earlier?
Of course not.
And yet I want to talk about it. I can’t pretend that nothing happened when so much has already happened between us.
MARI
“How was your lunch?” I ask, not wanting his help, but not wanting him to walk away.
There’s something unspoken between us, something nebulous and intangible that we can’t grasp, even though the physicality was so real.
“Nice. It was a nice change to go out.”
In the silence that follows I rack my brains for something to say but find no words. What words are there for what he did, for what I felt, for what he made me feel?
“I never knew that you were from around here,” I say, hoping to get him to elaborate.
“I was born in Chicago.”
“You were born here?”
He nods.
“I had no idea.”
“Why would you?” he asks.
Why would I indeed? This man is like a blank book with the writing in invisible ink. Impossible to determine by the naked eye, unless you have a means of decoding it.
Ward and I only talk about what he wants for lunch and dinner. Or we scribble notes to one another.
We make small talk. He seems anxious to get away, but I can’t pretend everything is normal when it isn’t. He has touched me, run his hands over my bare buttocks. Pressed himself against me and I loved it.
Seeing us now, no one would have any idea what we had been doing only hours earlier, and the eerie thing is that neither of us are talking about it.
“Aren’t you tempted to go and have a look?” I press, now that I have a hook into some new piece of information about his past.
“Tempted to look at what?”
“The place you lived at before?”
He frowns. “I don’t ever want to.” There’s something non-negotiable behind that sentence. Something I can’t get to the bottom of.
“Rob said that had been one of the things he’d hoped you would do.”
“You and Rob seem to have had a lot to say about me.”
I sense he doesn’t like that, and then I get worried when he says, “You didn’t tell him … did you?”
Tell him what?
From the look on his face it quickly becomes apparent. He thinks I told Rob what happened between us. Surely, he wouldn’t think that? “No!” I cry. “I didn’t say anything about … about that. It’s none of his business.”
His mouth twitches, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to say something. Anything. Wishing he would acknowledge what happened.
“I’d better get back to my writing.”
“Are you sure?”
Are you sure? I want to slap my hand to my face in embarrassment. What a thing to say. He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t acknowledge it in any way. His expression offers no insight into what he’s thinking. I feel like a fool and hang my head in shame as he disappears out of sight.
I’m reminded of Jamie, and what he thinks of me and my reckless choices.
This need to keep Ward by my side comes from a desperate place somewhere inside me. I don’t even know who I am any more. It’s this place, and the company, or lack of, it’s me being so bored stupid, with my self-esteem in the gutter, that I can’t help myself.
Chapter 24
MARI
Jamie asks me again if I want to go out on the weekend, but I brush him off again by saying that I need to spend time with my mom. Her fall, although minor, has given me a scare, and I want to spend as much time with her as I can.
On one particular day it’s been raining the whole time and I feel as if a storm is brewing. After having my dinner, and noting that Ward hasn’t come out to have his, I finish everything and head up to bed. None of this is normal. None of this is ordinary, and yet he and I continue on as if nothing happened. Sometimes I have to think real hard because us getting so close and intimate feels like it could have been my imagination playing tricks on me.
I snuggle up on my bed reading a book, and checking for job vacancies on my laptop. The rain is relentless, and I stop reading and walk over to the window to stare. The rain comes down in sheets. I love the sight and sound of it, especially being inside all snug and warm when it is soaking wet and miserable outside.
Watching the rain reminds me of how stuck I am. Of how nothing has moved on for