Crashing Into You (26 page)

“Yes! Yes!” I shouted. “Oh,
that feels so good!”

“Oh my God!” he screamed. “Oh...
oh
fuck
—”

Evan let out a loud shriek,
then collapsed against my back. He took a few deep breaths, and rolled to the other
side of the bed.

I clenched my fists in
disappointment—I had been just getting started—but I was happy, at
least, that his tools were still in working order.

When he headed home an hour
later to cram for his big test, I got dressed and stepped out to the kitchen.
Lukas was seated on the center of the sofa watching not Meryl this time, but
Sandra. He was rubbing his lenses down with his white t-shirt.

“Oh, hey,” I said, and took a
sip from an opened water bottle.

“Hey.” He loudly sniffled,
and put his glasses back on.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you
were out here. Were Evan and I too—” I shut my mouth, and stepped closer
to him. “Lukas... are you
crying
?”

“Yes. It’s just so romantic.
She was his boss, and he was her assistant, but they still couldn’t help
falling in love.”

“Oh.
The Proposal
, right?”

“You know it.” He pulled his
blanket up to his chin. “Oh, look. This is my favorite part.” He mouthed along
with Ryan Reynolds, as he professed his love for Sandra Bullock.

“Didn’t this movie get bad
reviews?” I asked.

“Oh, who gives a shit about
reviews? I love this movie.”

I shrugged, and leaned up
against the sofa. “My film teacher cares. The next movie we’re watching is
called
Vertical
, or something. It’s
directed by Alfred Hitchcock.”

“Shh,” he said. “Now they’re
kissing.”

Lukas could really get into
movies, but why was he getting so involved in one like this, and with Robert
not around? I sat next to him and focused on his face, not the film. “So, is
Robert here?”

“No,” Lukas said.

“Oh.” I hesitated. “Is
everything all right with you guys?”

He finally broke from his
daze, grabbed the remote, and turned down the volume. He tossed the remote at
the table, but it missed and hit the carpet. “Well... I might have told him
today that we needed some time apart.”

“You told him
what
?” I didn't know whether to scream
or cry.

“We didn't break up or
anything. He just... he was getting so needy.”

“He was getting
needy
? Lukas. I’ve spent lots of time
with you two these last couple months. Robert’s not needy.”
           

“I wanted more time to
myself, that's all. Needy isn't the best word. Clingy, that's the one. He's
just been so—”

I put my hand out. Stopped
him mid-sentence. “Look, since I’ve known you, all you’ve ever talked about is
finding a boyfriend, wanting a relationship. You found, literally, the perfect
guy. And now you’re gonna screw it all up?”

He scooted closer to me,
rested his head back against the couch. “Well, like, since our first real date
was on a Monday night, now he’s insistent we go out
every
Monday. But with school starting I told him how busy things
were gonna get, that we might not be able to do that every week, and he got all
mad at me!”

I tapped my fingers against
the back of his neck. “Maybe you didn’t say it the right way?”

“No, I said it fine. I like
him, I do. I’m just worried he’s gonna smother me.”

I took his hand out from
under the blanket. “Lukas.”

He stared at me. “Sydney.”

“You need to turn off the TV.
You need to go into your bedroom, and call him. And after you say hello, and
how are you, you need to tell him that you’re sorry.”

“I don’t think…”

“You like him, don’t you? You
just said so yourself.”

“I do.” He took a long,
agonizing pause. Then he bit down on his tongue, and sighed. “No, you’re right.
I'm being stupid.”

He looked at the TV screen.
The credits were rolling, real fast so the next movie could get started.

“Oooh!” Lukas said, his
eyebrows raised. “
While You Were Sleeping
is coming on next!”

I snatched the remote from
the floor and turned off the television.

“Hey!” he said. He pouted,
like a three-year-old.

“
Go
. I'm serious. Call him right now.”

“All right, all right.” He pushed
himself off the sofa, pulled his sweatpants up just enough so I couldn’t see
his butt crack. “So I heard you and Evan going at it. Sounds like things are
still good?”

I punched the side of his
leg, playfully. “You
were
listening.”

“I was not. It’s just these
walls, they’re so thin.” He tried to hide his smile, as he walked to the
kitchen. He brought the tea kettle to the stove and started heating it up.

“What are you doing? I
thought you were calling Robert.”

“I will, in a second.” He
took a mug out of the cupboard and set it on the counter. He walked back to me,
grabbed one of the sofa pillows, and sat on the carpet. “So you and Evan are
having sex a lot, huh?”

I chuckled. Lukas was never
one to hold back. “We're doing fine.”

“
Just
fine?” he asked.

Silence followed. I looked at
the black screen, and said, “Okay, yeah. It’s been pretty great.”

“You guys just do stationary?
Or have you tried any new positions?”

My jaw dropped at that one.
“Lukas! Come on, I'm not gonna tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because. It's personal.”

“I’ll tell you what Robert
and I did the other night,” he said, boasting a cheesy grin.

I shook my head fast. “I'm
not interested.”

“All right. Suit yourself.”
He looked away from me, and I looked away from him.

I quickly turned back. “All
right, fine, what did you guys do?”

“Ah-ah-ah. You first.”

I tapped my fingers against
my knees, in annoyance. He was just going to keep asking and asking. “We've
tried a couple things, nothing too crazy. We did it doggie-style for the first
time tonight.”

His eyes lit up. “Wow! Doggie-style?
Really
?”

