After another uneventful weekend spent studying and wondering why people crave alone time, I’m still trying to figure out what Dave’s deal is. I watched him and Ivy at church together a few days after I cornered him, and they’re as attentive as any real couple—minus the nauseating PDA. I did see him steer her through a crowd with his hand on the small of her back, and I can’t help but think that Ivy’s happier-than-usual mood after church was related. So what’s holding him back?
The benefit of having so much alone time is that I’ve finally been forced to work on my life story project for human development. I’ve summarized my infancy and toddlerhood, recapped elementary school, and painfully relived every I’m-taller-than-every-male-my-age moment of junior high. High school wasn’t quite as bad, as my peers finally started catching up to me and my height became an asset, thanks to sports. It was much more socially acceptable to be the tall girl who was decent at sports than just plain tall.
The downside of progress is the early-twenties chapters that loom ever nearer. I vowed never to relive some things, and now I’m going to have to.
Luckily, I can procrastinate that since Tuesday equals math lab. It’s too cool today to sit under a tree and wait, so I go into the lab with thirty minutes to spare and sit at an empty table. Editing the early chapters of my life story keeps me occupied until Noah appears, five minutes early, as usual. If only I could go back and edit my early twenties.
He sits down without salutation and taps the table for my assignment.
“I am having a great day, Noah,” I say with a grin. “Thank you for asking. How are you?”
“Fine,” he says. “Your assignment?” He taps the table again, and his words are a little clipped, but something in his eyes tells me he’s . . . not quite joking but also not entirely serious.
I hold out my assignment—more than half of which I was able to solve on my own—and narrow my eyes at him. “You know what I think is odd?” Our eyes meet and hold for a moment. My breath catches, and now I’m almost sure he’s pulling my leg with his dogged stoicism.
He breaks the connection and takes the paper. “Numbers that can’t be divided by two,” he deadpans.
It takes me a second to catch on to his words, and then a loud laugh breaks free before I can stop it. This earns me a number of stern glares from the other occupants of the lab, including Noah.
I get a handle on the volume, but I’m still laughing. “Noah! You made a joke!”
“I stated a fact,” he says, still deadpan, and returns to my calculations.
“I think it’s odd,” I say, returning to my point and pressing my luck against this lighter mood, “that you’ve been helping me for all this time and I know nothing more about you than I did the first day.”
He turns the page on my assignment as if I haven’t spoken, but I see the muscle in his jaw tick. I try some wait time, like I do with my after-school kids, to see if the awkward silence will persuade him to answer. He clears his throat, swallows, and opens his mouth to speak. At long last, the perplexing Noah Jennings is going to shine some light on his life outside this lab. I hold utterly still in anticipation.
“You dropped the negative sign on this coefficient,” he says, lightly circling the problem with his pencil and moving on to the next.
What?
I was so sure he’d finally tell me something about himself that this nonanswer renders me speechless. I want to call him on it—I know he was joking around, letting a side of himself peek out from that thick shell he always wears—but he doesn’t give me a chance, working through the rest of the assignment and teaching me how to correct the errors he finds, barely leaving me time to breathe between problems. In a blink, we’re done and he’s gone, leaving me even more frustrated with his remoteness than before.
Now I know there’s a sense of humor behind that stony front, but I didn’t even get a chance to rib him about his ditzy date.
It’s looking like another long evening in which I should tackle my paper, but I’m relieved to find Ivy home when I walk through the door. She’s staring at the TV and doesn’t say anything to me even when I sit next to her on the couch. That wouldn’t be terribly unusual, except that the TV is off and her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy.
“Hey,” I say.
She sniffs.
“You okay?”
She shrugs.
“Family okay?”
She nods.
“Dave?”
Another shrug. Some welling up.
“What happened?”
“I ruined everything. I kissed him.”
“What? Why is that bad? Did he kiss you back?”
She smiles, sad yet smug. “Yeah.”
“Was it . . . ?”
Her eyes close and her smile deepens. “So good.”
I’m so confused. “Then why did that ruin everything? Did he not think it was good?”
“He only wanted to be friends and now he can’t even be my friend anymore because I stupidly, arrogantly assumed that if I could just get him to kiss me, he’d see we’re perfect for each other.” She blows out a gust of frustration. “He said he’s too attracted to me.”
