The Distance from A to Z (16 page)

“It's Zeke, Abby,” Colin says, handing me the phone. “Can you tell him what you need?”

“Zeke!” I shout.
“Je suis à un bar avec Colin et Ethan et Stephie et Chloe et beaucoup . . .”

“I know you're at a bar. I just talked to Colin, and he says you refuse to speak English.” He's doing that thing when he tries to keep his voice light but I can tell he's worried.

Zeke chuckles. “I do that?”

Merde
.

“Je ne me sens pas bien,”
I admit.
“Je suis si fatiguée. Et je suis malheureux. Je suis malheureux parce que tu aimes Chloe et pas moi.”
The words come out fast and furious and it takes a while before I can autotranslate back into my head: I don't feel well. I'm so tired. And I'm so sad. I'm sad because you like Chloe and not me.

Merde
.

“Abby, listen to me. Go home and drink lots of water, okay? For me? And we'll talk tomorrow.”

“Excuse-moi, Zeke.”
I'm so sorry. I'm an idiot.

“You aren't. You're drunk and I'm going to beat the crap out of Ethan when I get back to campus. Did he lay a hand on you?”

“Sa main était sur ma jambe. Mais j'ai mis les mains là pour être sûr qu'il ne pouvait pas me toucher sous ma jupe.”

“Son of a bitch. I'll goddamn kill him.”

Wait. Wait. Eff me. Did I just tell him that Ethan was trying to get his hand under my skirt?
Merde
.

I pass the phone back to Colin and lean against the wall. I hear him promise something, his head turning to me, and
then he gives me back the phone. I'm so tired. So, so tired. I want to go home. I want to be in my room with my Cubs pennant under my bed, and my brothers in the next room, and the constant sound of a baseball game on the radio. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be falling for Zeke. I don't want to be hurting like this anymore.

“Don't worry, Abby. Don't worry. Just let Colin take you back to your room. He'll make sure you're okay until I can get there, okay?”

It's so lovely having Zeke's voice in my head. I wonder if when I'm back home in Chicago, I'll still be able to hear him, or if it's only here that it works. Or maybe it's only because I'm drunk and a little stoned?

“It's not just here, Abby. I'll be there soon.”

And then there's a cab, and I close my eyes, and the next thing I know it's morning and someone's pounding on my door. Or maybe on the inside of my skull.

My tongue feels like it's covered with liquid flour and I'm quite sure that somehow my head has been turned inside out. But nothing feels as bad as the look on Zeke's face when I open the door.

“Are you okay?”

It's so far the only thing he's said to me. That and “Where's Alice?”

Otherwise, it's been ginger ale and saltines and lots and lots of shaking his head. That and scanning me, like he's looking for cuts and bruises.

He hasn't touched me. In any way. He didn't even hand me the ginger ale and crackers. He put them on my desk. And now he's staring at me from across the room, his brow furrowed.

The worst part is that he doesn't look concerned. He looks like a bad mixture of angry and disappointed, each one exacerbating the other.

“How do you say
exacerbate
in French?”

“Exacerber,”
he growls.

“Oh.”

“You didn't answer my question. Are you okay?”

His tone irritates my already-strained nerves, and I try to temper my response. “I didn't realize it was a question.”

According to his face, I didn't do a particularly good job. He shuts his eyes, shaking his head, and I feel bad. I feel bad because it can't be that late in the day and I'm already being a bitch to him. I glance at the clock to find that it's only half past nine.

Wait.

“You aren't supposed to be here until tonight. You're supposed to be in Boston all day.”

“Yes, I am.” His voice is not angry. It's not angry and it's
not disappointed. It's sad. I move from my desk chair, where I've been slowly eating through his box of saltines, and walk toward Alice's bed.

“Why are you here?”

“Because I was worried.”

We should be speaking in French. We should be counting this toward our time, our log, all these good words.

“Do you even remember talking to me last night?”

I remember the common room and Chloe laughing at my desire to go out with them. I remember the bar and the flask and the joint. Eff me, I smoked a joint. And I remember the booth and Ethan's hand. And Colin wanting to dance.

And . . .

“Fuck.”

“Good thing you don't have a Cubs T-shirt or I'd make you wear it all day, since you swore.” Zeke laughs, but the sound is tinny and reedy.

I remember the phone. I remember speaking only French.

And my stomach—

“Fuck.”

I race out of the room, my stomach pitching and rolling. I barely make it to the toilet before I throw everything up. I retch and retch until there's nothing left, until I'm quite sure I've thrown up some of my essential organs because I'm suddenly completely drained and hollow.

I told Zeke I liked him. I told him I was sad he liked Chloe and not me—

I dry heave one more time into the toilet, flushing it again even though nothing came up.

