Now that I’m looking at her—really looking at her—I can see all the signs I missed. Her chest moves in a shallow rhythm. Her eyes are wide and dark. I step forward, expecting her to slide away from me like we’re two negatively charged particles.
She holds her ground.
“I know we don’t like each other,” I say. “But are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she bites off.
“Do you want me to find your friend? The housemate you mentioned? Or do you need a quieter place to sit where you won’t be disturbed? I can get you into the private areas of the house.”
She looks away. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I’m upset because I broke a nail. That’s all.”
It’s obvious she’s lying. It’s equally obvious she wants nothing to do with me. I can’t blame her.
She raises her chin and glares me down, and for one stupid second, I wish that I hadn’t fucked things up between us. That I’d let her talk when I saw her in September. That I’d given her a real apology before now. I wish Em had set me straight before I treated Maria like shit. Instead, we’re stuck in a rut of snapping at each other.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say. “I shouldn’t have said any of that just now. You were right last time. I’m trying not to…” I give my head a shake. “But you really get under my skin.”
She just continues to look at me. At first glance, I would have said her eyes were just dark brown. This close, I can see little gold flecks in them. It reminds me of a field trip to mining country I took when I was in high school. I stood in a creek and panned for gold in frigid waters. If I sloshed the water just right, little gold flakes rose to the top of the sand.
Looking into Maria’s eyes, I can’t help but think that there’s gold in them thar hills.
If I didn’t have logic, history, and economics to counsel me otherwise, I might throw everything away and go prospecting.
“I get under your skin.” She doesn’t move her eyes from mine. “Bullshit. You mean it pisses you off that I’m hot. You tell yourself I’m not real because that way, you can pretend this isn’t happening.”
Thank fuck for logic, history, and economics.
It’s the first week of December. I’m aware of the shit I carry around with me. Painfully aware. And yes, I’m aware that she’s hot.
“You remind me of someone.” I take a deep breath. I hate that she has me pegged so well. “You’re right. I’ve mucked this situation up from the beginning. I’m sor—”
She holds up a hand before I can finish. “Please don’t apologize. I can’t handle it. Hating you is kind of holding me together right now.”
I bite back my words. Maria is smart. And she’s resilient. She doesn’t take my shit. For the first time, I admit the truth: We could have been friends. Gabe obviously thought we’d get along, or he wouldn’t have shoved us together in the first place.
We could have been friends and instead, I hurt her. I have an image of the person I want to be, and this is not him.
Logic. History. Economics. I’m never going to be allowed to go prospecting for gold, no matter what untold riches her eyes promise.
“Fine,” I say softly. “Then I’ll just leave you to fall apart by yourself.”
12
MARIA
The little laundry room seems smaller and less safe after Jay leaves. I’m not sure how to take his being… Can I call it nice, after he accused me of fake bullshit?
No. But it was something approaching nice at a distance, and I didn’t like it.
I count to one hundred, giving him ample chance to go far, far away, before I leave the room. The hall spills out onto a vast open-concept living area. The fact that the space looks massive even filled with all these people tells me it’s gargantuan. Jay’s parents live here. Nowhere is safe.
I sidestep a polite inquiry from someone I’ve never met. I find my shoes on the patio just outside the backdoor and skirt my way around the crowds in the outside yard. I fall back on my old methods of calming myself. First, I imagine the crowd as a zombie horde, decomposing in the sunlight. I look for safe places, wandering to the side fence. No good. With this many people around, I’d be eaten in three minutes at best.
Second, I take out my phone.
Quick, I write to Actual Physicist. There’s an earthquake right now. What do you do?
Uh, comes his incredibly articulate response. Right now? Like *now* now?
Time, tide, and tectonics wait for no man.
I guess I get in a doorway?
Good answer. Doorways are safe. At least I hope they are wherever he is. I glance behind me. This house is probably okay. It looks like it was built recently enough to be seismically safe.
When I was in middle school and still living with my parents in Southern California, I used to imagine that the Big One—the fabled San Andreas fault quake that, to my great chagrin, still has not destroyed Orange County—would rip apart my classroom. It would make rubble of my parents’ house. The destruction of society would have been simpler to navigate than what I faced.
So…why? Actual Physicist asks.
I’ve stopped wishing that the earth would swallow all my problems. Some safety blankets don’t go away, though, and planning the disasters I don’t live through has always helped me face the ones I do.
You know, I start to write lightly, just your everyday average…
I hit send, looking at that ellipsis, trailing off into the promise of whatever lie I want to tell. A light breeze is cool against my face. I could let my emotions go, pretend that they’re washing away with the wind into the foothills. But I don’t want to lie to him.
…method of handling some minor anxiety, I finish.
You okay?
I check my internal status. I’m breathing properly. My stomach isn’t cramping. My pulse has steadied and slowed.
I’m okay, I type. Just took me off guard. It’s been a couple of years.
I see the appeal of the world ending, he says. Just promise that you’ll take me with you when it does.
My pulse starts up again—not in panic this time, but in anticipation.
I can’t promise. I type this very slowly. I don’t know where you live. Or what your name is.
Or what you look like, I don’t write. Whether you’d like me if you saw me. I don’t know what you’ll say when you find out I’m trans. But I know we get along, and I’m tired of holding out.
I stand in place, holding my phone, watching the sun reflect on the surface. Waiting to see him type. As the seconds stretch to minutes, I want to kick myself. Why did I say anything?
Em, he finally writes. I like you. I like you a lot. I like you so much that I think about meeting you all the time.
My heart gives a happy thump. Then another. My head knows better. It knows the next word he is going to type so well that it’s no surprise when it shows up on my screen.
But.
Of course there’s a but. I know there’s a but; it’s why I’ve never forced the issue before now.
I like you so much that I don’t want this to be serious. I don’t want you to text me when you need me, thinking I’ll be here. Because one day, I won’t be.
I don’t want to tell you about me. I don’t want to know about you. We can’t talk about this anymore, okay?
Shit. I swallow back hurt. Self-inflicted hurt, no less. It’s not like he ever lied to me about what he wanted.
Fine, I type.
Okay?
I’m just fine. I knew this was going to happen. I did it to myself. Maybe, even, I did it now because I needed the reminder. Anj will mess up; Actual Physicist will push me away. It’s never a good idea to expect anyone will care when I need them to. It never turns out.
I send him a thumbs-up and squish my stupid feelings back into the box where I was carrying them.
* * *
I’m still looking at my phone when Anj finds me. She comes to stand next to me by the fence, biting her lip.
“Hey.” I try to pitch my voice to normal.
She looks down. “I’m sorry, Maria. I’m so sorry. I slipped.”
It wasn’t just that. I exhale slowly. I try to imagine telling her the whole truth. You see, Anj, it bothers me that your shark is more important than I am…
“It’s fine,” I say instead. I’m saying that a lot these days. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Dammit, Maria. Don’t tell me things are fine if they aren’t. When you sit on shit, it turns into a blowup five months down the line, you moving out, and avoiding me for a year and a half.”
I put one hand on my stomach and don’t look at her. “I hate arguing. It never changes anything.”
She comes and leans against the fence next to me. “I know. I’ll shut up and let you talk. No arguing, okay? I promise.”
I don’t believe her. I look at her. She’s standing next to me, one arm propped against the wood of the fence. In the distance, the party goes on, an incessant rumble of merriment.