“Me?” she broke in, and began shaking her head. “Oh no—don’t blame me for this! I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t the one who started this! Last night could have been fun—would have been fun—but you had to sit around acting as if you wanted to shoot someone.”
She was exaggerating. Or then again, maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I kept quiet.
She went on. “Do you know that I had to make excuses for you today? And how that made me feel? Here I was, singing your praises all year long, telling my friends what a nice guy you were, how mature you were, how proud I am of the job you’re doing. And they ended up seeing a side of you that even I’ve never seen before. You were just . . . rude.”
“Did you ever think that I might have been acting that way because I didn’t want to be there?”
That stopped her, but only for an instant. She crossed her arms. “Maybe the way you acted last night was the reason I was late today.”
Her statement caught me off guard. I hadn’t considered that, but that wasn’t the point.
“I’m sorry about last night—”
“You should be!” she cried, cutting me off again. “Those are my friends!”
“I know they’re your friends!” I snapped, pushing myself up from the couch. “We’ve been with them all week!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. Maybe I wanted to be alone with you. Did you ever think of that?”
“You want to be alone with me?” she demanded. “Well, let me tell you, you’re sure not acting like it. We were alone this morning. We were alone when I walked in the door just now. We were alone when I tried to be nice and put this all behind us, but all you wanted to do is fight.”
“I don’t want to fight!” I said, doing my best not to shout but knowing I’d failed. I turned away, trying to keep my anger in check, but when I spoke again, I could hear the ominous undercurrent in my voice. “I just want things to be like they were. Like last summer.”
“What about last summer?”
I hated this. I didn’t want to tell her that I no longer felt important. What I wanted was akin to asking someone to love you, and that never worked. Instead, I tried to dance around the subject.
“Last summer, it just felt like we had more time together.”
“No, we didn’t,” she countered. “I worked on houses all day long. Remember?”
She was right, of course. At least partially. I tried again. “I’m not saying it makes much sense, but it seems like we had more time to talk last year.”
“And that’s what’s bothering you? That I’m busy? That I have a life? What do you want me to do? Ditch my classes all week? Call in sick when I have to teach? Skip my homework?”
“No . . .”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re willing to humiliate me in front of my friends?”
“I didn’t humiliate you,” I protested.
“No? Then why did Tricia pull me aside today? Why did she feel the need to tell me that we had nothing in common and that I could do a lot better?”
That stung, but I’m not sure she realized how it came across. Anger sometimes makes that impossible, as I was well aware.
“I just wanted to be alone with you last night. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
My words had no effect on her.
“Then why didn’t you tell me that?” she demanded instead. “Say something like ‘Would it be okay if we do something else? I’m not really in the mood to hang out with people.’ That’s all you would have had to say. I’m not a mind reader, John.”
I opened my mouth to answer but said nothing. Instead, I turned away and walked to the other side of the room. I stared out the patio door, not angered so much by what she’d said, just . . . sad. It struck me that I had somehow lost her, and I didn’t know whether it was because I’d been making too much of nothing or because I understood all too well what was really happening between us.
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I was never good at talking, and I realized that what I really wanted was for her to cross the room and put her arms around me, to say that she understood what was really bothering me and