I may need to live in this stall. After I rinse out my mouth, of course.

Or maybe if I wait long enough, Zeke will go back to his room, or he'll fall asleep. Or somehow I'll be able to gather my things and—

There's a knocking at the door. Who knocks on a swinging door?

“Abby, are you okay?”

A boy knocks on a swinging door for the girls' bathroom.
Un garçon frappe à la porte des toilettes des filles
.

“Uh-huh,” I mumble. I don't look in the mirror because I'm quite sure that if I did, not only would I take up residence in this room rather than have anyone see me again, but I would also try hard to escape by flushing myself down the toilet. Because apparently I'm not known for my good decisions.

“It's okay, Abby, just come on out.”

The only reason I listen to the voice is because if I wait any longer, someone will see Zeke talking to the door of the girls' bathroom, and me and my insane life will become everyone's favorite story.

Not meeting his eyes, I leave the bathroom and walk back to my room, knowing it's not even worth wishing he won't follow me.

I slip back under the covers, curling onto my side. “I'm sorry.”

I don't want to talk in French. It's too sad, too utterly heartbreaking to belong in our French conversations. I've messed everything up. Our easy banter in English and our intense discussions in French. I've destroyed them all.

“Please leave,” I whisper.

“I'm not leaving. But here's the thing. I did wake up at the crack of dawn because that was the earliest time my parents would let me go. And seeing as I waited up until Colin told me you were safely back in bed—”

“Oh fuck.”

“Well, you're not pretending you don't swear. But I'm a little tired. So how about this? I know tonight was your night for planning something for our French conversation, but we still have a couple of movies we need to watch, and I'm not sure I'm up for any big conversations. Why don't we both get a little sleep, and we'll just watch movies tonight? Would that be okay?”

“If I haven't left the state by then.”

“You won't.” He laughs and this time it's so real I want to cry. “Are you going to be okay for a bit? Do you want me to
stay and sleep in Alice's bed?”

“She'd kill you.”

“I'll take my chances.”

Slipping the pillow behind me, I glance up at his smirk.

I press my lips together to make sure my thoughts don't come out. Because I love his smirk. “I'll be okay.”

“Good.” He kisses me on the forehead, the quickest slip of a kiss ever, and then before I can pull him into bed with me, he's gone.

SITTING ON ZEKE'S BED, I
try to focus on the movie. We opted for an action-adventure film, something about a jewelry heist and small cars racing backward down one-way streets. Zeke is making a list of vocabulary words but I'm so tired, I can barely stay upright.

“Do you want to stop the movie?”

“I'm good,” I say.

“You aren't watching the movie.”

“I'm listening.” I've propped my legs up, and I'm resting my head on my knees, eyes closed. It's not just because I'm exhausted. I'm also ripped with the knowledge that I've messed everything up. By the time he came to get me in my room, his hair still wet from the shower, his eyes slightly less red with exhaustion, the stillness had settled between us.

“Tu veux à manger?”
Do you want to eat?

“Non, merci.”
No, thank you.

“Tu te sens mieux?”
Do you feel better?

“Oui, merci.”
Yes, thank you. (A lie. A lie so huge that it balloons to fill the room with its decay.)

“Quel film est-ce que to veux voir?”
What movie do you want to see?

“Ça ne fait rien.”
It doesn't matter.

And blah. And blah. And blah. And the stillness and the messiness and the sadness and the nothingness builds a wall around our two bodies until it's like we're in two different rooms, two different colleges, two different lifetimes. It's worse than being in a room with someone I've never met. It's being in a room with someone I've lost.

“Viens,”
he says. He shifts the computer that provides the invisible line between us and extends out his arm. “Come here.” His fingers graze against the thick sweatshirt that hides me and pulls me toward him. “Lie down.”

It's a bad idea. It's a terrible idea. His arms are open and he's placed the pillow from his bed on his lap. He wants me to put my head in his lap. He wants to . . .

This might break me,
I think as I lean toward him.
Ça va peut-être me casser.

Peut-être
is the wrong word. It should be
certainement
. Certainly. This will certainly break me.

As I relax into the pillow, my shoulder shifting around the
hard muscles on his thigh, I wish someone would walk in and stop me. But then he leans forward and turns the movie back on, and one hand is on my shoulder and his other hand is in my hair and this . . . this.

“Abby?”

I don't want to wake up. In my dream there's a car chase and Zeke is driving and his fingers are playing with my hair. I know that's a bad idea; when you're driving at top speed in a tiny car on a curvy road, you shouldn't be playing with someone's hair. But I've got the diamond so we're okay.

