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My crooked smile doesn’t fool him for a moment. Jonah leans forward; he brings his hand closer to me, as if he’ll touch my shoulder, but rests it on the back of the bench instead. “Vivienne, what’s wrong?”
This is normally where I bunt. Where I take the gentlest, easiest out for everyone involved, so we can walk away with no hurt feelings, no unresolved conflicts.
I’ve always thought of it as consideration, or poise. Doreen says it’s dishonesty, and asks me what would happen if for once in my life I just told the ugly truth and let people deal with it.
Jonah already knows one of my uglier truths. What the hell.
“I thought I could have sex outside a relationship, with no strings attached,” I say. “I did in undergrad, like anyone else. Probably I could do it again with someone else. But you and me—it’s not a normal situation. Not only because of, you know, the fantasy—” I glance around, but few students walk anywhere near us, and every single one is either wearing earbuds or absorbed in their cell phone. “It’s more complicated than that. ”
“Our arrangement is simple,” he says flatly. “We were very specific about what this would be and how we would handle it. ”
“This isn’t about logistics. ” I look upward at a pale gray sky, the kind you see when the clouds have claimed the entire sky. Truth. Tell the real truth. “Jonah, every time I’m with you, it’s more than sex. Every time, I turn myself over to you, completely. I have to give you total control, and total trust. ”
“I haven’t abused that trust, have I?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. But don’t you see? I don’t just fuck you, Jonah. I bare my soul to you. Then we go back to being almost strangers to each other. The disconnect is getting to me, and I don’t think I can handle it anymore. ”
Despite all our rules and resolutions, I have begun to have feelings for Jonah. To feel jealous of other women he might touch. To want to have not just his body but his heart. That means I want too much. Which in turn means I have to get out, now.
Jonah’s gray eyes become distant. The steel wall he keeps between himself and the rest of the world now separates us too. “If that’s how you feel. ”
It’s not. I’m still drawn to this man in a way I’ve never felt for anyone else. While I thought that connection was purely sexual, I reveled in his power over me.
But now I want more from Jonah, and I have no idea what more would be. All I know is it’s not what either of us said when this began.
Goddammit, I’m going to cry. Not out here in the quad. Not in front of Jonah. I don’t have the strength for that kind of honesty; I’m all out. So I stand up. “This truly doesn’t have anything to do with you, okay? You were—my ultimate fantasy. Thanks for making that come true. ”
Then I walk away. I never look back; I never stop hoping he’ll call my name, or run to my side, catch my arm, and keep me from leaving.
He doesn’t.
• • •
“You feeling okay?” Arturo says that evening, as we hang out in front of one of our favorite food trucks.
“Sure. ” I scrape my shoes back and forth in the gravel beneath this red picnic bench. All around us, groups of people are eating the best fish tacos in town from small plastic baskets, using their cups to hold down brown paper napkins that would otherwise flutter away in the breeze. Shay’s gone to the truck across the lot to get us some churros for dessert. Nearby, a grackle hops toward our table and cocks his head in the hope we’ll drop a bit of food he can steal. Overhead, strands of kitschy multicolored lights with big, fat, 1970s-style bulbs stretch between the trailers and the tall tree near the road.
Arturo gives me a look. “That was the least enthusiastic ‘sure’ I’ve heard in a while. ”
“I’m fine. Really. Just—having a down day. ”
No doubt Arturo knows better than that, but he also knows when to let something go. “We all have those sometimes. You know what fixes down days? Tacos. So get to work, girl. ”
“I think I’d rather fix today with churros,” I reply, because I see Shay walking back toward us. But then I realize she doesn’t have the churros. She has one hand to her forehead and is walking slowly.
Getting to his feet, Arturo puts a hand out to support her. “Feeling light-headed again?”
“Yeah. ” Her smile is weak and watery. “You know, I don’t want to stick around for dessert. Can we just go home?”