Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [97]
I slipped inside the bathroom, turned on the tap, and splashed cold water on my face and neck and what would be called my décolletage if I had any. I examined my face in the mirror. I looked greener than usual, the effect of fluorescent lighting and nausea. The longer I stood in that bathroom, the less I was sure that I ever wanted to come out.
“Would you like some chilled wine?” Bastian shouted.
Wine is such a mature drink. Bastian would never offer me a Monkeyfucker.
“Sure!” I called back.
But I wasn't sure of anything. I sat down on the toilet and made up one deal-breaking absurdity after another. If I were meant to fuck Bastian, why would I have nasty stubble on my legs? Why would he have one of these horrible fuzzy toilet-bowl covers that give me that ick feeling? Why would I have had garlic knots for lunch?
“Bella,” he said, right outside the door. “I'm waiting for you . . .”
And then I saw it. My sign. The one that told me what I already knew: Dexy was right. I'm not the type who can sleep with married men.
If I were really meant to fuck Bastian, why would his two-year-old's rubber ducky be perched in plain sight on the edge of this grimy, soap-scummy bathtub?
NO! NO! NO! Seeing that indisputable sign of his real life, I knew that the fantasy of fucking Bastian would be far better than the reality. All summer I had succeeded in stripping him of any real identity other than the foreign lothario porno stereotype I'd first created for him. But Bastian wasn't just an oversexed, misunderstood man who needed me to emancipate him from his loveless marriage, he was an actual person. Except I had no idea who that person was because I never bothered to find out.
“Lo siento mucho!” was all I could say as I pushed past him and out the door.
the thirtieth
I stuck my key in the mailbox lock and twisted until it clicked. I reached in and picked up the black-and-white postcard inside. On it, a couple crashed into a passionate embrace. My mouth went mothbally, my stomach spun, and sour sweat arose from my fevered skin. My brain buzzed with bits and pieces of poetry: soul disease heavenly happenstance rare creation furious flutter hummingbird heart hello hello . . .
And intuitively, I knew the word that would be written in his hand before I actually read it. The word that would tell me why I can't let go. The word that made me discover the bittersweet truth about our relationship for the very first time:
With Marcus, I'm clinging to what might have been. And not what was.
* * *
December 15th
Dear Marcus,
LOVE.
All semester you had me wondering, waiting, watching the mailbox. Could you have chosen a more compelling word? What better way to keep me wanting more?
I WISH OUR LOVE . . .
You wish our LOVE what? What would the next word be? What would the next postcard bring? Oh, sweet mystery. It was the perfect cliffhanger, but I wouldn't expect anything less from you.
That said, I feel obliged to express my disappointment over the holiday message I received today: WAS. So now I've got: I WISH OUR LOVE WAS. This pretty much puts me where LOVE left me four months ago.
Which is nowhere at all.
Are you losing your touch?
How long do you plan on sending these postcards anyway? Months? Years? How long will this go on?
And what makes you think that I'll still be waiting for the answer?
Respectfully,
J.
* * *
the twentieth
There is only one thing worse than walking in on two people having sex.
Walking in on two people having sex and having those two people be YOUR PARENTS.
Even more harrowing is walking in on your parents when they don't even have the decency to be doing it in some totally boring position but one that is way more porno than parental and on the couch in the living room instead of under the sheets, in their bed, in their room, in the dark, where sex among the dimply of butt and bald of head belongs.