“Abby? You awake?”

“I've got the diamond.”

“You've got the what?” His voice is quiet but there's the tiniest tinge of laughter in it, and I don't think he properly understands the implication of the fact that I've been holding this enormous round diamond as tightly as I can for so long. I clutch it harder. I won't let go.

“Abby, you're hurting my hand.”

“Your—”

Merde
. I don't need to open my eyes to realize we aren't even holding hands. No, I'm holding on to his hand. His fist. With both of my hands. And I'm squeezing it.

Could I be more of a freak? I slowly weaken my grasp and then stretch out my aching fingers. How long have I been
holding on so tight?

“Were you having a bad dream?”

No, a very, very good dream. “Yes.”

“Are you ready for the next movie?”

No. “Yup.” Because if I say no, if he does anything but turn on the next film, something bad will happen. He'll leave, and the awkwardness will balloon out until it encompasses the dorm and the campus and maybe the entire state. Or else we'll have to talk, and that would be so much worse.

So yes. Definitely yes.

Zeke leans forward to fiddle with the computer, his chest grazing the side of my face until I feel like the center of a Zeke sandwich. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“No problem.” And that's the first true statement I've made in a long time.

An hour later, I'm shifting uncomfortably on Zeke's bed. When Marianne told us on the first day that some of the films might be racy, I think she was talking about this one. Because there's a topless French woman with long, thick hair sitting on top of a man on a chair. And his hands are on her bottom, pulling her closer, holding her in place. I should have slept through this one.

I try desperately not to move. Maybe Zeke will think I've fallen back asleep. Maybe he'll—

Her head tipped back, the man kisses the base of her neck, the indentation of her throat, his hands now cupping—

“Merde.”

“Uh-huh.”

Zeke's legs are flexed beneath me and I imagine this is not terribly comfortable. His fingers are no longer combing through my hair; they are now perfectly still. We are both perfectly still.

The man stands up, the topless woman's legs coming around his waist, and he carries her toward a different room and I know the odds are not in my favor but please, for the love of god, I'm not a prude, I'm not opposed to sex or sex in a movie, but please, god, let this fade to black because I'm going to have a heart attack if it doesn't.

The bedroom door in the movie closes behind the couple, and both Zeke and I exhale noisily.

“Maybe we should take a break,” Zeke says, his voice thicker and deeper than before.

“Definitely.” Mine is a lovely squeak.

Merveilleux
. Marvelous.

I slip out to the bathroom; Zeke goes downstairs to get some cans of soda. We agree to meet back in my room. His room feels a little too sexually charged.

It takes several splashes of cold water before my face feels
like it has a chance in hell of looking like it's not ready to go nuclear. I deliberately take the corner sink, the one with no mirror above it, because if I actually saw the color of my cheeks, I'd be right back to where I was several hours ago, planning how I could successfully live my entire life in the bathroom.

When I get to my room, Zeke is already there.

“That was kind of intense.” I chuckle. Only there's still that nasty squeak in my voice, the one that makes it seem like I took a deep breath of a helium balloon before speaking.

“Je ne parle pas anglais. Désolé!”
His lips press together as if they can keep the grin inside.

“It was really va-va-va-voom.” I chortle.

His chin dips down and his eyes meet mine over the rims of his glasses. “Did you use
va-va-va-voom
as a descriptor?”

“Pardon?” I tease, laughing.
“Je ne parle—”

“Arrête,”
he growls, taking a step closer to me. But maybe it wasn't just his room, because now the air in my room is charged and maybe I'm still hungover or maybe I'm just not thinking straight, but this teasing. Yes, I like this teasing. Because something is brewing and I don't want to stop it. I should. But . . .

“Est-ce que tu as un problème?”
I ask. Do you have a problem?

“Oui.”
He takes another step toward me, just a half step
this time because otherwise he'd have to walk through me.

Which maybe really would be totally fine.

“Est-ce que tu as un problème?”
he asks, turning the question around.

How far am I willing to go?

“Oui,”
I breathe, honesty and bravery blooming inside me like hope.
“Mon problème est que c'est difficile à respirer maintenant.”

It's hard to breathe now.

“Pourquoi?”

Why?

Why is it hard to breathe when you're standing so close that it would take barely a movement forward until we—

“Arrête de penser,”
he whispers.

Stop thinking.

“Dis-moi ce que tu veux que je fasse,”
he says.

Tell me what you want me to do.

“Oui.”
It's a sound and a breath and a word, and everything in between and everything else.

It's—

“Say it again.”

But I change it.
“S'il te plaît.”
Please. Only in French, it's literally, if it pleases you. Which is so much better than just please. But it's the same thing right now. Because I want it to be something that pleases him, because it would please me
and—

“Tu es certaine?”

