“What I tell ya? Best hot chocolate, right?” Dean asks as I tip the to-go cup back, getting every last drop of the rich, creamy goodness. Had I known it would taste this good, I would’ve have drank it all on the walk back to the cabin. Now all I have is a couple of drops.
“Easily the best hot chocolate ever. I can’t believe you can drink this whenever you’re working. I’m so jealous.”
“Yeah, you’re jealous now until you see me in a few months and I’m twenty pounds heavier. Then you’ll be happy you don’t get to drink it all day long.”
“Mister muscles gaining weight? Impossible.”
“So you think you’re gonna take the job?” he asks, wrapping his arm around me.
I rarely like physical touch. Suze is big into that, always hugging everyone and linking her arm their theirs like they’re the longest of friends. I let her do it because it’s Suze. With Dean, I want him to hug me and touch me and all that stuff I normally hate. Especially when he pulls me against him like this. Laying in bed or sitting on the couch like we are now, it doesn’t matter. We just fit together so perfectly.
“I haven’t even interviewed yet.”
“What was today, then?”
“I dunno. Not an interview. I just talked with Marco for an hour.”
“Oh.”
I want to tell Dean that job search doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, months even sometimes. But I don’t think he’d understand. He did just get a job and an apartment without even trying.
“Can I steal one of your sweatshirts?” I ask, a chill running through me.
“Are you cold? I can turn up the heat.”
“I’m not cold, cold. Just chilly. So, can I?”
“Have at it. There should be another clean one in my bag. It’s burgundy. Grab that one.”
The sweatshirt’s easy to find. It’s the first thing I see when I open his duffle bag. That, then I see his phone. It’s lit up, showing a number not saved to his phone. It only rings for a second before going to voicemail.
“Hey, Dean. Someone called—”
I stop. Carrying Dean’s phone to him, something on the screen catches my attention. A text.
Unknown: Had so much fun the other night with you. I’m on a flight to Boston tomorrow afternoon. Lemme know if you wanted to hook up again before I leave. You know where to find me, XO.
I tell myself I’m reading it all wrong. I have to be. There’s no way Dean would do something like that. We’ve been together practically the whole time. Except for the first two days when I woke up and he wasn’t here. And the hours between meeting him at the airport and him showing up here. He couldn’t have…could he?
“Find the sweatshirt?” Dean asks from the other room.
I don’t answer. I have my own questions to ask.
“Where were you before coming here that first night?” I ask, storming into the room.
Dean’s face drops when I ask. My chest aches and my stomach hurts. Saying nothing, he just confirmed everything.
“Wha—what do you mean? I was at the airport.”
“After that. After the airport and before you were here. Where were you?”
“Iz.”
“Tell me, Dean. Or should I ask her?”
I toss his phone onto his lap. He looks at me, silently questioning what I’m talking about. But when he looks at his phone and reads the text, all the color leaves his face. He gets up and moves towards me, but I don’t want to touch him. Not after what he did. Thankfully, the coffee table’s between us, so I can easily sidestep him and keep the distance.
“Iz, you gotta listen to me. I can explain.”
“Yeah. Famous last words.”
“Really, Iz. Please. Just hear me out.”
“I don’t have to, Dean. I know exactly what happened. I rejected you at the airport, so you went to someone else. Then, when she kicked you out, you came here.” Dean doesn’t dispute any of this. “So then you come here and start hitting on me, trying to sleep with. After you just slept with someone else?”
“So?”
“So? So?” I force a laugh. “Do you not see how fucked up that is?”
“I made sure I didn’t sleep with you until after I showered.”
I scoff. I literally scoff. He can’t be serious right now.
“So that makes this okay? You showering before sleeping with me suddenly makes all this okay?”
“Iz, can you please let me explain? Please.”
He moves toward me again, arms outstretched like he’s going to pull me into a hug. Never again. I move to the other side of the room to keep as much space between us as possible. When he still follows, I run into the bedroom, then shut and lock the door. Seconds later, the doorknob wiggles a handful of times.
“Leave me alone!” I say, fighting back the tears.
“Just listen to me, Iz. I can explain.”
He keeps talking, begging me to listen to him. I need to get away from him. Far, far away from him. There’s not enough room here. Not in all of Vermont. So I pack my bags.
“I fucked up, Iz. Is that what you want me to say?”
