Thankfully, he laughs.
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to be the one to say it.” Kevin grins at me; his smile is endearingly lopsided. I warm up to him the tiniest bit.
I offer him my hand.
“I’m Bailey,” I say.
He shakes it.
“Kevin, although you already knew that. Are you a freshman?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Sophomore. History major.”
“I’m still undecided,” I tell him. “I’d love to go into interior design but I’m not sure what to study here to get me there. What do you want to do with a history major?”
Before I know it, we’re chatting easily, albeit loudly to be heard over the music’s pounding bass line. At one point, I spot Kara and Melanie across the room, staring; they both give me thumbs-up when I catch them. I suddenly grow uncomfortable and take a generous sip of the drink I had grabbed. What are they expecting to happen? What is Kevin expecting? What am I?
“Have you worked in interior design before?” Kevin asks, coaxing me out of my worries.
“No,” I reply, fidgeting with the strap of my dress. “I was going to work part-time before I came here but no one would hire me for only a few months.” Christopher contacted several interior designers, just like he had promised me he would. While none of the opportunities panned out, I still love him for trying, and for putting so much effort into something just to make me happy.
Christopher. A lump gathers in my throat like a stone I accidentally swallowed. I take another frantic gulp of my drink. Why would he do so many nice things for me and then not even bother to respond to my letter? What did I say that upset him, or embarrassed him, or stunned him into radio silence? I can’t begin to understand it. For days, I reread the letter over and over, scouring each line for unintentional mistakes. All I found was my heart, bled dry onto the paper. Maybe that repulsed him. Maybe he was disgusted by me.
“Hey, are you okay?” Kevin looks at me with concern, and gently touches me on the arm. Suddenly, an image of Christopher looking at me with that same expression, touching me in the same way, dances tantalizingly in my field of vision. It’s all too much, now, the noise and the heat and the alcohol and the expectations. I choke and sputter on my drink, shaking my head, tears running down my face.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this,” I say, and, without another word, I’m out the door and back into the night.
It’s only when I’m safely back in my room that I let myself fall apart. I fall to my knees, gasping for breath as my entire body is wracked with sobs. A chasm has opened in my chest, where my heart used to be, and nothing can fill it. I hug a pillow to my chest as tightly as I can, and, eventually, still on the floor, fall into a fitful sleep.10ChristopherI’m going 85 m.p.h. down the highway, undoubtedly attracting some unwanted attention in my cherry red BMW. But I’m a man on a mission, one more important to me than any I’ve had before. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let something as arbitrary as speed limits slow me down.
“How’s Bailey doing at school?” I had asked Rick last night, as casually as possible, while we were watching the game. I hadn’t heard many updates lately, and she had been in classes for several months now. It surprised me that she hadn’t reached out to me, but I hadn’t initiated conversation either, not wanting to interrupt her studies or college experience.
“I don’t know,” Rick had sighed, taking a swig of his beer. “She doesn’t call me very often, and when she does, she sounds depressed as hell. I’m worried that sending her to school wasn’t the best idea.”
“Does she still want to go into interior design?”
Rick cast me a sideways glance, and I curse inwardly at my own stupidity.
“Did she tell you that?” he asks. “I had no idea.”
“I thought you had mentioned it to me before,” I lied. “Or maybe she told me when I brought her dinner one of those times you were working late in the ER.”
“I don’t know,” Rick admitted, massaging his temples. “I feel like I barely know her at all these days. I just hope she’s okay.”
I left, not knowing what to think. Then this morning, a letter showed up in my mailbox, postmarked three months earlier.
I suddenly knew exactly why Bailey had been so depressed.
My eyes scanned the letter, my heart pounding in my chest. I canceled all my meetings for the day and jumped in the car, and here I am, careening down the highway like a bat out of hell. My hands on the steering wheel are tightly clenched; I shake them out one by one, willing myself to be calm, chill, and collected. I’m always baffled at how Bailey has this effect on me--in any other situation, I’m in charge, but when it comes to her, I’m reduced to anxiety. Wondering how she is. Wondering what she’s feeling.