Wait. What? “Is that even a thing? Too attracted? Attraction is a good thing, especially when you’re already friends like you two!”
“Agreed,” she says, “but he doesn’t see it that way. I should have known better. He’s told me about his family, his mom. It’s pretty messed up. Apparently she stepped out on his dad and has bounced around a ton of relationships since, all based solely on physical attraction. I think he’s determined that he won’t date or marry for attraction because he doesn’t want to end up like his parents.”
“So he won’t date you because he’s attracted to you?”
Another nod. “And we can’t spend any more time together because I ruined our platonic friendship with lustfulness.” The word drips with disdain.
“Is that what he said? That you were lustful?” I ask, mama-bear hackles raised.
She scoffs. “No, but he implied it. And more about himself than me.” Her hands fiddle with a loose thread on the blanket enveloping her. “It was just a kiss, Gracie. A really good one, but still.”
“I’m going to—”
“Don’t, Grace.” She grabs my knee to keep me on the couch. “Don’t say anything to him. Promise.”
I acquiesce, reluctantly, but man, would I love to give this guy a talking-to. Or a slapping.
“It’s so ironic,” she says. “All this time I’ve been searching for someone who would appreciate me for who I am instead of how I look.” She goes back to toying with the loose thread and lets out a cynical little laugh. “And now I’ve found him, but my looks have ruined it for me anyway. Everyone says beauty is a blessing, but for me it’s a curse.”
I have a few curses of my own I’d like to try on Dave.
* * *
Three days go by without a word from Dave. Ivy spends all her time outside of class with me now, but she’s really only here in body. Her mind is solely occupied with Dave. At first, I was glad to have my Ivy back, but she’s so miserable I’m feeling guilty for that sentiment.
Also violent.
It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m killing an hour between classes while I eat my lunch. I pull my jacket tighter around me, chewing a bland mouthful of peanut-butter sandwich. I’d rather have ham, but that would require effort and an ice pack. I’m people watching, relishing the nip in the air and the October sun on my dark jeans when I see Dave approaching.
He hasn’t spotted me yet, which isn’t surprising, considering his brow is furrowed like the Grand Canyon. I try to squelch my mama-bear response with limited success before he reaches me. If this isn’t a divine opportunity, I don’t know what is.
“Hey, Dave.”
He jumps and blinks, seeing me, where he was just navigating the crowd before. “Oh. Hey, Grace.” The furrows deepen, drawing the corners of his mouth down. “How’s . . . it going?”
Hmm. He might be almost as miserable as Ivy. Idiot. “It’s going,” I say, then take the plunge and kick my promise to Ivy to the curb. “I’ve missed seeing you around the apartment.”
He looks up at the sky, which offers no deliverance from me. “Yeah.”
“Have a seat, Dave.”
Fear creeps into his worry.
“C’mon. I’ll be nice.”
He sighs himself onto the bench I’ve claimed and stares out at the milling crowd—a small gathering of political activists campaigning for next week’s congressional election, but mostly they’re stalling traffic—leaving me free to examine him.
“You look miserable.”
He grunts, keeping his eyes on the people. “What happened to nice?”
“It’s a good thing you’re miserable since I was pretty tempted to punch you. But since you’re already suffering . . .”
No response.
“She’s pretty down too.”
He swallows.
I switch to people-watching. “You seemed happy before, with Ivy. Seems like if you were both happier together, maybe you should be together.”
“I can’t. She’s . . . I can’t.”
Maybe I will punch him. I choose words instead because I am that mature. “You know, Dave, I’ve gone out with a lot of guys. Some I’ve been attracted to but they weren’t attracted to me, others were good friends but I wasn’t attracted to them. I’ve watched you and Ivy, and frankly, what you have is special. You’re great friends, you enjoy being together, and from what Ivy said about that kiss”—he flinches—“you’ve got the attraction part down too. Attraction is a gift. If I ever meet a guy who can be a great friend and take my breath away, you can bet your best guitar I won’t be running away from him at the first hint of emotional danger.” My eyes are stinging, so I busy myself with collecting my lunch and anger. Thankfully, he’s inspecting his hands, so I don’t have to meet his eye. “It’s a gift, Dave, not a sin. Don’t throw it away.”