The Opposite of Nothing (8 page)

“Close enough.”

Was it really? She’d find out one way or another.

* * *

T
ayber fumbled his keys in a rush. He felt lightheaded, like he’d pounded a six pack instead of walked a few blocks. He tripped over a useless lacrosse stick and kicked it across the room. Too much junk. Shit he didn’t even need. He was going to have to pare down to the essentials. Everything that couldn’t fit in Callie’s apartment, or his trunk, needed to go.

He opened an email from someone he didn’t know, certain it was probably spam. It was worse than spam. Aaron. Stupid public directory.

I want to make things right. Give me a chance. I’ll stop by your dorm...
Blah, blah, blah. He deleted the email without finishing it and noticed Sasha online.

Tay: My brother found my email address

Sasha: What did he say?

Tay: Doesn’t matter. I deleted it.

Sasha: Really? You aren’t even curious?

Tay: He wants to apologize.

Sasha: For what?

Tay: For being a selfish dick.

Sasha: ?

Tay: We’d been talking about leaving forever, but the same way we talked about playing pro ball or winning the lottery. It wasn’t real. Not for me. One day he had a bag full of clothes and a girlfriend with a car running in the parking lot. He promised he’d be back for me as soon as he could swing it. And I believed him.

Tay: I guess he thinks eight years counts as soon.

Sasha: Don’t you want to know why he didn’t come back?

Tay: Fuck why.

Sasha: Maybe he had a good reason. Like, he was locked up in prison.

Tay: Prison is good?

Sasha: Not good. But it would be a good excuse, right? Like, it wasn’t his choice.

He tried to picture Aaron in prison but couldn’t do it. Some people from their neighborhood treated jail like a vacation from life. No big deal. But he and Aaron hadn’t been like that. No stints in juvie, no brushes with crime. Could’ve gone a different way. If they’d run wild in the streets...

Tay: If he got locked up, that would be a choice too. A bad one.

Sasha: Is everything always so black and white?

Tay: Yes.

Sasha: I think you should talk to him.

An answer to the nagging question of why the fuck he left would be nice. If only he could get that answer and walk away.

Tay: Maybe. But not right now. Everything is too messed up. I don’t need more drama on top.

Sasha: What else is wrong?

Tay: I’m crashing on Callie’s futon this summer. It might get weird.

Sasha: How?

He wanted the weird vibe that had been pinging between him and Callie to do something. To stop or grow. Anything was better than what they had now. It was like an unreachable itch. No, it had to stop.

Tay: I’m worried that I’m taking advantage of her. That I might lose her as a friend.

Sasha: How?

Tay: We don’t want the same things.

Sasha: What do you want?

He wanted one day where everything in his life wasn’t threatening to crash down on his head.

Tay: A break.

* * *

C
allie wished she’d dropped a can of tomatoes on her foot and saved herself the trouble of that conversation. She’d been clearing off shelf space in the pantry, making room for Tayber to store his things, bouncing to some synth-pop, when she’d heard the familiar ping of a new message. If only she’d ignored it, distracted herself with a more desirable disaster. A broken toe probably didn’t hurt quite as much as a broken heart.

They didn’t want the same things. His message might as well have been a blinking billboard. Big surprise. She wanted something. He wanted nothing. No, he wanted a break. Did he want a break from her? She slammed the laptop shut and stormed out of her room, banging her shin on the unfolded futon in her living nook. “Shitfuckdamn!” Hopping around on one foot, she rubbed the throbbing spot below her knee.
That’s going to be an awesome bruise.
He hadn’t even carted over one box yet and she was already tripping over him.

It wasn’t all in her head anymore, the heat between them, she knew that much. So what the fuck kind of game was he playing?

She was a rubber band stretched to its limit. No give left. Tears welled up, but she fought them back. She was absolutely not going to cry over this anymore. She had a crush, end of story. She’d nearly made a fool of herself over it, but she could start over. Time to lay Sasha to rest for good. She was done pretending, in public, in private. It was like an erosion of her soul.

