The Weight of Words (The WORDS Series) (3 page)

I’m not sure why I found him so fascinating, but one thing was certain: Any hope of a romantic liaison with Daniel Grant was futile. He had a girlfriend. Her name was Penny, he called her “love,” and he missed her. No, scratch that—he was
completely inconsolable
without her.

And
he was the TA of the course I was taking. Definitely a no-touching zone.

Period.

I shook my head, appalled by my invasion of his privacy. I’d had the gall to be all holier than thou while Cara was flirting shamelessly with Daniel, only to turn around and engage in creepy stalker-like behavior myself. Hypocrite.

I rested my head on the stone wall in front of me.

“You stupid fool,” I sighed.

Chapter 3

True Love

The course of true love never did run smooth…
(
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act I, Scene 1)

A B
LAST
O
F
W
INTER
W
IND
brought me back to my senses. I was standing outdoors in sub-zero temperatures, holding my coat in my hands. I dashed inside to bundle up before making the journey back across campus. I sniffed and gasped as the wind rushed at my face and into my mouth. Spring really couldn’t come soon enough.

Inside the apartment, I quickly dropped my bag and coat, my runny nose sending me on a wild goose chase in search of tissues. With none to be found, I ended up in the bathroom, blowing my nose with toilet paper.

When I retraced my steps to the hallway to hang up my coat, I noticed Matt’s jacket and boots lying right where I’d seen them earlier. His door was still closed. This wasn’t like him. Even after a major booze fest, he rarely stayed in bed past noon, and it was almost one thirty—a perfectly logical scenario if his girlfriend had stayed over, but there was no sign of Sarah’s stuff in the hallway and no
Do Not Disturb
sign on his door. I thought of the stories I’d heard about people choking on their own vomit and dying before anyone could help them. I pressed my ear to Matt’s door. I couldn’t hear anything so I tapped lightly. Still nothing.

I slowly turned the knob and squinted into the dimly lit room. He was lying on his side with his knees curled up, still wearing the clothes he’d gone out in the night before, and staring at the wall. He looked like hell, but he was alive. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Matt?” I said. “Can I get you something? Water? Tylenol? A bucket?” I added, laughing gently.

His eyes made a lifeless sweep across the room. “I’m not hung over, Aub,” he answered flatly.

He turned back to the wall, and my smile receded. Stepping into the room, I noticed balled up Kleenex all over the floor, the box clutched to his chest.

“Are you sick, dude? Do you want me to make you some chicken soup or something?”

He groaned and rolled onto his back. “Sarah dumped me,” he said, bringing a hand up to cover his eyes.

“Oh, shit, Matt. I’m so sorry.” I sat down beside him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

His tone was curt, but I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me. I started to swing my legs back to the floor, figuring I’d leave him alone to marinate in his misery for a while, when he moved his arm away from his eyes.

“I thought she was
the one
, you know?” he said softly.

His expression was pained, his eyelids puffy. He’d been hardcore crying over this girl. Hell, he was working his way through a whole box of tissues over her.

“I didn’t know you guys were headed in that direction,” I said. “I knew you liked each other. Some nights I could tell you
really
liked each other.” I rattled the headboard, and he shot me a poisonous glare. Okay, I totally deserved that. “I guess I didn’t know things had gotten so serious.”

He snorted cynically. “Yeah, she had no idea either. Or at least she pretended not to.” He sat up and hugged his knees. “I don’t know. When she invited me to her place in October to spend Thanksgiving with her family, I thought that seemed like a pretty solid sign. Maybe she was trying to be nice, knowing I couldn’t exactly head to Vancouver for the weekend.” He exhaled heavily again. “But we’d been getting along so great. Well,
I
thought so, anyway. Stupid, right?”

He paused to blow his nose, tossing the tissue on the floor with the others. I leaned over, resting my head on his shoulder and rubbing his back. “She doesn’t deserve you, sweet cheeks.”

He shook his head slowly. “You’re right.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “I wish you and I weren’t so grossed out by each other. We could’ve been great.”

I smiled, remembering the night back in first year about two months after we’d met. We’d become fast friends during frosh week, and Matt was protective of me right out of the gate, but one night at a party, each of us having drunk our fair share of a keg, we found ourselves dancing among a group of gyrating freshmen. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were kissing up against a wall and then recoiling in horror, wiping our mouths off frantically. Even with our beer goggles on, we both felt like something akin to incest had occurred. It never happened again, and we remained the best of friends.

He’d become increasingly like a brother as the months went by. We often laughed about that fateful frat party, but whereas I’d always felt we could never be more than great friends, I’d caught him looking at me wistfully from time to time, as if he wished things could be different. That had all ended when he’d started dating Sarah the previous April. He’d fallen for her quickly. And hard.

“Believe me, Matt, there’s someone wonderful out there who deserves you.” I patted his back. “Shit, that sounds so trite. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay, Aubs. Thanks for trying. You’re an amazing friend.” He took my hand and squeezed it.

“Ew, keep your snotty hands to yourself there, cowboy.” I pushed myself off the bed and rubbed my stomach. “I’m starved. You interested in eating?”

He sighed in defeat. “Yeah, I guess so. I should shower, too. I’ve been lying here since midnight. I might need to burn these.” He gestured to his rumpled clothes.

