom you loved her?”

He quickly glances at me then, surprised enough by the question to momentarily take his eyes off the road. But then he bursts out laughing. “On our third date,” he confesses. “I was an idiot. It was a miracle she didn't bolt out of the restaurant and never come back.”

I smile weakly and take that in before I think of a follow-up question. “And did you actually love her by the third date?”

“Of course!” he says. “But I should've played it at least a little bit cooler, you know? Anyone less perfect for me probably never would
have stood for it.” I see a sad, secret smile play on his lips.

“What about Lauren? When did you tell her?”

“Ah. Well, I was definitely older and wiser. And it was a different, more mature relationship. Plus, you know, I was still grieving for Evie for a long time, even when we first started dating. So it took a while. But I told her on our one-year anniversary, when we went to the Hamptons for a weekend. I planned the whole thing out that time.”

I nod, thinking my situation sounds like a combination of the two. Planned out and thought about . . . but urgent and spontaneous, too.

“I love Lauren, too, you know,” Dad says quietly, and I turn to him, slightly alarmed.

“I know,” I assure him.

“There's a part of you that thinks it's not supposed to work out that way,” Dad continues slowly, his eyes on the road. “That you get one great love and to try again with anyone else would be an abomination to that memory. I never thought I would have to find love again, obviously, when I married your mom. And after she was gone, I never thought I ever could . . . I never looked for it—” I'm alarmed to realize that he's sounding apologetic.

“Dad,” I interrupt him. “I'm glad you have Lauren. I'm glad we both do.” And it's true. She loves my dad, and she's always been good to me, even if she doesn't quite understand me. Maybe I didn't comprehend their relationship so well when I was nine, but now that I'm older—and now that I have an inkling of what love actually is—I do. I think
Lauren was the only way my dad was ever going to heal from losing my mom. Not get over it, precisely, but heal.

“Is there something that's brought this on?” my dad prods gently as we turn into the train station parking lot.

I sigh. “Something,” I concede. “Maybe we can talk about it later.”

He nods. “I'm here to listen whenever.”

I smile at him. “Thanks. See you.”

“Do you have a ride back?” he asks as I'm getting out of the car. Oh, man, a loaded question. Once again, Roxy's mom was supposed to pick us up.

“Um, not sure. Can I call you if I need?”

“You bet.”

We say good-bye and my dad drives off. The train hasn't arrived, so I walk slowly to the empty platform, my eyes darting around like I'm stalking prey. No one else is here yet, but a few minutes later, Casey gets dropped off. And just as I'm about to say hello to him, a familiar burgundy sedan pulls up too, and Roxana and Samira pile out, and then, to my surprise, Felicia.

“I didn't know Felicia was coming today.” Casey voices my thoughts.

“Me neither,” I mutter. When the three girls come up to us, Casey asks Felicia about her surprise appearance and Felicia says she snagged a last-minute pass on eBay last night. “I had so much fun on Friday, I thought why not?” she says cheerily, but I notice she doesn't meet my eye. Of course, Roxana must have told her what happened, and she's
here for moral support. Or maybe even to make sure I don't renew my declarations of affection or whatever.

The train pulls up and we find an available five-seater, three seats facing one way and two the other. The third seat is always a shorter one, with uncomfortable metal bars where the headrest would otherwise be. But after Roxana slides into the window and Samira slides in next to her, I take that one. This way I'm not facing Roxana and I'm one seat away from her too. It's the farthest we can get from each other while still pretending to be part of the same group.

On the way in, Samira chatters about how she's so excited about her first NYCC and, thankfully, fills up a lot of the silence. Felicia and Casey chime in, and even Roxy and I pick up cues here and there—whenever we're sure it can't be construed as us having a conversation with each other. At one point, when Samira is asking Roxana a complicated question about the logistics of the autograph line, I see Casey eyeing Felicia thoughtfully, and I vaguely wonder if he's going to bring the class ranking thing up today. And then I sort of wish my biggest problem right now was academic in nature too: study enough, strategize enough, and it's likely solvable. Completely the opposite of this tangled emotional turmoil that seems to have no logical solution.

It isn't too hard to let the others steer the conversation on the walk over to the Javits, either. Besides, it's cold and we're walking against the wind. It's like nature is on my side for once, making it harder to be chatty.