They’d both be so busy that they’d hardly see each other anyway. She’d make sure of it, take up jogging in the morning, study in the library after class. She pulled an Oreo out of the open package on the top shelf of what would soon be Tayber’s closet and split it apart. Every time she wanted a cookie, she’d have to look at his things. Smell his cologne and laundry detergent. Maybe she’d stop eating so much junk.
Yay, silver lining.
She sighed and slumped against the kitchen wall, licking the cream from the middle before shoving both halves into her mouth at once.

T
ayber lugged the last box up the narrow stairs. The first two were already stacked in the corner of Callie’s “living nook.” She seemed to think her place was embarrassingly tiny, but it wasn’t much smaller than the apartment he’d grown up in. Add one bedroom, and it would be damn near palatial. The box landed on top of the pile with a
thunk
.

“Is that it?” Callie asked from her perch on the futon. She had her legs tucked underneath her and a pencil shoved into the twist of hair on the top of her head. She’d offered to help, but he’d refused. He could carry his own crap.

“Yeah, I’ll get it all squared away soon. Don’t worry. I won’t spread out everywhere.”

“It’s fine. There’s room for stuff in the pantry, too.” She kept her head down, focused on the notebook open on her lap.

He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the envelope he’d stuffed there earlier. It wasn’t anywhere near half the rent on a place like this—close to campus, clean—but it was something. He’d been scraping together a housing deposit. Now, he’d give that to Callie. He held it out to her, extended it like an olive branch. “Here.”

“A present?”

“More like a down payment.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock and she shook her head, that ridiculous pencil bobbing with every movement. “No, no, no. Save your money. I told you my mom paid for the whole year in full.”

“For you. Not for me.”

“Doesn’t matter. Paid is paid.”

“Take the damn money.” He dropped it on top of her notebook, and she knocked it off like it was a hot coal.

“No. Buy some groceries if you want. Stock the fridge with beer. Put some gas in your car. You need the money more than I do.”

He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, and his neck flushed. He ground his back teeth together. “I’m not a charity case.”

She looked up then. Finally. All pink cheeks and wide blue eyes. At least she wasn’t giving him the sad, I-feel-sorry-for-you face. “I don’t think that. I just want to help.”

“Not charging rent is more than help. You’re already doing enough.”

“I can do more.” For a second he wondered exactly what
more
could be, blood rushing much lower than his neck, and then shook it off. He wasn’t here for that. Callie wasn’t
for
that. He picked up the envelope and shoved it back into his pocket. He’d find a way to give it to her later. Groceries weren’t a bad place to start.

“I’ll go shopping tomorrow. Any requests?”

She flashed a wobbly smile. “Twizzlers. And I’m almost out of Oreos.”

Did she ever eat real food?
I guess I’ll find out.

* * *

“I
s something burning?”

Callie jumped at the rumble of Tayber’s voice. He could have whispered it, and she’d still have heard him through the paper-thin walls. She’d spent the last few nights trying very hard not to hear him breathing on the other side of that wall. Pounding her pillow into submission, her nipples tight against her sleep shirt. Every tug, every shift, abrasive and electric.

She finished yanking on the jeans she’d finally decided were clean enough for one more wear and bolted toward the kitchen. “It’s the garlic bread.” She hadn’t even been sure the oven would work. Apparently it worked too well because the box said the bread would take ten minutes and it hadn’t even been five. As she rounded the corner, Tayber flung open the enamel door, and smoke flooded the tiny kitchen. She grabbed the hand towel she’d planned to use as a pot holder and fanned the cloud toward the open window over the sink.

“Are we having charcoal briquettes for dinner?”

“Very funny. I don’t know what happened. I read the box. I set the timer. This should be idiot-proof.”

“Here, let me.” He snatched the towel from her hands and removed the cremated bread, deftly dumping the smoking remains into the sink. He peered into the pot on the stove. “How long have these noodles been boiling?”

“A while?”

He used the fork resting on the stove top to fish out a single noodle and squeezed the pasta between his thumb and forefinger. “I think we passed al dente and are closing in on glue.”

“Ruined it, didn’t I? Shit. I promised to feed you.”

“No, you promised me a kitchen. The least I can do is cook. Seems you can barely feed yourself.”

“I do okay.”