“You grab a shower, and I’ll make some English muffin pizzas,” I offered. “Pepperoni and tomato sound okay?”

“Perfect.” He stood up and peeled off his long-sleeved T-shirt. “Now scram, before you get more than you bargained for,” he threatened, pulling the top button of his jeans undone. “’Cause by the looks of things, you’re finding my ripped abs mighty enticing.”

He looked at my chest, cocking an eyebrow. I followed his gaze downward. The headlights were on full-beam.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” I laughed. “It’s cold enough out there to freeze the brass nuts off a monkey. I’m still defrosting.”

He snorted and mumbled something about my “sad state of denial” while I headed for the door, carefully navigating around the balled up Kleenex.

Two hours later, Matt was clean and almost human again. While we ate lunch, I’d offered to watch a pretentious film of his choice with him, and we were now curled on the couch watching Sergei Eisenstein’s
Battleship Potempkin
. As a film major, Matt was a huge cinema buff. I’d learned a lot about film from him over the last few years, but sometimes I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. This was one of those times. I found myself stifling yawns throughout most of the movie.

About half-way in, Matt paused the film. “Can I run something by you?” he asked solemnly.

“Of course.” I shifted to face him.

“After I spent Thanksgiving at Sarah’s, I guess I kinda got ahead of myself, thinking things were getting serious, and I made a reservation for Valentine’s Day for Sarah and me at this restaurant downtown. It’s called Canoe—ever heard of it?”

“Dude, are you kidding me? The owners are Oliver and Bonacini, right? They own Auberge du Pommier, too. Their menus are phenomenal. I can’t believe you got a reservation!”

“Well, I made it four months in advance. Now I guess it was wasted effort. Unless…” He looked at me expectantly.

“Unless…?” Could he possibly be suggesting what I hoped to God he was suggesting?

“Would you want to come with me?” he blurted. “I know it’ll be expensive, and I’ll pay. I was going to treat Sarah anyway and, I don’t know, maybe you’ve got plans with someone else, ’cause I don’t know what’s going on with you and stuff, but I’d love to do this for you, I mean
with
you…” He ran out of steam, trailing off.

I was touched by the sentiment and frankly pretty damn excited about the prospect of eating at Canoe, regardless of the circumstances. I’d always dreaded Valentine’s Day and the way popular culture made single people feel crappy—as if we didn’t already feel like losers every other day of the year.

“I would
love
to join you for dinner on Valentine’s Day. I’ll gladly pay for my own dinner, but promise me if you and Sarah get back together, or if you meet someone else you’d rather take, you won’t be all freak show about it. Give it to me straight, okay?”

“It’s only two weeks away. I think the odds of me meeting the girl of my dreams between now and then are slim to none. As for Sarah, well, she was very, um…
decisive
.” His face twisted as he spoke, the previous night’s events still too raw.

“You know what I mean,” I said, squeezing his hand.

“Yeah.”

“Now, I hate to pull the rip cord on our film festival, but I need to get some reading done before tomorrow. You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You go ahead,” he said. “I might bail on the rest of the movie and take a nap anyway. I’m friggin’ exhausted.” He punctuated his words with a huge yawn and stretch.

Satisfied that he was all right, I grabbed my backpack, snagged some munchies from the kitchen, and retreated to my room where a giant pile of homework awaited me.

I changed into some cozy clothes and flopped onto my bed. I knew I should do some reading for my children’s lit course, but I didn’t. Instead, I found some mellow tunes on my iPod and flipped through my
Norton Anthology of Shakespeare
until I found
Hamlet.
I scanned the play, contemplating some of the important themes that might come up in the tutorial.

As soon as the idea of the impending tutorial began swirling in my mind, I completely lost focus. I saw Daniel holding court at the head of the table. I imagined him gazing at me in admiration, oblivious to the other students, as I made one incredibly insightful observation after another. Then the tutorial ended and the room emptied, leaving us alone. He closed the door and swept the table clear of all books and papers so he could lean me over it and have his way with me right then and there—

Crap! What was it about this man that had me feeling like a high school girl with her first crush? Here I was, twenty-three years old and mere months away from graduating from university. I normally wasn’t prone to such idle daydreams. But as much as I tried to stop thinking about him and focus on reading, my mind continued to wander, replaying the events of the day.

What had he been arguing with his dad about? What had he been thinking about when he’d looked at me after the lecture? Was his relationship with this Penny woman serious? And did the man really not have access to an iron, razor, or hairbrush? I smiled against my hand.

Feeling more and more like an infatuated, hormone-riddled teenager with every passing moment, I balled up my fists and rubbed them against my eyes. My reading of
Hamlet
wasn’t going well.

I slammed my anthology shut and crawled into bed with my copy of
Haroun and the Sea of Stories,
yet another book I was supposed to have finished reading by now. I struggled along for about an hour, but my bed was so comfy and warm and the music from my iPod dock so soothing that soon my eyes began to close.

My last thought before drifting into unconsciousness was the look on Daniel’s face as he’d nodded at me, giving me silent kudos for identifying Professor Brown’s
Hamlet
passage. I’d probably never know what he’d been thinking, but at least he’d noticed me. That was something, wasn’t it?