The Distance from A to Z - Natalie Blitt Page 0,39
give her a twenty and tell her to get lost.
Except.
Zeke’s right hand drops to find mine, and he squeezes it gently. “Come on, let’s walk up to campus.”
Here’s what could have happened: We could have walked hand in hand to campus, whispering, stopping to continue what had been rudely interrupted by a waitress just doing her job. He could have pressed me back against the side of Chutes like they do in the movies, hands back in my hair, lips finding mine. We could have found a park bench, a million park benches, and continued where we left off.
Except instead we both stop to use the bathrooms. And in the time we are both in there, something changes. Zeke’s mouth becomes a hard line when we meet back in front of Chutes; his thumb is busy flicking through the messages on his phone.
“Can you give me a sec?” he says as we make our way out of the coffee shop, his hand no longer in mine, and before I have a chance to reply, his phone is at his ear.
“It’s me,” he starts, and then there’s a long pause. His head is turned away from me but his jaw is clenched, and his free hand is rubbing his bad shoulder. “I know.” He finally sighs. “I know. I know. I’m working on it.” Another pause, this time so thick I almost wonder if I shouldn’t put my hand on his back, remind him I’m here. “There’s not much I can do about it right now except wait and see what happens.”
He stops walking, and I try to give him space, his back turning even more to block me. “You aren’t telling me anything I don’t know.”
There’s another pause and then he holds out the phone in front of him and flicks it off. “Damn it!” he growls, and shoves it in his back pocket. He rubs his shoulder harder, as if the tension exacerbated the pain.
“Is everything okay?”
Turning, his eyes flash for a moment. But then they close and he shakes his head. “Do you mind if we try to find a cab? I’m suddenly more tired than I thought.”
“Of course.” We walk side by side toward the taxi depot, the silence uncomfortable and heavy. I want to ask about the phone call but his shoulders are straight up and by his ears, a wall against any conversation.
Through the short car ride, the silence extends and mutates, filling all the spaces, covering us like a heavy blanket. Zeke stares out the window, left leg bouncing up and down, anger radiating. I wonder if after all that kissing I’m allowed to put my hand on his knee, still his movement, but I don’t.
“I’m sorry I made you kiss me,” he finally says as we turn on to campus. “It wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have—”
I want to remind him that I let him win, that I lied about not knowing the answer to the question, that he knew that.
But instead I wonder if he isn’t saying something else entirely.
“That’s okay. It was my mistake as much as yours.” I say the words slowly and carefully, wrapping them around me like a thick blanket, protecting me from being exposed.
And I’m thankful that Alice is sleeping when I get back to our room, because otherwise I would have to admit that I raced out of the cab to make sure Zeke didn’t see my eyes fill with tears. That those tears kept my pillow damp. That the word mistake, erreur, fills the room with its ugliness, and replaces the air in my lungs.
TWELVE
I SLEEP THROUGH AS MUCH of July 4 as I can handle. Each time I wake up, I remember the night before, the feeling of Zeke’s rough lips on mine, the way he held my head so gently. And then my stomach plunges, and I roll back over. Luckily, a week of staying up late, working myself into the ground, means that sleep comes quickly. And when it doesn’t, I read until it comes back.
My goal is to sleep until I stop feeling like an idiot. Or until Monday morning, when I’m due back in class. Whichever comes first.
But Alice comes first instead. The third time I wake up, she’s on her bed, watching me. I’m about to feign sleep again, despite my urgent need to pee, but Alice speaks. “So I heard you kicked ass in the trivia game last night.”
The questions. The back and forth, so fast. Zeke shocked to