There is no word for how very certain I am. So instead of speaking, I part my lips and nod.

His eyes widen, and he bites his bottom lip.

If he takes a step back, if he breaks our locked gaze, I don't know what will happen. I don't know how we'll move on from this moment, from being so close, from almost—

“Arrête.”
His voice is barely a whisper.

There's a moment, a moment that lasts, that extends and separates into two moments and then four, eight, and sixteen. And then shoots back, like an elastic pulled too far, hurling toward us.

And suddenly his hands are cupping my jaw, gently, and his lips are crushing mine. Like it's not close enough, like as close as he gets it's still not enough. And it's not like that night at the bar, our noses bumping. His glasses are there but I don't notice them, because his lips are the chapped Zeke lips I've been dreaming about, and I feel like everything is swirling around us, like everything is tilting and running and jumping and flying. The whole world is flying.

My fingers bury themselves in his hair and I'm sure I'm thinking somewhere in the back of my brain that is shouting
Oui! Oui! Oui! Oui!
that I need to hold on tight. That with all this flying and spinning and rocketing, I might fall. That
he might move back. That we might hurtle to the ground.

Only when he does back up, he's pulling me with him, our lips still intertwined, our bodies so close, so close. And he moves back, tiny step by tiny step until I feel the jolt of the back of his legs hitting my bed, and slowly, slowly, slowly, without breaking our connection, he inches down until he's sitting and I'm sitting on top of him, one knee on each side.

Just like in the movie.

Only I'm wearing a hell of a lot more clothing than she was.

I pull my head back just the slightest bit, because I'm not leaving, I'm just checking. “Tell me this isn't about the movie.”

“What?” It's so hard to get the words out, and I can tell by the dazed expression on his face that it's just as hard for him to understand them.

I have no idea what language I'm even speaking except it's the language of
please tell me this isn't a terrible mistake
.

“Tell me you aren't doing this because of the movie. Because of what we watched. Because of—” Because of that crazy feeling in your body when you see the things we just saw. The reason that movie is probably rated NC-17 in the United States, the reason Marianne warned us.

“I'm doing this,” he says, pausing to kiss me again, his lips opening until the words are spoken directly into my mouth, my lungs, my body, “because I've wanted to do it for the last
month. I've wanted to do it ever since you sat beside me in the common room, all convinced that we had nothing in common but the number of letters in our names. I've wanted to do it every time you said
eff
instead of
fuck
, every time you snort when you laugh, every time you say
merde
and I know you mean it. I've wanted to do it each time we've held hands. I've wanted to pull you closer and grab your other hand and kiss you until you stop complaining about baseball. I've wanted to do it each time we've walked through campus pretending we're in Paris, during each meal we've shared, each movie we've seen together. So no, I'm not doing this because of the movie. I'm doing it because I simply don't have the strength not do it anymore.”

“Merde.”

The silence sits between us, not uncomfortable but present. “I never thought that first kiss was a mistake,” I admit. “I was scared because you shut down and I thought—”

“I'm sorry.” The words are quick like a slingshot, like he doesn't want my thought completed. “I've been dealing with some stuff related to my injury, and maybe I haven't been doing the best job.”

I pause, hoping there's more, there's an explanation of the ups and downs, what's happening in Boston, but as the silence enters a second beat, I can't take it anymore. I don't care if there's stuff he's keeping from me. There's time for
that.

“Does this mean . . .” I don't know what it means. And please don't make me explain what I mean by
this
. Because I can't take the withdrawal. I can't do casual. I can't—

“I want us to be more than French partners,” he says, smiling, eyes on me. Eyes that are steady, open. I sift through the words, looking for an uncertainty, but it's hard to concentrate with all those stupid butterflies—
papillons
—swirling inside. “And I want you to know that I don't like Chloe the way I like you.”

I bite down on my bottom lip, hard. I want Zeke to say more, to say that nothing ever happened with Chloe or Stephie, but I know he can't. And I can't fault him for what came before.

“More than French partners?” I lean forward. “Badminton partners too?”

A slow smile awakens his face again. “You don't like sports.”

I lean forward another tiny quarter inch. We shouldn't be talking anymore; there are so many better things to do. But . . .

I love this. “Badminton isn't a sport.”

“Stop,” he groans, and I can't help it; I sink into Zeke. I sink and holy everything that is holy, this. Those callused fingertips? Incredible as they slip down my arms, opening every pore, every atom in my body. Zeke leans to the side,
pulling me down onto the bed beside him, our lips still discovering, playing, god almighty I don't even know. He pulls me closer, our legs intertwining, closer.