by the way,” I added then. “I wasn’t just teased at school, I was a pariah. I was the butt of every single joke. Utterly cast out of grammar-school society.”
Duncan shook his head.
I went on. “Do we need to talk about the time I woke up to find the kids throwing the spilled peas from my lunch tray at me? Do we have to talk about the bag of spare clothes the school nurse kept in the supply closet for the inevitable moments when I would need to change my pants? Do we have to cover all the years when I ate lunch by myself, sitting across from Richard Leffitz as he ate his own boogers?”
“Fair enough,” Duncan said. “But those were kids. And—all due respect—kids are assholes.”
“Spoken like a guy on the verge of summer break,” I said.
But it was true: after elementary school, I’d blamed it all on the epilepsy and never looked back. Which was fine. Until the epilepsy returned. And then it turned out I had a whole truckload of unquestioned assumptions about my worth as a human being.
Assumptions that, perhaps, I had not examined too hard.
And would not be examining tonight.
Being around Duncan … there was no question it was glorious, and powerful, and hypnotic. The kissing-in-the-waves portion of the evening left me in no doubt of that. There was no doubt that he was a good thing. Too good.
Because: what if?
What if I had a seizure, and he was horrified? Disgusted? Creeped out?
He felt things. He’d said so. He’d kissed me like he meant it—again and again.
But what if I had a seizure—and that killed it for him?
I’d never once dated a person who had seen me go through something like that. Besides my mom, and later my aunt, and a few health-care professionals, everybody who had ever witnessed me have a seizure had decided irrevocably to avoid me.
I’m mostly talking about grade-schoolers here, but the point still stands. How could Duncan be any different?
But Duncan was still focused. “I wish you’d give me a chance to prove you wrong.”
“But what if you don’t prove me wrong? What if you just confirm my worst fears—again?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But didn’t you just yell at me in the ocean and tell me not to live my life in fear? Didn’t you just literally hurl yourself into a black ocean?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
The aura was intensifying. The nausea was coming back stronger. “Because,” I said, standing up to move him toward the door, “this is scarier than that.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I shook my head. “I can’t be brave about this.”
“Yes, you can.”
The nausea was intensifying. I was running out of time. I stood up and led him toward the door. “Anything in the world—except this.”
“Sam—”
“You need to go now,” I said.
“Let me stay,” he said. “You don’t have to be alone.”
Would I have liked to let him stay?
Would I have liked him to take care of me?
Of course.
But I’d rather be alone forever than let him see me that way. I could bear loneliness. I could bear disappointment. But the one thing I absolutely could not bear was Duncan changing his mind.
I hated that he was arguing with me. I hated that he was still here.
I hated that he was right.
I pushed him toward the door with a rising feeling like I didn’t have much time.
He had to leave. He had to go.
But then, before he could—the world disappeared.
twenty-five
I woke up alone, hours later, in my bed, in the dark.
I checked the clock on the nightstand. Two in the morning.
What had happened?
I knew I’d had a seizure—but only by deduction. Not from memory. Seizures always involve amnesia. Your brain can’t exactly make new memories when it’s short-circuiting.
I was pretty sure I hadn’t gotten him out in time. I was pretty sure he’d been there. And I was pretty sure right now I was completely alone.
I sat up. Listened for sounds of life in my apartment. If Duncan were still here, but not asleep, what would he be doing? Insomniac activities, I guessed. Making tea? Reading a magazine? Or maybe he’d taken himself out to sleep in the living room.
But there was no rattle of a kettle boiling, no swish of magazine pages turning. No rhythmic snoozing of a passed-out man on my sofa.
It was so quiet the silence was practically ringing.
“Duncan?” I called, just in case. “Hey, Duncan?”
Nothing.
I flipped on the bedroom light, then followed it out to the living room. No one. Empty.