a fight?
Or are we over?
Nineteen
Trey
Present
I drop her off shortly after one AM. We spent nearly twelve full hours together and I still feel as if I hardly know her. I know things about her, yes. But I don’t know what makes her tick. What gets her excited. What she wants out of this lifetime.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight,” I say, parked outside the awning of her apartment building.
“It was definitely a night to remember.” With heavy-lidded eyes, she offers a sleepy smile. I offered to put her up in a guestroom but in true Sophie fashion, she refused. Drawing in a slow breath, she sighs. “Thank you for sharing your home with me tonight. I liked seeing this other side of you. Makes you more … human.”
“I wasn’t before?”
“You’re kind of … super human.” She winks. “You accomplish more in one day than most people will accomplish in their lifetime.”
“It’s called prioritizing.”
And taking time to get out of my head. An hour in the gym six days a week. A handful of nootropics every morning. It’s amazing what someone can achieve if they eliminate their excuses and commit to a lifestyle of self-discipline.
“The average person prioritizes going to kickboxing class. Sticking to their diet. Calling their grandma once a week,” she says. “That’s not you. You’re about a hundred notches above that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She laughs; soft, drowsy. “Anyway …”
The dash clock shows we’ve been sitting here six minutes now. I’d hoped to get a few more minutes out of her, but I’m content to end this evening on a playful note.
“See you tomorrow, Sophie,” I say as she climbs out.
She gives a wave and closes the door of my SUV with a gentle click. I could have called my driver, but he’s set to wake in four hours to take me to work, and I’d rather he get his sleep. Besides, there’s something intimate about a man and a woman sharing a late-night drive, confined to the front seat of a car with nothing but each other to fill the void.
I wait for her to disappear inside before pulling away.
Half of me is certain tonight was an enormous step in the right direction. The other half of me wonders if I’ve yet to scratch the surface of this enigmatic woman.
Still, progress is progress.
Twenty
Sophie
Past
“I’m so sorry, Soph.” Nolan cups my face, kisses the top of my head, and pulls me tight against him. We’re outside a little Italian restaurant on the north side of the city. It cost me thirty dollars to Uber here, not that I can’t afford it. I wasn’t sure if I should come.
He went radio silent on me for six days—but it might as well have been an eternity.
Every night, I waited for my sister to fall asleep before crying into my pillow wondering what things were going to be like going forward. What my weekends would look like. If my friends would still want to hang out with me despite not seeing me for the last several months. What I’d do if the stockpiled cash runs out and we get another unexpected medical bill.
“There’s no excuse for the way I acted,” he says. “I was an asshole, and you didn’t deserve that.”
It’s my turn to be silent, but mostly because I don’t know what to say. I’m upset, but I’m also all cried out. I want to tell him I’ve dated boys my age who were more mature than that. And I think he should know that I was days away from calling the café and begging for my job back.
But for whatever reason, I say nothing.
It’s like everything is frozen. My heart, my body, my words.
“I was just looking forward to seeing you,” he adds. “And when I couldn’t, and there was no way around it, I got angry and I took it out on you. It’ll never happen again. I promise.”
There’s a fullness in my chest that overpowers the tightness that had been there all week. I want to forgive him and pretend like nothing happened, but I also want him to know he can’t do that to me again.
I also want to ask him what he did last weekend without me, but anytime I think of asking, a stab of jealousy cuts through my middle. The thought of Nolan spending an ounce of his free time with anyone except me makes me strangely sick to my stomach.
He brushes the hair from my forehead and kisses my mouth, slow and