“Mmm hmm. It was Evan’s idea.
It felt really good, actually. I'm kind of sad it took me this long to try it.”

“Nice.” Lukas nodded his head,
like I had said something profound. He looked away, again. “So he did you in a
position where he didn’t have to see your face.”

I opened my mouth to speak,
but nothing came out. The tea kettle started singing across the room. Lukas
walked back to the kitchen and poured his tea.

“Time to call Robert,” he
said, and headed back toward his bedroom. “Wish me luck!”

“Hey, wait a minute—”

He slammed his door, and I
heard him start chatting on the phone with Robert just a few seconds later.
 

I wanted to scream at Lukas
for what he said. But I couldn’t.

Because I knew he was right.

When Evan turned me around
and started doing me from the back, was he thinking about how much he loved me?

Or was he thinking about
her
?

Chapter 30

“Next in line, please!” the
peeved middle-aged woman shouted from behind the counter.

I tapped my foot against the hardwood
floor and tried to see over the man standing in front of me. There were at
least five people ahead in line.

Friday was the last day to
renew my campus parking validation for the new school year, and, of course, I
had waited until the last minute. I hated that I had to make a separate trip to
campus when I didn’t even have any classes, but a 250-dollar fine also didn’t
sound fun, either.

After nearly an hour wait, I
paid for my registration, slipped the new sticker in my bag, and stepped out on
the pavement. On my way back to my car, I stopped off at the Jamba Juice next
to the Lair.

I walked up to the entrance door,
and peered inside. There was a long line for smoothies, too, surprise,
surprise. At least a dozen people. I looked at the cashier at the front, a cute
senior from my theology class named Matt. Then I glanced at the person
ordering. It was Evan.

I reached for the door
handle, prepared to yell across the room for him to order for me, too.

But my fingers slipped off
the handle when I saw the girl standing next to him, bending over the counter
to get a better look at the menu.

“Shit,” I said.

Michelle ordered, after a
good minute of deliberating, and Evan paid. They stepped left of the counter to
wait for their drinks. Talked animatedly for a few seconds, then Evan made a
joke and Michelle started laughing.

I pushed my forehead against
the door, and swallowed my own vomit.
  

“Excuse me,” someone said from
behind. “Can we get through?”

A group of four pushed past
me, opened the door, and headed inside. I moved away from the building, and
slowly walked along the sidewalk, as I gazed inside at Evan and Michelle. I studied
their behavior, especially her. She wanted him; could it have been more
obvious? The way she kept so close to him, the way she grinned at him with
every word he said. She wanted him bad.

They picked up their
smoothies and headed out the side entrance. Walked side by side, across the street,
all the way to the dorms.
Her
freshman dorms.

I almost followed them. A big
gust of wind from behind even seemed to push me forward to investigate. But I thought
of a better idea, and went the other way.

When I reached my car, I
pulled the sticker out of my bag and stuck it on the bottom corner of the
windshield.

Then I took out my phone.

And called him.

“Hey you, how’s it going?”
Evan asked, finally picking up after five rings.

“It’s fine, just got my
parking registration,” I said. I leaned up against my car and pursed my lips,
with more worry than hope. “Say, were you on campus? I was wondering if you
wanted to get some lunch.”

He hesitated. I listened for
Michelle's voice, but didn't hear her. “Oh, I’d
love
to,” he said, “but I’m at my internship, remember? They have
me working until 6 tonight.”

A painful knot formed in my
stomach. I keeled over, and wrapped my arm over my mid-section.

“Syd? You there?”

“Uhh, yeah,” I said, softly.
“I’m here. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”

“Absolutely! Can I pick you
up around 7?”

“Sure, yeah. See you then.” I
hung up, before he had a chance to say good-bye.

I didn’t get in the car right
away. I just stood under the warm September sun—and started to cry.

Evan was twenty minutes late
picking me up, but I didn’t yell at him about it. Even when he said, with a
straight face, that they had overworked him at the law office all day and had
barely given him a half-hour to eat lunch. We didn’t say much on the car ride
over. He asked me a few questions about how my second week at school went, and
I gave him the kind of generic responses annoyed teens give their nosy mothers.
He parked at the Landmark, where we were going to see the new Hugh Jackman
thriller, and we walked across the street to Apple Pan, an old-fashioned restaurant
Evan insisted had the best burger and pie in town.

“Is everything all right?” he
asked. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”

“I’m fine. It’s just been a
long week.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Work
was hellish today, it seriously was. It’s hard to take the kind of crap I do at
this place, knowing I’m not even getting
paid
for it.”

He was so confident in his
lying, so damned natural, that it impressed me. Why was he so sure that I, or Lukas,
or Robert, or
someone
, hadn't seen
him on campus? He opened the door for me and led me in. We grabbed two empty stools
on the left side.

“Two hickory burgers with
cheese, with two French fries, please!” Evan said, with way too much
enthusiasm. He shot me an annoying grin. “That work for you?”

“Uhh, sure.”

“And to drink?” the waiter
behind the counter asked.

“Just a diet Coke for me,”
Evan said.

“All right.” He turned to me.
“And you?”

“Yeah, actually, do you have
any alcohol here?”

The waiter leaned against the
counter. He was at least a hundred pounds overweight, and sported a white,
sailboat-shaped hat that looked like something out of the 1950s. “Uhh, we have
a Jack and Coke…”

“That would be
perfect
.”

Evan leaned toward me, put his
hand on my shoulder. “Syd? What’s going on?”