She waggled her brows with that, turning to press onto her tiptoes and reach for something on top of her fridge just before my fury made an appearance. I tried my best to school it before she turned around, tea kettle in her hand.
“Want some?” she asked.
I think I nodded. Or maybe I shook my head. I couldn’t be sure, because I was rounding into the kitchen with one thing on my mind. “So, wait, you’re just going to go over to his place and hang out?”
“Yes.”
I blinked. “You realize what that means, right?”
“Yes,” she said on a grin, almost like she was exhausted. “That’s what I was trying to say. I mean… what if he wants to… you know.”
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“You don’t have to move fast.”
“What if I want to?”
The words shot from her lips, all smiles gone as she pursed them and leaned a hip against the stove. She folded her arms over her chest, lifting her chin a bit as I stared back at her.
“I’m ready,” she said. “I’ve been ready. I want it.”
My eyelids fluttered at hearing those words from her, desperation surging over me.
“I want to know what it feels like, what all of it feels like,” she whispered, her eyes falling to rest somewhere on the ground between us. She smiled, dazed, and then looked at me again. “Especially after the previews you’ve given me.”
She said it as a joke, even punctuating it with a little laugh as she took the kettle to the sink and filled it with water before setting it on the stove top and flicking on the burner.
“I just need to know what to wear. I mean, I want to be casual, comfortable, but also cute. Like, I know what to wear to a dinner date, but what do you wear when you’re just going to someone’s dorm?”
She bit her lip, and then rambled on, something about maybe she could wear her gray joggers and a tank top, something that would show her cleavage. Or maybe I made that part up. Maybe I was driving myself mad with my worst nightmare, with imagining Shawn peeling those sweatpants off her the way I had the first night she’d let me touch her.
I blacked out as she continued talking, not registering a word of it. My entire plan blew up in a nuclear fashion right before my eyes.
I was too late.
I’d missed my one shot to tell her how I felt.
Just two nights ago, she was naked and clinging to me, kissing me desperately, begging for me.
Now, I knew I’d never touch her again.
Shawn had seen his opportunity, and he’d made his move.
Then again, if she’d so willingly agreed, did I really ever have a shot with her in the first place? Was it all really fake to her, void of feelings?
Was I just a friend in her eyes?
Thought after thought pummeled me like relentless waves crashing against a jagged shoreline until it was too much to bear the weight of. Between my father, my mother, Maliyah, and now this? I couldn’t swim anymore. I couldn’t fight to keep my head above water.
So, I took one last breath, one last longing look at Giana as she lit up talking about what her date would be like with another man.
Then, I let myself sink down to the bottom, and I sat there, vision blurring through the salty water, slowly drowning, but not struggling to save myself.
This whole thing had been my plan, my idea.
And now, I had no choice but to lie in the watery bed I’d made.
Giana
The week dragged by like dead weight in quicksand, each day seeming to last longer than the one before it.
Even though I felt like I’d extended an olive branch and cleared the awkward air between me and Clay after the whole sorry I walked out on you naked, here are some flowers debacle, he was still acting weird. Or maybe he was just focused on the upcoming game against the number two seed in our conference. Or maybe he was spending all his time with Maliyah. I had no way of knowing, because other than him stopping by my apartment on Sunday, I hadn’t heard from him.
I didn’t know what we were doing, didn’t know if we were just letting the fake thing between us slowly fizzle out, or if we were unintentionally planting seeds for our fake breakup. Riley asked me about what was going on halfway through the week, but I just shrugged, told her things were fine and tried to seal the lie with a convincing smile.
Meanwhile, Shawn had been blowing up my phone, texting me first thing in the morning and well into the night. He texted me funny memes, interesting news articles, songs that he wanted to know if I’d heard before, and even pictures of him throughout various sections of his day. The only time his name wasn’t on my phone screen was when he was in class or at a gig, and I marveled at how I’d gone from being invisible to him, to feeling like I was the center of his attention.