"Sometimes," I admit, "but not very often."
The truth is, I do have them often. But I can't bring myself to say out loud that I have them at least twice a week. All I can hope is tonight of all nights, I won't wake up in the pitch-black darkness drenched in sweat, pulling the bed sheets in my clenched fists. Yet as I lie here, cuddled against his chest, I suddenly know I won't. The certainty of it scares me almost more than the perception of having a nightmare. Because I don't need one more reason to dread the moment when I won't be in his arms anymore.
"You're a remarkable person," James says, and the suppressed tension in his voice sends cold jitters down my back. "To carry all that pain and not lose yourself on the way."
I freeze in the act of caressing his bare chest. What kind of hurt did he see in me in that bar? One of a betrayed and abandoned lover, or something more? Did he see the pain that no one else sees? The one I carried with me for so long, I almost don't see it myself?
"I didn't really have a choice."
He gives a humorless laugh. "There's always a choice, Serena. And trust me, most people don't choose your way."
"What do most people choose?" I raise my head slightly, searching for his eyes, but he's looking in the opposite direction. Something tells me the real question is, What did you choose?
And it finally dawns on me why he can see the pain, why he knows about the nightmares. He, too, lost someone. In a different way, but he did. He must have loved Lara very much to still feel her leaving him so deeply. With a pang, I realize he must have loved her much more than I loved Michael. How else could I claim that I all but buried my grief in less than a month when he still mourns after years?
I run a finger along his neck and he turns toward me, gazing at me with kind yet determined eyes. I know he won't tell me anything. Not tonight. Another time, if I'm lucky, I'll hear his story. I will learn about his pain, and maybe I will be able to soothe his wounds the way he soothed mine.
Maybe, just maybe then he'll forget her.
"So, what's it gonna be?" I ask playfully. "The Lion King? Or do you prefer The Godfather?"
"Your wish is my command," he answers in an equally playful tone, planting gentle kisses on my neck, then gets up, pulling me after him.
Natalie's warning plays in my head as we head to the computer, hand in hand, and I know she was right. I am the center of his world tonight.
But what about tomorrow?
The longer I stand on the burning pavement, the more tempted I am to jump in the fountain in front of the Stanford Memorial Auditorium. The fact that almost one thousand students will witness my rule breaking doesn't seem reason enough not to do it. The fine I'd get for doing it does, though. But the rivulets of sweat forming on my back might make even the fine seem insignificant in a few minutes.
"I still don't get why you dragged me to this conference. I don't care about the economic downturn or whatever crap they always talk about," Jess complains, holding her notebook on the side of her face, in a poor attempt to block the blinding sun.
"It's not about the downturn. And listening to some smart people won't hurt you," I say, still eying the fountain. I take a sip from my ice-cold smoothie, the only thing standing between me and a jump in the fountain.
"Smart is relative. I should be preparing for my phone interview tomorrow."
Jess's job search has been going so much better than mine. She credits it to her vision board, a complex extension of her own pink What I Want to Do in My Life paper. I credit it to her mind-blowing confidence, which makes her apply for jobs that she isn't half-qualified for. And get interviews for almost all of them.
"You had enough time this morning but chose to waste it by questioning me about James," I say.
She scoffs. "You were gone with him the entire weekend, and then shut yourself in the library for three days working on your damn assignments. What did you expect?"
In truth, I expected just that. It was the reason, aside from my monstrous amount of work and Aidan’s promise to help me prepare for (hopefully) upcoming interviews, for which I locked myself in the library with Aidan after classes, coming home late at night when Jess was asleep and leaving long before she'd get up. Aidan took me by complete surprise when we started role-playing interviews. He played the interviewee first. My jaw dropped. The timid boy who can’t get through a conversation with a girl without turning bright red at least once, transformed into a perfectly confident interviewee under my eyes in a matter of seconds. No wonder he has two job offers lined up already. I turned into a tongue-twisted, brain-frozen idiot when my turn came. How I ever got my internship last year I will never know.
The crowd starts moving inside slowly, and Jess jiggles her foot impatiently.
"Let me finish this," I say, si
pping the last remains of the smoothie.
"Oh, I'm sure if you tell James how much you like kiwi smoothies he'll take you to a kiwi plantation or something."
And here we go again. Somehow, after painfully detailed questioning of my weekend, Jess decided that James is the perfect boyfriend. She blatantly ignored me when I pointed out that he made it crystal clear he isn't my boyfriend.
"Cut it, Jess."
"How can this guy be real? He introduced you to his friends, took you out to a candlelight dinner, and finds your movie obsession cute."
"He's a movie freak too."