I grab my phone and open the Uber app. Miraculously, someone’s five minutes away.
Just five minutes, Iz. You can do five minutes.
I grab what I can find, throwing fistful after fistful of clothes into my suitcase. I grab my book, my phone charger, and my shoes piled against the wall.
“Please, just let me in so we can talk.”
I ignore him.
“Iz, please,” Dean says, banging on the bedroom door.
I check my phone.
Four minutes.
Just enough time to grab the rest of my stuff.
I fling open the bedroom door. At first, Dean’s face lights up, thinking I’m letting him explain. Then his eyes drop to my suitcase.
“What’re you doing?” he asks, his voice stiff.
I shoulder past him and move into the bathroom, throwing my toiletries into my bathroom bag. When the bathroom looks like I’ve never been there, I turn to find Dean still frozen by the bedroom.
Three minutes.
“Where’re you going?” he asks.
“Home,” I say in a cutting tone.
“Your flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow.”
“So I’ll spend the night at the airport.”
“That’s ridiculous. Don’t leave.”
I grab the notebook that houses my nearly final essay and toss that into my bag. There. That should be everything.
Two minutes.
I feel Dean’s larger-than-life energy behind me. He puts his hands on my shoulders, but I brush him off.
“Do not touch me,” I say, spinning around.
Seeing Dean wince at my words sends me over the edge. The tears I fought so hard to keep back cascade down my face. Not because I’m sad he’s sad, but because I was stupid enough to have believed him. To have cared about him and how he made me feel.
“Please don’t go,” he stays, his voice rough and gravely like he’s trying to hold back tears. Good. I hope he cries a fucking river.
One minute.
“How can I stay here with you? Share a bed with you? Look at you after what you did?”
“I slept with someone. Big deal.”
“I don’t care that you slept with someone.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
Is it possible he’s this dense?
“It’s not that you slept with someone, Dean. It’s that you slept with someone and twenty-four hours later say you care for me. You made it seem like I’m the only girl in the world.”
“Because you are, Iz.”
“I can’t be, Dean. Because if that were true, you wouldn’t have left the airport and slept with someone else. You wouldn’t have bought me wine and chocolates and taken me to the dance and told me everything you did. Because if you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have slept with the first person who came along.”
“How was I supposed to know I’d ever see you again?”
“I dunno, Dean. But what I know is that you can’t meet someone, decide you like them, then sleep with someone else when they reject you. You clearly don’t like me as much as you think.”
I see the Uber’s headlights dance across the cabin’s walls.
Time to go.
“I fucked up, Iz. I’m sorry. If I knew what would’ve happened with us, I would go back in time and erase it all. Please…just don’t go.”
I ignore him, grab my bags, and move toward the door.
Just like the first time we met, Dean walks up behind me and grabs the handle of my bag, trapping my hand under his. I hate that a warm feeling runs through my body with his touch.
“Let me go, Dean,” I say, tugging on the handle.
“I can’t, Iz. I can’t let you go.”
I pull harder, but Dean’s resilient.
“I said, let me go!”
I grit my teeth when I speak. This time when I pull on the handle, he finally gives up.
I practically run out of the cabin, the wheels of my bag thumping against the porch steps as I move. A handful of feet separate the cabin and the Uber. With each step, I hope that Dean will yell at me not to go. That he’ll chase after me and tell me he loves me or cheesy stuff like that they do in the movies.
But then I remember that my life isn’t a movie. There aren’t big theatrics or declarations of love. I told him to leave me alone. He tried to chase after me in the cabin and failed. Why would he chase after me again? We’re not on a Hollywood set. We’re in Valoid, Vermont. We’re not star-crossed lovers. We’re just a guy and a girl who crossed paths.
I don’t give up hope Dean might try one more time to get me to stay until I’m in the backseat of the Uber and glance at the cabin. The door’s shut, and he’s not there.
Looks like it was that easy for him to let you go.
“Where can I take you?” the driver asks.
I think it might be Ed from the other night, but I can’t be sure through my glossy eyes.
Where am I going?
I planned to go to the airport, but then I remember what the girl said in her text. I’m on a flight to Boston tomorrow afternoon. The same flight I’m supposed to be on. I can’t get on that airplane. Every woman I pass, I’ll wonder if that’s her.
“Miss?”
I can’t get on the flight, but I can’t stay here, either. I guess that only leaves me with one option.