“Give me a half hour. I’ll whip something up.” He stuck his head in the pantry and started pulling cans off the shelf.

“There isn’t much to work with.”

“Believe me, I’ve accomplished more with less.” He shooed her away.

She sat on the edge of the futon. Her futon. Her apartment. Why did she feel like a guest?

She couldn’t see around the corner into the kitchen, but she heard the can opener buzz and the bang of a pot being pulled from the cupboard. The water ran for a few minutes. And then he started singing to himself. Or to her—it was one of her favorite songs. She closed her eyes and leaned back, pulling her legs up under her. Letting the glorious sandpaper scrape of song lull her into a sleepless dream.

When she woke, Tayber stood over her, grinning, a dish towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans and a steaming plate balanced on one hand. “Milady. Dinner is served.”

Her stomach growled in response, and she imagined cartoon scent-fingers curling up from the plate directly to her nose.

He laughed. “And just in time.”

The chipped plate was warm and heavy, loaded with elbow noodles and...were those chunks of hot dog? “What is this?”

“Macaroni Surprise. My signature dish.” He handed her a fork and returned to the kitchen to get his own plate. Two glasses of iced tea sat sweating on the milk crate coffee table.

“You have a signature dish? I can barely make toast.”

He settled on the futon beside her, their knees almost touching. “I know. Your toast attempt is still smoking in the sink.”

Her cheeks burned. She’d wanted to do something nice for him. Something to make up for how strange she’d been lately. How strained. Things had been easy between them once.

He nudged her. “Just teasing, Callie. Sometimes disasters are how we learn. You can’t make an omelet without cracking some eggs. Or something.”

“You can make omelets too? How did you learn?”

“Necessity. I told you my mom wasn’t around much. Cook or starve. Aaron, my brother, he taught me how to cook some before he left.” He leaned over his plate, and she couldn’t help but picture the boy he must have been. Gangly, wrestling with pots because the hunger in his belly was too great to fill with cereal. Had she ever been that hungry? Not for food.

She chewed her lip, her heart breaking for the hungry boy on her couch and unsure of what to do with her forbidden knowledge of Aaron. Her secrets were a cancer in her belly, quelling her appetite. She could give him some of her own secrets.

“My mother never let me cook. She didn’t trust me in the kitchen, in her domain. She tried to show me a few things before I moved in here, but she didn’t really have the patience. For anything. When things got really bad with the mean girls at school, you know what she did? She took me shopping for new clothes and told me to try harder.”

“She should’ve taken you shopping for a new school.”

“That’s kind of what I did with Copeland. We’ve seen how well that worked out.”

“Stop it, Callie. There is nothing wrong with you. You just need to trust people more, let them in. You’ve got friends. Me. Jessa. You could have more if you wanted to.”

“That sounds a little too much like my mother’s ‘try harder’ advice.”

“Trying doesn’t work with people who’ve already decided they don’t want to be friends. And why would you want friends that don’t want you? But here? We’ve got all these people around who haven’t made their minds up about us at all. We can be anything we want. Our pasts don’t matter.”

He sounded like he was convincing himself as much as her. She wanted to reach out and tell him that his past didn’t matter to her, but she wasn’t supposed to know about his past.

“I just keep waiting to change, to wake up and be different.”

“Change doesn’t happen on its own. You have to make it happen. All that waiting?” He shook his head. “You didn’t get your patience from your mom. Eat. I can’t promise this is any good cold. I’ve never let it sit long enough to find out.”

It was good. Not exactly gourmet, but far more edible than anything she could’ve managed. “You found all this in my kitchen?”

“A box of mac and cheese, a pack of hot dogs, some canned tomatoes. Not much to it. Of course, I’ll never divulge my secret ingredient.”

“Okay, Chef Boyardee. Your secrets are wasted on me anyway. I may have the culinary equivalent of a black thumb.”

“I’ll teach you a few tricks.”

Swallowing hard, she tried to clear the lump of food suddenly caught in her throat. She wanted him to teach her more than a few tricks, and none of them involved cooking.

Thinking like that was absolutely not the way to get back to normal with him. She shoveled another forkful into her mouth. If she kept her mouth busy, she couldn’t say anything she’d regret.